How can I find ancient cores in Breath of the Wild?
I'm saving up for some primo ancient Armor, and need a ton of ancient gears, shafts, and cores to get it. It seems like the gears and shafts are fairly regular drops, and sometimes can be found in rusted-out Guardians without a fight, as well as in a pile from defeated large and small Guardians.
But I'm having a lot more trouble locating cores. I think the only ones I've gotten so far came from defeated full-size Guardians, but now I can't recall.
Which (live or dead) Guardians can drop cores, and are there any particularly good ways to find a bunch of em?
Solution 1:
According to IGN's Wiki, they can be found on the following:
- Guardian Stalkers
- Guardian Skywatchers
- Guardian Turrets
- Sentries
- Guardian Scout III
- Guardian Scout IV
They cannot be found at Decayed Guardians. There are also Shrine chests that contain them:
- Treasure Chest in Akh Va'quot Shrine in the Tabantha Region
- Treasure Chest in Daag Chokah Shrine in the Woodland Region
- Treasure Chest in Dah Kaso Shrine in the Central Hyrule Region
- Treasure Chest in Dako Tah Shrine in the Gerudo Wasteland Region
- Treasure Chest in Hawa Koth Shrine in the Gerudo Wasteland Region
- Treasure Chest in Ishto Soh Shrine in the Lake Hylia Region
- Treasure Chest in Kaya Wan Shrine in the Lanayru Region
- Treasure Chest in Ketoh Wawai Shrine in the Woodland Region
- Treasure Chest in Maka Rah Shrine in the Hebra Region
- Treasure Chest in Rin Oyaa Shrine in the Hebra Region
- Treasure Chest in Shai Utoh Shrine in the Faron Region
- Treasure Chest in Tu Ka'loh Shrine in the Akkala Region
Solution 2:
The other two answers here are good if you're sticking within the game, but if you're willing to shell out for an Amiibo, the guardian Amiibo drops random guardian parts, as confirmed by this source. Several other sources from a quick googling confirm this (I can't personally confirm it, they were all sold out when I was playing BotW) (I can personally confirm it now that I own the amiibo). I can't find a source saying what percentage of the random drops are an ancient core, but you can reuse the Ammibos each day, so if you're planning on spending several days farming ancient parts, this will help quite a bit.