Hovering

Discovered by FierceLinkMaster

Introduction

Using the Infinite Sword Glitch (ISG) and backflipping into shieldable damage, Link can literally hover in the air and reach distances once thought impossible to reach. This is easily one of the most useful techniques in the game, if not the entire series (although it's even more useful in Majora's Mask).

To hover you need damage to hit your shield. Bombs and bombchus are the most commonly used methods of damage, but most enemy damage will do. To start the hover there is a prerequisite height that must be reached or else you will fall back to the ground. Starting a hover from one bomb on flat ground is not high enough.

How It Works

Normally when ISG is activated, it will not allow you to walk/run off edges; in fact, you can even get stuck at the very end of an edge if you keep pressing against it. This is the key idea behind bomb-hovering and other ISG related hovering techniques. When you shield damage in the air you are able to stick, as if grounded. And once stuck, ISG will not allow you to move from that spot because you can't walk off edges normally and there is no ground you can walk on since you are in the air.

OoT hovering methods vary greatly from its MM counterparts because explosion physics in the are vastly different. OoT's bombs are animated, meaning every animated frame extends the range of the bomb explosion, the radius of which starts small and expands to full size. MM's bombs, upon explosion, hit in the full range of the explosion for the duration of the blast, with no spreading or variation in range. It's because of this pivotal difference that many methods and techniques have been contrived to not only allow for hovering under various item limitations, but also simply out of necessity in hovering at all.

In MM the blast is big enough to hit you after a backflip, sidehop, etc when hovering. However in OoT, because of the slowly expanding blast radius, sidehops and backflips can cause you travel away from the explosion too quickly. To compensate for this, a variety of techniques have been developed, many which involve using an item to slow Link's momentum. This brings us to the hoverboots, which cause Link's backflip to gain less distance, making bomb and bombchu hovering much easier than if you weren't wearing them. Another way to make bomb hovering easier is to hover while against a wall. The wall will shorten Link's backflip distance.

Easy Bomb Hover Using the "Breathing Method"

Discovered by ZFG

The easiest way to bomb hover is to get ISG and put Link's back against a ledge while wearing the hover boots (the alternative to wearing hoverboots is to make sure there's a wall/object close behind Link's backside to shorten his backflip distance). When you pull out a bomb you'll notice Link's visible breathing will reset itself and his body will begin to move up and down as he breaths in and out; right at the moment when Link's second exhale begins after pulling out a bomb, press and hold the shield button to drop the bomb immediately followed by a backflip. If timed correctly you should now be suspended in midair a bit farther back and higher than you were previously. You no longer need to hold the Z button and you can repeat the same bomb hovering process as many times as you like.

NOTE: Hovering with the hoverboots on is much more forgiving than with them off, the wide time window for you to backflip allows you to greatly dictate the amount of height & distance you gain from a hover, where as with kokiri boot hovering you'll need to pay much more attention to timing and there's also a smaller range of height/distance for you to control.

Staircase Hover

Discovered by Acryte

Another way to start a hover, which is especially useful on flat-ground when no ledges or slopes are present, is the staircase hover method, usually used for starting a hover on flat ground. Place 2 bombs about 1 sidehop and about 1 second apart. The easiest way is to hold Z, shield drop the 1st bomb, backwalk just outside the reach of the 1st bomb's explosion range, and shield drop a second bomb. Then just run forwards back in front of the 1st bomb and time the backflip so that you are over it when it explodes. You should stick in the air, then backflip again before you fall back down the the ground (because you aren't high enough) and, if timed properly, you should stick the hover over the 2nd bomb and be high enough to hover without falling back down. It seems hard at first but before long you'll use it for starting every hover on flat ground, which is quite a useful technique to have at your disposal.

Bomb Hover Without Hoverboots or a Wall Behind Link

Discovered by ZeldaXMaster

This is a very difficult method of bomb hovering. You'll need to backflip a bit later than you would with the Breathing Method. The timing is very strict (only a couple of frames of leeway), since your backflip will gain full distance.

Slingshot Bombchu Hovering

Discovered by Acryte

If you are Young Link and the above method is a bit too hard, you have the option to use slingshot hovering in order to halt link's momentum - pull your Slingshot out and draw it back (a seed is not required) and backflip. Fire the Slingshot. This is where timing is everything, because this method can be used to gain mostly vertical height, mostly horizontal distance, or a mix between the two. The faster you fire the seed the more height you will get, whereas longer you wait, the more distance you will get, up until you are too far away from the blast. Next, after you have fired the seed to stop your horizontal movement, shield drop a chu and then continue holding your shield. If you did it right the chu should hit your shield easily and you will stick the hover. Repeat as necessary.

Bombchu Hovering with Hoverboots

Adult Link has the luxury of hover boots which allows for the easiest method for hovering. A backflip with hover boots has less momentum and will be short enough for a chu to hit your shield as long as you don't wait too long to shield it. Just backflip and then shield drop a chu while continuing to hold the shield button until the explosion stops. Another nice thing about bombchu hovering with the hover boots is the ability to easily gain more height than distance if you choose. Instead of backflipping then pulling out the chu, pull out the chu before backflipping, then shield drop it and backflip at the same time. You can also sidehop hover with hover boots, but you need to wait about a full second after sidehopping before shielding the bomb to make sure it doesn't damage you.

Bombchu Hovering with Bow/Hookshot

As Adult Link, you can use the bow or hookshot the same way slingshot is used as child for bombchu hovering.

Contortion Bombchu Hovering

Discovered by Pokey

Using the hookshot/longshot's aiming system in conjunction with a backflip, you can gain large distance during bombchu hovering. Get ISG and back against a ledge. Hold Z and pull out your hookshot, now aim directly upwards until the hookshot's red dot stop moving. Press A to do a backflip and then immediately shield a chu. NOTE: This hovering method with not work in some areas of the that have many items loaded nearby Link. You also can only use this method while wearing the Kokiri Boots.

Sideflip Bombchu Hovering

Discovered by Acryte

While hovering in the air, hold the control stick at a slight downward angle, just enough so that Link tries to backwalk slowly but the A button still says "attack". If you press A you will do a sideroll, and if you hold it down and at an angle to the left or right you can control the direction he faces with the roll. If you backflip when coming up from a sideroll, when timed properly, it will do a sideflip, a sideways backflip. This shortens the backflip's length by altering its trajectory, so that pulling out a chu and shield dropping it allows it to still hit your shield; unlike a normal backflip where shield dropping it won't hit your shield. Sometimes a sideflip will instead come out to be a backwards sidehop which doesn't help at all. This method is pretty difficult and is generally only used for hover boots skip purposes because there are others ways to shorten backflips. However, it does cover a lot of horizontal distance per flip. The order of this trick is where you sideroll, sideflip, and then very quickly shield drop the bombchu after the sideflip. Precision in your timing of the shield drop is necessary.

Angled Bombchu Hovering

While in the air, hold the control stick at an angle; either between forward and right, or between forward and left. You should see Link begin to walk in that direction. Make sure that you keep the control stick in this position so that Link does not begin to walk sideways--or else you will simply sidehop and the explosion will not hit your shield. If you pull out a bombchu and then backflip from this position, Link's shield will just touch the edge of the explosion radius. It is also possible to get this to work with a sidehop as well.

Miscellaneous

Out of Bounds (OoB) Hovering (GCN Only)

On the N64, if you shield drop a Bombchu into an OoB void it will freeze the game. In the GCN versions however, Shield Dropping a Bombchu over a void creates a double explosion large enough to hit your Shield, even if you do a normal Backflip, removing the need for the above methods. As child you can even Sidehop Hover, thanks to the bigger explosion. On VC version, there is neither a freeze, nor a bigger explosion radius.

NOTE: If there is another bombchu running in bounds, and you Shield Drop a Bombchu OoB, it will freeze both the GC/VC versions. It is currently unknown why this happens.

Down A & Slippery slopes

Discovered by Cosmo

If you try hovering over a surface that if you were to walk on would make you slide, you will become stuck in place. You cannot backflip or sidehop, and only occasionally will you be able to roll. You will need to draw your sword or use a bomb or chu to blow you out of the hover. However if you have the Down A glitch activated while hovering this will not happen because Down A can walk on slippery slopes normally.

Video of down A hovering goes here

Down A / 360 Degree Hovering

Discovered by Acryte

Normally when hovering, if you press Z then your angle becomes locked and you are unable to rotate and change link's angle in the air. If you Z target an enemy, a bombchu, etc, while hovering however, when you untarget it, it will unlock and you will be able to rotate freely 360 degrees, but you will not be able to backflip until you press Z again to fix the which will lock it again. Down A glitch activated, you can change your angle during mid hover without the need of a Z-targettable object, but usually you must be Swordless to get the most out of it because Down A glitch disables your buttons, whereas being swordless allows you to use them again. It sounds useful but because of the requirements its rarely used, but its very fun to mess around with.

Double Roll Forward Backflip

Discovered by MrGrunz

Like the Sideflip Hover method, this trick utilizes siderolling to alter the trajectory of the backflip so that it contacts the shield. Normally because of our jumping options, we are limited in the direction we travel while hovering to the backwards or back-diagonal directions. This technique allows us to travel forwards with our hover, which is of great use depending on the location of the hover. It is preformed by doing a sideways roll, and then near the end of it, doing an additional sideways roll in the same direction. This alters the angle Link is facing so that it is nearly facing backwards. Press forward and A and you will have executed the forward backflip.

Video of forward backflip hover goes here

Nayru's Love effect

Discovered by AKA

If you have Nayrus Love on you cannot hover. This is because when your shield contacts an explosion in the air when Nayru's Love is activated, it activates an aerial superslide instead and will not stick the hover even if ISG is active.

Video of NL aerial superslide goes here