Calamity Ganon (Boss)

This article is about the boss fight with Calamity Ganon. For his character profile, see Ganon#Breath of the Wild.

Calamity Ganon

Title	Scourge of Hyrule Castle
Games	Breath of the Wild
Location	Sanctum & Astral Observatory
Dungeons	Hyrule Castle
Rewards	Bow of Light
Threat
Health	8000 HP (no Divine Beasts cleared) 7000 HP (one Divine Beast cleared) 6000 HP (two Divine Beasts cleared) 5000 HP (three Divine Beasts cleared) 4000 HP (all Divine Beasts cleared)
Related	Windblight Ganon Thunderblight Ganon Fireblight Ganon Waterblight Ganon Calamity Ganon (Age of Calamity)
Guides
Walkthrough	Hyrule Castle: 14.5 – Calamity Ganon

Calamity Ganon is one of the final bosses in Breath of the Wild. Ganon has taken a grotesque form, appearing in a centipede-like figure, with a large head surrounded by Ganondorf's signature long flowing red hair. The beast fights with a combination of the attacks used by the Blight Ganons created for the Great Calamity and puts up a considerable fight even against the Master Sword's power. The fight takes place in the Astral Observatory under Hyrule Castle.

Strategy

The battle with Calamity Ganon will be substantially different depending on whether you've completed much of the game or not. If Link has not freed any of the four Divine Beasts, then whichever bosses he hasn't defeated will appear in the Sanctum on entry. As such, he might need to take on Waterblight Ganon, Windblight Ganon, Thunderblight Ganon and Fireblight Ganon, in that order, omitting any ones already defeated in their Divine Beasts. These Blight Ganons must be defeated consecutively in the Sanctum with no chance to save; fail at any point and Link must start from the beginning. Furthermore, these Blights will be scaled to 2000 HP, which would normally only apply when facing the last of the four Blights with 3 Divine Beasts cleared already.

It should be noted that there is no "postgame" content, and as such, your resources do not matter after the fight. Hence, there is no reason to hold back. Cook and eat your best meals, use your best weapons and shoot off all the rare ammunition you have accumulated. "Hearty" meals are appreciated for their full health restores, "Enduring" meals are good to prolong bullet-time bow-spamming for heavy damage, Attack-Up meals help you kill stuff faster and Ancient/Bomb Arrows are good for quickly racking up damage.

Phase 1

Like the other Blights, he is treated as a Guardian-type enemy, so Ancient/Guardian equipment will deal boosted damage against him. Utilizing them in conjunction with Ancient Proficiency is highly advised.

Calamity Ganon is basically a "greatest hits" of the four Ganon's that we fought in the various dungeons and he mimics many of their attacks. He will shoot ice blocks at you like Waterblight Ganon, at which you can use Cryonis to melt them away. He will create a field of thunder spikes like Thunderblight Ganon, at which you should just run away. He will create tornado gusts like Windblight Ganon and you should just sprint away. He'll also use a slow laser shot attack. He'll also take one of Fireblight Ganon's attacks, launching a ball of fire at the battlefield. If you see this, shoot it with an ice arrow before it can ignite the battlefield, or just run away.

Calamity Ganon also has a few melee attacks where he'll swing his flaming sword horizontally or vertically. He'll also swing his smaller blue swords as well. Lastly, like all of the Ganons we fought, Calamity Ganon will shoot a giant laser at you. Your best is to target Calamity Ganon and when the laser is shot, jump to the side to avoid the attack, or, you can perform a Perfect Guard, which, if successful, will stun him for an extended period of time. During this phase, you can launch Bomb Arrows or Ancient Arrows at him. While these won't deal serious damage, they will slowly but surely chip away at him. The more effective way is to perform either a Perfect Guard or a Perfect Dodge. The Perfect Guard can be used during his melee attacks, however, it is risky, as one mistake will leave you unguarded and you'll take serious damage.

In our experience, the Perfect Dodge is by far the best method. Not only that, successfully doing one sets up a Flurry Rush, and you can get a number of attacks in during the slow-motion scenes. In particular, I think this is most effective when he is trying to strike you with his large fire sword. If he tries a horizontal slash, do a backflip just before the sword hits you. If he tries a vertical slash, do a side jump. With proper timing and enough practice, you'll be able to knock Calamity Ganon down.

The fastest way to kill Calamity Ganon (time-wise) is massed multi-shot bow spam using bullet-time. Cast Revali's Gale to get into the air, and then let loose with volleys of Ancient/Bomb Arrows, using multiple Enduring meals to stay in bullet time in order to prevent Calamity Ganon from getting a chance to actually do anything. A second, slightly slower, strategy is to stun Calamity Ganon by casting Urbosa's Fury or with some headshots, then start spinning with a powerful 2-handed weapon such as a Savage Lynel Crusher or Ancient Battle Axe++; Calamity Ganon can take multiple hits per rotation with proper positioning relative to his limbs and can also be stunlocked by finishing the charged attack with a ground slam with the correct timing.

When Calamity Ganon has lost half of his HP remaining after any Divine Beasts weaken him, he will enter his second phase. This is the 4000/8000 HP mark with no Beasts, 3500/8000 HP with one Beast, 3000/8000 HP with two, 2500/8000 HP with three and 2000/8000 HP with all four.

Phase 2

In this phase, he will create an impenetrable orange shield around himself. Arrows, melee weapons, and elemental rods will no longer deal any damage and Calamity Ganon will start getting more aggressive with his laser shots. He'll also have another attack where he launches his spear at Link.

While Calamity Ganon's shield is up, your attacks will not reach him with the exception of a few methods. A Perfect Guard on any of his attacks will temporarily disable his shield, and you can guarantee this with Daruk's Protection if available. This entails reflecting one of his projectiles back at him or parrying one of his close-range attacks, at which point his shield will be temporarily down for you to attack. A Perfect Dodge will activate a Flurry Rush, and during the Flurry Rush, the shield is off, allowing the Flurry Rush to deal full damage, though the shield will immediately reactivate after the Flurry Rush ends. The third and final way is so simply cast Urbosa's Fury, which unconditionally disables the shield for the duration in which Calamity Ganon is stunned. This is the most reliable method for exposing Calamity Ganon to massed bow fire.

When Calamity Ganon comes crashing to the ground, he'll create a blue circle around him and if you are within it, you will take damage.

Stay close, but not too close to Calamity Ganon. We want to be just close enough so that he will trigger his melee attacks. Time it right and do a Perfect Dodge. Just keep at it with sword slashes until Calamity Ganon has been defeated.

Phase 2 Skip

It is actually possible to skip Phase 2 of the fight entirely, but this is extremely difficult, as Calamity Ganon must be reduced all the way to 0 HP from above the Phase 2 threshold in a single frame; no single hit short of the One-Hit Obliterator (requires glitches) can achieve this. However, if an enemy is hit by Stasis+ and then multiple attacks are dealt to them while under the effect of Stasis+, all damage they would've taken during Statis+ will be dealt to them, instantaneously. Thus, it becomes possible for multiple hits to be dealt in the same frame to Calamity Ganon, and possible for those hits to rack up enough damage.

Because Statis+ will wear off on Calamity Ganon extremely quickly, the only way to rack up enough damage during the effect duration is to be in midair with a bow, spamming bow shots during bullet time. Since Link needs to be in midair to enter bullet time with a bow, it becomes necessary to cast Revali's Gale to create an updraft and then land on the ground to cast Stasis+; once Stasis+ is cast, Link must immediately enter the updraft, gain height and then start shooting. Since the bare minimum of damage needed to be dealt is still over 2000, and trying to "one-shot" Calamity Ganon can take anywhere from 4000-8000 damage, the most effective way to dish out enough damage in this time frame is with a 5-shot Savage Lynel Bow with Ancient Arrows, wearing the full Ancient set for Ancient Proficiency and under the effect of a Lv3 Attack Up meal. Depending on Calamity Ganon's HP, Enduring meals may be needed to extend bullet time. If enough shots have been dealt, then upon the expiration of Stasis+, Calamity Ganon's HP will drop all the way to 0; he will still do his Phase 2 transition, but will immediately start his defeat cutscene the moment that ends.

Gallery

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Trivia

• Calamity Ganon doesn't hold the Triforce of Power like previous iterations of him did.
• Having emerged from a cocoon in the Sanctum, and due to Zelda's containment of him, Calamity Ganon is effectively at a larval form when Link encounters it. This is why he's a hodgepodge of parts from the Blights and some Guardian parts as well, as he's incomplete. This is a rather ironic twist, as previous games have shown that Ganon may parasitize other powerful creatures to bend them to his will; in this case, Zelda may be parasitizing Ganon himself.
• Calamity Ganon's possible full form wouldn't be shown until Age of Calamity, where he is shown at his most powerful humanoid form. This mightiest form of Calamity Ganon, even before gaining his definitive form, is so powerful that he can both generate and control massive amounts of monsters that are thrown at the forces of Hyrule. However, it's not known whether the Calamity Ganon of Breath of the Wild would have been as powerful.
• Calamity Ganon is implied to be not strong enough to fend off Zelda's influence for the century she contained him, but is indeed strong enough for her to be unable to both contain him and destroy him. As such, is up to Link to deal enough damage to him so that Zelda can finish him off.
• His cocoon is reminiscent of the Shrine of Resurrection, implying that it was meant to accomplish a similar goal.