Some of the most useful tactics you can follow from the beginning of your Tears of the Kingdom playthrough.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is intimidatingly gigantic and filled to the brim with hidden death. Its sandbox allows for all kinds of awkward puzzles but also allows you to find inventive solutions to these problems. So I’ve listed some of the most useful tactics you can follow from the beginning of your playthrough. I’ve been using these for combat traversal and a few other things that you can start putting to use at pretty much the very beginning of the game.
Create Moving Platforms
First up is using the Ultrahand ability and recall to create your own elevators and moving platforms in Tears of the Kingdom. It’s a bit like coding a super simple little animation. The game constantly records the path of that object’s movement while you’re controlling them with Ultrahand.
So if you are trying to get across a gap or up to something, you can physically move an object along the path you want it to take, put it back in front of you, and activate Recall on it to send it along the route. That will let you climb aboard and ride on your own custom moving platforms. It also helps you cling to something without moving and doesn’t drain your stamina.
Even one simple tree log, which is found pretty much everywhere, can be more useful than just for making a basic bridge. I’m sure you’ve tried building a super log by now, but you can get extra reach out of your platforms by using the technique. Simply the moving platform so you don’t have to stick as many things together.
For example, put a long platform with the front section towards the edge of a gap, grab it from the front most object, move it out as far as you can, then rotate it around 180 degrees, which almost doubles the distance it reaches and then put it right back to where it started. Now jump on the far opposite end and activate Recall on it. You don’t even have to move now and risk falling off. Just patiently wait for the platform to rotate you around the animated route you set. That will let you traverse a large gap without barely moving and with fewer objects glued together.
Build Your Own Traps
Expanding from the first tip on moving platforms, you can take it a step further to create a custom trap mechanism, even with super basic materials in Tears of the Kingdom. Moving and spinning objects while using ultra hand doesn’t deal damage to enemies, but if they’re being recalled, their inertia will. You can build a simple spinning trap with just basic materials you’ll find all over the place. Use a wheel as a center point and connect four square logs.
If you don’t have a centered object like a wheel, you won’t be able to spin it around quite as fast because of how it rotates. Pick up your trap with Ultrahand, send it out, and start winding it up by rotating it. Activate Recall, and your trap will come to life and smack anything that comes in contact with it.
Using a trap like this in choke points in Tears of the Kingdom can be even more effective since enemies are forced to try to go through your little gauntlet. Another simple trap you can build with basic materials is four logs stuck together with a center platform. This gives you a rotating trap that you can physically stand on as you’re protected by the spinning luggage, and you can even spine enemies while you are up there. You could invent infinite trap devices with this technique; these are just super basic examples.
Shield Surf Grinding
The metal rails and mine cart tracks you’ll find in Tears of the Kingdom can actually be grinded on while shield surfing. To do that, hold ZL and then press X, followed by A, to jump onto your shield. You can speed up or slow down while grinding and transfer to the left or right.
This won’t work if you fuse something chunky onto your shield. Before you get the paraglider, if you find yourself falling to your death, you can just fast-travel to save yourself from that splat.
Useful Fusion Combos
You can use a few useful Fusion combinations to build your own Hyrule skateboard in Tears of the Kingdom. Fusing a cart to your shield will give you a better way to shield surf on rough terrain. Slap a rocket onto your shield, and you’ll be blasted up into the air when you hold the block. This also works with an Octo Balloon but is just a little bit slower. Fusing mushrooms onto weapons gives them a super knockback effect on the last hit of combo strings or from charge attacks.
If you find a weapon with the quick charge bonus, that can let you fly out those bouncy bumps even faster. Attaching a spring to your shield will let you bounce into the air when you do a shield surf. That destroys the spring but keeps the shield intact. In case you want to put another one on or something else.
While during battles in Tears of the Kingdom, that will reflect back projectiles and bounce enemies that get too close. Fusing a ruby opal topaz or sapphire to a weapon will give you elemental damage of either fire, water, lightning or ice. But with your standard weapons, it’ll just lob out one projectile at a time. However, if you find a magic scepter or rod, those will amplify the effect of the attached gems.
That will launch three projectiles with your basic swings or shoot out numerous orbs all around you with a charge attack. The ice effect with this is really useful for cheating on-the-fly platforms on water or a pile of them with the charged blast. Putting those elemental gems onto shield blocks will blast their effect each time they’re struck. Although these gems sell for a good amount of coins, they can be game-changers if you use them for combat.
Remove Materials From Gear
Tears of the Kingdom lets you craft pretty much any weapon you want. Now let’s say you have deep horrific regrets after fusing butter to your best swords, creating a Butter sword. Well, go into your inventory, and you can remove materials you’ve attached to gear. It destroys the material, but at least that lets you refuse the item with something else.
Get Wing Devices Flying
You already know that the wing devices in Tears of the Kingdom don’t just fly on their own. Well, you might think they must always be on track to get them into their flight mode. But you are wrong. You always have the ability to get these into their flight mode from pretty much anywhere. Place one of these on the edge of something, then use Ultrahand to extend it out into the air, bring it back, and place it in front of you.
Activate Recall on it, jump on, and when it’s out over the edge, tap L to cancel the Recall. That will send it plummeting with you on it, which allows it to start gliding like normal. Attach a fan on the back of one of those beforehand, and that will let you fly a little straighter while it’s active.
If you’re stuck out in the middle of nowhere on the surface but want to quickly get to flying, find one of these rocks that fall from the sky and stick a set of wings on top of it. Activate Recall on the stone to send it upwards, and when it reaches its peak, use Ultrahand to shake the wings free with you on board.
If you are in need of more of those wings, head of the Device Dispenser on Great Sky Island to stock back up. Before you get the paraglider, you can also use this same method to avoid fall damage. With something like a log, send it out vertically, then bring it back, hit Recall, climb onto the side of it, and hit Cancel when it’s out over the edge. Doing this lets you avoid any fall damage since the object takes all the impact instead of you.
Golden Apples
While playing Tears of the Kingdom, keep an eye out for Golden Apples that have a chance to spawn on apple trees. These are like super apples that will amplify your cooking. Here’s a basic recipe using a golden apple; it gives 8 hearts and 8 minutes and 30 seconds of a defense buff. That exact same recipe, but using a Red Apple will yield a lesser version providing six hearts and only a 3 minutes 10 seconds buff.
Flame Emitters
In Tears of the Kingdom, the Flame Emitters that you can find early on can be more useful, not slapped onto a weapon or shield that’s just going to break. Activating these on their own and then picking them up with Ultrahand turns them into the perfect little flame thrower, and they won’t even get destroyed from use. You can just keep using these over and over when your battery energy is charged, and there are a few different types of emitters you can use like this that you’ll find a bit later.
If you want to stock up on those Flame Emitters, head to the Dispenser Machine on Great Sky Island. By the way, if you toss in five charges at a time, it will spit out bonus capsules for you, and if you throw in five large charges, go ahead and find out what happens.
Blupee Creatures
When you spot one of these Blupee creatures in Tears of the Kingdom, they will immediately run away and escape if they see you. But they spill out rupees each time they’re damaged. Best to try to get a slight elevation whenever you see these so that you can use the aerial slo-mo shot to hit them while they’re frozen in time.
You can also just plop down a fan if there’s no higher terrain nearby, and that’ll give you just enough lift to snipe the adorable wildlife.
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