Valheim Wishbone Guide – The Best Way to Find Metal

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Emily Medlock

Emily is a gaming aficionado who has written for The Gamer, Gamerant, GamerBolt, and Valnet, but she has found a home here at Ready Game Survive. She adores writing about Ark: Survival Evolved among other great survival titles, and outside of traditional survival, she loves Legend of Zelda, League of Legends and Fable.

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If you’re new to Valheim, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all of the new mechanics in this Early Access game. There are so many items that you are given with few instructions. The difficulty of figuring things out is increased if you tend to skip over what Hugin says.

His works can be helpful but don’t feel bad if you only skim read his instructions. There are many other ways to find out how to do things in Valheim. You can ask a friend or follow a Valheim Wishbone guide just like this one. If you’re still a little confused about everything the Wishbone can do, then you’re not alone. 

What is a Wishbone in Valheim?

• Detects Muddy Scrap Piles (iron in Swamp)
• Detects Silver Veins (silver in Mountain)
• Detects Buried Treasure (gold and such in Meadows)

A Wishbone is an item that works like a dowsing rod for metal in Valheim. You can use the Wishbone in any biome, but it can only detect things in three biomes. It does not detect copper or tin in the Black Forest, and it does not help you find black metal in the Plains.

This is because the copper/tin is easy to spot (above the surface), and the black metal is only dropped by Fulings or found in their camps. The Wishbone only helps detect what is under the surface.

How to Get the Wishbone in Valheim

To unlock the Wishbone, you have to defeat Bonemass, the third boss in Valheim. He lives in the Swamps, and his altar looks like a giant skull. To fight Bonemass, you have to find his altar and make an offering. After you defeat him, he will drop Wishbones that can be used to find silver, iron, and buried treasure. 

While you’re in the Sunken Crypts looking for the altar’s location, grab some Withered Bones while you’re at it. You can find the bones by mining the Muddy Scrap Piles or finding them in chests. They can even be found lying on ledges near other treasures. You need ten of these bones to summon Bonemass. Without them, you can never get a Wishbone. 

Check out this guide for a full guide on Valheim bosses, including strategies to defeat them.

1. Visit Sunken Crypts
2. Find Vegvisir (runestone) that marks his altar’s location
3. Prepare for the fight – bring poison potions and blunt/frost weapons
4. Offer 10x Withered Bones on the altar
5. Defeat Bonemass
6. Wait for the drops, which include one Wishbone per present player

How to Use Valheim’s Wishbone

To use the Wishbone, all you have to do is equip it. When you do equip it, it will jump to your “utility” slot. As long as it is equipped, it will passively work to find metal for you. You have to be within 20 meters of a deposit for the Wishbone to start detecting it.

Once it does detect it, it will blink slowly, with green streams pulsating from your body like fireworks. It will also make a beeping sound. The closer you get to the metal, the faster the stream is and the quicker the beeping sound will be.

Muddy Scrap Piles

• Required Pickaxe – any
• Metal Per Deposit – 5-10
• Biome – Swamp

For Muddy Scrap Piles, you have to be in the Swamp. This is my least favorite thing to look for with a Wishbone for several reasons. First of all, after you defeat the Elder – which should be done before you defeat Bonemass – you can use your Swamp Key to visit the Sunken Crypts. Inside the Sunken Crypts is a whole lot of Muddy Scrap Piles that you can mine without the Wishbone.

The other thing I do not like about using the Wishbone to find Muddy Scrap Piles is that because the map is procedurally generated, the piles don’t always spawn in convenient places. For example, they could spawn underneath unbreakable trees or even underwater.

So, your Wishbone will detect the pile, but you can’t mine it once you dig down a little. The dinging won’t stop until you’re 20 meters away, so it will keep going off and crying wolf when you’re in the area, leaving you wondering if there is a second pile or if it is just notifying you of the inaccessible pile.

Silver Veins

• Required Pickaxe – Iron
• Metal Per Deposit – 80-100
• Biome – Mountain

To mine silver, you have to have an Iron Pickaxe. You cannot mine silver with a Bronze Pickaxe or an Antler Pickaxe. To find silver, head to the mountains with a wolf or lox cape equipped. Alternatively, you can make Frost resistance mead which will also protect you from freezing. After you reach the mountain, if you don’t have the Wishbone equipped, remember to equip it now.

The method of finding silver is the same as finding Muddy Scrap Piles. However, the vein is much larger than a pile and is shaped kind of like a Wishbone. I highly recommend digging around the vein before mining the silver so that you know that you are getting the whole thing. There should be three legs, and you should find the end of each one before you get any silver.

Buried Treasure – Any Pickaxe

• Required Pickaxe – Any
• Metal Per Deposit – None
• Biome – Meadows

You don’t need the Wishbone to find these, and I haven’t found the Wishbone helpful either. Because you can see a formation of rocks around the buried treasure that can be seen from further than 20 meters away. Although you won’t find metal to mine in these, you will find treasures such as Amber Pearls, Rubies, and necklaces. You can sell these all to the trader for coins that can be used to purchase goods.

How to Tranport Metal in Valheim

Metal is hefty in Valheim, and it cannot be taken through a portal. The lightest metal in Valheim is tin, which weighs 8lbs per ore. The heaviest is silver, which weighs 14lbs per ore. One stack of silver weighs over 400lbs, which is not only heavy but won’t get you too far in crafting everything there is to craft with silver.

So far, I have only found three reliable methods, and only two of those are efficient. My other strategy is picking all of the metal up and throwing it repeatedly until you get home. Please do not do this; it is slow and frustrating. Instead, try one of these other ways of transporting metal.

Belt, Piece by Piece

If you buy the belt, Megingjord, from the trader Haldor, then you can increase your carry weight to 450. While this can let you carry a stack of silver, this doesn’t include the armor you are wearing or your weapons. If you take all of this into account, the likelihood of being able to carry that full stack is low. However, if you live close to a mountain, then running a stack back and forth, one at a time may be the fastest way to go in the end. So keep it in mind.

Gather Your Friends

A Valheim server can have ten players on it. If you have ten players on, you all have belts, and you all share a base, then you can get 300 silver down the mountain without a hitch. This is at least three entire veins. While this method is efficient, if you don’t have a full server that enjoys working together, then this method may not be viable.

Cart

This is what most players do. You can build a cart in Valheim with bronze nails and wood as long as a workbench is nearby. The cart does not have a weight limit (it has 18 slots), but it is more challenging to pull if it is heavy. That said, I’ve never had a problem with a heavy load of silver or iron in a cart instead of a light load. Carts aren’t easy to pull if they’re empty, so the weight is irrelevant to me.

However, there are some easier ways to use a cart. I always keep a hoe on me, so I can pave a walkway in front whenever I use a cart. All you have to do is use the basic hoe mechanic to level land. This will take care of any small hills that get in the way. Don’t be afraid to detach yourself from a cart to take down any trees or rocks in the path, either.

Other Items That Use the Same Slot as Wishbone

If an item uses the same slot as another, you can’t use them both simultaneously. For example, you can’t wear two capes at once as they are both shoulder items. When you have a mod, such as a backpack mod, you can’t wear a cape and a backpack at the same time.

This makes sense because they both go on your shoulders. Things aren’t quite as clear when it comes to waist/utility. However, pre-Mistlands update, there aren’t any vanilla utility items other than Wishbone and Megingjord.

What is Megingjord?

Megingjord is a belt in Valheim that increases your carry weight by 150. Since the base carry weight is 300, your carry weight will be 450 after donning the belt. I keep the belt on as long as I’m not using a Wishbone or a modded utility item.

You can purchase the belt after you find Haldor, who lives somewhere in the Black Forest. The belt costs 950 gold. If you are having trouble finding Haldor, it may help to know that he will always spawn within 1500 meters of the center starting area and always spawn in the Black Forest. After you find him, he will never leave his location. There will be a bag icon on the map to mark his location automatically.

FAQs

Playing Valheim Without the Wishbone

It is entirely possible to play Valheim without a Wishbone. You will have difficulty getting silver, but everything else will still be easy to get. I only use my Wishbone to find silver because, with crypts out there, iron is easy to get. But when it comes to silver, I have never found silver without the Wishbone. It could take days to dig it up randomly.

You can find it sticking out of the ground if you get lucky, but this is rare. Some mountains don’t even have silver on them. If you defeat Bonemass, you don’t have to worry about living without a Wishbone. There’s a reason that the bosses have an order in Valheim. They drop valuable items that you need to progress through the next biome properly. So roll with the game and get that Wishbone.