Lox: Complete Guide to Taming, Breeding, Riding & Farming in Valheim

What Makes the Lox Special

The Lox may be the most rewarding creature to invest in. This huge lizard-ox roams the Plains, and unlike most things there, it can become one of your best assets. It is one of the few rideable creatures, a renewable source of top food, and a battering ram when pointed at a Fuling village.

More versatile than Boars or Wolves

A tamed Boar gives meat and leather, and a Wolf is a solid fighter. A Lox does far more:

• Hauls your ore across continents while you are overburdened
• Clears forests by trampling through them
• Supplies Lox Meat for three strong food recipes
• Drops Lox Pelt for the Frost-resistant Lox Cape
• Flattens anything foolish enough to stand in front of it

Veterans count a self-sustaining Lox farm among the biggest quality-of-life upgrades in the game.

Fighting Wild Lox

Wild Lox are aggressive, territorial and hit incredibly hard. The Bite's long sweeping reach catches you even when you think you are safe, and the Stomp is deadly in tight spaces.

Reading their attacks

• Bite: the Lox leans back before lunging forward.
• Stomp: the Lox rears up on its hind legs.

Both have generous cooldowns, which give you windows to land hits.

Damage types

Fire is their weakness, so Fire Arrows are extremely effective. They resist Blunt, Frost and Slash, so leave maces and swords behind; Pierce at normal damage is your best melee option.

Most experienced players skip fighting Lox entirely. Every Lox you kill is one fewer for your farm.

How to Tame a Lox

Lox eat Cloudberries, Barley or Flax. Cloudberries are easiest since they grow wild across the Plains. You need at least 3 food items per Lox, but drop 5 or more as insurance.

Taming takes exactly 30 minutes (600 ticks at 3-second intervals). Stay within 64 meters the whole time or progress halts. Four methods work; pick one for your gear and risk tolerance.

1. Open Plains (easiest)

The community favourite. Sneak up to a wild Lox and drop Cloudberries nearby; it eats them and taming begins, with no building. Build a small shelter with a Portal nearby to wait safely within 64 meters, and keep your stamina above 50 while scattering food in case you need to sprint away.

2. The pit (most reliable)

Dig a deep hole with your Pickaxe and Hoe, then lure a Lox in or drag it with the Abyssal Harpoon. It cannot escape, and you drop food in safely from above. It takes more setup, and a Harpoon helps enormously.

3. Raised earth walls

Raise ground with the Hoe to form a pen with an entrance you can close quickly. Terrain walls are indestructible, and a ramp plus the Abyssal Harpoon gets the Lox inside. It is a middle ground between the open method and the pit.

4. Stone wall cage

Build a Stone cage, lure the Lox in and close it. This is the hardest method: agitated Lox can break Stone walls, so you will be repairing until it calms down. Use it only if nothing else works.

Breeding Lox

With two or more tamed Lox, breeding is straightforward once these conditions are all true at the same time:

• Both Lox are fed (Cloudberries, Barley or Flax).
• They are within 8 meters of each other.
• They are not under a roof, or the ceiling is at least 14 meters up.
• They are not alerted by enemies.
• No more than 4 other Lox are within 20 meters.
• A player is within about 64 meters to keep the area active.

Love points and pregnancy

Every 30 seconds there is a 33% chance of a love point. Lox need 4 (most creatures need 3), so expect a few minutes of rolls. Pregnancy lasts at least 2 minutes before a random birth, and calves take 1 hour 40 minutes to mature. You can leave and come back meanwhile.

Lox have no star variants, so every Lox has identical stats and there are no rare spawns to hunt.

An AFK breeding platform

The 20-meter population cap is the key number. Raise a platform at least 20 meters high with the Hoe and log structures, and put two Lox on top with roughly 4x4 meters each to eat. Calves get pushed off into a pit below, outside the breeding radius, so the parents never hit the cap.

Riding Your Lox

Riding a Lox changes how you move around the world. Craft a Lox Saddle at a Workbench, put it on your hotbar, point at a tamed Lox and use it. The Saddle stays on until you remove it with Shift+E.

Controls and stamina

• The Lox moves where you look: W to go forward, Shift to sprint, right mouse to steer. There is no reverse.
• A mounted Lox has 240 stamina that drains at about a player's sprinting rate.
• It regenerates about 1 stamina every 4 seconds when fed and 1 every 10 seconds when hungry.
• Levelling the Riding skill raises speed and cuts stamina drain.

Hauling ore

A mounted Lox ignores your carried weight. Load 300 Iron ore, climb on and sprint at full speed. That makes it the best overland hauler for Iron, Black Metal and other non-teleportable materials, faster than a Cart and far better on hills and rough terrain.

Fighting from the saddle

You cannot use weapons while riding: swinging one dismounts you. A sprinting Lox tramples most creatures for heavy damage, though, and a stopped Lox bites and stomps nearby enemies. Sprint through a Fuling camp and let it do the work, ideally with the Bonemass Forsaken Power and a Lingering Stamina Mead.

Crossing water

Lox can swim short distances at a stamina cost, enough for narrow channels between islands. For longer trips, build temporary ramps to load one onto a Longship, but large Lox can damage the boat.

Lox Drops and What to Craft

Each Lox, whether a wild kill or a culled tame, drops 4-5 Lox Meat and 2 Lox Pelt, with a 10% chance of a Lox Trophy. To cull tamed Lox you need a Butcher Knife from the Forge, or Friendly Fire enabled. Both materials stay useful into the Mistlands.

Lox Pelt

The Lox Cape gives Frost resistance, which stops Cold and Freezing and even cancels the Frost weakness from being Wet. Its armor rises by 1 per upgrade to a maximum of 4. Upgrades cost 2, 4 and then 6 more Lox Pelt, so a fully upgraded cape takes 18 pelts in total.

The Lox Rug is a decoration that adds +1 Comfort.

Lox Meat foods

Lox Meat goes into three foods across two tiers:

• Cooked Lox Meat: the simple baseline, great for the Plains.
• Lox Meat Pie: the standout, nearly as much health as Serpent Stew without hunting Sea Serpents.
• Meat Platter: better still and carries you through the Mistlands, but needs Hare Meat and Seeker Meat from that biome.

The pie and the platter are both prepared at a Food Preparation Table, then baked in a Stone Oven for 50 seconds; at 100 seconds they burn.

Creative Uses for Tamed Lox

Forest clearing

Riding a Lox through the Black Forest topples trees and tramples the logs into Wood. Rotate between several Lox as their stamina runs out and you can clear a forest in minutes.

Base defense

A large herd around your Plains base works as living guard dogs with area attacks; nothing on the ground gets through. Players report herds of 30 or more tamed Lox dealing serious damage to Yagluth himself.

Herd management

Tamed Lox wander from pastures, and riding one back with the Saddle beats chasing it on foot. With Friendly Fire on, the Abyssal Harpoon can also drag strays back into place.