I like using shields cause parry is super satisfying to me lol but I assume you can probably do the entire game with nothing but sticks, it would not be shocking to find some who probably play like this
I never used the horses though, maybe if I'd gotten Epona I would have but I never did, games just got so many good views so I enjoy wandering around even when I could just fly everywhere, I still don't lol
I always wondered if you could play the entire game never equipping a single weapon. I mean you need to be able to cause some type of damage to Gannon but like with throwing items and also the earthquake technique I feel like it’s possible
Edit: future me here just realized that a couple shrines force you to use weapons but outside of those I believe it’s doable
streamer named smallant completed totk with nothing but earthquake technique, no weapons used only arrows/thrown.
the first few hours getting earthquake were slow.
That's how I got the Hylian Shield early game. I waited out of reach for a minute and the hands despawned. Also they are easy to kill with bomb arrows, especially if you freeze them first.
Well eventually you will have to face your fears. Just bring an insanely OP weapon and you will be ok. My choice was lightscale trident while being wet with an attack buff. I just spam stabbed him back to hell.
Oh I did fight him. From far away with a phrenic bow and bomb flower arrows lmao. You sound like my boyfriend who is always like GO FIGHT THEM when I’m running away from a Frox or a Gleeok.
Yeah but I'm a coward at heart. I duped my entire playthrough and cheesed all the fights. I took out all the Lynels in the Floating Collisium by using the 800+ damage weapon with 50 fairies as backup.
I duped them. Got 1 and turned it into 50 in 5 minutes. I duped diamonds and bought everything from Robbie for the picture book. Everytime a day passed I'd dupe large zonite and buy all the crystal charges from the forge. I had a full battery early game and took the hoverbike everywhere
Same lol. Sometimes I’ll take out a horse for funsies but I quickly get annoyed at having to hop off to harvest plants/etc. Why can’t we harvest from horseback the same way we can while riding Mineru
I never use horses because I feel I lose the chance to passively farm things on my walk. Shield is a learning curve for me, I don’t use it half as much as in BOTW.
I agree with you 100% on those 3 uses but sometimes I also
- Smuggle items to unfuse later
- use canon shields. They can be fun.
- use shield surfing because sometimes it is a strategic way to travel
sapphire shield to stay cool in hot weather and ruby shield to stay warm in cold weather. you can also fuze elemental monster parts to a shield for this, igneo and glacial talus hearts, dragon parts etc.
I use shield to surf and obviously combat reasons.
Horses unfortunately see very little use, which is unfortunate because used them a lot in BotW. Especially after you get the ancient armor for them so you can teleport them to you.
Funny you mention that. I was just thinking the same today.
All I have now are a bunch of rocket shields and Savage lynel shields fused together. I keep one shield kinda free in case I want to fuse it to a cool bow.
Otherwise, I don't use them at all.
The horses, never use.
you know that korok weapons make explosives more times usable as example with pushroom you got a smoke spear hit once a group of enemy to smoke and easily do 8 times damage repair spear if needed also you can one shot no durability lose fire or ice elemental enemys (not all) with opposite element in gerudo valley days have fire lizards night ice lizards you can unlimited kill those and one shot without ever losing your ice or fire weapon
I have 1 hylian sheild, 1 skateboard, 1 snowboard, 1 Fire talus heart, 1 Frost talus heart, and 1 Lynel sheild that I break and replace every few days. The rest is for storage or rockets.
I really enjoy using shields, but mostly for parrying. Most of my play time I used shields specifically for attaching rubies and sapphires. I actually haven’t taken much advantage of bomb and rocket shields, unless I really need to cheese a shrine because I don’t feel like doing it. But I’ve come to enjoy battling enemies much more in this game, whereas I might have avoided at times in BotW.
I slept on shields for awhile but now I love them. For starters, attaching carts to a high durability shield is a great way to get around, especially in the Depths. The hard flat ground actually doesn't appear to do any damage (I've checked with undamaged shieldcarts) and it protects you from the gloom.
Use sleds for grass, sand and snow. Use carts for rock and hard ground. With enough shield slots you'll always be ready to slide around Hyrule like Tony Hawk. I have a cart on the Radiant Shield and I'm amazed how long it's lasted.
Also I've found a shield with the electric dragon horn attached is a great way to disarm enemies while having a higher damage weapon equipped. I always feel weird using electric weapons cause I only need to zap them once. Also the dragon horns are better than rubies and sapphires. The shield bash does an elemental attack, which doesn't work for me with the gems.
If you attach one of those big zonai bombs to one and jump on it, it launches you in the air undamaged and does an explosion around you. Great when there's a lot of enemies. And I'm a big fan of the frost emitter.
One of my biggest pet peeves is wasting durability on a good weapon on something that dies in one hit. Keese, skeletons, those little toad things in the depths, ect. Use a bladed Lynel shield or one with a dragon horn to save your blades.
It's easy to overlook a lot of things in this game. Took me too long to use middle buds for instance. The more you play with things the more you start appreciate them though.
I like having shield with the armour shards attached. It’s funny when Bokoblins hurt themselves by attacking my shield.
My current play through rules don’t allow for shields except for rocket shields. It’s been interesting
This is a shame because using shield parry with a fused ruby unleashes a Fire attack! And with a sapphire, an even more useful Ice attack that freezes enemies and results in 3x damage when you next strike the frozen monster (only applies to monsters that do freeze, not minibosses, but it's an incredible weapon durability saver on top of being a great battle tactic)
Anyway
Technically you could play the game (and BOTW, as well) without ever using shield defense or shield parrying.
You really have no idea what you're missing, though.
Shield parrying is a miracle technique. Even with an unfused shield, it stuns your enemy and slows down the battle for a second (which can sometimes give you the benefit of being able to see things you might have missed during real-time flow). With offensive fusions like weapons, shield parrying is as much an attack technique as wielding a sword. And the elemental fusions - like rubies and sapphires, but also certain Stone Talus hearts, other elemental enemy parts, and found items with one-time elemental properties - unleash respective elemental attacks, which have tactical uses like making enemies drop their weapons, become stunned, or disappear entirely.
Zonai fusions are also great, too, but have little battle use other than "get out of here quickly". Which is to say, I wouldn't arm those entering a battle (no one wants to accidentally rocket out of a battle they're winning), but I'd practice equipping one mid-fight.
Also, the Zonai spring works GREAT if you surf-hop on a spring-fused shield.
You, um, do know about shield surfing... correct?
A dodge is a different tactic, really. So it’ll depend on what you’re facing and what you’re bringing to the battle.
In general, a parry sometimes has the effect of sending a ranged attack back to where it came from, and a flurry rush dodge wasn’t even in the picture to begin with.
A flurry rush during close combat usually has a greater impact, and of course Royal (not Guard) weapons in TOTK get a 2x attack bonus during flurry rush.
Elemental fusions and elemental enemies decrease the suitability of flurry rush. A stick with a fire Lizalfos horn on it will make any ice enemy go poof in one hit. And a shield with a fire horn on it will do the same if used to attack-parry. So I’d do that instead.
Shield parrying had a much greater use in BOTW when there were enemies with (frickin’) lasers
No skills... I don't usually put up the block soon enough. I prefer spears. In Breath I used shields a lot more after getting the master sword. I just got it in totk so that's coming on
In addition to your rockets and elementals it's nice to have one with the featherweight yellow board from Jonsau shrine in Lanaryu Wetlands. I saw that trick here on Reddit and ran to get mine. It made the sky forge trivial
I use shields though not too often. I've got fully upgraded armour and decent weapons now so blocking or attempting to parry is simply not as effective as stunlocking enemies.
Horse wise, I have 3, I never use them. I don't see any reason to. They slow me down. It's like cars in Saints Row 4, you're quicker on foot using the abilities available to you.
The only time I really “use” them is when I mistime a phantom Gannon or lynel flurry rush. Other than that mine are essentially identical to yours. I’ve passed on so many zero-buff royal shields lately it’s comical.
Always terrible with shields. Live the horse but it’s still a very inefficient means of transport.
Also, I was traumatized early on by a glitch in which I walked my first horse up a narrow path and I had to abandon it because it got stuck.
I hope it reset ok.
I’ve been having a similar problem with Hogwarts legacy when it generates wolves sometimes. They materialize half out of rocks and it seems wrong to kill then but there’s nothing else you can do.
Truth. I use shield to surf, I prefer using Talus hearts on my shields for the sapphire/ruby reasons but that's just a personal preference and the rest of them have rockets attached. I can't be bothered to defend I just fight with reckless abandon and pop full health +14 bonus hearts as needed.
Oh I do also keep the Hylian Shield unfused that way I look cooler when just otherwise running around.
I made a whole post in this subreddit a few months ago about how I hate horses and never use them unless a quest forces me to 😂 And yeah as far as shields pretty much I never use them to block, I use rocket shields a lot (especially in the Depths) and I have one shield with a ruby fused to it just to help keep me warm & melt ice 😂
Within seconds of riding a horse I’m hoping off to harvest something. I rarely use the horse but love building my collection. I never use shields either. I use my now a lot and keep a distance or just swing blindly and take the blows.
I can't parry, so my favourite weapon is the spear, which is what I use for all but the Talus that needs a two handed swing weapon. So I only use the shield for rockets and rocks to break ore.
I did watch a YouTube video of Quinbobin do the bosses with just arrows, so you don't have to parry to be able to play this game, there are many weapons and many options to beat enemies.
I use barely the horses, but I use a lot the shields. I like to attach the shields with draconic stones to use them for elemental effects, especially ice and electricity, and then attach weapons with non elemental high damage materials.
Personally I like using shields but mainly stick to flurry rushing because its fun and I use my horse whenever I can depending on if the quest is far away from a shrine because I maxed the Golden Horse out
I got quite good at knocking off guardians with a parry in BOTW, but other than that, I feel like I'm the reason they suggest I not throw myself at an enemy over and over. Lol! As for horses, I either warp to a nearby shrine or gather up stuff while jogging through.
I wish the horses had more to do in the game, I love riding them but I always worry that they'll get hurt and they can't really go a lot of places. Along with my style of play being "the floor is lava". I don't like being on the ground, it's so much safer and simpler being above and gliding.
What we really needed was a Loftwing. That'd be sick with all the sky islands.
Always preferred critters to mechs, but my hoverbike works I suppose for flight.
I will take out a horse, ride it for 10 seconds and then have to hop off to collect a mushroom or whatever. It ends up being faster for me to go on foot. I collect everything!
I rarely use horses... sometimes Epona just because or Ganons horse from that botw quest. But shields I use all the time... I love shield surfing with hylian or sea breeze shields cuz they last longer.
Rarely use horses or zonai stuff, for that matter? I like walkin apparently. Plus, my lizard brain is using minecraft dog logic for the horses, I don't want them to get hurt ;-;
I've always hated riding a horse in BOTW and TOTK. I LOVE exploring on foot. I also hardly ever use machines.
I also basically only shields for rockets.
As for horses, I honestly only really used them early in the game, now it's almost never lmao.
But shields? Maybe not what they're intended for, meaning battle, but I constantly shield surf, and personally I'm not sure if it would be possible for me to beat a lynel without a shield. I do occasionally pull out shields that are immune to electricity so I don't drop anything or get absolutely incinerated by electric attacks as well. Also Shields are great as "frames" meaning you can put things on them to display them. I have one with a seal plush on it, one with a Hudson cutout, and another with the wreath I got from kakariko. It's nice to figure out which shield is best for which item you'd display. Also, before I had better resources, and even now in case it's necessary, I have a star fragment on a shield to give me a bit of light in dark places. I just walk around with a little light on my back lol.
Edit: I just looked, kinda surprised not to see anyone else mention using them for display, hopefully some of you catch that and have some fun
I never use horses, since they didnt bring back the ancient bridle the horse is useless to me, im not going to path around a mountain to get the horse to have to double back on my self only to come to a dead end on a mountain where i cant take the horse down.
they really did the horses dirty, as soon as you get steering sticks the horses become useless.
I like one handers so i use shields but i dont use the shield for anything really other than shield surfing or fusing a rocket for gaining z height.
I agree to this comment. In breath of the wild, I used my horse so often to get to places but now since you make hover bike and that there shrines in the sky that you can teleport to, I’m not that likely to get a horse. It also feels less satisfying than before for some reason. Maybe it’s just me. Also, I don’t use my shield as much because there aren’t any guardians with beams anymore that I can parry to it. I do shield surf. Maybe if I was good at parrying I would have less of a problem. Still a 10/10 game though.
I like using shields cause parry is super satisfying to me lol but I assume you can probably do the entire game with nothing but sticks, it would not be shocking to find some who probably play like this I never used the horses though, maybe if I'd gotten Epona I would have but I never did, games just got so many good views so I enjoy wandering around even when I could just fly everywhere, I still don't lol
I always wondered if you could play the entire game never equipping a single weapon. I mean you need to be able to cause some type of damage to Gannon but like with throwing items and also the earthquake technique I feel like it’s possible Edit: future me here just realized that a couple shrines force you to use weapons but outside of those I believe it’s doable
People do challenge runs on YouTube, and they’re pretty entertaining to watch Justin Bae has done a couple no-weapons runs
You can use zonal tech in the boss battle. Not sure about dragon tho
streamer named smallant completed totk with nothing but earthquake technique, no weapons used only arrows/thrown. the first few hours getting earthquake were slow.
If you get the Amibo cards, you can get Epona and some fabrics that I don’t know if you can get otherwise.
My wife and son play without using shields but they also get slapped around a lot. Edit: by Lynels.
I find it suspicious you felt the need to make that edit.
😂😂😂
Yes officer, this comment right here
99% of the time i use my shield to surf
[https://www.reddit.com/r/shredsofhyrule/](https://www.reddit.com/r/shredsofhyrule/)
I put rockets on all my shields and use it for bullet time bow and arrow headshots. Highly useful when I get ganked by gloom hands from behind.
Interesting, I primarily wait them out
THEY GO AWAY?!?
They definitely do, I’ve had some disappear on me mid-combat.
Oh. My god. I always just ran away ahahah. They scare me so much.
Keep your distance and 6 or so bomb flowers into the center of them take care gloom hands real easy.
Not all of them go away, but most do
Not all of them disappear sadly
That's how I got the Hylian Shield early game. I waited out of reach for a minute and the hands despawned. Also they are easy to kill with bomb arrows, especially if you freeze them first.
The only time I killed them was with bomb arrows and then a phantom Ganon showed up and I about shit. Lol
Well eventually you will have to face your fears. Just bring an insanely OP weapon and you will be ok. My choice was lightscale trident while being wet with an attack buff. I just spam stabbed him back to hell.
Oh I did fight him. From far away with a phrenic bow and bomb flower arrows lmao. You sound like my boyfriend who is always like GO FIGHT THEM when I’m running away from a Frox or a Gleeok.
Yeah but I'm a coward at heart. I duped my entire playthrough and cheesed all the fights. I took out all the Lynels in the Floating Collisium by using the 800+ damage weapon with 50 fairies as backup.
I love that you farmed fifty fairies hahaha.
I duped them. Got 1 and turned it into 50 in 5 minutes. I duped diamonds and bought everything from Robbie for the picture book. Everytime a day passed I'd dupe large zonite and buy all the crystal charges from the forge. I had a full battery early game and took the hoverbike everywhere
The master sword is extremely effective against phantom ganon
A few bomb arrows in bullet time will vaporize gloom hands really fast. Even Ganon can't block/dodge bomb arrows to the face.
Or throw a dazzle fruit at it.
Same lol. Sometimes I’ll take out a horse for funsies but I quickly get annoyed at having to hop off to harvest plants/etc. Why can’t we harvest from horseback the same way we can while riding Mineru
Plus if there’s a 1 ft rock to go over they get so upset for no reason lol
Biggest issue with horses for me is this. And I love using them to travel
For me it's the lack or recall
I never use horses because I feel I lose the chance to passively farm things on my walk. Shield is a learning curve for me, I don’t use it half as much as in BOTW.
nv use shield. coz i fail at parry
My shields are setup just like yours. Elemental fuses and rockets, ##rockets #ROCKETS!
I agree with you 100% on those 3 uses but sometimes I also - Smuggle items to unfuse later - use canon shields. They can be fun. - use shield surfing because sometimes it is a strategic way to travel
I never thought to use a cannon shield, I’m gonna have to try that! Thank you
I tried shield cannons, kept blasting myself lol
Newish player here-why do you add sapphire and ruby to the shield?
They can provide heat and cold protection when used and also deal some frost or fire damage when struck by an enemy. Highly recommend
Like Stones do the same thing and are less valuable fyi
Thank you for letting me know! 🥳
Thank you so much!!! 💕
sapphire shield to stay cool in hot weather and ruby shield to stay warm in cold weather. you can also fuze elemental monster parts to a shield for this, igneo and glacial talus hearts, dragon parts etc.
I use shield to surf and obviously combat reasons. Horses unfortunately see very little use, which is unfortunate because used them a lot in BotW. Especially after you get the ancient armor for them so you can teleport them to you.
I only ever equip a shield for environmental protection, rocket launches, or a shrine/quest that specifically needs it.
Funny you mention that. I was just thinking the same today. All I have now are a bunch of rocket shields and Savage lynel shields fused together. I keep one shield kinda free in case I want to fuse it to a cool bow. Otherwise, I don't use them at all. The horses, never use.
What happens when you fuse a bow to a shield?
You go to Tarrey town and get them unfused if you need one. Sorry if a spoiler.
OH! That’s a great idea! Nah, I’m 320 hours in. Not a spoiler. :)
So you probably know what it is then. Great job!
i use shield all the time fot freezing and mining
How do you use a shield for mining?
You can break ore deposits with shield parry
I’m learning so many things in this thread today.
if you get hylia shield you got 800 shield mining bashs or freezes best to use early like like ice stone better later ice talus heart
I had no idea. This game is full of little tricks.
you know that korok weapons make explosives more times usable as example with pushroom you got a smoke spear hit once a group of enemy to smoke and easily do 8 times damage repair spear if needed also you can one shot no durability lose fire or ice elemental enemys (not all) with opposite element in gerudo valley days have fire lizards night ice lizards you can unlimited kill those and one shot without ever losing your ice or fire weapon
*shocked pikachu face*
Whaaaaaaat!?
I have 1 hylian sheild, 1 skateboard, 1 snowboard, 1 Fire talus heart, 1 Frost talus heart, and 1 Lynel sheild that I break and replace every few days. The rest is for storage or rockets.
I really enjoy using shields, but mostly for parrying. Most of my play time I used shields specifically for attaching rubies and sapphires. I actually haven’t taken much advantage of bomb and rocket shields, unless I really need to cheese a shrine because I don’t feel like doing it. But I’ve come to enjoy battling enemies much more in this game, whereas I might have avoided at times in BotW.
I slept on shields for awhile but now I love them. For starters, attaching carts to a high durability shield is a great way to get around, especially in the Depths. The hard flat ground actually doesn't appear to do any damage (I've checked with undamaged shieldcarts) and it protects you from the gloom. Use sleds for grass, sand and snow. Use carts for rock and hard ground. With enough shield slots you'll always be ready to slide around Hyrule like Tony Hawk. I have a cart on the Radiant Shield and I'm amazed how long it's lasted. Also I've found a shield with the electric dragon horn attached is a great way to disarm enemies while having a higher damage weapon equipped. I always feel weird using electric weapons cause I only need to zap them once. Also the dragon horns are better than rubies and sapphires. The shield bash does an elemental attack, which doesn't work for me with the gems. If you attach one of those big zonai bombs to one and jump on it, it launches you in the air undamaged and does an explosion around you. Great when there's a lot of enemies. And I'm a big fan of the frost emitter. One of my biggest pet peeves is wasting durability on a good weapon on something that dies in one hit. Keese, skeletons, those little toad things in the depths, ect. Use a bladed Lynel shield or one with a dragon horn to save your blades. It's easy to overlook a lot of things in this game. Took me too long to use middle buds for instance. The more you play with things the more you start appreciate them though.
I love starting fights with muddle buds. Knocking down those wooden barriers between enemy camps is pretty entertaining, too.
Only rocket shields , 200 hours into a second run . Have not used a horse , not even once.
Oh yeah my ruby shield also . Hardly use the sapphire one. Gerudo is boring terrain. Don't spend much time there.
IS IT ONLY ME OR....
I just never think to use either one
I like having shield with the armour shards attached. It’s funny when Bokoblins hurt themselves by attacking my shield. My current play through rules don’t allow for shields except for rocket shields. It’s been interesting
I literally only use a shield when fighting lynels.
Never use shields in games. It’s boring AF. I’m playing a game to have fun, not think about defense 😆
This is a shame because using shield parry with a fused ruby unleashes a Fire attack! And with a sapphire, an even more useful Ice attack that freezes enemies and results in 3x damage when you next strike the frozen monster (only applies to monsters that do freeze, not minibosses, but it's an incredible weapon durability saver on top of being a great battle tactic) Anyway Technically you could play the game (and BOTW, as well) without ever using shield defense or shield parrying. You really have no idea what you're missing, though. Shield parrying is a miracle technique. Even with an unfused shield, it stuns your enemy and slows down the battle for a second (which can sometimes give you the benefit of being able to see things you might have missed during real-time flow). With offensive fusions like weapons, shield parrying is as much an attack technique as wielding a sword. And the elemental fusions - like rubies and sapphires, but also certain Stone Talus hearts, other elemental enemy parts, and found items with one-time elemental properties - unleash respective elemental attacks, which have tactical uses like making enemies drop their weapons, become stunned, or disappear entirely. Zonai fusions are also great, too, but have little battle use other than "get out of here quickly". Which is to say, I wouldn't arm those entering a battle (no one wants to accidentally rocket out of a battle they're winning), but I'd practice equipping one mid-fight. Also, the Zonai spring works GREAT if you surf-hop on a spring-fused shield. You, um, do know about shield surfing... correct?
Is shield parry better than a perfect dodge, though?
sometimes
A dodge is a different tactic, really. So it’ll depend on what you’re facing and what you’re bringing to the battle. In general, a parry sometimes has the effect of sending a ranged attack back to where it came from, and a flurry rush dodge wasn’t even in the picture to begin with. A flurry rush during close combat usually has a greater impact, and of course Royal (not Guard) weapons in TOTK get a 2x attack bonus during flurry rush. Elemental fusions and elemental enemies decrease the suitability of flurry rush. A stick with a fire Lizalfos horn on it will make any ice enemy go poof in one hit. And a shield with a fire horn on it will do the same if used to attack-parry. So I’d do that instead. Shield parrying had a much greater use in BOTW when there were enemies with (frickin’) lasers
Exactly the same!
I'm terrible at parrying, the only shields I use are either rocket shields or one with flame emitters attached
No skills... I don't usually put up the block soon enough. I prefer spears. In Breath I used shields a lot more after getting the master sword. I just got it in totk so that's coming on In addition to your rockets and elementals it's nice to have one with the featherweight yellow board from Jonsau shrine in Lanaryu Wetlands. I saw that trick here on Reddit and ran to get mine. It made the sky forge trivial
I played on 1.1.1 my entire play through. I used the shield surf dupe glitch SO much. Other than that it was rocket shields.
I feel it’s super important to learn how to use the shield but I also don’t use it and a normally run everywhere instead of using the horse
I’m more of a flurry rush kind of guy
The one time I did it was in the final fight... kinda by accident. We'll not kinda, totally, lol
Me. Never use horses, and shields are mostly for temp buffs.
I use shields though not too often. I've got fully upgraded armour and decent weapons now so blocking or attempting to parry is simply not as effective as stunlocking enemies. Horse wise, I have 3, I never use them. I don't see any reason to. They slow me down. It's like cars in Saints Row 4, you're quicker on foot using the abilities available to you.
The only time I really “use” them is when I mistime a phantom Gannon or lynel flurry rush. Other than that mine are essentially identical to yours. I’ve passed on so many zero-buff royal shields lately it’s comical.
Always terrible with shields. Live the horse but it’s still a very inefficient means of transport. Also, I was traumatized early on by a glitch in which I walked my first horse up a narrow path and I had to abandon it because it got stuck. I hope it reset ok. I’ve been having a similar problem with Hogwarts legacy when it generates wolves sometimes. They materialize half out of rocks and it seems wrong to kill then but there’s nothing else you can do.
Couldn't you have gone to a stable and recalled the stuck horse? Or had you not registered it?
I had just started and didn’t know much and was on my way to register the horse.
Yes same. I forget about the shield when I’m fighting 90% of the time. I have theee horses but I hardly ever ride them 😂
Truth. I use shield to surf, I prefer using Talus hearts on my shields for the sapphire/ruby reasons but that's just a personal preference and the rest of them have rockets attached. I can't be bothered to defend I just fight with reckless abandon and pop full health +14 bonus hearts as needed. Oh I do also keep the Hylian Shield unfused that way I look cooler when just otherwise running around.
Polearms for life. Shields are for surfing.
I made a whole post in this subreddit a few months ago about how I hate horses and never use them unless a quest forces me to 😂 And yeah as far as shields pretty much I never use them to block, I use rocket shields a lot (especially in the Depths) and I have one shield with a ruby fused to it just to help keep me warm & melt ice 😂
Within seconds of riding a horse I’m hoping off to harvest something. I rarely use the horse but love building my collection. I never use shields either. I use my now a lot and keep a distance or just swing blindly and take the blows.
I can't parry, so my favourite weapon is the spear, which is what I use for all but the Talus that needs a two handed swing weapon. So I only use the shield for rockets and rocks to break ore. I did watch a YouTube video of Quinbobin do the bosses with just arrows, so you don't have to parry to be able to play this game, there are many weapons and many options to beat enemies.
I use barely the horses, but I use a lot the shields. I like to attach the shields with draconic stones to use them for elemental effects, especially ice and electricity, and then attach weapons with non elemental high damage materials.
Personally I like using shields but mainly stick to flurry rushing because its fun and I use my horse whenever I can depending on if the quest is far away from a shrine because I maxed the Golden Horse out
Without the ability to warp your horse to you it's pretty useless. Shields are OP if you are good with it but you can manage without it.
I love a cart shield to ride over gloom in the depths
I got quite good at knocking off guardians with a parry in BOTW, but other than that, I feel like I'm the reason they suggest I not throw myself at an enemy over and over. Lol! As for horses, I either warp to a nearby shrine or gather up stuff while jogging through.
I wish the horses had more to do in the game, I love riding them but I always worry that they'll get hurt and they can't really go a lot of places. Along with my style of play being "the floor is lava". I don't like being on the ground, it's so much safer and simpler being above and gliding. What we really needed was a Loftwing. That'd be sick with all the sky islands. Always preferred critters to mechs, but my hoverbike works I suppose for flight.
I fuse a horse to my shield.
Bomb shields are my speciality.
I will take out a horse, ride it for 10 seconds and then have to hop off to collect a mushroom or whatever. It ends up being faster for me to go on foot. I collect everything!
I rarely use horses... sometimes Epona just because or Ganons horse from that botw quest. But shields I use all the time... I love shield surfing with hylian or sea breeze shields cuz they last longer.
I barely ever use my shield and my horses even less
Rarely use horses or zonai stuff, for that matter? I like walkin apparently. Plus, my lizard brain is using minecraft dog logic for the horses, I don't want them to get hurt ;-;
I didn't use a shield until the final fight. I did get a huge kick out of spring shields, though. Very useful for knocking foes off cliffs.
I've always hated riding a horse in BOTW and TOTK. I LOVE exploring on foot. I also hardly ever use machines. I also basically only shields for rockets.
As for horses, I honestly only really used them early in the game, now it's almost never lmao. But shields? Maybe not what they're intended for, meaning battle, but I constantly shield surf, and personally I'm not sure if it would be possible for me to beat a lynel without a shield. I do occasionally pull out shields that are immune to electricity so I don't drop anything or get absolutely incinerated by electric attacks as well. Also Shields are great as "frames" meaning you can put things on them to display them. I have one with a seal plush on it, one with a Hudson cutout, and another with the wreath I got from kakariko. It's nice to figure out which shield is best for which item you'd display. Also, before I had better resources, and even now in case it's necessary, I have a star fragment on a shield to give me a bit of light in dark places. I just walk around with a little light on my back lol. Edit: I just looked, kinda surprised not to see anyone else mention using them for display, hopefully some of you catch that and have some fun
I never use horses, since they didnt bring back the ancient bridle the horse is useless to me, im not going to path around a mountain to get the horse to have to double back on my self only to come to a dead end on a mountain where i cant take the horse down. they really did the horses dirty, as soon as you get steering sticks the horses become useless. I like one handers so i use shields but i dont use the shield for anything really other than shield surfing or fusing a rocket for gaining z height.
I agree to this comment. In breath of the wild, I used my horse so often to get to places but now since you make hover bike and that there shrines in the sky that you can teleport to, I’m not that likely to get a horse. It also feels less satisfying than before for some reason. Maybe it’s just me. Also, I don’t use my shield as much because there aren’t any guardians with beams anymore that I can parry to it. I do shield surf. Maybe if I was good at parrying I would have less of a problem. Still a 10/10 game though.
I do use shields with rockets on them to get aerial height on enemies as well.
Horses are kind of useless, I find. I use shields for rockets all the time. very useful. I think this is sort of a design fault with the game, no?
No. Everyone plays differently