The trick with Gloom Hands in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is that you must kill all five at roughly the same time.
Pick them off one by one and the first has respawned before you finish the fourth. They only respawn a limited number of times, but not enough for that approach to work.
The Terrain Answer
Gloom Hands are fast but they cannot climb.
Find a ledge with no slope beside it and climb the wall. They gather below you, unable to follow, and you attack from safety. This is the single most reliable way to win the fight, and it costs nothing but a good spot.
If you are caught in the open with nothing to climb, disengaging and finding higher ground is usually better than standing your ground.
Area Damage Over Precision
Because the goal is even damage across five targets, area-of-effect beats accuracy.
Bomb Flowers are the strongest option if you have them. You do not need to aim at a specific hand: throw into the middle of the group and every hand takes damage simultaneously, which is exactly the pattern that stops them respawning.
They are scarce in this game, so this is a resource decision rather than a default, but a Gloom Hands fight is a reasonable place to spend them.
Ice for Breathing Room
Ice weapons freeze individual hands for a short time.
That is less about damage and more about control. Freezing a hand or two buys you space to reposition, or to run away entirely if the fight is going badly.
The Second Phase Nobody Warns You About
Some Gloom Hands, not all, have a second phase: Phantom Ganon.
If you were low on resources finishing the hands, this is where runs end. The fight itself follows familiar rules, flurry rush and shield parry, but you need to be in a condition to fight it.
Come Prepared for Gloom
Gloom Hands deal ordinary damage and gloom damage. Gloom damage cannot be healed by normal food, it reduces your maximum hearts until treated.
Bring sunny meals, cooked with Sundelions. Without them, a long fight steadily shrinks your health bar with nothing you can do about it.
Tips Most Players Miss
- All five together, or none. Sequential kills lose to respawns.
- Climb first, fight second. Terrain does more work than any weapon here.
- Assume a Phantom Ganon is coming. Save enough resources to handle it.
Gloom Hands are the closest this game gets to a horror encounter, and the panic they induce is what makes people fight them badly. Our guide to getting the Master Sword covers the one weapon that will not break during a fight this long, and our full Zelda guides cover the series.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you beat Gloom Hands in Tears of the Kingdom? Kill all five at roughly the same time, ideally with area damage such as Bomb Flowers, or fight from a ledge they cannot climb.
Why do Gloom Hands keep coming back? They respawn a limited number of times if killed one by one, which is why simultaneous damage matters.
What happens after you beat Gloom Hands? Some, though not all, transition into a Phantom Ganon fight as a second phase.
How do you heal gloom damage? With sunny meals cooked using Sundelions. Ordinary food will not restore hearts lost to gloom.