Gloom Hands in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, also known as the Gloom Spawn, are enemies that appear near areas covered in darkness and are most commonly encountered when exploring chasms in the underground section of Hyrule.
We suggest running away from the Gloom Hands or climbing a surface to avoid their spooky attacks, as killing the hands will spawn a Phantom Ganon enemy, and may require a lot of firepower to kill both the hands and Ganon!
We’ve gone over how to beat Gloom Hands in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom if you want to take them on, which you may have to do as part of a quest, or maybe you just want the useful items a Phantom Ganon drops. after getting over the creepy hands.
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10 Things We Wish We Knew Before Starting The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Watch on YouTube
If you want to learn more about Link’s adventure, visit our Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom walkthrough.
How to beat Gloom Hands in Zelda Tears of the Kingdom
As if they weren’t scary enough, the most important thing to remember when fighting Gloom Hands is that if you don’t kill all the hands quickly enough, more will come back.
Because the hands return, you would ideally want to use weapons or items that have a large blast radius to defeat Gloom Hands in Tears of the Kingdom. Or kill them with ice so the hands don’t come back.
Image Credit: Nintendo
We found that attaching materials that have a large blast radius to arrows is the most consistent way to damage Gloom Hands without being grabbed, since you can shoot from a distance or climb over the hands.
Some of the best items to use against Gloom Hands in TOTK are:
- bombs
- Sapphires
- ice boomerangs
- ice magic wands
- white chuchu jelly
- Frosty fruit
Our personal preference is to kill Gloom Hands with bombs, as bombs are the easiest resource to find that can kill hands quickly. Just be careful not to blow up Link if he’s too close to the explosion! It may take up to ten bombs to kill all the hands, but you’ll use less if you constantly shoot at the center of the Gloom Hands.
If you run out of bombs and there are only a couple of hands with low health, finishing them off quickly with regular arrows can work if you want to save some ice materials.
A few normal arrows against these two were enough to defeat Gloom Hands for good. | Image Credit: Nintendo
Sapphires (and some other gems) also have a huge blast radius, but they are harder to find and you may want to keep them for their sale value.
If you don’t have any bombs or gems, then using anything that produces an ice effect is useful to freeze your hands in place and make sure they don’t come back. Freezing them also gives you some breathing room if you need it, while also creating a small explosion that can damage multiple hands at once.
Throwing white chuchu jelly at other chuchus will produce even more white chuchu if you need it. | Image Credit: Nintendo
If you have an ice effect boomerang, we recommend using it instead of white chuchu jelly or frozen fruit, as it is much better at damaging multiple hands at once!
Fuse ice materials with a boomerang weapon to turn it into an ice boomerang. | Image Credit: Nintendo
Also, if you are fighting in a low temperature environment, we also recommend equipping a part of the Frostbite armor set, such as the Frostbite Shirt, as it adds ice damage to Link’s attacks. However, this will not work in warm or normal temperatures.
Tips to Beat Gloom Hands in Zelda Tears of the Kingdom
Even if you have all the right equipment and materials, killing Gloom Hands can be a difficult job, so here are some general tips and useful information to keep in mind when facing Gloom Hands in Tears of the Kingdom:
- If they grab you, move both joysticks to free yourself. If you’re fast enough, Link won’t take any damage.
- Use Foods That Restore Broken Hearts: Gloom temporarily breaks Link’s heart containers, which means you can’t restore his full health with traditional foods. Eating foods containing materials like Sundelions can make these hearts return to normal.
- Equip Armor with Darkness Resistance: The Armor of the Deep set increases Link’s darkness resistance, making fights against Gloom Hands more manageable. However, you must spend Poes on several Negotiator statues to acquire all three pieces of the Depths set, so it may take a while to get them.
- Get to High Ground: To avoid taking damage entirely, try to climb to an area where hands can’t reach Link, then take them out with arrows and items from above. Sometimes the hands can also disappear on their own after waiting for a while.
- Don’t kill Gloom Hands unless you really need to: Killing Gloom Hands can clear areas covered in darkness, but unless you need to do this to explore or have to kill them as part of a quest, the best way to deal with Gloom Hands is simply running away from them, partly because of what is generated after defeating them…
- Killing Gloom Hands summons a Phantom Ganon. Yes, you have even more fighting to do after the hands are outmatched, and Phantom Ganon is no pushover. He does throw powerful weapons though, so if you’re feeling brave enough, both enemies might be worth fighting.
- Make sure you kill Phantom Ganon before leaving the story area. We found this out the hard way, but if you leave the story area after defeating Gloom Hands but leave Phantom Ganon behind, he will disappear and you will have to kill the hands again to summon Ganon. This may not apply to regular Gloom Hand encounters, but to be safe, we recommend killing both before leaving any area if you don’t want to waste resources.
Image Credit: Nintendo
And don’t get too close while shooting bombs… | Image Credit: Nintendo
Good luck facing Gloom Hands in Tears of the Kingdom!
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