Pauperesque Squallard



The Pauperesque Squallard is a female Mallard the first Apex Predator in Pikmin 5: Apex Predator. It is found in the Lover's Spring soon after finding the Purple Onion. The Purple Onion is found in the middle of a large area of mud surrounded by Purple Pellet Posies. As the player creates more and more Purple Pikmin to add to the army, a certain countdown begins. The weight of each Pikmin is taken into account, with Purple Pikmin counting as 10 due to their extra heft. Once the combined weight of the player's army exceeds 400, trying to leave instantly triggers the Pauperesque Squallard. A cutscene starts from the bird's POV flying over the Lover's Spring. It will then spot the player, and the cutscene ends. The Pauperesque Squallard will land right where the gate is, blocking the player from escape. The bird will have a stomach scale of 225, and the boss fight begins. The Squallard will start trying to eat Pikmin, with Purples counting as ten Pikmin, and all other types counting as one. The fight can hypothetically last until the player kills the Pauperesque Squallard but it is far more likely that the 225 Pikmin weight will be consumed first due to how early in the game it first encounters the player. Once that many Pikmin are devoured, the Mallard flies off, the player is left in abject horror as to what they saw, and the day immediately ends.

Strategy
Taking down the Pauperesque Squallard is no easy task in the absolute best case scenario. It will take everything the player has to take down the big bird. Though the player is almost certainly caught off guard the first time it encounters the Paperesque Squallard, they can do quite a lot of damage the second time around. Even if the second encounter does not lead to success, things will be relatively fine as the Squallard does not recover health between days. When the player has enough sprays, bring a full army with at least 40 Purples to where the Purple Onion was found to trigger the Pauperesque Squallard's arrival. There will be a Poison Wollywog on the far end of the arena opposite of the gate which will be very important for this strategy. Bait the Pauperesque Squallard into following you to the other end of the arena and sit still as close as you can to the Poison Wollywog. The Pauperesque Squallard will try to inhale Pikmin now that you stopped moving. If you did it right, the Poison Wollywog will get sucked up instead! This will subtract a nice 60000 health from the Pauperesque Squallard AND cause it to collapse to the ground for 10 seconds, giving the player access to the double damage areas of the face and eyes to attack.