Diamond locations in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, diamonds are one of the most valuable objects you can find (much like in real life, unfortunately). Players looking to make some quick rupees will want to sell their diamonds to a merchant, while players who want to bling out their weapons may want to Fuse them to a sword.

Diamonds can be hard to come by in Tears of the Kingdom, but there are methods to ensure you have a steady flow of them. While we can’t offer an intense “get 100 diamonds in 10 minutes” type of strategy — y’know, since the duplication glitches keep getting patched out — there are still effective methods you can follow to find these precious gemstones.

Whether it’s from completing shrines, feeding ominous creatures some rocks, or mining them yourself, below, we’ve list out the various ways you can find diamonds in Tears of the Kingdom.

What to use diamonds for in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

You can Fuse a diamond to a weapons, and it’ll function as a blade, adding +25 attack damage to your base of choice. The weapon will also be pretty durable, which is what you would expect from a diamond. However, unlike the other precious gems (rubies, sapphires, topaz, and opals), diamonds do not add an elemental affinity to your weapons, so you’re just getting a plain old blade — a very expensive one at that.

That said, there’s much better stuff out there to Fuse your weapons with (varying horns and the like), so you’re best off selling your diamonds for 500 rupees each to any vendor in Hyrule.

If you do Fuse your diamonds to your weapon and decide, “Oh shit, I did not want to do that,” you can always un-Fuse them by visiting the little Goron in Tarrey Town.

Guaranteed diamond locations in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

There are a few shrines where you’ll find diamonds as a Rauru’s Blessing reward from a chest inside. The shrines are as follows:

• Ganos Shrine, Tabantha Sky Archipelago (-3366, 0468, 1695)
• Jochi-ihiga Shrine, Akkala Highlands (3811, 1218, 0090)
• Jinodok Shrine, South Hyrule Sky Archipelago (-1257, -1487, 1008)
• Maoikes Shrine, Lanayru Wetlands (2277, 0150, 0079)
• Mayaotaki Shrine, Hebra Mountains (-0956, 3535, 0234)
• Mayaotaki Shrine, North Lomei Labyrinth (-0956, 3535, 0234)
• Momosik Shrine, Eldin Canyon (3730, -2057, 0189)
• Sihajog Shrine, Lanayru Great Spring Sky (4544, -0845, 1121)
• Yomizuk Shrine, Lanayru Great Spring (4412, -0610, 0334)

There may be more, but we’ve found and confirmed those shrines as of this writing.

Mining diamonds from ore deposits

Ore deposits found in the caves around Hyrule can have diamonds in them — and if you’re looking to sell the diamonds for cash, you should be breaking all of these anyway, as the other precious gems dropped out of these deposits are still worth a good chunk of rupees. Note that diamonds don’t drop super frequently from ore deposits, but we have gotten a few on our journey from this.

You can find tons of ore deposits in the Goron caves along Death Mountain, but we like to take the path from the Emergency Shelter in Lookout Landing to Hyrule Castle so we can grab both bomb flowers and precious gems. You can enter the cave that takes you to Hyrule Castle here:

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

Specifically, you want to make sure to smash open any mineral deposits that have yellowish bumps and sparkles, as these ones drop the higher-rarity stuff, like rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and topaz. You can see a rare ore deposit below, between the luminous stone and regular deposit:

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

Beating Talus bosses for diamonds

When you beat a Talus (the huge rock golem boss enemies found around Hyrule), they’ll explode into a pile of gems after the battle. While not super common, they can drop diamonds. We’ve fought a variety of Talus during our playthrough, and we noticed diamonds dropping from various types of Talus, be it a fire Talus or regular ones.

We’re not entirely sure what the drop rate is on diamonds specifically, but if you’re hunting for diamonds and you see a Talus in your path, take it out.

Getting diamonds from dondons

Did you know there are a handful of tusked beasts that you can feed luminous stones to that will poop out rare ore in return? Yes, really! Dondons are marvelous beasts that will provide you with rare ore in exchange for luminous stones and your time. We can confirm that they have farted out diamonds from this process, though it seems rare, just like the other methods.

In southern Akkala, near Lakeside Stable, there’s a dondon sanctuary. From the nearby Joju-u-u Shrine, glide down toward this campfire. (It’ll be hard to see, but it’ll render in as you get closer.)

Graphic: Julia Lee/Polygon | Source images: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

Once you arrive at the dondons, do the following:

1. Drop a luminous stone in front of each of the five dondons.
2. Watch the dondons eat the stone.
3. Leave the area. (You can go do something else, but they won’t poop in front of you. They’re poop shy.)
4. Come back about 10 minutes later.
5. Collect your poop loot. (You can get flint and other less-rare rocks from them, so don’t be surprised if the dondon doesn’t gift you with riches right away.)
6. Repeat, if you want.

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

Some players think that feeding the dondons more luminous stones will yield rarer results, but our tests of this were inconclusive. If there is a better method to guaranteeing high-rarity ore from dondons, we’ll update this guide once we figure it out.

Where to buy diamonds

I personally do not know why you would want to do this, as diamonds are purchased for double their selling price, but if you really want diamonds for a collection or for Fusing, you can buy them from a merchant in Goron City, near the center of the city:

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

He’ll only open up shop once your solve the marbled roast rock crisis in Goron City, which happens via the “Yunobo of Goron City” quest.

He sells them for a whopping 1,000 rupees each, so again, we don’t recommend doing this.