TotK Warding Recipes: Ingredients and Dishes

What does Warding do?

Warding is protection from gloom, where Sunny is the cure. The game describes three levels of gloom protection.

Which ingredients give Warding?

A single ingredient carries it, Dark Clump (1 in the cooking data), and it is a seasoning, not a critter — so there is no Warding elixir. The dishes that name it are the five Dark dishes (Dark Stew, Dark Soup, Dark Curry, Dark Rice Ball, Dark Cake) and one recipe for Fried Wild Greens. It can also go into other dishes: two Raw Prime Meat with three Dark Clumps still cook into a Meat Skewer — a Warding Meat Skewer.

How do you make level 3 Warding food?

Warding has the simplest arithmetic of any effect. Dark Clump is worth 1 point, and the game’s cooking parameters put the three levels at 1, 2 and 3 points — so the number of Dark Clumps in the pot is the level. Three clumps make level 3, the maximum; a fourth adds nothing to the level.

The catch is that Dark Clump is a seasoning and cannot carry a dish alone. In the recipe data three Dark Clumps by themselves cook into Dubious Food; give them a base and they work:

The Dark dishes in the recipe book (Dark Stew, Dark Curry and the rest) are the named options, but a plain Meat Skewer is the cheapest. Keep Sundelions out: Warding and Sunny in one pot cancel each other, so eat the Sunny dish separately when you need the cure. Each Dark Clump adds 2 minutes 30 seconds and every other ingredient 30 seconds, so three clumps and one Raw Meat last 8 minutes and a one-clump Dark Stew 3 minutes 30 seconds. That follows the game’s cooking parameters (Warding’s base time of 120 seconds per clump plus 30 seconds per ingredient), and in game the Dark dishes last accordingly: Dark Stew 3:30, Dark Rice Ball 4:30, Dark Curry 5:00.

Where do you get Dark Clumps?

The easy way is a Bargainer Statue in the Depths: every activated statue always sells Dark Clumps for 10 Poes each, 10 in stock. You can also fight for them: they drop from Gloom Spawn — the gloom hands that grab at you — and from Phantom Ganon, who appears when you defeat them. The game’s world data places no Dark Clumps at fixed spots, so you will not find them lying on the ground.

If you would rather not rely on food, the Depths set, bought with Poes at the Bargainer Statues, gives gloom resistance on every piece. For the cure rather than the protection, see Sunny.

Related

• Recipe finder — tick what is in your pouch, or pick Warding and see every dish that can carry it
• All recipes — the whole recipe book in the game’s order
• Best recipes — the 15 effects side by side, incredible success and the Horse God
• Sunny, Bright, Tough — related effects