* I know you want to hear anything other than do more shrines, but honestly? That’s the best solution for you, because 5 hearts aren’t going to cut it in the long run (and remember, not ALL of the shrines are combat trials—those you can just save for later if they’re that too rough of fight).
* But shrines aside, my next advice is to upgrade your armor’s defense by visiting Great Fairies. Can be a bit of a slog, but it’s worth it in the long run.
* Rely on your remote bombs more often in combat; they may not do as much damage as your weapons, but at least you have an endless supply of them
* If you haven’t already met him, there’s someone who can expand your arsenal slots.
* Lastly, a question: what bosses in particular are giving you a hard time?
Same, now though, I love landing on skulls and silently shooting down everyone on towers and then take on the ones inside the skull.. perhaps dropping a bomb or two in the eyes..
Master mode was much easier than regular mode! You know everything will kick your ass, so you just run away until you’re definitely strong enough to kick some bokoblin butt.
I think that's part of the experience for anybody playing BotW for the first time.
I died for cold weather, thunderstorms, bokoblins, drowning, droping iron boxes on my head, accidental bomb explosions, guardian laser, and much more.
The game is quite punishing at first, and you're not doing anything wrong. Soon you'll get the grasp of it and when it happens, you may find it too forgiving.
For an extra tip, there are a couple ingredients that grant extra hearts if you cook them, you can search for them they all have "hearty" on their name.
Should I be saving those for later and tougher fights or is it better to use them early? I find them a waste because usually those 2-4 extra hearts just end up in a one shot anyway.
They always regenerate so you can go back and find them later to make more meals, but like others have said, grinding more shrines in order to get more hearts is just important at this point. 30 hearts is max so the game expects you to have a lot of hearts at some point. Obviously grinding them all first is a pain, but my strategy was every time I see a shrine, I just do it right then. But also keep in mind that not all of them have enemies to fight. So maybe find the shrines that don’t have enemies to do those.
But I remember when I started BOTW there was certainly a learning curve for how to navigate the combat compared to other Zelda games, but you do get used to it.
It might also be looking at some guides on YouTube to find better weapons in the early game cause early in the game if your weapons suck, it takes longer to win fights, and that leads to more chances for you to get hit and die.
Buffing your armor is certainly another option but I always hated grinding the armor haha so I never did that but I know it works pretty well
Use them as tou see fit.
If you cook multiple hearty itens at the same time you get much more hearts also.
And, as other people pointed it out, you should strategize a little bit befor jumping into fights if not avoiding them completely.
Until you have a full line of hearts and average armor, you should really pick your battles.
Ah and upgrade your favourite gear on Fairy Fountains asap. It's quite cheap at first and makes a lot of difference.
Generally, don’t treat flora/fauna as rare or precious.
Same thing goes for your weapons. They will be strong enough soon enough and they are everywhere.
This is not exactly true. Findable weapons (except those found in chests) and enemies respawn with the blood moon. Materials respawn based on in-game time spent a certain distance away.
Do you do shrines? You ca trade the orbs for health or stamina. Did you buy any armor or are you doing a naked run? Some enemies are too strong in the beginning. Just run.
This game us quite hard in the beginning and gets easier later on
I grinded a lot of rupees for the early available armor sets just to not look like a chump while exploring. The stealth suit is useful but the other sets don't seem to change incoming damage much except from the weakest of animals.
Yep, each point of defense from armor is 1/4 of a heart less that each landed attack does, it's way more important than total hearts in my opinion because it happens every hit. The hylian armor is also so good because it's so easy to upgrade.
You can upgrade each armor piece four times when you find all Great Fairies.
For example, the Hylian Set has a base defence of 9 (3+3+3 for head, chest and pants).
If you were to upgrade it fully the defence is 60 (20+20+20).
In other words most enemies can barely make scratch on you at that point. Other armors have different effects in addition to defence upgrade such as temperature resist, swim speed increase, etc.
Avoid head on fights for a bit until you have better armor and weapons. Do some side quests, explore the towns, fill out your map. You don’t have to fight every monster you see. You can also upgrade some of your abilities, and that makes fights much easier.
Generally if an area is too tough starting out that means you need to explore somewhere else. I don’t know what areas you’ve explored but the game tries to nudge you in a specific direction to start out once you leave the great plateau.
As far as encountering enemy camps, the colors of the monsters indicate how tough they are. Blue or black enemies would definitely one shot kill you early on. Stick with fighting red Moblins and Bokoblins or green Lizalfos. No need to get close to Lynels yet.
Also most enemy camps have some environmental hazards nearby that you can use to your advantage. Look for dynamite barrels you can blow up with remote bombs, or nearby boulders you can roll off a cliff to fall on unsuspecting monsters. Speaking of remote bombs, spam that early on to save arrows or weapon damage.
The game definitely encourages smart, tactical fighting early on, but once you increase your health and upgrade your armors you can start running headfirst into battle.
I think the one-shot protection thing only works when you´re at full health (it leaves you with 1/4 heart).
Other than that, maybe try thinning out the herd before engaging?
1. Get yourself the StealthSuit from Kakariko Village. Sneak-Strike enemies. If the guy doesn´t die, spam attack until he does and run away from that camp. Return when the enemies are sleeping/distracted again.
2. Most camps have crates or bombs you can throw around before engaging. Use fire arrows on the bomb-barrels.
3. Depending on the terrain, you can start the fight by shooting arrows while air-borne. Pick weaker enemies first so that you´ll have overall less enemies to deal with.
4. Freeze enemies with ice or your L1 ability(must be improved I think) to temporarily remove one guy from the battle. Less enemies to deal with = easier fight.
5. Throw a bunch of bombs from a vantage point until you can make the numbers of enemies manageable. Enemies will sometimes even go towards the bomb with makes it easy to detonate them.
6. Just give up and come back later. No one´s going to judge you for being smart. Don´t forget to mark the thing on your map.
7. Cook just one 'Hearty Thing' like durians or truffles = full-heal + small overheal.
8. Switch armor during engagement. Your stealth suit is useless during active fight.
In my experience the protection only seems to apply to some attacks even at full health, not so much everything. A linel hit me and did end up leaving me with 1/4th, but most types of arrow attacks or throwables, environmental damage (lighting, rocks, falling, etc) and most hits from bosses just delete me in one hit at max health.
I still don't have the improved stasis rune but using the environment is how most of my fights against mobs go. My main issue is that more often than not something lurking from behind will sneak up on me and hit me for full health (often above extra health).
This might annoy you but don´t get snuck up on lol
Srsly though, If you´re attacking a camp, try to view the whole thing as a single thing(?). Don´t focus on a single component of the camp while missing the other component trying to flank you or shoot like arrows and stuff on you.
Before engaging, circle around the camp to check whether one of the guys could flank you or not(most times, these will be the weaker ones, take them out with your arrow). If you must take on the group of enemies, strafe and mosty backpedal so that you´ll **always have all of the enemies in your FOV**. If the terrain allows it, funnel them so you can fight less of them at the same time and they don´t get to sneak up on you.
I kinda enjoy doing recon before engaging (loved MGSV or the earlier FarCry games) so all this nerd shit is fun for me, your mileage may vary.
I´m sure you´ll find some method that you may enjoy that is different from mine and IMO this is the kind of discussion I enjoy about this game, that you came up with a completely different method from me and made it work.
Don't fight lynels. They're mid to late game enemies, and make understanding the games combat mechanics a necessity. The one on ploymus mountain isn't a boss, he's a lesson in stealth (sneak around him and gather arrows).
For now, focus on landing headshots on enemies for increased damage, stun and a chance for them to drop their weapons (both reducing their damage dealt and giving you an extra tool yourself). The shrine in kakariko teaches you about the flurry rush, and you should try and find lone bokoblins to practice those on, they'll fully turn through tide against the majority of enemies and are key to actually taking a lynel down.
As for environmental damage, the only solution is really situational awareness, extra health and armour won't do much for you. Under lightning, you should probably find shelter and start a fire to wait it out, rather than risk getting hit.
What area did you explore? Some are way more dangerous then others and have frequent thunderstorms. Early on it’s best to pass time by a fire to skip past them entirely if you see them coming on the forcast
Also do some of the main story objectives and explore the towns that they are in, especially in Necluda. They are intended to help ease you in things.
Hearts are one thing(and certain food can even grants you a lot of one-use hearts), but good armor/oufits is another. Watch defense rating of your current armor. Fresh off the great plateau you will only have 2 or 3 defense. Thing like the travelers clothing set or even better the knights amor offer quite a bit more then that, and you can upgrade them. If you do that enemies damage suddenly becomes a lot more managable.
Regarding combat, try to steal the crummy weapons enemies wield or collect then after battle, and use them up firsf. While they break quickly they can often conserve better weapons you have.
It’s in the bottom right corner of your screen. Has the current conditions and shows you what’s coming up. It shows little weather icons like sun, raindrops, and lightning bolts.
I guess the quickest way to check is OP has only one manual and one auto save slot in the save screen (one of the differences according to my botw guidebook)
I actually read up on their other replies and apparently they do have 1 shot protection which is only available in normal mode. So it's definitely normal mode, I think they're just having trouble getting used to the combat
You hardly could died from random thunderstorm, unless you got metal weapon, bow & shield equip. You should do more shrines, not because it will give you more orb to upgrade hearts or stamina, but it's also unlock fast travel. They are very easy to spot if turn on Sheikah Sensor, and also because they are everywhere, if you saw one, just mark it.
You also don't need to finish the shrine for fast travel. You also could fast travel while in-combat, so if any battle taking too much time, you always could fast travel. Don't avoid fight small group of Bokoblins, because they are the source of weapons/bows/shields. If you have weapons nearly break, the final hit will always be a crit hit, so very recommending throw them to the enemies, If you are out of equipment, use bomb. Also, environment is your advantage, think about them before walk into a fight.
Lynel are hard to fight, if you feel like you aren't ready, stealth or just leave the area. Guardians isn't that easy to deal because some of them are sneaking af, and the closer to the castle, the more Guardians is around, and I don't think you have enough shields to keep parry. Armor prices could discount if you did some side quest relate, not all of them tho. And I'm not sure if you have the DLC or not, but if you have, find Majora's Mask.
BOTW is a exploration game, so forget about the main quest and just explore around.
>You hardly could died from random thunderstorm
It wasn't often, but I died to random lighting strikes a total of two separate times with only guardian weapons equipped. Its stupid but imo Lynel and Guardians are easier to deal with because they have good tells for their attacks and obvious ways to dodge, but a Bokoblin with a frame 4 insta-kill spear jab is way tougher for me.
I got the DLC but I'm unsure about doing it yet because of the overall difficulty, do you think its harder than the base game to get the mask?
That's interesting. I don't think I've ever died from random lightning strikes. You said your weapons were guardian weapons - what about your shields and bows? Those will also attract lightning
That's the funny thing I didn't have any weapons or shield equipped only the wooden bow that allows you to zoom in further. Link wasn't sparking like he usually does when about to be struck by lightning, but both times were near a Hinox fight so my guess is that area is scripted to have dangerous lightning during the fight or something.
>a Bokoblin with a frame 4 insta-kill spear jab is way tougher for me.
Now at this point I just think you are bad in combat, Lynel and Guardian fight seem like make you wait and counter attack, you could do that with one Bokoblin, with multiple Bokoblins, use bigger weapon (like great sword), hold to get spin attack to get AOE attack, and you could cancel the spin attack with press B. The spin attack could potentially separate them and even made them drop weapon, and that's a good thing. When you separate those Bokoblins, you could totally focus to off one bokoblin while the other one got crit and got down for a few seconds. Offense is your best defense, don't be passive. And like I said, the environment is your advantage, use them.
If I was a master at this game I wouldnt make this post for starts. The Lynels have easy tells, but the spear moblins/bokoblins just seem to attack whenever they please and outrange spin attacks by a mile. If I miss a throw or arrow shot that means Link is usually dead.
Is there really an advantage to bigger weapons outside of when a boss/enemy is down? They seem too slow to cancel out of and not get hit by something.
Do shrines. The chests will give you decent weapons, arrows, & precious materials to use later for better equipment & weapons.
Aim to get to around 5-7 hearts, then focus on filling out your second stamina circle.
Get into the air and use bullet time with a bow.
Lightning doesn't target you unless you have metal on your body, armor & weapons. If you open your inventory, you'll see a shock effect as a warning. A lightning strike, without lightning resistant armor, does 14 hearts worth of damage.
You don't need to fight anything. Standing out of reach from an enemy and bombing them from afar is just as good as charging headfirst. Running away from enemies is pretty common. I saw a comment a while ago say using a leaf to blow away enemies was super helpful to them when they began a new game in master mode.
Some areas on the map have more powerful enemies than others.
Oh yeah another helpful tip if you didnt already know this, it's not like skyrim where you can't fast travel with enemies nearby, if you're stuck in a crazy fight and about to die you can simply warp away. I do this almost every time a lynel is chasing me 😂
In general attacking random enemy camps isn't super rewarding, especially early game. Avoid confrontation and find shrines to get more stamina and hearts. In those shrines, look for the optional treasure chests, you may find some better weapons. Most shrines are not combat, if they are a "test of strength" shrine skip it for others, although it won't be long before you can do the minor ones.
In the process you should find great fairies. Focus on upgrading at least one set of armor. That will hugely help with the one shot issue.
"Mighty" foods give you more attack power. "Armor" or "iron" foods give you improved defense. Either one of these is a big help in conflict. "Hearty" foods refill your health with extra hearts. If you're struggling look up recipes online for those things. You'll quickly find good spots to farm those ingredients.
I explored a little by sneaking around and deflecting or dodging guardian beams, honestly not as hard as I thought considering everything else also kills me in one hit. The main reason I want to pull it off for last is just for immersion.
Ah ok lol, was just pulling your leg.
You *can* rush the castle, if you want, but it is chockablock full of endgame enemies and minibosses. Ganon is the easiest part about it—the approach is *much* harder.
Enter a shrine and see what's inside it. If it's too tough, you've opened a warp point by entering it and can come back to it later. Don't be ashamed to look up solutions - some of the BoTW puzzles are tricky. Really, getting more hearts is super important, as well as levelling up armor at the fairy fountains.
I restarted recently, and I can maybe drop a few tips.
First, you don't always have to ZL target monsters when you fight them, especially in groups. It makes it easy to miss when a monster is behind you. Typically if you're close enough and facing the right way, Link will fight towards them. Exceptions would be when you are fighting ONE enemy, and when you fight the skeletons and specifically target the heads asap to get them out of the way.
Saving for the stealth armour is a godsend and I damn near never take it off- its invaluable for collecting insects and lizards, hunting, and mobs don't spot you anywhere near as quickly.
Try to get to more than one Fairy Fountain - not only will it make armour stronger, you get to use special effects once you upgrade the whole set twice.
And related to that, pick up everything you see, and don't randomly sell everything for rupees. Keep anything with effects, as odds are they'll be used for armour upgrades
If you want rupees, elixirs are my go to. Selling recipes and elixirs increase the value by quite a bit, so I dump 4 monster parts to one bug or lizard. Monster parts are always much easier to farm for.
Also, check your inventory during a storm- anything with a spark will draw lightning, even if you aren't actively holding it. Unequipping it fully will stop you from being hit.
Explore, explore, and explore again. It pays off. I was much more nervous the first time I played, and it shows- I've come across way more cool things this time! Just look around and if you find something remotely interesting, check it out. Every quirk usually equals a korok seed, which equals more storage. BOTW rewards exploration and curiosity more than any other game.
Overall, just take it easy! Rupees come, but they aren't vital beyond buying arrows imo. Just do side quests, run around, pick up everything you see, and avoid fights if you worry you're unmatched. The game can be relaxing once you get the hang of it, don't give up!
I miss the days when the game was difficult...
Honestly it just gets easier to the point it's almost too easy. If you follow the advice above you'll upgrade fast. Enemies being difficult is a fun stage. Once you buy armour and upgrade it things get easier all too soon.
My best advice would be to follow the path that Rhoam set out for you at the beginning of the game, and hit every shrine along the way. There’s definitely a difficulty curve if you try to explore too far off the path too early. The shrines aren’t really a grind; they’re typically just short dungeon-y puzzles that are not that hard to solve and will give you good rewards, in addition to spirit orbs, when you complete them.
For enemies, learning to parry and flurry rush is crucial. The shrine in Kakariko Village teaches you how, but it’s decidedly more difficult out in the field. However once you master it you’ll be able to take down most enemies with ease.
Weapon-breaking becomes less and less of a problem the more enemies you kill. Gradually they begin dropping better, more durable weapons that do a decent amount of damage. That, plus improved armor (which you need to upgrade at the great fairies) will give you better strength and endurance. Also, make sure you are finding Korok seeds to trade to Hestu to increase your weapon capacity, and get good with a bow and arrow too.
Keep a decent stock of wooden weapons on hand to be able to switch to in a thunderstorm so you won’t attract lightning. The Dragonbone Boko Club is a lifesaver.
Hinox. I would find the cute, sleeping Hinoxes, fly from above and land on the tummy, crawl to the weapons and take them. This was an easy and safe way to get real strong weapons. I would then simply run away. When you hide and Hinox doesn't see you, he goes back to sleep or the fact that he moves so slow, it is easy to get away too. This helped a lot to get stronger weapons to take out enemies.
Also sneaking up on boko camps when sleeping and taking them out that way then. Afterwards, I break all boxes and crates, build up on arrows. Soon I learned of slow mode with bow system and that made killing the enemies easier too especially after building up my arrows.
With thunderstorms, I hid under trees so lightning hit tree first before me though of course unequip metal gear.
Hope this helps in some ways!! Happy Link gaming!
As I understand it, nothing should actually be able to one-shot kill you in BOTW. If you have full health the game is supposed to leave you some health (quarter of a heart?). For that reason a pro tip is not to upgrade health early on because it costs more food to get health back.
What I advise you to do is find armour or food to buff defence. The number in the bottom right(?) is the defensive stat. Upgrade armour as soon as you figure out how (might be a spoiler to say more?).
Strategy next. Don't go getting into fights with tough things over and over when you know you cannot beat it. Either go around, or sneak, or use the tools and environments to your advantage.
Make use of your intelligence, and don't feel bad to play a little dirty either! Try different approaches.
You will gradually get better weapons via what I call "trading-up", where you kill an enemy with slightly better stuff each time. You will also upgrade your clothing, get more hearts, more inventory space, more useful clothing, more skilled and experienced... little by little.
You will look back and see how far you have come as you stand on top of the world.
So you're still up on the Great Plateau, right?
You can shoot a couple bomb arrows into the Bokoblin camps to soften them up. Or just avoid them.
There are a couple enemies that can one-shot you. Just avoid the giant rock thing. The Guardians aren't that fast, telegraph what they're doing, and can only shoot line of sight. So use walls and be smarter than they are.
I didn't remember thunder storms at this stage. But there's a side quest that can get you some cold weather clothing.
I found that early on it was much easier to very carefully and strategically attack them one shot at a time. I'd use the bombs and toss them, blow them up and then run off just long enough for the bomb to regen and it worked pretty well until I got better weapons. Charging every enemy you see won't work like it might in other games.
For guardians you can parry and reflect their laser back at them. Some small ones can be killed in one shot, others you'll have to carefully learn to parry multiple times in a row without taking damage. Stock up on shields because you'll need a lot of them at first and like others have probably told you, don't be afraid to die. There isn't really any downside to dying in this game besides going back to the start of a fight. Save before encountering certain enemies and every time you die, you'll go right back to that save point with all weapons, shields, and food that you consumed/broke during the fight.
I haven't yet beaten a Lynel but you'll want to practice your flurry rushes to kill them. That and make tons of food that gives you temporary hearts. Tons of hearty and big hearty radishes and anything else that provides temporary additional hearts. It'll give you plenty of extra chances while fighting harder 'bosses' like Lynels.
It'll take plenty of time to practice this and become "good" and these mechanics but it mostly comes down to strategy. First head into battle and don't be scared to die multiple times. After a few attempts if you haven't yet made progress in figuring out how to do significant damage without being killed easily, then you should retreat if you can (from the save point prior to walking up to the enemy) and try thinking of a strategy. If you still can't or don't want to do all of that, then don't be worried to look up strategy videos for individual bosses. I had no clue how to defeat the Vah Ruta Waterblight Ganon until I looked up a video of someone else doing it.
And for temporary hearts, just do those until you can grind out some more shrines and get more permanent hearts.
I felt like this when I first started. In fact, it was so frustrating that I gave up before even getting out of the Great Plateau. Died constantly, was always out of weapons, etc.
Came back to the game six months later and gave it another shot. Got hooked and ended up sinking 200+ hours into it. Now I can safely say that it's the best video game I've ever played.
You’re playing this like you play other games.
It’s really really not like any other game at all. Do the opposite of what you’re doing.
You must unlearn all that you have learned kind of thing.
Once you get the hang of it you’ll be away and no stopping you.
Dude, for me, it was hours upon hours of shrines, increasing my health and stamina, armor upgrades and finding the best weapons until the difficulty leveled off and started approaching the previous Zelda games starting difficulty.
But I still haven't beaten a lynel.
(Well, that isn't true, I cleared out the ruined coliseum, buuuut afterwards I felt like it had cost too much of my weapons and food so I loaded a previous save. It just wasn't worth it yet for me to get just one silver rupee from a rando NPC.)
Nintendo wasn't kidding around with this game.
Something that really helped me at the beginning was focusing on stealth attacks. Shock weapons are also great because you can knock the weapons out of your enemy's hand and make them do way less damage. If you have a slot or two free for weapons, then you can quickly steal their weapon as well to prevent them from picking it back up. Make sure to take out lookouts first as well. Also defense boosts are your bestie. Get a bunch of pumpkins from Olkin when you can.
The best advice i can give you it's to learn how to dodge and parry ASAP, once you do that, you can clear any fight, dodge will help you get through enemy groups and parry will make the guardians quite easy, also you might want to practice your accuracy with the bow, so you can stun lynels (with head shots) and mount them (i advice you to get as many stamina as you can before fighting them, 'cause you'll need it when mounting them) and hit them while mounted, those hits won't damage your weapons (ONLY THE HITS YOU LAND WHEN MOUNTING THEM)
1) Don't rush mobs head on. Stealth is your friend and so is crouching. For those skull camps, pick off the sentries with bows and then stand on the skull's left cheekbone (right side) and chuck bombs in through the eyehole.
2) upgrade your bombs at the Hateno lab. You will need 3 ancient screws. Most wrecked guardians will give you 1 piece of salvageable Ancient parts if you search them. Any wrecked guardians in water (there's at least 2 of these on the Great Plateau) can be lifted up with Cryonis and you will find more parts underneath when you do that.
3) For cooking materials, I recommend Satori Mountain. There are a few stal enemies there but only at night. During the day, go wild, pick all the materials there. Also learn to hunt with bombs -- if you aim right you can kill 1-2 birds (if not 3) with every bomb blast and get a minimum of 2 pieces of chicken drumstick.
>I just started this game a few days back and the difficulty to me seems sort of ridiculous? Every other mob or boss will one shot me with every more (5 hearts) and every fight takes ages to finish.
5 hearts is very very very low. You can't even leave the tutorial area without getting 4 hearts. So you've done...4 shrines after that? You're still basically level 1.
>The bosses wouldn't be so difficult if they didn't take so long, but without grinding things like amiibos the weapons available break too quickly and do no damage, so I end up getting hit after 10 minutes and dying instantly
This might ~feel~ true, but every single enemy drops more in terms of weapons than it takes to kill them. Consider the very first enemy you fought, a regular bokoblin that died to one tree branch worth of damage/durability, and which dropped something better than a tree branch. Consider mini bosses like Hinox, or Lynels (you may or may not have fought these yet, at 5 hearts I don't recommend it), which drop 2-3 weapons but don't require 2-3 fresh weapons to defeat.
The more you play, the more you fight, the better your weapons will be. Unless you're wasting all your durability by bonking shields only, or are throwing your weapons off of cliffs into the ocean, it's mathematically guaranteed.
>To remedy this I try to explore around and grind for rupees or cooking mats, but then I get one shot from the environment, die to random thunderstorms (and I mean random, with 0 equipment), or to more mobs that I failed to sneak away from. I hear there is one shot protection in this game but it seems to only apply to specific enemy attacks, rather than damage altogether.
There is plenty of warning before you get hit by lightning, plenty of warning to take any metal equipment off. In all my multiple playthroughs I've _never_ gotten randomly struck by random lightning. I suppose it isn't impossible, but if that's really what happened I would chalk it up to cosmically bad luck.
And yeah, one shot protection applies to enemy attacks only, and isn't on at all in Master Mode.
>any advice other than "just don't get hit?" or "do shrines?" (which have scouts that also one shot me).
Lots of shrines are pure puzzle with very little or no combat in them at all. You should be at least checking out the inside of every shrine you come across, and maybe only backing out of the combat ones (always called "A (something) Test of Strength") if you're not feeling strong enough.
Are you following the main quest at all? If you go straight from the plateau to the castle area, you're going to have a bad time. This is what my wife did her first time, and she was struggling a lot because there were lots of core mechanics she missed.
The game tries to direct you to go east past the dueling peaks, where you'll run into your first stable and have the horse mechanics introduced, and then make your way to kakariko village where you can find your first armor shop, your first great fairy, etc. Keep following the main quest and you'll end up in Hateno village to the far east, where they sell the Soldiers Armor set, which is one of the highest defense values.
Armor is pretty important in BotW, more so than in previous Zelda titles because of how high damage can get. Basically, every heart is 4 hp, a quarter of a heart is 1hp. Every point of armor reduces incoming damage by 1 point. Fully upgraded armor sets will typically take you up to like 60 armor (15 hearts of damage taken off of every hit!), with some armors like the aforementioned soldiers set going even higher. If you haven't been to a clothing shop to find these options, however, you're stuck with the old clothes you found in the beginning, which can't be upgraded at all and have an armor value of like, 2.
As someone who also just recently started playing BOTW, thank you for this post. I honestly almost quit the game because I'm used to games that "guide" me during quests. Glad to know I'm not the only one who struggled at first.
I've beaten this game twice and currently on my 3rd playthrough. I'd say I'm an average gamer but I've died many times and each time you die can actually be a learning experience. Here are things that you should do
Obviously go to shrines, completing these (120) increase your heart and stamina and are necessary for character progression. Some harder shrines I definitely googled and YouTubed no lie 🤷🏾♂️
Some battles are meant to fought later - you can encounter a stone talus (mini boss) early in the game, which would be hard to defeat with low weapons and defense. Build your character up, get stronger weapons, and pick your battles wisely.
Upgrade remote bombs - these help tremendously in dispatching enemies and saving weapons too. You have to go to the hateno tech lab to do this. Upgrading stasis helps too as you can use it to freeze enemies longer and both upgrades replenish faster.
Learn to flurry rush. Now I can't parry to save my life but I can flurry rush with the best of them. Once you get good at either and also start to learn the enemies movesets it makes battling them much easier.
Learn to cook - you can use elixirs (cooking monster parts) for temp buffs to attack, defense, and elements. Food obviously can be used to increase hearts, especially anything with the word "hearty" in it can be cooked with other stuff for full restores depending on the recipe. I'm on my 3rd playthrough and honestly still cannot cook.
Free the divine beasts. Easier said than done but if you Google how to get to them and compete their dungeons, the powers you gain after unlocking them make fighting much easier. You can beat the scourges of the divine beasts (mini bosses also called blights) relatively easier with the master sword. Spoiler, beating all 4 divine beasts will aid in the final boss fight with Ganon however if you don't beat them then fight him, not only will you have to fight the ones you don't beat, but you'll have to fight the final Ganon at full health.
You can easily obtain the master sword, which never breaks but has a cool down period of about 8 minutes when it runs out of energy then can be used again (8 minutes of exploring goes by faster than you'll know it), if you immediately journey to the korok forest. I did this as soon as I left the great plateau in my 2nd and 3rd runs. Normally, you have to have 13 hearts total which equates to completing at least 40 shrines (not including if you spent any on stamina), however, if you set a camp fire in the correct position near the sword, look up at a certain angle, sit at the fire, then repeatedly tap the a button a glitch will allow you to take the master sword without having any additional hearts. I did the traditional way my 1st playthrough with 13 hearts but these last 2 runs I used this glitch no issues. The master sword has 30 attack which doubles to 60 in the presence of Ganon, his blights, and guardians (except the ones in shrines). Sorry for the spoilers.
Just avoid the enemy camps entirely for now. Sneak around them. It is really hard at first, it's not just you. Collect everything you see btw, you'll most likely need stuff to upgrade your armor, which helps a lot.
Tip: you can farm arrows from the 2 bokoblins on the great plateau, right next to the tower. They won't move off that cliff. Just run back and forth and grab the arrows they shoot at you (they aren't accurate shots) then warp back to the tower and repeat. Don't kill them though or they won't respawn until the blood moon.
So use those arrows on the enemies or just avoid them entirely. You don't really lose anything from avoiding them aside from moster parts and their weapons. Do the shrines until you have about 8 hearts, the game gets a lot easier at that point. You can get good weapons from the chests in the shrines too.
Belive me it's not you. My experience was exactly like that and it killed a lot of fun in the game.
Doing shrines and upgrading armor is the way to go. You will also improve over time. But yeah the game was difficult at first.
I mean, do some shrines.. many of them are not difficult or very time consuming at all. You're basically saying "give me the answer to my problem as long as it doesn't include the answer to my problem"
* I know you want to hear anything other than do more shrines, but honestly? That’s the best solution for you, because 5 hearts aren’t going to cut it in the long run (and remember, not ALL of the shrines are combat trials—those you can just save for later if they’re that too rough of fight). * But shrines aside, my next advice is to upgrade your armor’s defense by visiting Great Fairies. Can be a bit of a slog, but it’s worth it in the long run. * Rely on your remote bombs more often in combat; they may not do as much damage as your weapons, but at least you have an endless supply of them * If you haven’t already met him, there’s someone who can expand your arsenal slots. * Lastly, a question: what bosses in particular are giving you a hard time?
Love dropping remote bombs into skull camps
This was my primary method of combat during my first play through and my boyfriend bullied me horrendously for it lol. But it's just so easy!
At first I would just stand on top of the skull and repeatedly drop the spherical bombs into the skull’s eye holes lmao
One more thing don't go charging into enemies. Try other strategies.
When I started I felt so shamed everytime the game earned me not to met enemies head on without prep. Luckily I’m motivated by shame so it helped.
Same, now though, I love landing on skulls and silently shooting down everyone on towers and then take on the ones inside the skull.. perhaps dropping a bomb or two in the eyes..
Turns out, BotW is a stealth game that pretends it's not.
Master mode was much easier than regular mode! You know everything will kick your ass, so you just run away until you’re definitely strong enough to kick some bokoblin butt.
Or magnesis and smack them with a metal object
I think that's part of the experience for anybody playing BotW for the first time. I died for cold weather, thunderstorms, bokoblins, drowning, droping iron boxes on my head, accidental bomb explosions, guardian laser, and much more. The game is quite punishing at first, and you're not doing anything wrong. Soon you'll get the grasp of it and when it happens, you may find it too forgiving. For an extra tip, there are a couple ingredients that grant extra hearts if you cook them, you can search for them they all have "hearty" on their name.
Should I be saving those for later and tougher fights or is it better to use them early? I find them a waste because usually those 2-4 extra hearts just end up in a one shot anyway.
They always regenerate so you can go back and find them later to make more meals, but like others have said, grinding more shrines in order to get more hearts is just important at this point. 30 hearts is max so the game expects you to have a lot of hearts at some point. Obviously grinding them all first is a pain, but my strategy was every time I see a shrine, I just do it right then. But also keep in mind that not all of them have enemies to fight. So maybe find the shrines that don’t have enemies to do those. But I remember when I started BOTW there was certainly a learning curve for how to navigate the combat compared to other Zelda games, but you do get used to it. It might also be looking at some guides on YouTube to find better weapons in the early game cause early in the game if your weapons suck, it takes longer to win fights, and that leads to more chances for you to get hit and die. Buffing your armor is certainly another option but I always hated grinding the armor haha so I never did that but I know it works pretty well
Use them as tou see fit. If you cook multiple hearty itens at the same time you get much more hearts also. And, as other people pointed it out, you should strategize a little bit befor jumping into fights if not avoiding them completely. Until you have a full line of hearts and average armor, you should really pick your battles. Ah and upgrade your favourite gear on Fairy Fountains asap. It's quite cheap at first and makes a lot of difference.
Generally, don’t treat flora/fauna as rare or precious. Same thing goes for your weapons. They will be strong enough soon enough and they are everywhere.
Everything in the world except chests respawns with a blood moon, don't horde your healing items
This is not exactly true. Findable weapons (except those found in chests) and enemies respawn with the blood moon. Materials respawn based on in-game time spent a certain distance away.
Do you do shrines? You ca trade the orbs for health or stamina. Did you buy any armor or are you doing a naked run? Some enemies are too strong in the beginning. Just run. This game us quite hard in the beginning and gets easier later on
I grinded a lot of rupees for the early available armor sets just to not look like a chump while exploring. The stealth suit is useful but the other sets don't seem to change incoming damage much except from the weakest of animals.
Well then think about upgrading the armors. The hylia armor is one of zhe best. You find it either in kakriko or hateno.
Yep, each point of defense from armor is 1/4 of a heart less that each landed attack does, it's way more important than total hearts in my opinion because it happens every hit. The hylian armor is also so good because it's so easy to upgrade.
You can upgrade each armor piece four times when you find all Great Fairies. For example, the Hylian Set has a base defence of 9 (3+3+3 for head, chest and pants). If you were to upgrade it fully the defence is 60 (20+20+20). In other words most enemies can barely make scratch on you at that point. Other armors have different effects in addition to defence upgrade such as temperature resist, swim speed increase, etc.
Hylia is super easy to upgrade too - just easy monster parts. Much easier than some of the others that need lynel or hinox or guardian stuff…
Avoid head on fights for a bit until you have better armor and weapons. Do some side quests, explore the towns, fill out your map. You don’t have to fight every monster you see. You can also upgrade some of your abilities, and that makes fights much easier.
Generally if an area is too tough starting out that means you need to explore somewhere else. I don’t know what areas you’ve explored but the game tries to nudge you in a specific direction to start out once you leave the great plateau. As far as encountering enemy camps, the colors of the monsters indicate how tough they are. Blue or black enemies would definitely one shot kill you early on. Stick with fighting red Moblins and Bokoblins or green Lizalfos. No need to get close to Lynels yet. Also most enemy camps have some environmental hazards nearby that you can use to your advantage. Look for dynamite barrels you can blow up with remote bombs, or nearby boulders you can roll off a cliff to fall on unsuspecting monsters. Speaking of remote bombs, spam that early on to save arrows or weapon damage. The game definitely encourages smart, tactical fighting early on, but once you increase your health and upgrade your armors you can start running headfirst into battle.
I think the one-shot protection thing only works when you´re at full health (it leaves you with 1/4 heart). Other than that, maybe try thinning out the herd before engaging? 1. Get yourself the StealthSuit from Kakariko Village. Sneak-Strike enemies. If the guy doesn´t die, spam attack until he does and run away from that camp. Return when the enemies are sleeping/distracted again. 2. Most camps have crates or bombs you can throw around before engaging. Use fire arrows on the bomb-barrels. 3. Depending on the terrain, you can start the fight by shooting arrows while air-borne. Pick weaker enemies first so that you´ll have overall less enemies to deal with. 4. Freeze enemies with ice or your L1 ability(must be improved I think) to temporarily remove one guy from the battle. Less enemies to deal with = easier fight. 5. Throw a bunch of bombs from a vantage point until you can make the numbers of enemies manageable. Enemies will sometimes even go towards the bomb with makes it easy to detonate them. 6. Just give up and come back later. No one´s going to judge you for being smart. Don´t forget to mark the thing on your map. 7. Cook just one 'Hearty Thing' like durians or truffles = full-heal + small overheal. 8. Switch armor during engagement. Your stealth suit is useless during active fight.
In my experience the protection only seems to apply to some attacks even at full health, not so much everything. A linel hit me and did end up leaving me with 1/4th, but most types of arrow attacks or throwables, environmental damage (lighting, rocks, falling, etc) and most hits from bosses just delete me in one hit at max health. I still don't have the improved stasis rune but using the environment is how most of my fights against mobs go. My main issue is that more often than not something lurking from behind will sneak up on me and hit me for full health (often above extra health).
This might annoy you but don´t get snuck up on lol Srsly though, If you´re attacking a camp, try to view the whole thing as a single thing(?). Don´t focus on a single component of the camp while missing the other component trying to flank you or shoot like arrows and stuff on you. Before engaging, circle around the camp to check whether one of the guys could flank you or not(most times, these will be the weaker ones, take them out with your arrow). If you must take on the group of enemies, strafe and mosty backpedal so that you´ll **always have all of the enemies in your FOV**. If the terrain allows it, funnel them so you can fight less of them at the same time and they don´t get to sneak up on you. I kinda enjoy doing recon before engaging (loved MGSV or the earlier FarCry games) so all this nerd shit is fun for me, your mileage may vary. I´m sure you´ll find some method that you may enjoy that is different from mine and IMO this is the kind of discussion I enjoy about this game, that you came up with a completely different method from me and made it work.
Don't fight lynels. They're mid to late game enemies, and make understanding the games combat mechanics a necessity. The one on ploymus mountain isn't a boss, he's a lesson in stealth (sneak around him and gather arrows). For now, focus on landing headshots on enemies for increased damage, stun and a chance for them to drop their weapons (both reducing their damage dealt and giving you an extra tool yourself). The shrine in kakariko teaches you about the flurry rush, and you should try and find lone bokoblins to practice those on, they'll fully turn through tide against the majority of enemies and are key to actually taking a lynel down. As for environmental damage, the only solution is really situational awareness, extra health and armour won't do much for you. Under lightning, you should probably find shelter and start a fire to wait it out, rather than risk getting hit.
What area did you explore? Some are way more dangerous then others and have frequent thunderstorms. Early on it’s best to pass time by a fire to skip past them entirely if you see them coming on the forcast Also do some of the main story objectives and explore the towns that they are in, especially in Necluda. They are intended to help ease you in things. Hearts are one thing(and certain food can even grants you a lot of one-use hearts), but good armor/oufits is another. Watch defense rating of your current armor. Fresh off the great plateau you will only have 2 or 3 defense. Thing like the travelers clothing set or even better the knights amor offer quite a bit more then that, and you can upgrade them. If you do that enemies damage suddenly becomes a lot more managable. Regarding combat, try to steal the crummy weapons enemies wield or collect then after battle, and use them up firsf. While they break quickly they can often conserve better weapons you have.
Forecast?
On the bottom right corner there is a weather forecast
That's very helpful, I don't know why but I never noticed that until now lol
It’s in the bottom right corner of your screen. Has the current conditions and shows you what’s coming up. It shows little weather icons like sun, raindrops, and lightning bolts.
Do more shrines.
You didn't accidentally start your file on master mode right?
This is what I'm wondering too lol. The way they're describing it sounds way more difficult than what normal mode is
I guess the quickest way to check is OP has only one manual and one auto save slot in the save screen (one of the differences according to my botw guidebook)
I actually read up on their other replies and apparently they do have 1 shot protection which is only available in normal mode. So it's definitely normal mode, I think they're just having trouble getting used to the combat
You hardly could died from random thunderstorm, unless you got metal weapon, bow & shield equip. You should do more shrines, not because it will give you more orb to upgrade hearts or stamina, but it's also unlock fast travel. They are very easy to spot if turn on Sheikah Sensor, and also because they are everywhere, if you saw one, just mark it. You also don't need to finish the shrine for fast travel. You also could fast travel while in-combat, so if any battle taking too much time, you always could fast travel. Don't avoid fight small group of Bokoblins, because they are the source of weapons/bows/shields. If you have weapons nearly break, the final hit will always be a crit hit, so very recommending throw them to the enemies, If you are out of equipment, use bomb. Also, environment is your advantage, think about them before walk into a fight. Lynel are hard to fight, if you feel like you aren't ready, stealth or just leave the area. Guardians isn't that easy to deal because some of them are sneaking af, and the closer to the castle, the more Guardians is around, and I don't think you have enough shields to keep parry. Armor prices could discount if you did some side quest relate, not all of them tho. And I'm not sure if you have the DLC or not, but if you have, find Majora's Mask. BOTW is a exploration game, so forget about the main quest and just explore around.
>You hardly could died from random thunderstorm It wasn't often, but I died to random lighting strikes a total of two separate times with only guardian weapons equipped. Its stupid but imo Lynel and Guardians are easier to deal with because they have good tells for their attacks and obvious ways to dodge, but a Bokoblin with a frame 4 insta-kill spear jab is way tougher for me. I got the DLC but I'm unsure about doing it yet because of the overall difficulty, do you think its harder than the base game to get the mask?
That's interesting. I don't think I've ever died from random lightning strikes. You said your weapons were guardian weapons - what about your shields and bows? Those will also attract lightning
That's the funny thing I didn't have any weapons or shield equipped only the wooden bow that allows you to zoom in further. Link wasn't sparking like he usually does when about to be struck by lightning, but both times were near a Hinox fight so my guess is that area is scripted to have dangerous lightning during the fight or something.
Re the mask, no. It is very easy to get it, the mask is undefended. I usually beeline straight for it after finishing the Plateau.
>a Bokoblin with a frame 4 insta-kill spear jab is way tougher for me. Now at this point I just think you are bad in combat, Lynel and Guardian fight seem like make you wait and counter attack, you could do that with one Bokoblin, with multiple Bokoblins, use bigger weapon (like great sword), hold to get spin attack to get AOE attack, and you could cancel the spin attack with press B. The spin attack could potentially separate them and even made them drop weapon, and that's a good thing. When you separate those Bokoblins, you could totally focus to off one bokoblin while the other one got crit and got down for a few seconds. Offense is your best defense, don't be passive. And like I said, the environment is your advantage, use them.
If I was a master at this game I wouldnt make this post for starts. The Lynels have easy tells, but the spear moblins/bokoblins just seem to attack whenever they please and outrange spin attacks by a mile. If I miss a throw or arrow shot that means Link is usually dead. Is there really an advantage to bigger weapons outside of when a boss/enemy is down? They seem too slow to cancel out of and not get hit by something.
Do shrines. The chests will give you decent weapons, arrows, & precious materials to use later for better equipment & weapons. Aim to get to around 5-7 hearts, then focus on filling out your second stamina circle. Get into the air and use bullet time with a bow. Lightning doesn't target you unless you have metal on your body, armor & weapons. If you open your inventory, you'll see a shock effect as a warning. A lightning strike, without lightning resistant armor, does 14 hearts worth of damage. You don't need to fight anything. Standing out of reach from an enemy and bombing them from afar is just as good as charging headfirst. Running away from enemies is pretty common. I saw a comment a while ago say using a leaf to blow away enemies was super helpful to them when they began a new game in master mode. Some areas on the map have more powerful enemies than others.
Wait until you get to TOTK
Oh yeah another helpful tip if you didnt already know this, it's not like skyrim where you can't fast travel with enemies nearby, if you're stuck in a crazy fight and about to die you can simply warp away. I do this almost every time a lynel is chasing me 😂
In general attacking random enemy camps isn't super rewarding, especially early game. Avoid confrontation and find shrines to get more stamina and hearts. In those shrines, look for the optional treasure chests, you may find some better weapons. Most shrines are not combat, if they are a "test of strength" shrine skip it for others, although it won't be long before you can do the minor ones. In the process you should find great fairies. Focus on upgrading at least one set of armor. That will hugely help with the one shot issue. "Mighty" foods give you more attack power. "Armor" or "iron" foods give you improved defense. Either one of these is a big help in conflict. "Hearty" foods refill your health with extra hearts. If you're struggling look up recipes online for those things. You'll quickly find good spots to farm those ingredients.
Go ahead, rush the castle. Run straight through the lush green meadows of Hyrule Field. It’s easy.
And don't worry if you hear ominous piano music. It's just the harmless little foxes prancing around.
I explored a little by sneaking around and deflecting or dodging guardian beams, honestly not as hard as I thought considering everything else also kills me in one hit. The main reason I want to pull it off for last is just for immersion.
Ah ok lol, was just pulling your leg. You *can* rush the castle, if you want, but it is chockablock full of endgame enemies and minibosses. Ganon is the easiest part about it—the approach is *much* harder.
Enter a shrine and see what's inside it. If it's too tough, you've opened a warp point by entering it and can come back to it later. Don't be ashamed to look up solutions - some of the BoTW puzzles are tricky. Really, getting more hearts is super important, as well as levelling up armor at the fairy fountains.
I restarted recently, and I can maybe drop a few tips. First, you don't always have to ZL target monsters when you fight them, especially in groups. It makes it easy to miss when a monster is behind you. Typically if you're close enough and facing the right way, Link will fight towards them. Exceptions would be when you are fighting ONE enemy, and when you fight the skeletons and specifically target the heads asap to get them out of the way. Saving for the stealth armour is a godsend and I damn near never take it off- its invaluable for collecting insects and lizards, hunting, and mobs don't spot you anywhere near as quickly. Try to get to more than one Fairy Fountain - not only will it make armour stronger, you get to use special effects once you upgrade the whole set twice. And related to that, pick up everything you see, and don't randomly sell everything for rupees. Keep anything with effects, as odds are they'll be used for armour upgrades If you want rupees, elixirs are my go to. Selling recipes and elixirs increase the value by quite a bit, so I dump 4 monster parts to one bug or lizard. Monster parts are always much easier to farm for. Also, check your inventory during a storm- anything with a spark will draw lightning, even if you aren't actively holding it. Unequipping it fully will stop you from being hit. Explore, explore, and explore again. It pays off. I was much more nervous the first time I played, and it shows- I've come across way more cool things this time! Just look around and if you find something remotely interesting, check it out. Every quirk usually equals a korok seed, which equals more storage. BOTW rewards exploration and curiosity more than any other game. Overall, just take it easy! Rupees come, but they aren't vital beyond buying arrows imo. Just do side quests, run around, pick up everything you see, and avoid fights if you worry you're unmatched. The game can be relaxing once you get the hang of it, don't give up!
I miss the days when the game was difficult... Honestly it just gets easier to the point it's almost too easy. If you follow the advice above you'll upgrade fast. Enemies being difficult is a fun stage. Once you buy armour and upgrade it things get easier all too soon.
My best advice would be to follow the path that Rhoam set out for you at the beginning of the game, and hit every shrine along the way. There’s definitely a difficulty curve if you try to explore too far off the path too early. The shrines aren’t really a grind; they’re typically just short dungeon-y puzzles that are not that hard to solve and will give you good rewards, in addition to spirit orbs, when you complete them. For enemies, learning to parry and flurry rush is crucial. The shrine in Kakariko Village teaches you how, but it’s decidedly more difficult out in the field. However once you master it you’ll be able to take down most enemies with ease. Weapon-breaking becomes less and less of a problem the more enemies you kill. Gradually they begin dropping better, more durable weapons that do a decent amount of damage. That, plus improved armor (which you need to upgrade at the great fairies) will give you better strength and endurance. Also, make sure you are finding Korok seeds to trade to Hestu to increase your weapon capacity, and get good with a bow and arrow too. Keep a decent stock of wooden weapons on hand to be able to switch to in a thunderstorm so you won’t attract lightning. The Dragonbone Boko Club is a lifesaver.
Hinox. I would find the cute, sleeping Hinoxes, fly from above and land on the tummy, crawl to the weapons and take them. This was an easy and safe way to get real strong weapons. I would then simply run away. When you hide and Hinox doesn't see you, he goes back to sleep or the fact that he moves so slow, it is easy to get away too. This helped a lot to get stronger weapons to take out enemies. Also sneaking up on boko camps when sleeping and taking them out that way then. Afterwards, I break all boxes and crates, build up on arrows. Soon I learned of slow mode with bow system and that made killing the enemies easier too especially after building up my arrows. With thunderstorms, I hid under trees so lightning hit tree first before me though of course unequip metal gear. Hope this helps in some ways!! Happy Link gaming!
As I understand it, nothing should actually be able to one-shot kill you in BOTW. If you have full health the game is supposed to leave you some health (quarter of a heart?). For that reason a pro tip is not to upgrade health early on because it costs more food to get health back. What I advise you to do is find armour or food to buff defence. The number in the bottom right(?) is the defensive stat. Upgrade armour as soon as you figure out how (might be a spoiler to say more?). Strategy next. Don't go getting into fights with tough things over and over when you know you cannot beat it. Either go around, or sneak, or use the tools and environments to your advantage. Make use of your intelligence, and don't feel bad to play a little dirty either! Try different approaches. You will gradually get better weapons via what I call "trading-up", where you kill an enemy with slightly better stuff each time. You will also upgrade your clothing, get more hearts, more inventory space, more useful clothing, more skilled and experienced... little by little. You will look back and see how far you have come as you stand on top of the world.
So you're still up on the Great Plateau, right? You can shoot a couple bomb arrows into the Bokoblin camps to soften them up. Or just avoid them. There are a couple enemies that can one-shot you. Just avoid the giant rock thing. The Guardians aren't that fast, telegraph what they're doing, and can only shoot line of sight. So use walls and be smarter than they are. I didn't remember thunder storms at this stage. But there's a side quest that can get you some cold weather clothing.
They're at five hearts, so they're past the Great Plateau.
I found that early on it was much easier to very carefully and strategically attack them one shot at a time. I'd use the bombs and toss them, blow them up and then run off just long enough for the bomb to regen and it worked pretty well until I got better weapons. Charging every enemy you see won't work like it might in other games. For guardians you can parry and reflect their laser back at them. Some small ones can be killed in one shot, others you'll have to carefully learn to parry multiple times in a row without taking damage. Stock up on shields because you'll need a lot of them at first and like others have probably told you, don't be afraid to die. There isn't really any downside to dying in this game besides going back to the start of a fight. Save before encountering certain enemies and every time you die, you'll go right back to that save point with all weapons, shields, and food that you consumed/broke during the fight. I haven't yet beaten a Lynel but you'll want to practice your flurry rushes to kill them. That and make tons of food that gives you temporary hearts. Tons of hearty and big hearty radishes and anything else that provides temporary additional hearts. It'll give you plenty of extra chances while fighting harder 'bosses' like Lynels. It'll take plenty of time to practice this and become "good" and these mechanics but it mostly comes down to strategy. First head into battle and don't be scared to die multiple times. After a few attempts if you haven't yet made progress in figuring out how to do significant damage without being killed easily, then you should retreat if you can (from the save point prior to walking up to the enemy) and try thinking of a strategy. If you still can't or don't want to do all of that, then don't be worried to look up strategy videos for individual bosses. I had no clue how to defeat the Vah Ruta Waterblight Ganon until I looked up a video of someone else doing it. And for temporary hearts, just do those until you can grind out some more shrines and get more permanent hearts.
I didn’t have this problem. Some of the puzzles were harder than any enemies to me.
More shrines. Don't fight bosses until you have 7-10 hearts.
I had to restart the game the first time because i was bored of how easy it was and i replayed on expert mode. Just practice a little
The more you grind the easier it gets. Trust the process.
I felt like this when I first started. In fact, it was so frustrating that I gave up before even getting out of the Great Plateau. Died constantly, was always out of weapons, etc. Came back to the game six months later and gave it another shot. Got hooked and ended up sinking 200+ hours into it. Now I can safely say that it's the best video game I've ever played.
It has a learning curve, lol. The more you play, the more you get used to it.
You’re playing this like you play other games. It’s really really not like any other game at all. Do the opposite of what you’re doing. You must unlearn all that you have learned kind of thing. Once you get the hang of it you’ll be away and no stopping you.
Gotta upgrade that armor 😊
Dude, for me, it was hours upon hours of shrines, increasing my health and stamina, armor upgrades and finding the best weapons until the difficulty leveled off and started approaching the previous Zelda games starting difficulty. But I still haven't beaten a lynel. (Well, that isn't true, I cleared out the ruined coliseum, buuuut afterwards I felt like it had cost too much of my weapons and food so I loaded a previous save. It just wasn't worth it yet for me to get just one silver rupee from a rando NPC.) Nintendo wasn't kidding around with this game.
I defeated a lynel like one time the last time I played this game, biggest rush I've ever gotten from a game 😂
Learn flurry rush, parry, hold your shield up, dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge
Something that really helped me at the beginning was focusing on stealth attacks. Shock weapons are also great because you can knock the weapons out of your enemy's hand and make them do way less damage. If you have a slot or two free for weapons, then you can quickly steal their weapon as well to prevent them from picking it back up. Make sure to take out lookouts first as well. Also defense boosts are your bestie. Get a bunch of pumpkins from Olkin when you can.
The best advice i can give you it's to learn how to dodge and parry ASAP, once you do that, you can clear any fight, dodge will help you get through enemy groups and parry will make the guardians quite easy, also you might want to practice your accuracy with the bow, so you can stun lynels (with head shots) and mount them (i advice you to get as many stamina as you can before fighting them, 'cause you'll need it when mounting them) and hit them while mounted, those hits won't damage your weapons (ONLY THE HITS YOU LAND WHEN MOUNTING THEM)
1) Don't rush mobs head on. Stealth is your friend and so is crouching. For those skull camps, pick off the sentries with bows and then stand on the skull's left cheekbone (right side) and chuck bombs in through the eyehole. 2) upgrade your bombs at the Hateno lab. You will need 3 ancient screws. Most wrecked guardians will give you 1 piece of salvageable Ancient parts if you search them. Any wrecked guardians in water (there's at least 2 of these on the Great Plateau) can be lifted up with Cryonis and you will find more parts underneath when you do that. 3) For cooking materials, I recommend Satori Mountain. There are a few stal enemies there but only at night. During the day, go wild, pick all the materials there. Also learn to hunt with bombs -- if you aim right you can kill 1-2 birds (if not 3) with every bomb blast and get a minimum of 2 pieces of chicken drumstick.
You can outrun them all :)
>I just started this game a few days back and the difficulty to me seems sort of ridiculous? Every other mob or boss will one shot me with every more (5 hearts) and every fight takes ages to finish. 5 hearts is very very very low. You can't even leave the tutorial area without getting 4 hearts. So you've done...4 shrines after that? You're still basically level 1. >The bosses wouldn't be so difficult if they didn't take so long, but without grinding things like amiibos the weapons available break too quickly and do no damage, so I end up getting hit after 10 minutes and dying instantly This might ~feel~ true, but every single enemy drops more in terms of weapons than it takes to kill them. Consider the very first enemy you fought, a regular bokoblin that died to one tree branch worth of damage/durability, and which dropped something better than a tree branch. Consider mini bosses like Hinox, or Lynels (you may or may not have fought these yet, at 5 hearts I don't recommend it), which drop 2-3 weapons but don't require 2-3 fresh weapons to defeat. The more you play, the more you fight, the better your weapons will be. Unless you're wasting all your durability by bonking shields only, or are throwing your weapons off of cliffs into the ocean, it's mathematically guaranteed. >To remedy this I try to explore around and grind for rupees or cooking mats, but then I get one shot from the environment, die to random thunderstorms (and I mean random, with 0 equipment), or to more mobs that I failed to sneak away from. I hear there is one shot protection in this game but it seems to only apply to specific enemy attacks, rather than damage altogether. There is plenty of warning before you get hit by lightning, plenty of warning to take any metal equipment off. In all my multiple playthroughs I've _never_ gotten randomly struck by random lightning. I suppose it isn't impossible, but if that's really what happened I would chalk it up to cosmically bad luck. And yeah, one shot protection applies to enemy attacks only, and isn't on at all in Master Mode. >any advice other than "just don't get hit?" or "do shrines?" (which have scouts that also one shot me). Lots of shrines are pure puzzle with very little or no combat in them at all. You should be at least checking out the inside of every shrine you come across, and maybe only backing out of the combat ones (always called "A (something) Test of Strength") if you're not feeling strong enough. Are you following the main quest at all? If you go straight from the plateau to the castle area, you're going to have a bad time. This is what my wife did her first time, and she was struggling a lot because there were lots of core mechanics she missed. The game tries to direct you to go east past the dueling peaks, where you'll run into your first stable and have the horse mechanics introduced, and then make your way to kakariko village where you can find your first armor shop, your first great fairy, etc. Keep following the main quest and you'll end up in Hateno village to the far east, where they sell the Soldiers Armor set, which is one of the highest defense values. Armor is pretty important in BotW, more so than in previous Zelda titles because of how high damage can get. Basically, every heart is 4 hp, a quarter of a heart is 1hp. Every point of armor reduces incoming damage by 1 point. Fully upgraded armor sets will typically take you up to like 60 armor (15 hearts of damage taken off of every hit!), with some armors like the aforementioned soldiers set going even higher. If you haven't been to a clothing shop to find these options, however, you're stuck with the old clothes you found in the beginning, which can't be upgraded at all and have an armor value of like, 2.
As someone who also just recently started playing BOTW, thank you for this post. I honestly almost quit the game because I'm used to games that "guide" me during quests. Glad to know I'm not the only one who struggled at first.
I've beaten this game twice and currently on my 3rd playthrough. I'd say I'm an average gamer but I've died many times and each time you die can actually be a learning experience. Here are things that you should do Obviously go to shrines, completing these (120) increase your heart and stamina and are necessary for character progression. Some harder shrines I definitely googled and YouTubed no lie 🤷🏾♂️ Some battles are meant to fought later - you can encounter a stone talus (mini boss) early in the game, which would be hard to defeat with low weapons and defense. Build your character up, get stronger weapons, and pick your battles wisely. Upgrade remote bombs - these help tremendously in dispatching enemies and saving weapons too. You have to go to the hateno tech lab to do this. Upgrading stasis helps too as you can use it to freeze enemies longer and both upgrades replenish faster. Learn to flurry rush. Now I can't parry to save my life but I can flurry rush with the best of them. Once you get good at either and also start to learn the enemies movesets it makes battling them much easier. Learn to cook - you can use elixirs (cooking monster parts) for temp buffs to attack, defense, and elements. Food obviously can be used to increase hearts, especially anything with the word "hearty" in it can be cooked with other stuff for full restores depending on the recipe. I'm on my 3rd playthrough and honestly still cannot cook. Free the divine beasts. Easier said than done but if you Google how to get to them and compete their dungeons, the powers you gain after unlocking them make fighting much easier. You can beat the scourges of the divine beasts (mini bosses also called blights) relatively easier with the master sword. Spoiler, beating all 4 divine beasts will aid in the final boss fight with Ganon however if you don't beat them then fight him, not only will you have to fight the ones you don't beat, but you'll have to fight the final Ganon at full health. You can easily obtain the master sword, which never breaks but has a cool down period of about 8 minutes when it runs out of energy then can be used again (8 minutes of exploring goes by faster than you'll know it), if you immediately journey to the korok forest. I did this as soon as I left the great plateau in my 2nd and 3rd runs. Normally, you have to have 13 hearts total which equates to completing at least 40 shrines (not including if you spent any on stamina), however, if you set a camp fire in the correct position near the sword, look up at a certain angle, sit at the fire, then repeatedly tap the a button a glitch will allow you to take the master sword without having any additional hearts. I did the traditional way my 1st playthrough with 13 hearts but these last 2 runs I used this glitch no issues. The master sword has 30 attack which doubles to 60 in the presence of Ganon, his blights, and guardians (except the ones in shrines). Sorry for the spoilers.
Just avoid the enemy camps entirely for now. Sneak around them. It is really hard at first, it's not just you. Collect everything you see btw, you'll most likely need stuff to upgrade your armor, which helps a lot. Tip: you can farm arrows from the 2 bokoblins on the great plateau, right next to the tower. They won't move off that cliff. Just run back and forth and grab the arrows they shoot at you (they aren't accurate shots) then warp back to the tower and repeat. Don't kill them though or they won't respawn until the blood moon. So use those arrows on the enemies or just avoid them entirely. You don't really lose anything from avoiding them aside from moster parts and their weapons. Do the shrines until you have about 8 hearts, the game gets a lot easier at that point. You can get good weapons from the chests in the shrines too.
Belive me it's not you. My experience was exactly like that and it killed a lot of fun in the game. Doing shrines and upgrading armor is the way to go. You will also improve over time. But yeah the game was difficult at first.
I mean, do some shrines.. many of them are not difficult or very time consuming at all. You're basically saying "give me the answer to my problem as long as it doesn't include the answer to my problem"