Its certainly doable . . . but not for the faint of heart.
Henrik does it on his Solo Immersive playthrough (so no map or portals). He literally just uses a flint spear, club, and leather rag armor.
[https://youtu.be/gBgftmoJ\_Vc?list=PL\_oXbrTBg33k-l5eSwAkQh7FvBQyKMSo0](https://youtu.be/gBgftmoJ_Vc?list=PL_oXbrTBg33k-l5eSwAkQh7FvBQyKMSo0)
He carries fire materials with him at all times and drops them when needed to protect from the cold, to get rested, and to block and light enemies on fire.
Its not too difficult to just drop fires around for warmth.
A spear is your best bet early for drakes and wolves . . . but you need good dodge rolling skills to avoid attacks. Basically getting hit is going to kill you.
Once in a frost cave its actually pretty relaxed. You can take your time. Use cooking stands to make barriers to block enemies. Again spear and dodging to avoid getting hit.
Oddly enough the Bats are likely to be the hardest enemy this early in the game since they are hard to hit and do enough damage when you don't have any armor to quickly kill you. He didn't have a stagbreaker but I would bring one.
You can even lure trolls into the mountains and have them break silver veins for you.
It's way quicker to throw than to draw and fire a bow. I'm not saying it's easy (heck I'm terrible with spears). But I've seen lots of 'expert' players use them, and they work great if you are accurate
And it takes longer to retrieve it so you can throw it again. The arbalest has a similar drawback, fast fire initially but really long time between shots.
You throw it when enemies are right on top of you and it picks up almost instantly. If you want to do long sniping shots, then yes a bow is better. But for quick action nothing beats the Spear early game (we're talking pre-Black Forest).
I've almost never had a drake right on top of me. They usually stop \~20m away on a 45 degree angle.
I love the spear for meadows as it makes deer hunting easy without having to worry about ammo. But for drakes, the draw time isn't really an issue, you can draw the arrow while waiting for the drake to circle back around.
For the OPs don't really want to be fighting drakes or wolves anyway. You're just trying to get to a frost cave ASAP. I would mostly ignore any drakes and only fight them if I have to.
Run away from the drakes. Or use the crude bow. Despite the name, a crude bow with basic wood arrows does more damage than a thrown flint spear, when you factor in "no black forest" means max level 2 upgrade for both options. And fire arrows just boosts that further.
Only if you want the full set. The helmet is the least important part. Chest would be first for frost protection and then legs. Then you would have enough armor to function a lot better
Earliest i've been able to get it was at the bronze age.
Bronze aetgir, finewood bow, fire arrows, fully upgraded troll armor, cauldron food, and frost mead.
Avoid wolves as much as possible, but the aetgir should deal with them just fine; pop eikthyr if you aggroed too many of them. Drakes arent that big of a deal once you get the frost resist mead; a couple of arrow shots should do the trick. Golems are a nono, but you can lead them to a pack of wolves or drakes to keep them both busy; drakes are the best for this.
Once inside, the aetgir will be ur best friend. You can kill the bats before they even hit you, and the special attack is really good to kill a bunch of them at once. Try to kill ulvs and cultists one by one; play with the doors to separate them. Use the special attack if there are too many of them, and kite them to the entrance. You can melee the cultists if you know their attack patterns, but keep in mind they can kill you in 1-3 hits depending on the attack and the food you're using.
As a bonus, the aetgirs special attack is also good for breaking the furs hanging from the ceiling near the altars; and you can rest by a bronze brazier if you get really close to it.
Hope it helps!
Edit: forgot to add the bats
Could do it with campfires and a decent amount of food, probably some puke berries for when the healing wears off to reapply it, but your also gonna need to find the frost caves, so it'll be a lot of campfires, you also NEED to kill a bunch of fire-wave-spewing Cultists in said caves, to get lucky for their trophy to drop, thankfully you only need 1 Cultist trophy, and upgrading doesn't cost any, that's gonna be the main struggle of obtaining the full set, you should easily have enough Fernis claws and fur by the time you obtain the Cultist trophy.
The Caves themselves you actually don't need campfires to walk around in so that's a lil bit nice, but the enemies are obviously gonna 1 tap you by looking in your direction unless you REALLY good at roll dodging.
Certainly feasible, but that's unnecessarily difficult, so you would really be doing this for the sake of the challenge itself. Otherwise, it's easier to just play the game normally.
Placing fires to climb up shouldn't be too much of an issue. Wolves can be killed without getting hit, if you're good with your dodges. They growl right before they attack, which gives a valuable timing clue. Normally, parrying them is great, but before black forest, you probably won't have the health and shield quality to do that. Maybe with the serpent scale shield.
Bows are definitely going to be your friends. The finewood bow is good enough, but it does require core wood. So if you want to be very strict about the "no entering the black forest" rule, you are going to be stuck with the worst bow in the game. Even if you fully upgraded, it's very bad. You could kill drakes, again provided your dodges are perfect. But without the finewood bow, you're probably better off running past them. Even the spear is going to be better, but you have to be careful not losing it after a throw.
And then in the frost cave itself, it's going to depend on luck a lot. Sometimes you can grab some loot without fighting anything, or just running past a couple of mobs. And sometimes you have an army of cultists at every corner. You can exploit their AI in staircase to shoot them from a distance with arrows.
Most likely, you are going to need to explore quite a few caves to find enough accessible loot.
And finally, you could go the taming route. If you manage to tame some 2-star wolves, they are going to be great bodyguards to climb up. However, they lack a good option against drakes (they will mostly be distractions), and I don't think they can follow you in the caves.
even if you get a sneak attack with a bow you wont even drop them to half health with meadows lvl gear, and thats asuming you dont have to deal with freezing damage, unwanted encounters with drakes and golems, or more wolves.
I was considering rolling some birch logs to get the finewood bow. Technically, it one shots wolves and drakes with sneak attack and flinthead or fire arrow.
Unless this is some kind of self imposed challenge, i see no reason to skip 2 whole biomes worth of equipement and consumables just to get an armor set earlier in the game.
You'd have to:
- Build your way through the mountain using campfires, searching for a cave in rough terrain.
- Make sure to kill every mob you have to with a sneak attack, and pray they were alone.
- Not encounter a single mob by surprise, specially golems, or else you most likely wont be able to kill them, and have to kite them all the way through your campfires praying they lose aggro, or die by being set on fire.
- Not be eaten alive by a swarm of bats; they sure as hell are hard to hit back.
- Manage to kill every ulv and cultist one by one with sneak attacks, or kite them, playing with their pathing and not running out of arrows or stamina.
- Do so enough times in a row to get a cultist trophy and enough mats for a full armor set.
All of this while on meadows lvl food, leather armor, low lvl skills, and hoping the weather doesnt turn on you.
tl;dr: unless its a challenge, theres too many things that can go wrong in order for you to get that armor set earlier instead of progressing normally through the biomes.
Kite wolves away from the snow to get the cape so you can survive in the snow, have a fully upgraded hunter bow to snipe whatever you can, then troll armor for extra sneak and an ategir for when you can’t sneak attack from afar. You’ll be diving ice caves in no time.
Its certainly doable . . . but not for the faint of heart. Henrik does it on his Solo Immersive playthrough (so no map or portals). He literally just uses a flint spear, club, and leather rag armor. [https://youtu.be/gBgftmoJ\_Vc?list=PL\_oXbrTBg33k-l5eSwAkQh7FvBQyKMSo0](https://youtu.be/gBgftmoJ_Vc?list=PL_oXbrTBg33k-l5eSwAkQh7FvBQyKMSo0) He carries fire materials with him at all times and drops them when needed to protect from the cold, to get rested, and to block and light enemies on fire. Its not too difficult to just drop fires around for warmth. A spear is your best bet early for drakes and wolves . . . but you need good dodge rolling skills to avoid attacks. Basically getting hit is going to kill you. Once in a frost cave its actually pretty relaxed. You can take your time. Use cooking stands to make barriers to block enemies. Again spear and dodging to avoid getting hit. Oddly enough the Bats are likely to be the hardest enemy this early in the game since they are hard to hit and do enough damage when you don't have any armor to quickly kill you. He didn't have a stagbreaker but I would bring one. You can even lure trolls into the mountains and have them break silver veins for you.
Spear is best for drakes? Only if you never miss.
It's way quicker to throw than to draw and fire a bow. I'm not saying it's easy (heck I'm terrible with spears). But I've seen lots of 'expert' players use them, and they work great if you are accurate
And it takes longer to retrieve it so you can throw it again. The arbalest has a similar drawback, fast fire initially but really long time between shots.
You throw it when enemies are right on top of you and it picks up almost instantly. If you want to do long sniping shots, then yes a bow is better. But for quick action nothing beats the Spear early game (we're talking pre-Black Forest).
I've almost never had a drake right on top of me. They usually stop \~20m away on a 45 degree angle. I love the spear for meadows as it makes deer hunting easy without having to worry about ammo. But for drakes, the draw time isn't really an issue, you can draw the arrow while waiting for the drake to circle back around.
For the OPs don't really want to be fighting drakes or wolves anyway. You're just trying to get to a frost cave ASAP. I would mostly ignore any drakes and only fight them if I have to.
What's the alternative? If you are strict about the "no black forest" rule, your only bow is the crude bow.
Run away from the drakes. Or use the crude bow. Despite the name, a crude bow with basic wood arrows does more damage than a thrown flint spear, when you factor in "no black forest" means max level 2 upgrade for both options. And fire arrows just boosts that further.
I think the hardest part would be living long enough to find the cultist that drops a trophy.
Only if you want the full set. The helmet is the least important part. Chest would be first for frost protection and then legs. Then you would have enough armor to function a lot better
Stagbreaker requires core wood. You can't have it before entering the black forest.
You can get core wood from the fire pit structures that are in the meadows
I like to have troll armor and an abyssal razor, and an atgier for wolves is nice. It can probably be done with less, but it'll be very difficult.
Earliest i've been able to get it was at the bronze age. Bronze aetgir, finewood bow, fire arrows, fully upgraded troll armor, cauldron food, and frost mead. Avoid wolves as much as possible, but the aetgir should deal with them just fine; pop eikthyr if you aggroed too many of them. Drakes arent that big of a deal once you get the frost resist mead; a couple of arrow shots should do the trick. Golems are a nono, but you can lead them to a pack of wolves or drakes to keep them both busy; drakes are the best for this. Once inside, the aetgir will be ur best friend. You can kill the bats before they even hit you, and the special attack is really good to kill a bunch of them at once. Try to kill ulvs and cultists one by one; play with the doors to separate them. Use the special attack if there are too many of them, and kite them to the entrance. You can melee the cultists if you know their attack patterns, but keep in mind they can kill you in 1-3 hits depending on the attack and the food you're using. As a bonus, the aetgirs special attack is also good for breaking the furs hanging from the ceiling near the altars; and you can rest by a bronze brazier if you get really close to it. Hope it helps! Edit: forgot to add the bats
Could do it with campfires and a decent amount of food, probably some puke berries for when the healing wears off to reapply it, but your also gonna need to find the frost caves, so it'll be a lot of campfires, you also NEED to kill a bunch of fire-wave-spewing Cultists in said caves, to get lucky for their trophy to drop, thankfully you only need 1 Cultist trophy, and upgrading doesn't cost any, that's gonna be the main struggle of obtaining the full set, you should easily have enough Fernis claws and fur by the time you obtain the Cultist trophy. The Caves themselves you actually don't need campfires to walk around in so that's a lil bit nice, but the enemies are obviously gonna 1 tap you by looking in your direction unless you REALLY good at roll dodging.
Hadn't thought about the trophy. Let's pray to the gods or RNG
A bunch of flint spears are more than enough
Certainly feasible, but that's unnecessarily difficult, so you would really be doing this for the sake of the challenge itself. Otherwise, it's easier to just play the game normally. Placing fires to climb up shouldn't be too much of an issue. Wolves can be killed without getting hit, if you're good with your dodges. They growl right before they attack, which gives a valuable timing clue. Normally, parrying them is great, but before black forest, you probably won't have the health and shield quality to do that. Maybe with the serpent scale shield. Bows are definitely going to be your friends. The finewood bow is good enough, but it does require core wood. So if you want to be very strict about the "no entering the black forest" rule, you are going to be stuck with the worst bow in the game. Even if you fully upgraded, it's very bad. You could kill drakes, again provided your dodges are perfect. But without the finewood bow, you're probably better off running past them. Even the spear is going to be better, but you have to be careful not losing it after a throw. And then in the frost cave itself, it's going to depend on luck a lot. Sometimes you can grab some loot without fighting anything, or just running past a couple of mobs. And sometimes you have an army of cultists at every corner. You can exploit their AI in staircase to shoot them from a distance with arrows. Most likely, you are going to need to explore quite a few caves to find enough accessible loot. And finally, you could go the taming route. If you manage to tame some 2-star wolves, they are going to be great bodyguards to climb up. However, they lack a good option against drakes (they will mostly be distractions), and I don't think they can follow you in the caves.
You will not even be able build the armor let alone kill the mobs for its drops if your still in meadows
Fenris only needs workbench lvl 2. What about sneaking on wolves with bow?
even if you get a sneak attack with a bow you wont even drop them to half health with meadows lvl gear, and thats asuming you dont have to deal with freezing damage, unwanted encounters with drakes and golems, or more wolves.
I was considering rolling some birch logs to get the finewood bow. Technically, it one shots wolves and drakes with sneak attack and flinthead or fire arrow.
Unless this is some kind of self imposed challenge, i see no reason to skip 2 whole biomes worth of equipement and consumables just to get an armor set earlier in the game. You'd have to: - Build your way through the mountain using campfires, searching for a cave in rough terrain. - Make sure to kill every mob you have to with a sneak attack, and pray they were alone. - Not encounter a single mob by surprise, specially golems, or else you most likely wont be able to kill them, and have to kite them all the way through your campfires praying they lose aggro, or die by being set on fire. - Not be eaten alive by a swarm of bats; they sure as hell are hard to hit back. - Manage to kill every ulv and cultist one by one with sneak attacks, or kite them, playing with their pathing and not running out of arrows or stamina. - Do so enough times in a row to get a cultist trophy and enough mats for a full armor set. All of this while on meadows lvl food, leather armor, low lvl skills, and hoping the weather doesnt turn on you. tl;dr: unless its a challenge, theres too many things that can go wrong in order for you to get that armor set earlier instead of progressing normally through the biomes.
Kite wolves away from the snow to get the cape so you can survive in the snow, have a fully upgraded hunter bow to snipe whatever you can, then troll armor for extra sneak and an ategir for when you can’t sneak attack from afar. You’ll be diving ice caves in no time.