It did. In TotK only, put (almost) any weapon or shield on the ground in front of a Rock Octorok and let it inhale it and spit it out. You’ll get back the same base weapon, with the same fused item, at full durability, but with a rerolled modifier. Each Rock Octorok can only do this once, so kill it afterwards so that you remember which ones you’ve used. They’ll respawn at each Blood Moon so that you can repair again.
Some special weapons can’t be repaired this way, so you have to use a workaround. If you want to keep whatever you have fused to them, go to Tarry Town and have the goron separate it. Then fuse the unrepairable weapon to anything that can be repaired. Feed that to a Rock Octorok, then take it back to Tarry Town and have it separated. The “unrepairable” weapon will good as new.
My Eldin map is covered in stamps showing where Rock Octoroks are, and I have a full inventory of strong weapons because I switch when their durability is low and then go on a somewhat tedious repairing spree when most of my weapons are flashing red.
TotK didn’t introduce a way to repair weapons, it reduced their durability to near nothing then gave you a way to buff them.
It did. In TotK only, put (almost) any weapon or shield on the ground in front of a Rock Octorok and let it inhale it and spit it out. You’ll get back the same base weapon, with the same fused item, at full durability, but with a rerolled modifier. Each Rock Octorok can only do this once, so kill it afterwards so that you remember which ones you’ve used. They’ll respawn at each Blood Moon so that you can repair again.
Some special weapons can’t be repaired this way, so you have to use a workaround. If you want to keep whatever you have fused to them, go to Tarry Town and have the goron separate it. Then fuse the unrepairable weapon to anything that can be repaired. Feed that to a Rock Octorok, then take it back to Tarry Town and have it separated. The “unrepairable” weapon will good as new.
My Eldin map is covered in stamps showing where Rock Octoroks are, and I have a full inventory of strong weapons because I switch when their durability is low and then go on a somewhat tedious repairing spree when most of my weapons are flashing red.
And so much of this is just grind:
BoTW was a grindfest, and ToTK chucked more grind on top