Queen Gibdo
Title | Scourge of the Lightning Temple | |
Race | ||
Gender | Female | |
Games | ||
Location | Dragon's Exile (Initial encounter) | |
Quests | ||
Dungeons | Lightning Temple | |
Rewards | Heart Container | |
Threat |   | |
Attacks | Sand Beam | |
Effective | ||
Weapons Used | Sand | |
Health | 2270 HP (Gerudo Desert, Lightning Temple, Beneath Hyrule Castle) | |
Related | Gibdo | |
Queen Gibdo is a boss found in Tears of the Kingdom. She's the boss of the Lightning Temple and is responsible for the Sand Shroud in Gerudo Desert and the presence of Gibdos and Moth Gibdos.
Tears of the Kingdom
Queen Gibdo was summoned by the Demon King in order to prevent Riju from obtaining the Secret Stone within the temple. When Riju arrives with Link to the battery in Gerudo Desert that summons the Lightning Temple from the sand, they witness what appears to be Zelda standing in front of it until she disappears. Unlike other bosses, Queen Gibdo reveals herself immediately in front of the Lightning Temple, due to a cocoon containing her blocking the temple entrance and Riju needing to use her Lightning Strike to destroy it. After a very brief scuffle, Queen Gibdo retreats to the highest floor of the temple, allowing Link and Riju to properly venture inside.
After charging four batteries throughout the temple, Link and Riju are able to ride the elevator in the Room of Ascension properly up to the boss room, where Riju uses her Lightning Strike to shatter another sand cocoon, making Queen Gibdo appear once more. Upon defeating Queen Gibdo, Riju awakens as a sage and obtains her secret stone. The Sand Shroud throughout Gerudo Desert along with most overworld Gibdos and Moth Gibdos disappear.
Queen Gibdo is also posted in the Depths of Hyrule, being one of many monsters defending the Demon King's location. Link must fight her if he didn't defeat her in the Lightning Temple, but if he did, then Riju will deal with her for him, allowing Link to skip this fight.
Once she's defeated in the Hyrule overworld, she can continue to be encountered in specific arenas in the Depths, where upon death she will drop a Queen Gibdo Wing. With no natural light sources available in the Depths, the sand hives do not create large pillars of light when destroyed like they do in the Lightning Temple. This requires Link to either rely explicitly on fire and lightning damage or utilize Mirror Zonai Devices in other ways, as the collectible item version generates its own light.
Strategy
Phase 1
Queen Gibdo's arena any time she's fought will always contain four mushroom-shaped hives of sand that will remain inert in this first phase. Queen Gibdo will skitter around the arena, usually keeping to the darkest parts of the room, and fire a sand beam at Link, before fluttering in the air, out of melee weapon's reach. Queen Gibdo needs to be hit with fire, thunder or light to cause her to turn pale, fly to an adjacent part of the arena and land on the ground. Riju's Power of Lightning is always available, but if Riju gets hit it will be interrupted. A bow fusion is more reliable, especially if using Fire Keese Eyeballs or Electric Keese Eyeballs as they will home in addition to applying the correct elements. She will then pound the ground to cause four sand tornadoes to appear, damaging Link if he gets caught in them. While Queen Gibdo is on the ground, she is no longer immune to arrows, but she is still immune to direct melee attacks so there's no point in closing in just yet. To make Queen Gibdo collapse on the floor and become vulnerable to melee attack, she needs to be dealt a sizable amount of additional damage whilst she is on the ground; a second hit from Riju's thunder will do the trick, but simply staying away and shooting Queen Gibdo from a safe distance with a strong bow and good fuses can work as well. Once Queen Gibdo collapses on the floor, that is your chance to close in and attack with the strongest melee weapon on hand. Alternatively, gain height with a explosive-fused shield and spam headshots in bullet time, as Queen Gibdo has a head hitbox unlike the other temple bosses.
Phase 2
At this phase in the fight, Queen Gibdo will now summon the four sand hives to become permanently active, and over the course of the fight they will endlessly spawn Gibdos and Moth Gibdos into the arena to relentlessly attack Link until the hives are destroyed; these endless reinforcements do not drop anything when defeated, so there's no point in fighting them for loot. This can be done either with Riju's Power of Lightning or with Arrows fused with Bomb Flowers or Rubies. In the Lightning Temple, this creates four large pillars of light, which will deal damage to every enemy in the room, but this is not the case if fought anywhere else. Link can use Mirror Zonai Devices, either separately or with one fused to his shield, to create anywhere from one to several intersecting paths of reflected light all over the arena, causing Queen Gibdo to take damage when she inevitably flies into them. If Link's damage output is high, he can completely ignore the reinforcements and instead just kill Queen Gibdo quickly. Fire/Electric Keese Eyes aren't foolproof anymore, as they can lock onto a Moth Gibdo instead, so it's better to just get airborne and go for a bullet time shot with a cheaper fuse material. To avoid getting interrupted by the reinforcement Gibdos while trying to DPS Queen Gibdo when she collapses, it's better to just resort to massed bow fire.
Video Demonstration