Zelda

#Overview

Zelda the Chihuahua-Pomeranian is a legendary dog, outside the ordinary breed pool. Each run Zelda has a one-in-three chance to be available, and then appears as a Stray Dog in a map chunk whose centre is at least 1200 units from the start. See Getting dogs.

Every 5 seconds Zelda marks the nearest unmarked elite or loot runner (Golden Scarab, Lost Saucer) within 600 units of Tibo. A marked enemy takes 25% more damage from every hit for 8 seconds. Bosses are never marked. Zelda's aura adds +6% luck (+24% at level 5). Training lengthens the mark to about 19.5 s and shortens the interval to 3 s at level 5. From level 3 Zelda marks two targets at once, and three at level 5.

If Tibo holds Zelda and finds Link, the two fuse into Zelda & Link.

#How it works

• Targets are chosen by distance from Tibo, not from Zelda. Only elites and pests that flee (the loot runners) qualify, and a pest that is already marked is skipped.^[1]
• Marks at once by level are 1, 1, 2, 2 and 3. If fewer targets are in range, Zelda marks as many as there are.^[2]
• With no target in range, Zelda checks again every 0.25 s and the interval does not start. An elite that comes within 600 units is marked almost immediately.
• The mark multiplies damage after elite damage and before crits, so it stacks multiplicatively with both. It applies to every source, including the Jack Russell Terrier's bites and the Greyhound's sprint.^[3]

Measured (build 41 main-B2gf34bA.js, headless tools/play.mjs, standard mode, normal difficulty; legendary dogs enabled with the game's own installLegendary hook from the run-extras chunk; Zelda added at Tibo's side and trained with the sim's own dog-join and dog-level-up functions; warp(300) so elites were about; HP refilled every tick; Tibo walking a slow circle; level-ups taking the first offer; 240 s on seeds s1–s3; marks timed from the game's dogAbility events): marks were never less than 5 s apart at level 1 or 3 s apart at level 5. The longer gaps were exactly 8 s at level 1, the mark length, and 16.75 or 19.75 s at level 5, where a mark lasts about 19.5 s. That fits Zelda skipping targets that are already marked and waiting for a mark to run out (inference).

#Tips

• Zelda is an elite killer. Elite damage from Bacon Bits or Boss Buster and the mark multiply each other.
• Taking curse adds extra elites (see Curse), which gives Zelda more targets.
• The +25% can help kill a loot runner before it escapes.
• Zelda does nothing against bosses. For the boss HP steps late in a run, look elsewhere for damage.
• If Link turns up, fusing them keeps Zelda's marks, adds Link's fluff and uses only one pack slot.

#Ability

Verified (dog ability code in sim-BkfBhQfw.js and run-extras-l2haGSVw.js): Marks the nearest elite or loot runner within 600 for 8 × power seconds: it takes +25% damage. Marks at once by level: 1/1/2/2/3. power is the training multiplier below; damage is Tibo's damage multiplier.

#Mark visuals

Verified: Zelda's ordinary marks appear as moons above pests, with a clock showing remaining time and rising stars. The renderer shows at most 24 of these marks. Reduced motion holds the moon still and hides its stars; disabling flashes suppresses the opening pop and blinking. Eclipse marks use their separate effect. Mark duration and damage bonuses are unchanged.^[4][5]

#Aura

While in Tibo's pack, Zelda adds: Luck +0.06 (luck).

#Training levels

Each level multiplies the ability. every multiplies the time between uses (lower is faster), power multiplies its strength and aura scales the aura bonus. The multipliers below are copied from the game data.

Verified: ability power is the product of power multipliers, the interval is ability.every × the product of every multipliers, and the aura is multiplied by 1 + sum of aura values.^[6]

#Obtaining

Zelda is a legendary dog (weight 0 in the normal pool). Each run, each of Link and Zelda is in the run with 33.33% chance; stray dogs at least 1200 units from the start take them from that queue. See Dogs.

#Names in other languages

Verified: the name the game shows when another language is selected in Settings, from its translation files.^[7] See Languages.

#Data

{
  "id": "pomchi",
  "ability": {
    "kind": "listen",
    "every": 5,
    "range": 600,
    "marks": [
      1,
      1,
      2,
      2,
      3
    ],
    "bonus": 0.25,
    "seconds": 8
  },
  "aura": {
    "luck": 0.06
  },
  "levelUps": [
    {
      "every": 0.88,
      "power": 1.25,
      "aura": 1
    },
    {
      "every": 0.88,
      "power": 1.25,
      "aura": 1
    },
    {
      "every": 0.88,
      "power": 1.25,
      "aura": 0.5
    },
    {
      "every": 0.88,
      "power": 1.25,
      "aura": 0.5
    }
  ],
  "weight": 0,
  "legendary": true,
  "speed": 105,
  "size": 5
}