Einherjar Basics

In Norse mythology, the einherjar translates to "army of one" or "those who fight alone". These are outstanding warriors who have died in battle and were personally chosen by valkyries to be taken to Valhalla. Einherjars are a staple part of the Valkyrie series of games and in this latest iteration, they play a major part in both combat and lore. In our Einherjar Basics Guide, we will discuss how to manage and improve your trusty and loyal allies.

Valkyrie Elysium is the latest title of the renowned Valkyrie series. Play as the Valkyrie as she purifies the land from evil in a collapsing world as Ragnarok looms. Summon the souls of chosen warriors called Einherjars to assist you in combat and unleash the power of Divine Arts to smite your foes.

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Overview

Einherjars are powerful and incredibly skilled allies that Valkyrie can summon to fight alongside her in battle and even tap to their abilities to enhance her combat skills. Valkyrie commands two Einherjars as part of the tutorial portion but she’ll start off alone in her journey. During the main story, Valkyrie will encounter various einherjars but “recruiting” them is not as easy as choosing them outright. So far, the first two einherjars she can recruit start off as monstrous Nagalfrs that serve as their respective chapters’ bosses. We can safely expect a similar trend as we progress through the story.

After defeating the Nagalfr and freeing the powerful einherjar soul within, Valkyrie needs to search for the einherjar Relics. These are their valuable possessions that are connected to their memories when they were still alive. There are at least three Relics per einherjar. After finding all relics, you still need to go through another challenge or trial before finally getting through them and convincing them to join your heavenly army.

Einherjar Management

After they join your party, they’ll be automatically assigned to an empty slot in the R1 menu. You can have up to four einherjars added to your R1 slots, and you can freely swap them between slots if you have a preferred arrangement.

To summon an Einherjar in battle, you have to hold R1 and press the corresponding button(s) where the individual einherjars are assigned. When you summon an einherjar, a portion of your Soul Gauge will be depleted. If you don’t have enough Souls, you won’t be able to summon any einherjar until you have enough souls. To restore your Soul Gauge, you have to use Soul Elixirs and collect Blue Souls dropped by enemies. Soul Elixirs can be uncommon and hard to find so consider collecting Blue Souls regularly after every encounter before moving forward to your exploration.

Einherjar Stats improve the more you use them in battle so keep summoning them whenever possible. Aside from actually dealing damage, einherjars can also occupy the attention of several enemies, greatly easing up the aggro towards you - allowing you to perform additional actions like avoiding getting ganged up or activating Divine Arts to sway the battle in your favor. This is quite significant especially when trying to survive large mobs or boss fights. Einherjars work perfectly well as offensive decoys that summoning them or keeping them at bay can drastically affect the overall combat experience.

Summon and Auto-Summon

You can have up to two einherjars summoned at a time and after the set time is over or if there are no more enemies on the field, they’ll return to you automatically. You can adjust the “summon time” or their on field timer to 15s, 30s, or a maximum of 60s. The longer the duration you want them in battle, the more Souls will be needed to summon the einherjar.

Once you have learned the necessary skills, you can also automatically summon your einherjars by meeting the required “triggers” like performing a Quick Evade or Precision Guard. Auto-summoned einherjars won’t consume any souls, and they’ll stay in battle depending on your setting. Once you have unlocked the necessary skills, you can manually set which einherjar to get automatically summoned upon meeting certain conditions by going to the Main Menu > Valkyrie tab.

While on the field, they act on their own, performing attacks and taking the enemies’ attention. Einherjars can’t die (since they’re already dead to begin with) and can’t be healed so don’t worry about them. You can also switch your weapon’s element to one of the summoned einherjars currently on the field. This is very useful especially since the majority of the damage will be coming from your own attacks anyway.

Abilities

Einherjars have two movesets: Einherjar Attacks and Normal Moves. The former is a powerful, initial attack that they will perform as soon as they’re summoned. The latter is their standard attack while on the field. Complete their subquests to unlock new attacks and moves. You can then change their attacks and moves from the Einherjar tab on the main menu once you have additional options.

Additionally, einherjars have fixed elemental affinity. The two earliest einherjars, Eygon and Cypher, are permanently tied to lightning and ice elements respectively. Deploying them against enemies that are weak against your einherjars elements can turn the tide of battle to your favor since your allies can easily inflict the Crush status. While they’re on the field, Valkyrie can also tap to their elemental powers and imbue whatever weapon she has with the chosen element.

Finally, there are certain environmental puzzles and obstacles that can only be solved by a specific einherjar. You’ll learn about this mechanic during the tutorial portion of the game. Basically, for example if you want to destroy an electrified boulder, lock on to the obstacle then summon Eygon to break it. If there’s a gap between platforms or ledges, you can use Cypher to create an ice platform that you can jump on to reach the other ledge.

Einherjar Subquests

As you progress in the story, you’ll be able to accept personal subquests from your einherjars back in Valhalla during intermission. Complete these subquests to unlock new abilities for the einherjar that requested the subquest and very useful gear or spell for Valkyrie. Similar to other quests, you can repeat these as many times as you please but you can only collect the quest rewards once.

That concludes our Einherjar Basics in Valkyrie Elysium. Please check out our online guide for the game and other articles for more Valkyrie Elysium content!