Goo's Combat Overhaul
Goo's Combat Overhaul is a configurable Valheim combat-feel overhaul focused on making weapon classes more distinct, responsive, and satisfying while preserving the structure of vanilla combat.
The mod adjusts combat behavior by weapon category and attack type. It can tune hyperarmor, counter damage, stagger power, hit-stop, animation speed, attack movement, lunge/root-motion scaling, attack rotation, base damage, backstab damage, PvP behavior, stamina/eitr behavior, movement behavior, blocking, shield behavior, magic/staff behavior, and equipment values.
Fresh installs use Goo's curated preset by default. Players can reapply Goo's preset, reset the mod back to vanilla/no-op behavior, or manually tune each weapon category.
A configuration manager is recommended for convenience because most of the mod's balance values are intended to be adjusted and tested in game, but it is not required as a dependency.
Core Features
- Weapon-specific combat tuning
- Separate Primary1 / Primary2 / Primary3 / Primary4 / Secondary melee attack settings where the weapon actually has those attacks
- Base damage multipliers with tooltip updates
- Backstab damage-rate tuning with tooltip updates
- Per-attack airborne damage multipliers
- Running-attack support for supported melee weapons
- Two-handed axe jump-attack support
- Lunge/root-motion tuning
- Attack movement and attack rotation control
- Balanced hyperarmor system
- Counter-damage system
- Hit-stop / hit-freeze control
- Stagger, knockback, and PvP modifier tuning
- PvP hitstun/stagger-duration tuning
- PvP block-break threshold tuning
- Armor base-armor multipliers with tooltip updates
- Equipment movement modifier overrides
- Shield, parry, block stamina, block force, block armor, and block-break tuning
- Buckler / medium shield / tower shield-specific block tuning
- Staff-specific combat, eitr, projectile, shield, and block tuning
- StaffShield shield-health and active-shield tuning
- Negative stamina system
- Stamina regeneration curve options
- Player movement, stamina, eitr, carry weight, fall damage, and base-stat tuning
- Bow and crossbow projectile-speed / spread tuning
- PvP test dummy debug tool
- Goo preset reapply button
- Vanilla reset button
- Master runtime enable/disable switch
Supported weapon categories include:
- One-handed swords
- One-handed axes
- Clubs and maces
- Knives
- Spears
- Atgeirs
- Two-handed swords
- Two-handed axes
- Sledges
- Pickaxes
- Dual axes
- Bows
- Crossbows
- Magic/staff weapons
- Unarmed
- Other mod weapons that share a supported internal category
What's New in 1.0.7
Version 1.0.7 is the official PvP, staff, blocking, and attack-context stability patch.
Highlights:
- Fixed attack modifier leakage between attacks of the same weapon. Primary, secondary, running, jump, and chain attacks now use stricter attack-role context so one attack's modifiers should not carry into the next attack.
- Fixed the sledge/pickaxe category mixup. Pickaxes now have their own category instead of inheriting sledge behavior through shared moveset logic.
- Fixed one-handed sword secondary/heavy attack animation-speed scaling so small multipliers no longer behave like extreme speed changes.
- Fixed PvP knockback not applying correctly. PvP knockback now uses the same outgoing modifier path as normal knockback and PvP damage.
- Removed the
Beta label from PvP knockback config names because the PvP knockback path is now functional.
- Goo's ruleset now sets melee-weapon PvP knockback to
0.1x so melee executions do not launch targets away.
- Added a tiered PvP stagger/hitstun ruleset. PvP stagger power now uses lower, more controllable tier values while preserving distinct hitstun tiers.
- Added PvP block-break threshold tuning for weapons, shields, and staffs.
- Restored PvP block armor defaults to vanilla/no-op
1x, while keeping block-break threshold as the main PvP blocking lever.
- Added separate shield-type support for bucklers, medium shields, and tower shields.
- Added block-force, parry-bonus, PvP parry-bonus, PvP block-force, and PvP block-break tuning for weapons and shields.
- Goo's ruleset sets general Block Force to
0x for weapons, shields, and staffs.
- Block Force at
0x is hidden from tooltips, and general parry-bonus changes update tooltips. PvP-only values do not change tooltips.
- Added staff-specific config sections for direct-attack and utility staffs.
- Added staff block tuning, staff attack movement, and staff attack rotation configuration.
- Added StaffShield active-shield tuning for health cost, stagger mitigation, knockback mitigation, and active-shield parry bonus.
- Added staff projectile controls for Dundr / StaffLightning and Staff of Frost / StaffIceShards.
- Added Staff of the Wild vine damage, size, and attack-speed options.
- Added experimental PvP targeting toggles for Staff of the Wild and Dead Raiser spawned entities.
- Added PlayerBaseEitr and PlayerBaseEitrRegenRate.
- Fixed base eitr so added eitr is not repeatedly removed by Valheim's periodic max-eitr refresh.
- Added DoMaxDamage in the Player section. When enabled, player attacks use the maximum skill-scaled damage value, and tooltips display the max effective value instead of a damage range.
- Removed the broken KeepStaminaBarVisible feature and its stale behavior.
- Added a PvP test dummy tool based on Valheim's TrainingDummy prefab for damage/stagger testing.
Goo's 1.0.7 PvP ruleset includes:
- Tier 1 PvP stagger power:
5x
- Tier 2 PvP stagger power:
10x
- Tier 3 PvP stagger power:
20x
- Unarmed secondary PvP stagger power:
999x
- Melee-weapon PvP knockback:
0.1x
- Unarmed PvP knockback:
0.7x
- Unarmed secondary PvP knockback:
1.5x
- Tier 1/2 primary-weapon PvP block-break threshold:
5x
- Tier 3 primary-weapon PvP block-break threshold:
10x
- Buckler and medium-shield PvP block-break threshold:
10x
- Tower-shield PvP block-break threshold:
20x
- Weapon, shield, and staff Block Force:
0x
- Parry bonus remains vanilla/no-op by default.
How Weapon Tuning Works
Most melee weapon settings are split into:
- Primary1 = first normal/light attack in a chain
- Primary2 = second normal/light attack in a chain
- Primary3 = third normal/light attack in a chain
- Primary4 = fourth normal/light attack in a chain, where the weapon actually has one
- Secondary = heavy/special attack
Running attacks and special jump attacks are configured inside their corresponding weapon-category sections.
Weapon categories can tune:
- Base damage
- Backstab damage rate
- Attack-slot damage multipliers
- Chop and pickaxe utility damage
- Stagger multipliers
- Stamina multipliers
- Animation speed
- Attack movement
- Lunge/root-motion scaling
- Attack rotation
- Hyperarmor mode
- Damage, stagger, and knockback taken during hyperarmor
- Counter-damage eligibility
- Hit-stop behavior
- PvP damage, stagger, knockback, stagger duration, and block-break scaling
- Block armor, block force, parry bonus, block stamina consumption, and block-break threshold
The goal is not to make every weapon stronger in the same way. The goal is to give different weapon classes stronger identities.
Goo's Preset
Goo's preset is the default combat-overhaul setup. It applies the intended balance values automatically on a fresh install.
In general:
- Heavy weapons receive stronger commitment tools.
- Some heavy attacks gain hyperarmor or knockback resistance.
- Some weak or clunky attacks gain animation-speed improvements.
- Some attacks gain stronger stagger identity.
- Counter damage rewards well-timed attacks against enemies during their attack animations.
- Melee attacks can turn more naturally during windup.
- Rotation can be locked after the attack trigger so attacks still require commitment.
- Hit freeze is preserved or reduced depending on weapon feel.
- Negative stamina allows committed actions to overdraw stamina, but only while current stamina is still above 0.
- Player stamina, eitr, movement, and blocking systems are tuned without turning the mod into a raw-stat cheat mod.
Preset system defaults include:
- Negative stamina enabled with a
-50 stamina floor.
- Stamina recovery rate set to
1.5x.
- Stamina regen curve set to
Vanilla.
- Max carry weight base value set to
450.
- Jump stamina consumption set to
0.5x.
- Crouch stamina consumption set to
0x.
- Fall damage start height set to
8m.
- Armor movement penalties removed by default.
- Weapon, shield, pickaxe, and hammer movement penalties preserved unless configured.
- Melee-weapon PvP knockback set to
0.1x.
- Weapon, shield, and staff Block Force set to
0x.
You can reapply Goo's preset at any time with:
ApplyGoosSettings = true
This rewrites combat/balance config values back to Goo's preset, saves the config, and then turns itself back off.
Reset to Vanilla
The mod includes a vanilla reset option:
ResetToVanilla = true
This resets combat and balance values to vanilla/no-op behavior while keeping the mod installed.
Use this if you want to start over, compare vanilla behavior, or manually rebuild your own preset.
This reset affects combat/balance settings. It does not wipe every general/debug option.
ApplyModOptions
ApplyModOptions = true
This is the master runtime switch.
When enabled, the mod reads and applies the current config.
When disabled, the mod stops applying its combat changes and clears active runtime effects.
This does not rewrite the config. It only turns the mod's functionality on or off.
Config Migration
Configs older than 1.0.5 are archived out of the active config path so old stale entries do not clutter the in-game configuration page.
Configs from 1.0.5 and 1.0.6 preserve overlapping user-tuned values and add new 1.0.7 values with defaults. If you want Goo's full current ruleset, use ApplyGoosSettings = true.
Notes
Some experimental staff-spawn PvP targeting options are still marked as beta in the config because spawned entity targeting depends on Valheim's underlying prefab behavior.
