Enemy/Boss Strategies

[Paraxade]

This is probably worth having its own thread... Anyone have a good strategy for Thieves' Hideout's boss, or Ice Ruin's miniboss? Those both have a habit of killing me a lot and in fact they screwed over two decent runs today. :x

Might have some enemy strats worth posting, can't think of any off the top of my head though.

[mzxrules]

Related somewhat, I am working on figuring out damage charts for enemies / bosses https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AiGHKbL4ONGXdHZPT2xaRW5QSkJYZVRFcXdOeTFaWUE#gid=2

[Rdy]

This is probably worth having its own thread... Anyone have a good strategy for Thieves' Hideout's boss, or Ice Ruin's miniboss? Those both have a habit of killing me a lot and in fact they screwed over two decent runs today. :x

Might have some enemy strats worth posting, can't think of any off the top of my head though.

For Blind, for the first half, keeping your distance is totally okay, since you can only attack him after you make him block, which he won't do until he finishes attacking you first. Remember that he starts doing two swipes rather than just one after so much damage. For the spin attack, just lead him around on the edges and you should have plenty of room to maneuver around him.

For the second half, his attacks are very easy to dodge with even the smallest of side-steps, allowing you to continue attacking him. The threat IMO actually comes from the floating head, at that point, but it does minimal damage (and I don't think it stuns Link, too) so taking those hits in the face should usually be okay. Remember that just before you kill him his sword won't get stuck in the ground and he will continue to swipe, though these attacks are still very trivial to dodge with sidesteps.

I don't actually recall what the Ice Ruins miniboss is. The large penguins? This is just theoretical from what I've seen in the Treacherous Tower, but if they keep running for so long then they start sliding again, and when they are sliding they DO recoil from your sword hits. Otherwise, just strafe while using the rebound from hitting them to not get cornered.

[Bamboocha]

Thieve's Hideout Boss:

1st phase: Merging on the shield etc is pretty obvious I guess. When he does his black breath thing just stand in the opposite corner and quickly shoot 3 arrows and walk away. That should take 2 or 3 cycles, I don't remember.

2nd phase: What I do is just stay very close to him and spam sword attacks and I try to stay slightly to his left cause he has the sword on the right hand so I can just walk a bit around him when he starts attacking. During his whirlwind thing I personally just keep attacking and take the damage but if you are low on health you should just walk around until he stops.

3rd phase: I try to just stay behind him and spam attacks a bit slower so I can follow him and stay behind him while attacking. That way he won't attack at all and the only threat is the head which doesn't do much damage.


Ice Ruin's Miniboss: What I just discovered is that a spin-attack with lvl 2 master word oneshoots the small ones so I just walk in the middle and spin-attack right in the beginning which usually kills 3 of them. From there it gets pretty easy. I kill the Ice thing before the fight to be safe.

[mzxrules]

I mentioned this in the irc. Apparently one part of the Yu-ganon fight can be skipped completely, according to Gamefaqs.

"I thought this was a joke until I read it more closely, lol. So basically, if you use a spin attack at the right moment during the "Yuga charges along the walls" phase, you can kill him before you get to the "Yuga blocks everything so you have to aim the other way" phase? That's kinda neat, I wonder if the same thing could be done with the Super Lamp instead of the Golden Sword."

"Anything that does the equivalent of two Golden Sword hits should work, as long as it damages him. There's a weapon damage guide on ZeldaSpeedRuns. The Great Spin is even better as it does 4x damage. I think I'll try doing it in Phase 1 to see what happens."

[Hitaka]

I can confirm that two-round Yuganon works. With gold sword and great spin, on both rounds, I did one slash and two great spins, and he died. I think you have to do it on both rounds for enough surplus damage to pile up. 6 gold sword slashes is the most you can do in one round before he vanishes, and a great spin is 4 slashes, so that's the maximum possible damage in two rounds. If great spin is required, and I suspect it is, this will only be useful in 100%. Pretty nice timesaver though.

EDIT: Might as well throw some numbers in.

One normal round: 6 gold slashes = 6*4 = 24 damage
One max damage round: 1 slash + 2 great spins = 4 + (2*16) = 36 damage
Total surplus damage per round: 12
Total surplus damage overall: 24

As you can see, the total surplus damage is equal to one "normal" round's worth of damage. So by doing three rounds of damage in two rounds, he dies a round early. I'm not entirely sure if this is actually how it's calculated, since on the final round he dies in one hit no matter what sword you have. The game might set his health to 1 at that point, but his "real" health for the rest of the battle is 72.

EDIT2: I left out a normal slash, and 20 surplus damage wasn't enough. You absolutely must do 36 damage per round. Nice bombs/hammer won't cut it, only gold sword great spins are strong enough to get the 12 surplus per round.

EDIT3: Just to be absolutely sure, I tried with 23 surplus damage, and it didn't work. 24 is the minumum.

EDIT4: Also just to be absolutely sure, I confirmed with the nice Hookshot that 24 is the minimum damage he will take in a round before he vanishes.

[Ganrokh]

So, I've been experimenting with different weapons on different bosses, and found out that the Ice Rod works on the boss of the Swamp Temple.

When the boss goes into phase 2 after you Hookshot all of the eyes off, you can freeze him with the Ice Rod. Every hit with the Rod was dealing damage and interrupting him. If he was in the air and was hit with the Rod, he would land and stay idle for 1-2 seconds. If you hit him with the Ice Rod when he's on the ground, he is completely frozen for a few seconds, or until you hit him. Once he thaws, he's idle for 1-2 seconds as well. I'm not sure what hitting him with the Rod will do when he's firing the lasers, as with the Rod I've been killing him before he's had a chance to do that. You have to be precise with hitting him with the Rod, though. I've had him move out from under the ice before, and missing him really hurts your stamina. However, utilizing the Ice Rod against him has gotten me very quick kills on him once he enters phase 2.

This strategy also works on him in Lorule Castle.

Edit: Also, I'm curious if anyone knows what the trigger is for the Turtle Rock boss to do his spin attack? Or is it random? I was grinding the dungeon earlier and I had an attempt where the boss did it once, and an attempt where the boss did it 4 times almost back to back. I suppose the same question also applies for his AoE fire attack as well.

[Paraxade]

The moves the Turtle Rock boss uses in Phase 2 are random. In Phase 1 though, he always uses the fire attack after every two hits. You can cancel that attack early if you hit it with the Ice Rod.

Also, according to Zelda Wiki these are the boss names, not sure where they got them from:

Tower of Hera: Moldorm
House of Gales: Margomill
Dark Palace: Gemesaur King
Swamp Palace: Arrghus
Skull Woods: Knucklemaster
Thieves' Hideout: Stalbind
Desert Palace: Zaganaga
Ice Ruins: Dharkstare
Turtle Rock: Grinexx

[Hitaka]

Also, according to Zelda Wiki these are the boss names, not sure where they got them from:

Tower of Hera: Moldorm
House of Gales: Margomill
Dark Palace: Gemesaur King
Swamp Palace: Arrghus
Skull Woods: Knucklemaster
Thieves' Hideout: Stalbind
Desert Palace: Zaganaga
Ice Ruins: Dharkstare
Turtle Rock: Grinexx

I'll stick with Phallus Cactus and Turdlecano thank you very much.

[RheaultWnage]

Does anyone know if the Ice Ruins boss (Dharkstare? Cool name) can be taken down in 2 cycles? I think I heard zandergoth on his stream say it had been done, but I'm not sure if I remember correctly. Also, I'm not sure if it's possible using the any% items you would have by that point (basically Tempered Sword and every rentable items except Boomerang).

The way most of my fights have gone is:

1st cycle: Up to 9 Tempered Sword slashes (27 damage)
2nd cycle: Never went past the 45 total damage "barrier". Every time I got 9 hits in on the first cycle, I'd get 6 on the second cycle, even when I was chaining them nicely.

The boss takes a total of 17 slashes to kill, so 51 damage, but I'm thinking he actually has 50 HP. (Haven't tested yet, will have to on another savefile where I have more hearts/a better tunic so I don't die in 2 hits haha)

[Paraxade]

...so uh, I accidentally found a trick for the Desert Palace boss during a run today. Apparently since enemies can't hurt you while they have damage invulnerability, there's nothing stopping you from walking onto the same platform as the boss without getting hurt. This means you can deal far more damage because you don't have to worry about the sand pillars falling down. I was able to take down the second phase in two cycles this way.

[Hitaka]

Does anyone know if the Ice Ruins boss (Dharkstare? Cool name) can be taken down in 2 cycles?

I haven't had any luck, even with the gold sword. Seems like he always ends the round prematurely when he's almost dead. A great spin could probably do it, but without that I'm not sure. Maybe a well-timed normal spin if he lets his health get low enough.

[Paraxade]

On Dharkstare if you have full health you can actually hit him twice with every sword slash, once by hitting him with your actual sword and once with the Master Sword beam. Maybe that'll help two-cycle him? I haven't been able to do that, but I was pretty sure it was possible. Maybe not if he ends the round prematurely though.

[mzxrules]

Ok so the normal Master Sword clearly behaves differently against Yuganon's second phase. It takes 8 slashes to deal enough to advance to the next phase, meaning it's power is raised to 3 for that fight. Anyone know how many slashes it takes with the Lv2 sword?

[Paraxade]

Six slashes with Lv2.