5 Tips for Surviving in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Hyrule is a beautiful landscape full of unique puzzles and characters. However, it’s also filled to the brim with danger. If you’re not careful you can easily stumble into an enemy encampment you are absolutely not prepared for and get wrecked. Sometimes it’s hard just to stay alive in Tears of the Kingdom.

Fortunately, there are quite a few things in the game to help Link survive. If you’re hoping to increase your combat prowess and survivability in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, read on for 5 helpful tips. You can also check out our full guide of tips and tricks for more assistance.

Prioritize Finding Shrines and Increasing Hearts

One of the most obvious ways to decrease your chances to die is to acquire more heart containers. You can accomplish this by focusing on finding as many Shrine locations as possible and completing the puzzles within. Once you have enough Light of Blessing to adequately increase your health to a more reasonable level, Link should be able to take a few more hits without immediately crumbling.

Although you can also choose to increase your stamina capacity, it’s probably best to focus on expanding your hearts first. You can always supplement your stamina with meals and elixirs if needed.

Get Some Decent Armor Early On

Another great way to increase your chances of survival is to find armor in Tears of the Kingdom that offers better protection than the Archaic set. Although there is a lot of different types of armor you’ll discover as you make your way through the main story quests, you should be able to find The Royal Guard uniform pretty early on in Hyrule Castle.

There’s an early quest called Crisis at Hyrule Castle that will lead you near this armor, and it offers an additional 4 defense that can help increase your survival rate immensely.

Utilize Shield and Arrow Fusions

One of Link’s new abilities is great for increasing your combat prowess directly. Fuse allows you to turn even a simple stick into a decent weapon you can actually fight with. However, it can be easy to forget that you can do more than just Fuse melee weapons. Adding additional capabilities to your shield and arrows can greatly increase your combat prowess without having to get up close and personal.

Arrows for example can be fused with Keese Eyes to create homing arrows that can better hit distant targets. You can also fuse your shield with a Flame Emitter to create a flamethrower that also blocks attacks. You could also go as far as fusing a rocket to your shield to activate as a quick escape.

Cook Up the Best Recipes and Elixirs

One of Link’s greatest advantages is that he can cook up a storm. With the best recipes and elixirs, you can increase your attack power, defense rating, and even temporarily increase your heart capacity. You’ll need to locate the correct ingredients and find the right combinations, but once you do, these meals and elixirs can greatly increase your chance to survive tough encounters.

For some guidance on what to make, you can check out our guide to recipes in Tears of the Kingdom as well as this list of helpful elixirs.

Utilize Ultrahand for Combat

Ultrahand is the first ability you get in Tears of the Kingdom, and it is arguably the most versatile. Although it is mostly used for solving puzzles and building machines, you can also utilize it in combat pretty effectively. Similar to the Magnesis ability in Breath of the Wild, you can use Ultrahand to pick up heavy things and drop them on enemies. You can also build some pretty devastating combat machines using Zonai devices.

Utilizing the Ultrahand ability in combat does take some forethought and strategy, but if you start effectively incorporating it, you should be able to take on tougher opponents without having to fight them directly.

Looking for more tips? Check out our full Tears of the Kingdom Wiki Guide or dive into our suggestions for what to do first in the game.