Moldorm

Phases

TODO: Need to verify this by testing in emulator.

General

• Moldorm will do the following repeating pattern:

Walk straight -> Rotate -> Walk straight -> Rotate -> Walk straight -> Lunge at Player.

• If you hit Moldorm during one of these phases, he will go on to the next one when he's not stunned anymore.

The next phase always lasts for 64 frames after being stunned. TODO: This is wrong, it decrements every 4th frame while stunned. Check in emu.

• If he hits an edge or a wall, his direction will change to the opposite, but it will keep rotating the same as it was (if it was).
• When below 4 hp, the AI works exactly the same, but the speeds are increased (with around 33% - it depends on the exact direction he is facing).

Walk straight

No rotation happens here. Moldorm keeps moving in the same direction.

• Upon entering the screen, he will walk for TODO frames.
• After a Rotate, he will walk for 15-23 frames.
• After a Lunge, he will walk for 48 frames.

Rotate

Rotates either clockwise or anti-clockwise (completely random) for 31 to 63 frames.

Lunge at Player

• If he's not facing Link already, he will change direction towards Link by 22.5 degrees every frame, until he's facing Link.
• When he's facing Link, it jumps to the next phase ("Walk straight") for 0x30 frames.

Strategy

Summary for a good fight:

• Only the head from Moldorm can hit you.
• You can only hurt him on the end of his tail.
• Three main methods:

1. Load your sword in between hits, stand a few tiles from it, and time a dash onto his tail, hitting it just as it gets vulnerable.

This is usually best to do horizontally, since there is a smaller chance you will get hit if his head walks towards you.

2. Stand behind Moldorm and move along the path the head takes.

Example: If he's facing left, and starts moving clockwise, you will follow him < then ^ and slash his tail v.

3. You could try to stand in the bottom center, with your sword loaded upwards for the entire fight.

This is slower, but some people find it easier when learning the fight initially.

• If Moldorm is near an edge/wall, you might want to do method 1, since his movement will be hard to predict if he hits the edge/wall.
• For the last hit, when he starts moving fast, most people try to kill him with a dash.

The perfect method to safely dash through him is to stand far away and diagonally from Moldorm, with your sword loaded and pointing towards him, and then wait for his Lunge attack. Once he lunges towards you, you can move away from his path (cardinally) and start a dash.

• See the description of his phases above to understand what he will do after you stun him.

For example, if you hit him while he's lunging towards Link, he will always respond by rotating for 64 frames.

• When jumping into his arena, if you dash or hold your sword out, and clink Moldorm, you will bounce back. If this causes you to drop down to the next floor, it means you were holding your dpad. So make sure you don't hold your dpad while dashing into his arena.

If you like dashing as a default, concider walking/quickhopping if Moldorm is near the bottom part of the arena, to completely avoid this. You risk taking a heart of damage by doing this, but won't lose time to bouncing back.

Damage:

• The level 1 sword needs 6 hits to defeat him.
• The level 3 sword needs 3 hits to defeat him.
• The hammer needs 3 hits to defeat him.

External resources

• Andy's NMG Tutorial
• Runnerwatcher's NMG Tutorial
• A little info on Moldorm's AI