How to beat the secret postgame boss in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
For those playing through the Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door on Switch, we have a guide explaining how to defeat the game’s secret postgame boss.
There are two secret bosses newly introduced in the game. One of them becomes available after Chapter 5, while the other becomes available after clearing the Pit of 100 Trials for the very first time. Since these bosses are new to the game, we aren’t spoiling their identities right out the gate. That being said, this guide will contain full spoilers on how to defeat this boss, so you may want to come back later if you’d rather not learn its identity just yet. This particular boss is rather difficult (and takes a long time to get to), so you’ll want to prepare yourself as best you can. Here’s how to defeat the secret postgame boss in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
How to prepare
After you clear the Pit of 100 Trials and defeat Bonetail, Whacka will be the one waiting on the bottom floor every time you return there. You can’t actually fight Whacka until you receive an email saying that a new creature has taken up residence in the Pit of 100 Trials, though. If you’ve beaten Bonetail but haven’t received the email, head to Keelhaul Key. In the starting area with the shortcut into Pirate’s Grotto, head to the northwest corner of the area and a Whacka will appear. Smack it with your hammer to receive a Whacka Bump (which is a great item, either for healing or selling). Once you do this enough times, Whacka will disappear from Keelhaul Key and head to the bottom of the Pit of 100 Trials.
In terms of preparation, you should stock up on as many healing items as you possibly can. Zess T. can cook up a Whacka Bump and Golden Leaf to make a Zess Deluxe that restores 40 HP and 40 FP. Stock up on a whole bunch of them, because Whacka deals lots of damage. You can also purchase some Life Mushrooms from the Twilight Town shop. You’ll also need to equip a good set of Badges. Unlike the other secret boss in the game, equipping Close Call, Lucky Day, and Pretty Lucky Badges are a net positive here. Superguarding Whacka’s attacks does come in handy, but it’s not necessarily required to defeat him. We’d also recommend Power Plus and HP Plus. If you’re feeling confident in your action command performance, All or Nothing increases Mario’s damage by 1 but makes his attacks deal 0 damage if you miss the input. Overall, as long as you have tons of healing items and some good Badges (and are around Level 32), you should be good to go.
How to beat Whacka
After clearing the Pit of 100 Trials once, you will be able to pay a Puni 300 Coins to skip ahead to Level 50. This saves tons of time, so we’d definitely recommend it to get to Whacka faster. When you get to the bottom of the Pit of 100 Trials, you should be completely healed up. There is no heal block before the Whacka boss fight, however, so you’ll either need to heal with items or try to level up right before you get there. Once you’ve arrived, smack Whacka with your hammer to begin the battle. His gimmick is that every time he takes damage, he produces a Whacka Bump that he can either use to attack you or heal himself. Red Whacka Bumps both deal far more damage and heal far more HP when Whacka eats them. This means multi-hit attacks like Jumps or Power Bounce will give Whacka two chances to attack rather than Hammers, which will only give him one chance. Whacka can also summon an earthquake that lets him generate a whole bunch of Whacka Bumps.
Whacka’s attacks hit really hard. Even if you have 50 HP for more, his Whacka Bumps can easily bring you within KO range in just one turn. Superguarding works really well here, as you can avoid taking damage entirely if you time the B button input correctly. Despite the fact that Whacka creates more bumps when attacked with multi-hit moves, you shouldn’t worry about it too much – hit him with the best moves you have. Power Lift + Spring Jump works well here, dealing over 14 damage if timed properly. Given that Whacka has 108 HP, this will whittle him down rather quickly. Mario’s partner has much less potential for high damage, so why not use them for defense? Koops can use Shell Shield on Mario to protect him from high-damage attacks, while Goombella can use Rally Wink to give Mario an extra turn to attack with a boosted Spring Jump.
The Quick Change Badge also works really well here. By the time you can fight Whacka, Mario will probably have much more health than any of his partners. They’re worn down rather quickly, so if one is getting low on HP, Quick Change lets you swap them out to a healthier partner. That way, the Life Mushrooms you’ve purchased will kick in if Mario dies rather than if his partner dies. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on who you ask), you can retry the Whacka boss fight if you happen to fall even after preparing yourself as best you can. If you quit and get a game over, however, you will need to go down the Pit of 100 Trials and repurchase healing items all over again. Were you able to defeat Whacka easily, or did you need to take a few tries? Feel free to let us know in the comments down below.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is available now for Switch. You can check the official site here.
