How to kill the Kraken (in the latest version, i.e. Blazed Deserts DLC)

The Kraken is a tough and ugly bastard so i'd like to discuss here how to deal with it.

The First Advice

Disclaimer 1: English is not my first language, sorry about that.
Disclaimer 2: It was surprisingly hard for me to find good, not outdated info on how to fight the Kraken (and that's why i'm making this guide). Here's a really good thread that helped me, and i'm partly using it here.

First of all, consider skipping this fight altogether. Seriously, it's not worth it. I love this game, it's the best hex-based tactics strategy i know, but legendary locations here are often unnecessarily hard, dull, frustrating and should be redesigned (for example, in this case your guy should be given a chance to free himself first and only if he fails to do so a tentacle could drag him underwater).

Still, if you are achievement hunter or you really need that sword, you might feel like your encounter with the Beast of Beasts is inevitable, and it's fine too. But i had to warn you.

The main Kraken[battlebrothers.fandom.com] rewards are:

• The first half of the legendary 1h sword called Reproach of the Old Gods[battlebrothers.fandom.com]
  
• Severed Tentacle to craft Potion of Oblivion[battlebrothers.fandom.com] (this game's idea of a respec function, which should be implemented as a simple button IMO so you could actually test different builds and not look them up in the guides or use save files editor)

How to summon the Kraken

The legendary location it dwells in called Stone Pillars[battlebrothers.fandom.com]. It always spawns in the swamps. After you kill your first Kraken, more will appear in the wild.

When you first arrive at the Stone Pillars, the good woman sitting there will ask you to bring her 3 Unhold Hides (unless you have N of them in your inventory already; then she asks to bring N+3, so consider using your hides first).

This is the first feat of strength for your party. If you have any troubles killing the Unholds, you should run away from the Kraken as fast as you can. My guys trashed a flock of 8 Unholds not breaking a sweat, and we had a really hard time with the Kraken.

After you get the hides, the woman will then asks to bring her 3 Shimmering Ashes (from nasty Necrosavants). My theory is the game here makes a hint about not bringing any archers to the Kraken fight (more on that later). As with the hides, if you have N ashes in your inventory already, she'll ask to get N+3. But, as opposed to the hides, the ashes won't be actually removed from your inventory, because right after you bring them to her, the fight starts (so be ready then).

A preparation for the fight

A popular cheesy strategy that no longer works.
Bring a Lone Wolf with the Goblin trophy[battlebrothers.fandom.com] (immunity to being rooted), get him really high on mushrooms (eat 20+) and one-shot the Kraken with a 2handed weapon. As of patch 1.4.0.46, berserker mushroom effect stacking was "fixed", so you can't kill the Kraken that way anymore (i think the tentacles will just maul you to death before you deal any noticeable damage to the head).

Stats requirements and other useful things for the fight.

• 90+ Melee attack (a chance to free yourself and your buddy is based on MA). So consider not bringing any archers to the fight, since anyone with low MA will be a liability [i.e. gets eaten].
  
• 80+ Effective fatigue (a chance to free yourself and your buddy costs 15 fatigue). It is strongly advised to farm (or buy in the south) Second Wind potions[battlebrothers.fandom.com] (+4 fatigue regen) for the whole party, since if you run out of fatigue at a bad time, you are good as dead.
  
• It's good to have lots of nets and dogs that you are prepared to loose. Tentacles can be netted but not rooted (they will still move with nets on them, but their defenses will be lowered).
  
• A couple of mace guys (with specialization) for stunning the tentacles are a big plus. Cleavers and whips on your other guys are good, since they use less fatigue while tentacles don't have any armor (and bleed like pigs they are).
  
• Acid flasks (which corrode the armor) are useless IMO, since Kraken is Resilient (the debuff will hold for 1 turn only, and it's better to just smash it with polehammer instead).
  
• Pathfinder is very useful here, since swamp hexes give -25% melee attack and melee defense, and you need to keep away from the Kraken's instantly devouring mouth.
  
• It's good to have shields for the fight, since tentacles occasionally hit you in phase 2, and they hit like a truck.
  
• You need at least one guy with a reach weapon (2-tiled 2handler) to hit the Kraken itself. It's better to have several, if you are going for intended strategy (see later). The good choice is polehammer (for quick destroying Kraken's armor) or any decent polearm. Equip this guy with the Goblin trophy (immunity to being rooted, so the tentacles will just ignore him).
  
• It might be a good idea to buff the Goblin trophy guy with mushrooms for extra damage, but it also might be a terrible idea, since that way you can lure the biting tentacles to him on phase 2 (i didn't test it).

The final steps.
The fight always takes place in the swamp area, but the area itself can be quite different. I'd advise you to reset the fight until there is a good patch of grass for your whole party to stand on and some spots of grass 2 tiles away from the Kraken's head (or, ideally, around the whole Kraken).

Here's an example of a decent swamp area:

Note that i made a mistake here to split the party in two, and i paid for that with a life of one brother who got eaten on the last round of battle. Don't split the party (more on that later).

And here's an example of a regular swamp you should just reload and not waste your time on:

The fight itself (basics)

• The Kraken's head is immobile, and it moves the last in the queue.
  
• Anyone who ends their turn next to the head will be instantly devoured (killed). So your brother needs to free himself and have enough action points to move at least one step away. And on the next turn he'll be almost certainly ensnared again.
  
• Neither Kraken's head, nor tentacles have zone of control, so you can move freely.
  
• There are 8 Kraken's tentacles (at first). If you kill one, it will deal a certain damage to the Kraken's head, and a new tentacle will emerge in a random space to move on the next turn.
  
• Every tentacle will ensnare one of your brothers on its turn if it's close enough. As far as i aware, you can't resist the ensnarement like you can't resist nets (unless you are immune due to the Goblin trophy, then the tentacles will ignore that brother altogether — if they have other targets that is). On his turn the ensnared brother will be dragged several hexes towards the Kraken's mouth right away, so ideally someone else needs to free him before his turn starts.
  
• The Kraken's head has 4400 HP and 1600 armor. The game shows that its body is armored as well, but you can ignore that, since the body is underground and you can't and don't need to damage it. All the damage automatically goes to the head.
  
• When the head reaches 50% of HP, the Kraken gets enraged (from now on he will maintain only 4 tentacles, but now they will either ensnare your brothers or sometimes hit them very hard).
  
• The fight ends when the Kraken's head and all the tentacles are dead. If you kill the head via the tentacle, you won't get any XP for the head (i didn't test it myself).

The intended strategy

There are two slightly different ways to deal with this fight. Here's (likely) the intended way of doing it.

1. Move your whole party (apart from the Goblin trophy 2handler) on the grass as close to the ball formation as you can. They won't engage with the Kraken's head (at first) and will deal only with the tentacles. If at any time there is a lone guy standing anywhere, put another guy next to him so he they can free each other from the tentacles, then when both are freed move them back to the ball formation. Your priorities are: freeing the next guy, not running out of fatigue (have at least 15 extra left anytime, so next turn you'll have enough for 2 freeing attempts each costing 15 fatigue), and only after that — hitting the tentacles.

Carefully observe the turn order. Your ensnared guys will be dragged closer to the Kraken's mouth right away on their turn so you need to free them beforehand. Ideally, you want to make the chain reaction where you free the first guy, then he frees the next one on his turn and so on. This chain reaction can equally lead to a catastrophe if you fail to free the first guy, and then everyone after him gets dragged, but there is no other way. Remember: when anyone gets dragged to the swamp and gets -25% debuff, it will be only a matter of time when he gets eaten. You'll need Pathfinder and Adrenaline to move out of the swamp reliably.

The first several turns are the most crucial. If you fail to get to the good position, you might as well reload the fight before everything inevitably falls apart.

2. (Optional) Send your Goblin trophy 2handler to smash the Kraken's head every turn. He's immune to ensnare, so the tentacles will ignore him, and he can either: help free the ensnared guy who gets dragged next to him or hit the head with his polehammer (special attack first, and regular attack after the armor is gone).

3. Your whole party will be freeing each other from ensnarement, and hitting and stunning the tentacles (if they can afford it stamina-wise). If you have extra nets, use them before stunning to get higher on-hit chances or don't waste nets and stamina before phase 2.

4. When the Kraken's head hits 50% of HP, the phase 2 starts. Kraken gets enraged and you can reduce the tentacles amount to 4. Here's the best time to use all your nets, stun the tentacles and let out the dogs to bite and distract the tentacles from your guys. Put out your shields now if you took them (unless you use polearms). The enraged tentacles hit very hard (luckily, they don't do it very often for some reason). The dogs will occasionally run for the Kraken's head and get eaten, but high morale for the head won't get it much benefits if your 2handler has high enough melee attack (90+, like the rest of the party) and standing on firm ground (like he should).

There are some reports that you can lower Kraken's morale enough to make it flee. It won't run away since it can't move, and it won't eat your guys standing next to him anymore since it'll skip its turn, unless they are still ensnared — then they'll get eaten and the head will immediately improve its morale. From the other hand, if no one stands next to the head, it will rally itself on the next turn like any other beast. But as you can see, it's a dangerous strategy to use.

5. Carefully move your team around the Kraken's head (2-tiles away) so that anyone has someone next to him and start gang-banging the Kraken's head with 2handlers, since now killing the tentacles will deal less and less damage to the head due to diminishing returns. Your priorities are still stand: free your brothers first, save stamina second, smash the tentacles or the head last.

6. Profit, get your achievement and a piece of a broken sword and vow to never do that again ever.

The alternative strategy

There is another, slightly different strategy. It's even more tedious and dull, but more reliable in terms of losses.

1. Almost the same as earlier. Move to the firm ground and keep the ball formation. The main difference is this: don't kill any tentacles yet (since every tentacle's death deals a little bit less damage to the head, and you want to save all that damage for the phase 2, which can be more dangerous than phase 1 if tentacles' hard hitting RNGesus is not smiling on you). Every ensnarement breaking will deal some damage to the tentacle itself until it has 1 HP, then it will remain at 1 HP. Don't let out dogs, don't waste much nets.

2. (Not optional anymore) Send your Goblin trophy 2handler to smash the Kraken's head every turn. It will take him something like 30-40 turns to get the head to 50% of HP by himself. That's something like 1,5 hours of real time 'gameplay', and if he has to free anyone, that's another wasted turn for the whole team.

3. Your main party can use nets and stun the tentacles to minimize their harassment, until the tentacles are close to death. Then you stop hitting them and wait (or lose patience at one point and go all out because ♥♥♥♥ it already).

4. Phase 2. When finally the Kraken gets enraged (some of his tentacles has a mouth now, see the first screenshot above), now is the time to dish out everything: first kill the 1 HP tentacles, then use your leftover nets on the new spawned ones, let out the dogs to gnaw on them and minimize the damage to your soldiers, put out the shields if you have them.

5. Don't move your party to the Kraken, it's too risky and after you killed so many tentacles (without any diminishing returns), it's now close to death anyways. So just continue to stun-and-kill the new sets of 4 tentacles while hitting the beast in the mouth with a dedicated hero until it stops twitching.

6. Profit and vow to never do that again ever even more.

The stealth strategy

Here's another, completely different strategy for the fight. You need a good tank with a Goblin trophy to bravely withstand the harsh beating of 8 tentacles for the whole fight, while four dedicated hunters are sneaking up on the Kraken's head and just stab it to death while the tank is praying to RNGesus behind his shieldwall. This strategy might be even more stable in terms of your chances to finish it with a kill and no losses, but i personally didn't test it. See the linked thread for more info.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading, don't forget to rate the guide if you liked it and give me a shout in the comments if you find some mistakes or have other suggestions.

As a last-minute bonus: here's a really fun team of heavy hitters you might want to try in the late game. The bad news are you will probably need some respec potions, so you'll have to farm Krakens. But here comes the good guy me who spent his Saturday to write this guide, right?

[Flustern]

its fucking painful and takes forever but, Get the Goblin neckless and ijirok armor, put it on your highest melee def and attack brother (so your best brother) and give them 2 pole arms get to a area that is dry land surrounded in marsh and hit the tenticles untill theyre about to die and then switch over and do another one then once theyre all low kill them phase 2 will start, your bro will be on the only area for good def and attack to the tenticles will have a 5 to hit ( if ur bro has good def) the ijirok armor will heal any hit (the armor might not last since we all know the RNG in this game is broken asf for the enemy) it takes a long ass time but it works

[alpasy]

I don't see much point in that, seeing how your thread is much more popular than my guide here, but sure, i added another chapter here with a link to your thread. Thanks for suggestion!

[The one who has hats]

I was going to make a new guide to cover the new strat which I proposed here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/3002177675804003957/

Would you consider adding the details to this instead?

[Nerdgasm]

Nice.