Every Knife in Valheim: 6× Sneak Damage, and One That Only Kills Your Own Animals
Knives have the lowest damage figures of any Valheim weapon class — Skoll and Hati top out at 45, where a sword reaches 170. They also have the single largest damage multiplier in the game attached to them: knives deal 6× damage against unalerted enemies, where most other weapons do 3×. Used properly, a knife is not a weak weapon. Used improperly, it is the weakest one you own.
On sourcing. Iron Gate do not publish system documentation. The figures below come from the community wikis and can change with any patch.
Every Knife
| Knife | Damage | Stamina (primary / secondary) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flint knife | Slash 5/8, Pierce 5/8 | 4 / 12 | |
| Copper knife | Slash 12/15, Pierce 12/15 | 6 / 18 | |
| Butcher knife | Pure 1000 | 5 / — | Damages tamed animals only |
| Abyssal Razor | Slash 20/23, Pierce 20/23 | 8 / 24 | |
| Silver knife | Slash 25/28, Pierce 25/28, Spirit 12 | 10 / 30 | |
| Black metal knife | Slash 34/37, Pierce 34/37 | 12 / 36 | |
| Skoll and Hati | Slash 45/48, Pierce 45/48 | 14 / 42 | Dual-wielded |
Every combat knife deals Slash and Pierce simultaneously in equal amounts — a 34/37 Black metal knife is 34 Slash and 34 Pierce, not 17 of each. That dual typing is quietly valuable: it means a knife always has one of two damage types landing, which is more coverage than a spear or an atgeir gets.
Secondary stamina is triple primary — 4/12, 6/18, 8/24, 10/30, 12/36, 14/42 — the steepest secondary cost of any melee class, against the sword's double and the spear's plus-two.
The 6× Sneak Multiplier
The class description is one sentence and it is the entire class:
Knives deal 6× damage against unalerted enemies, whereas most other weapons do 3×.
Run the arithmetic on the top knife against the top sword:
| Weapon | Base | Sneak multiplier | Sneak damage | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skoll and Hati | Knife | 45 | 6× | 270 |
| Slayer | Sword | 170 | 3× | 510 |
A sword still wins on raw sneak damage, because 170 is nearly four times 45. What the knife wins on is stamina and speed: Skoll and Hati costs 14 stamina to Slayer's 20, attacks faster, and leaves your movement unencumbered.
The comparison that actually matters is against equal-tier weapons at the moment you are sneaking. A knife's 6× turns a 34-damage Black metal knife into a 204-damage opener — enough to kill outright most things you would be sneaking up on in the first place.
The class is a sneak-opener, not a duelling weapon. Once the enemy is alerted, the multiplier is gone and you are holding the weakest weapon in the game.
The Butcher Knife
Pure: 1000. It is the largest single damage figure attached to any player weapon in Valheim, and it has one restriction that makes it useless in combat:
Does damage only to tamed animals.
The Butcher knife is a husbandry tool. It kills your own boars, wolves and lox in one hit, cleanly, without the animal fleeing or fighting back — which is the entire point. Pure damage is a type nothing resists, and 1000 guarantees a one-hit kill on anything you have bred.
It costs 5 stamina and has no secondary attack. Carry one if you are running a pen; leave it in a chest otherwise, since it will do literally nothing to a Greydwarf.
Sneaking Is a Skill, and the Knife Rewards It
Because the multiplier only fires on unalerted enemies, a knife's real damage output is a function of your Sneak skill rather than your knife tier.
Sneak's max-level effects are -60% initial sneak visibility, -20% light-based visibility and -75% stamina usage, and the skill gains 0.05 per second while sneaking, rising to 0.5 when undetected within a creature's view range — a tenfold gain for sneaking near something rather than away from it.
That is the loop to run: sneak inside detection range without being seen, which levels Sneak ten times faster, which makes future approaches easier, which makes the 6× fire more often.
The Troll hide armour set carries +15 Sneak, which is why players wear it far past its armour tier — and it pairs directly with this weapon class.
When to Carry a Knife
- Carry one as an opener, not as a main weapon. The 6× is the whole value.
- Pair it with Troll hide's +15 Sneak and level Sneak by approaching, not avoiding.
- Use the dual Slash-and-Pierce typing. A knife always has one of two types landing, which is better coverage than a pure-Pierce spear.
- Skoll and Hati at 45/48 dual-wielded is the class ceiling and the only knife worth using after the opener.
- Do not pay the secondary. At triple the primary cost it is the worst stamina trade in melee.
- Keep a Butcher knife with your pens and nowhere else. Pure 1000, tamed animals only.
Running your own Valheim server
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Conclusion
Valheim's seven knives carry the lowest damage numbers in the game — Skoll and Hati peak at 45/48 where a sword reaches 170 — and the largest multiplier: 6× against unalerted enemies, where most weapons manage 3×. Every combat knife deals Slash and Pierce simultaneously at full value, giving better type coverage than a pure-Pierce spear or atgeir, but secondary attacks cost triple the primary — the steepest in melee. The sneak maths is honest: Slayer's 170 at 3× still beats Skoll and Hati's 45 at 6×, so the knife's edge is stamina, speed and mobility, not raw output — a Black metal knife's 34 becomes a 204-damage opener, enough to kill most things you would sneak up on. The class rewards the Sneak skill rather than the weapon tier, which is why Troll hide's +15 Sneak pairs with it, and why sneaking inside a creature's view range gains skill ten times faster than sneaking away. And the Butcher knife's Pure 1000 is the biggest number on any player weapon in the game, attached to the narrowest use: tamed animals only.
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