Summary

• Gloom Hands in TOTK are tough enemies, but creative tactics and builds can make them easier to defeat.
• Using Autobuild with explosive barrels is an effective strategy to take down Gloom Hands quickly and without risking Link's safety.
• While the strategy requires resources and preparation, the simplicity of using explosions can be highly effective against intimidating enemies in TOTK.

Gloom Hands are among the most difficult enemies to contend with in inventive builds to take down TOTK’s monsters is a popular way to find new entertainment in the game even after completing the main story.

Gloom Hands, or Gloom Spawn, are a particularly scary enemy in TOTK. Made entirely of living Gloom, active Gloom Hands will turn the world around them red, as if a Blood Moon is rising. The Hands themselves are extremely strong and capable of visibly crushing the life out of Link, draining his maximum Hearts while he is helpless in their grip. Even worse, as they travel through a moving pool of Gloom, Link is forced to keep his distance while picking away at their multiple health bars. And even if he does succeed in defeating this monster, his only reward is an encounter with Phantom Ganon.

Gloom Hands Can Be Easily Beaten With TOTK’s Explosive Barrels

In the end, however, the environmental hazard created by Gloom Hands simply requires inventive solutions to beat. Bomb Arrows are a useful solution to this problem, for example, but many are needed to fully defeat the monster. A far more impressive sight is the method demonstrated by Reddit SuperGamerAlex, which uses Autobuild to drop a fused pair of explosive barrels onto a Gloom Hands. The resulting explosion damages all the Hands at once, and is evidently powerful enough to only need three hits to kill most of the monster (with a single arrow then delivering the final blow in SuperGamerAlex’s demonstration).

Arrows with elemental effects from Fused Materials are also good choices for facing Gloom Hands if Link has run out of Bomb Flowers.

Red explosive barrels can be found across Hyrule in various monster lairs and forts, typically acting as something of a double-edged sword; Link can trigger an explosion himself for an immediate advantage against a group of enemies, but if left for too long a Moblin could easily scoop the same barrel up and turn it into a lethal projectile for its own side. But if Link can preserve an explosive barrel long enough to Fuse it with other items, the result will be saved in his Autobuild history. This Autobuild copy can then be fused with either other copies or the original to produce a two-barrel bomb for future use.

Autobuild Ensures Link Always Has An Explosive Weapon Available

The range of Autobuild is just enough to spawn the barrel bomb on top of the Gloom Hands without stepping into their Gloom, something easiest done when they first rise up from the ground; the associated animation renders them effectively immobile for long enough to activate Autobuild. After this, the explosion triggered by the barrels falling will immediately stun them, and subsequent blasts will also do so. As such, quick repeated uses of Autobuild can wipe out the Gloom Hands with next to no actual risk to Link himself.

In addition to this, there is nothing to prevent the same bomb being used against Phantom Ganon as well once the Gloom Hands are disposed of. In fact, powerful explosives can pose a threat to any number of enemies. For example, the waves of enemies that constitute the Demon King’s Army offer a lengthy battle before the final confrontation with Ganondorf. Careful use of these same explosive barrels will allow Link to consistently take out multiple groups at once instead of fighting monsters one at a time alongside the Sages. Combined with careful use of TOTK’s Sage abilities, the army can be defeated in no time.

Of course, it is important to keep in mind that making use of this strategy is somewhat costly in of resources. In order to constantly spawn explosive barrels through Autobuild, Link will need a lot of spare Zonaite in his inventory. As such, this cannot be a strategy used on a whim; players will need to invest time in preparing beforehand, not only in acquiring the Autobuild template but also in mining plenty of Zonaite to keep its use a viable option.

Simple Builds Are Sometimes The Best For Beating Monsters In TOTK

Tears of the Kingdom is a game that encourages ingenuity, with the repurposing of the explosive barrels found across Hyrule being just one example. The fearsome monsters that plague the kingdom as a result of Ganondorf’s revival invite plenty of experimentation in how to best dispatch them. The many builds using Zonai Devices to accomplish these and other goals can be as simple or complex as people are willing to design them, but there is a strong thread of creativity visible throughout them all. And of course, as these designs are shared and spread throughout the community surrounding the title, refinements and new ideas can quickly follow.

The barrel trick that SuperGamerAlex demonstrates is a perfect example of the creativity that fighting enemies in TOTK can inspire. Once the Autobuild template is established, for those who are willing to invest some time preparing, fighting Gloom Hands becomes much less terrifying. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s mechanics hold the potential for many such solutions to even the most intimidating of enemies, some incorporating complex usage of Zonai Devices. Nevertheless, in the end, it seems that the effectiveness of a simple explosion cannot be underestimated.

Source: SuperGamerAlex/Reddit