Grausten Building Guide for Valheim Ashlands

[@JPValheim]

Just to be clear, you can use flametal the way I showed wood iron beams in the video :) I just used wood-iron beams because they are cheaper

[@Veklim]

A couple of friends and I have just finished an EPIC grausten cathedral build whichs proves beyond doubt that it's an amazing material. You barely even touched on the things you can do with the pilars and arches, we've made some awesome windows, vaulted ceilings, flying butresses and ornate cornices. When you combine it with the new decorative ashwood pieces it is truly gorgeous, anyone who thinks it's a boring or bad material to work with has literally no clue what they're talking about.

[@JPValheim]

Its shocking to me how much people complain about everything xD That sounds like an epic build, must be really fun to work on !

[@Veklim]

@@JPValheim it really has been, yeah. I'm finding it more and more satisfying to work on collaborative builds lately, it's great when you find a group of people who get excited about the whole process and work well together.

[@walturwhit]

All hail the Holy Waffle Batter!! 😉

[@Veklim]

@@walturwhit HAH! Yes indeed!

[@gunnora]

Pictures, please!

[@shinjiikari5174]

I genuinely think that the vast majority of the complaints people may still have - especially now that the snapping glitches have been fixed - are entirely a skill issue. Or a creativity issue, for that matter. These building blocks are absolutely godly for building finely detailed, versatile and diverse structures, giving you far more freedom than normal stone and black marble ever had or could give you. Just think outside the box a little, you know? It's incredibly easy to build some gorgeous, monumental structures with these and although the default aesthetic is gothic, the simplicity and small size of the blocks allow you to force entirely different looks onto it with the right amount of effort and creativity, not to mention its use in conjunction with other materials, such as ashwood or stone, which gives even more variety to work with. My only personal complaints are the following: 1) Centre snapping points for walls and floor tiles would be nice. I hate always having to place auxiliary blocks or doors every time something doesn't snap where it logically should. 2) 26° roof tiles... I mean, wtf, Iron Gate? Why not? The other two roof variants have 45° AND 26°, so what on earth held y'all up this time? I don't get it... ;-; 3) On that note, some *_straight_* 45° and 26° pillars/supports would also be pretty nifty. While gothic architecture tends to have more diagonal lines that are _rounded_ rather than straight, the latter can still make for some impressive, beautiful and complex supports... yeah, buddy, I'm talking about them flying buttresses! We've all seen'em, we all love'em, and we sure as hell can't get enough of them, but sadly, they are just *_barely_* even possible with the pieces we currently have, only with some really clunky overlapping of inverted well arches over medium arches... It's a bloody shame, honestly. The gothic aesthetic feels a bit incomplete in some builds without that feature being available. But even with all that said, Grausten is still a solid 9.5/10, would recommend! 👌

[@JPValheim]

This comment has more information than the video I made xD Awesome feedback!

[@Khorothis]

This was very educational, thank you! Grausten really makes you think differently than you were used to (I'm saying that as someone who is still stuck in building, well, on a Plains level).

[@JPValheim]

Paso a paso! Have fun, dont worry about your building level, the tomato plant starts as a tiny seed, its size does not matter. In the same way, your building progression may start simple, but become complex over time. No rush, and no worries! Just focus on what you feel interested in doing

[@Khorothis]

@@JPValheim Cheers mate, I appreciate that!

[@svan4748]

I love grausten, it basically forces you to decorate the walls

[@JPValheim]

Yeah, like a canvas. I wonder what itll be like with the final pieces from Deep North

[@kettch777]

you can also use grausten beams instead of the ironwood beams as well. Since they actually included a stone beam piece.

[@JPValheim]

I like how shiney the flametal looks :) Have you noticed anything different about it compared to the iron beams? Ive only noticed a visual difference

[@gunnora]

I wish you'd spent a little more time showing the use of the weird grausten corner pieces. However, knowing that they're weird makes me happier that it's not just me thinking so!

[@JPValheim]

Good points !

[@TheLohoc]

Nice showcase of the new material. I am really enjoying working with it. For supports I found that the walls and flooring center perfectly using the iron cage pieces. The iron doesn't show through like it does with wood or stone.

[@JPValheim]

Thanks for the tips!

[@homiiciidalkiitten6650]

I build myself a new forge with grausten and the roof pieces made for perfect ventilation instead of building ton of chimneys, I just added those little "corner" pieces and all the smokes goes out. I love them and the ashwoods ones... mixed with the existing ones you can build amazing things

[@JPValheim]

It does look great to combine them, I have barely done that yet !

[@max784020]

Exactly what i was looking for, thx pal.

[@JPValheim]

Have fun building !

[@Aliefr3550]

Big warning about building in ruins, from everything I've done in game, it seems like the ruins have a very very small amount of hp, so they crumble like paper

[@JPValheim]

They do break easy, barely any health considering they are large stone ruins !

[@DoomsdayDame]

I can confirm after I spent days stabilizing and building multiple ocean ruins together. My buddy loaded a catapult facing my kitchen wall that was old and ruined and covered in grape vines.. soon after there was no more wall lol

[@360lootgoon3]

It’s cut stone, it’s supposed to look blocky. lol. Sure, you gotta get a little extra creative to make it look better, but I enjoy it. Black marble is great for accent pieces, so is the ashwood, iron and Dverger pieces. I replaced all the wood in my Lox breeder with grausten, as 1 tiny bat raid would have my Lox’s smashing through the floors and beams, and since grausten is immune from rain, it doesn’t decay from not having a roof. It’s also great for Asksvin breeders, any starred Asksvin will easily smash through most other building material when a twitcher walks by or god forbid a lava blob comes plopping along if it’s in the Ashlands. If you bring some eggs home and make a breeder wherever your base is, even a lowly greydwarf tossing a rock at it is enough to make the asksvin go smashing through walls. Grausten holds up pretty well. I like it, kinda wish they’d add more roof pieces though, maybe some 26 degree pieces. A lot of my builds have those roofs, and the look would be totally different if I tried to switch em out for the 45 grausten roofs.

[@JPValheim]

Great points :) Love it !

[@mardy3732]

The best way to trim a roof imo is with the grausten steep stairs, if you use a door to snap them slightly outward they give a very nice gabled facade look.

[@JPValheim]

Thats a cool idea - you can climb it too !

[@matdawg710]

Been loving building with these peices and like the ideas you got here!

[@JPValheim]

Its been fun :) What have you made?

[@calebroubieu6498]

Hey man I watch a lot of your videos and I just wanna let you know you make great Valheim content 🎉

[@JPValheim]

If you watch one of the videos and then feel like playing Valheim, thats what I'm trying to do :)

[@crazlady8648]

Super cool looking!! Can't wait to get to this lvl in game an explore the Ashlands an build

[@JPValheim]

Its a blast !

[@PotatoePC]

Back into the game since... well last time I was in. Haven't hit the new content yet but some of your tips were "oh really?" moments for me. Helpful even now (ie stone blocks act as roofs - I had no idea). TY

[@JPValheim]

Glad to know! I saw the stone roof thing recently with regular stone and it blew my mind too

[@PotatoePC]

@@JPValheim I was redoing my main build but it turned into a monstrosity. the roof was just too big. I worked on it today after watching your video and it is sooooo much better.

[@JPValheim]

Roofs are so tricky !

[@scottpavageaux3420]

Great video. Well put together and very helpful tip. Really appreciate the time and effort.

[@JPValheim]

Now I need to make one about Ashwood !

[@mindcraftelover]

For the door frame i just use the flametal beam for more flametal look and I notice you didn’t add any flametal to your builds too.

[@JPValheim]

I havent learned about the Ashwood or the Flametal properly yet, just focused on Grausten to make the video :) Flametal is so shiny, I definitely like how it looks reminds me of krom !

[@yagizc3842]

thanks these builds are reeeallllyy helpful

[@JPValheim]

Glad you like them!

[@adammaysz4324]

will you make a video featuring the new ashwood too? great video btw

[@JPValheim]

Yeah :) Ashwood is on the list now !

[@joaopaulozalamenacorrealim2596]

My only problem with this building material is that you cant snap 2 arches to de same base, making it a little to finnicky to build some of the things i'm trying to build

[@JPValheim]

I noticed that as well - feels like something they will patch because putting 2 arches to the same base is common in building !

[@marcos8266]

You mentioned the iron beams. Are flametal beams any better? And is there a way multiple grausten arches can share one snappoint? Thanks in advance 🙂

[@JPValheim]

Im under the impression that all metal works the same stability wise; so you could use flametal bars instead of iron beams; but there won't be that much of a difference. Flametal looks cooler but is much harder to get; so it depends how you are playing really

[@ButterPuddleonPC]

didnt talk about the flametal pillar or the flametal beam? are they better then iron pillar/beams? wiki just says "they are currently the only structures that can be built directly in the lava" which gives me a crazy idea for a cool lava base lol. edit: i do see its a grausten building video but you did cover the gate

[@JPValheim]

I have mostly practiced with Grausten, still gotta get my feet wet with flametal and ashwood ! Ive heard people talk about making lava bases, havent tried it myself though. Something about the lava burst that the lava spits out, you have to build out of range of that, unless flametal is immune or something like you mention! Sounds cool

[@geraldofrancisco5206]

really cool tips

[@JPValheim]

Glad you liked it :)

[@scroletyper8286]

Hey I like the grausten.

[@NexusEhh]

I speedran to the Ashlands before Yagluth and Mistlands and just barely managed to make a base in the sea spikes, taking my time chipping away at what I need for the stone but man, it’s the roughest thing I’ve done in game so far. The build pieces are worth the struggle, but it’s horrid

[@JPValheim]

Horrid is a great word to describe it xD Esp with the waves going up and down lol

[@johndoe5224]

Anyone know how i can make my world look like that? is that a graphics setting or something? my ashlands sky is all red and sometimes full of ash but in this video its very clear

[@JPValheim]

In the video I use a devcommand, "envclear" which removes the weather affects

[@johndoe5224]

@@JPValheim thank you so much

[@Daniel-vg7yl]

the issue with grausten profiles not matching or aligning really triggers me. It feels like the developers never much test building with the very limited blocks, and the 'gaps' even after snapping triggers me ever more.

[@JPValheim]

It is apparent that they didnt intend people to use grausten without the pillar pieces. Definitely looks weird without pillars framing everything. It is irritating that the arches that don't snap when another arch is there already. Thats annoying and theres tons of times where 2 arches would snap into the same place ! So I feel you there

[@bondklingerman5375]

I’m having an issue no matter where I build with this. It falls apart within a day and my whole build just is destroyed by the time I login the next morning. Everything’s green by the time I log out all is fixed and looking great log back in the next morning. It’s all falling apart and random locations not in the same place either. It’s very aggravating. Any assistance would be helpful. we’ve tried building in the Ashlands with it. We tried building anywhere else to make it look good. It just falls apart randomly.

[@JPValheim]

I'm not sure exactly whats happening with yours, but there seems to be some kind of issue with the structural integrity system when its close to breaking. You can accidentally trick the system into placing a full structure piece, which then will make you think you are building onto an area that is stable, when it will actually fall apart once the calculations finish (which takes tens of minutes after the last piece was added) I've only noticed this with grausten, I saw it in a test I did earlier today. I placed metal and grausten together and it took forever for all of the stuff to break and settle. Then I logged out and back in and the structure was recalculated and the top pieces of the test stack all lost one unit

[@JPValheim]

You can avoid that by making sure none of the structure is close to breaking (keep the whole thing orange). To do that, youd need to ground metal beams into terrain and put them up into the highest parts of the build from the ground. The cage pieces are sometimes better support wise than the beams I showed in the video

[@mannemannen7211]

im much more annoyed over not having any 1x1 or 1x2 m wallpieces, which makes making windows or fixing gaps really annoying when u switch between 2 floors or from wall to roof distances. and not having any ridges for the roof or 26 roofpieces also really bothers me. would also have wanted some beams, once more for fixing gaps but also for decorations around windows.

[@JPValheim]

Deep North probably :) Iron Gate in an interview recently said "We only gave you a few of the build pieces in Ashlands, all the rest are from Deep North"

[@ExtremerSurfer]

I won't build with grausten until I get decent roof options. Really lazy def work. ROOF CORNERS NOW!

[@JPValheim]

Supposedly theyll give us something in Deep North

[@cgrvrc]

grausten = soviet blocks

[@lowrider6419]

The new material looks like a concrete slab to me, I still don't like it) but anyway big thx for your efforts 👍

[@JPValheim]

Yeah, it does have that look. I thought it was weird at first but I like it now, Grausten is like the base canvas, then other stuff adds colors and details to it

[@thorsmith59]

These pieces are so out of place in this game it's ridiculous! It's a game about Norse mythology, Not Christian cathedrals!

[@JPValheim]

By that logic you should eliminate everything in the game after mountains

[@trengilly01]

My Viking got fed up with all the crap Odin was making him do and went ahead and added a chapel off the side of his existing castle.

[@JPValheim]

Odin wills we all make chapels. Who knows, maybe the deep north will be full of cathedrals to raid xD

[@thorsmith59]

@@JPValheim Agreed!