Helmasaur
 | |||||
| Location | Palace of Darkness | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HP | 48 |  | 4 |  | 100 |
 | - |  | - |  | - |
 | 4 |  | - |  | - |
 | 8 |  | 8 |  | 4 |
 | 16 |  | - |  | - |
 | - |  | - |  | - |
 |  |  | |  |  |
| Agahnim | Arrghus | ||||
The boss of Palace of Darkness.
Phases
Helmasaur has two phases:
- Phase 1
- In this phase Helmasaur has his mask on and it must be broken to advance to phase 2. In every speedrun category, the best way to do this is with 17 hammer hits to the mask.
- Helmasaur will always move 3 times in randomly determined directions before attacking. In this phase, his movements are fairly slow and his attacks are 50% tail swipes, where he will waggle his spiked tail before swiping it around in front of him, and 50% fire ball attacks, where he shoots a fireball that will split into 3 separate fireballs in a triangular shape. These fireballs will then take turns splitting into 4 separate fireballs diagonally which will travel until off screen, ending the attack.
- His movements are not entirely random, in that he tends to move back towards the middle of the room. If he's already moved down and is near the bottom of the screen, for example, he won't move downwards towards you again. This takes quite a bit of experience to get a feel for but it can make the fight easier once you can read his patterns.
- The fireball attack has a somewhat predictable nature to it. After the 3 fireballs have formed and the first one has split, the next fireball to split will be located clockwise to the initial one.
- Phase 2
- This phase begins as soon as Link breaks the mask.
- Helmasaur moves much more quickly in this phase, but he will still move 3 times before attacking.
- Every time he attacks, he will use his tail swipe. 50% of the time, he will also use the same fireball attack from phase 1. This means you must be able to handle both attacks occurring at the same time.
- From here, Helmasaur is killed when his HP is depleted by sword, hammer, and/or bow damage (see table to the right).
All attacks (his tail, the fireballs, or even just touching him) will do 2 hearts of damage to Link.
Helmasaur's Health
Helmasaur starts with 48 health. During phase 1, hammers do 1 damage and bombs do 4 damage (and nothing else does damage). When you reduce his hp below 32 the mask breaks and phase 2 begins. This means that if you use 17 hammers, he will start phase 2 with 31 health, and if you use 5 bombs he will start with 28, which requires 1 less 4-damage hit (i.e. master sword slashes/fighter sword spins)
Strategy
For phase 1, you should focus on landing 17 hammer hits to Helmasaur's mask. This is made easier by holding a sword charge while using the hammer. This will expand the hitbox of the hammer attacks and maintain Link's facing direction. For advanced strategy, players may opt to not hold sword for this phase, which provides added mobility and can avoid lag during fireball attacks. If you have a good fight, the 17th hammer hit will naturally happen a bit before his 2nd attack does. For beginners, it can be useful to delay the 17th hit until this 2nd attack starts, since if it's a fireball, the attack will be cancelled if you break the mask during it.
To dodge the fireballs, the best place to stand is generally in the middle of the bottom 2; none of the smaller fireballs that explode off will hit you if you stand there. Off to the far left or right while aligned with the bottom fireballs is also safe but makes it harder to get hits in (and impossible to dodge tail swipes in phase 2). Lined up horizontally with either bottom fireball and vertically with the top is also safe but requires some reaction if the far fireball explodes first, and puts you close to Helmasaur, making it easier to hit him but also easier for him to hit you.
For phase 2, you can do a sword strat or a hammer strat.
- Sword: for less advanced players, the sword strat is recommended since hammer hits in phase 2 have an extremely small hitbox. For the sword strat, release a spin on Helmasaur as soon as phase 2 starts (this is assuming you have been holding sword for phase 1 hammer hits). From here, you only need to slash Helmasaur 6 times for the kill. If fireballs force you to focus on dodging rather than doing damage, you can also start charging another spin attack while avoiding attacks. When you're ready to attack again, you will have a spin ready, which is twice as powerful as normal slashes.
- Hammer: for the hammer strategy, you will need to be holding a sword charge. The hitbox for hitting Helmasaur here is very small (see visual cue below). You can hit him from either side, but most players prefer doing it from the left. This can be made easier by holding ^> into your hammer hits. You will need 3 hammer hits + a spin attack in order to finish him off.
Spindash Strats
The hammer hitbox is notoriously bad when facing upwards. It turns out that if you do a Spindash, your hammer hits will take on the dashing hitbox for as long as you're in the spindash state, which is much better (at least when facing up, the others are less dramatic). This allows you to hit Helmasaur from farther away with the hammer, but does mean you can't hold your sword out for protection. This is a major advantage in damage output in phase 2, allowing you to score hits without major risk of running into Helma's body.
Most people slash outside the room (or get the keydash) and then hammer Helmasaur once if he comes down or 3 times if he stays high before releasing the spin. This gets a little damage in while the sword charges.
