The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild GOTG

I went back to this today after a couple of weeks off to play Mario and it's dawned on me that it's always felt like I haven't played this game right. I know people will say that you can play it any way you like but I've never felt any progression, I still get gooseberry fool weapons from most enemies, one hit killed by others and I don't really know what level of weapon I should have to take on Ganon.

I think the problem is that I haven't paid enough attention to the armour. The only piece of armour I levelled up early on was the Hylian armour but I'm always changing what I'm wearing because of the weather. I now have the soldiers set levelled up to level 2 but it doesn't seem to make any difference to getting weapons, thankfully my tactic of rupee farming and stocking up on arrows is still serving me well.

It is definitely worth upgrading your armour sets, it makes a huge difference. Most enemies don't drop great weapons except for things like dragon bone clubs you can use to take chunks of health off subsequent enemies. The good weapons and those you use in combination with the elements (fire will instantly evaporate a snow enemy for example, lightning is effective against water and ice enemies) tend to be found in enemy compounds and shrines deeper into areas so you want to be holding onto those. Eventually you will start amasssing royal gear which after that pretty much keeps you going for hours and hours because it has much higher durability and the more powerful you get the more powerful the weapons enemies carry get (you start to see black and silver enemies more often with better weapons even in previously visited areas), generally replenishing your "good" weapons as you go so you really don't run out.

I find it really helps improve your enjoyment of the game if you accept weapons as disposable and use the bombs, stasis etc along with elemental effects, headshots, flurry bursts, midair slowmo shots etc to defeat enemies with skill and persistence, not just spamming a half decent weapon. I absolutely love that it's possible to get merked by low level enemies in this game, makes the combat so much more rewarding and replayable than previous games. Try wittling down groups of enemies by bomb bowling and bomb or shock arrows (in the rain) and ice arrows (freezy them to deal subsequent arrow damage while frozen) before going in with blades.

Also cook food for defence buffs and extra hearts, I constantly held stock of such meals all throughout the game and stilll use those meals to come up against the toughest foes. I regularly had my inventory completely full with meals and would keep it topped up.

Easy recipe, farm salt from rocks and cook 4 ironshrooms or tough trout with 1 salt rock, you get 3x defence boost for 3-5 minutes plus plenty of hearts.

I have been doing most of that as I'm pretty far into the game. The last thing I'd been doing before taking a break was getting the Guardian armour and I just noticed that I now have no good weapons other than the master sword and when I went exploring all I got was level 8-12 weapons. Like I said it's not a major problem because arrows are a bit OP but I wish I new how to get better weapons with some sort of regularity.

Was the Guardian armour worth getting?

The Guardian armour is pretty cool, esp. upgraded.

Karl wrote:The Guardian armour is pretty cool, esp. upgraded.

It does more than just boost your defence against Guardians?

Thanks for that lengthy reply GG.

Hime wrote:

Karl wrote:The Guardian armour is pretty cool, esp. upgraded.

It does more than just boost your defence against Guardians?

Yep. It has a set bonus if you upgrade all pieces to lv. 2.

I'm not really sure what areas of the game you're exploring, how many hours in are you? How much of the map have you uncovered?

I'm 100hrs+ easily and have explored probably 80-90% of the map, but I just don't have this problem finding weapons - in fact I'm rarely even using the master sword and I often find 1-2 weapons with buffs (the twinkly ones).

It might be worth the risk going into some more unknown/dangerous areas just to pick up a few royal weapons.

And yeah upgrade the guardian set because those guardian weapons you get from shrines or by from the professor become mega effective (although not much better than the master sword) against guardians.

Most my sets are 3 stars upgraded at least now.

I'd also recommend taking on a couple of Hinoxes as they always drop good stuff. If they have wooden armour, set fire to their legs, target the eyes or sneak on top of them and steal the whole lot with stealth potions or the Shieka armour.

Do the lynels and Hinoxs regenerate under a blood moon?

EDIT; Google suggests yes, but it keeps track of which ones you've previously defeated. Cool.

Green Gecko wrote:I'm not really sure what areas of the game you're exploring, how many hours in are you? How much of the map have you uncovered?

I'm 100hrs+ easily and have explored probably 80-90% of the map, but I just don't have this problem finding weapons - in fact I'm rarely even using the master sword and I often find 1-2 weapons with buffs (the twinkly ones).

It might be worth the risk going into some more unknown/dangerous areas just to pick up a few royal weapons.

And yeah upgrade the guardian set because those guardian weapons you get from shrines or by from the professor become mega effective (although not much better than the master sword) against guardians.

Most my sets are 3 stars upgraded at least now.

I'd also recommend taking on a couple of Hinoxes as they always drop good stuff. If they have wooden armour, set fire to their legs, target the eyes or sneak on top of them and steal the whole lot with stealth potions or the Shieka armour.

I would imagine I'm about 50 hours in, all towers and Guardians complete, I have the master sword and 3 great fairies. I have had a number of great weapons but I noticed that since I've moved away from the main quest line to do a bit of farming and upgrading that I now have a collection of gooseberry fool. Having read that the enemies scale to your current 'level' it doesn't seem right to still be getting useless weapons. I could be wrong though, obviously level 12 clubs are useful against the enemies you get them from. Maybe I've just been lucky to have had on occasion loads of great weapons at one time.

What are people referring to when the say the "level" of a weapon? I always assumed the number on each weapon was just the amount of damage it deals rather than its level?

I guess it doesn't really matter, either way bigger numbers = better.

Jenuall wrote:What are people referring to when the say the "level" of a weapon? I always assumed the number on each weapon was just the amount of damage it deals rather than its level?

I guess it doesn't really matter, either way bigger numbers = better.

I wish I had a more nuanced explanation but that is ultimately the basis for my reasoning.

I tend to just not pick up those weapons unless I have free slots, maybe I've just been lucky. I go ahead and attack pretty much most things I see and normally the ringleader at least has something half decent.

Making progress still on my slow journey back into gaming! Got the master sword today and I'm just a few gears short of getting the the full ancient armour set. I think next weekend I will have to tackle one of the divine beasts.

Sounds true.

How have you got the Master Sword before doing any Divine Beasts! Seems an odd way to play the game.

the eponymous bollock wrote:Sounds true.

How have you got the Master Sword before doing any Divine Beasts! Seems an odd way to play the game.

When I do a playthrough now, I do the same. I do a shitload of shrines until I get enough hearts, then carve through the mythical beasts with the Master Sword.

EDIT: Divine beasts, even. Damn Good Mythical Morning.

the eponymous bollock wrote:Sounds true.

How have you got the Master Sword before doing any Divine Beasts! Seems an odd way to play the game.

because I'm terrible at the combat so I want link to be as strong as possible before taking them on lol. My plan is to make the boss battles as easy as possible.

Pretty much need to just turn up against them.

You can probably get the MS straight from leaving the plateau with the right recipe.

The Watching Artist wrote:Pretty much need to just turn up against them.

You can probably get the MS straight from leaving the plateau with the right recipe.

I don't think it uses additional hearts gained from recipes does it? I swear I tried getting it early using a recipe for a load of extra hearts and it ignored them and depleted the others instead.

KjGarly wrote:

The Watching Artist wrote:Pretty much need to just turn up against them.

You can probably get the MS straight from leaving the plateau with the right recipe.

I don't think it uses additional hearts gained from recipes does it? I swear I tried getting it early using a recipe for a load of extra hearts and it ignored them and depleted the others instead.

If it doesn't then my bad.

Recipies don't work aye.