- Tears of the Kingdom Flux Construct Guide - June 8, 2023
- Tears of the Kingdom Death Mountain Guide - June 7, 2023
- Tears of the Kingdom How to Get to Sky Islands - June 3, 2023
In Breath of the Wild, one of the few big main quests you get given is to Take Down the Divine Beasts. This quest is this game’s main meat and potatoes; while all of them are optional, they’re incredibly recommended if you don’t have supreme confidence in what you’re doing.
Each divine beast gives Link abilities, upgrades, and an edge against Ganon, they’re all around the four corners of Hyrule, and each will probably take you a few hours to beat. In addition, the quests to get to them are usually even more complex than the dungeons themselves, so I’ll review both in this guide.
Bottom Line Up-front
The Four Divine Beasts are found in Zora Village, Goron Village, Rito Village, and Gerudo Village, all in different corners of the map. These quests grant Link a heart container, a unique ability, a stellar weapon, and an eighth off of Ganon’s health bar.
Before You Begin
All of these divine beasts can be conquered at any time. While I choose to go with a very minimal amount of hearts, armor, and weapons on the run where I’m taking these screenshots, I am a terrible example and have played this game too much. So feel free to take as much time as needed to get shrines, heart containers, weapons, and whatever else.
The first thing you should do is go to Kakariko Village, talk to Impa, go to Hateno, talk to Purah, go back to Kakariko, talk to Impa again, and then find a memory, then speak to Impa AGAIN. There’s a lot of talking in this quest. Once you do this, you’ll get the iconic Champion’s Tunic which offers a nice defense boost.
It would be best if you also grabbed, like, an absolute ton of Rupees for anything but Zora’s Domain. All the other corners of the world are in extreme weather conditions (Heat, Extreme Heat, and Cold), and you’ll want the armor to be sure you don’t die on the job. These armor sets only require two pieces but still cost a ton of money.
Vah Ruta (Zora’s Domain)
Beginning Quest
To start, entering Zora’s domain from the start will prompt you with a cutscene from Sidon, where he will give you an Electricity Resistance potion to deal with the Lizalfos on the trail. This trail is difficult if you go in headstrong, so try to take a more stealthy approach and take out the lizalfos with arrows.
Once they’re dealt with, you’ll end up at Zora’s domain and be able to speak to the Zora King, then Sidon, where you’ll be prompted to acquire Electric Arrows from a mountain. This mountain is marked on your map, and you can easily swim to it using the waterfalls on the way.
The best strategy is to sneak around this mountain and stealthily grab all the arrows you need. Still, you could also fight the Lynel up there, making sure to parry and backflip constantly and abuse as many Flurry Rushes as possible. The Lynel will still take some time, but reward tons of gear.
Regardless of strategy, earning 20 Shock Arrows will allow you to begin the next part of this quest, where you can actually board the massive elephant causing eternal rain.
Boarding
Head to the location marked on your map after speaking to Sidon again; walking up to him and saying you’re ready to board will prompt you with a sequence where you need to ride on his back and deal with ice blocks and spike balls being thrown at you.
These ice objects are no problem if you turn on cryonis, mainly when using Gyro controls. You can also shoot arrows at these blocks and deflect them if you’d like, but Cryonis is more efficient.
Once you’ve dealt with the obstacles, Sidon will bring you close to a waterfall, where you can swim up and use bullet-time to shoot the glowing red bits with Shock Arrows.
You need to repeat this a few times, and then you can board the elephant and start Vah Ruta, shooting the eye blocking the entrance after talking to Mipha.
Map Terminal
This one will be right to the right of where you enter the Divine Beast. All you need to do is shoot the eyeball underwater, then summon a Cryonis pillar underneath the gate. You can then interact with the Terminal to put the divine beast map on your Sheikah Slate.
The map is opened with minus, and you can see the glowing points that indicate where the terminals are. Pressing A will interact with the trunk, making it move up or down and have the water it spews move with it; this is used for most puzzles in the divine beast.
Terminal 1
To the left of where you spawn, you’ll find a gear that can be turned using magnesis. Turning this gear clockwise will raise a platform with a terminal, where you can interact with it once it’s entirely out of the water. The other four terminals won’t come quite as quickly.
Terminal 2
For this one, walk up the incline, fight the mini-guardian, and freeze the water faucet, pushing the gear whenever the Terminal is on the bottom. The game isn’t too picky about what will count as being “good enough” here, so as long as it’s, like, generally there, you’ll be fine.
Terminal 3
This one is a bit more complicated. The large spinning gear can be spun by putting the trunk three steps before the maximum, and then you need to go all the way up and stasis the ball whenever it’s in the hole. You can then wait for the Terminal to be upright, activate it, and hopefully not get stuck in jail.
Terminal 4
After grabbing terminal 3, hitch a ride on the edges of the gears to head up. This next one can be obtained by putting the trunk down, climbing to the very edge, then paragliding around to the ledge on the back. Here is the Terminal, but you must put the Trunk 2 steps from the top to access it.
Terminal 5
After grabbing 4, you’ll need to glide down into the brain of the elephant. If you want the chest, you’ll have to take two trips. First, spin the gear with magnesis again, then adjust the trunk to smack dab in the middle so it’s spewing water into the hole you just opened up to put out the fire. You can now access the Terminal.
Waterblight Ganon
Now you can head all the way back down to the big onion terminal you saw when you came in here, on the complete opposite side of the map. Activating this Terminal will start the boss, and after the boss, you can still explore, but it would be better to grab everything you wanted out of here before you start.
First, the entire arena is covered in water, so you should be sure to have Cryonis equipped to make quick and easy shields whenever necessary. Secondly, grab your best bow and arrows because headshotting this boss is incredibly easy. Just holding ZL and shooting will be more than enough, usually.
If he ever gets to attack, he’ll usually sweep the room with his spear or throw it directly at you. For the sweep attack, you can either block it with Cryonis or backflip to flurry rush or just headshot him again. Just run around the arena for the toss, and he will almost always miss.
After he hits half health, he will raise the water level, and there will only be four platforms to stand on. He will also start using ice attacks against you, so of course, Cryonis will be your best bet for both making more things to stand on and completely disabling his attacks.
He will again toss spears at you, which can be avoided by running away or swimming away from them again. He will also shoot guardian lasers that can be parried, or you can use the opportunity to shoot him directly in the eye and down him.
You can try to run toward him whenever he’s down, but the water in the way usually makes that take longer, and it would be more effective to pelt him with tons of arrows while he’s down. After a few times of this routine, he’ll go down, and you can grab your heart piece and get out of there.
The reward for this is a free revive, a fun spear you’ll break in 10 minutes, and you get an eighth off of Ganon’s health bar whenever you make the trip to Hyrule Castle.
Vah Rudania (Goron Village)
Beginning Quest
The first step to even starting the Goron Village quests is even to be able to come close to the town at all. This is most easily achieved by looking around the stable in Eldin (which is easily visible to the southeast of the tower) for some slippery, dark gray lizards that can be cooked into a lovely fireproof elixir.
After this, you should quickly rush into the Goron Village. This is on the trail leading from the stable but nonetheless brings you to tons of lava pits, guardians, and enemies on the way there. Just be quick.
If you find yourself in a tight spot, for some reason, using a Heavy Weapon’s charge attack will temporarily cancel your burning up with the hot springs you might see along the way helping as well.
With at least 4-5 minutes of time (if you’re as quick as I am, then you only need 3!) and a clean 1300 rupees, you can head into the Goron armory Ripped and Shredded and grab yourself the chest piece and leggings, meaning no more relying on temporary buffs.
These might cost a lot, but trust me; it is far more worth it than constantly hunting lizards for the entire quest. You should also invest some time in grabbing metal or stone weapons, as any wooden ones will burn up. Of course, you’ll find more throughout the quest (especially in the beast itself), but having a stockpile is nice.
Talk to Bludo in the village, and he’ll give you the quest of taking down Rudania, finding Yunobo, and heading to the Abandoned North Mine, where you can learn how to shoot cannons with bombs.
You’ll have to hit a small cavern to release Yunobo, and there’s the best shrine in the game nearby, so that’s nice. Finally, he’ll head back to the village, and so should you.
Your reward for this is three more fireproof elixirs, so if you’re still slacking on getting the armor, there you go. He’ll tell you to go to Eldin Bridge, where you and Yunobo can engage in some shenanigans to board Rudania. Hit the bridge to start the boarding sequence, but know that you probably want to commit to it once you begin.
Boarding
The boarding sequence is quite different from Zora’s Domains. Once the bridge is lowered, you’ll be sent on a stealth mission, where getting caught means a volcanic eruption and likely death. There are two ways to go about it: sneaking around and waiting for Yunobo or killing all the guardians.
Sneaking around isn’t too hard; it’s mostly just a game of patience and not getting caught by the spotlights floating overhead. You need to whistle for Yunobo and take out some enemies, and it’s all a bit stressful, so if you’ve got the equipment, you might be inclined to go for the other strategy.
This alternate strategy involves climbing up the volcano above the guardians, then raining hellfire on them with tons of arrows to hopefully take them down without even giving them a chance to spot you.
After clearing a path, you can call Yunobo up the mountain trouble-free. This isn’t easy if you aren’t equipped for it, but any magnesis object instakills them.
You need to fire Yunobo out of the cannons and hit Rudania 3 times before you can board; then, you can glide right in and still need to use your flameproof armor most of the time.
Map Terminal
I hope you brought a large number of arrows because this dungeon is in the dark and requires you to light a path. So head forward, lighting the torches with the ancient flames, to eventually come across the Map Terminal. You can activate the Terminal and speak to Daruk to obtain your map.
The gimmick of Rudania is being able to tilt it, the tilting is a little annoying, but you don’t need to do it all that often. While I would say you should check your map whenever you’re literally in the dark about something, the lights turn on now, so the joke is wasted.
Terminal 1
This Terminal is right outside the map room and is easily achieved by tilting Rudania 90 degrees and flying to it after hitting the Malice eye with an arrow. Ensure not to fall in the room below, or you’ll have to rotate again to get out.
Terminal 2
In Rudania’s right thigh (Knee? do lizards have thighs or knees???) is a terminal easily accessed by having everything upright and shooting the greenery on the door with an arrow, either lit by the nearby torch or just a fire arrow, then pushing the metal doors open.
Terminal 3
For the leftmost Terminal, you first need to go all the way to Rudania’s right shoulder (Shoulder??? The circle thing, I don’t know) and make sure there will be a platform underneath your feet when you rotate. Then, shoot the Malice eye and head up the ramp outside, where everything will start burning up again.
Here you can light a torch, then once you rotate Rudania again, the ball will slide out from the cage, then you can make it roll all the way back to the bottom left of Rudania for another terminal.
Terminal 4
In the very back of the lizard, underneath the entrance, you’ll find another terminal only accessed by shooting an arrow through a small hole and lighting a torch on fire.
You’ll have to grab a torch or an arrow and light it through the door, then rotate the dungeon, where you can now access a metal block to clear a path through the flames and grab your Terminal.
Terminal 5
Head back outside, and use the rotation to get on the top spikes of Rudania. The Terminal is easily found, but you need to rotate Rudania and carefully navigate onto the platform, ensuring you don’t slide off and plummet into the lava below; with this Terminal, you can now fight the boss.
Fireblight Ganon
Head up to the top middle of the beast, where you can activate the massive Terminal and start your fight with fire.
The first attack you’ll see him do is a big overhead swing. While you could abuse the same strategy of just headshotting him like last time, you can also side-hop this attack to get in a high-damage flurry rush.
He also has a sweep attack, similar to waterblight, though this one has him swing it three times before stopping. You can backflip, and Flurry rush this one too, but the multiple attacks mean it’s probably better to just back away from this.
He will also toss a volley of fireballs at you, where the best strategy is to pull your shield out and block them. Of course, you can also try parry these, but the super-fast projectiles with a short visual cue don’t help.
Generally, for phase 1, you want to be headshotting him twice in a row to get him on the ground, do a charge attack, then repeat and dodge if necessary. Parrying and flurry rushing is a bit more complicated but can be pulled off with good timing.
Once he’s at half health, it’s time for phase 2. He will enchant his sword with fire and get a shield around him, which can only be broken by throwing a bomb at him when he makes his big vacuuming attack. So, just wait for the vacuum, then bomb him, get in many hits while he’s down, and repeat.
The extra attacks he has in this phase don’t matter much. He does a guardian laser like the previous blight, and you can dodge it if you know the timing. The sword attacks all get fire effects added, so now it is highly recommended to play a distance game. Bomb him when the shield is up and headshot him when it’s down; he’ll be dead fast.
After this, you’re rewarded with a shield that will automatically parry everything, a hammer that will break in 20 minutes, a heart container, and an eighth off of Ganon’s health.
Vah Medoh (Rito Village)
Beginning Quest
After landing in the Rito Village and seeing the massive bird in the sky, you can grab the shrine, then spend about 1150 rupees on the pants and chest piece of the Snowquill set. You don’t need it right now, but the entire divine beast is in the cold, so you’ll want it later.
The king will prompt you to find Teba, who is currently at the Flight Range. This place is a ways away, but you should be able to glide to it from the village and take a short walk there.
First, Teba will make you shoot down many targets in a flight range, quickly done using bullet time and some decent aim. After that, it’s time to board.
Boarding
For this sequence, you’ll need to fly around Medoh on your paraglider, using the bow and bomb arrows Teba gave you to shoot down the turrets that will be firing lasers your way. These lasers are easiest to avoid by canceling your paraglider and falling faster than they can shoot you.
Just pelt the turrets with bomb arrows, fly to the next, and don’t let the lasers touch you while canceling your paraglider and using it again to refresh your stamina. This sequence is pretty easy, and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten hit here—the easiest divine beast for real.
Map Terminal
Heading straightforward to the map terminal, move the metal blocks with magnesis and take out the mini guardian to get right to the map terminal. This map has a gimmick of tilting the bird ever so slightly, and you can, in fact, complete it without ever tilting it, but it’s easier to do so.
Terminal 1
In the left wing, you can tilt the platform to the right and magnesis the block with the fan attached, then hit the switch to turn on the wind. This will send the stone plunger hurdling into the switch, opening the way to the Terminal.
Terminal 2
The easiest way to get this is just jumping out of the window and tilting the bird down, but the intended path is going to the bottom of Medoh and getting on the gondola, shooting the eye, and then grabbing the Terminal.
Terminal 3
On the right wing, an immediately apparent terminal can be accessed by just shooting the Malice Eye on the ceiling above the Terminal, then gliding into the little cubby it’s in.
Terminal 4
This one is at the very end of the wing and is achieved by rolling bombs into the cubby while the bird is tilted. You must also open a window with the right timing to break another wall and tilt again to use magnesis to grab a metal ball and hit a switch.
This can also be cheesed by exiting the window on the other side of Medoh and gliding into this one.
Terminal 5
For this Terminal, glide over the malice on the right side of the bottom of Medoh, then shoot the eye to get rid of it. This Terminal can now easily be obtained by gliding when the wing is tilted downwards. This means you can now head up and fight the boss.
Windblight Ganon
Unfortunately, a super missed opportunity not calling this one Frostblight. His main attack is firing a volley of four shots, which you should run in a circle around him to avoid easily. You can interrupt this attack during its long wind-up by hitting him directly in the eye or in the gun.
This is basically the only attack he does. He rarely attacks using a tornado, but this can be avoided easily as it moves incredibly slowly and will stop after only a few seconds. So the best strategy is to paraglide in one of the wind gusts, activate bullet time, and demolish him with arrows.
Once he’s at half health, he’ll be sent into phase 2, where he will start using, like, a few more attacks. First, he’ll summon a few bright, flying flowers that pelt you with lasers constantly; these can be avoided by just running around like before. He’ll also reflect his shots onto the flowers, which is pretty much the same thing.
He’ll start sending out two tornados simultaneously, which is the same difficulty as avoiding just one. Sometimes the reflected bullets will come at you all at once, and like before, just run away. Next, he’ll send out a super long-charging wind gust. Guess what? You can just run away from this, too.
He doesn’t even have a guardian laser like the others; if he does, he never used it on me. Just do the same as before, go in a wind gust, use a paraglider, abuse bullet time, and he’ll die extremely pitifully and quickly.
The reward for this is a wind gust you can summon at any time that completely breaks parts of the game, a heart container, a bow that’s actually really good, and I’d recommend saving it for Ganon, and an eighth off of Ganon’s health.
Vah Naboris (Gerudo Village)
Beginning Quest
Heading into the middle of the desert is a task within itself. I’d recommend waiting until night and using the cold suppression gear we bought at Rito Village for this because we’ll already be getting some heat suppression gear as part of the Gerudo quest.
You’ll find a man outside the town nearby the shrine spying on the city, telling you a tale of someone who managed to sneak in despite the gender restrictions; this will allow you to sneak in yourself.
You’ll want to take a stop by the oasis on the path to Gerudo Village. Gerudo Village only allows women into the town, so it’s time to go and grab a women’s outfit for Link.
At the top of the tower in the oasis, you’ll find someone who can sell you a Gerdo Vai outfit for 600 rupees to begin your infiltration, and man, is Link killing it in that.
Now enter Gerudo City and speak to Riju. She’ll task you with retrieving the Thunder Helm from the Yiga Clan; this quest might take a while, so strap in.
You can skip almost all of it by going to a specific point on the map but finding it, climbing up there, and jumping in might take you longer than the quest; plus, you’d have to clip into a wall, so I’ll cover doing it usually.
Talk to the guard captain, and then follow the marker on your map into Karusa Valley. Sand seals are fast at this, but you could also just warp to a nearby tower if you have one unlocked. You’ll need to sneak around the Yiga Clan hideout for the quest. You could remove the guards, but they’ll almost kill you.
The easiest way to do this is by throwing bananas to distract them, walking past them, sneaking up from behind, and getting stealth strikes with solid weapons. There are stockpiles of bananas inside, so it’s easier to go the stealthy route. After all this, you must fight a miniboss, finally reclaiming the Thunder Helm.
Now, finally, you can go back to Riju and start the boarding sequence, and after all that, you might have thought the boarding and beast would be easier, but they’re some of the harder ones in the game.
Boarding
Riju will take you to the outpost, where you can start your mission. I hope you’re good at sand seal riding and a good shot using bomb arrows because we will be riding across the sand and shooting Vah Naboris’ feet while also trying to dodge lightning. This might sound like a lot to juggle, but it’s not so bad.
All you need to do for the lightning is stay close to Riju at all times. Her Thunder Helm will deflect all the lightning coming your way and make it seal smoothly. The Seals themselves are just a matter of shield surfing while pressing A on occasion so that leaves aiming, which isn’t too tricky if you’ve been using bows this whole game.
The lightning might instantly kill you, but if you stay in the circle and hit all the feet twice, then you’ve boarded Vah Naboris.
Map Terminal
Before you can do pretty much anything in this dungeon, you’ll need the map. This is found by running forward, killing the little guardian, going up the slope, and jumping into the hole. This one has a more complex gimmick; you can rotate three different cylinder parts in the middle of Naboris.
This gimmick is mainly used to connect a power line from one side of the map to the other, but it also has you running around a rotating body for some terminals. This means that most terminals are found directly in the middle of the dungeon, though.
Terminal 1
For this one, head to the middle circle and run outside, then rotate the first circle until the Terminal is accessible. Rotate it to turn the terminal upright, then activate it. Simple and clean.
Terminal 2
The rightmost circle has a terminal you can see in plain sight. Just rotate it until it’s upside down, then stand where the platform will catch you before spinning it to be upright. From here, you can jump across, then activate it.
Terminal 3
This next Terminal is all the way out in the head of the camel. First, you should line up the electric current so it’s on the ceiling, then wait for the circle to spin slowly, revealing an entryway at the top of the front of Naboris.
Now outside, you can spin the big crank to turn some gears with bulbs on them; lining up both bulbs will grant you entrance to the Terminal.
Terminal 4
Heading back inside, the top of the back part of Naboris leads to a magnet puzzle, where you need to connect the line from one spot to the other. This makes the tail move, which will help us in a bit.
First, turn off the power by rotating any segment, then get up to the edge of the tail. Now reconnect the power line, and watch as Link gets carried up.
After shooting a few eyes, take the elevator in front of you, and try to grab the glowing metal ball in the middle of the shaft. After you’ve got it, take it back up, and use it to light up the bulb after getting on the platform that it causes to move, of course. After all that, take the next elevator down, shoot the eye, and finally get to the Terminal.
Terminal 5
Take the elevator you just rode back up, then grab the ball on the top floor. Bring it to the bottom and use it to light up the gate on that floor. From here, you could either do the puzzle or use Revali’s Gale to go over the gate.
If you’re doing the puzzle, you must bring both previously used balls to open the gate and reach the Terminal.
Thunderblight Ganon
After activating the Terminal in the center room, you’ll be greeted by Thunderblight, the hardest of all the blights, in my opinion. He will constantly rush you down, sending tons of volleys of electricity orbs at you and generally being a bit of a nuisance. I’d recommend shock protection if you have any.
He only really volleys shots and rushes you in phase 1, so try and run away from the shots or parry them if you feel confident. For the rushes, the safest strategy is to block them with your shield, but you can also parry or backflip to get in a free flurry rush.
Once you’ve hit him enough, his shield will break, giving you some time to get in a ton of hits on him. Make sure you use this time well cause he’s going to get right back up and start it all over again.
It’s incredibly annoying because the electricity will make you drop your items. Just keep abusing the openings; you’ll get it down eventually.
The demanding boss gets even more difficult in phase 2. He’ll start summoning metal rods around the arena and electrocuting them, not stopping until you figure out you can pick these up with magnesis, using these to hit him with his lightning. Sometimes he decides to be off-camera during this entire attack but try and put it close to him.
The most complex and annoying part about this is that his weapons are electric now. You can’t guard his attacks anymore. You need to dodge them at all costs. That means playing a distance game or getting good at the backflip timing for the flurry rush. Either that or get paralyzed for a few seconds.
I’ve had times in this fight where he’ll rush me, I guard it, and then get stunlocked in the corner and die in just a few hits. This fight is absolutely brutal. You must either dodge everything, wait for the magnesis attack, or learn the incredibly tight flurry rush timing.
The final trick up his sleeve is a guardian laser. You can try to parry this one if you know the timing; otherwise, a quick Revali’s Gale or hiding behind a wall can be your savior. Parrying it can stun him mid-air, so get a headshot if this happens.
After all that, the annoying and challenging Thunderblight will finally explode. This grants you a heart container, an AOE attack, a Scimitar that is kind of meh, a pretty good shield, and another eighth off of Ganon’s health bar, totaling up to an entire half off his health.
BOTW Divine Beasts Guide: FAQs
Question: Are the Divine Beasts Required in Breath of the Wild?
Answer: Almost all content in the game, including the Divine Beasts, is optional, but they give you a significant edge over Ganon regardless.
Question: What is the Reward for the Divine Beasts in Breath of the Wild?
Answer: What you get after finishing every Divine Beast is half off of Ganon’s health bar, four extra hearts, four special abilities, and four of the better weapons in the game.
Question: What Divine Beast is the Easiest?
Answer: The easiest Divine Beast is definitely Vah Medoh, the Rito beast. This creation will only take a few minutes, and the boss is a pushover, granting an incredible ability.
Conclusion
I love Breath of the Wild, and man; I wish the dungeons were a bit more challenging. Beating Thunderblight felt great, but on what is my third (or fourth, I don’t know) playthrough of this game, the other bosses feel like they die super fast and don’t offer much in the way of strategy besides shooting and hitting them.
The Divine Beasts themselves are fantastic, though. Even though they’re technically optional content, I’d recommend going through all four at least once before heading for Ganon.
They’re like the rest of the game, not super great compared to their older games counterparts, but super digestible and fun dungeons that fit the vibe of Breath of the Wild perfectly.