Deathsquitos in Valheim: 10 Health, 90 Pierce, and No Weaknesses at All
The Deathsquito has 10 health. It is the frailest aggressive creature in Valheim — a single hit from anything kills it. It also deals 90 Pierce in one sting, which is more than enough to kill a player arriving in the Plains for the first time. That ratio, 9 damage dealt for every 1 point of health, is not matched by anything else in the game.
On sourcing. Iron Gate do not publish system documentation. The figures below come from the community wikis and can change with any patch.
The Numbers
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Location | Plains |
| Faction | Plains |
| Health | 10 — no star variants |
| Attack | Sting: 90 Pierce |
| Weak to | Nothing |
| Resistant to | Nothing |
| Immune to | Spirit, Stagger |
| Drops | Needle (1, guaranteed), trophy 5% |
The resistance table is nearly empty, and that is unusual. Almost every Valheim creature has something it fears and something it shrugs off; the Deathsquito has neither a weakness nor a resistance. Fire, Frost, Poison, Blunt, Slash, Pierce — all deal exactly normal damage. With 10 health, that hardly matters. Anything kills it.
Immune to stagger is the one entry that has practical weight, and only barely: at 10 health you are not staggering it, you are killing it.
The Sting
| Attack | Damage | Reach | Cooldown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sting | 90 Pierce | 1.6 m, 60-degree horizontal arc | 10 seconds |
Two numbers deserve attention.
90 Pierce is the headline. Against a player in Troll or Bronze armour arriving early in the Plains, that is a one-shot or close to it. It is why the Plains has a reputation for killing people who wander in from the Meadows without noticing the biome changed.
The 10-second cooldown is the mercy, and it is rarely mentioned. A Deathsquito that stings you cannot sting again for ten full seconds. You survive the first hit, and then you have ten seconds to kill something with 10 health. Framed that way it is not a hard fight — it is a hard ambush, and the difference matters.
Where They Come From
| Spawn | Detail |
|---|---|
| Anywhere in the Plains | Limit 3, frequency 3, no stars |
Three things: no star variants exist, so every Deathsquito in every world has 10 health and stings for 90; the limit is 3, so you cannot be swarmed by more than three at once from ordinary spawning; and they can appear anywhere in the biome, not at fixed points, which is why there is no safe route through open Plains.
The absence of stars is significant. Most Plains creatures scale — Fulings come in three tiers — but the Deathsquito is the same everywhere. It never gets more dangerous than it is on day one, which means your gear catches up to it and your awareness has to carry you until it does.
Hearing Them First
Deathsquitos give off a loud buzzing noise, and that audio cue is the actual defence mechanism. The Plains is open and bright and a Deathsquito is small against a wide sky, so most players hear one long before they see it.
Practical routine:
- Play with sound on in the Plains, more than in any other biome.
- Stop moving when you hear the buzz and locate it before continuing. Running while a Deathsquito closes is how the 90 Pierce lands.
- Face it. The sting has a 1.6-metre, 60-degree arc, so it must get close and in front of you.
- Block or parry. A shield turns the encounter into nothing, and its 10 health means the follow-up kills it.
- Then remember the 10 seconds. Even a clean hit on you buys a long window.
What They Drop
| Drop | Rate |
|---|---|
| Needle | 1, guaranteed |
| Deathsquito trophy | 5% |
Needles are the reason to kill them deliberately. They make Needle arrows at 62 Pierce — above Obsidian's 52 and behind only the Mistlands Carapace arrow at 72 — and they carry 15 knockback instead of the usual 10. There is no substitute source: Needles come from Deathsquitos and nowhere else, and every kill produces exactly one, guaranteed.
The symmetry is nice: the creature that hits you for 90 Pierce hands you the material for the best Pierce arrows in the game to that point.
The 5% trophy rate is stingy — twenty kills on average, which is a lot of Plains crossings.
Killing Them
- Anything works. No weaknesses, no resistances, 10 health. Use whatever is in your hand.
- Sound is the real counter. The buzz precedes the sting.
- Block it. A shield removes the threat entirely, and it dies to your counter.
- Do not sprint through open Plains. You outrun your ability to react to the buzz.
- Wear the best armour you have before crossing. 90 Pierce against light armour is lethal; against Iron or better it is survivable.
- Collect Needles deliberately. One per kill, guaranteed, and the only source of Needle arrows.
- Never fear a second sting quickly. The cooldown is 10 seconds.
Running your own Valheim server
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Conclusion
The Deathsquito has 10 health, no star variants, and neither a weakness nor a resistance — it takes normal damage from everything and dies to a single hit from anything you own. Against that it deals 90 Pierce in one sting, a ratio of nine damage per point of health that nothing else in Valheim matches, and it is why the Plains kills unprepared players instantly. The number that reframes the fight is the 10-second cooldown: survive the first sting and you have ten full seconds to kill something with 10 health. It spawns anywhere in the Plains at a limit of 3 with no stars, so it never scales — the one you meet at hour one is identical to the one you meet at hour two hundred. The genuine counter is audio: it emits a loud buzz, and stopping to locate that sound before it closes to its 1.6-metre, 60-degree sting arc is what separates a non-event from a corpse run. Each one drops a guaranteed Needle, the sole source of Needle arrows, so the creature that hits hardest for its size also funds the best Pierce arrows available before the Mistlands — 62 Pierce with 15 knockback, against Obsidian's 52 and 10.
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