Pickaxes is the skill that determines how effectively you use pickaxes in Valheim, making mining faster and less demanding as the skill increases.
You will naturally gain levels while gathering Stone and mining ores throughout your progression, although there are ways to increase the skill much faster.
A higher Pickaxes skill becomes especially useful during large mining trips, allowing you to break deposits quicker while consuming less stamina with each swing.
Pickaxes Skill Effects
Increasing your Pickaxes skill improves the damage and knockback dealt with pickaxes while gradually reducing the stamina consumed whenever you perform an attack.
The additional damage allows you to break rocks and mining deposits with fewer swings, helping you gather large quantities of resources much more efficiently.
Reduced stamina consumption also becomes increasingly useful during extended mining sessions, especially when clearing large deposits that require plenty of repeated pickaxe swings.
How to Level Up Pickaxes Skill?
You gain 1.5 Pickaxes XP whenever a pickaxe attack successfully hits Stone or a valid Ore Deposit, making successful mining swings the main source of experience.
The amount of damage you deal does not affect the experience received from each hit, so stronger pickaxes will not directly provide more XP per swing.
Regularly mining Stone and ore deposits throughout your progression will therefore increase Pickaxes naturally while providing the resources needed for crafting, building, and equipment upgrades.
Best Way to Level Up Pickaxes Skill Fast
One of the best ways to level Pickaxes is to clear large mining deposits, allowing you to gain plenty of experience while gathering resources you will actually need.
Copper Deposits are particularly useful during early progression because of their large size, giving you plenty of opportunities to land successful hits before completely clearing them.
We recommend maintaining the Rested bonus whenever possible, as its increased skill experience gain allows every mining session to contribute considerably more toward your Pickaxes levels.
Does Digging Terrain Level Pickaxes?
Lowering or reshaping ordinary terrain with a pickaxe does not provide Pickaxes experience, even though each swing still consumes your stamina and the tool’s durability.
Pickaxes experience is instead awarded when your attack successfully connects with Stone or a valid Ore Deposit, making the object you strike important when training the skill.
Repeatedly digging into ordinary ground is therefore ineffective for leveling Pickaxes, and you are better off spending that time mining Stone or useful resources instead.
Does Pickaxes Skill Let You Mine Stronger Ores?
Increasing your Pickaxes skill does not allow lower-tier pickaxes to damage resources that normally require a stronger tool, regardless of how high your skill becomes.
Your equipped pickaxe determines which mining targets you are capable of damaging, while the Pickaxes skill improves your effectiveness when using that particular tool.
This means even a character with level 100 Pickaxes must continue crafting stronger pickaxes as they progress into biomes containing higher-tier mining resources.
Pickaxe Tool Tiers
Pickaxes have different tool tiers that determine which mining targets they can damage, beginning with the Antler Pickaxe before progressing through increasingly stronger options.
The Antler Pickaxe is tier 0, the Bronze Pickaxe is tier 1, the Iron Pickaxe is tier 2, and the Black Metal Pickaxe is tier 3.
Higher-tier resources require an appropriate pickaxe before they can be damaged, making equipment progression just as important as increasing your Pickaxes skill.
What Does Each Pickaxe Tier Mine?
Early resources such as Copper and Tin can be gathered with the Antler Pickaxe, allowing you to begin metal progression immediately after defeating Eikthyr.
Resources such as Silver and Obsidian require a tier 2 pickaxe, meaning you will need an Iron Pickaxe or stronger before you can successfully mine them.
Later materials including Black Marble, Giant Remains, and Flametal require a tier 3 pickaxe, making the Black Metal Pickaxe necessary for gathering these resources.
Maximum Pickaxes Skill Level
The maximum Pickaxes skill level is 100, providing the largest possible improvements to the damage, knockback, and stamina efficiency of your pickaxe attacks.
At level 100, Pickaxes provide approximately 141% increased damage and knockback while reducing pickaxe stamina consumption by around 33% compared with level 0.
These improvements become especially noticeable when clearing large deposits, as stronger attacks and reduced stamina consumption allow you to continue mining much more efficiently.
Does Pickaxes Skill Decrease When You Die?
Pickaxes are affected by Valheim’s normal death penalty, meaning dying can remove some of the levels you have accumulated through previous mining sessions.
A normal death reduces your current skill levels by 5%, although additional skill loss is temporarily prevented while the No Skill Drain effect remains active.
Losing Pickaxes levels becomes increasingly noticeable at higher levels, where recovering the lost experience can require a considerable amount of additional mining.
Verdict
Pickaxes are worth leveling throughout your progression, as its increased damage and reduced stamina consumption make gathering Stone and valuable ores considerably more efficient.
Mining resources normally will steadily increase the skill, while large deposits and the Rested bonus provide an effective approach when you specifically want more experience.
However, skill level never replaces pickaxe progression, making stronger tools essential whenever you begin encountering resources with higher mining-tier requirements.
