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.

There are a few ways to find diamonds:

• Getting diamonds as rewards for “Rauru’s Blessing”-type shrines
• Mining diamonds from ore deposits and Talus
• Collecting diamonds from dondon poop
• Buying diamonds from a vendor in Goron City

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.

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
• Jinodok Shrine, South Hyrule Sky Archipelago
• Jochi-ihiga Shrine, Akkala Highlands
• Joku-u Shrine, Faron Grasslands Sky
• Maoikes Shrine, Lanayru Wetlands
• Mayaotaki Shrine, Hebra Mountains
• Momosik Shrine, Eldin Canyon
• Sakunbomar Shrine, Great Hyrule Forest
• Sihajog Shrine, Lanayru Great Spring Sky
• Yomizuk Shrine, Lanayru Great Spring

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.

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.

To wrap it up, here are all the uses for diamonds in Tears of the Kingdom:

• Selling to vendors for 500 rupees
• Fusing to weapons (not recommended)
• Upgrading Miner’s Armor from three-star to four-star
• Upgrading the Diamond Circlet

Best place to sell diamonds in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

You can sell diamonds to any vendor you can usually sell items to. This includes general shop owners, Beedle, and specialty shop owners.

To get the most bang for your buck, you will want to make use of Ramella, a Gerudo woman who roams around Goron City, who will buy your diamonds for the most money. Since she roams around, you may have a hard time finding her, but she sticks out like a sore thumb among the Goron people. Glide in from the nearby Marakuguc Shrine to spot her from above.

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

The first time you talk to her, she’ll give you the “Amber Dealer” side quest, in which she wants to trade you 200 rupees in exchange for 10 amber. Hand over the amber, and you’ll unlock the ability to sell precious ore to her in stacks of 10 and only in stacks of 10.

Note that she will not always want to buy diamonds off of you. For example, she may want 10 topazes for 1,000 rupees, 10 rubies for 1,300 rupees, 10 sapphires for 1,700 rupees, or 10 diamonds for 5,500 rupees — all of these exchanges will give you more money than an average shopkeeper would.

She refreshes what she wants to buy from you after you sell her one stack of 10, but you can get multiple of the same precious gem requested in a row. For example, after selling her 10 rubies, she wanted 10 sapphires. After selling her those 10 sapphires, she wanted another stack of 10 sapphires. Depending on your patience and how many ores you have to sell, Ramella may not be worth your time.

We tried to refresh her demands by saving and reloading, sleeping at the nearby inn for a day and teleporting away and back, as well as a combination of these, but none of them seemed to get her to change what she wanted. (It’s entirely possible that we did the wrong combination, or more in-game time needed to pass. If you know how to get her to change her desires, let us know!)