“Red Lynels have low-tier equipment, Blue Lynels have Mighty equipment and White & Silver Lynels have Savage equipment. Correct?”

… nope. It is a good deal more complicated than that, because Lynels and their equipment scale up at wildly different times.

To explain how Lynel weapon upgrades correlate to their color, I made 2 infographics detailing how exactly it works.

Normal Mode

Most weapons, bows, shields, Bokoblins, Moblins, Lizalfos and Lynels in the game “scale up” based on a hidden kill counter^[1] that tracks how many points you have accumulated while killing enemies, but each gear and monster has their own, unique upgrade thresholds at sometimes wildly different times^[2]. For example, at 3k points total, Lynels upgraded to their second tier, but Lynel Shields haven’t upgraded a single time yet and Lynel Bows are completely done upgrading. At 3k points, it is possible to find a Blue-Maned Lynel equipped with a regular Lynel Shield, Savage Lynel Bow and Mighty Lynel Sword at the same time.

Master Mode

Now, Master Mode works slightly different, because almost all enemies are cranked up one tier by default, but their equipment starts out the same, meaning that the upgrades still happen at the same thresholds but the enemy upgrades are shifted one tier (Lynels start out as Blue-Maned Lynels and then turn White-Maned once the player accumulated enough points for the “first upgrade”)

There are some exceptions tho: Some Lynels (and other specific enemies/equipment) never scale up or start out at different tiers.

• The Lynel on Ploymus Mountain (from the Zora Questline) will always be a Red-Maned Lynel with basic equipment, no matter how many points the player has accumulated. It simply doesn’t scale up, and neither does its equipment. It is also the only Red-Maned Lynel in Master Mode.

• The Lynels inside the Hyrule Castle Gatehouses also never scale up. They are always Blue-Maned and White-Maned in Normal Mode, and then White-Maned + Silver in Master Mode because of the rankup.

• Master Mode has an extra White-Maned Lynel on the Great Plateau which always wields a Savage Crusher and Savage Bow. Neither the Lynel itself nor it’s equipment scale.

• Not all Lynels start out at their lowest tier even if they participate in the scaling mechanic. For example, a Lynel in the Gerudo Highlands near the Sword of the Eighth Heroine starts out as White-Maned with Savage equipment even if you didn’t reach the upgrade threshold yet. Once you get enough points for the White > Silver upgrade however, it will scale up normally like the rest of them. (It’s silver in Master Mode and will turn golden eventually)

• The Lynel inside the Coliseum Ruins is especially odd, because it does not participate in the regular scaling gameplay mechanic, but instead changes color directly dependant on the number of Divine Beasts you have cleared. It will also recieve a Great Flameblade^[3] for the final upgrade, and is therefore the only Lynel in the entire game able to wield non-Lynel equipment.

If you have questions or additional information, please feel free to ask / post ;)

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