Fists can easily be overlooked when your bare hands initially deal very little damage, but dedicated fist weapons eventually turn the skill into a proper combat option.
Every successful fist attack contributes experience, gradually improving your damage while making the quick strikes associated with these weapons easier on your stamina.
Valheim 1.0 also provides more equipment for this playstyle, giving you several ways to build around Fists instead of relying entirely on barehanded attacks.
Fists Skill Effects
Fists increases the damage and knockback of barehanded attacks alongside dedicated weapons that belong to the Fists category.
Higher levels also reduce the stamina required for these attacks, allowing you to maintain longer combinations before needing to recover.
These improvements remain relevant whenever you replace one fist weapon with another, since they all continue benefiting from the same accumulated skill.
How to Level Up Fists Skill?
You gain 1.5 Fists XP per attack when successfully hitting a creature with your bare hands or a weapon governed by the Fists skill.
Simply throwing punches without hitting anything will not provide experience, so you need actual targets when deliberately trying to raise the skill.
Fist weapons also contribute normally, allowing you to continue gaining levels without restricting yourself to weak unarmed punches throughout your progression.
Best Way to Level Up Fists Skill Fast
Fighting manageable creatures with quick repeated attacks provides a straightforward way to accumulate Fists experience without exposing yourself to unnecessarily dangerous encounters.
Bare hands can work for early training because their low damage lets enemies survive more hits, although killing anything this way can become painfully slow.
Once you obtain a proper fist weapon, we recommend using it during ordinary combat so your skill continues developing while you actually make useful progress.
Keep Rested active whenever possible for the 50% additional skill experience, particularly when spending a longer session deliberately training against enemies.
Do Fist Weapons Level Fists?
Dedicated fist weapons use Fists just like ordinary unarmed attacks, giving you considerably stronger ways to continue developing the skill later in the game.
Your existing Fists levels apply when switching to these weapons, so time spent developing the skill beforehand is not wasted when you finally obtain a stronger option.
This makes dedicated fist weapons the practical choice for continuing to level Fists once barehanded attacks become too weak for the enemies you regularly encounter.
Paws of the Bear and Fists
The Paws of the Bear provide an earlier dedicated Fists weapon, making them a natural option when you want to move beyond the extremely low damage of bare hands.
They deal Slash damage and use a quick two-hit primary combination, with the second attack dealing increased damage when you successfully continue the sequence.
Because the weapon is governed by Fists, all of your existing skill levels improve its performance while successful attacks continue providing additional Fists experience.
This makes the Paws particularly useful for developing the skill through actual combat instead of deliberately punching weaker enemies purely for additional levels.
Bear Set for a Fists Build
The complete Bear Set does not directly increase your Fists level, but it can complement the Paws of the Bear because the weapon deals Slash damage.
Its full-set bonus provides +10% Slash and Chop damage, meaning the Paws receive additional damage while you are wearing all of the required Bear armor pieces.
You also receive +30% health regeneration and +15% stamina regeneration, with the additional stamina recovery being particularly useful during aggressive close-range combat.
The drawback is 25% weakness to Blunt, Slash, and Pierce damage, so the set rewards an offensive playstyle while making poorly timed melee exchanges more dangerous.
Fenris Set for a Fists Build
The Fenris Set provides a more direct benefit to the skill itself, with the complete armor set granting +15 Fists while all three pieces are equipped.
Those additional effective levels immediately improve the performance of your Fists attacks, making the set especially useful before your naturally trained skill approaches level 100.
Fenris Armor also increases movement speed and provides Fire resistance, giving fist users additional mobility when closing distance or repositioning around enemies.
The skill bonus cannot push your effective Fists beyond level 100, so its relative benefit becomes smaller as your naturally trained level approaches the maximum.
Does Punching Objects Level Fists?
Punching trees, structures, rocks, and other ordinary objects does not provide Fists experience because progression requires your attack to successfully hit a creature.
You therefore cannot train the skill by standing safely inside your base and repeatedly attacking walls or other convenient objects.
Find manageable creatures instead, preferably ones that can survive several attacks without dealing enough damage to make prolonged close-range training dangerous.
Does Fists Skill Increase Unarmed Damage?
Your ordinary punches benefit from Fists even when no weapon is equipped, meaning barehanded damage gradually improves as you accumulate more skill levels.
Bare fists begin with only 5 Blunt damage, however, so increasing the skill does not suddenly make completely unarmed combat competitive with proper weapons.
Their low starting damage can be useful for deliberately accumulating repeated hits, but fist weapons are where the skill becomes much more practical for actual combat.
Once you equip a dedicated Fists weapon, your accumulated skill applies to a much stronger starting attack while preserving the fast close-range fighting style.
Maximum Fists Skill Level
Fists reach its maximum at level 100, providing the largest possible improvements to damage, knockback, and stamina efficiency for compatible attacks.
At maximum skill, Fists provides approximately 141% additional damage and knockback compared with the results produced at level 0.
Attack stamina consumption is also reduced by approximately 33%, helping you maintain longer offensive combinations before your available stamina becomes exhausted.
Does Fists Skill Decrease When You Die?
Dying can reduce Fists alongside your other affected skills, potentially removing progress accumulated through unarmed combat and dedicated fist weapons.
The normal death penalty removes 5% of your current skill levels, while No Skill Drain temporarily protects you from another immediate reduction afterward.
Fists can take more deliberate effort to rebuild if you normally use another weapon class, making repeated deaths particularly noticeable on a specialized fist build.
Verdict
Fists starts as an extremely weak unarmed option but becomes a legitimate fighting style once you begin using weapons specifically designed around the skill.
Paws of the Bear provides a practical weapon for developing Fists, while the Bear and Fenris sets offer two different ways to complement a dedicated build.
Keep using fist weapons during normal combat and maintain Rested whenever possible, allowing your damage and stamina efficiency to improve without relying entirely on dedicated training.
