Valheim Call to Arms Update: Bears, Trinkets, and an Adrenaline System

Patch 0.221.1 is live on the Public Test branch and the main Valheim build, and it does a lot more than tweak numbers. The Call to Arms update adds two new enemy types, an Adrenaline mechanic tied to equippable Trinkets, sweeping combat refinements, and one of the biggest server list rewrites the game has shipped.

The Headline Additions

The biggest gameplay change is the Adrenaline system. You build it up by landing hits, pulling off Perfect Blocks, executing Perfect Dodge Rolls, casting certain magic attacks, or triggering a Forsaken Power. When the meter fills, you get a temporary perk that depends on whichever Trinket you have equipped. Drop out of combat for too long and the meter drains, so the system rewards aggressive, sustained engagement.

Trinkets themselves are a brand new equipment slot. With nothing equipped, you generate no Adrenaline at all, which makes them effectively required gear for any late-game combat build.

The second major addition is the arrival of Bears and their undead cousin, the Viles. They show up as fresh world threats and drop materials you cannot get anywhere else, including the components for the Bear armor set and its darker counterpart, the Vilebone set.

Combat Feels Different Now

A few changes are noticeable inside the first ten minutes of play:

• Perfect Block no longer costs stamina. This one change makes timing-based defense viable in long fights.
• Perfect Dodge Roll is a new skill that refunds a percentage of stamina when you dodge an attack that would have connected.
• Vertical hitboxes were reworked. Fighting on slopes finally feels deliberate instead of a wrestling match with the terrain.
• Battleaxes, Sledgehammers, and Tower Shields now slow you down less while equipped.

Two-handed weapon enjoyers and Tower Shield holdouts are the obvious winners here.

Wooden Weapons for Friendly Sparring

A small but welcome addition: wooden variants of most weapons. Sword, Greatsword, Axe, Two-handed Axe, Mace, Sledge, Spear, Atgeir, and Knife all have practice versions you can use to spar with friends without sending anyone back to spawn. Pair them with the new Archery Target and Battle Brother training dummies and you have a proper combat range at your base.

Forsaken Powers Rebalanced

Every Forsaken Power was reworked, and most got more interesting:

• Eikthyr: 60% reduced stamina cost for running, jumping, and swimming.
• The Elder: 60% chopping and mining damage, plus 30% health regen.
• Bonemass: 25% resistance vs pierce, slash, and blunt, free block stamina, and 5 stamina returned per block.
• Moder: Permanent tailwind, +300 carry weight, +10% movement speed, 50% frost resistance.
• Yagluth: 50% lightning resistance, +25 Farming skill, +10% damage.
• The Queen: Doubled Eitr regen, free sneak, 50% poison resistance.
• Fader: Doubled Adrenaline gain, halved stagger meter modifier, 50% fire resistance.

Fader's Adrenaline bonus is the obvious pairing for any Trinket-focused build.

New Crafting Materials, Foods, and Gear

The new enemies and locations open up a fresh supply chain:

• Materials: Blob Vial (purchasable), Ectoplasm, Ghost Trophy, Bear Hide, Bear Trophy, Bear Paw, Vile Trophy, Vile Ribcage.
• Food: Bear Meat.
• Bear armor set: Patterns of the Bear (chest), Loincloth of the Bear (legs), Headdress of the Bear (helm).
• Vilebone set: Vilebone Cage (chest), Vilebone Drapes (legs), Vilebone Visage (helm).
• Cosmetic: Sweat Band hat (purchasable).

New weapons include the Paws of the Bear and Vilebone Maulclaws fist weapons, the Black Metal Battleaxe, the Skull Splittur Battleaxe, and five flavors of Bottled Blob: Poison, Oozer, Tar, Lava, and Frost.

The Trinket Lineup

Thirteen Trinkets ship in this update:

• Heart of the Forest
• Bronze Pendant
• Iron Brooch
• Nimble Anklet
• Crystal Heart
• Wolf Sight
• Fins of Destiny
• Evasion Mantle
• Bracelets of the Brave
• Pulsating Earrings
• Resounding Shackle
• Jörmundling
• Brimstone

Each one triggers a different effect at full Adrenaline, so experimentation will matter more than copying the first build guide you find.

Build Pieces, Furniture, and Cosmetics

• CombatRuin01 is a new world location to discover.
• Archery Target and Battle Brother practice dummies for your base.
• Bearskin Rug furniture piece.
• 3 new hairstyles: Mullet, Castellan, Vinland Shave.
• 5 new beard styles: Mustache, Handlebar, Trimmed, Waxed, Crumb Catcher.

Item Stand Expansion

A long list of items can now sit on item stands: Barley Flour, Tankard, Ancient Seed, Dragon Tear, Volture Egg, Cores, Padded Helmet, Carapace Helme, Fresh Seaweed, Fragrant Bundle, Thistle, and Celestial Feather.

Positions and orientations were also retuned for an even longer list of categories: Atgeirs, Axes, Bombs, Bows, Crossbows, Knives, Maces, Pickaxes, Shields, Sledges, Spears, Staffs, Swords, Tower Shields, all Fish, all Helmets, Cooked Lox Meat, Rotten Meat, Blueberries, Carrot, Cooked Bonemaw Meat, Cooked Serpent Meat, Cooked Neck Tail, Cooked Boar Meat, Raspberry, all Meads, Cultivator, Feaster, Fishing Rod, Hammer, Hoe, Scythe, Asksvin Saddle, Lox Saddle, all Trophies, Goblin Totem, and Scythe Handle. If you keep a trophy hall, it will look noticeably better.

Engine and Visual Changes

• Ghost visuals received a full overhaul.
• Localisation strings were updated.
• Old hairstyle names were renamed.
• The Unity engine was upgraded to 6000.0.46f.

Bug Fixes

A generous helping of small but important fixes:

• Community servers are advertised again on non-Steam platforms.
• UGC text is filtered properly for Mac App Store users who were not signed into Game Center when writing.
• Log spam from hovering over signs, tamed animals, or portals with no name or text is gone.
• UGC from muted players now shows separate text instead of the generic "TEXT HIDDEN, CHECK UGC SETTINGS" string.
• Shield generators now take damage even when a different client than the attacker has network ownership.
• Join code in the pause menu hides correctly when HUD visibility is toggled off.
• Join code copy-to-clipboard works again.
• Block list sync between local and cloud storage is more reliable.
• UI input loss at low frame rates is fixed.
• Select button now works correctly with an Xbox One Controller on macOS.
• Tab navigation can no longer escape popups in the world and server selection menus.
• The developer console can now be enabled in the settings menu. The `-console` command line argument still overrides the setting.
• Integers with a value of zero are no longer reset to their default when loading a save.
• Copying a non-existent join code with a gamepad is no longer possible.
• Modded text in the start menu has been relocated.

Server List Rewrite

This is the section long-time hosts will care about. The full server list code was rewritten for performance, reliability, and scalability:

• A new "refreshing" icon replaces "?" while a query is in flight. The "?" icon now signals that matchmaking data could not be retrieved but the server may still be online.
• The community list no longer loads in the background unless you visit the friends or community tab. This stops Steam from saturating some users' connections.
• Matchmaking data retrieval through PlayFab no longer trips its rate limit.
• Typing "R" in the filter box no longer refreshes the list.
• For modders: the displayed player limit is no longer hard coded.

Steam Only

• Profile pictures in-game no longer look washed out and now generate mipmaps to reduce aliasing at lower resolutions.
• Matchmaking data for Steam-backend servers can now be retrieved through Steam itself, which speeds up favorites and recents.

Xbox Only

• A notification now appears when resuming from suspend mode if you were kicked from a server during suspension.
• The developer console is disabled by default and gated behind the new gameplay setting.
• Friends server list retrieval is massively faster.

Where to Read Everything

The complete writeup lives on the official patch notes page. The short version: combat is more responsive, exploration has new threats worth fearing, and self-hosted Valheim servers should be noticeably snappier in the matchmaking layer.