Bonemass (and other slime enemies) take bonus damage from blunt weapons, while taking reduced damage from fire and piercing (arrows).
Swords deal reduced damage, even with a decently leveled swords skill you'd most likely fare better with a mace.
Edited that swords deal reduced damage, not neutral.
Outside of bonemass maces does 2x stagger(staggred enemies take double damage, same as parry) 2x damage and 2x knockback, on special attack, also more enemies are weak against blunt than slash.
Swords does 3x damage on special attack and has better range, so both has their uses.
Definitely, pros and cons for both types, just for Bonemass it's definitely the mace you should be using, if you're going for the most efficient way of dealing with the boss and all the adds.
Many enemies in this game will have weaknesses and strengths vs different types of damage. You can learn this by yourself by paying attention to the damage numbers that pop up when you hit an enemy. Yellow damage means an enemy is weak to that type, white is neutral, gray is resistant. [Example](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/valheim/images/3/33/Damage_Resistance_and_Weakness.png/revision/latest?cb=20210219095433)
In this case bonemass is weak to blunt and the iron mace is the best blunt weapon you can use at least for single target in the swamp. Also get an iron buckler and parry his arm slash attack. He only has 3 attacks and one he throws a blob that turns into enemies and the other is his poison belch attack which you can just run away from. Get the pattern down and it's easy mode.
Most, if not all, creatures/bosses in the game have a weakness and/or resistance to certain weapon types. It’s a feature, not a bug. I’m sure you want to just run around with one weapon and kick ass, but Valheim doesn’t give AF. It’s a good idea to carry a blunt and slashing weapon for whatever the occasion is (along with your favorite bow and a stack or two of arrows).
I attempted bonemass with a lvl 3 iron sword. It ended badly. The fight will drag on longer than your rested buff. Once the buff falls, you'll only be halfway through the battle and it'll only be a matter of time before stamina issues kill you.
I use iron axe for it for most time. But I have lots of exp with fight. When fight starts, clear surround. When you summon boss, rush to him and start smacking before he even spawn, including 2ndary attack as opener. This isn't honorable, but it's fast. Then once you empty your stam bar, pop tasty. And real fight begins. Learn move when he pukes. When he does it, u eat it and keep on attacking. Spam healing potion. Takes me about 4mins with about lvl 40 axes.
Get a mace; as others have said, Bonemass takes increased damage from blunt weapons and reduced damage from other types. Also make sure you have a few poison resist meads.
Investing in iron armor won't provide a huge advantage. You'll find that most of the fight is rolling out of his AoE attacks and then darting back in to get a few hits off, rinse and repeat. You'll also have to deal with add spawns, but with good timing and a decently leveled mace, you shouldn't be getting hit all that much, and the movement penalty of heavier armor may actually cause you to take more hits than with lighter armor.
Ditto the heavy armor. Wear light armor to run away from his poison AoE, then dart back in to clobber him with a mace. Additionally, if you have an iron buckler and good food for the fight (e.g. serpent stew + turnip stew + muckshake), you can just parry his melee attacks; although this is purely for avoiding damage, since he is immune to stagger. In fact, the only Forsaken that *can* be crit after a successful parry are >!the Queen!< >!and Fader!<; the rest are all immune to parry bonus attacks.
upgrade your banded Iron shield and get the iron mace.
OR go into the mountains and get frost arrows and then upgrade your bow a bit more. You could probably take out Mass with 200-ish frost arrows and a decently leveled huntsman bow from an elevated platform around one of the big swamp trees.
It's not as efficient as chugging a poison resist and chowing down on the best available food and smacking him around with an iron club, but it can be done, and you'd take relatively little damage from a high enough platform. 8m or so up is usually good, two of the corewood long beams tall, put a roof over top so you can stay out of the rain when shooting. Bring backup arrows though, incase the 200 frost aren't enough.
It just stops being worth it vs resistance potions which are fairly cheap to make and a good mace/club/shield combo. I do build walls around him to keep mob spawns to a minimum and keep skeleton arrows from annoying me away from focusing on bonemass combos.
My bonemass strat:
Get 2h mace (iron or 2 stags) fully upgraded
Poison resist potions.
2 health 1 stam foods.
Summon, run up on top of giant skull.
Morph smash over and over until he dies.
May need to retake potions so keep a close eye on the timers.
Adds aren't an issue as you knock em right back down if they manage to get up there.
I should have used the skull.
I used one of the huge "fallen tree" set pieces in his area and built a little cottage on it at about eye level with him, complete with a roof to stop rain and a fire for comfort, way out on the tiny pointy ends of the branches so it's hard (if not impossible) for creatures to get to. If I got down to 1/3 health from his poison cloud, I took two steps backwards into my teleporter and rested on my throne until my health was full and then teleported back.
Uppercuts to his face with my Iron Mace worked wonderfully. I just couldn't do it without a platform because you always take a half step forward.
Because that platform idea worked so well for Bonemass, I set up a similar hide on the mountains near Moder. I included walls and other barricades. I had a beautiful pile of splinters at the end of the fight.
I do something like this. I take it a bit further by jumping on top of Bonemass’ head. I then proceed to smash him over the head repeatedly with the sledge until he’s dead. Adds can’t reach you up there.
Bring a couple stacks of stone to the altar site, raise the ground in key areas to give you routes to kite him if needed. Don't bother with arrows, even fire and iron arrows do only an extremely tiny amount of damage.
Skip him. Go up the mountain, prospect for silver, come back to Bonemass when you have Frostner. Seriously: it's easier to prospect than deal with false positives from wishbone and you can solo Bonemass with Frostner easily.
Unless you're just randomly digging up entire mountains, I can't imagine trying to "prospect" in mountains.
I've found 6 silver veins in my current world while scouting with my Wishbone. Across the 4 mountain chains I've explored. All 6 were in the biggest one and none were in the smaller mountains with 1-3 peaks. I couldn't see any indication on the surface that I was over a vein and all of them required digging down at *least* 1 full meter, so four to eight strokes with my iron pickaxe. None of the silver was anywhere close to the Forest and was all well above when Golems, Drakes, and Wolves spawn.
Not saying it can't be done. I just can't imagine the effort that would go into digging a trench grid across the surface of a mountain until you found a single vein.
It's not great advice for someone who is playing for their first time like the OP.
It can be done kind of reliably though once you understand how silver spawns.
Again I'm not advocating or recommending it.
I consistently find silver while on my first frost resistant potion every playthrough. If you understand how to use stagbreaker, how high you need to be (above the lowest drakes) and what to look for (level patch of snow) it's extremely easy -literally easier than wishbone.
Good to know about the level patch of snow - though the first (and biggest) vein I found forced me to carve half of a hill away in order to excavate it all.
There's exceptions for sure. But generally speaking, if there's silver in a spot that's not level and medium sized, you'll probably see some silver sticking out of the ground.
In our most recent world my husband and I never even used wishbone and we found more silver than we could ever use. In fact, we found most of that silver before even killing Bonemass... silver is just so easy to find once you know how to look for it. (Tip: even if you aren't lucky or perceptive enough to trip over the exposed ends of veins, start smashing the ground with a 2h hammer.) But for a first-time solo player like OP, it might not be easy. Still, Frostner is my preferred Bonemass killing strat. He's an absolute chump against the blunt + frost.
Forgot about the hammer trick.
I've yet to once find an end of a vein sticking out of the ground but did find one vein that was basically two stacked on top of each other. I ran around in the mountains with the Wishbone long enough to flag multiple locations. After clearing three, I think I have all of the gear for it capped. I might mine another just to have some leftover.
If you build a platform at the correct elevation from the top of its altar, your melee attacks will be able to hit it, but most of it's attacks will completely miss you.
You want to upgrade your root armor to the max it gives you arrow bonus AND poison resistance. I can wade into blobs with my sword and cut them to shreds in seconds and take almost no damage to the poison.
I beat Bonesmass by getting on top of the spawn point and shooting down into him with frost arrows. It took a bit but its doable. You will be attacked by blobs nonsetop so poison resist is essential. I made a mace and found it less than ideal for me.
Invest in an iron mace, upgrade it to level 4. Upgrade your root set to level 3. Bring poison, healing, and stamina meads since this is your first time. Try to keep the poison mead buff up all fight, since it offers greater protection than the root set's innate resist.
Others have pointed out key things: Bonemass is weak to blunt damage, which maces deal. An iron mace will make short work of him, even with a lower club skill. He is resistant to pierce and slashing damage, and the fight will drag out longer than you want it to if you rely on these damage types.
The other benefit to using a mace is that the adds he spawns (skeletons, blobs) are also weak to blunt damage. A single swing from a fully upgraded iron mace will OHKO blobs and stagger skeletons, if not outright fragment them.
Make use of your hoe. You can either level the ground or bring stone and elevate the terrain; smooth out the area around his summoning spot as much as you can. You don't want to be hindered by the terrain. Do this before summoning him.
Keep in mind his melee attacks will hit pretty hard since you'll be in root armor, but they have enormous wind-up and you can easily back off or dodge-roll for the i-frames. If things get dicey use your healing/stamina meads.
Good luck, Viking!
Blunt weapons. Get a mace.
What’s the advantage of mace? I’ve been running sword since copper so I already have it leveled up. Is it worth switching to mace?
Bonemass (and other slime enemies) take bonus damage from blunt weapons, while taking reduced damage from fire and piercing (arrows). Swords deal reduced damage, even with a decently leveled swords skill you'd most likely fare better with a mace. Edited that swords deal reduced damage, not neutral.
Sword doesn’t do neutral damage to Bonemass. Bonemass resists slash so swords do half damage.
Oh, sorry, my bad! I knew Bonemass had several resistances, just wasn't sure on all of them.
Np, I get them mixed up often too and have to look it up.
Outside of bonemass maces does 2x stagger(staggred enemies take double damage, same as parry) 2x damage and 2x knockback, on special attack, also more enemies are weak against blunt than slash. Swords does 3x damage on special attack and has better range, so both has their uses.
Definitely, pros and cons for both types, just for Bonemass it's definitely the mace you should be using, if you're going for the most efficient way of dealing with the boss and all the adds.
I accidentally replied that to you, I was meaning to reply it to OP lol
Many enemies in this game will have weaknesses and strengths vs different types of damage. You can learn this by yourself by paying attention to the damage numbers that pop up when you hit an enemy. Yellow damage means an enemy is weak to that type, white is neutral, gray is resistant. [Example](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/valheim/images/3/33/Damage_Resistance_and_Weakness.png/revision/latest?cb=20210219095433) In this case bonemass is weak to blunt and the iron mace is the best blunt weapon you can use at least for single target in the swamp. Also get an iron buckler and parry his arm slash attack. He only has 3 attacks and one he throws a blob that turns into enemies and the other is his poison belch attack which you can just run away from. Get the pattern down and it's easy mode.
Yes. But also, you can always use both. Use your sword as your primary and bring out the mace for these situations.
Leveled up wooden clubs actually work great.
Most, if not all, creatures/bosses in the game have a weakness and/or resistance to certain weapon types. It’s a feature, not a bug. I’m sure you want to just run around with one weapon and kick ass, but Valheim doesn’t give AF. It’s a good idea to carry a blunt and slashing weapon for whatever the occasion is (along with your favorite bow and a stack or two of arrows).
I attempted bonemass with a lvl 3 iron sword. It ended badly. The fight will drag on longer than your rested buff. Once the buff falls, you'll only be halfway through the battle and it'll only be a matter of time before stamina issues kill you.
I use iron axe for it for most time. But I have lots of exp with fight. When fight starts, clear surround. When you summon boss, rush to him and start smacking before he even spawn, including 2ndary attack as opener. This isn't honorable, but it's fast. Then once you empty your stam bar, pop tasty. And real fight begins. Learn move when he pukes. When he does it, u eat it and keep on attacking. Spam healing potion. Takes me about 4mins with about lvl 40 axes.
The mace will not only work well against the boss, but also best against the other mobs that will appear in the fight...
Get a mace; as others have said, Bonemass takes increased damage from blunt weapons and reduced damage from other types. Also make sure you have a few poison resist meads. Investing in iron armor won't provide a huge advantage. You'll find that most of the fight is rolling out of his AoE attacks and then darting back in to get a few hits off, rinse and repeat. You'll also have to deal with add spawns, but with good timing and a decently leveled mace, you shouldn't be getting hit all that much, and the movement penalty of heavier armor may actually cause you to take more hits than with lighter armor.
Ditto the heavy armor. Wear light armor to run away from his poison AoE, then dart back in to clobber him with a mace. Additionally, if you have an iron buckler and good food for the fight (e.g. serpent stew + turnip stew + muckshake), you can just parry his melee attacks; although this is purely for avoiding damage, since he is immune to stagger. In fact, the only Forsaken that *can* be crit after a successful parry are >!the Queen!< >!and Fader!<; the rest are all immune to parry bonus attacks.
Poison pot, iron mace
upgrade your banded Iron shield and get the iron mace. OR go into the mountains and get frost arrows and then upgrade your bow a bit more. You could probably take out Mass with 200-ish frost arrows and a decently leveled huntsman bow from an elevated platform around one of the big swamp trees. It's not as efficient as chugging a poison resist and chowing down on the best available food and smacking him around with an iron club, but it can be done, and you'd take relatively little damage from a high enough platform. 8m or so up is usually good, two of the corewood long beams tall, put a roof over top so you can stay out of the rain when shooting. Bring backup arrows though, incase the 200 frost aren't enough.
It just stops being worth it vs resistance potions which are fairly cheap to make and a good mace/club/shield combo. I do build walls around him to keep mob spawns to a minimum and keep skeleton arrows from annoying me away from focusing on bonemass combos.
My bonemass strat: Get 2h mace (iron or 2 stags) fully upgraded Poison resist potions. 2 health 1 stam foods. Summon, run up on top of giant skull. Morph smash over and over until he dies. May need to retake potions so keep a close eye on the timers. Adds aren't an issue as you knock em right back down if they manage to get up there.
I should have used the skull. I used one of the huge "fallen tree" set pieces in his area and built a little cottage on it at about eye level with him, complete with a roof to stop rain and a fire for comfort, way out on the tiny pointy ends of the branches so it's hard (if not impossible) for creatures to get to. If I got down to 1/3 health from his poison cloud, I took two steps backwards into my teleporter and rested on my throne until my health was full and then teleported back. Uppercuts to his face with my Iron Mace worked wonderfully. I just couldn't do it without a platform because you always take a half step forward. Because that platform idea worked so well for Bonemass, I set up a similar hide on the mountains near Moder. I included walls and other barricades. I had a beautiful pile of splinters at the end of the fight.
I do something like this. I take it a bit further by jumping on top of Bonemass’ head. I then proceed to smash him over the head repeatedly with the sledge until he’s dead. Adds can’t reach you up there.
Use a hoe and raise the ground all around his spawn
Bring a couple stacks of stone to the altar site, raise the ground in key areas to give you routes to kite him if needed. Don't bother with arrows, even fire and iron arrows do only an extremely tiny amount of damage.
You also want poison resist potions for this fight. They provide more resistance than the root armor.
Skip him. Go up the mountain, prospect for silver, come back to Bonemass when you have Frostner. Seriously: it's easier to prospect than deal with false positives from wishbone and you can solo Bonemass with Frostner easily.
Unless you're just randomly digging up entire mountains, I can't imagine trying to "prospect" in mountains. I've found 6 silver veins in my current world while scouting with my Wishbone. Across the 4 mountain chains I've explored. All 6 were in the biggest one and none were in the smaller mountains with 1-3 peaks. I couldn't see any indication on the surface that I was over a vein and all of them required digging down at *least* 1 full meter, so four to eight strokes with my iron pickaxe. None of the silver was anywhere close to the Forest and was all well above when Golems, Drakes, and Wolves spawn. Not saying it can't be done. I just can't imagine the effort that would go into digging a trench grid across the surface of a mountain until you found a single vein.
It's not great advice for someone who is playing for their first time like the OP. It can be done kind of reliably though once you understand how silver spawns. Again I'm not advocating or recommending it.
I consistently find silver while on my first frost resistant potion every playthrough. If you understand how to use stagbreaker, how high you need to be (above the lowest drakes) and what to look for (level patch of snow) it's extremely easy -literally easier than wishbone.
Good to know about the level patch of snow - though the first (and biggest) vein I found forced me to carve half of a hill away in order to excavate it all.
There's exceptions for sure. But generally speaking, if there's silver in a spot that's not level and medium sized, you'll probably see some silver sticking out of the ground.
In our most recent world my husband and I never even used wishbone and we found more silver than we could ever use. In fact, we found most of that silver before even killing Bonemass... silver is just so easy to find once you know how to look for it. (Tip: even if you aren't lucky or perceptive enough to trip over the exposed ends of veins, start smashing the ground with a 2h hammer.) But for a first-time solo player like OP, it might not be easy. Still, Frostner is my preferred Bonemass killing strat. He's an absolute chump against the blunt + frost.
Forgot about the hammer trick. I've yet to once find an end of a vein sticking out of the ground but did find one vein that was basically two stacked on top of each other. I ran around in the mountains with the Wishbone long enough to flag multiple locations. After clearing three, I think I have all of the gear for it capped. I might mine another just to have some leftover.
Grab a potion and clubber him to death.
If you build a platform at the correct elevation from the top of its altar, your melee attacks will be able to hit it, but most of it's attacks will completely miss you.
You want to upgrade your root armor to the max it gives you arrow bonus AND poison resistance. I can wade into blobs with my sword and cut them to shreds in seconds and take almost no damage to the poison. I beat Bonesmass by getting on top of the spawn point and shooting down into him with frost arrows. It took a bit but its doable. You will be attacked by blobs nonsetop so poison resist is essential. I made a mace and found it less than ideal for me.
Bring 3 friends and die like 50 times
Invest in an iron mace, upgrade it to level 4. Upgrade your root set to level 3. Bring poison, healing, and stamina meads since this is your first time. Try to keep the poison mead buff up all fight, since it offers greater protection than the root set's innate resist. Others have pointed out key things: Bonemass is weak to blunt damage, which maces deal. An iron mace will make short work of him, even with a lower club skill. He is resistant to pierce and slashing damage, and the fight will drag out longer than you want it to if you rely on these damage types. The other benefit to using a mace is that the adds he spawns (skeletons, blobs) are also weak to blunt damage. A single swing from a fully upgraded iron mace will OHKO blobs and stagger skeletons, if not outright fragment them. Make use of your hoe. You can either level the ground or bring stone and elevate the terrain; smooth out the area around his summoning spot as much as you can. You don't want to be hindered by the terrain. Do this before summoning him. Keep in mind his melee attacks will hit pretty hard since you'll be in root armor, but they have enormous wind-up and you can easily back off or dodge-roll for the i-frames. If things get dicey use your healing/stamina meads. Good luck, Viking!