TotK Hearts or Stamina First? Max, Master Sword, Swapping

Every four Lights of Blessing buy one upgrade in Tears of the Kingdom, and each time the Goddess Statue asks the same question: a Heart Container or a Stamina Vessel? The short answer is a couple of hearts, then stamina up to two full wheels, then hearts. This page gives the reasons, the numbers behind them, and how to change your mind later for 20 rupees.

Should you pick hearts or stamina first?

Stamina is the stat food replaces less comfortably. A dish cooked with a Hearty ingredient refills every heart and adds yellow ones on top, so a short health bar can be covered from your inventory. Running out of stamina halfway up a cliff or over a gap costs you the whole climb. If fights are what keep stopping you, take hearts for longer: buying and upgrading armor helps as well, and the choice is easy to reverse.

How much stamina does the Master Sword need?

Two full stamina wheels. You start with one wheel, and each Stamina Vessel adds a fifth of a wheel, so you need five vessels: 20 Lights of Blessing, or 16 plus the reward of the side adventure A Call from the Depths. Temporary yellow stamina from food does not count; the two wheels have to be your own.

The sword is in the head of the Light Dragon, and pulling it drains your stamina the whole time. Hearts play no part in it. The routes to the dragon are on the Dragon’s Tears page and its flight path is on the dragon parts page; where the sword sits in the story is on the main quest order page.

What are the maximum hearts and stamina?

Filling both would take 47 upgrades, and the game has 45. With all 45 you end at one of these:

• 38 hearts and three full wheels
• 40 hearts and two wheels plus three-fifths

Anything in between works too, and the Horned Statue lets you move between them whenever you like.

Where do Heart Containers and Stamina Vessels come from?

Shrines are most of it. The list of all 152 shrines and the shrine map show which ones you are missing, and the temple bosses page covers the five boss fights.

A Call from the Depths starts at the Temple of Time Ruins on the Great Plateau. A voice asks you to drop four eyes into four chasms and carry them through the Depths to the spot under the temple. It is the one upgrade that costs no Lights of Blessing; the side adventures page lists it with the rest.

Where do you trade Lights of Blessing?

Pray at any Goddess Statue with four Lights of Blessing. The two you meet first:

• Temple of Time, Great Sky Island. The statue the opening quest leads you to.
• Emergency Shelter, Lookout Landing. Talk to Scorpis in the middle of the fort and he opens the shelter; the statue is at the bottom. The Lookout Landing Skyview Tower is a travel point right above it.

The towns and villages have their own statues as well, so you rarely need to travel just to spend your Lights.

How do you swap hearts for stamina?

The Horned Statue trades them. It stands in the Royal Hidden Passage, behind the Emergency Shelter at Lookout Landing.

1. Finish one of the four regional temples. After that, Jerrin is in the Emergency Shelter beside a hole she has opened in the wall. Talking to her starts the side adventure Who Goes There?
2. Crouch through the hole. You are now in the Royal Hidden Passage.
3. Break the cracked rocks on the right. A hammer-type weapon does it; a rock fused to any weapon makes one. The statue is in the small room behind them.
4. Pray to the statue. It takes one Heart Container and starts the side adventure A Deal With the Statue. Pray again, bargain, and you get an essence back.

From then on the statue works as a shop:

It will not take you below three hearts or one stamina wheel, and it will not give you more than 40 hearts or three wheels. Moving five upgrades, a whole wheel, costs 100 rupees in all. If you are short on rupees, see the rupee farming page.

Can food stand in for upgrades?

For a while, yes. Three cooking effects cover it:

Yellow hearts and yellow stamina are gone once used and do not count for the Master Sword. They are still the reason a stamina-first build is safe: one Hearty dish before a hard fight does the work of several Heart Containers.

See also

New to the game? The beginner tips page lists what to do first after Great Sky Island.