Molgera
Click here for a table of damage values.
Molgera, the Giant Sand Beast
Molgera is the second of the two monsters guarding the power of the sages that can restore the true Master Sword. Together with Jalhalla it was created a long time ago by Ganondorf himself. Molgera lives deep down in the Wind Temple and it is the one who guards the power of Fado, the sage of wind, who it killed ages earlier at the time when Ganondorf weakened the Master Sword.
When you have entered the chamber, jump down into the sand and roll straight forward to trigger the cutscene.
To beat Molgera you will need the dungeon item, the Hookshot. Right when the fight starts Molgera will be under the sand. After a few seconds its head will come up, and with a good aim you can hook its tongue before it is fully arisen.
In the first part of this fight, all you need to do is hook its tongue and slash it with your sword. The best way to deliver damage with your sword is with the use quickspins. But do notice, even though Molgera has 12 HP, double damage from the elixir soup has no effect whatsoever on the amount of damage he takes. In fact, Molgera only losse 1 HP for each hit it takes, meaning that a quickspin takes 2 HP in damage due to the double hit it delivers.
In each of the four cycles you need to deliver three hits before the next cycle begins. This means that you actually need to deliver 12 hits before Molgera is defeated, and the fight can not be done in less than four cycles. After the first cycle, where Molgera has been hooked in the sand, it will hide under the sand and come back up beneath you a few moments later. Repeat the first cycle once more.
While this is how this fight is supposed to go, there are tricks to make it go faster and skip Molgera either going back into the ground or flying around.
Molgera Storage
Discovered by gymnast86
By getting storage before the fight starts, you can keep the storage all the way to the boss defeat cutscene. After starting the molgera intro cutscene, go on the platform and wait. You will fall OoB and fall onto an OoB platform very far underground. Don't move and wait for Molgera to eat you to teleport back up. This way you will be able to fight Molgera while still having storage. This allows you to pick up the heart container during the cutscene in 100% to skip the defeat cutscene and save 40s. In other categories, this can allow you to go into the portal during the cutscene to save a little bit of time.
Quick Kill
Discovered by TrogWW
description coming soon
Quick Kill with Bombs
Discovered by bowerisbored
It is possible to skip all phases of molgera. After the second hit of each phase, if you hookshot the tongue, then have it get hit, then hookshot it again (frame perfect) you can renew the next phase immediately.
Tutorial video by EJ125
Air Snipes
Discovered by Mugg1991
After 6 HP has been taken from Molgera, he will begin a new phase of the fight. Soon you will face this giant sand worm rush himself out if the sand and fly above you in the chamber. In this phase, Molgera will dive towards you and this is where the interesting strategies takes part. If you manually target towards the middle of Molgera's open mouth, you will notice that the hitbox of his tongue still exists. This means, that even though Molgera's tongue isn't outside of his moth and he is diving in full speed against you, you can hook him up and deliver damage corresponding 3 HP once again. After this is done, Molgera will repeat just the same thing once more. Hook his tongue in the air once more, and finish him off!
If you manage to get the first air snipe, it is possible to grab her tongue a second time before she dives under the ground. You should aim your hookshot between the gills and fire the hookshot when your reticule is aligned with the 2nd gill. There is a four frame window to successfully grab the tongue, assuming you never move the reticule downward.
The Molgera Softlock
For two versions of this game, the NTSC-J version (which means, the Japanese version) and the European or Australian PAL versions, beating Molgera with the strategies we described for the second phase can actually softlock the game. What causes this is still not completely determined, but it seems to be linked with the way you finish it off. In some cases, the bgm for the boss defeat fanfare doesn't get prepared correctly on JPN/PAL. Without any actually real proof that this is correct, you usually avoid finishing it off with the use of quickspins, and instead you kill it with normal slashes.
You will know that the softlock is about to happen if the victory music at the end of Molgera's death animation does not play. If this happens, you must save and hard reset your console, as any load will trigger the softlock, similarly to what Map Glitch does.
This softlock was patched specifically in the NTSC-U version of the game.