How to Beat HULLBREAKER — INKWAVE Boss Battle Guide

HULLBREAKER is INKWAVE’s co-op Boss Battle, in public beta. One squad of up to eight players — humans and bots together — fights a giant armoured hermit crab that has made its home in a rusted shipping container. Win by dropping its health to zero before the clock runs out.

The fight is about reading tells. Every attack has a telegraph of at least 0.7 seconds, and every attack has an answer. HULLBREAKER also paints the arena with corrupt ink that slows and hurts the squad, so painting it back is part of the job.

How to start a Boss Battle

• Offline, choose Play, then Boss Battle, then a stage, a time of day and a difficulty.
• Online, create or join a private room and set the lobby mode to Boss Battle. The whole room becomes one squad, team Alpha.
• The timer offers three, four or five minutes. Four minutes is the default.
• The fight works on every stage except Cargo Terminal, and it works at day and at dusk.
• Boss health scales with the squad: a human counts as one unit, a bot as 0.6.

HULLBREAKER’s body and hazards never enter a spawn pad, so a spawn is always a safe place to regroup. Splats are not a loss: you respawn after 5.5 seconds and rejoin the fight.

The three phases

The crab fights in three phases, split at 66% and 33% health.

Phase	Health	What changes
1	100–66%	Slam, barrage, sweep and charge
2	66–33%	Crablets join the fight and the crab moves faster
3	<33%	The shell cracks, the belly opens and Shell Frenzy joins the move set

Each phase change plays a roar and gives the squad a short break while the crab is invulnerable. A phase change never interrupts a move that is already running.

Every attack and its counterplay

Attack	What it does	How to answer
Crusher Slam	The big claw rises, then slams. A ring of ink expands along the ground at 9.5 m/s for 32 damage; phases 2 and 3 send two rings, 0.6–0.9 s apart.	Jump the ring as it reaches you, or stand outside its 19-metre reach.
Container Barrage	Lobs 4, 5 or 7 barrels at marked circles. Each burst deals 52 damage and leaves an ink puddle.	Leave the marked circle before the barrel lands.
Ink Cannon Sweep	The eye cannon charges, then sprays a 17-metre beam that deals 170 damage per second across a widening arc.	Break the line of sight, or dive into your own ink to duck under the beam.
Hull Charge	Locks a lane, then charges at 13–16 m/s and deals 55 damage on contact. Hitting a wall stuns the crab for 3.3–4.2 seconds, and the pause gets shorter in later phases.	Step out of the lane, then punish the stun together.
Brood (Crablets)	From phase 2, spills 3–5 crablets that chase the nearest squidkid and burst for 40 damage.	Shoot them down; 30 health means one or two hits.
Shell Frenzy	From phase 3, spins for three seconds and sprays ink in all directions for 52 damage per second.	Leave the 8.8-metre radius or get behind cover.

Weak points and damage

Three parts of the crab take extra damage:

• Eye stalks — weak at all times, in every phase.
• Belly — weak while the crab is stunned, throughout phase 3, and whenever the pose exposes it.
• Shell cracks — weak once the shell tears open in phase 2 and later.

A weak-point hit deals 2.5× damage, and every hit during a stun gets another 1.25×. The weapon matters too: rollers deal only 30% of their damage to the big body, Tidal Slam 60% and Splat Bombs 75%, while the shooter, charger, slosher and splatling classes deal full damage.

That makes sustained fire the simplest plan. The Spritzer and Gyre Splatling keep weak-point damage flowing, and a full Glint Charger shot is the hardest single hit in the fight. Rollers are better used painting the floor and clearing crablets.

Squad tactics

• Spread out. The barrage and the sweep punish a tight group. Leave space between squidkids, then close in for the stun window.
• Paint the corrupt ink back. Boss ink slows and hurts. An Ink Tempest or a roller cleans a lane fast.
• Punish every charge. Sidestep the lane, then hit the eyes or belly while the crab is stunned.
• Spend specials on the window. A Tidal Slam into crablets clears them, and a slam on the stunned belly is safe and heavy.
• Use the roar to reset. Phase transitions are a free moment to repaint, heal in ink and regroup.
• Watch the back line. Crablets chase the nearest squidkid, so the player under attack should walk them into a teammate’s fire.

Difficulty and health scaling

Boss health is 18,000 × squad units × difficulty. A human is one unit and a bot is 0.6 units.

Difficulty	Boss health	Boss damage	Move pace
Chill	×0.75	×0.7	Slower
Fresh	×1.0	×1.0	Standard
Fierce	×1.3	×1.2	Faster

For example, a solo player with seven bots on Fresh faces 5.2 units, or 93,600 health. Four humans with four bots face 115,200. Eight humans on Fresh face 144,000.

The results screen

A win shows SUNK! with your clear time; a loss shows the health left and the phase you reached. Boss damage earns XP, and the results hand out up to seven awards, including MVP, Heavy Hitter, Shell Cracker, Brood Buster and Cleanup Crew.

Keep reading

• Play INKWAVE — start a Boss Battle against bots right now
• Online multiplayer guide — bring a squad
• Specials and Splat Bombs — get the most from your kit
• Weapons — find the best kit for weak-point damage
• Maps — learn the stages the fight uses