The fearsome and ferocious bosses from Cookie Run: Kingdom‘s World Exploration mode have returned, and they are thirsty for revenge in Boss Hunt, a new game mode introduced with the Summer Soda Rock Festa update. These bosses are quite challenging since you have some restrictions in place, so here is how to beat Boss Hunt on every difficulty in Cookie Run: Kingdom.
Cookie Run: Kingdom Boss Hunt guide for all difficulties
Boss Hunt is a challenging new mode where you fight old bosses from World Exploration, with the caveat being Battle Points, which limits the Cookies you can take into battle. All bosses also have new tricks up their sleeves, which forces players to devise new strategies.
Boss Hunt starts you in difficulty F, going up all the way to A. Each difficulty has seven bosses to beat, and beating them all moves you up a difficulty. The bosses get harder and harder, so you need to keep adapting to new strategies and tactics.
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Since there is no one right way to approach each boss and everyone’s Cookie selections are going to be different, we will outline this guide with some helpful guidelines that should help you beat Boss Hunt on every difficulty.
1. Do not be afraid to try different strategies and Cookies
One thing you will quickly realize in the early stages of Boss Hunt is that your team composition is extremely important. Unless you have an incredibly juiced up team, even some of the early bosses are going to give you a run for your money.
Boss Hunt was deliberately designed to dismantle meta builds and popular Cookie choices. To reinforce this notion, shielding and healing effectiveness is reduced by 60% (increasing as you go up in difficulties) for the entirety of Boss Hunt, so if you thought about brute forcing your way through with a high level Pure Vanilla Cookie, think again!
Instead, Boss Hunt encourages players to try out Cookies they are not too familiar with and come up with new strategies. As such, experimentation is practically required here, as you need to fully examine your Cookies and see what you can come up with.
Having access to a wide selection of Cookies helps immensely with Boss Hunt, so if you have a limited selection, we recommend sticking to World Exploration or other modes for the time being, until you can build up a large Cookie reserve.
2. Utilize Tactics to their fullest potential
Exclusive to Boss Hunt are special passive buffs called Tactics. You can equip as many as your Battle Points allow—just like Cookies, each Tactic has a Battle Point cost.
You start Boss Hunt with none of the Tactics unlocked, but you start earning them as you take down more and more bosses. Try to power through the early bosses in difficulties F and E as quickly as you can, because that is where you unlock most of the Tactics.
There are about 25 different Tactics. Some Tactics are all-purpose, like ATK and DEF boosts, while some are more situational, like increased poison-type ATK and summoned creature lifetime increased.
Do not underestimate the impact of these Tactics buffs, especially the situational ones, as some of them can give you the advantage you need to take down certain bosses. For example, if a particular boss can inflict a nasty burn damage debuff to your team, the reduced burn DMG received Tactic can save your team’s life. Using the right Tactics becomes extremely important in the higher difficulties.
3. Target boss weaknesses for maximum damage
Starting with difficulty E, you start encountering bosses with elemental vulnerabilities. Every boss’ vulnerability is shown in their info panel before you start the fight, indicated by the box with the purple monster face with an exclamation mark.
If your team is not doing enough damage, it is a smart move to use Cookies that can target the boss’ weakness. Have you ever noticed colored symbols next to Cookie skills? Those are elemental skills, and they are very important in Boss Hunt.
Starting with difficulty D, you start encountering bosses with status effect vulnerabilities, which makes them extra susceptible to certain status effects. Some of these bosses also come with an extra pink meter beneath their HP known as the fatigue meter.
Whenever your Cookies hit the boss with a status effect they are weak to, the fatigue meter increases. Bosses become stunned when the fatigue meter is full, and they receive increased damage for as long as they are stunned. Filling the fatigue meter as fast as you can is the key to beating the stronger bosses.
In order to hit as many vulnerabilities as possible, you need to have access to a lot of different Cookies. Remember when we said having lots of Cookies helps a ton? This is why, as different teams work better for different encounters. Here is a quick list of Cookies and what elements and status effects they can attack with, so consider rotating one of them into your team if the boss calls for it.
- Fire: Tarte Tatin, Rye, Capsaicin, Pitaya Dragon, Mala Sauce, Chili Pepper
- Poison: Prune Juice, Poison Mushroom, Royal Margarine, Licorice, Affogato, Alchemist
- Light: Madeleine, Kouign-Amann, Clotted Cream, Financier
- Stun: Pinecone, Wildberry, Schwarzwälder, Werewolf, Cotton, Tea Knight, Sea Fairy, Cherry, Tiger Lily
- Taunted: Knight, Milk
- Zap: Shining Glitter, Twizzly Gummy, Dark Cacao
- Silence: Latte, Cream Unicorn, Licorice
- Freeze: Prophet, Frost Queen, Sherbet
- Light Cage: Clotted Cream
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4. Study the boss’ skills
Remember that you can tap on the little info button before a boss fight to read up on their exact stats and skills. If you are constantly asking yourself, “What did I just die to?”, then we highly recommend reading up on the boss’ skills.
Not only do you get to learn about what their skills do and what potential status effects you may have to deal with, but you can also get an idea of what kind of team is best against the boss. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
One big example of this concept is the later form of Bachalomoth the Dreamer. Bachalomoth gains a new passive skill that drastically reduces all damage it receives, except for critical damage. If you read the skill descriptions, you would know to build a team centered around increasing CRIT%.
5. Keep fighting bosses to stack the Weakening effect
So, we sort of lied when we mentioned earlier that you cannot brute force your way through Boss Hunt. That is technically true to an extent, but whenever you unsuccessfully fight a boss, the game remembers how much damage you did to it before your team bit the dust.
Once your damage dealt total reaches a certain threshold, the boss is afflicted with a Weakening debuff, which lowers its base stats. The Weakening debuff stacks up to three times, at which point the boss is severely weakened. You would have to lose the battle around 3–5 times to hit this many stacks, though.
Although this is obviously not the most efficient way to take down bosses, you can beat them if you just keep throwing yourself at them enough times. If you still cannot beat a boss even with three Weakening stacks, either your Cookies are massively under powered or there is something fundamentally wrong with your team composition, so rethink your setup.
6. Switch up your Treasures
Similar to the Tactics, the Treasures you have forgotten about in your bag may have some use here, to an extent. In most cases, the usual Old Pilgrim’s Scroll, Sleepyhead’s Jelly Watch, and Dream Conductor’s Whistle combo still works really well, but there are some situations that call for other treasures.
For example, the Bachalomoth fight we mentioned earlier requires your Cookies to have a lot of CRIT%, so the Grim-looking Scythe would actually be a better choice, since it is a flat boost to your team’s CRIT%.
Train up different Cookies, study up on the boss’ skill set, and prepare yourself accordingly. What are some of your favorite tips when it comes to dealing with the strong bosses in Boss Hunt? Let us know in the comments below.
Published: Jul 12, 2023 03:03 am