Magecap and Jotun Puffs in Valheim: Identical Stats, and Only One Gives Eitr
The Mistlands has two farmable mushrooms and their stat lines are nearly identical: 25 health, 25 stamina, 900 seconds, 1 hp per tick, weight 0.1, stack 50. One of them also gives 25 Eitr. That single field is the entire difference between them, and it is the reason the Magecap is a magic-build staple while the Jotun puff is mostly an ingredient.
On sourcing. Iron Gate do not publish system documentation. The figures below come from the community wikis and can change with any patch.
Side by Side
| Magecap | Jotun puffs | |
|---|---|---|
| Health | 25 | 25 |
| Stamina | 25 | 25 |
| Eitr | 25 | — |
| Duration | 900s | 900s |
| Healing | 1 hp/tick | 1 hp/tick |
| Weight | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Stack | 50 | 50 |
| Teleportable | Yes | Yes |
| Yield per planting | 3 | 3 |
| Grow time | 4,000 – 5,000s | 4,000 – 5,000s |
| Biome | Mistlands only | Mistlands only |
Everything matches except Eitr. Both are gathered wild in the Mistlands and both can be farmed with a Cultivator, and — like Flax and Barley — both are planted directly rather than needing a seed item first. One planting yields three.
Neither Is Good Food
The wiki is blunt about this and it is worth repeating, because new Mistlands players eat them by mistake: the health and stamina these give are far inferior to the other foods available at their tier. 25 health from a Mistlands-tier food is poor. You are not meant to eat them as a food slot.
The Magecap is an exception in one specific case. Its 25 Eitr is a real contribution to a magic build, and Eitr is the resource that gates every staff in the game. For a player running Blood Magic or Elemental Magic, a Magecap in the third food slot is a genuine choice — not for its 25 health, but for the Eitr number sitting next to it.
For everyone else, both mushrooms are crafting inputs, not meals.
What They Actually Feed
Magecap goes into:
- Uncooked magically stuffed shroom
- Mead base: Minor eitr
- Seeker aspic
- Sparkling shroomshake
- Marinated greens
- Mead base: Lightfoot
Jotun puffs go into:
- Misthare supreme
- Honey glazed chicken
- Mushroom omelette
The pattern is that Magecap trends toward eitr and magic support — including two mead bases, one of which is Minor eitr — while Jotun puffs trend toward ordinary high-tier cooking. Neither list overlaps much, so a magic build and a melee build want different mushrooms in bulk, and there is no substituting one for the other.
Farming Them
Both are planted with a Cultivator in cultivated soil, and both have the same constraints:
- Mistlands only. Neither will grow in any other biome. There is no farming these at your Meadows base.
- Planted directly. No seed step, unlike most Valheim crops. What you pick is what you plant.
- Three per planting. A 3x return per cycle.
- 4,000 to 5,000 seconds to grow — roughly 66 to 83 minutes of real time, which is a long cycle by Valheim standards.
- 0.8 metre planting radius. Tighter than trees, looser than some crops.
There is one trap specific to the Jotun puff, and the wiki calls it out directly: the giant rocks in the Mistlands can block out the sky, which prevents them from growing. Mistlands terrain is dominated by overhanging stone, and a plot that looks like a clearing at ground level may have rock above it. If your Jotun puffs are not growing, look up before you look at the soil.
Why This Matters for a Mistlands Base
The biome restriction is the strategic point. You cannot bring Mistlands agriculture home. Barley and Flax have the same problem in the Plains, and the answer is the same: build in the biome.
That means a Mistlands outpost with cultivated soil, a portal back, and enough defence to survive Seekers and the occasional Gjall while you are away for 66 to 83 minutes per growth cycle. It is a real construction project rather than a corner of your main base, and it is the practical reason most players end up with a permanent Mistlands presence rather than raiding the biome and leaving.
Both mushrooms are teleportable, which softens it considerably — you can portal the harvest home even though you cannot portal the farm.
Running your own Valheim server
A 4,000-second growth cycle is roughly an hour and a bit of real time, which only works if the world keeps running when you log off. A gamever Valheim server keeps that world persistent for up to 10 players, with one-click backups.
Conclusion
Magecap and Jotun puffs share nearly every number: 25 health, 25 stamina, 900-second duration, 1 hp per tick, 0.1 weight, stack of 50, three per planting, 4,000–5,000 seconds to grow, and Mistlands-only cultivation. The one field that differs is Eitr, where the Magecap gives 25 and the Jotun puff gives none — which is why the Magecap earns a food slot on a magic build and the Jotun puff does not. Neither is good food otherwise; both are far inferior to other foods at their tier, so treat them as ingredients. Magecap feeds eitr-oriented recipes including Mead base: Minor eitr and Mead base: Lightfoot, while Jotun puffs feed ordinary high-tier cooking — Misthare supreme, Honey glazed chicken and Mushroom omelette — with almost no overlap between the two lists. Both are planted directly with a Cultivator without a seed step, like Flax and Barley, and both grow only in the Mistlands, which forces a Mistlands outpost. And there is one failure mode worth checking before you blame the soil: Mistlands rock formations block the sky and stop Jotun puffs growing.
Want your mushrooms growing while you are logged off? Rent a Valheim server at gamever.io — instant setup, up to 10 players, one-click backups and updates, and 24/7 uptime. Start with a free trial and use promo code WELCOME.