Zelda Fan Breaks Down BOTW’s Most Overpowered Move

Ever heard of Breath of the Wild’s “bow spin”? It’s an advanced technique that helps Link terrorize his enemies, perhaps in ways that Nintendo never intended. Here’s how you do it.

The bow spin entered the general public consciousness with RinHara5aki‘s phenomenal Zelda video “27 obscure combat secrets and tricks,” which he uploaded at the start of January 2018.

Watching it for the first time, I had to pause at multiple points just to marvel at what was happening. I’ve played and watched a ton of BOTW, but I’d never seen most of what was in the video. I was particularly struck by a fancy-looking move that destroyed every enemy it came into contact with.

By the sounds of it, I wasn’t alone. Lots of folks didn’t know what the strange pirouette was or how to replicate it. So today, RinHara5aki uploaded a follow-up where he details one of the most useful tactics in his original video, the bow spin. Behold:

To pull it off, you need a heavy weapon and a bow. “Hold the attack button down to start spin attacking,” RinHara5aki explains, “and then tap Z, R, and B any time that Link has a handle past his head.” It should look like this:

Chain freeze your enemies, so they can never fight back. Trap your enemies in a literal thunder dome. Damage guardians while you ride them. Hit Hinox directly above you. The bow spin is incredibly useful, but be careful — performing it uses up durability, just like anything else.

Beyond merely teaching you how to do it, RinHara5aki also teaches you how to cancel out of the bow spin, how to exploit its infinite elemental effects, and a variety of other quirks that affect the outcome of the manoeuvre.

Pulling off the bow spin seems tricky, but if you learn all the nuances, you’ll be unstoppable.