Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Guide FAQ: Answering the Most Common Questions

So you just got off the Great Sky Island and you're standing on Hyrule's surface, staring at the map, having absolutely no idea where to go first. That's honestly the most common DMs I get, people feel completely lost after the tutorial. And the game does a terrible job of nudging you in any particular direction. But here's the thing: that aimlessness is actually the best part of TOTK, once you know how to navigate it.

Where should you actually go first after the tutorial?

Purah tells you to check out four regions. Skip that, tbh. Head straight to Lookout Landing, do the first Depths quest with Robbie, then go northwest toward Rito Village.

Why Rito first? Revali's Gale is gone, but Tulin's gust ability is the single most useful traversal tool in the early game. You'll use it constantly for crossing chasms, reaching sky islands, and escaping bad fights. The Wind Temple is also the easiest of the four main dungeons. The boss is a giant flying bug with massive weak spots, and honestly, if you've played any Zelda game before, you'll beat it first try with five hearts and a stack of arrows.

After Rito, go Gerudo for lightning protection, then Zora, then Goron. Goron last because the Death Mountain heat mechanic is annoying without a stash of fireproof elixirs, and Yunobo's ability is the least useful for general exploration. I'm not sure about this ordering for everyone but it's worked for me across two playthroughs.

How do I find all the shrines without losing my mind?

You don't. At least not blind. There are 152 shrines in TOTK, and finding them all without an interactive map is a recipe for burnout.

What I've found works best: use the Lightroots in the Depths first. Every Lightroot in the Depths sits directly below a shrine on the surface. So if you light up the Depths map, you've effectively revealed every surface shrine location. You still need to go find the entrance, but at least you know where to look. The strategy is to do Depths exploration in parallel with surface exploration. Drop into any chasm you see, grab the Lightroot, ascend back up, and repeat. You'll naturally map out most of the shrines this way without needing an external map.

For the truly hidden ones, caves behind waterfalls, shrines that only trigger during specific weather, the ones tucked inside wells, tbh, just use the Zelda TOTK interactive map on ZeldaDungeon. No shame in it. The game's map is enormous and some entrances are genuinely obtuse. I've spent 20 minutes circling the same cliff face more times than I want to admit.

Which armor sets are actually worth upgrading?

Most armor in TOTK is cosmetic fluff, honestly. The sets that matter for actual gameplay, let me just run through them.

The Barbarian or Fierce Deity set is the highest priority, hands down. Attack up stacks multiplicatively with attack up food, so a full set plus a Mighty Banana meal gives you a ridiculous damage multiplier. This is how you farm Lynels without burning through weapons.

Flamebreaker armor is mandatory for Death Mountain and the Goron region. You literally cannot survive without it. I'd put this right after the attack up sets.

The Glide Set is low-key the best QoL armor in the game. Once you upgrade it to level 2, fall damage is completely negated. No more dying to misjudged sky island landings. You get it from the three skydiving minigame islands, each piece costs a completed course. I've found that players who rush this set early enjoy the game way more.

Champion's Leathers give you high defense and reveal enemy HP numbers, which is more useful than it sounds. Rito Snowquill for cold resistance in Hebra and sky islands, and Desert Voe for heat in Gerudo, both medium priority. The Stealth Set is nice for bug farming and sneakstrikes but not essential. Zora Armor is... look, the waterfall climbing is cool but you'll barely use it.

When can I get the Master Sword?

The Master Sword is a two-step process that the game kinda barely explains.

Step one: find all 12 Dragon's Tears memory locations, the geoglyphs scattered across Hyrule. Once you find them all, a final tear appears that reveals the sword's location. The light dragon flies a roughly circular path around the entire map, so you don't need to chase it. Just wait at a skyview tower or a sky island near its route.

Step two: you need two full stamina wheels to pull the sword. Not hearts, stamina. I've seen so many people grind shrines for hearts and then can't figure out why the sword won't budge. You can respec at the horned statue in Lookout Landing's emergency shelter if you need to.

So here's a speedrun tip I stumbled onto: cook five Enduring Carrots together for a meal that gives you two extra temporary stamina wheels. This lets you pull the Master Sword as soon as you find it, without grinding 20 shrines first. The carrots grow around Cherry-Blossom trees and Satori Mountain. Kinda broken, honestly.

How do Korok seeds actually work, and how many do I really need?

There are 1,000 Korok seeds total. You need 441 to fully expand all three inventory categories. The remaining 559 give you a golden pile of poop from Hestu and absolutely nothing else. Not even a joke reward. Literally a golden turd.

Here's the thing no one tells you about Koroks. Rush to 35 seeds first, this maxes out your weapon stash, which is way more important than bow or shield slots early on. Then bows to about 25 slots, shields to 16. After 200 to 250 seeds, the marginal benefit drops hard and it's just completionist territory.

Mark every Korok you see on the map with a leaf stamp, even if you can't solve the puzzle right now. Half the frustation is remembering where you saw one three hours ago and spending another hour backtracking. The backpack Koroks that want to reunite with their friend give two seeds each, so always prioritize those when you see the smoke signals. And honestly, the most efficient farming route is just playing normally and checking every rock on top of every hill. The game is designed so you trip over them constantly if you're actually exploring...

What's the actual boss order difficulty ranking?

Queen Gibdo in Gerudo is the hardest regional boss by a mile, and it's not close. You need Riju's lightning ability to expose its weak points, but Riju's AI likes to stand in melee range getting swarmed while you're frantically trying to aim arrows at the Gibdo hives. So frustrating.

Mucktorok in Zora is the most annoying because it throws sludge everywhere and jumps across the arena like a hyperactive frog. But with splash fruit or an opal rod it's actually trivial. Kinda funny how hard it seems until you figure out the gimmick.

Colgera in Rito is the easiest, dive through its ice weak points, takes maybe three minutes. Marbled Gohma in Goron is a gimmick fight. Use Yunobo to smash its legs, then wail on the eye. Tedious but not difficult.

For the final boss sequence under Hyrule Castle: bring at least eight sunny meals for gloom recovery, a stockpile of bomb flowers, and a handful of rocket shields. The gloom hands on the way down are honestly worse than the actual boss phases. Sundelions are your best friend, cook one per meal and it clears three hearts of gloom damage. Cook five in one meal and it clears the full 15 hearts you can lose to gloom.

Any beginner tips I wish someone told me?

Fuse is the entire combat system. Don't treat it like some optional feature. A rusty broadsword with a black bokoblin horn attached does more damage than half the pristine weapons you'll find lying around. Zonaite spears with beam emitters make Lynels trivial at range. Puffshrooms on arrows let you sneakstrike an entire camp one by one while they stand around confused. So yeah, the combat isn't hard once you embrace fuse.

Hoarding is pointless. The game showers you with weapons and materials. Use the 50-damage fused claymore you're saving. You'll find ten more before it breaks. I've found that players who treat weapons as consumable resources have way more fun than players who save everything for a boss fight that never comes.

Always carry a rocket fused to a shield, instant vertical escape from any combat encounter. And muddle buds on arrows in enemy camps: hit the strongest enemy, watch them clear out the camp for you, loot the remains. Works on every non-boss enemy including silver tier. If a fight feels unfair, there's basicaly always a Zonai device or fuse combination that trivializes it in ways the game never explicitly tells you.