how to handle the wolves attacks event?

[Fel]

So, I am one of those people that like to play single player games.

The game seems relatively well balanced early on, even if a bit unforgiving (the first time you meet those tall blue guys and panick, getting flattened in a couple hits for example).
The progression is somewhat slow but at the same time it didn't feel too grindy once I understood how to make use of portals and the cart.

Unlike what I thought initially, the marsh and mountain biomes were pretty fun once you get used to their peculiar conditions.


My problem is with the events where the enemies spawn in large numbers around your base and track you down.
In multiplayer, those events should be relatively fun if a bit challenging, but in single player they can be downright cruel.
The game doesn't really offer you ways to defend yourself, and the first 3 biomes have enemies that you can kite around for a while if you can't really defeat them head on.
The wolves are completely different, 6 wolves are too many to be able to take them on (even blocking/parrying destroys your stamina in no time and you don't have a window to attack) and they are so fast that you can't realistically flee from them either.

Are you supposed to dig a trench around every single "base" you make or something like that?
Did I perhaps miss something that makes it possible to handle that many wolves at once?

[bylandt11]

Originally posted by Davy Bones:

* Have Bonemass ability ready when roaming in areas that you get attacked (e.g. Mountains, Plains).

This is by far the most important tip. Never, ever be on the plains or mountains without Bonemass ready.

Forget all the cheesy tips that more often don't work. For instance, building a workbench and then using a hoe to build a platform rarely works because you need to get very lucky to find level ground in the mountains on time to build the bench.

I always play zero death runds and, like the OP, I feared the 'You Are Being Hunted' as the most dangerous event in the game. I then discovered Bonemass is a very effective answer. I now welcome the wolves for the meat and pelts. It's actually hard to get killed by wolves when Bonemass is active. A health potion in the quick slots also never hurts.

As for weapon: Frostner. Killing a wolf makes another one spawn within seconds. Wounding and slowing a wolf limits the number of attackers for a certain period.

[Zombits]

Originally posted by bylandt11:

Originally posted by Davy Bones:

* Have Bonemass ability ready when roaming in areas that you get attacked (e.g. Mountains, Plains).

This is by far the most important tip. Never, ever be on the plains or mountains without Bonemass ready.

Forget all the cheesy tips that more often don't work. For instance, building a workbench and then using a hoe to build a platform rarely works because you need to get very lucky to find level ground in the mountains on time to build the bench.

I always play zero death runds and, like the OP, I feared the 'You Are Being Hunted' as the most dangerous event in the game. I then discovered Bonemass is a very effective answer. I now welcome the wolves for the meat and pelts. It's actually hard to get killed by wolves when Bonemass is active. A health potion in the quick slots also never hurts.

As for weapon: Frostner. Killing a wolf makes another one spawn within seconds. Wounding and slowing a wolf limits the number of attackers for a certain period.

workbench can be placed on any small stone, big rock formation or obsidian. Only earth ground has to be flat to place workbench

Raising terrain at your feet is the only way on harder difficulties.

Bonemass will help, it's not enough until you get overpowered gear from later biomes like Mistland+

[Nerevar]

a bunch of methods. choose yours :

git gud and just fight it out. can be very difficult and on harder difficulties is not advised especially early on in mountain progression.

you can use an atgier. then you just stand there and when they get close you spin and you win.

you can just stand on the next best elevated spot. giant rock. ruined tower. fuling tower. whatever is available.

you can just run away. the event circle doesnt follow you and if youre not inside the circle the spawns will stop leaveing only the ones already spawned to give chase.

you can press bonemass and just win by doing that basically as they wont be able to kill you if you got some good armor on. (dont try this on very hard)

you can skip bonemass and never trigger this event to appear (requires finding silver without wishbone which can be annoying but is definitly legitly possible)

run into the next fuling village and let them fight it out amoung themselfs. wolves anf fulings dont like each other. only works in plains obivously. works the same for tar pits but is alot more dangerous as if you get tarred you might be DEAD.

slam down a bench and quickly raise the ground below you a bunch of times with the hoe.



enjoy.

[knighttemplar1960]

Hi Fel! Welcome to the Valheim forums. Trigger your bonemass forsaken power and then either use the special attack on an aetgir (middle mouse) or step and swing a sword to hit as many as you can at once. Both those weapon types do full damage to multiple targets instead of reduced damage against multiple targets like the other weapons.

The wolf raid can only happen in the mountains and the plains. It lasts 120 seconds and has a 20% chance of triggering once every 46 IRL minutes. Your bonemass power lasts 5 minutes and recharges in 20 minutes.

[Grim]

If your still too weak to just kill the wolves easily there are two things that are very effective.

The first is for your base, always use the earth itself as your bases defense. Either dig a trench or build a small earth wall around the perimeter of your base.

The second, and this can save your base to if its not defensive because the wolves will focus on you, is have either a rock or a built up piece of steep earth near your base you can run up on top of to stay safe and plink the wolves with arrows until they are dead or the event ends.

[Fel]

Yeah, I'll try the bonemass power because sadly the wolves are right on top of my mountain base right now.
Thankfully I respawn away from there, so it's not too hard to just get myself some good food and at least iron tier stuff that are mostly enough in terms of weaponry.
A bit weak in terms of armor compared to the wolf armor and I'll need the frost resist mead again but at least I can try to survive long enough for the event to stop.

I didn't bother with forsaken powers since the first two are not really all that helpful and mostly forgot that they even exist.

[MrΩ]

Originally posted by Fel:

I didn't bother with forsaken powers since the first two are not really all that helpful and mostly forgot that they even exist.

Not to mention that if you don't play with portals, The RightWay(TM), once you moved your main base from the center of the map, you would not come back. And if you don't play with the map, it will be even worse.

[Fel]

Why would you want to play without portals in solo?
In multiplayer it encourages making expeditions and such, sure, but in solo it just makes things worse for yourself.

[MrΩ]

Originally posted by Fel:

Why would you want to play without portals in solo?
In multiplayer it encourages making expeditions and such, sure, but in solo it just makes things worse for yourself.

Very vocals people on those forums say the devs intended the game to be played without portals, solo or not, and still is. If it was not recommended, the devs would have had the decency to warn people about this in the game somehow, since newcomers would not know, obviously.

[Steve]

Originally posted by Fel:

Yeah, I'll try the bonemass power because sadly the wolves are right on top of my mountain base right now.
Thankfully I respawn away from there, so it's not too hard to just get myself some good food and at least iron tier stuff that are mostly enough in terms of weaponry.
A bit weak in terms of armor compared to the wolf armor and I'll need the frost resist mead again but at least I can try to survive long enough for the event to stop.

I didn't bother with forsaken powers since the first two are not really all that helpful and mostly forgot that they even exist.

Bonemass is your first good one. It's VERY heavy damage mitigation for five minutes. It's still useful even into Ashlands.

A 1h sword is very useful at this tier of progression. Upgraded iron does well enough. Decent stamina usage, hits multiple enemies with no apparent damage reduction, and does well on semi-sloped terrain thanks to the third swing of its combo being on a vertical plane instead of horizontal.

If all else fails, try troll armor, stamina mead on the hotbar, and just turning on the jets for two minutes and running away from everything. It can be surprisingly effective, esp. with Metal Bambi's power.

[bacon]

wolves are glass cannons. first response was correct. stagger and kill.

[Abigail Hex]

I've had several in this current run without having to use the bonemass power at all. I believe the first was in iron gear (tier 4). Food was swamp tier (sausage, blood pudding and turnip stew). Using the sword and the buckler. Default world settings.

My strat is to limit my arcs by trying to get my back against something. They die in one or two hits and as long as you're killing them, they trickle in one or two at a time. The key is to not get hit too often, which is easy with a shield and your back covered by terrain. Also don't run around. Let them come to you to conserve stamina. With a minor healing potion half way through, they aren't usually that big of a deal.

Point to note: Wolves are glass cannons. They hit hard and fast but don't stand up to punishment. Kill them fast to not get swarmed.

[NZ.Zero]

I have a really easy method for dealing with "You are being hunted" when you're out in the open - it's quick, easy and works every time: Just let them kill you, it's too hard. Hahaha .. lets be honest, everyone's tried that method!

Originally posted by Fel:

sadly the wolves are right on top of my mountain base right now.

Anyway, if they're at your base there's a way to deal with it next time with a bit of redesign - add a raised walkway the wolves can't reach, with a couple of vantage points so you can run backwards and forwards and shoot arrows at them (they always run underneath you where you cant get them), they die pretty easy with most arrows.

At one of my bases I have a really nice killbox - the wolves always go for the part of the building that's nearest to where you hang out, and if you make that into a narrow area, you can run around inside your base and they wont move. This works best on bases that are built "out" from the mountain side, as the wolves always seem to end up in the same place. So if you have a high walkway that overlooks that narrow killbox area, you can just stand there and shoot them all, its really easy.

If you have a base which is built "into" the rock, (not outwards into the air), its a lot trickier because the wolves can end up all over the place. You can build walkways etc and thats probably enough, but also you can dig a pit near your base under the walkway with a wooden floor on it so you can delete it when they walk on it and trap them to tame them. I got that trick from somebody else, but I love the idea that you can use those events to get tamed wolves, so Im actually just building one myself at my "dug into the mountainside" type base. If you have an old silver mine next to your base like I do, that makes the perfect wolf pit, so a raised walkway from your base will allow you to kite them over to it and break the floor when they're on it.

I dont know what more experienced mountain people think, but if you have tame wolves when they attack, what happens? Do your tame wolves get killed or do they put the pack off from attacking?

Do you need to protect your tame wolves when they attack, and if so, how? Or do you just need to keep on taming more?

[Fel]

Tamed wolves don't seem to attack untamed wolves, not sure if it applies to the wolves from the event.
I made the mistake to put two wolves in the same "hole" for taming, one of them became tamed significantly earlier than the other but they never fought (thankfully).

I made my wolf farm a bit far from there because building in the mountains is a bit of a pain, so I can't test without bringing some tamed wolves on a journey.

If you have some tamed loxes and no friendly fire, the wolves event might be a good way to farm a rather ridiculous amount of wolf drops as long as you feed the lox(es) beforehand to make sure they heal a bit.

EDIT: Also, why do some people talk about being out in the open?
My understanding is that all of these attack events require at least 3 base structures nearby (within 40 meters), which is unlikely to be true when you are wandering somewhat far from your bases.

[NZ.Zero]

Originally posted by Fel:

I made my wolf farm a bit far from there because building in the mountains is a bit of a pain, so I can't test without bringing some tamed wolves on a journey.

If your silver mine is within the red event circle, you could just build a second base with a portal and when you portal there the wolves will follow, makes kiting a lot easier and safer. I use this at my swamp base to draw the trolls away so they dont smash my walls up.

Originally posted by Fel:

EDIT: Also, why do some people talk about being out in the open? My understanding is that all of these attack events require at least 3 base structures nearby (within 40 meters), which is unlikely to be true when you are wandering somewhat far from your bases.

Didnt know that was a requirement, but they've definitely caught me out in the open. Maybe I had a base nearby, cant remember now, but they arrive so fast I couldnt get to shelter in time. Its also pretty deadly if they arrive while youre building a base.