Link

#Overview

Link the Pomeranian is a legendary dog. He is not in the ordinary breed pool. Each run Link has a one-in-three chance to be available, and he then appears as a Stray Dog in a map chunk whose centre is at least 1200 units from the start. See Getting dogs.

Link grows a fluff charge every 10 seconds, holding one at a time (two from level 3). When something would hurt Tibo, a charge cancels the whole hit. Link then sneezes, pushing nearby pests away from Tibo; from level 5 the sneeze also freezes them for 0.5 s. His aura adds +0.15 HP per second of recovery (+0.6 at level 5). Training shortens the regrowth to about 6 s and makes the sneeze push harder.

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

#How it works

• Order of checks when Tibo is hit: invulnerability first, then dodge, then fluff, then Hash Brown Shield guard charges, then armor. A dodged hit does not use up fluff, and a blocked hit is cancelled in full, however large.^[1]
• Fluff does not block damage from biome terrain or hazard pools. Those skip dodge and guard as well.
• Charges: 1 at levels 1 and 2, 2 from level 3.^[2]
• While Link is full, he checks every 0.25 s for a free slot, and the regrowth interval only starts once a charge has grown. So after a quiet spell, a spent charge comes back within a quarter of a second; the interval only limits hits that come close together.^[3]
• The sneeze hits pests within 50 units of Tibo; this radius does not grow with training. Push is 220 × power, scaled down by each pest's mass as with the Border Collie. Bosses are not pushed, and the 0.5 s freeze applies from level 5 only.^[4]

Measured (build 41 main-B2gf34bA.js, headless tools/play.mjs, seed wiki, standard mode, normal difficulty; legendary dogs enabled with the game's own installLegendary hook from the run-extras chunk; Link added at Tibo's side and trained with the sim's own dog-join and dog-level-up functions; HP refilled every tick, so hits still spent charges; Tibo standing still; level-ups taking the first offer; 150 s; charges timed from the game's dogAbility events): charges grew at least 10 s apart at level 1 and at least 6 s apart at level 5, where 6 of 8 gaps were exactly 6 s.

#Tips

• Fluff blocks a hit regardless of its size, so it is worth most against boss attacks and other heavy hits. Armor, by contrast, loses value as enemy levels rise (see Armor).
• Dodge from Thick Skin or Ghost Skin is rolled first, so dodge and fluff don't waste each other.
• The recovery aura stacks with Root Network and the Saint Bernard.
• If Zelda turns up, fusing keeps Link's fluff, adds Zelda's marks and holds both in one pack slot.

#Ability

Verified (dog ability code in sim-BkfBhQfw.js and run-extras-l2haGSVw.js): Holds fluff charges (1, or 2 from level 3) that cancel the next hit on Tibo; spending one sneezes pests away (push 220, plus a 0.5 s stun from level 5). power is the training multiplier below; damage is Tibo's damage multiplier.

#Fluff visuals

Verified: stored fluff charges appear as tufts orbiting Link or Zelda & Link. Spending a charge pops a tuft and sends wisps outward with the sneeze. Reduced motion holds the tufts and wisps still. These visuals do not change the shield or knockback values.^[5][6]

#Aura

While in Tibo's pack, Link adds: Recovery (HP/s) +0.15 (recovery).

#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.^[7]

#Obtaining

Link 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.^[8] See Languages.

#Data

{
  "id": "pomeranian",
  "ability": {
    "kind": "puff",
    "every": 10,
    "charges": 1,
    "moreChargesAt": 3,
    "radius": 50,
    "push": 220,
    "stun": 0.5,
    "stunAt": 5
  },
  "aura": {
    "recovery": 0.15
  },
  "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": 95,
  "size": 5
}