Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Destroy Ganondorf Walkthrough

Destroy Ganondorf is a Main Quest in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (TotK). This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of the Destroy Ganondorf story mission.

Requirement: Finished Main Quest: Recovering the Hero’s Sword
Reward: Story Finished, you unlock a 100% completion tracker (quest counter) in all Adventure Log categories, and you get a “star icon” on your completed story save
Quest Info: Wind, Fire, Water, Lightning, and Spirit. The five sages have awakened and entrusted you with their power. You still don’t know where Demon King Ganondorf is, but Purah says she suspects the Depths. If you work with Josha, who has been investigating the Depths, you might gain a lead.

Objectives:

• Find Demon King Ganondorf in The Depths
• The Demon King’s Army Boss Fight
• Demon King Ganondorf Boss Fight
• Demon Dragon Boss Fight
• Save Princess Zelda

Starting Location: Destroy Ganondorf

This quest starts by talking to Purah in Lookout Landing, after having finished Main Quest: Recovering the Hero’s Sword. It doesn’t automatically trigger and doesn’t have a waypoint marker until you seek out Purah yourself. She then issues the Destroy Ganondorf main quest, which is the final quest in the game.

Find Demon King Ganondorf in The Depths

This quest doesn’t give you a waypoint and instead wants you to locate Ganondorf by yourself. He is found at the lowest point of The Depths, which you can access from the chasm below Hyrule Castle.

Demon King Ganondorf can be very difficult or very easy depending on the meals you bring. It’s better to spend 1 hour preparing for this fight than to be stuck there for 3 hours. You especially want meals containing 4 Ironshrooms (bought from merchant in Hyrule Forest at Deku Tree) for DEF UP UP UP bonus and meals containing Sudelion (flowers growing on Sky Islands) to restore broken hearts. Also some good bows and 150+ arrows. Refer to the Preparation section below in the boss guide before embarking on this quest.

Start by dropping down the red Chasm underneath Hyrule Castle (“Hyrule Castle Chasm”), to the north of Lookout Landing. It’s the big chasm around the flying castle. You can fast travel to Serutabomac Shrine and fly down from there. Activate the Camobatures Lightroot down here to illuminate the area (-0178, 1170, -0515).

Fly to the very bottom and walk to the southwest corner. There you see a red flower-type enemy on the wall shooting electric orbs at you. Drop down below this enemy (-0246, 0932, -1017). Fly through the opening below.

After landing, climb the wall in front of you, where some enemies are climbing on the wall (-0239, 0864, -1088).

Drop down to the area with electric bats, then immediately glide to the opening on the left (-0199, 0795, -1074).

Upon stepping on the stones they will fall down, stay on them. This leads to a room with rocks dropping from the ceiling. Stand on the rocks and use Recall to lift them back up, then step off at the top.

Follow the path to the right, then take the next left turn to see ice bats and ice flowers on the wall (-0245, 0725, -1049). Run to the end of that corridor, the last stone will fall through the floor, stay on it to reach the bottom area.

After landing go straight ahead from the staircase. Drop down to the next room, you will see an enemy standing upstairs on the other side. Climb the pillar next to him where there’s no gloom (-0244, 0736, -1229).

Follow the path behind the enemy. It leads further down. At the end of the corridor are destructible rocks, you must break them by fusing a melee weapon with a rock.

In the next room turn right and break the rocks there to create an opening (-0316, 0937, -1265).

This leads to the “Imprisoning Chamber”. Drop down the chasm.

After landing at the bottom, there’s only one linear path forward. At the end, jump down the dark chasm and land on the red roots to start the final series of boss fights.

The Demon King’s Army Boss Fight

This boss fight consists of a large army of smaller enemies. Your Sages will help in this fight. When the enemies are distracted by your sages, attack from behind with the Master Sword, run away and repeat. Your sages will do most of the work here. Just keep your distance to the one big enemy.

Focus on defeating the arches first, they die in a single hit from the master sword. As the number of enemies declines it gets easier. Keep the big guy for last, then your sages will help with him.

In the second wave, it spawns lizard enemies. They can spit water at you so be careful of those ranged attacks. Focus on the low-health ones to pick them off one by one. As their numbers dwindle it will get easier.

In the third wave, there will be some flying enemies and crawling enemies. These will focus on you and not the sages. Run up to Riju and use her lightning strike ability, hit the floor with an arrow to explode it. The enemies are immune to normal damage but take a lot of lightning damage. While Riju’s attack recharges simply run in big circles around the enemies, and repeat.

The fourth wave has a few big enemies. Your sages will kill them all after a little while, so just run in big circles around them to stay safe.

After the army is defeated, follow the linear path forward to trigger the Demon King Ganondorf boss fight.

Demon King Ganondorf Boss Fight

The Ganondorf boss fight relies heavily dodging at the right time. You will want to use a shield + one-handed weapon for this (two-handed weapons don’t let you use shields). Depending on the meals you bring this can either be very easy or very hard. It’s better to spend 1 hour on preparation than to get stuck here for 2 hours. If you don’t have the right meals it’s better to load an earlier autosave and fast travel away, then redo the previous quest steps to get back here.

Preparation to make it easier:

• Most importantly: Bring at least 3 meals cooked with 4 Ironshrooms each. These give you “DEFENSE UP UP UP”. It makes it so you only lose 1 heart per hit. You can buy these from the merchants in Korok Forest (where Deku Tree is) in Great Hyrule Forest. They can also be found in The Depths. Each of these meals will last 3:50 minutes, one meal is enough for the first phase and one for the second phase.
• Fill the rest of the inventory with meals that restore 3 broken hearts (greyed-out hearts) + 3 health. Do this by combining 1 type of Meat/Fish + 1 Apple + 1 Sundelion. The reason is that the boss deals gloom damage which reduces your total hearts. The Sundelon is what fixes 3 broken hearts. It grows on sky islands at high altitudes, for example South Elding Sky Archipelago. Enter this fight with at least 15 of these meals (each restores 3 hearts for 90 hearts total). This means you will need 15 Sundelions + 15 Apples + 15 Meat (any meat works). Apples are found a lot on Great Sky Island, Meat is carried by Bokoblins with baskets on their back or from hunting animals with the bow.
• At least 4 undamaged bows. Even better would be to upgrade your bow inventory by trading Korok Seeds to Hestu so that you can carry 7-8 bows (he’s at the Deku Tree in Hyrule Forest). Having 150+ arrows would also be great but you can make do with less.
• DON’T use meals that give any other buffs. These would override the “DEFENSE UP UP UP” bonus from the 4 Ironshrooms meal. That’s why you want to use only basic meat + apples in combination with Sundelions. Other items usually add other effects, which you don’t want here.
• Optional: A lot of Gibdo bones to attach to arrows for increased damage. Not mandatory but makes it faster to take down the boss with bow headshots.

Phase 1:

• As soon as the fight starts, consume your DEFENSE UP UP UP meal. Now you only take 1 damage per hit.
• An easy method is to just headshot him with the bow, run away to let him miss his attacks, repeat. Attach items like Gibdo bones to arrows for more damage and do headshots.
• (“Proper Melee Method” how it’s intended, but harder): Use a One-handed weapon + Shield. ALWAYS hold down at all times. Before an attack lands dodge by blocking with and pressing + . When timed correctly, time slows down and you can do a Flurry Attach with . This deals a lot of damage. The boss uses 3 weapons: Sword, Spear, Club. It’s random when he switches to which weapon but he always starts out with the Sword. For Sword, walk very closely random him, land 1-2 hits, block and repeat. For spear always block + dodge-jump sideways when he’s about to strike, then do a flurry attack. For Club also block + dodge-jump sideways and hit him 4 times. If he uses the club to make the ground turn red headshot quickly with the bow to stagger him.
• After depleting his entire health bar the 2nd phase starts.

Phase 2:

• He will spawn more phantoms. Just run in big circles around the arena, your Sages will come to help after half a minute. Then the extra phantoms will focus on your sages and the main boss will focus on you. Have the camera facing back so you can see when he’s rushing towards you, you can outrun all his attacks. If you slow down he will hit you so keep an eye on your stamina. He also makes a noise when he’s starting to rush towards you so listen for that.
• After he misses a strike, shoot the extra phantoms with arrows. Focus on the ones with low health to take them out one by one. Your sages will keep them busy.
• After all extra phantoms are defeated, your sages will attack the boss. Easiest method is to keep running and let your sages do the damage, headshot him with arrows after he misses a charge attack. The only dangerous move is when he uses the Club and makes the ground turn red, it will affect the whole area. If you headshot him quick enough you can stun him before he activates the attack.
• Remember to refresh your DEFENSE UP UP UP if it ran out. As long as it’s active and you have lots of healing items left you are safe.
• At 50% health the 3rd phase starts.

Phase 3:

• In the third phase you are solo again and Ganondorf uses new ranged attacks. He will use orbs that spread out towards you. These permanently take away a health heart and it cannot be restored with Sundelion meals. If he shoots orbs on the ground you can walk between them to evade. If he uses ranged projectiles run sideways until they disappear.
• Keep headshotting him with arrows. Since he uses a lot more ranged projectiles he’s also standing around more and easier to hit. Attach things to your arrows like Gibdo Bones to deal more damage ( + > press to filter by fuse power). When he rushes in for an attack run away.
• Refresh your DEF UP UP UP when it runs out and always stay near full health by healing with Sundelion meals.
• After depleting his full health bar he will be defeated and the next boss fight immediately begins, there’s no manual save opportunity in between!

Demon Dragon Boss Fight

After a cutscene you will ride on top of the Zelda’s Light Dragon and must defeat the Demon Dragon. There are 4 crystals on the back of the red dragon that you must destroy, then you can attack the crystal on its head to defeat it.

Drop down and land near a crystal, hit it with the Master Sword. Jump off and glide down towards the Light Dragon’s head. It will automatically catch you in midair (it will home in on you to catch you). Then it will lift you up and you can drop down to the red dragon again. Repeat until all 4 crystals are destroyed.

Then drop to the red dragon’s head and hit the crystal. Lastly, press on its head-crystal for the final blow.

Save Princess Zelda

After defeating the Demon Dragon, you will be in freefall. You must fly over to Princess Zelda who is falling alongside you. Catch her and enjoy the final cutscene! This also completes Main Quest: Find Princess Zelda.

Congratulations, you have beaten The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. After the final cutscene you will be booted back to the title screen and can click “Continue”. Your last save will have a star-icon on it, to indicate you have finished the story. Load this save to be put before the final boss. You will now also get counters in the Adventure Log for all quest categories. This makes the 100% completion cleanup easier.

This finishes the main story of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

For all remaining Side Quests & Adventures refer to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Walkthrough.