Breath of the Wild What to use spirit orbs on - hearts or stamina

[roblurker]

I am fairly new to BOTW. I have 7 hearts now. When should I use the orbs on stamina?

Thanks

 

[MapelSerup]

I would say to focus on hearts first. You need them for the master sword. You can move them around for a small fee at Hateno Village though, so honestly, it’s up to you. Stamina is useful for climbing and needed in some cases.

 

[Cassarilla]

Personally, I used them more for hearts first. Cooked meals for extra stamina in the meantime. I guess that's one of the cool things about BOTW it's really up to your preference.

 

[dtc]

Hearts till 13 (with some stamina upgrades in between), then stamina till max, then hearts. That was how i did it.

 

[Storm_Echo]

I guess I'm a bit of an outlier here, but I find the game becomes much more open and exploration-friendly with at least an extra full wheel of stamina. I almost always go for stamina first, up to that first full wheel and sometimes more, then hearts after that. In my current playthrough I just beat a boss and got a heart container, but prior to that I had done the entire game only taking stamina. It's just that good.


The reason I do this is because there are a lot of cliffs, mountains, and steep slopes that are literally unclimbable without food bonuses if you only have the base wheel. The second stamina wheel is, in my experience, enough to let you climb / swim anything. It lets you climb any slope enough to reach a spot you can regain stamina at. Since I like the Skyrim approach of going over things rather than around them, that's what I do.


You can use "Hearty" items to make food that gives you yellow temporary hearts, which should be plenty to hold you over until you have enough stamina to roam free! You can also splurge on the expensive bed option at stables to get a yellow heart (or more, at certain locations)

 

[Fraxinus]

I never upgraded my stamina at first. Hearts seems the way to go especially for a first playthrough, just because enemies can hit pretty hard. Being able to survive a single hit is pretty important. Then you can stuff your face with food to recover from that... You can always make foods later on to temporarily increase both health and stamina until you get enough spirit orbs to upgrade both more substantially.

One thing about BotW though, is that there are not spirit orbs in the game to fully upgrade your health and your stamina. You'll be short a couple upgrades for one or the other. I personally didn't upgrade my stamina at all, as I didn't find it to hinder me much, but I can see stamina being very valuable especially for aerial combat.

 

[Storm_Echo]

I never upgraded my stamina at first. Hearts seems the way to go especially for a first playthrough, just because enemies can hit pretty hard. Being able to survive a single hit is pretty important. Then you can stuff your face with food to recover from that... You can always make foods later on to temporarily increase both health and stamina until you get enough spirit orbs to upgrade both more substantially.

One thing about BotW though, is that there are not spirit orbs in the game to fully upgrade your health and your stamina. You'll be short a couple upgrades for one or the other. I personally didn't upgrade my stamina at all, as I didn't find it to hinder me much, but I can see stamina being very valuable especially for aerial combat.

Two different ways to do it, both correct! I will actually call out building hearts as more important when you're new to the game. It can be pretty easy to stumble upon an enemy that will oneshot you if you only have the starting 3 hearts and little to no armor, and it's all the more likely to happen if you've never played before. Once you're more experienced it becomes less likely that you get surprised and killed in only a few hits, so you can afford to spec into stamina more.

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

100% stamina
if you're trying to optimize your movement and experience as much gameplay as possible, rush stamina, rush vah Medoh. Outside of situations where you take lethal damage (which shouldn't be often regardless of the number of hearts you've got until you have good armor), hearts are useless unless you are currently pulling the master sword out of its pedestal. I personally think the time it takes to reach 13 heart containers is better spent collecting stamina upgrades, then swapping over with the demon in Hateno to pull out the master sword, then swapping back. Having Revali's Gale also lets you cheat a bit on stamina.
Also, no fairy equivalent for stamina exists. If you run out of stamina you're out until you fall/it recharges.

EDIT: you already have 7 hearts, that's more than enough for now. You'll instantly notice and appreciate the difference extra stamina makes, vs hearts only mattering in combat, a situation where stamina also matters, probably more

 

[Fraxinus]

Also, no fairy equivalent for stamina exists. If you run out of stamina you're out until you fall/it recharges.

There's food. Furthermore, anything that temporarily increases the wheel is a full refill and then some.

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

I guess there doesn't need to be a fairy equivalent
the rest of what I said stands

 

[dur.i.am]

There's no correct way to do it and you aren't locked into your choices thanks to a statue in Hateno Village. I started with hearts but quickly swapped to stamina when I got sick of being unable to climb a lot of cliffs. My choice was also swayed from finding vah Ruta first, if I'd found vah Mehod first I'd have likely built into hearts a lot faster. It also helps to keep an eye on your ingredients so you know if you can't make any health/stamina empowering foods when you go to trade your spirit orbs in.

 

[NintendoCN]

I grabbed hearts until I had 15, then I maxed out stamina, the rest went to hearts. Mostly because I hit the ground too hard sometimes... I also don't bounce.

 

[the8thark]

I just did stamina and maxed that out before I put any into health.
Before people ask - what about the master sword - You just swap all to health, get the sword then swap the lot back to stamina.

Early on 4 hearts or 6 is the same result, get hit and die. However a little more stamina does make travelling and climbing to certain areas easier and actually possible so that's where the actual early on benefit is.

 

[Eli Ayase]

I would say max out your hearts and then go with stamina. It is what I did and it made it easier.

 

[Vanessa28]

I went for the hearts. Stamina is less important. I mainly used it for climbing mountains.

Spoiler

When you'll obtain Revali's gale it makes climbing a lot easier and saves you a lot of stamina when climbing large mountains. And the climbing armor makes it also easier especially fully upgraded