Going out on a River Raid is now one of the best activities you can take part in in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. With River Raid Update installed, players can head out and attack locations along new rivers. These locations will replenish after a period of time, making this some truly enjoyable repeatable content. In this guide, we’ll cover our best tips for heading out on these raids.
Start the Quests
You can’t just raid straight away. You need to speak to a new NPC who will have arrived at your settlement. From there, you can complete a few quests, including building two new locations in your settlement. These will allow you to do two things. One is for going out on raids. It’s where you’ll customize your longboat, pick your crew, and then leave.
The second building is the Jomsviking Hall. This is where you can hire Jomsvikings from other players. You can upgrade it to hire better warriors over time, but to keep upgrading you’ll need more supplies.
Hire a Full Crew and Raid
After completing the necessary quests, you can raid. The only issue you may have is having enough Jomsvikings hired. You need to hire a full crew and then equip them as you head out on a raid. This will make it easier to loot more locations along each river. Without a full crew, you won’t survive very long.
Upgrade the Jomsviking Hall First
To start with, your longboat can carry a maximum of 200 supplies. Use that first 200 supplies to upgrade your Jomsviking Hall. It’ll allow you to hire slightly better warriors. These will serve you well on future raids. It’s all well and good having the right equipment, but without the right crew, you’ll die fast.
The first upgrade will open up the hall to level 2 Jomsvikings. Make sure you refresh the warriors in the hall regularly. This will open up more for you to choose from. Yours will also upgrade over time, so keep an eye on your overall crew levels.
Upgrade Your Longboat Second
The second upgrade you need to make is to your longboat. This will upgrade the storage capacity it has. It’ll mean that you can return from a raid with more supplies, and raid for longer. This is where you’ll start to really notice how long you can raid for.
The longer raids will take their toll on your crew. They’ll take more damage, and some may even get injured. However, the added rewards that you can pick up could totally change your settlement. Soon you’ll be able to afford the next upgrade for the Jomsviking Hall, which opens up the road to even better warriors in your crew.
Now that we’ve touched upon where you should focus with your upgrades, let’s talk about how you attack.
Kill All Enemies First
Every time you start raiding a location, make sure that you kill the enemies first. Wipe them all out before you pick up any loot. Sometimes your crew will begin opening a door or collecting some loot. Help them if that happens, but otherwise, you should attack all the soldiers you can see.
If you take down as many soldiers as possible, there will be less to injure your crew. Keeping your crew in good health is the only way to raid for longer. You really need to keep on top of the enemies, otherwise they’ll overwhelm you.
Sometimes you’ll find some truly challenging enemies in your way. Your crew is very good at taking them down, but you need to support them. Use Eivor’s abilities to your advantage. Take the bigger enemies down first, and you’ll be okay.
Alternate the Rivers
You should never raid the same river twice in a row. Every time you raid, you’ll increase a river’s reinforcement level. This means that the next locations you raid will have more enemies protecting it. It also increases the level of river defenses that there are. These can destroy your boat, or leave you sitting in the water while enemies pepper you with arrows.
It’s important to raid a different river every time you raid. Even if the reinforcement levels are high, you can’t raid the same river twice in a row. Not only will there be fewer rewards to collect, but there will be more enemies and defenses everywhere.
By choosing a new river, you’ll have less enemies to take on, and there will be more rewards. Even if those rewards are small, it’s worth taking the new river on.
Rest Your Crew
Between raids, it’s important to rest your crew. This doesn’t mean swapping out every crew member between raids. It does however, mean switching out the crew who are injured. These members will be weaker if you take them into battle. They’ll also die if you take them in and they die.
By resting crew for a single raid, you’ll allow them to rebuild their strength. That way, they can come back out on a raid next time. You need to keep on top of this and manage your crew well if you’re going to be a successful raider.
As we’ve mentioned a lot, the more you raid, the more rewards you can bring home. It’s worth resting up members of your crew so that they can live, gain experience, level up, and be better in the future.
The higher the level of your crew, the better you’ll perform in your raids. That’s just how it works. Eivor is powerful, but they can’t do the raid all on their own. Working with the Vikings that other players have created will make you and them a better warrior.
Overall, you need to think like a commander. Do what’s right for the crew, and make sure you always end a raid by surviving. If you die, you’ll lose everything you’ve gathered in that raid. There is nothing more infuriating than losing all of that loot. Make sure you avoid that fate and push to be the best raider you possibly can.