Damage & Health
Link's attacks
Below is a list of the base attack damages by weapon type. These values will change depending on the enemy you are fighting.
Note that all Crouch Stab damage values listed are of it's default value, since the Crouch Stab takes on the damage value of the previous attack (see Power Crouch Stab for more information).
| Kokiri Sword | ||
| Attack | Button | Damage Per Swing |
| Horizontal Slash | B | 1 |
| Vertical Slash | Forward+B / Z+B | 1 |
| Thrust Attack | Forward+Z+B | 1 |
| Jump Attack | Sword Drawn, Z+A / Mid-Air+B | 2 |
| Quickspin | Rotate+B | 1 |
| Magic Quickspin | Rotate+B | 1 |
| Charge Spin | Hold B | 1 |
| Magic Charge Spin | Hold B | 1 |
| Full Magic Charge Spin | Hold B | 2 |
| Crouch Stab | R+B | 1 |
| Deku Stick | ||
| Attack | Button | Damage Per Swing |
| Slash | C | 2 |
| Jumpslash | Stick Drawn, Z+A / Mid-Air+C | 4 |
| Crouch Stab | R+B | 1 |
| Master Sword | ||
| Attack | Button | Damage Per Swing |
| Horizontal Slash | B | 2 |
| Vertical Slash | Forward+B / Z+B | 2 |
| Thrust Attack | Forward+Z+B | 2 |
| Jump Attack | Sword Drawn, Z+A / Mid-Air+B | 4 |
| Quickspin | Rotate+B | 2 |
| Magic Quickspin | Rotate+B | 2 |
| Charge Spin | Hold B | 2 |
| Magic Charge Spin | Hold B | 2 |
| Full Magic Charge Spin | Hold B | 4 |
| Crouch Stab | R+B | 1 |
| Biggoron Sword & Giant's Knife* | ||
| Attack | Button | Damage Per Swing |
| Horizontal Slash | B | 4 |
| Vertical Slash | Forward+B / Z+B | 4 |
| Thrust Attack | Forward+Z+B | 4 |
| Jump Attack | Sword Drawn, Z+A / Mid-Air+B | 8 |
| Quickspin | Rotate+B | 4 |
| Magic Quickspin | Rotate+B | 4 |
| Charge Spin | Hold B | 4 |
| Magic Charge Spin | Hold B | 4 |
| Full Magic Charge Spin | Hold B | 8 |
| Crouch Stab | R+B | 1 |
Note: Hitting B the first time will only draw the sword, and does not attack.
| Broken Giant's Knife | ||
| Attack | Button | Damage Per Swing |
| Horizontal Slash | B | 1 |
| Vertical Slash | Forward+B / Z+B | 1 |
| Thrust Attack | Forward+Z+B | 1 |
| Jump Attack | Sword Drawn, Z+A / Mid-Air+B | 2 |
| Crouch Stab | R+B | 1 |
| Megaton Hammer | ||
| Attack | Button | Damage Per Swing |
| --- | --- | --- |
Glitched health
Despite the HUD only displaying Link's health in increments of a quarter heart, the game keeps track of it in 16ths of a heart. "Glitched health" isn't really a glitch but refers to Link's health not being a multiple of a quarter heart and thus being misrepresented by the HUD. There are several ways this can happen:
- When Link is on fire, the residual burn damage deals 1/16 of a heart every 8 frames (see video below) until Link is extinguished, which can be done at any time by the player
- When Link is frozen, the residual freeze damage deals 1/16 of a heart every 4 frames (see video below) until Link is thawed, which can be done at any time by the player
- Shooting yourself with an action swapped arrow deals 1/16 of a heart
- When flare dancers, beamos, and peahats explode, the explosion deals 7/8 of a heart of damage (dodongo and baby dodongo explosions only deal 1/2 of a heart)
The main reason glitched health can be confusing in a speedrun is that Link's actual health isn't evenly distributed across the quarter hearts the HUD can show. As shown in the image below, the visual 1/4, 2/4, and 3/4 hearts each represent a range of five 16ths of a heart, and the full heart only ever represents a true sixteen 16ths. If Link takes a known amount of damage and you see the HUD change in an unexpected way, this is why. For example:
- If Link takes bomb damage (1/2 heart) and the HUD goes from showing 1 + 1/2 hearts to showing 3/4 of a heart, then the initial 1 + 1/2 hearts was actually either 1 + 6/16 hearts or 1 + 7/16 hearts, and the resulting health either 14/16 or 15/16 of a heart
- If Link takes lava floor damage (1/4 heart) when the HUD shows 1/4 of a heart but he doesn't die, then the initial 1/4 heart was actually 5/16 of a heart
Global timer for burn and freeze
investigated by Fig
Residual burn and freeze damage can only be dealt on frames that are multiples of 8 and of 4 respectively on a global frame counter, as Fig demonstrates for burn damage. This means that the amount of time it takes for burn or freeze to start affecting Link's health after the initial hit is variable. It also accounts for being able to take damage frame perfectly between roll invincibility and damage invincibility.
Critical health effects
aka crit wiggle
"Critical health" refers to having 1 heart or less and has the following effects:
- Beeping begins
- The camera zooms in closer to Link than usual when not targeting
- Crit wiggle occurs. At every multiple of 256 frames (12.8 seconds at 20fps) after scene load, a random amount of leftward rotation is added to the control stick input. This only happens when untargeted and not in the pause menu. Most of the time, crit wiggle won't affect gameplay substantially, but it can cause a trick to fail if it happens on certain important frames, like the frame before a roll or the frame a slash happens. Because crit wiggle happens at regular intervals, you can try to prevent it from messing up a trick by avoiding doing certain parts of the trick certain amounts of time after the scene load, which you can estimate with your run timer. In gz you can add a watch (VC 1.2: 0x801C8DFC, x32) to see crit wiggle in action; whenever the two last digits hit "01", you'll get a wiggle.