Debuting in Breath of the Wild, the giant rock monster known as the Stone Talus served as one of the most common overworld minibosses in that title. The fights against these faceless foes usually did not pose much of a challenge, making them a relatively stress-free method for farming ore. In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the Stone Talus remains a common presence, but the game does attempt to make it and its variants more difficult on average. But with a few simple methods, you can still make quick work of them. Keep reading to learn about just a few of the strategies you can use against them.
Tips for the Stone Talus
In a slight change from Breath of the Wild, the standard Stone Talus seems to always have its ore deposit weak point on its back instead of on its head. Stone Taluses with the back weak point were considerably more irritating to deal with, and they remain so here. They constantly turn around to face you, making it tricky to target their ore deposits with arrows. And even if you do land a hit on it, the boss will still try and face you while stunned, and it doesn’t stay stunned for very long.
Conventionally, you can try to climb to the top of the Stone Talus, glide toward its back, and unload arrows onto the ore deposit with bullet time. But climbing from the front will prove awkward at best, and as said before, it always attempts to face you. Thankfully, the Stone Talus now has a major Achilles’ heel in the form of the Ascend ability. Standing under the boss and using Ascend on its body will immediately bring you to the top of it, making the aforementioned glide-and-shoot strategy much more viable.
In my experience, it can take a bit of on-the-fly adjusting for your Ascend reticle to turn blue, but it nonetheless simplifies the process of climbing the boss tremendously. Just avoid staying under the Talus when it loses one of its arms trying to attack you, as it will slam down to the ground to recover it.
Additionally, long-range melee weapons such as spears can help immensely, as they can easily hit the ore deposit while grounded. You can even get into a loop where you use a melee attack to stun it, get a few more hits in, and then hit it again right as it recovers to repeat the process.
Screenshot via PC Invasion
Tips for the Battle Talus
Alongside the standard Stone Taluses comes a brand-new variant exclusive to Tears of the Kingdom: the Battle Talus. This variant has a large wooden platform attached to its head, with archer Bokoblins perched on top firing arrows from a distance. The ore deposit weak point also sits on this wooden platform, but of course, you will want to take care of the Bokoblins first so they don’t hassle you while attacking the boss. You can dispatch the Bokoblins any number of ways, but attaching Bomb Flowers to your arrows works especially well here. The resulting explosion can knock most if not all of the Bokoblins right off the platform, giving you some much-needed breathing room.
In addition, reaching the platform using Ascend proves even more useful here than in the standard Stone Talus fights. Although you can try and reach higher ground and glide to the platform, that can be easier said than done in my experience, especially if it starts raining. It can also leave you more vulnerable to the Battle Talus’s attacks, so Ascend is ultimately the preferred strategy.
When wailing on the ore deposit up top, the Battle Talus will start rumbling before attempting to shake you off. You can jump and glide away before he does this, but if you don’t do it in time, don’t sweat it too much. This attack usually deals a relatively small amount of damage, which a few consumable ingredients and healing items can easily fix.
Other miscellaneous tips
If any of the Stone Talus variants throws its own rock arms at you from a distance, it usually helps to sprint to the side away from its arm. So if it chucks its right arm at you, sprint to the right to have a better chance at avoiding it.
Generally, you will want to use heavier melee weapons, particularly ones with a rock, spike ball, or other similarly bulky item attached to it. Although other weapons can work reasonably well against it, using a heavier weapon will deal significantly more damage than normal.
After defeating a Stone Talus, it will leave behind its stone heart, which you can fuse to a weapon for a considerable increase in attack power. On top of the aforementioned Stone Talus variants, Tears of the Kingdom undoubtedly features the elemental variants that appeared in the previous game. This guide will be updated once we come across these variants.
Screenshot via PC Invasion
