Image: Nintendo via Summer Watts
Summer has been an avid gamer ever since she was a young girl. She graduated from the University of California Davis in 2019, and completed an inte... Read more
Reviewed by Benjamin Barr
Once players enter the deep and dark Depths in Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, they soon stumble upon clusters of bright blue essences that look like souls. Many go out of their way to collect them, but don’t yet know what they are used for. In this guide, I will explain what Poes are used for in TOTK, and how to unlock Bargainer Statues so that you can unlock more valuable loot.
What is a Poe?
Poes are lost souls that are scattered all throughout the Depths. Sometimes there may just be one or two nearby, but most of the time they appear in large groups. These large groups can often be found near enemy outposts, in wide open areas, or behind rock walls that you’ll have to climb over to find.
There are also different kinds of Poes. Some are larger than others, and some have a pink glow. The ones that are larger than regular Poes are called Large Poes, and the ones that glow pink are called Grand Poes. Large Poes are worth 5 Poes, and Grand Poes are worth 20 Poes. They can be found a ways away from paths, on top of trees, or in deep pits.
Regular Poes though are often very easy to see, and can be seen even better from the tops of rocks or trees. Thankfully, they respawn every time the Blood Moon makes an appearance, so you can keep gathering them over and over again. However, they are useless if you haven’t found a Bargainer Statue yet.
What are Bargainer Statues?
The first Bargainer statue that players will want to find is located at Lookout Landing. Once you warp there, look for a building that has a large telescope on top of it. Enter it and you’ll find a unique looking statue called a Bargainer Statue that you can interact with. It will ask you for Poes, and tell you that it can offer you different kinds of loot for them.
There are a total of seven Bargainer Statues. You can try to find them on your own, or you can pay the first Bargainer Statue at Lookout Landing for their locations. The first location that the statue gives you costs ten Poes. However, the following locations will cost you a whopping one hundred Poes per location.
Why are Poes Valuable?
Poes are extremely valuable because they allow you to buy loot like Bomb Flowers and Dark Clumps that are hard to get anywhere else. You can find Bomb Flowers in the Depths, but it can be pretty time consuming work. Poes are much easier to find, and you can collect them much faster.
Dark Clumps are even more valuable. There are only two ways you can get Dark Clumps. You can either trade Poes for them at Bargainer Statues, or kill Gloom Spawn and Phantom Ganon for them. Obviously, the latter option requires much more time and energy, so you’ll want to go the Poe trading route.
When cooked with food, Dark Clumps give Link a gloom resistant effect that protects him from getting hurt by the gloom areas in the Depths and on land. They may not make you completely invincible, but they allow Link to cross over small gloom areas without getting hurt. If you add a bunch of Dark Clumps to a meal, then you will become even more gloom resistant. These Dark Clump rich meals will allow you to cross even larger areas of gloom without getting hurt.
What are Muddle Buds and Puffshrooms?
Muddle Buds and Puffshrooms can also be purchased with Poes. They make it much easier for you to defeat large amounts of enemies without getting a scratch. For instance, if you throw a Muddle Bud at an enemy that is surrounded by other enemies, the enemy hit will attack all of the other enemies for you. If the enemy hit is, for example, a silver or brown Bokoblin, it will most likely kill all of the enemies surrounding it that aren’t as strong.
Puffshrooms can be used to create a huge cloud of spores which can hide you from the enemy. Monsters stuck in the cloud are confused and distracted. You can then sneak up on them from behind, or sneakily move around them and take them out.
But what about other items like armor? How can you unlock the Dark Armor Set and the Depths Armor Set?
How to Unlock the Dark Armor Set and the Depths Armor Set
To unlock these two sets, you will need to either find the other Bargainer Statues in the Depths on your own, or pay the Bargainer Statue at Lookout Landing for their locations. Each Bargainer statue unlocks a new piece of armor for you. The order that they are unlocked in is shown below:
- Dark Tunic (150 Poes)
- Tunic of the Depths (150 Poes)
- Dark Trousers (200 Poes)
- Gaiters of the Depths (200 Poes)
- Dark Hood (300 Poes)
- Hood of the Depths (300 Poes)
- Tunic of Memories (400 Poes)
Once you find a new Bargainer Statue and unlock a new armor piece, you don’t have to buy the piece there. You can go to any Bargainer Statue that you have found so far and purchase the new armor piece.
What does the Dark Armor Set Do?
Although it looks incredibly sinister and cool, the Dark Armor set doesn’t offer much else. It doesn’t give you much more defense than other armor sets, and it only gives you increased run speed at night when you wear all three pieces. It also cannot be upgraded by the Great Fairies, so its actually quite weak. However, if you want the look and to ultimately collect all 35 armor sets, you might as well add it to your collection.
What does the Depths Armor Set Do?
Now the Depths Armor is significantly more useful than the Dark Armor. Although it has a creepy look to it, it gives you a ton of gloom resistance. If you collect all three pieces, you can pretty much walk on all the gloom you want without getting hurt. You also won’t have to rely on Dark Clump food anymore to get you from one gloom area to another.
If you can get the whole set, you’ll also gain resistance to attacks from gloom enemies. Unlike the Dark Armor set, this armor can be enhanced by the Great Fairies. This armor set is a must for players that want to explore the entirety of the Depths, defeat all of the Depth’s enemies, and unlock all of the Depth’s Light Roots.
Join the High Ground
In Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Poes are lost souls that you can collect, and trade for extremely useful items, and new armor sets. They are easy to collect, and definitely worth finding if you want keep moving at a fast pace in the game. What do you think of Poes, and how have they helped further your progress in the game? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter.
Happy gaming!
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