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The Tears of the Kingdom Stone Talus is a returning miniboss enemy from Breath of the Wild that can be tough to beat in the starting hours of the game. They drop some valuable materials though, so you’ll want to try and take them down whenever you find one in TotK, and we’ll walk you through the exact steps to do so.
You might want to look at our Tears of the Kingdom recipes list before taking one of these on so you can prepare the right meals ahead of time. We also have guides for Tears of the Kingdom outfits and Tears of the Kingdom best armour to help you adequately gear up Link for this tough encounter.
What is a Stone Talus in Tears of the Kingdom?
A Stone Talus is an enormous monster found across Hyrule as well as in the Depths. It takes the form of a series of rocks on the ground, which will awaken and form a golem if you get too close. Stone Taluses can either hit you with its arms or throw boulders at you from afar. They have a large ore deposit on their backs called a Stone Talus heart which you can hit to deal damage to them.
As well as the Stone Talus, there are other talus variants that you can encounter in different areas. These include the Igneo Talus, Luminous Stone Talus, and Frost Talus. While the stony form is the most common, you will inevitably come across the others, so be prepared.
How to beat Stone Talus in Tears of the Kingdom
Before fighting a Stone Talus, you’ll want to equip Link with the best clothing you have. This might be outfits that increase attack, give a defense boost, or just have great all around defense stats in general. You might also want to take an attack or defense boosting Elixir, or eat a meal with those properties just as the fight starts to get an extra boost.
The Stone Talus has a pretty obvious weak spot which is the glowing black rock on its back area. You’ll need to aim for that to damage it at all. It also only has a few predictable moves that are quite easy to dodge, but they’ll hit for a lot of damage. The first of these are arm lunges, where it will launch its left and then its right arm at Link. These travel quite a large distance, so you’ll want to dodge to the left or right to avoid them, or block them outright if you have a powerful enough shield equipped. Thankfully, the arms disappear for a short time after it uses longer distance lunges. Once the arms are gone, you can use this opportunity to close the gap and go for its weak spot.
You have three options for hitting its weak point – bow and arrow, a longer melee weapon from the ground, or climbing onto its top area and hitting from there. The last one might be the most efficient for damage, but the problem is the Talus will fling you off very quickly, so you need to be quick. Sometimes the Talus will also perform a forward lunge headbutting attack if Link is in front of it for too long, but if you avoid it you’ll have a second to get in some free hits while it’s keeled over. If you’re quick, you can also run underneath the Talus and use Tears of the Kingdom Ascend to go through it, though this might take some practice
Once defeated, they will typically drop a variety of gems. This includes opal, amber, ruby, sapphire, topaz, and diamond, as well as cheaper materials like luminous stones and flint. As far as rewards go, this can be a great way to make money.
And that’ll all there is to know the Tears of the Kingdom Stone Talus. Once it’s toppled, you’ll be rewarded with a number of ore materials as well as some higher value ores, and a powerful Fuse material to give one of your weapons a boost. We have a rundown on Tears of the Kingdom Shrine locations if you’re in need of permanent hearts or stamina upgrades as well as Tears of the Kingdom tips if you’re just starting out.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- Platform(s): Nintendo Switch
- Genre(s): Action, Action Adventure, Adventure