Weapon durability in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sucks, no two ways about it. To make matters worse, items are probably even more fragile than their counterparts in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. To help make up for that issue, Tears of the Kingdom includes a bona fide repair system, but even that mechanic is so limited that players can only use it once in a blue moon. Or should we say once in a Blood Moon?
In order to repair a weapon in Tears of the Kingdom, you have to feed them to Rock Octoroks. In Breath of the Wild, if players drop rusty weapons and shields near those creatures, these landbound cephalopods will suck the items up, give them a good stomach acid bath, and spit out a shiny new item. Since technically every weapon in Tears of the Kingdom is now rusty thanks to the gloom, instead of cleaning weapons, Octoroks now restore item durability. Plus as an added bonus, the repaired weapon will sport a new modifier such as increased attack damage or durability. It seems like a solution to the game’s weapon durability mechanic, but this system isn’t perfect.
While Octoroks can essentially upgrade weapons, their boosts are random. You have no control over what upgrade the monster will spit out, and if you don’t like it, you can’t try again right away. One repaired weapon per customer per Octorok.
However, if you save your game before tossing your item into the creature’s gullet, you can save scum your way toward the ideal upgrade by reloading the file if you don’t get the boost you want. Just be sure to stand out of the way of the weapon the creature spits back out. It can hurt you, and it usually does damage proportionate to the weapon’s strength.
Other than that, once an Octorok has repaired an item, it won’t fix any others, no matter how many you feed it. To repair another weapon or shield, you need to seek out another Octorok and repeat the process. After you’ve used up all the Octoroks in Hyrule, you can still continue repairing items, but you have to wait for a Blood Moon to reset enemy spawns first. By extension, that event also resets Rock Octorok repair limits. Furthermore, it seems that there are some special items this method simply won’t work on. The full list of ineligible items is still being uncovered, but it seems like most amiibo weapons may be ineligible. However, there are other ways to recover some pieces of amiibo gear.
If you’re looking for Rock Octoroks, there is a sizeable collection of them around Goro Cove (just outside of Goron City). They can be found elsewhere, but that seems to be a reliable spawn point. Just remember that keeping one alive isn’t good enough. You only get one “repair” via this method per respawn cycle.
Aside from Octoroks, you can’t properly repair weapons or shields in Tears of the Kingdom (not even with the Fuse ability). That power adds some durability to a weapon, but if you fuse a weapon when it’s about to shatter, slapping on some Amber or another sword won’t save you forever. Besides, the durability extension only works for the first fusion. After that, you revert to the base item’s durability, even if you fuse another weapon or material to it.
However, later in Tears of the Kingdom, you can cheese the durability system so long as you have some cash to spare. Normally when you de-fuse weapons and shields, you keep the base item but lose whatever you attached to it. However, in Tarrey Town, the NPC Pelison can unfuse equipment for 20 Rupees. If you do this, he safely removes the components and lets you pick them up again. However, that process doesn’t reset the base weapon’s (or the fused weapon’s) durability
So how does that help you? Well, attachable minerals and monster parts aren’t weapons; they’re materials and thus essentially have infinite durability on their own. When attached to a weapon, these items shatter along with their conjoined armaments when the weapon’s durability reaches zero. However, if Pelison removes the material before it breaks, you can fuse the rescued parts with fresh weapons.
While this service costs money, it lets you save more powerful materials for future items to inherit. Pelison might not be a blacksmith, but he’s the next best thing. As long as you can find the right weapon to fuse that special material to, you can essentially ensure you’ll always be able to access your favorite fused weapon. Just make sure you swap to a new weapon before it breaks. Pelison can’t exactly de-fuse a weapon that’s already exploded into iron shavings, now can he?