Tears of the Kingdom Fuse Guide: The Damage Numbers Nobody Shows You

A Traveler's Sword in Tears of the Kingdom deals 5 damage. A Silver Lynel Saber Horn adds 55 on top of it. The sword — the actual weapon, the thing with a handle — is contributing eight percent of that swing.

That is not a bug or a late-game outlier. It is the design. Nintendo gutted the base numbers on almost every returning weapon to make room for Fuse, and once you see the size of the gap, the entire complaint about "weak weapons that break constantly" reframes itself. The weapon was never supposed to be the damage. It is a delivery system for whatever you scraped off a corpse.

Here are the real numbers, the durability system nobody mentions, and the handful of weapon traits that quietly multiply everything above.

Your weapon is mostly the thing stuck to it

Put the Breath of the Wild values next to the Tears of the Kingdom ones and the intent is obvious. A Royal Broadsword hit for 36 in the last game; here it is 10. A Royal Guard's Claymore was 72; now it is 32. The Master Sword sits at 30 base, climbing to 45 near Gloom and 60 against Phantom Ganon or Demon King Ganondorf himself — and even that is a number you are meant to stack on top of, not admire on its own.

Meanwhile the monster parts scale to absurdity. A basic Bokoblin Horn is +4. A Silver Bokoblin Horn is +31. A Silver Lynel Saber Horn is +55, which is more than any base weapon in the game deals on its own.

The math is flat addition: base weapon attack plus the material's Fuse Attack Power. No hidden scaling, no diminishing returns. Which means the correct question is never "what weapon should I use" — it is "what is the best thing I can afford to lose on the end of it."

If you have not gotten past the tutorial island yet, the Tears of the Kingdom beginner guide covers where Fuse comes from and what the Great Sky Island is actually teaching. This one assumes you already have the arm.

Fuse attack power, ranked

Every one of these is the material's own Fuse Attack Power, added straight to whatever you bolt it onto.

The top shelf

Lynels are the ceiling and they know it. The saber variants beat the mace variants at every tier, so if a Silver Lynel drops both, the saber horn goes on the weapon and the mace horn goes in the armor-upgrade pile. Same fight, same Lynel-hunting fundamentals as the last game, massively better payout.

The realistic farm

You are not fighting Silver Lynels at hour twenty. These are the numbers that actually govern the mid-game:

• Diamond — 25. Genuinely strong, but a Diamond sells for a fortune and Great Fairies want them. Fusing one is a luxury.
• Obsidian Frox Fang — 24, Gleeok Wing — 24, Soldier Construct IV Horn — 24. The Depths and the sky islands both hand these out for fights you were going to pick anyway.
• Black Boss Bokoblin Horn — 27, Black Hinox Horn — 27, Black Lizalfos Horn — 26, Black Moblin Horn — 24, Black Horriblin Horn — 22. Black-tier enemies are the sweet spot: common enough to farm, high enough to matter.
• Lynel Saber Horn — 22, Flux Construct II Core — 20, Blue Hinox Horn — 19.
• Black Bokoblin Horn — 17, Blue Lizalfos Horn — 16, Blue Boss Bokoblin Horn — 16, Frox Fang — 14, Blue Moblin Horn — 13, Hinox Horn — 12, Blue Horriblin Horn — 11, Boss Bokoblin Horn — 10, Flux Construct I Core — 10.
• The floor: Lizalfos Horn — 8, Hinox Tooth — 8, Blue Bokoblin Horn — 7, Hinox Toenail — 7, Moblin Horn — 6, Horriblin Horn — 5, Bokoblin Horn — 4, Amber — 4.

Note what is missing from all of that: gems. Rubies, Sapphires, Topazes, Opals, Zonaite, Flint — every one of them is a Fuse Attack Power of 1. They are not damage materials. They are effect materials, and their job is on arrows, which we will get to.

Gibdo Bone: 40 damage for exactly one swing

Gibdo Bones are the single most misread material in the game. Forty attack power puts them fourth on the entire list, above Silver Boss Bokoblin Horns, and they sell for three rupees. Gerudo Desert is drowning in them during the Gibdo invasion.

The catch is in the item description, and it is brutal: the bone breaks after one strike. Its "odd shape" is the in-fiction excuse; mechanically it means a Gibdo Bone weapon fusion is a single 40-damage hit and then you are holding a naked stick.

That makes it terrible as a melee fuse and outstanding everywhere else. Fuse it to arrows, where one use is the whole point. Fuse it to a throwaway weapon you intend to actually throw. Anywhere the interaction ends after one impact, a Gibdo Bone is a Silver Lynel horn you found in a pile.

Fuse durability is a second, hidden stat

Nintendo said fused weapons have increased durability and then never explained the mechanic. It works like this: fusing grants your base weapon a pool of bonus durability, 25 points for most weapons. Every hit drains the bonus pool first. Your base weapon's own durability is untouched until that pool is gone or the attachment breaks.

The pool is not the same for everything:

Two consequences worth internalizing. First, the pool is banked, not spent when an attachment comes off. Fuse a Gloom Sword onto a Fierce Deity Sword and you get 15 hits — the Gloom Sword's own durability — without touching the Fierce Deity Sword's base 35. That burns 15 of the 25 bonus points; the other 10 are still sitting there for the next fusion.

Second, this is why Royal Guard's gear feels so fragile. Ten bonus points instead of 25 is a 60 percent cut on the buffer, on a weapon line already famous for shattering.

And one permanent oddity: the Master Sword's 25 bonus durability never recharges alongside its base durability, and since it cannot be dropped or fed to anything, it can never be repaired. Once you swing it, the full-durability sparkle on its inventory icon is gone forever. If you are chasing the blade itself, the Breath of the Wild Master Sword guide covers how differently the last game handled it.

Strong Fusion doubles the horn

Here is the trait that breaks the game open. Gerudo Scimitars and Gerudo Spears — plus the Scimitar of the Seven — carry Strong Fusion, which doubles the Fuse Attack Power of whatever you attach.

Run the numbers. A Gerudo Scimitar has a base attack of 17. Fuse a Silver Lynel Saber Horn and its 55 becomes 110, for a total of 127 attack out of a one-handed weapon with a base value of 17. Nothing you build without the trait comes close on the same material budget.

The bill comes due on durability: Strong Fusion weapons receive only 5 bonus fuse durability instead of 25. You are trading four-fifths of the buffer for double the damage, and on a weapon that costs pocket change, that is an easy trade. The exception is the Scimitar of the Seven, which somehow keeps the full 25 while still doubling — the strictly best version of the trait, and worth the "Pride of the Gerudo" side quest on its own.

Weapon traits that multiply the fused damage

Strong Fusion is not the only trait that touches your fusion. Several weapon lines multiply the combined damage, fusion included, which stacks on top of Attack Up effects:

• Breaking Point (Royal Guard's Sword, Claymore, Spear) — double damage when the weapon is below 4 durability, after the "badly damaged" warning. A Royal Guard's Claymore at 32 base plus a Silver Lynel Saber Horn at 55 is 87; on the verge of breaking, it is 174. It is a deliberately suicidal build and it deletes bosses.
• Improved Flurry Rush (Royal Broadsword, Claymore, Halberd) — double damage during a flurry rush.
• Desperate Strength (Knight's Broadsword, Claymore, Halberd) — double damage at one heart or less.
• Water Warrior (Zora Sword, Longsword, Spear, and the Lightscale Trident) — double damage while Link is wet. Rain, a waterfall, a thrown Splash Fruit, or Sidon's power all count, and the Froggy armor's moisturizing effect extends the window.
• Improved Sneakstrike (Eightfold Blade) — doubles sneakstrike damage on top of the inherent 8x multiplier.
• Zonaite-Powered (Zonaite, Strong Zonaite, and Mighty Zonaite weapons) — adds a flat +3, +5, or +10 by tier when the attachment is a Zonai device, a Zonaite or Construct weapon, a Construct horn, Zonaite, a Zonai Charge, a Flux Construct core or block, or sky-fallen Ruins Rubble. Modest, but it is free on top of the normal fusion, and it pairs with everything in the Ultrahand and Zonai devices guide.
• Fuse Recycling (Forest Dweller's Sword and Spear) — the one that changes how you play. Materials that normally burst after a single use become permanent: Puffshrooms, Muddle Buds, all four elemental fruits, Dazzlefruit, every Chuchu Jelly, and Brightbloom Seeds. An infinite Puffshroom weapon means infinite sneakstrike setups, including free Lynel mounts.

Shields play by completely different rules

Fusing to a shield does not add attack and does not add guard — with one exception, the long Lava Slab, which adds exactly 1 Shield Guard. Everything else is about behavior:

• Bokoblin Horn on a shield makes your parries damage enemies.
• Rocket launches Link a considerable distance straight up. It is the cheapest altitude in the game.
• Cannon fires when you draw the shield, dealing the shield's base damage plus one.
• Zonaite shields reduce the battery drain of fused Zonai devices while blocking.
• Frozen meat turns shield surfing smooth on any terrain, where coarse ground normally chews through shield durability.

Fusing a random shield to your shield does nothing useful. It changes the hitbox and the friction while surfing, and that is the whole effect.

Arrows are where the cheap materials win

Arrow fusion runs off the quick menu rather than the Fuse ability itself, which means it only reads materials in your inventory, never objects in the world. It is also where the 1-attack junk becomes essential:

• Keese Eyeball — the arrow homes in. This is the answer to every fast, small, or airborne target that you keep missing.
• Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz — fire, ice, and lightning blasts on impact. One attack power each, enormous practical effect.
• Splash Fruit — cools lava into Lava Slabs and washes away sludge.
• Dazzlefruit — a blinding flash that instantly kills Stalkoblins, Stalizalfos, and Stalmoblins in a small area and disorients anything with eyes.
• Puffshroom — a blinding spore cloud that opens up sneakstrikes.
• Muddle Bud — turns enemies on each other. If only one enemy is nearby, it targets you instead, so check your count first.
• Gibdo Bone — 40 damage, and its one-use limitation is irrelevant on an arrow.
• Diamond — 25 damage if you can stomach the cost.

The efficiency trick: a multi-shot bow applies the fused material to every arrow in the volley while consuming only one. A five-shot Lynel bow loaded with a single Gibdo Bone puts 40 fuse damage on each of the five arrows, so a volley that fully connects is 200 damage for one bone. Five-Shot Burst is a tier-2 weapon bonus available on Forest Dweller's and Lynel bows, which makes rerolling one of those the highest-leverage thing you can do with an Octorok.

Pelison, Rock Octoroks, and not wasting horns

Pulling a fusion apart in your inventory destroys the attachment. Every time. If you want the horn back, take the weapon to Pelison at the Break-a-Part Shop in Tarrey Town — 20 rupees, both pieces survive, and they land in the collection area next to the shop. The Master Sword is exempt, along with anything else you cannot drop.

Rock Octoroks are the other half of the economy, and they are far more generous than the "polish rusty gear" gimmick from Breath of the Wild. Feed one a weapon, shield, or bow and it restores the base durability and the bonus fuse durability of the equipment and anything fused to it, then applies a fresh weapon bonus. No bonus yet means a tier-1 roll; an existing tier-1 or tier-2 bonus means a new tier-2 roll. The roll is decided the instant the Octorok swallows it, so a save right before the gulp makes it re-rollable. Each Octorok then goes on cooldown until a Blood Moon and an area reload.

Those bonuses are worth chasing, since the values are fixed ranges rather than per-weapon:

• Attack Up: +3 to +5. Attack Up+: +6 to +10.
• Durability Up: +3 to +5. Durability Up+: +6 to +10.
• Shield Guard Up: +3 to +5. Shield Guard Up+: +6 to +10.
• Critical Hit doubles the damage of the last attack in a combo.
• Long Throw, Quick Shot, and Five-Shot Burst are tier-2 rolls on the appropriate gear.

Unique gear cannot receive bonuses at all — the Master Sword, Biggoron's Sword, Boulder Breaker, Fierce Deity Sword, Scimitar of the Seven, Lightscale Trident, Daybreaker, and the rest of that shelf. The Hylian Shield is the lone exception and can be rolled.

One more free trick buried in the durability rules: fusing a weapon to the end of another weapon and then separating them at Pelison's refills the attachment's bonus durability, as long as it now has something else attached. It also strips any weapon bonus the attachment had, which an Octorok can hand back.

Five fuses that carry a playthrough

1. Gerudo Scimitar plus the best horn you own. Strong Fusion doubling turns a cheap desert sword into the highest damage-per-material weapon in the game. Accept the 5-point durability buffer and carry three.
2. Royal Guard's Claymore plus a Silver Lynel horn, held until it is nearly dead. Breaking Point doubles the whole 87 into 174 once you see the "badly damaged" warning. Keep a Royal Guard's weapon in the bag purely as a boss deleter.
3. Forest Dweller's Sword plus a Puffshroom. Fuse Recycling makes it permanent. Unlimited blind clouds means unlimited sneakstrikes and free Lynel mounting.
4. Any multi-shot bow plus Keese Eyeballs. Homing arrows on a five-shot spread costs one eyeball per volley and solves every airborne enemy in the game.
5. A Mighty Zonaite weapon plus a Zonai device. The +10 Zonaite-Powered bonus stacks on the device's own fuse value, and you are already carrying devices for building.

More Hyrule breakdowns live on the Tears of the Kingdom hub, and everything else we are playing is on the Mythras blog.

Quick Action Checklist

• Stop grading weapons by their base attack — a Traveler's Sword at 5 plus a 55 horn beats a bare Royal Guard's Claymore at 32.
• Silver Lynel Saber Horn (55) is the ordinary ceiling; Silver Lynel Mace Horn (51) and White-Maned Lynel Saber Horn (44) follow.
• Save Gibdo Bones (40) for arrows and throws — they shatter after a single melee strike.
• Remember the hidden 25-point bonus durability pool: 10 on Royal Guard's and Gloom weapons, 5 on Gerudo, 3 on monster arms.
• Use Gerudo Scimitars for Strong Fusion doubling. A 17-base scimitar plus a 55 horn is 127 attack.
• Keep a Royal Guard's weapon for Breaking Point and swing it only when it is about to snap.
• Put a Puffshroom or Muddle Bud on a Forest Dweller's Sword so it never gets consumed.
• Gems are 1 attack power — they belong on arrows, not weapons.
• Never detach a fusion in the menu. Pay Pelison 20 rupees in Tarrey Town instead.
• Feed gear to Rock Octoroks for a full durability refill plus a weapon bonus reroll, once per Blood Moon.