If you’ve spent hours roaming the mist-shrouded valleys and fortress strongholds of Where Winds Meet, you know how much of a difference a powerful ranged weapon can make against hordes of bandits or armored boss enemies. Fire arrows are one of the most underrated early to mid-game tools you can unlock, letting you set flammable traps ablaze from a distance, deal ongoing burn damage to tough foes, and even light unlit torches to unlock hidden caves. This guide breaks down exactly how to get fire arrows Where Winds Meet, no complicated glitches or story progression locks required.
Where to Find Fire Arrows Where Winds Meet: Exact Location
First off, you don’t have to beat any main story missions to grab these fire arrows, which is great if you’re still grinding the first act of the game. Head south from the starting village of Green Bamboo Hamlet until you hit the rocky cliffs bordering the Red Pine Forest. You’ll spot a half-ruined guard tower tucked between two giant pine trees, marked with a small red cloth flag hanging from its upper ledge. If you’re having trouble finding the tower, pull up your map and look for the small unmarked icon that looks like a broken tower between Green Bamboo Hamlet and the Red Pine Forest fast travel point. You can unlock the Red Pine Forest fast travel point first if you don’t want to walk all the way from the starting village, which cuts the travel time down to about 2 minutes instead of 10. That’s what I did on my second playthrough, and it saved me a ton of time.
Don’t rush in, though: the tower is guarded by three low-level bandits, each with a basic sword and no armor, so you can take them out with stealth takedowns or a few quick sword strikes if you don’t mind making noise. Once you clear the enemies, climb the ladder on the west side of the tower to reach the top floor. You’ll find a wooden chest tucked under a tattered rug, and that’s where the fire arrow recipe and 15 pre-crafted fire arrows are stored. But wait, you don’t just get the arrows here: you also unlock the ability to craft more at any workbench once you pick up the recipe. Make sure you loot the small satchel next to the chest too, it has 20 fire thorns, the core crafting material for extra fire arrows.
Prerequisites You Need Before Collecting Fire Arrows
You might think you can run straight to the tower as soon as you start the game, but there are a couple of small boxes you need to tick first to avoid wasting your trip. None of these take more than 10 minutes to check off if you’re just starting out:
- Reach character level 5, so you can survive the occasional wolf attack on the road to Red Pine Forest
- Unlock the basic climbing ability from the starting village tutorial, so you can scale the tower ladder without falling
- Have at least 3 empty slots in your inventory, to hold the recipe, arrows, and fire thorns you’ll collect
I missed that last one on my first run, and had to run all the way back to the village to dump extra herbs before I could grab the rewards, which was super annoying. If you’re low on inventory space, you can eat any extra food items you’re carrying to free up slots quickly, since you can forage more food along the road later. Another thing to note: if you’ve already cleared the bandit camp near the Red Pine Forest for a side quest, the tower guards might already be dead when you arrive, so you can just climb straight up and grab the loot without a fight. You won’t miss out on any rewards by clearing the camp first, so don’t worry about messing up the loot spawn.
How to Craft More Fire Arrows After Unlocking the Recipe
Grabbing the 15 free fire arrows from the guard tower is great, but you’ll burn through them fast if you use them for every combat encounter. Luckily, the recipe you collect lets you make as many as you want whenever you visit a workbench, as long as you have the right materials. Each fire arrow costs 2 standard iron arrows and 1 fire thorn to craft, so you’ll want to stock up on both materials whenever you’re exploring. Fire thorns grow on small red bushes all over the Red Pine Forest and surrounding rocky areas, and you can harvest 3-5 thorns per bush with no special tools required. They respawn every 20 in-game minutes too, so you can loop around the forest a couple of times to stock up if you need a lot of arrows fast.
Standard arrows can be bought from most village merchants for 10 copper each, or looted from dead archer enemies you find roaming the map. We recommend crafting at least 50 fire arrows before you take on the first main story boss, the Iron Claw Bandit Leader, since he’s weak to burn damage and will take 30% more damage from fire attacks. If you’re running low on iron arrows, you can also salvage unused melee weapons you loot from bandits to get iron ore, then craft standard arrows at a workbench for half the cost of buying them from merchants. That’s a great trick if you’re low on copper early in the game, and it lets you turn useless junk you pick up from fights into valuable combat tools.
Best Uses for Fire Arrows in Where Winds Meet
Fire arrows aren’t just for dealing extra damage in combat, and knowing when to use them can save you a ton of time and resources as you explore. First, they’re perfect for dealing with groups of enemies clustered near flammable objects like hay bales or oil barrels: one well-placed shot can set the whole area on fire, taking out 3-4 enemies at once without you having to get close. They’re also incredibly useful for exploration: you can shoot unlit torches across chasms or on high ledges to unlock hidden doors, burn through spider webs blocking cave entrances, and even melt ice patches that block access to hidden treasure chests in the northern mountain areas.
That said, don’t waste fire arrows on every random enemy you run into. Fire arrows are useless against enemies wearing fire-resistant armor, which you’ll start seeing on high-level bandit raiders and some late-game boss enemies. If you’re fighting enemies near water, their burn effect will wear off twice as fast, so stick to standard arrows for those fights to avoid wasting resources. You should also avoid using them in dry grassy areas if you don’t want to accidentally set yourself on fire, since the flames can spread quickly and catch you off guard if you’re standing too close.
Another fun use? You can shoot fire arrows at fruit trees to knock down ripe fruit instantly, instead of climbing the tree to pick it one by one. It’s a small trick, but it saves a ton of time when you’re stocking up on healing items before a long exploration run. I’ve also used fire arrows to distract patrols of high-level enemies when I’m trying to sneak past a guarded fortress to get to a hidden collectible. Just shoot a fire arrow at a hay bale on the opposite side of the patrol path, and the guards will all run over to investigate the fire, leaving you a clear path to sneak through. It works 9 times out of 10, and it’s way easier than trying to fight a group of enemies 10 levels higher than you.
Fire arrows are a game-changing tool that makes both combat and exploration far easier, no matter what playstyle you prefer in Where Winds Meet. You don’t have to grind hours of story missions or beat tough bosses to get your hands on them, either: just follow the steps we laid out to grab the recipe and free arrows from the Red Pine Forest guard tower, and you can start using them right away. Now that you know how to get fire arrows Where Winds Meet, you can test them out on your next run through the bandit camps or hidden caves scattered across the map, and see just how much of a difference they make for your playthrough.
