The forge is one of the most important crafting stations in Valheim. You will need to use it to craft and upgrade all of the armors after the early game, along with all of the powerful weapons. Certain weapons and armor upgrades will require you to have an upgraded forge. You can level up the forge in order to make these weapons and create stronger versions of each armor and weapon type. Today we are going to go through all of the forge upgrades for Valheim and provide pictures on how they look. We will go through all of the materials needed to make each type of upgrade and where applicable, provide guides on how to get each material.
Building a Forge
Before you can upgrade the forge you’re going to have to build one. This is done after the player receives their first pickaxe and acquires some of the base metals. Once the player has acquired the items needed for a forge it will be unlocked and available to build from the hammer’s building menu. The forge is listed under crafting. You can check out a guide to building a forge and smelter here.
As seen in the image above, if the player wishes to craft the blackmetal axe item they will have to have a forge level of 4 in order to craft it. By using different forge upgrades the player will unlock greater weapons and armor and be able to upgrade their items to even greater levels and thus, have better stats.
Upgrading the Forge
All of the upgrades for the forge are built using the hammer tool. Once the player has the necessary items in their inventory the upgrades will unlock and be available to build. Some of the upgrades require some fairly rare and end-game items so don’t expect to be able to fully level up the forge after your first hour of play!
All of the upgrades have to be within a certain radius of the forge so before you place down the forge make sure you have enough space to house all of the upgrades.
Each upgrade will raise the level of the forge by 1. No upgrade is better than any other. Every unique upgrade item will raise the level. Having multiple amounts of the same upgrade will not raise the level of the forge at all. I will list all of the available upgrades for the forge below including all of the materials that are required to make them!
Anvils
Materials required:
- 5 Wood
- 2 Bronze
- Workbench Range
One of the first upgrades for the forge that the player will be able to craft is the anvil. Thanks to it’s rather easy building recipe, the player will be able to craft this upgrade after getting a bit of bronze from the black forest.
Forge Cooler
Materials Required:
- 25 Fine Wood
- 10 Copper Wood
- Workbench Range
The next item that can level up the forge is the Forge Cooler. There isn’t really too much to this one. By cutting down some certain trees in the game the player can find fine wood and combine that with copper bars to make this upgrade. It just looks like a small barrel with nothing in it. It is supposed to resemble a small barrel with oil or water that is used to cool down weapons after they are forged.
Forge Toolrack
Materials:
- 10 Wood
- 15 Iron
- Workbench Range
The forge toolrack displays a set of tools that can be used whilst working at the forge. Along with all of the other upgrades to level up the forge this is purely aesthetic. This is the only upgrade currently that is mounted to the wall in order to be placed. It doesn’t need too much room to be placed and can even be placed over the forge without disturbing it.
Smith’s Anvil
Materials:
- 5 Wood
- 20 Iron
- Workbench Range
Another forge upgrade that is unlocked with the smelting of iron along the toolrack is the Smith’s anvil. This is similar to the previous anvils item but is a little bigger. Although it looks like it can be used, there isn’t any use for this apart from leveling up the forge to a new star level.
Grinding Wheel
Materials:
- 25 Wood
- 1 Sharpening Stone
- Workbench Range
The next forge upgrade is the grinding wheel. This one is kind of a hidden one as it requires you to craft an item which isn’t so obvious. Once the player had built the Stonecutter they can interact with it to reach a crafting menu similar to the forge or workbench. Once there, the player can use stone to craft themselves a Sharpening Stone. Once this is crafted and in the player’s inventory, they will unlock the crafting recipe for the grinding wheel forge upgrade.
Despite its appearance, the sharpening stone can’t be interacted with for any benefit to the player’s weapons at this stage in the game’s development.
Forge Bellows
Materials:
- 5 Wood
- 5 Deer Hide
- 4 Chain
- Workbench Range
The last upgrade available is the forge bellows upgrade. These large bellows are generally used to blow are into a forge in order to make the coals burn hotter. This upgrade has to be placed unusually close to the forge in order for it to be place-able. The forge bellows need lots of room so make sure you have planned your forge space accordingly to accommodate this large upgrade.
Most of the items are easy enough to get. Chain is the hardest material of the lot. You can acquire chain by either finding it as random loot in the sunken crypts of the swamp, or by defeating Wraith creatures which only appear in the swamp at night. Either way, it’s pretty risky business.
So that was every forge upgrade available in the current version of Valheim’s early access. As the game is still in development it is expected that the developers will add more items to further upgrade the forge with later on. There are currently some items and weapons in the game which require a forge level of over the current possible level. This indicates that there are definitely more forge upgrades coming to Valheim possibly in a further update. The next major update is called the Hearth and Home update and the developers have stated that they will include more building pieces and more things to do around the home.
Perhaps that will see more ways to upgrade the forge to further levels added as well? only time will tell. You can trust that when more ways to level up the forge and upgrade it are added that this page will stay up to date with all the latest news. For now, thanks for checking out this guide, I hope it helped you to forging greatness in Valheim! Skol!
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