One of the most controversial aspects of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and its predecessor Breath of the Wild are decayed weapons. The developers have made a conscious choice to not allow players to use the same weapon for the entire game. As a player continues to use a weapon, it will eventually become decayed and lose all of its damage and defensive properties as a result. In turn, the weapon essentially becomes useless, forcing players to use different weapons constantly.
However, in Tears of the Kingdom, there is a slight way around this. Instead of constantly switching out and discarding weapons once they have become decayed, players can fix them using a neat trick. To see exactly what that trick is and how to fix decayed weapons in Tears of the Kingdom, you can read my guide below for all of the details.
Fixing decayed weapons in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
There are two ways to fix a decayed weapon in Tears of the Kingdom, and we will explain both of them below.
Using the Octorok to repair decayed weapons
The first and foremost way of repairing a weapon in Tears of the Kingdom is to have an Octorok eat it. Seriously. If you remember the Octoroks in Breath of the Wild, you could give them a rusty sword and they would spit it back as a new, shiny sword. This mechanic works similarly in Tears of the Kingdom, but with a major twist.
Octoroks who eat your weapons in Tears of the Kingdom will spit them back out fully repaired and with a stat buff pic.twitter.com/P0386720q5
— Tristan Cooper (@TristanACooper) May 16, 2023
If you give the Octorok a weapon of any kind and they eat it, they will spit it back out at you as a fully repaired weapon. The best location we found to give Octoroks a weapon is west of Death Mountain near the YunoboCo HQ area.
Fusing items onto the decayed weapon
The process of essentially repairing a weapon in Tears of the Kingdom utilizes a new mechanic. That mechanic is Link’s Fuse ability, which allows him to combine different objects together to create a new item.
If players want to repair one of their decayed weapons, all they need to do is Fuse another item onto it. This will reset the decay process and return the weapon’s full damage properties. Of course, whatever item you choose to Fuse onto the weapon will result in new damage features as well. For example, if you Fuse a Sapphire onto your weapon, you will now deal ice damage. Or, you can attach a Korok Frond to a weapon and it will turn into a fan, blowing enemies away when used.
In order to beat the decaying process, though, you will need to keep Fusing items onto your weapon. Before that, you can remove a Fused material from the weapon so you can attach a new one. It’s not a be-all-end-all type of solution, but it will allow you to keep using the same weapon over and over, albeit with a slight twist every time.
Published: Jul 8, 2023 11:02 am