Summoning the Elder is a lot more complex than summoning Eikthyr. It takes a ton of effort to get the materials needed to be sacrificed at the altar. You will also need to find a runestone to find the location of the Elder which can be found in multiple locations depending on your seed. This guide will show you how to summon and beat the Elder in Valheim.
How to Get Ancient Seeds
Finding Greydwarf spawners
Sacrificing Ancient Seeds is the only way to summon the Elder from his altar. They are only acquired through destroying Greydwarf Spawners (the pile of bones with purple smoke found in the Black Forest). They are not only hard to find but also difficult to destroy.
Greydwarf Spawners consistently spawn Greydwarves with different levels. They can even spawn 2-star level Greydwarf Brutes and Greydwarf Shamans which are strong when they are together. If you start exploring the Black Forest, you will keep finding Greydwarves in packs which is a good sign that there is a Greydwarf Spawner nearby.
How to destroy the Greydwarf Spawners
If you eliminate these Greydwarf packs, they will respawn 1 by 1 from the Greydwarf Spawner’s location so keep following the direction where they are coming from. Once you find the spawner, it will keep spawning Greydwarves so it is best to kite at least 2 of them and keep hitting the spawner until you destroy it.
Killing Greydwarf Shamans and Greydwarf Brutes
Greydwarf Shamans and Greydwarf Brutes have a small chance of dropping the Ancient Seed. Personally, locating and destroying Greydwarf Spawners is a faster way of acquiring Ancient Seeds. These shamans and brutes have a low chance of dropping that it can take you either an hour or upwards of 5 hours to farm the 3 Ancient Seeds.
Summoning the Elder
The location of the Elder will be unlocked from reading a runestone in one of the random forts around the main island. These random forts usually have broken stairs and stone walls with skeletons. There is more than one runestone active that you can register the Elder’s location on your map.
Once you have the location, go to it which will likely be on a different island from your main one. You will need 3 Ancient Seeds to summon the Elder and it will be difficult if there are enemies surrounding the area as well.
Preparing for the Elder Fight
The Elder fight will be a very long fight depending on how many people are helping you. It is possible to solo after learning all the moves the Elder does but it will take longer. For this current tier, the best weapons would be copper-made weapons and armor. For ranged users, it would be the Finewood Bow with fire arrows or bronze arrows.
Stack up with at least 4 pieces of 3 different food for buffs. Possibly, the neck tail, cooked meat, and berries/mushrooms will suffice. Since farming wood is easy anywhere, you can build a base and make sure that it will not reach the Elder through kiting and not far enough that it takes a ton of running time to get to. Do not forget to set your respawn point to this outpost temporarily if you are about to fight. If you are changing weapons, make sure you level your skills fast before going to battle.
Beating the Elder
The Elder has 3 moves. His first attack seems like he is attacking with his right hand but instead, he is actually summoning roots in a linear direction from where he is looking. As long as you know that this kind of attack is not dangerous, you can attack him for a couple of hits and the run away from the roots.
The roots that spawn will hit you hard if you do not have copper armor. They are easy to dodge but it is best to just kite the Elder to another location where the roots cannot reach you. When you are kiting the Elder to a different spot away from the roots, you need to be close to him while kiting him, or else he will use his other attack.
This second attack is a long-range bramble attack that is aimed directly at you with a cone-shaped attack. To dodge this, you will need to either run to the left/right or do two rolls in one direction (left or right). For ranged users, you will need to keep an eye out for your stamina because you would not have any shield up to block damage from this attack.
His third attack is basically a melee stomp directly at the nearest player. It has a small radius but easy to dodge. If you time it correctly, you can dodge by rolling backward and immediately go forward to get some hits in. If you are not comfortable dodging by rolling, you can just run back.
Tips and Tricks Elder Fight
The best strategy is to always have a melee player controlling the Elder’s position and keep him from attacking with his long-range bramble attack. As long as there is one melee or tank going after him, he will never use that long-range attack.
This gives a ton of freedom for bow users to just go ham on the boss with a volley of arrows and just avoid the roots. In some scenarios, the ranged users need to look out for the roots that might spawn behind the melee or tank player.
The campfire near the altar also gives a stamina boost where the ranged users can stand on to volley more shots.
Rewards From the Elder
You will get swamp keys and the Elder trophy to be offered on the sacrificial altar.
This unlocks the Elder buff which gives you a 5-minute buff for chopping down trees for wood. It also has a 20-minute cooldown like the Eikthyr buff.
For the swamp key, you will need to find the swamp island so you will need to explore the world more to use this. It opens the crypt for more important items for progression.
Conclusion
Finding out how to summon this boss is as hard as fighting the Elder alone. While it takes a long time to progress from Eikthyr to the Elder, you need to master all the boss’ attacks and use a melee weapon if you are fighting the Elder alone. It is possible but it is better to have other players join your server.
