Just like Guardians, I learned how to defeat them in time. But holy crap those first few encounters...

My very first encounter was getting croaked by the one on the Great Plateu pretty much instantly, when I'd ventured there in the early game and still only had like five hearts. I was not 100% sure you could actually fight these damn things at first. I thought they were something you were supposed to run away from or just avoid, like the Gloom itself. Then I realized that they have eyes, and you know what anything with prominent eyeballs on it means in a Zelda game: You stick an arrow through it.

The second time I had quite a few bomb flowers on me. Things went a little differently...

The, uh, latter half of the battle gave me no trouble. I'm not even sure the mofo managed to touch me once.

My stubborn ass was off-script-b-lining for anywhere I thought the master sword might be. I went straight to the deku tree then the clouds got involved. I back pedaled to under the deku tree and then back up and then back down that root shoot and stayed there. For hooours. Finally beat this handsy nightmare I’m feeling like I improvised my way through the forest temple with 4 hearts and a lot of heart. Talk to the Great Deku and get no help to find the sword. Hat in hand (more accurately a random chest somewhere) I leave the Lost Woods. Wondering around there’s shot of cold fear when I heard that music again. In the wild, wide open field no platforms no rocket shield, and not during the scheduled boss fight almost ruined the game for me. I still hate them, scorched earth with a Lionel bow on sight.

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(I'm going to try and be vague in the interest of not being spoilery for those that haven't played.) So, I did a lot of TotK "out of order," being not very good at following directions and much more likely to follow whatever just caught my attention. Which meant that I found myself trying to skydive into the Lost Woods when I realized that I was above it. And then being determined to get in when I kept voiding out. All with 5 hearts and maybe two geoglyphs. So my first "hands-on" experience was during that quest with jack-all for maneuverability room. I died several times before going back with a ton of sundelion snacks. The encounter on the plateau still startled the hell out of me lol.

(Not too much later I finished that quest and got the sword glyph (I forget in what order)... and then I finally decided to follow Impa to the temple like she had suggested many game hours ago. And I could have saved myself some grief (and spoilers) if I had just followed instructions rather than rampage across the countryside willy nilly. >_> )
- Your best bet to get into the woods from above is to land on one of the shrines and tap it quick. The cutscene interrupted the fog.
  
  Source: I also went out of order, remembered it was a pain to get through the woods, and came from above. I had the glide set though, and was not afraid to hit the ground hard.

... There's a way to beat these that isn't saturation bombing with bomb flowers and splitting bows?

Reading these replies, it feels like I'm the only one that didn't automatically take the carpet bombing approach. 😂 They're doable with regular melee. If you suck at combat like me, tanking and food-chugging is a valid method. Dazzlefruit works (briefly), as do elementals. I wouldn't be surprised if someone figured out a way to chain ice and lightning strikes a la BotW to get a stun lock on the whole group at once.

I was SO disappointed when these weren't affected by muddle bud.

The first time I "encountered" one of these, I didn't even see it. It was near / under the Morok shrine (that mini floating island near the Floret Sandbar). Just as I was halfway done climbing the roots, the sky went red (during daytime), eerie music started, and I was like "Huh, seems like the Panic Blood Moon is still a thing...." and just continued climbing. It didn't occur to me at all to look down so I missed that enemy completely. When I jumped down after activating the terminal (not doing the shrine yet) the music was normal again and I wondered what that "Dark Clump" is doing on the ground. I figured it must have been a Panic Blood Moon meteor or something? An item that fell from the blood red sky?

...so of course the next time I heard that music, I just stopped and looked upwards, determined to find that "meteor", and almost had a heart attack when a malice-infested "Death Hand" grabbed Link from offscreen <__< ... oh the joy of playing games blind and drawing dumb conclusions ...

It took me almost a full playthrough before I dared to fight those things, and yes, I too used the "carpet bomb with multishot bow" approach.... and then almost had a heart attack again once I saw the name above the health bar of the "follow-up" enemy, lol. The "second phase" is still easier IMHO.

That monster scared me so much I immediately switched to map and beamed to some shrine whenever I encountered that abomination. Was pretty proud when I didn't run away and (barely) made it to high ground.

Tldr: I'm an oldish, weathered guy scared to shit by some pixels 🙄
- Tldr: I’m an oldish, weathered guy scared to shit by some pixels
  
  There are dozens of us! Dozens!!!

I hate to admit it but I put off going into the depths for at least five weeks, if not longer. I hated being in the dark and trying to find my bearings while fighting monsters . I absolutely disliked it.

It's disorienting as hell. While there's valid criticisms about the emptiness of the depths, the feeling of initial exploration (pre-hoverbike etc.) was masterfully done IMO. I can't count how many times I went to throw/shoot a bright bloom and it landed three feet in front of my face on a wall or a root I couldn't see lol. Seeing the first Yiga base in the distance and wondering what that dim red sentry robot was, the first Frox, vast gloom swamps, armored freakin Lynels... yeah, it's creepy. And I loved it lol.
- Yes, I agree. Unfortunately for me, I covered an extreme amount of ground on foot. It was ages until I accidentally discovered Ultra Hand and then a fair amount of time had passed until I was able to build a working HoverBike. I wish the had the talent of some builders like those featured prominently in Top Gaming Play. Usually all my builds look and function like crap.

Tralfamadorians?