Introduction
If you haven't checked our other guide(s) about Anomaly Interception, make sure to drop a view
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
Boss Rewards
Rewards scale with how much damage you do, with significant improvements at Stages 3 and 6, and decent gain at each of Stage 7, 8, 9.
Stage | Reward |
|---|---|
Stage 1 | 0 ~ 178,000,000 Damage |
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Stage 2 | 178,000,001 ~ 475,000,000 Damage |
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Stage 3 | 475,000,001 ~ 890,000,000 Damage |
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Stage 4 | 890,000,001 ~ 1,364,000,000 Damage |
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Stage 5 | 1,364,000,001 ~ 2,194,000,000 Damage |
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Stage 6 | 2,194,000,001 ~ 3,023,000,000 Damage |
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Stage 7 | 3,023,000,001 ~ 4,500,000,000 Damage |
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Stage 8 | 4,500,000,001 ~ 5,394,000,000 Damage |
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Stage 9 | 5,394,000,001+ Damage |
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Best Nikkes
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 the best option for this fight.
Scarlet: Black Shadow: The best Wind DPS.
Liberalio : One of the best Wind DPS. She is the best CS buffer to buff SBS’ damage by about 30%, much easier to hit hard if you have her well built. If you are using Liberalio with SBS, do not bring a third Burst 3 Nikke. 
Nayuta : The best Wind Burst 2 DPS. She easily replaces Crown in BIS Wind team. High damage output for a Burst 2 Nikke, and also capable of buffing the damage of the team really well. Use Crown if survivability is an issue. 
Crown : The best general Burst 2 Nikke. She provides shield which allows you to block every slam from Kraken if timed properly. 
Asuka Shikinami Langley: Wille: Great Wind DPS. She being a collab unit is not obtainable anymore (unless rerun). 
Anis: Star: The best Burst 1 CDR for wind teams. She has lower damage output than Siren against Electric, but unlocks a higher damage ceiling for the team, especially for SBS. She also provides burst gen. Cover her against Kraken when necessary or she will die. 
Mast: Romantic Maid: One of the best general flex. She provides distributed damage buff for SBS, who is one of the best damage dealers against Kraken. 
Siren: The second best Burst 1 CDR for wind teams, dethroned by Anis: Star even in BIS wind team. Great damage output for a Burst 1 offering burst gen to the team. Use Siren if you do not have Anis: Star. 
Ark Ranger Black: Great Wind DPS. Thanks to the abundance of parts, she can keep good uptime of her transformation. She also provides sustained damage buff for Sakura: Bloom in Summer. 
Mana : Decent Wind bossing DPS. She is the second best CS buffer to buff SBS’ damage by around 30% only if there are no other charge units. 
Alice : Decent neutral DPS. She is the third best CS buffer to buff SBS’s damage by around 30%. 
Anchor: Innocent Maid: One of the best Burst 2 Nikke paired with Maid Mast for SBS. She provides distributed damage buff for SBS, who is one of the best damage dealers against Kraken. Crown and Nayuta are better choices over her for whole team damage. 
Rapi: Red Hood: Great neutral Burst 1 or Burst 3 DPS. Since she is built universally, she can fill your Kraken team until you get a proper Kraken team. Do not use Rapipi as Burst 1 when using both SBS and Liberalio.
Snow White: Heavy Arms: Great neutral DPS. Since she is built universally, she can fill your Kraken team until you get a proper Kraken team. She also offers burst gen. 
Helm (Treasure): Decent neutral DPS or flex. She offers burst gen, buff and increases Crown S2 uptime. When used as neutral DPS, she also offers lifesteal healing for the team. Do not use her together with both SBS and Liberalio or she will steal cs buff away from SBS. 
Sakura: Bloom in Summer: Decent Wind bossing DPS. Thanks to the abundance of parts, she can keep good uptime on her sustained damage. 
Rei Ayanami (Tentative Name): Decent Wind DPS. She being a collab unit is not obtainable anymore (unless rerun). Not recommended to use her without Asuka: WILLE. 
Blanc: Decent Burst 2 Nikke for Kraken. She offers survivability and solves the Wind requirement for the team. 
Noir : Filler Wind DPS. She enables Blanc. Not recommended to use her without Blanc. 
Velvet : Niche Burst 2 Nikke or flex for Siren team only. When used as flex, she offers charge damage buff while when used as Burst 2, she works as a sub-dps.
Best Teams
Here are some example teams you can try:
Everyone (almost) is a DPS now Mode: Anomaly - Kraken || Element: Wind The jellyfish works as a cs buffer for sbs, and both of them dealing devestating damage to Kraken! Consider starting with Liberalio burst if you are using Crown. Anis: Star may be replaced with Siren. Characters
About the team
Burst Maid Mast every third burst (Crown → Crown → Mast).
Cover Anis when necessary or she will die to Kraken. Substitutions
Nayuta may be replaced with Crown.
Liberalio may be replaced with Mana or Alice or Helm (Treasure).
Mast: Romantic Maid may be replaced with Crown or Naga (only used with Crown).
Missing the great swordwoman? Mode: Anomaly - Kraken || Element: Wind Burst Maid Mast every third burst (Crown → Crown → Mast). Anis: Star may be replaced with Siren or Rapi: Red Hood. Characters
About the team
Substitutions
Crown may be replaced with Nayuta.
Liberalio or Asuka: WILLE may be replaced with Snow White: Heavy Arms, or Cinderella: Crystal Wave.
Mast: Romantic Maid may be replaced with Helm (Treasure), Privaty (Treasure) or Naga.
Maids vs Octopus Mode: Anomaly - Kraken || Element: Wind 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. Anis: Star may be replaced with Siren. No Pilgrims Mode: Anomaly - Kraken || Element: Wind Beginner-friendly team. Bunny duo being wind helps team-building in the early-game. 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). Liter may be replaced with any B1 CDR.Characters
About the team
Burst Maid Mast with SBS.Substitutions
Liberalio can be replaced with Asuka: Wille, Alice, Rapi: Red Hood, Snow White: Heavy Arms, or Cinderella: Crystal Wave. Characters
About the team
Substitutions
Boss Fight Breakdown
Kraken isn't mechanically heavy. For a TL;DR, you should:
Bring a Wind-code Nikke.
Play on a horizontal orientation, 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.
It deals extra damage to Electric Nikkes:
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-destruct: 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.
Tips
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.
Gameplay Videos
For visual learners, a pretty fast way to understand what to do is to watch a walkthrough/successful run: