You have probably been running through the swamps, pursued by a swarm of Draugr, jumping from leech to leech, and avoiding the poison-squirting oozers, navigating by the odd glow from a small number of trees. These green glowing sacks on these trees are filled with Guck, a luminescent goo which has a number of uses.
What is the Valheim Gucksack useful for?
One use of this is to mash it up with leather scraps and finewood to make a green banner. This banner provides comfort to the inhabitants of the house that it decorates (+1 comfort) and is useful in that respect.
A second use is for lighting. Standing green-burning iron torches consume guck to create the green light they cast. It will last for 33 hours with the maximum 6 guck that one of these torches can hold. This is the same as the standard standing iron torch and the sconce which both burn resin instead. While it may look pretty, and it does last quite a while, it does not last forever. Guck is a non-renewable resource, so perhaps using it for lighting isn’t the best purpose it could be put to.
The third use for Guck is in crafting the Draugr Fang bow. You will need 10 guck for this, as well as silver, ancient bark and deer hide. It isn’t a particularly expensive item once you have discovered the various components (after defeating Bonemass), but it is the most powerful ranged weapon in the game at the moment. The bow adds a poison damage, which is particularly useful against the hordes of Fulings in the Plains. In our opinion the Draugr Fang should be the first thing you save your guck up for.
How to get Guck
You can find gucksacks on large trees in the swamps. Rarely they are found right at the base, and then dotted throughout the tree. The gucksacks at the bottom tend to be smaller and contain fewer guck pieces. Those at the top can contain up to seven pieces of guck each. Reaching the higher gucksacks is the difficult part.
To retrieve the guck from the tree you will need to use your pickaxe. You can’t shoot the gucksacks off the tree, which makes reaching the higher ones quite tricky. You will need to make sure that you have practically cleared the surrounding area of hostile mobs and spawn points. This will help as you will need to construct a series of platforms or steps.
To get to the higher gucksacks you will need to build a workbench first, and then build ladders and platforms up to and in front of each gucksack. Take care that the Draugr don’t shoot you from your perch as you go, as they can knock you off and cause significant falling damage. Make sure that you attach your platforms to the tree itself as otherwise you run the risk of the structure collapsing.
Once you have collected all your guck, dismantle your scaffolding. This gives you the wood back which you expended, but it also allows any guck which has fallen on to the platforms to fall down so you can collect it from the base of the tree.