Anomaly Interception - Kraken

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Anomaly Interception

Kraken in Anomaly Interception is an Iron Boss weak to Wind Nikkes. It is farmed the most due to its extra custom module drops. This guide will go over:

• Boss HP and Rewards
• Best Nikkes and Teams
• Bossfight Breakdown and Tips
• Gameplay Videos

Rewards scale with how much damage you do, with significant improvements at Stages 3 and 6 and reaching their max at Stage 7.

As you noticed, there are a few good checkpoints here:

• Stage 3: Better % drop Custom Module than 2 previous stages.
• Stage 6: Not only the % drop increases, but also the amount of CM can drop is increased up to 3.
• Stage 7: Max reward

There are different team variations for Kraken, some requiring heavier manual while some are more straightforward. Regardless, you'll want at least 1 Wind unit on your team to be able to clear QTE (red circles) while Kraken is shielded. Due to elemental advantages, Wind DPS will have their damage boosted by a lot if they have elemental damage bonuses (from OL & other sources), so investing in Top Tier Wind DPSes is best option for this fight.

Here are some example teams you can try:

Triple Wind DPS

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 1

Burst 3

Burst Flex

This team combines the strongest Wind DPSes in the game together to ensure high damage output. It is also the standard Kraken team formation. If you use Naga, you will have to cover her a lot during the fight because she takes extra damage for being Electric. Mast: Romantic Maid is expected to be fully invested and should Burst at 3 stacks if she gets used (Crown Burst → Crown Burst → Mast: Romantic Maid Burst → Repeat). If you end up using Rapi: Red Hood as your B1 option, do make sure you bring Helm (Treasure) along for burst regen.

SBS Hypercarry

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 1

Burst 3

Burst Flex

Completely focused on buffing SBS as much as possible, making use of every buff given.

Manually firing full charged shots using Helm (Treasure) lends more burst regen. If you use Naga, you will have to cover her a lot during the fight because she takes extra damage for being Electric. Mast: Romantic Maid is expected to be fully invested, and her Burst should be used with SBS’s Burst if available.

Full Auto

Burst 2

Burst 1

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 2

The team has it all: heals, shielding, damage and AoE (for shooting down missiles), which actually allows it to run full auto. This is made possible by Anchor: Innocent Maid storing the excess heals provided by Helm to survive the attack caused by failing the QTE (red circles). For this team to run properly it is very important that Helm is in the middle and Anchor: Innocent Maid is on the left side of Crown for burst rotations to line up.

This team only works at high investments with SR collection items and high synchro level (recommended 381+) to be able to survive. Reaching Boss Stage 7 is also possible if your SBS is strong enough.

Crownless

Burst 2

Burst 2

Burst 1

Burst 3

Burst 3

No Crown? No problem! You can still do enough damage with Maids and reach Stage 9. Since they give a lot of distributed damage buffs, SBS performs super well here.

Mast: Romantic Maid should Burst with SBS or your stronger DPS.

No Pilgrims

Burst 1

Burst 2

Flex

Flex

Flex

Flex

Burst 3

Beginner-friendly team. Blanc provides comfy healing and ability to hit QTE (red circles), and you get to use whatever burst 3 you started with/invested in (if you use an electric unit, you have to cover them from attacks). Maids Mast and Anchor, or the Tia and Naga twin will perform better if you have them, but you'll need some Wind unit to deal with QTE (red circles).

Kraken isn't mechanically heavy. For a TL;DR, you should:

• Bring a Wind-code Nikke.
• Play on horizontal, so you can reach the tentacles on either side easily.
• Focus on shooting the core inside the front tentacle in Phase 1 and delay destroying the front tentacle in Phase 2.

If you are looking for the full breakdown: Kraken stats are pretty low at Stages 1~3, starting at Stage 4, the boss gains a massive jump in attack stat with every stage, and a small jump in defense stat. At Stages 8 and 9, the boss will have a massive amount of attack, enough to hurt you with every attack, so you'll want not to get hit in later stages. It also deals extra damage to Electric Nikke:

• 300% at Stages 1~3
• 400% at Stages 4~6
• 500% at Stages 7~9

Phase I

Kraken has:

• A core below a layer of armor that can only be hit by Pierce units.
• Big tentacles at the front with a core indicated by a yellow circle. Aim assist can lock onto the core. They can only be visible in horizontal mode, so don't play this in vertical mode.
• Small tentacles on the back that just shoot small missiles (can be iframed).

• Front tentacles will move a bit for some time, then charge an attack that ignores cover and shield before self-destructing afterwards. The only way to stop the attack is to destroy the tentacle.
• Don't let the front tentacle(s) succeed in attacking your team; they hit very hard.
• Since the front tentacle core is exposed, you should be shooting at it at all times.
• The back tentacles will do nothing other than fire missiles; you can ignore them if they don't affect your survival.

Kraken will spawn 1 front tentacle on a random side and 2 back tentacles at start. When the front tentacle is destroyed, it'll respawn another front tentacle and any destroyed back tentacles. After 2 front tentacles get destroyed, it'll do different attacks depending on how they were destroyed:

• Both front tentacles self-destructed: It'll fire 2 sets of missiles that can be destroyed or iframed, then charge an AoE attack hitting all Nikkes. This attack can be shielded or covered from.

• Destroyed at least 1 front tentacle: It'll proceed to immediately charge an AoE attack instead that can be shielded or covered from, this time with both front tentacles up.

After that, it'll proceed to put on an Elemental Shield. Only Wind Nikkes can deal damage through this shield. It has 2 slightly different versions based on the number of front tentacles destroyed:

• Both front tentacles self-destructed: It'll fire 2 sets of missiles that can be destroyed or iframed, then put up a QTE (red circles) that can only be shot using Wind Nikkes.

• Destroyed at least 1 front tentacle: It'll put up a QTE (red circles) right away that can only be shot using Wind Nikkes.

In both versions, failing the QTE results in a very powerful AoE attack that ignores shield and cover. It will one-shot your entire team in most cases, hence why you should have at least 1 Wind Nikke to be able to destroy them. After successfully destroying all red circles or failing the QTE and surviving the attack, the shield will be dispelled. It'll repeat this entire Phase 1 sequence again but without the Elemental Shield.

Next, Kraken will remove its armor, exposing the center core for the rest of the fight then submerge, starting a special QTE before entering Phase 2.

Interim

After submerging, Kraken puts up the 2nd QTE of the fight (red and gray circles) aka Special QTE. Hitting gray or failing to hit all red circles within the time limit results in a fail, which leads to the boss charging an unavoidable AoE attack that one-shots your team.

Avoid shooting the circles using a weapon that has a lot of spread (SG/RL) because they can easily hit gray circles by accident. Also, if during Full Burst or if you are using Little Mermaid to destroy the circles, other units can accidentally hit gray circles. To avoid this, you can keep them in cover and only shoot with 1 Nikke.

One QTE pattern will be randomly selected out of 4 available options:

Phase 2

After successfully clearing the QTE, boss will resurface and spawn 1 front tentacle and 2 back tentacles:

• Front tentacles now charge up their attack as soon as they spawn and have less HP. Other than that, they are the same as Phase 1.
• Make sure to destroy them before they attack you. They hit very hard.

After a front tentacle is destroyed, another spawns on a random side. Back tentacles only respawn after 2 front tentacles are destroyed.

• After 4 total front tentacles are destroyed, if any back tentacles are alive, they will fire a laser beam at a random unit that ignores cover and shield. To counter it, you should either time Crown’s S2 invulnerability or destroy the back tentacles before they charge up the attack, as they will fire the laser even if you manage to kill the back tentacles while they are charging.

After 4 total front tentacles are destroyed, the boss puts up the 2nd Elemental Shield. Only Wind Nikkes can deal damage through the shield. Back tentacles then respawn and fire a round of missiles. Be careful because they really hurt at later Stages, so you might want to take cover from them. The boss then puts up a 3rd QTE (red circles) that can only be destroyed by Wind Nikkes. Failing this results in an unavoidable attack that wipes your entire team. Clearing the QTE dispels the shield.

Next, the boss will charge an AoE attack that can be shielded or covered from. In later Stages, this can one-shot any unprotected Nikkes. Additionally, if any back tentacles are alive, they will charge and fire a laser beam. Just like before, you should either time Crown’s S2 invulnerability or destroy the back tentacles before they start charging. Kraken will repeat the Phase 2 sequence till the end of the fight.

• In Phase 1, you'll want to shoot the core of the front tentacles as much as possible. You can enable aim assist for a significantly easier time hitting them.
• When the boss charges any AoE attack, make sure your units have a shield. If they do, you should be fine. Otherwise, you should cover them.
• In Phase 2, since the boss only puts up an Elemental Shield after the 4th front tentacle dies, you can intentionally delay killing them to have more time without shield and more time hitting the stationary center core. This is also helpful if you are running any non-Wind DPS to ensure they don't Burst during the Elemental Shield leading to damage loss.
• The more time spent shooting core, the better. It is one of the things affecting your damage output the most.
• You can prep a Full Charge with a Sniper or RL (not SBS) in the last 1-2 seconds of Full Burst and release that shot after Full Burst ends for quick extra burst gen. If using Alice, you can also line up the tentacle and main body for collateral.

For visual learners, a pretty fast way to understand what to do is to watch a walkthrough/successful run:

Full credit goes to the original creators.