Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Secrets Guide: Hidden Shrines, Rare Armor Sets, and Fusion Tricks You'll Miss

I didn't find the Fierce Deity set until my second playthrough. Walked right past the cave entrance three times. Three. That's the thing about Tears of the Kingdom. There's always something hiding in plain sight, and the game does not hold your hand about it.

Let's start with shrines, because that's where most people get stuck first. There are 152 total: 120 on the surface and 32 in the sky islands. The surface ones are spread across all 15 regions of Hyrule. Central Hyrule has the most at 15, and the Gerudo Desert region has the fewest. But the count doesn't tell the real story. Some shrines are sitting in the open where you'll trip over them. Others are buried in caves behind breakable rock walls, submerged underwater, or locked behind shrine quests that only trigger when you talk to a specific NPC at a specific time of day.

Mijah Rokee Shrine up on Gerudo Summit is one of the worst offenders. It sits behind a breakable rock wall that blends into the cliff face. You'll need a hammer weapon or a bomb flower to blast through, and there's nothing nearby that hints at the shrine's existence. I circled that mountain for 20 minutes before I gave up and looked it up. The shrine inside is a simple Blessing Shrine. Free Light of Blessing, no puzzle. The entire challenge was finding the entrance.

For the sky shrines, you need the paraglider and some way to gain altitude beyond the basic Skyview Tower launch. Most sky islands are reachable with a fan plane: two fans angled slightly backward, one steering stick in the center, total cost three Zonaite. It flies straight, turns ok, and sips battery. Save this design to your Autobuild favorites and you can reach about 80 percent of sky shrines without building anything else. The remaining ones are on really high platforms that require a rocket shield or hot air balloon. The shrine above the Great Hyrule Forest is one of these. Fuse a rocket to your shield, shield surf upward, and you'll just barely make the platform. I missed the timing three times before I got it.

Here's something I wish every guide mentioned. The Depths have 120 Lightroots spread across the entire underground map. Every single Lightroot sits directly underneath a surface shrine. Not approximately. Exactly. Check the coordinates on your Purah Pad. The Lightroot even has the same name as the shrine above, just reversed. If you light up a Lightroot in the Depths, swap to the surface map at the same spot, and there's a shrine icon waiting for you. I discovered this about 40 hours in and it completely changed how I found shrines. Instead of wandering the surface hoping to stumble onto hidden ones, I explored the Depths, lit Lightroots, and then fast-traveled to each corresponding shrine.

Weapon fusions are the other system that hides more depth than most players realize. The obvious combos are monster horns on swords for raw damage. Silver Lynel Saber Horn on a Royal Broadsword is the standard endgame setup, giving you about 91 attack with good durability. But the weirder fusions are where the creativity lives. Fuse a cannon to a spear and you've got a ranged explosive launcher that fires 10 shots before breaking. Great for clearing bokoblin camps from a safe distance. Fuse a sapphire to a magic rod and you freeze everything in a wide radius. Then swap to a shock weapon for the freeze-shock combo that does bonus damage. Fuse a spring to a shield and enemies bounce off when they hit you, creating an opening for a counterattack.

Don't waste diamonds on weapon fusions. They add 60 attack to whatever you fuse them to, which sounds incredible on paper. But you need 10 diamonds for the Diamond Circlet armor upgrade, and diamonds are rare drops from rare ore deposits and a handful of quests. I fused one to a Knight's Claymore early on and regretted it for the next 30 hours of desperately farming Talus enemies trying to find more. Save diamonds for armor.

Armor is where the real secrets live. The Zonaite Set is scattered across abandoned mines in the Depths. The Great Abandoned Central Mine has one piece, with the other two in mines to the north and east. This set reduces Zonai device energy drain at two stars. The difference is dramatic. A standard fan plane that drains your battery in 15 seconds with normal armor lasts closer to 45 seconds with the full Zonaite set. If you're into building vehicles and contraptions, this set is non-negotiable. Upgrade it with Zonaite from construct enemies and Luminous Stones from ore deposits.

The Climbing Gear still exists in TotK, hidden in caves across Hyrule. The headpiece is in North Hyrule Plains Cave. The chest is in Rutile Lake Cave. The pants are somewhere in the Great Plateau area. Full set at two stars cuts climbing stamina drain by 50 percent, and paired with Endura Carrots for stamina refills, you can scale any vertical surface in the game. The Dark Set is bought from Bargainer Statues in the Depths for 150 Poes per piece. It gives a night speed boost and looks great, though it's more of a farming convenience set than a combat essential.

The Fierce Deity set is the best combat armor in the game. Full set at two stars gives a 50 percent attack boost. Each piece requires a specific miniboss kill in the Depths. The sword piece comes from a coliseum fight. The chest is in a moat area. The mask is near a deep statue. You'll need Star Fragments and Luminous Stones to upgrade each piece to four stars, so start farming those early. Star Fragments drop from shooting stars that fall randomly at night. Pick a high point like a Skyview Tower, wait until nightfall, and watch the sky. When you see one fall, mark the location and sprint. They disappear after five in-game hours.

Great Fairy locations: near Woodland Stable, Dueling Peaks Stable, Outskirt Stable, and Tabantha Bridge Stable. They cost 100, 500, 1000, and then 2000 rupees to unlock. You need all four for 4-star upgrades. Start with the Tabantha one. It's the most accessible in early game. And that's really the theme of TotK secrets - they're all accessible, some are just hiding better than others.