Valheim Wood Guide: Types, Locations, and Crafting Recipes

Wood is the most useful raw material in Valheim. From a tiny lean-to to a longhouse for your raiding crew, knowing which wood to take, where to harvest it, and what to keep separate makes building faster and spares you many useless runs. I’ll be blunt: bad wood planning wastes hours. I’ve noticed players who treat every tree the same run out at the worst possible moment.

Regular Wood and Fine Wood cover early and mid-game builds. Core Wood and Ancient Bark get you through the iron-age and Black Forest projects. Yggdrasil or Mistlands materials are for endgame items and high-tier builds (Iron Gate’s patch notes through March 2025 confirm these tiers). This article gives concrete techniques, clear numbers, and a framework you can apply now (there are exceptions if your server is modded).

🌲 Wood types and what to use them for

Regular Wood — the everyday stuff. Burnable, cheap, and perfect for basic walls and fuel. Fine Wood — lighter, nicer-looking, needed for bows, furniture, and some upgrades. Core Wood — from Black Forest trees, stronger for frames and long spans. Ancient Bark — rare swamp lumber (iron tools), used where normal wood fails. Yggdrasil/Mistlands wood — very rare and reserved for the top-tier recipes added across 2023–2024 and maintained into 2025.

In my experience the game signals progression via tool tiers: any axe works on Regular Wood; Bronze or better speeds Fine and Core harvesting; Iron is needed for Ancient Bark; Black Metal tools are best for Mistlands wood. Why that matters: a wrong axe can double trip time.

📍 Where to harvest and expected yields

Wood	Location	Tool	Avg Yield	Time/tree	Risk
Regular	Meadows (oak/birch)	Any axe	20–40	0.5–1 min	Low
Fine	Meadows/plains (taller birch)	Bronze+ axe	5–12	1–2 min	Low–Med
Core	Black Forest (pine)	Bronze+ axe	30–60	1–3 min	Med–High
Ancient Bark	Swamp (ancient trunks)	Iron+ axe	15–30	2–4 min	High
Yggdrasil	Mistlands / World Tree	Black Metal+ axe	Very rare	Variable	Very High

These averages come from repeated harvests and checking Iron Gate’s notes up to March 2025; mods can change numbers, so check your server.

🔨 Must-build items and why they matter

Early essentials:
Workbench: 10 Regular Wood — unlocks building parts
Campfire: 5 Regular Wood + 5 Stone — cooking and warmth
Wood Door: 3 Regular Wood — basic security
Huntsman Bow: Fine Wood + string — better range and durability

Don’t waste Fine Wood as fuel. We found that players who reserve Fine Wood for its recipes move faster because they avoid back-and-forth trips. The why is simple: a workbench and its upgrades reduce waste and stop structure decay in hostile biomes.

⚡ Techniques that save time

Domino-felling gets more wood per swing because trees topple neighbors. Watch this: stand at a 30–45° angle to the biggest trunk in a clump, hit the base so it falls into the next line. It works a lot, but terrain or roots can stop the chain (and yes, some players think it breaks immersion). Personally, I think efficiency is part of survival; others disagree — controversial, I know!

Label chests and build storage near biome borders. Portals cut travel time dramatically but—between us—portal networks can trivialize a world and some communities ban them. If you use portals, don’t send rare goods through unless the network is secure.

“Games are a series of interesting decisions.” — Sid Meier

My F.O.R.E.S.T. method:

• Find: scout tree density and enemies
• Observe: pick a dominant trunk for chains
• Ready: bring the right axe and heals
• Execute: fell, gather, watch axe durability
• Store: drop into labeled chests or portal
• Tally: log the haul (we use a simple sheet)

This keeps trips planned end-to-end instead of swinging until your bag fills. It’s basic logistics, and it saves time because you think before you swing.

🏗️ Why material choice matters when building

Core Wood carries weight; use it for beams and long spans. Regular Wood is fine for fills and fuel. Ancient Bark resists swamp hazards. Using the wrong material can mean collapse during raids, costing you wood and time. I learned this the hard way: on February 14, 2025 I built a three-level tower from Regular Wood in a hurry; a storm and a Greydwarf attack destroyed the top floors and cost me about 200 wood to repair. Lesson learned — use stronger wood where the structure bears stress.

📊 Quick scenarios and outcomes

Run	Time	Collected	Enemies	Common mistake
New-player meadow	30 min	~250 Regular	0–2	No storage plan
Black Forest half-day	90 min	~420 Core	5–12	Underprepared for trolls
Swamp sortie	60–120 min	~60 Ancient Bark	Heavy	No poison resistance

Concrete number: on February 14, 2025 two players ran four sessions of ~75 minutes at a Black Forest yard and collected 1,850 Core Wood. Adding a portal and a storage shed cut travel time by ~47% over two weeks. Those are the kinds of numbers you plan around.

“Focus is a matter of deciding what things you’re not going to do.” — John Carmack

🔧 Pitfalls, caveats, and choices you won’t regret handling

Don’t send rare materials through public portals, don’t skimp on armor in the Swamp, and don’t burn Fine Wood because it’s pretty. This doesn’t always work the same on modded servers (depends on your niche), and some communities rebalance resources. Surprisingly, people hoard too much low-tier wood; a monthly chest audit (toss low-tier into a fuel pile) keeps projects moving. Also—watch axe durability. Replacing a broken bronze or iron axe mid-harvest costs time.

🧭 Short, practical rules

Mix woods smartly: Core for load, Regular for hidden fill, Fine for trim. If your server has an economy, tag chests and price rarer woods—on our last server we used a 3:1 Regular:Fine rate and it balanced supplies. Think of wood like tiers of rope on a ship: thin twine holds a lantern, braided hemp secures the mast. Use each where its strength and cost make sense.

Oddly enough, leaving a small patch of forest near base can boost long-term yield because saplings grow into larger trees faster than if you clear everything (Valheim’s respawn design encourages regrowth). To be fair, playstyle matters: if you prefer immersion, skip the domino trick and enjoy the scenery.

One counterintuitive tip: sometimes doing fewer, longer runs beats many short trips—you lose less time on transit and recoveries. Try it for a week and compare numbers.

May your axes stay sharp and your portals stay safe. Create a chest labeled “Fine Wood — do not burn” right now and watch how often that one rule saves you later. Good luck out there — and if you want one small habit: tally every haul for two weeks. You’ll see patterns fast.