Pickaxes: Complete Guide to Every Tier, Stats & Crafting Recipes

Pickaxes are arguably the most important tools in Valheim. Without one you cannot mine a single ore, smelt a bar or progress past the Meadows. Yet many players obsess over weapons and armor and neglect their pickaxe, not realizing the right tool at the right quality can cut ore farming time dramatically.

There are four pickaxes, each tied to a stage of progression. They share a lot, and differ in damage, durability, stamina cost and, most importantly, what they can mine. Some ores are locked behind specific tiers, which makes those upgrades mandatory.

What Every Pickaxe Shares

• Two-handed, weighing 2.0
• The same 1.4-second swing
• -5% movement speed while equipped
• Pierce damage for creatures and separate Pickaxe (mining) damage for rock and ore

Antler Pickaxe: Your First Mining Tool

The Antler Pickaxe is your gateway to mining and the whole metal progression. Eikthyr, the first boss, always drops 3 Hard Antler, and the pickaxe needs only one, so the spares are free replacements if yours breaks. Until then, rocks are just scenery.

Why it punches above its weight

It is the weakest pickaxe, but it only needs a Workbench to craft and repair. Every other pickaxe needs a Forge. Drop a Workbench next to a Copper deposit and you can repair on the spot. Veterans use this field repair trick to carry the Antler Pickaxe through Copper, Tin and even Iron.

It cannot be upgraded and stays at quality 1 with 100 durability. It is slow, but slow and free to repair beats fast and needing a portal home.

Bronze Pickaxe: The Controversial Upgrade

The Bronze Pickaxe costs 10 Bronze and 3 Corewood at a Forge, a real investment early in the Black Forest. Bronze is smelted from Copper and Tin at a 2:1 ratio, and those 10 bars could become a Bronze Sword, Bronze Buckler or Cultivator.

Is it worth it?

It depends on how much you mine. It is a clear step up from the Antler Pickaxe at quality 1, and a fully upgraded one rips through Copper noticeably faster. But maxing it costs 9 Corewood and 40 Bronze in total, a big investment. Quality 1 or 2 gives a noticeable speed boost while saving Bronze for better upgrades.

The downsides

• Repairs need a Forge, so you lose the Antler's field repairs.
• It mines exactly what the Antler Pickaxe mines: Stone, Copper, Tin, Muddy Scrap Piles and Abyssal Barnacles. No new resources, just speed and durability.

Iron Pickaxe: The Essential Upgrade

If you skip every other upgrade, do not skip this one. The Iron Pickaxe is the first to unlock new resources: Silver veins in the Mountain and Obsidian deposits. Without Silver there is no Wolf Armor, Frostner, Draugr Fang or Silver Sword. This is a hard progression gate, not a speed suggestion.

Cost and sweet spot

It needs a level 2 Forge, 3 Corewood and 20 Iron. That Iron stings when every bar comes out of Sunken Crypts, but it is non-negotiable. Maxing it costs 9 Corewood and 80 Iron in total, a lot. Quality 2 is the sweet spot: 38 damage and 200 durability for 30 Iron and 4 Corewood in total. Save the rest for weapons and armor.

Repair gotcha

The Iron Pickaxe needs a level 2 Forge for repairs, so a bare field Forge near your mine needs at least one upgrade attachment. This trips up a lot of players.

Black Metal Pickaxe: The Top Tier

The Black Metal Pickaxe is the fourth and most powerful pickaxe. It unlocks Black Marble in the Mistlands, Flametal Ore veins in the Ashlands, and Soft Tissue. You need it for Mistlands and Ashlands gear; there is no way around it.

Crafting

It takes 3 Yggdrasil Wood (chopped from the giant glowing Mistlands trees) and 25 Black Metal (smelted from Black Metal Scrap dropped by Fulings in the Plains) at a level 2 Forge.

Stamina and upgrades

Each swing costs more than double the Antler Pickaxe's stamina, so bring stamina food for long sessions. Maxing it costs 9 Yggdrasil Wood and 115 Black Metal in total. For most players quality 1 or 2 is plenty: base quality already deals nearly triple the Antler's damage, and returns diminish steeply.

Mining Mechanics Every Player Should Know

Deposits have health

Every mineable resource has a health pool, just like an enemy. A Copper deposit is made of many destructible sub-pieces, each with its own HP. Mining damage breaks rock and ore; Pierce damage is what hits creatures.

The 33% ground penalty

When your swing hits the ground, it deals 33% less damage. The hitbox reaches below your feet, so this triggers constantly on flat terrain. Stand on top of the deposit, or very close to it, and mine downward for full damage.

Skill and cleave

• Pickaxes skill: it levels as you mine and raises your damage. A fresh character with an Iron Pickaxe mines slower than a veteran with a Bronze Pickaxe and maxed skill.
• Cleave: since Hearth and Home, pickaxes hit multiple targets per swing, handy on packed Stone or against Greydwarves that interrupt your mining.

The Optimal Pickaxe Progression Path

Most experienced players recommend: Antler Pickaxe, then straight to the Iron Pickaxe, then the Black Metal Pickaxe. The Bronze Pickaxe is the one most veterans skip.

Why skip Bronze

It unlocks nothing new, and the Antler's Workbench repairs close most of the speed gap. Bronze is the tightest early bottleneck, and 10 bars on a pickaxe means 10 fewer for your weapon, armor or Cultivator.

Why Iron and Black Metal are mandatory

No number of Antler swings will crack a Silver vein. The same goes later for Black Marble and Flametal Ore without the Black Metal Pickaxe.

The case for Bronze

If you plan to mine lots of Copper (you will need more than you think), a quality 2 or 3 Bronze Pickaxe genuinely speeds things up. Craft it, upgrade once or twice, and move on. Do not sink 40 Bronze into maxing it.

Pickaxes as Emergency Weapons

Pickaxes are technically weapons, and decent ones in a pinch. They deal Pierce damage, have a 3x backstab multiplier, and their 50 knockback shoves most early enemies away. On the Iron and Black Metal pickaxes, Pierce matches mining damage, which beats many early weapons.

The limits

• Two-handed and slow at 1.4 seconds per swing
• A narrow 120-degree arc
• Very low block armor (2 at 0 skill, 3 at 100 skill), though the parry bonus is 2x

They are no replacement for a real weapon. But when Greydwarves ambush you mid-mine, swinging the pickaxe, or even landing a timed parry and a backstab swing, buys time to reposition or run.