How to find and kill King Gleeok in Tears of the Kingdom (TOTK)

King Gleeok is one of the biggest challenges I faced in Tears of the Kingdom. It forced me to spend at least 30 minutes preparing to fight and another 20 just figuring out how to fly high enough to reach its arena high up in the sky. And unsurprisingly, once I found King Gleeok, I needed almost 10 tries to get the mechanics of the fight right and kill it.

This monster is a world boss in Tears of the Kingdom you must take down if you want to strengthen your bonds with the Sages. Upon defeating this hydra-like creature, you will unlock a chest that contains one Sage’s Will you can use at a Goddess Statue.

Beating King Gleeok is quite intimidating. In my combats, it flew high and forced me to run away often from its lightning, ice, and fire beams. Its huge health pool forced me to backtrack and get a few more powerful weapons before trying the fight again. Prepare to use a lot of stamina, see your weapons breaking, and spend a lot of arrows.

King Gleeok preparation checklist

Due to the method I used to defeat King Gleeok, I had to use quite a few resources throughout the fight.

• A good bow: The higher its attack value, the fewer arrows and materials you will need to use. Mine was a simple Mighty Construct Bow with 24 attack power. I also recommend having two more to spare just in case your first one breaks.
• A bunch of arrows: I used around 47 arrows to beat him, but my bow was not great and my aim is slow. I recommend you have around 50 arrows so you have room to make mistakes.
• A strong material to fuse onto your arrows: I used Molduga Jaws with 32 Fuse attack power, and anything close to this fuse power number will do the trick.
• Rockets: You will need plenty of them to both reach the platform to fight King Gleeok and to make it easier to hit. I recommend getting around 20 to be safe. I got mine from the Zonai Device Dispenser in Hebra Sky by exchanging Zonai Charges for random devices, which included Rockets.
• Shields: I carried four shields and pre-fused one Rocket on each of them, but I still had to fuse some more mid-fight. If you can carry more Rocket Shields, do so. Six or seven should be enough.
• Two or more wheels of stamina: You can either get them by exchanging your Light of Blessings from shrines at Goddess Statues or making dishes with Endura Carrots to get bonus stamina and recover it mid-fight. I used two max stamina foods during my fight, but that’s because I still got base stamina. Three green stamina wheels should require no stamina food.
• Keese Eyeballs: if your aim is bad or if King Gleeok is too far away from you, Keese Eyeballs are a must. I used around 10 of them during my fight.

All King Gleeok locations

You can find three King Gleeok in three different locations in Tears of the Kingdom:

1. West Hebra Sky Archipelago, around coordinates -4451, 2325, 1253. It’s a floating island high up in the sky.
2. Northeast of Necluda Sky Archipelago. It’s also another floating arena around coordinates 4584, -3715, 1058.
3. West of Gerudo Sky, in a third floating arena around coordinates -4411, -2581, 1433.

I found the arena west of Gerudo Sky the easiest to reach. All I did was launch myself from the Gerudo Highlands Skyview Tower and glide towards it. If you have enough stamina—I used exactly 3.5 wheels of it—you will eventually reach it.

To get to the others, you will have to use a different method. I killed King Gleeok in West Hebra and used floating Zonai platforms and rockets to get to its arena. You can use this same method to reach the one in Necluda Sky. I recorded my way there in the video below, which is a step-by-step guide on how to get to King Gleeok.

How to beat King Gleeok in TOTK

Once you get on the floating arena and find King Gleeok, I recommend saving and reloading it. That will reset King Gleeok’s aggro and give you a few seconds to set up. You can also wait to move closer to it when it’s in a good spot for you to hit it.

Related: Is Tears of the Kingdom the last Zelda game?

The video below shows how I defeat King Gleeok in TOTK. The step-by-step written guide is after the video if you want an explanation of what I did.

1. If possible, get on top of a pillar before triggering the fight.
2. Press ZL to defend with your shield and trigger the Rocket attached to it. It will send you flying upward.
3. Once you’re at the same level or above King Gleeok, aim with your bow. It will slow down time while consuming your stamina.
4. Press “up” on the D-Pad and fuse your powerful material of choice to your arrow. This isn’t mandatory, but it will help you use fewer arrows.
5. Shoot each head until all three have zero health. In my case, that took one fused arrow and one simple arrow for each head. You will see a slow animation of the head moving backward if you killed it.
6. Once all heads are at zero health, King Gleeok will be stunned and fall on the ground. Drop down and glide to land safely.
7. Equip your melee weapon and hit any of the heads on the ground as much as you can.
8. Once you see King Gleeok is starting to recover, quickly equip your next Rocket Shield, press ZL, and repeat steps three to seven until King Gleeok is dead.
9. If you miss the Rocket Shield timing, you might be sent backward by a gust. Just use your next Rocket Shield again from range and aim properly.
10. In the later stage of the fight, King Gleeok might fly high up in the sky and shoot lightning on the ground, revealing updrafts. Use them at your advantage to try and get closer to the monster. That’s when you might need to use Keese Eyeballs to secure hits on it.
    • If you do the Rocket Shield with perfect timing, you might be able to skip this part and stun King Gleeok before it flies up.
11. Grab your loot
12. Open the chest on the back of the platform. That’s where your Sage’s Will is.

One down, two to go. Just do the same process against any other King Gleeok and you’re one Sage’s Will away from getting buff Sages.