The Hug Club
A boss ring on the island. One fighter, one boss, a crowd in the stands. Every boss has a trick to learn, and every attack is a red warning on the floor that you can walk out of.
What it is
The Hug Club is a hall on the island’s main street, behind a pink curtain. Inside is a round pit with a bowl of seats, a bar and a few stalls. A boss stands in the pit and one fighter at a time goes in against it. Everyone else sits in the stands and watches.
Bonk the bouncer stands at the pit’s gate. Talk to him to put your name on the list and choose a boss you may fight. A fighter who has not fought today goes before one who has. You need to be level 10 to fight; anyone can watch.
You fight in the gear you wear, as in a dungeon run. Every class can win every fight: no boss needs a healer, a tank or a dodge. A boss that is not beaten before its time limit hits far harder, so each fight is a puzzle to solve with time to spare.
In the stands
Watchers can throw at the fight and around the hall. Throws use snacks, which you buy at the bar in bags of 10, 50 or 100. Snacks stay on the character that bought them, up to 1,000. At the stalls a Tomato or a Dango costs 1 snack and a Rubber chicken costs 2. Guests can’t buy or throw.
Throws are just for fun: nothing a throw makes leaves the ring. Turn on “No throws at me” in the game if you would rather not be a target.
The ranks and their bosses
You may fight any boss up to one rank above the last rank you cleared, and any boss you have beaten before. You clear a rank by beating three of its bosses, or all of them while it has fewer. Every rank has four bosses, and beating any three of them clears it and opens the next. A rank that has opened stays open. After rank 5, a group of three opt-in cards opens: see After Hours below.
| Rank | Boss | Tuned for |
|---|---|---|
| Rank 1 | Mochimochi-chan the Squishy Daruma-san the Roly-Poly Seiro-chan the Steamer Tower Kurukuru Koma the Spinning Top | Item level 10 the island’s green (uncommon) gear for level 10 |
| Rank 2 | Tsuntsun Tsutsumi the Prickly Gift Chapuchapu Mama the Rubber Duck Mother Zuruzuru Tapi the Bubble Tea Hiyahiya Kōri the Shaved Ice | Item level 25 the set a key 5 run drops, in epic |
| Rank 3 | Poi-baachan Granny Scoop Patapata Orizuru the Origami Crane Jūjū Takoyaki the Hot Griddle Hokuhoku Yaki-imo the Stone Oven | Item level 37 the set a key 9 run drops, in epic |
| Rank 4 | Kanade-sama the Music Box Konpei & Tō the Tanabata Stars Dandan Dango the Hanami Skewer Perapera Shīruchō the Sticker Book | Item level 55 the set a key 15 run drops, in epic |
| Rank 5 | Nui-chan the Plush Tamaya the Firework Shell Kaleido the Kaleidoscope Yurayura Kage-e the Shadow Play | Item level 55 the same key 15 set, with the Gloamhollow’s on-use trinket |
Each boss has a guide: what it does and how to win.
After Hours
Clear rank 5 and Bonk's list gains three opt-in cards, After Hours: Nobinobi Koinobori, the Sky Carp (“It hates to be crossed.”), Mochizuki, the Moon’s Mallet (“She’s sorry in advance.”) and Karakara Mikuji, the Fortune Box (“Read your fortune.”). Before you clear rank 5 the list shows one greyed line, “After Hours: clear Fireworks first”, and no names.
A card is never the next boss on the list and fills no rank. It opens only when you pick it. The Sky Carp and the Moon’s Mallet are hard and count toward your rating, up to 180 points each, and move no colour. The Fortune Box is just for fun: draw a fortune, fight your luck. It counts nothing toward the rating. After Hours has its own banner, one tile a card.
The Encore
Beat all four bosses of a rank and Bonk offers you that rank’s Encore (level 10 to run it). The club runs its four bosses back to back on one health bar, in a private back room: no queue, no throws, and friends can watch by name. The ranks’ programmes are Lantern Lighting (rank 1), Night Stalls, Bon Dance, Midnight and Fireworks.
- Your health carries from one boss to the next, plus a mend of 10% at each changeover. Nothing else tops you up.
- Only the show heals you: your own heals rest. A boss’s own gifts still heal you.
- Cooldowns, dodges and your ultimate come back at every boss.
- A loss ends the run, and there is no retry inside one.
- Two limits you can pick before you go in: No dodges, and No hits (the first blow that costs you health ends the run).
An Encore does not count toward your rating and clears no rank.
The Hug Club rating
Your Hug Club rating is the best fight you have had on each boss, added up. A kill earns 20 points a rank. Up to 5 points a rank more come from time: the faster the kill, the more of them. A flawless kill, with nothing of the boss’s hitting you, earns 5 points a rank more. A loss scores nothing, and a best never goes down.
The rating shows on your tooltip, next to your item level, once you have a kill. It does not count toward your dungeon rating.
Its colour tells how far up the ladder you are. These are the points each colour needs:
| Colour | Points |
|---|---|
| Uncommon | 80 |
| Rare | 240 |
| Epic | 480 |
| Legendary | 800 |
| Mythic | 1500 |
Your points never go down, but the colours need more points as bosses join. With four bosses in every rank the colours rose, so yours can drop a step until you beat the new ones. The cards of After Hours move no colour.
Gear: the item level each rank was tuned for
Each boss was tuned against the gear in the table above. Item level is the number on your tooltip: the average over all your gear slots, an empty slot counting as zero. Find out how keys set it on Keys.
- Rank 1, Item level 10: the island’s green (uncommon) gear for level 10.
- Rank 2, Item level 25: the set a key 5 run drops, in epic.
- Rank 3, Item level 37: the set a key 9 run drops, in epic.
- Rank 4, Item level 55: the set a key 15 run drops, in epic. Key 15 is the top of the climb: every harder key drops the same item level.
- Rank 5, Item level 55: the same key 15 set, with the Gloamhollow’s on-use trinket. The trinket for each class: Guardian: Thornwarden's Heartwood · Rogue: Glimmerdust Phial · Hunter: Lantern-Eye Lens · Firebrand: Lampwright's Hand-Lamp · Shaman: Mossmender's Seed-Pod · Cleric: Vesper Bell. The tune counts on you pressing it with your ultimate.
What this means: it is the gear each fight was tuned for. More gear makes it easier, and good play can win below it. From rank 2 up the tune counts on epic pieces. A rare piece of the same item level has fewer stat points, so it plays a little lighter.