Moldorm
From ALttP Speedrunning Wiki
 | |||||
| Location | Tower of Hera | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HP | 12 |  | - |  | - |
 | 2 |  | - |  | - |
 | 2 |  | - |  | - |
 | 4 |  | 4 |  | - |
 | 8 |  | - |  | - |
 | - |  | - |  | - |
 |  |  |  |  |  |
| Lanmolas | Agahnim | ||||
Phases
- Moldorm will do the following repeating pattern:
- Rotate (32-63f) -> Walk straight (8-23f) -> Rotate (32-63f) -> Walk straight (8-23f) -> Face Link -> Walk straight (48f).
- If you hit Moldorm during a Rotate or Walk straight, he will go on to the next phase when he's not stunned anymore.
- If you hit Moldorm during Face Link, he will stay in this phase.
- If he hits an edge or a wall, he will instantly change his direction by 180 degrees (but keep rotating the same way).
- When at 1 or 2 hp, the AI will work exactly the same, but the speed is increased by ~33%.
Walk straight
Moldorm keeps moving straight with no rotations.
- After a Rotate, he will walk for 8-23 frames.
- After a Face Link, he will walk for 48 frames.
Rotate
Moldorm rotates either clockwise or anti-clockwise, determined at random, for 32 to 63 frames.
- He will rotate 22.5 degrees every 4 frames, making a range between 180 and 360 degrees.
Face Link
Moldorm tries to rotate towards Link, until he's facing him (meaning that his eyes are looking straight at Link).
- If he's not facing Link already, he will try to rotate towards Link by 22.5 degrees every 4 frames, until he's facing Link.
- This can take some time if he gets stuck in a corner bouncing back and forth.
- As soon as he's facing Link, the phase ends and he moves on to the Walk straight phase, which will last for 48 frames.
- There is a bug that makes him switch between clockwise and anti-clockwise rotations when trying to face Link sometimes.
- If for example you stand still directly behind him when he's facing left, he will walk away from Link and rotate one way, then the other etc. (Wiggling back and forth, never turning completely around.)
Strategy
NMG First Fight
- Only the head from Moldorm can hit you.
- You can only hurt him on the end of his tail.
- Two main methods:
- 1. Load your sword in between hits, stand a few tiles from him, and time a dash to hit his tail as it gets vulnerable.
- This is usually best to do horizontally, since there is a smaller chance you will get hit dashing through his head horizontally.
- 2. Stand behind Moldorm and move along the path the head takes.
- Example: If he's facing left, and starts moving clockwise, you can follow him < then ^ and slash his tail v once it gets vulnerable.
- If Moldorm is near an edge or wall, you might want to do method 1, since his movement will be hard to predict if he hits the edge/wall.
- You could also wait 3-4 tiles away from him - enough that he can't insta-180 and hit you - and wait until it's safer to move in on the tail.
- For the last hit, when he starts moving fast, most people try to kill him with a dash.
- It is generally very safe to stand with your sword out, having the edge at your back. If Moldorm moves into you, just hold the direction away from the edge at all times, and Link will never fall.
- This method can also be used for safe last hits too.
- After you hit Moldorm, it will take 20f from when the tail starts moving again until it's vunlerable.
- A spin attack will hit the tail before Moldorm's head if both are within the hitbox of the spin attack.
- So if Moldorm is stuck in a corner, and you have a spin loaded, you can always hit the tail by spinning it near him, even if the tail is hiding underneath his head.
- It is possible to predict what Moldorm will do by understanding his pattern of phases.
- For example, if you hit him while he's lunging towards Link, he will always rotate at least 180 degrees once he's not stunned anymore. You will never know the direction of the rotation though.
- At the start of the fight, if you dash into Moldorm's arena and hit Moldorm, Link will bounce back to the top level again. Make sure you don't touch your d-pad during this, as that can cause Link to fall down to the previous floor.
- If you like dashing in as a default, consider 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 being bounced back (which often repeats itself when you try to dash again).
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.
Ideas for movie files: Show full method 1 (godtas) & method 2 (xelna) fight. Show a few last hit patterns (diagonal lunge, horizontal lunge avoiding head hitbox, spin when he lunges at Link on left side hitting the wall, sword out holding away from edge).
