Golem / Gjall - Not worth the effort

[Alturis]

Every biome has its big scary enemy that you spend a lot of time either running away from or working together to take down until you get more powerful. Overall a very well done feature that gives the game a lot of character.

If you break each of these big baddies down into what you are rewarded with for killing them, there is some consistency. But this reward for killing them seems to get more and more lackluster after the swamps.

Black Forest: Troll - unique armor set and cape, plus gold coins
Swamp: Abomination - unique armor set and rare resource
Mountain: Crystal Golem - crystals - useful but not really worth any effort, crystals are found all over the place in frost caves.
Plains: This one is kind of missing the big baddie element - maybe the Berkerkers but you have to attack them, they never bother you on their own. Lox? I guess but again you have to aggro them yourself.
Mistland: Gjall - a single item that lets you craft 3 molotov cocktails - pointless

After the swamps there is really only one purpose for these big baddies and that is just to give you something to run away from. There is no incentive to engage them or hunt them like there was in earlier biomes.

[umop-apisdn]

Gjall: mobile tick farm. Ticks drop blood clots, which are used to make Major Healing Mead, Stuffed Mushrooms, and the Staff of Protection.
In addition, you forgot about needing bilebags to craft the Jotun Bane 1-handed axe.

[Dwarflord]

Originally posted by umop-apisdn:

Gjall: mobile tick farm. Ticks drop blood clots, which are used to make Major Healing Mead, Stuffed Mushrooms, and the Staff of Protection.
In addition, you forgot about needing bilebags to craft the Jotun Bane 1-handed axe.

I made that axe just for completion's sake, but it's really bad and unnecessary. Hardly worth mentioning as a positive. Not to mention, you can't get through the Mistlands (ok, I'm sure someone did...but they had to try really hard) without killing at least a few of those windbags. The Black Forest and Swamp big-bads, I actually hunted on purpose. The worst is the one from the mountains though. Takes so long to kill with the weapons you have at the time and the reward is...meh. My wife and I would groan every time we saw one.

[OctoberSky]

Bile bombs are good to have for The Queen fight and you will need nearly 100 of them. If you have gotten a gjall trophy you can program a ballista to harvest more gjalls instead of facing them yourself.

[jonnin]

Crystal were a big deal pre-cave, so in reality golems sort of got a nerf due to the cave addition. Before that, if you wanted a window, you had to deal with them.

But not worth the effort is correct. golems are excellent at killing wolves and distracting drakes while you mine nearby safely out of their reach, but actually fighting them is a huge waste of time.

Gjall are not worth the time either, and their claim to fame is clearing out towers so you can take the npc item.

I would not complain if they were buffed to drop something useful, but is it 'bad' that some monsters are best to avoid rather than engage? Is that 'playing smarter' ?

[Rhapsody]

Not everything needs to have immediate value, especially in an early access game with two biomes and other content that remains not introduced.

[OctoberSky]

The stone golem trophy and the surtling trophy are nice to illuminate dark portions of your base without using extra resources. You might get 1 for every 10 you face but can be another prize worth fighting for.

[Veseljko]

Originally posted by Dwarflord:

I made that axe just for completion's sake, but it's really bad and unnecessary. Hardly worth mentioning as a positive. Not to mention, you can't get through the Mistlands (ok, I'm sure someone did...but they had to try really hard) without killing at least a few of those windbags. The Black Forest and Swamp big-bads, I actually hunted on purpose. The worst is the one from the mountains though. Takes so long to kill with the weapons you have at the time and the reward is...meh. My wife and I would groan every time we saw one.

Stone golems are so easy to kill once you figure out how to do it. You need no more than 3 hits if you have high clubs skill. Parry - heavy attack, parry - heavy attack, parry - heavy attack and it's done. 20 second tops.
One cool trick is to sneak up on him and open the fight with heavy attack, you can deal up to 600 dmg in one hit (depends greatly on your skill level). His total HP is 800, so it's 75% of his HP in one hit. On lower clubs skill it will probably be around 350-400 dmg.
Even with low clubs skill you can kill it with 5-6 hits with iron mace or Porcupine. Probably in less than a minute.

[Automaton Spy]

Originally posted by Veseljko:

Originally posted by Dwarflord:

I made that axe just for completion's sake, but it's really bad and unnecessary. Hardly worth mentioning as a positive. Not to mention, you can't get through the Mistlands (ok, I'm sure someone did...but they had to try really hard) without killing at least a few of those windbags. The Black Forest and Swamp big-bads, I actually hunted on purpose. The worst is the one from the mountains though. Takes so long to kill with the weapons you have at the time and the reward is...meh. My wife and I would groan every time we saw one.

Stone golems are so easy to kill once you figure out how to do it. You need no more than 3 hits if you have high clubs skill. Parry - heavy attack, parry - heavy attack, parry - heavy attack and it's done. 20 second tops.
One cool trick is to sneak up on him and open the fight with heavy attack, you can deal up to 600 dmg in one hit (depends greatly on your skill level). His total HP is 800, so it's 75% of his HP in one hit. On lower clubs skill it will probably be around 350-400 dmg.
Even with low clubs skill you can kill it with 5-6 hits with iron mace or Porcupine. Probably in less than a minute.

Not even 3 attacks, the zweihander's heavy attack 2shots them. They're resistant to slash, it would actually one shot them if they weren't.

[Pat Fenis]

Bile bombs are very good in the mines, never enough. Extra blood clots are always welcome. I like gjall drops, always worth it to kill them on your terms. Random 2 star spawning in when you are already busy with something is definitely not ideal.

[umop-apisdn]

Originally posted by Dwarflord:

The worst is the one from the mountains though. Takes so long to kill with the weapons you have at the time...

Oddly enough, the pickaxe makes short work of most rocks.It also hits things that you're standing on.

[ling.speed]

Originally posted by Alturis:

If you break each of these big baddies down into what you are rewarded with for killing them, there is some consistency.

Consistency is not the part that makes good games great. Devils in the details. As long as the gameplay flows naturally the mechanics can be inconsistent and still end up good.

The real "drops" of Golem and Gjall are the things you find close to them. Silver veins, chests, mines, safe(r) shores. Etc
They dont have to drop anything of value to be important to kill.

Now ofc you cant really farm them, thats the real issue here. But Farming monsters is not encouraged byt the game itself. Its a concept brought from other games here, and its not really needed either.

I'm not trying to say that this is how all games should be, but that it is fine for a game to not conform to rigid standards. Valheims has RNG in map creation, as well as seemingly RNG in mechanics (like if a biome has a big mob or not, and what does he drop). Thats one of its charm points. If everyting was by "the book" the game would not be as memorable. Withou that it would be harder to stick above the sea of average games.

Because at the end what this lack of consistency does is help create unique experiances throughout the game.

[knighttemplar1960]

Golems have other uses. If you spot one you know that there is either an abandoned mountain cabin or a silver vein nearby. If you find no cabin you know its a silver vein and sometimes you can find it with out a wishbone.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2931149861

[Nerevar]

shoot gjall in underbelly with sneak shot arrow. youll deal like half its hp in dmg with a carapace arrow and spine snap. can do even more with the bazooka.

they are easy kills. golems well.... are golems.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

You can kill a Gjall in 1 hit. No I will not elaborate further.

[Psalms]

Originally posted by Alturis:

Mountain: Crystal Golem - crystals - useful but not really worth any effort, crystals are found all over the place in frost caves..

I'm gonna stop you right there chief. I've farmed countless amounts of crystal from STONE GOLEMS for builds because I love making crystal windows.

Also, Its more efficient time wise to farm Stone Golems instead of Frost Caves when gathering crystal.