The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I found the botw weapon system odd at first but I grew to really like it, the challenge of working out where all the awesome gear is hidden, working out what to keep in your inventory and what to toss (should I keep a few wood bows and swords for thunderstorms? Do I really need 3 frost Greatblades? Boomerang vs throwing spear - what do?).

I would like to have been able to store more than 3 of each thing at my house, but eh.

botw is essentially a survival game which is why all your resources are limited. its not a rpg

Good point. Thats particularly driven home in both the Eventide Island bit and trial of the sword dlc.

a survival game where climbing a 46-degree* slope in a drizzle is the most lethal predator

*I don't know that it's 46-degrees, but you know the cut-off is this arbitrary

Calculating angles is probably overboard. Whether or not the cathedral ruins inherit from the SlipperyGuy class may have been at the designer's discretion.

I *think* I'm back on board. It was really a matter of finding the right rhythm, recognizing when it's cool to simply teleport in and out of somewhere and when it's better to just wander and discover. Still haven't taken on a divine beast, but had a streak of very satisfying shrines and towers (a couple of which the challenge was simply getting there - thinking of a shrine near the castle surrounded by guardians, or ... or a tower surrounded by guardians). Had also been frustrated because the first couple of times I was asked to get naked for that mad scientist for some reason I couldn't drop trou, but I was eventually able to doff my armor and parade for the dude, so now got some ancient arrows. Not many, granted, and they seem hard to come by, and also hard to use. Appeared to do little to no damage to a guardian in the wild? Anyway, def. getting a bit more momentum going again.

Have to say it's a huge help that there really is no bad side to dying, afaict. Just a small hiccup or setback, like being struck by lighting. If I lost equipment or rubies or souls or something it would be a lot more frustrating. In this game it's more a gentle (right down to the music cue) "it's ok, try again."

i still struggle against the guardians. i haven't shelled out for much of the ancient technology and can't seem to get the timing of the shield reflection of their lasers right

Finally being able to kill guardians without resorting to ancient arrows was when I first felt like I’d “gotten good”

Josh: ancient arrows'll become easier once you get the hang of killing guardians so in the meantime, gather up every cog and spring the shrine versions drop, cos you'll need em for the arrows.

Also: dont kill big bad guys (Lynels etc) with ancient arrows, they will blink out of existence and you will miss out on their weapon drop. Guardians excluded here - kill them using ancient arrows, 2 or 3 of those in the eye and itll drop like a fly.

xp haha Ive never killed guardians without either anc arrows or an anc sheild parry. I'm the worst lazyLink.

it should only take one ancient arrow in the eye? or maybe it's a bow power issue. speaking of bows, the ones with arrow multipliers (3x, 5x, etc) shoot that many arrows per shot. however, they only consume one inventory arrow per shot. I needlessly stayed away from them for a long time because I thought they'd waste arrows.

I needlessly stayed away from them for a long time because I thought they'd waste arrows.

lol, whooooops! same here. so wait, is there any reason to use a 1x bow over a 5x bow, if they both only use 1 arrow per shot but the latter is 5 times more powerful?

I think there could be a trade-off in range between bows that isn't very transparent. but the 5x bow will do 5x the damage at the same cost in arrows if all the effective arrows land.

i learned this from one of the loading screen hints. i was very upset about it.

Yeah I def use the multiplier bows (lynel bows and the great eagle bow esp) as they do indeed multiply the shot using only one actual arrow.

One shot with a savage lynel bow to the eye of a guardian and they're done for.

(I was cross I'd avoided fighting Lynels for so long as I didnt know they'd drop such powerful gear)

PS the great eagle and the ancient bow both shoot *dead straight* for quite a long distance (no drop) so are good for distant sniping. But both are hard to come by of course.

How come the guardians seem to take some minor amount of damage with the first hit of almost anything, and then ... seemingly no damage after that?

where or how are you hitting them?

with anything from a bomb on up, from a distance, up close, etc. Lately I just avoid them because I can never make any progress.

bomb arrows, swords ... little progress.

at least out in the wild. In the shrines bomb arrows worked pretty easily. at least with little guardians.

there's really only two easy ways to beat them: shield parry (any shield works, you just have to get the timing exactly right or you die), or ancient arrows.

parrying is difficult, but it's worth taking the time to figure out how to do it. parry right when the eye flashes. stand a medium distance away to give yourself a slightly longer window of time to react. i would just save the game before a guardian and give it a shot. you'll die several times trying to get it right, and then you'll figure it out and won't have to worry about guardians.

i'd steer away from using ancient arrows because...from upthread i can tell it's going to make you mad to lose your hard-earned ancient arrows!

Ive seen some people kill em by stasis and then cutting off their legs, but they dont stay still very long with stasis.

That’s how I kill them. Once you get a leg off they tip over and you can just systematically take the rest of the legs off one by one, without getting eye blasted anymore

I should give that a try. TBH all I really need to do now is farm for giant ancient cores if I want to replenish my ancient shield/bow. Ive done everything cept the master sword trial now.

Just plain ol' stasis?

You may need the Stasis+ upgraded version, do you have that yet?

I didn't even know you can upgrade those powers.

If you can jump off something nearby, slow down time and shoot them in the eye with a regular arrow they will be stunned enough to let you chop off a leg. If you chop off a leg, they'll be stunned enough to let you chop off another leg (plus they move slower for each leg lost).

Do they respawn or are they basically like mini-bosses that stay dead? How about the flying ones, can they just be blown up?

Oh right calumerio’s method is what I did, not stasis. I forgot, it’s been a year.

So go for the legs first? For some reason I thought you had to get to their dome and slash away.

you can hit a guardian and do damage anywhere iirc

they do respawn unfortunately. another tip: electricity can stun them for a brief period in most but not all situations

I still want to know why hitting them with a bomb or whatever seems to do a tiny smidge of damage the first time (at least in the wild) but then seems to stop hurting them immediately after.

I feel like that happened to me too when I was playing, and found bombs to be generally uneffective (though if you have a good hiding spot behind a wall, you'll kill them after like 50-100 bombs or something). It might just be a visual feedback cue they put in so you know you hit them once and they're damaged.

everything in the game respawns, thats what the blood moon is

I didn't know the things that respawned during the blood moon respawned permanently, I thought it was just during the blood moon, the same way skeleton monsters only come out at night.

i once lured a guardian to the banks of a mighty river. i then remote bombed him so that he toppled into the water, where he drowned. i watched it all unfold from a bridge. *in the air tonight drums*

I couldn't find any ancient stuff in the river afterward, so I don't necessarily recommend it as a strategy

nah the blood moon is just the in-game lore justification for the game having to reset the world every so often since theres too many things for it to permanently track

do the guardians respawn though? there are one or two you have to destroy right near the lab where you can buy ancient tech, and those don't come back

the one in between the lab and the stable definitely respawns

yeah those respawn. every overworld enemy and item does

But do treasures? Like, sunken chests and stuff?

Some treasure/weapons do - the stuff you find in the wild like elemental swords in a rock crevasse in the mountains, that sorta thing - but not stuff in chests in shrines.

Another thing I found annoying was once you are loaded up with all the arrows, the shops wont restock til you get back down below a certain level.

yeah, that's kind of in keeping with the vibe of the game though, to encourage you to use all your crap instead of hoarding things. e.g., the weapon breaking - it is very annoying but it does force you to become familiar with all sorts of items instead of choosing yr favorite blade at the beginning and leveling it up the rest of the game.