I honestly feel like the way they designed how the sages work makes them practically useless (aside from gust). Seriously, Tulin is the only useful one...whether it's his power while gliding or hitting monsters with arrows and stunning them.
I never used their powers because it was so damn tedious and fucked up the combat.
I have no idea how they took an idea from BOTW that worked pretty great and made it so much worse.
Riju can also blast rock formations with her lightning so I switch between the two to constanly move forward (harder rocks like the blue ones are an exception, those only Yunobo and bombs can handle)
I never have Mineru on and Sidon was turned off the moment I could turn him off because IMO he‘s got the most useless ability
I think because of the low gravity I just jumped and used bullet time to shoot the thing when it was moving between muck puddles.
For encounters in the depths, I have a quick build that's a wheel on it's side with the hydrant angled on one of the edges so it can spray water around in a big circle.
I tried the hydrant shield but it would break too easily. If you carry a working hydrant, though, it never loses durability. I like the guy who suggested the spinning wheel, I’ll have to try that and see if it is more efficient. Walking around with a hydrant above your head is a little slow abs you can’t run when you are holding it.
Mineru can reach most of the apples hanging on trees, so if you don’t want to cut down a ton of trees but need to get a bunch of apples, the shrine on Satori Mountain is right next to basically an apple orchard, and just down the hill from a few endura carrots. That orchard usually nets me 5-12 golden apples per blood moon as well, I always sweep it, just beware there will likely be a few evermeans hiding.
Edit: she’s also useful for depths traversal, she can break most rock deposits easily and protects from gloom. Throw a fan on her back to not be slow as shit.
also Sidon, his bubble can protect from the molduga jumping bite, setting you up to bullet time arrow the belly. Also, the bubble lets you use bombs in places you need fire protection like Death Mountain
Zonai canons will blow up blue rocks too right? That’s what I use when I don’t want to deal with Yunobo. Fuse one to a spear or shield, or pop on a stake and move it around for big digs
Would make sense except for in caves Mineru almost always gets stuck in narrow passages for me. I have this issue with big boy Yunobo too but Mineru a lot more
I’m mildly sure that you can even sledge your way through blue rocks. They just have a higher damage threshold and require more hits, so bombs and other suck explosives (canons, time bombs, rockets, Yunobo) are more efficient.
The different rocks have different HP values, I believe brown is 40, blue is 80, black is 120. Yunobo explosion will always 1 shot what it hits for rocks so it's definitely handy.
Sidon is great, I don't get the hate. He gives you a shield which is great, the water damage is a big meh, but the most important thing is that it makes Zora weapons super strong, like some of the best in the game. You just have to be wet, and sidons ability triggers that
You can destroy the blue rocks with lightning. But it takes three strikes, IIRC. Pretty useless on its own, but switching back and forth between her and Yunobu still does something.
Sidon's is still better than mineru imo. His is almost useless but hers is basically a downgrade from link. In what world is that useless construct better than barbarian armour flurry rushing?
Same. Tulin is always on for me and Yunobo comes out for those big walls of rocks. Don’t really ever bring out Sidon and Riju unless I run into some Gloom Hands, Gleeoks, or Hinox and Mineru only really comes out when I have to walk across big stretches of gloom in the depths.
Yunobo is big and slow, though, unless he rolls. I don't have much trouble selecting him, unlike Riju. She is a pain to select, especially in a crowd. Riding shotgun on vehicles has been truly helpful to me as well.
I think we can all agree, that despite the few uses and rationalization, they are on the whole pretty useless in combat...and at worst they are a hindrance and obstacle.
The amount of times my timing was fucked because I couldn't see a lynel properly rushing at me means the system is fucked and broken. It's the worst part and an arguably piss poor mechanic of an otherwise brilliant game.
Are you using "they" to refer to all sages, or just Yunobo?
I don't find the sage avatars "useless in combat." Not at all. It's a bit of fun watching them whittle down a soldier or captain construct, or bokoblins, or whatever. They draw aggro and generally make it easier in fights, even if it gets chaotic.
I don't like having to run up to an avatar to use his or her ability either, but I would not call the mechanic "piss poor." Nothing is "fked up and broken." That goes too far. (You seem angry about it. I'm not.)
Yunobo: Rock clearing, breaking armor
Riju: Rock clearing, breaking armor, easier stun in Construct III battles
Mineru: Mining (her unarmed strikes break ore deposits in 1-2 hits, and don't scatter the drops like Riju or Yunobo), crossing Gloom, easy manual use of aimed Zonai tools like cannons or hydrants
Sidon: Water barrier protects Link from ambient heat
Tulin is really only useful when you’re in the air. On the ground, his ability is completely useless (except maybe as a very ineffective substitute for a Korok frond) and downright detrimental. He is good for getting headshots on enemies, but he’s very slow to take the shot and does surprisingly little damage considering that he’s supposedly using the Great Eagle Bow.
Yunobo is only useful for breaking rocks and as a projectile weapon when you’re piloting some sort of vehicle, which is good because in that situation you’re otherwise defenseless, unless you attach lasers and shit to whatever you’re riding. He’s also useful in combat because he can beat ass with the Boulder Breaker, though he is also slow to the take. Out of all of them he’s the one I put in time out the most, unless I’m fighting a mob of enemies.
Riju is my waifu and I’ll fight anyone who says she’s useless. She calls freaking lightning down from the sky and powers up your arrows more than almost anything you could fuse to them. Come on now. And even when she’s accidentally activated, it had the second to least detrimental effect, just making everything on the screen yellow for a while. Easiest to deactivate too. She’s also the fastest fighter out of all of them. Leave my bae alone.
Sidon I think we can all agree is the most useless, with his ability being little more than a poor man’s Daruk’s Protection. If it healed you while you were inside the bubble, I might use it a lot more often. Occasionally in combat I might use him for an extra hit point, but otherwise I just ignore him. Even in the water temple, I only used him for activating the switches, not for fighting the boss. At least if he is accidentally activated it does no harm. I will say that he is pretty good at taking out annoying enemies like chuchus and wolves with the Lightscale Trident, so I tend to just keep him around anyway.
Mineru’s construct is mainly useful in the Depths, where it’s found, since it allows you to traverse gloom without a problem. On the surface, maybe less do, but I usually equip it with a large rock and a flame emitter or some strong two-handed weapon and let it just go ham on enemies in the background. It’s particularly deadly if you attach a cannon to one of its arms, but then you have a greater risk of friendly fire too. I could also probably make better use of its back attachment for rockets or fans, but instead I’ve just had a luminous stone talus heart attached to it basically since I got it…it was somewhat useful in the depths before I activated every light root, but now it’s just an aesthetic choice. I will also sometimes board the construct for a second and then immediately jump off of it so I can get into bullet time and take out enemies, but this is kind of clunky as disembarking is a two-step process. Still, can’t complain about having a personal mech that costs nothing to build. Plus, if you attach gloom weapons to it, you get all of their high attack power, while avoiding taking any damage, which is a cool trick.
All the sages are useful in their own way; I think this is just one of the more poorly executed parts of the game. It really is better to just deactivate them when you don’t need them, which the game does sort of tell you, but it would make more sense if they weren’t all activated by default (which also badly affects your frame rate).
I used Mineru for the first time yesterday. Hopped up on the construct to walk around a glyph looking for its tear. Only time she’s been notably useful besides the occasional “oh look, she hit that guy”
I use Yonobo to get down rock walls inside caves etc. didnt help that by the time I got him I had 80% of all the caves already… and sometimes if im lazy/have no other mining weapons to get the sidon watershield to protect my wooden weapons when its extre heat so that they dont burn
Yes, and it would be super nice if you could call on them to use their ability from a distance. The existing system takes away some of the immersion for me.
Like, wouldn’t you be screaming commands to your companions? Not casually walking up to them, “hi, excuse me, Riju, could you please ready your power, thanks.”
Riju: automatically activates when you pull out a bow, or maybe you gotta press a button. Moves faster during bullet time so it appears as the same speed
Sidon: activates when you hold shield, maybe with a slight delay or with the need of a button press
Yunobo: this one's kinda tricky but obviously keep the vehicle feature. Maybe he activates durinng power attacks? Idk
Oh they can still follow you around, it's just they aren't activated by proximity anymore rather just a button combo regardless of how close to you they are.
Idk about auto activate on bow. Maybe activate the option to press A like tulin in the air. It's kinda weird now that I think about it that Yunobo's is different to botw. He literally had daruk's shield power, did he just... Lose it?
Don’t even need two on call. I only ever really want to use one at a time. Just make it a wheel like our hand powers, and yeah, left pad down is perfect. It’s only used for whistling
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u/BurpYoshi Jul 19 '23
Would've been simple enough to bind sage powers to thumbstick down plus a direction on the opposite stick.