How to Defeat a Horrorboros in Splatoon 3 Salmon Run

There’s something deeply unsettling about the idea of a flying snake. Snakes are worrying enough when they’re wiggling around the ground, but what could be worse than flying snakes? Well, how about a gigantic flying snake that spits explosives? Hoo boy. Here’s how to defeat a Horrorboros in Splatoon 3 Salmon Run.

How to Defeat a Horrorboros in Splatoon 3 Salmon Run

With the beginning of the Fresh Season in Splatoon 3, a new species of King Salmonid has made its presence known in Salmon Run: the gigantic wriggling form of the Horrorboros. Much like the Cohozuna, the Horrorboros appears exclusively during an Xtrawave, which occurs at random whenever a player has participated in enough Salmon Run shifts to fill up the Xtrawave meter on the top right of the screen in the GrizzCo lobby. Whether you go up against a Cohozuna or a Horrorboros is also random.

Related: How to Throw Golden Eggs in Splatoon 3 Salmon Run

The rules of the Xtrawave are the same against a Horrorboros as usual: every player receives an Egg Cannon they can use to launch Golden Eggs from Boss Salmonids at the Horrorboros. Every successful hit against the Horrorboros earns you scales, and if you can successfully defeat it before time runs out, you’ll get a big reward (though the shift will still be counted as a success even if you get wiped at this point).

Horrorboros Strategy

Unlike the land-bound Cohozuna, the Horrorboros will immediately take to the sky upon appearing and begin lazily floating around the stage. The creature won’t actively antagonize you, at least at first, but if you watch its mouth, you’ll see it begin to charge up a large bomb, kind of like a Steelhead. If the Horrorboros can fully charge up and fire off this shot, it’ll detonate into a 150%-sized Booyah Bomb, more than enough to wipe an unlucky crew.

However, the Horrorboros has a weakness, and that Steelhead comparison should make it obvious: you can shoot the bomb as it charges in the Horrorboros’s mouth. If you can completely coat it in your ink, the bomb will go off in its mouth, stopping its charge and dealing a healthy chunk of damage.

While you can damage the Horrorboros on any spot of its prodigious body, the best way to damage it is to destroy the bomb, so try to focus your team’s efforts there whenever possible. Use the time between charges to splat some Boss Salmonids to get Golden Eggs for your cannon, then use those things to pop the bomb in just a couple of shots. In a pinch, players with heavier weapons like the Hydra Splatling or .96 Gal can also chip in on the bomb or the body if they don’t have any Golden Eggs handy.

Basically, the bottom line is not to let the Horrorboros fire off the bomb if you can help it. Keep on splatting that bomb as soon as it starts charging, and it’ll collapse like a wet noodle.

For more information on the ins and outs of Salmon Run in Splatoon 3, check out our full Salmon Run guide, as well as our overview on Xtrawaves. Visit our Facebook page too for more news and guides.