Screenshot by PC Invasion
During the main Goron questline in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, you team up with the Goron warrior Yunobo after freeing him from a mysterious mind-controlling mask. After traveling through the Depths of Death Mountain and finishing the Fire Temple, players will earn the Vow of Yunobo, which allows for the summoning of Yunobo’s sage avatar at nearly any point in the game. This grants you access to his sage ability, which sees him letting loose an incredibly fast fiery rolling attack in whatever direction you aim. Yunobo’s rolling attack has quite a few uses you can uncover if you experiment with it, and this guide will cover the more notable ones.
Tips for using Vow of Yunobo
Yunobo’s Combat Utility
This should go without saying, but Yunobo’s rolling ability serves as an easy method for dealing damage to enemies from afar. It’s far from the most damaging tool in your arsenal, but it’s not bad considering it’s one of the few attacks in the game that isn’t tied to a consumable or durability system. Running up to Yunobo to activate the move may prove awkward at times, but his attack can nonetheless do a lot to conserve your resources during combat. The move becomes particularly useful when near a high cliff or a hazard like water, as one clean hit can fling them toward an instant death.
Against smaller fodder-type enemies like Keese or ChuChus, the attack works even better. Whenever these enemies spawn and start pestering you, Yunobo’s ability can easily defeat them in one fell swoop without you having to worry about wasting valuable durability. If you aim at these enemies directly, though, Yunobo tends to stop in his tracks and end the attack early, forcing you to wait through his cooldown. When facing a group of enemies, what I like to do is aim slightly to the side of at least one of them so I can hit multiple foes with a single rolling attack.
The attack can also instantly destroy any rock armor worn by a Bokoblin, eliminating the need for Bomb Flowers or rock-fused weapons. It proves much less effective against Lynel armor, but if it’s only one hit from breaking anyway, the attack can still make for a decent option.
Screenshot by PC Invasion
Cost-Effective Destruction
The lack of any need to worry about durability with this attack really comes in handy when dealing with destructibles in the environment. The move functions as a great way to break open crates or other containers and gather the resources inside without using your weapons or slowly dropping them from up high with Ultrahand.
Additionally, it makes for an incredibly cost-efficient method for mining ore deposits, although it has the downside of causing all the ore contained within to scatter unpredictably when released. Mining through this method will prove incredibly impractical if done near a cliff or water, as this can make the ore difficult or even impossible to retrieve. You can bring each piece of ore back individually using Recall, but it’s best to use other mining methods in these locations to save yourself the hassle.
No Need for Conventional Tools
One area where Yunobo absolutely excels is in breaking piles of hard rocks in caves. Whereas this would normally require you to utilize large amounts of Bomb Flowers or burn through the durability of one of your weapons, Yunobo can remove huge swaths of rocks with a single roll. Even blue or gray rocks, which normally take multiple hits to break, instantly crumble from the impact of Yunobo’s attack. This can save you a ton of time and resources when exploring caves with large piles of rocks, and it also help you quickly break the large Zonatie caches found in the Depths’ numerous mines.
Of course, Yunobo’s roll also comes with a fire property, so it can accomplish anything that fire can, whether it be lighting campfires or instantly killing enemies imbued with ice, without needing to touch your inventory. One particularly fun trick involves having Yunobo roll over a long stretch of grass, which creates an updraft that stretches over a considerable distance. Just like with any updraft, you can exploit this to access higher areas or activate bullet time during combat.
Screenshot by PC Invasion
Vehicular Combat
By going through the Goron questline, you will have already learned Yunobo’s unique interaction with vehicles, including mine carts and Wing devices. While riding a vehicle, Yunobo will automatically rev up his rolling attack, allowing you to aim and strike at enemies even when you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. Death Mountain and the Fire Temple take advantage of this by including circular switches you can strike with Yunobo while on a mine cart, which lets you change tracks and access new areas.
What’s less obvious is that, when in a vehicle, your ability to activate the roll attack multiple times in succession depends on the proximity of your target rather than the usual cooldown. So if you launch Yunobo far away without hitting anything, it will take some time before you can launch him again.
On the other hand, if you position your vehicle right up to an enemy and fire Yunobo at it, you can use him again almost immediately. When done against a large overworld boss like a Hinox or Molduga, you can rapidly fire Yunobo like a machine gun to whittle away its health astonishingly quickly. If you want to farm for monster parts from those bosses efficiently, you can’t go wrong with this strategy.
One Minor Caveat
As powerful as Yunobo’s synergy with vehicles can be, it has at least one small downside. Whenever Yunobo positions himself on your vehicle, he weighs it down ever so slightly. In most situations, this won’t affect your traversal too much, as most challenges that require the use of vehicles don’t require perfect weight balance. But nonetheless, if you would like to, for example, maximize the maneuverability of aerial vehicles when flying high above Hyrule in Tears of the Kingdom, you might want to disable the Vow of Yunobo in your Key Items menu, at least for the time being.
