Tears of the Kingdom Best Weapon Fusions

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Monica has been in love with the Zelda series ever since she picked up Wind Waker in 2013. The lovely art style combined with the incredible feeling of sailing mixed to create an unforgettable experience, which led her to loving games like Link's Awakening, Majora's Mask, and especially Breath of the Wild.

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In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, one of the most exciting new additions is the Fusion Ability, which essentially allows you to stick anything to the end of your Swords, Shields, Arrows, and other weapons. This allows for unique and exciting things you can create using the ability.

While you could use this ability to get just a bit of extra damage on everything exclusively, the game rewards creative thinking by allowing you to do anything you’d hope would work. So essentially, if you think a fusion combo would do something fun or cool, it probably does, and this guide highlights those combinations.

Bottom Line Up-Front

While the best fusions for damage come from enemy drops such as horns, some of the best fusions for more unique tasks are Rocket Shields, Eyeball Arrows, and Bomb Barrel Spears, and you can check them all in this Tears of the Kingdom Best Weapon Fusions guide.

How to Fuse Your Weapons

Fusion is a mechanic taught to you in the first few hours of the game, and you come across the shrine that teaches both the ability and how to use it to you on the Great Sky Island. This shrine is a tutorial on how to do it for all 3 item types it works with, melee weapons, shields, and arrows.

For fusing Melee weapons, you hold down L to select the Fusion ability, go near any object you would like to fuse, then press Y. This gets a bit more complicated if you want to fuse it to items in your inventory since you need to go into the inventory, press X to hold or drop the thing you want, then fuse it when it’s on the ground.

For shields, it’s a very similar process, press L to fuse, then press ZL when you’re near the object you want to fuse to your shield.

Again, materials and weapons in your inventory work the same as melee weapons, but note that many shield fusions won’t do anything beyond increasing Parry attack power and knocking enemies off-guard when they hit you more often.

For Arrows, it couldn’t be any simpler. Select whatever bow you want, draw an arrow with ZR, then press up on the d-pad to select the material you want to be fused to the arrow. Unfortunately, you can’t fuse arrows to anything but materials and Zonai devices, but a soldier’s broadsword arrow would’ve been hilarious.

Melee Weapons

The melee weapons you can get without fusing range from swords, hammers, and axes to a few cases of more unique items like boomerangs. You can use these to fuse with objects, materials, weapons, or shields. Here are some excellent and valuable fusions I’ve found using melee weapons.

One-handed Hammers

Basic Materials: Any one-handed weapon, any hard, blunt object
Recommended Materials: Broadsword, Talos Heart
Primary Function: Smashing

This is one you’ll probably be seeing, using, and needing quite a lot in this game. Hammers are blunt weapons that can smash just about everything in only 2 or 3 hits, namely ore deposits, boxes, and cracked rocks that might be blocking a path. You can find the most basic hammers on almost every enemy in the Depths.

These can be made in numerous ways; while you could fuse just any one-handed weapon to any rock, I’d recommend getting a good stick or sword and fusing a boulder to it. If you feel particularly fancy, you could find and kill a Talos that drops its heart and fuse that to a weapon, giving one of the best hammers for smashin’ stuff.

One-handed Axes

Basic Materials: Any one-handed weapon, any axe head
Recommended Materials: Broadsword, Boss Bokoblin Horn
Primary Function: Chopping

Another one of the entirely new weapon types is a one-handed axe, allowing you to chop down trees, destroy boxes, and get some pretty decent damage on enemies while also having the quick attacks of a broadsword. In Breath of the Wild, the only kinds of axes were big, two-handed ones, so these make for a refreshing addition.

You can make these using any axe head (namely, specific enemy horns are axe-shaped, as well as rocks you can find on the ground occasionally look like axe heads.) and any one-handed weapon. I’d recommend getting a decent broadsword or a stick that will last you a decent amount of time for maximum axing.

Fans

Basic Materials: Any two-handed weapon, wood plank
Recommended Materials: Big Boko Club, Korok Fond
Primary Function: Blowing enemies away

If you need to get some quick distance between you and your enemies, there are several options for building weapons that create wind gusts.

These usually come in handy if you’re dealing with a group and want to stun all of them quickly. It also dramatically increases the speed of boats with sails. (But imagine using sails nowadays, that’s so 2017)

There are several ways to do this, the first being attaching a Korok Fond to any two-handed weapon, which also works using a large plank of wood. Another way is by attaching a Zonai fan to any weapon, creating smaller wind gusts on every swing. Finally, I’d recommend a leaf and a big stick, as they give the strongest gusts.

Spear Swords and Short Greatswords

Basic Materials: Any one-handed weapon, any two-handed weapon
Recommended Materials: Broadsword, Claymore
Primary Function: Insanely long reach

This title might be a bit confusing, but it’s pretty much just combining two different weapon types, usually with the shortsword as the base.

This means you can get the length of a spear or raw power of a greatsword with quick strikes (and the ability to hold your shield) of a typical one-handed broadsword. The physics of this makes no sense, but they don’t have to.

These can be made in many ways, given the game’s number of all three weapon types. I’d say you should have a high-durability base weapon but do note that the fused weapon will almost always break first, and you’ll probably have to re-fuse it at some point. I like using the shortsword + spear combo.

Gem Weapons

Basic Materials: Any weapon, Any Gem (besides Diamond and Amber)
Recommended Materials: Large Zonai Sword, Ruby
Primary Function: Adding Electric, Water, Fire, or Ice projectiles to the weapon

One thing veteran Breath of the Wild players would remember is the elemental weapons, such as a Fire Rod or a Great Thunderblade. While these weapons aren’t technically in Tears of the Kingdom, you can make something close to the same things by fusing gems such as Rubies or Topaz to Gem Rods or heavy two-handed swords.

The best part is, using this, most gems and every weapon can combine to become elemental weapons. Now there are things like a Water Rod using Opal and elemental boomerangs. These all come at a cost, as selling gems is the easiest way to get money, and things like Diamond and Amber have no effect (but do some good damage!)

Flamethrower and Laser Swords

Basic Materials: Any weapon, Zonai Flame or Laser emitter
Recommended Materials: Large Zonai Sword, Zonai Flame Emitter
Primary Function: Flamethrower or Laser on every swing

While many Zonai devices have no weapon fusion usage, the Flame and Laser emitters create some awesome combinations.

When you whip these around, they come with a trail of fire or straight-up laser attached to the end and usually don’t take up that much battery. As a result, they don’t do too much damage but give a good status effect or a ton of extra range.

These can be made by taking any weapon (I prefer two-handed swords for flame emitters and short swords for laser emitters) and fusing them with the emitters.

These emitters aren’t too tricky to find; if you’ve been exploring the sky islands, you’ll probably find a dispenser containing them, and you can usually find either in a bunch of different shrines.

Light Dragon Scale Hammer

Basic Materials: Any weapon, Light Dragon Scale
Recommended Materials: Broadsword, Light Dragon Scale
Primary Function: Healing for every hit

The Light Dragon is the light blue and yellow dragon flying around the southeast of the map. If you can get scales off it (you can mount this one and take the scales off), you can fuse them to a weapon and get a hammer that will heal a quarter of a heart on every hit you do to an enemy. This is great for that alone, and the damage is also pretty nice.

The Light Dragon can be tricky to get on sometimes, but if you’re going through all the main quests, you’ll go up to it anyways, so you might as well grab some scales while you’re there. The item you fuse it to is whatever you want, but I’d recommend a good shortsword, such as a strong Zonai sword.

Bomb Spears

Basic Materials: Any spear, Any explosive
Recommended Materials: Throwing Spear, Bomb Barrel
Primary Function: Large explosion on contact

While fusing a Bomb Barrel or Bomb Flower to your weapon might seem like a terrible idea, connecting them to Spears usually works out way better than you’d think.

This is because you can almost always just throw the spear toward your enemies and deal way more damage than a typical spear throw or bomb arrow would do, given it’s a whole barrel.

The Bomb Barrel can be found in most enemy camps, given it hasn’t been blown up by one of the enemies throwing it at you or by you just shooting it with a fire arrow.

The spear I’d easily recommend is the Throwing Spear, which, of course, is used for throwing. The melee attack for spears attached to explosives is pretty unusable, so a throwing-specific one is far better.

Cannon Swords

Basic Materials: Any weapon, Zonai Cannon
Recommended Materials: Zonai Sword, Zonai Cannon
Primary Function: Projectile Explosive on every swing

One of the first things I did upon finding Cannons in Tears of the Kingdom was attach it to a sword, and I don’t regret it at all. This will send out an explosive projectile every time you swing your sword, and while that explosive uses quite a lot of battery, it does a ton of damage and doesn’t waste any resources by exploding things.

You only need a weapon and a Zonai cannon, which, like the previous entry, can be found in Zonai dispensers and occasionally in shrines. The only thing to be careful with is that the cannon balls explode on contact, so if you’re next to a wall and swing your weapon, you and the cannon balls will have much in common.

Rocket Spears

Basic Materials: Any Spear, Zonai Rocket
Recommended Materials: Throwing Spear, Zonai Rocket
Primary Function: Throws extremely far, hits faster

Rockets will make anything they’re attached to go straight forward, with no arc, which makes connecting them to spears quite a good asset. This one is notable for solving practically any puzzle that uses rockets singlehandedly while also being an excellent long-distance weapon and speeding up its attacks.

Rockets are a little rarer than the previous two entries, but there are some sky islands, mines in the depths, shrines, and Zonai dispensers that will drop them. I’d recommend gluing a rocket or two to any spears you might have; they’re genuinely more helpful that way than normal spears.

Ancient Weapons

Basic Materials: Any weapon, Ancient Blade
Recommended Materials: Royal Guard’s Claymore (or really, the highest damaging weapon you can find), Ancient Blade
Primary Function: Insta-kill, or +50 damage

Like Breath of the Wild, there are ancient blades you can find, and while their primary use is being attached to arrows for an Insta-kill attack, they can also be stuck to weapons for an extra 50 damage that only lasts a few hits. I can’t say it’s a sustainable damage source, but it is a fun one.

I’d recommend throwing this one on a spear since you can throw a spear low on durability for a free double damage modifier, meaning you can probably get a massive chunk off of any boss’s health.

Unfortunately, the Ancient Blade is extremely rare, I’ve only found one at Washa’s Bluff on the southwest side of the map, but some might be around in other chests in obscure places.

Shield Combos

Shields, while they might seem like they would have many options that don’t do anything, have some of the most unique and valuable combinations of any item type in Tears of the Kingdom. I don’t think you should go too long without having a shield fused to something extraordinary in this game, as most fusions do beneficial things.

Fan Shield

Materials: High Durability Shield, Zonai Fan
Primary Function: Blowing away enemies

While some shield combinations are helpful for both actual shielding and shield surfing, this one will only be useful for shielding you from enemies and pushing them away with a gust of wind. It’s pretty easy to grab a Zonai fan, but pushing enemies away while holding it out is the only use; shield surfing with it will always be a bust.

Given that using this handheld fan will require some durability, I’d recommend the highest-durability shield you can find.

This will be useful to get some reasonable distance between you and any enemies you encounter and push things such as piles of sand away for puzzle solving. Zonai fans are everywhere, so this won’t be hard to acquire.

Flamethrower Shield

Materials: High Durability Shield, Zonai Flame Emitter
Primary Function: Lighting enemies on fire

Another one that’s only useful when holding it out and not for shield surfing, the Zonai flame emitter shield, was shown in the first gameplay trailer before we knew that fusion was a mechanic.

This shoots out a constant stream of fire whenever you hold it out, which is quite helpful for burning down a forest or dealing with many enemies simultaneously.

This can be made with any shield and a Zonai Flame Emitter, which is uncommon but can be found in dispensers and around sky islands, including the Great Sky Island you start the game on. I’d again recommend a decently high durability shield since the flamethrower can tend to eat up durability on each use, as well as the battery.

Wing Shield

Materials: Any Shield, Zonai Wing
Primary Function: Higher Shield jumps

This one might seem odd if you’ve tried it, but it has a single, extremely useful, practical application. While you might think it would extend paraglider flight or do something when you hold it out, it does neither; it just increases the height of your shield jump.

It is a minimal difference, but it means you can shield jump from flat ground and go into bullet-time by pulling out your bow; no height or ledge is necessary.

Zonai wings (or gliders) can be found on the top of the island you start the game on, in several Zonai dispensers, and around various other islands. The shield you choose doesn’t matter since you’ll likely just use it to jump, shield jump, and bullet-time, with no real durability or other parts of it being used up.

Rocket Shield

Materials: Any Shield, Zonai Rocket
Primary Function: Large vertical boost from the ground

Another one shown off in a trailer, this acts as essentially a discount Revali’s Gale from Breath of the Wild. Using it from the ground and holding out the shield will rocket you straight upwards, granting an excellent height boost but consuming the rocket in the process. I always keep a few of these on hand.

These aren’t too hard to get. Rockets are uncommon but often found in Zonai dispensers, some shrines, and around sky islands. I’d recommend getting a bunch of rockets in your inventory, then keeping them fused to shields to use immediately for mountains, puzzles, and sky islands.

Bomb Barrel Shield

Materials: High Durability Shield, Bomb Barrel
Primary Function: Explodes on contact while keeping Link safe

Bomb barrels might seem like a terrible idea to attach to a shield until you find out the shield protects you from every bit of the explosion. Furthermore, this barrel will go off pretty much any time the shield gets used, meaning you can use it to defend and explode enemies and shield surf on it to get a massive height boost.

I’d recommend a super cheap and disposable shield or a very high-durability one since the explosion can eat up its durability. You can find bomb barrels at almost every enemy camp, granted that they haven’t been blown up by either you or the enemies already.

Cannon Shield

Materials: High Durability Shield, Zonai Cannon
Primary Function: Shooting at enemies

Cannons are a rare oddity, but they’re beneficial attached to a shield. You can hold out the shield and hit enemies with big projectile blasts while keeping your guard up. It doesn’t work with shield surfing, as it’ll probably just end up causing you to get exploded, but it’s still fun to glide above enemies and rain hellfire.

Cannons are occasionally found on sky islands and sometimes in shrines (mostly combat-related ones), but the best bet is getting them from Zonai dispensers. A good strategy for finding these is doing a few orbs in each one you see, then hovering over them on the map will list the items they have, hopefully including a cannon.

Hydrant Shield

Materials: Any Shield, Zonai Hydrant
Primary Function: Pouring out water

This one is useful whenever you need water, which, while it’s not a super common occurrence, comes in extremely handy during the Zora sidequest. I’d recommend bringing one or two of these along before taking on Zora’s domain stuff, as it will help quite a bit in clearing out Goop and for the end of the dungeon.

You can get hydrants in only a few places, but one of them is the Zora dungeon itself (as well as during some of the quests beforehand.) It’s also found in a few Zonai dispensers and pretty much every single shrine with any lava in it, but since you’re probably only using it for the dungeon, I’d just wait.

Cart Shield

Materials: Shield Surfing or High Durability Shield, Zonai Cart
Primary Function: Skateboarding

Ever wanted to be rolling around at the speed of sound but in Zelda? Well, if you glue a Minecart (or anything else that happens to have wheels on the bottom, namely Zonai Carts. This will make your shield surfing quite a bit faster and work way better on flat surfaces and on rails.

Minecarts are primarily found around the Great Sky Island or occasionally within mines in the depths. Unfortunately, this eats up about as much durability as standard shield surfing, so getting a durable (and good for surfing) shield such as the Shield of the Mind’s Eye will help you in this scenario.

Puffshroom Shield

Materials: Any Shield, Puffshroom
Primary Function: Free sneakstrike on an enemy

This was demonstrated in the pre-release Gameplay Demonstration, but its usefulness cannot be overstated. Puffshrooms explode into a cloud whenever they’re hit, so if an enemy hits your shield, you make them instantly unable to see you, giving you a free sneakstrike that does 8x damage.

I don’t think the shield you use for this matters too much, but I’d recommend using the highest damage weapon you can find to take advantage of that free sneakstrike fully. Puffshrooms can be found occasionally around sky islands but are far more common growing around trees in The Depths.

Arrow Combos

Arrows cant be fused to things like wooden planks or swords, but they can be fused to anything found in the Materials section of the inventory, as well as any Zonai devices in your inventory. Most arrow fusions do nothing except add +1 damage, but there are a few neat ones to cover.

Wing Arrows

Materials: Any Wing
Primary Function: Completely straight firing arrows

You’ll usually have a wing or two drop whenever you kill Keese (or some other winged, flying monsters). These wings can be attached to arrows to make them shoot straight forward for a distance, making them far more precise and versatile than a standard arrow while still inexpensive.

Keese are found everywhere, primarily in dark caves or flying around and being a nuisance at night. I’d recommend hitting them with some form of explosive because that will kill most of a flock. You can also substitute keese for Aerocuda, which does more damage but is rarer, being those flying dragons you’ll find in the sky occasionally.

Eye Arrows

Materials: Any Eye
Primary Function: Homing arrows

In contrast to winged arrows that still require some amount of aiming, Eyeball arrows (as shown in the Gameplay Demonstration pre-release) will give the arrows a homing property, automatically tracking the enemy and hunting them down until it hits.

It will also almost exclusively land headshots, guaranteeing a critical hit and dealing some knockback.

The best part is that these are easier to come across than wings, given that any eye works for them. The most common one is Keese, which are found in any dark location. The big, flying Aerocudas also drop higher damaging eyes, and Octoroks are occasionally found in any pool of water, most commonly in the ocean or large rivers.

Bomb Arrows

Materials: Any explosive
Primary Function: Blows up on contact (or with a delay for Zonai bombs)

You’ve likely already made a few of these during the Like-Like encounters on the Great Sky Island, but there are actually a few ways to make them. The first way is by attaching a bomb flower to an arrow, which explodes immediately on contact; then, you could try a Zonai Bomb that has a delay until it explodes for a more controlled blast.

The easiest way to get bomb flowers, I’ve found, is in the northern cave on the Great Sky Island and occasionally growing around trees in the depths. The Zonai bombs are relatively a bit easier to find, coming out of dispensers that you can locate quickly if you’ve been exploring every sky island.

Cannon Arrows

Materials: Zonai Cannon
Primary Function: Explosive Projectile sent mid-flight

Alternatively to Bomb arrows, if you have a Zonai Cannon on hand, you could attach it to an arrow and fire it off, granting an explosion directly in front of the arrow (and hopefully not on top of you!) This will deal quite a lot of damage but will also use up a ton of battery, so I’d suggest it as an alternative if you’re out of bombs.

The Zonai Cannons are somewhat uncommon, only really being found in some shrines, sky islands, and Zonai dispensers.

Still, it can’t hurt to keep a small stock of them on you since, as I’ve stated in this guide, they’re helpful for all three types of fusions, just being a solid addition to any part of your arsenal of tools and at any time. There are a few other elemental materials in the game, namely Keese parts or like-like stones, which work the same way.

Elemental Arrows

Materials: Any Elemental fruit, Chuchu Jelly, or Gems
Primary Function: Elemental arrows, either flaming, shock, water, or ice

There are no more arrow types in Tears of the Kingdom, meaning you need to get creative with mixing and matching things to get these elemental effects.

For example, you can make Ice Arrows with Ice Fruit, Blue Chuchu jelly, or Sapphire, and you can now make Fire arrows with Flint (kinda), Fire Fruit, Red Chuchu Jelly, or a Ruby that causes a massive explosion.

You can, similarly, make shock arrows with Shock Fruit, Yellow Chuchu Jelly, or a Topaz. While they didn’t previously exist, you can now make water arrows using Opal, a pretty common ore.

All the fruits can be foraged around Hyrule, and the Chuchu Jelly can be acquired by killing Chuchu slimes that spawn with that element, and mining rocks to find the gems.

Ancient Arrows

Materials: Ancient Blade
Primary Function: Insta-kill, or 50 extra damage

If you’re like me, you remember the first actual trailer for Breath of the Wild, with the guardian and Link pulling the trigger in a really excellent slo-mo shot on an Ancient Arrow.

Since then, I’ve grown to love the design of these things and their one-shot potential, and I’m glad to say they return in Tears of the Kingdom in at least some form.

Unfortunately, the ancient arrowheads are far rarer than Ancient Arrows were back in Breath of the Wild. As a result, you could go through the entirety of Tears of the Kingdom without seeing a single one.

However, I found one buried around Washa’s Bluff at the bottom left of the map, and I’ve heard the Guardian amiibo will occasionally grant one as well.

Wood Arrows

Materials: Wood
Primary Function: Attaching a material to it and using Recall

You might think at first that sticking a bundle of wood onto the end of an arrow would have no application whatsoever. Still, if you remember, Recall is an excellent ability you’ve unlocked with some insane applications.

So fire off an arrow with wood on it, stick a wooden plank to the piece of wood, use Recall on the wood, then watch as you fly upwards.

This trick can be a bit finicky, usually requiring the wooden plank to be stuck on the edge of the wood itself and being difficult to recall the wood while standing on the plank.

But, at least wood itself is pretty easy to come by, dropping whenever you destroy trees by any method, then chopping up the log that falls off that tree.

Puffshroom Arrows

Materials: Puffshroom
Primary Function: Free sneakstrike

Attaching this new puffy mushroom to an arrow allows you to shoot anywhere you want and create a blinding cloud of gas that prevents enemies from seeing you and guarantees a free sneakstrike.

I’d recommend coming into any fight you’re unsure about by shooting the strongest enemy with this, getting behind them, and doing an 8x damage sneakstrike.

Puffshrooms are still, unfortunately, quite rare. I’ve only seen them occasionally growing in the depths near trees, sometimes around sky islands, and in some caves.

However, since they’re quite the commodity, you should consider getting a higher-accuracy bow and a straight-firing arc to ensure you never miss your mark.

FAQs

Question: How Do I Fuse Weapons in Tears of the Kingdom?

Answer: You can fuse weapons to just about anything you can find; once you obtain the Fuse ability on the Great Sky Island, press the L button while holding your weapon, then press Y for a melee weapon or ZL for your shield. Arrows are fused by just pressing up on the D-pad before firing.

Question: Do I Need to Fuse Weapons in Tears of the Kingdom?

Answer: While you can try playing the game similarly to Breath of the Wild, many weapons have been tarnished and do far less damage, so fusion is highly recommended to regain the damage.

Question: When Do I Unlock Fusion in Tears of the Kingdom?

Answer: You get fusion within the first few hours of the game after completing a shrine on the Great Sky Island.