Sword

The sword is a piece of equipment and Link's main weapon. There are 4 tiers of sword Link will have access to on his adventure:

1. Fighter sword (or fighter's sword or FS): the level 1 sword upgrade
2. Master Sword (or MS): the level 2 sword upgrade
3. Tempered Sword (or Tempered or TS): the level 3 sword upgrade
4. Gold Sword (or Golden Sword or Butter Sword or GS): the level 4 sword upgrade

Locations

Fighter sword

The fighter sword is gotten from talking to Link's uncle in the secret passage to Hyrule Castle. He also gives Link the fighter shield.

Master sword

The Master Sword is gotten from the secret grove in Lost Woods. It's embedded in a pedestal, and Link will not be able to pull it out unless he has the 3 pendants that are obtained from beating the Light World dungeons: Eastern Palace, Desert Palace, and Tower of Hera.

Even with the use of major glitches, there is no known way to bypass the pendant requirements unless you're using ACE or arbitrary memory writes.

Tempered sword

The Tempered Sword is forged by the dwarven sword smiths. In order to get it, you need to rescue the cursed dwarf, who is stuck in the Dark World in frog form on arrow game house screen. To rescue him, it's intended that you lift the dark rocks around him using the titan's mitt. After this, you can use the mirror and take him to the smith's house to reunite the dwarfs. They'll offer to temper your sword at the cost of 10 rupees. With the use of major glitches, the cursed dwarf can be rescued without the mitts in a few different ways:

• Mirror jumping
• Red potion overworld YBA
• Mirror portal displacement
• Visiting the smith house in fake Light World
  • This requires EGing to the bat cave from a Dark World location.

Gold sword

The Gold Sword is gotten from throwing Link's sword into the Pyramid Fairy's fountain. This has a few requirements:

1. You must have rescued the cursed dwarf. She won't upgrade your sword if you haven't. Note that this does not mean that you must have Tempered Sword—it just means the cursed dwarf has been returned home.
2. To access the Pyramid Fairy, you need to blow up the cracked wall on the Pyramid of Power. The intended method for this requires following the super bomb quest:
   1. Have crystals #5 and #6 (from beating Ice Palace and Misery Mire, respectively).
   2. Buy the super bomb at the bomb shop for 100 rupees.
   3. Transport it to the Pyramid screen, and place it near the crack in the wall.
   4. Kaboom

With major glitches, there are a variety of ways the Pyramid Fairy can be accessed early without needing the super bomb or any crystals. You still must rescue the cursed dwarf though.

Description and mechanics

Basics

The most basic move with a sword is to press B, which will get Link to slash his sword in the direction that he's facing. A slash has a 13 frame animation if it doesn't damage an enemy and a 17 frame animation if it does. Slashes can be used to damage enemies, but they can also be used to cut certain obstacles in the game. The most common example is bushes, but sword is also important for getting through the vine room in Skull Woods and the maiden chamber in Castle Tower due to sliceable obstacles blocking doorways.

If the player holds B, Link will hold his sword in front of him and start to build a spin attack charge. If an enemy touches Link's sword during this, Link will poke the enemy, which deals different (and usually less) damage than a slash does. If Link holds a sword charge for at least 48 frames, he'll have a spin attack armed. Releasing B will activate the spin. Spin attacks have a 34 frame animation and generate a hitbox that surrounds Link. They typically deal more damage than slashes.

While Link is holding a sword charge, his facing direction will be locked. For example, if the player presses and holds B while Link is facing down, and then they move to holding , Link won't turn to face to the right like he normally would. He'll stay facing south and strafe to the right instead.

Link can carry a sword charge through a screen transition. In addition, the timer on his spin attack will continue where it left off. For example, if the player walks from one room to another while holding a charge that has 30 frames built up, in the next room, they'll just need to continue holding sword for 18 more frames for the full spin charge.

While Link is dashing, he'll hold his sword out in front of him and deal damage to enemies or cut bushes/grass that are in his path.

The fighter sword has a shorter reach than the other swords.

Damage

Swords have four different types of attacks: slash, dash, spin attack, and poke. A sword attack's damage class used to determine how much damage to deal to enemies depends on the type of sword and type of attack:

So generally speaking, a sword deals damage at its level with slashes and dashes, damage equivalent to the sword one level below with pokes, and damage equivalent to the sword one level above with spin attacks. It's up to enemy sprites to determine how much damage to take from any given sword damage class, and some of them have counterintuitive damage values. A good example is Armos Knights, who take less damage from class 2 sword damage (fs spins, ms slash/dash, ts pokes) than they do class 1.

Although the gold sword spins deal class 5 sword damage, in practice, only one enemy in the game—hinox—actually takes more damage from class 5 sword damage than class 4. This means gold sword spins aren't especially useful compared to spins with the other swords.

Sword beams

If Link has Master Sword or better, and he's not missing a half heart or more on his total hearts, he'll have sword beams. Note that it's possible for Link to have taken quarter heart damage, and he'll still have beams. It's not strictly necessary for him to have full hearts.

When Link has sword beams, slashing his sword will spawn a beam projectile in the direction Link is facing. Sword beams deal sword level 1 damage to enemies, but they also give the sword a long range attack option.

Sword tech

Pokespins

If Link has a full spin attack charge built up, he can poke his sword into an enemy, dealing poke damage to them, and if the player releases B within a 15 frame window after poking, they'll also release a spin attack. This is known as a pokespin, and it's used in several strats in the game as a way to quickly combo an enemy with enough damage to kill.

One thing that's often important: Link can continue moving during the poke animation before releasing the spin. This can be a significant factor in pokespin strats.

Pokedash

When Link pokes an enemy, two things tend to happen:

1. Link will deal the "poke" damage class for his current sword, which is typically less than the other damage he can deal with the sword.
2. Link will drop his sword charge

Pokedashing is a way to avoid both of those things. In addition to the sword, the technique requires the Pegasus boots.

With a pokedash, the player holds B and approaches an enemy with their sword out. Right as their sword touches the enemy, they tap A to do a small dash charge. This will register as a dash attack on the enemy damage, and Link will keep his sword held. This can be combo'd with a spin attack to great effect on the Kholdstare boss fight.

Spin dash

Main article: Superspeed

A spin attack is a key piece in spin dashing, which is a technique for arming superspeed.

Sword buffering

Main article: Buffering

Sword buffering is a technique used to precisely control Link's movements.

Ancilla glitches

The sword is frequently a valuable tool in and ancilla misslot setups. This is mainly for two reasons:

1. Sword beams are an ancilla, and their ancilla properties make them a strong option in certain misslot contexts.
2. When Link is holding a sword charge, 3 sparkle ancillae appear on his sword. These sparkle ancillae are important in most misslot setups.