Crab King Discussion [Video]

[NeddoFreddo]

Hey all,

I know this probably isn't the greatest time to make this post (walter news and all that) but I wanted to get this out there anyway.
In short, while I do enjoy the base-level concept of the fight, I feel it is executed rather poorly and is not very rewarding to complete for a varitety of reasons.

Please feel free to reply with your thoughts on the matter - it's always good to get points of view from a different source, as the forums is a very different environment to a YouTube comment section. (obviously)
Hope you enjoy.

[Yuuko]

I agree Crab King is a pretty bad boss.  I think there are 2 main issues with Crab King, and I think Bee Queen and some other bosses suffer from these as well.

The first is overturned health.  I think a lot of this comes from them needing to ensure the boss has enough health to feel like a satisfying fight when people pick Wolfgang, which puts it in the "you gotta be kidding me" area for other characters.  The main reason I think Wolfgang needs a nerf is that his double damage really warps the game.  In order for anything to be big enough for him, they have to be MASSIVE for everyone else.  I don't actually think the health is so massive because they expect a team to tackle the boss because when you do have 4 people who are reasonably skilled at the game the bosses turn into jokes.  So hilariously easy that I was honestly amazed at how negligible they were with even a moderately skilled squad.

The second is overloaded tasks.  I think this is where they aim the fight for multiple people.  They want to give everyone something they have to do to feel engaged, rather than have everyone just hold F.  They gave toad a flood of sporecaps, fuel weaver gets the woven shadows and hands, bee queen gets instant grumble spawns, ect.  The only one they balanced around the number of players *actually there* is Klaus.  For Toad, before the lunar axe, I would barely finish chopping before he'd do another round.  For Crab King we get his claws.  Their health pool is pretty big (9 attacks with a dark sword each, with average 3 of them harassing your boat at once that's 27 attacks each wave) and their threat is instant failure if they break your boat.

The task overload really heats up when CrabKing starts healing.  With only Pearl's Pearl slotted he will allegedly cancel his heal with just 2 auto attacks.  I find this is rarely the case, with him constantly slipping heals by even when I have the time just hold F to his face.  Add in the times that I can't because I need to kill hands or instantly die, and Crab King gets the opportunity to heal tons of HP for free.  Each heal with just Pearl is 750, if he slips in 2-3 that is 20-30 dark sword attacks added to the duration of the fight.

Again - if you pick Wolfgang you can say "Yeah, that's challenging but doable."  But be anyone else and its like "f this, cheese mode.  Fetch the BEES!!"

I don't like calling for nerfs, but I really feel Wolfgang's 2x damage is a major factor that pushes the health values up and up while other characters we might *prefer* to play are relegated to cosmetics tier.  Cut his damage down and cut the health pools of the top end bosses down and the game will suddenly be a lot more accessible to people who would rather pick their character based on preference and theme rather than "NeEd Op PiCk WoLf"

[minespatch]

I like your suggestion of using the pearl as a homing device.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 hour ago, Shosuko said:

I agree Crab King is a pretty bad boss.  I think there are 2 main issues with Crab King, and I think Bee Queen and some other bosses suffer from these as well.

The first is overturned health.  I think a lot of this comes from them needing to ensure the boss has enough health to feel like a satisfying fight when people pick Wolfgang, which puts it in the "you gotta be kidding me" area for other characters.  The main reason I think Wolfgang needs a nerf is that his double damage really warps the game.  In order for anything to be big enough for him, they have to be MASSIVE for everyone else.  I don't actually think the health is so massive because they expect a team to tackle the boss because when you do have 4 people who are reasonably skilled at the game the bosses turn into jokes.  So hilariously easy that I was honestly amazed at how negligible they were with even a moderately skilled squad.

The second is overloaded tasks.  I think this is where they aim the fight for multiple people.  They want to give everyone something they have to do to feel engaged, rather than have everyone just hold F.  They gave toad a flood of sporecaps, fuel weaver gets the woven shadows and hands, bee queen gets instant grumble spawns, ect.  The only one they balanced around the number of players *actually there* is Klaus.  For Toad, before the lunar axe, I would barely finish chopping before he'd do another round.  For Crab King we get his claws.  Their health pool is pretty big (9 attacks with a dark sword each, with average 3 of them harassing your boat at once that's 27 attacks each wave) and their threat is instant failure if they break your boat.

The task overload really heats up when CrabKing starts healing.  With only Pearl's Pearl slotted he will allegedly cancel his heal with just 2 auto attacks.  I find this is rarely the case, with him constantly slipping heals by even when I have the time just hold F to his face.  Add in the times that I can't because I need to kill hands or instantly die, and Crab King gets the opportunity to heal tons of HP for free.  Each heal with just Pearl is 750, if he slips in 2-3 that is 20-30 dark sword attacks added to the duration of the fight.

Again - if you pick Wolfgang you can say "Yeah, that's challenging but doable."  But be anyone else and its like "f this, cheese mode.  Fetch the BEES!!"

I don't like calling for nerfs, but I really feel Wolfgang's 2x damage is a major factor that pushes the health values up and up while other characters we might *prefer* to play are relegated to cosmetics tier.  Cut his damage down and cut the health pools of the top end bosses down and the game will suddenly be a lot more accessible to people who would rather pick their character based on preference and theming rather than "NeEd Op PiCk WoLf"

And dont forget that now we also have warlys food and abi debuff. Buffs buffs buffs everywhere. Even misery toadstool can be a joke with to many power upa

[OMGkawaiiAngel]

I agree. Well, I surely hope Klei reworks the boss!

[Moonatik]

I disagree about time consuming when we have to find him. As you said it two times in your video, it seems important to you, but I think you wrong.

At this point, we have an ocean, it's done. So I think every players should take the use to spend few days on sea.  "Few days" isn't a joke to do the world tour. It's maybe not the last thing we'll have to look for on sea. If we bet on few more islands in the future, it could even simplify the search. 

If the ice staff is now a cheesin tool, you would like a cheesin pearl which gives you the boss location. It can't work. As Pearl send bottles as hopes, she doesn't know where he is. Pearl's pearl can't help us.

Finally, you wrong because from the beginning it's a long quest. Few seasons are needed in order to have the pearl and help Pearl. You have time to dispatch your research in few part as you come and go from main land to Pearl's island, as you find bottles and treasures location, making you discover the sea when you go for these loots.

I could also make a joke about time consuming after your xxxx k hours, but I already did one, a sort of, somewhere else.

Edit: I agree about blue gems, I'm still waiting for a solo fight to watch. As I made this mistake and as you cant remove the gems before you put the pearl, I used bees. If everybody use Purple, what's the point of all these possibilities, just challenge for fun ? Weird.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

42 minutes ago, Moonatik said:

 

When in another topic you said the blue gem fight i tried it with console commands. Holy **** i get freeze like 10 seconds even being almost a screen of distance from him. For that fight you will need to pick up a lot of thermal stones and then drop them when you overheat so i think its impossible without cheese. You dont have time to row, fight his claws and pick and and drop like 2 or more thermal stones. 

 

I really like the concept but seems like a boss for more than 1 player unless you cheese him and i dont like it. Having this ungly (perma freeze, bees doing your job, doing a lot of boats) ways of killing him desmotivates me to fight him. 

[Moonatik]

59 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

When in another topic you said the blue gem fight i tried it with console commands. Holy **** i get freeze like 10 seconds even being almost a screen of distance from him. For that fight you will need to pick up a lot of thermal stones and then drop them when you overheat so i think its impossible without cheese. You dont have time to row, fight his claws and pick and and drop like 2 or more thermal stones. 

 

I really like the concept but seems like a boss for more than 1 player unless you cheese him and i dont like it. Having this ungly (perma freeze, bees doing your job, doing a lot of boats) ways of killing him desmotivates me to fight him. 

And if I'm not wrong, you can't cancel the freeze attack. You could need 2 boats, one near the boss, and one just "under", then you could have space to run and escape the radius. But in solo, you should be sure to cancel every bubble attack... Which is very hard if you have to freeze him with 8 hits.

2 players at least, 3 to be sure to cancel every bubbles, and this 2nd boat to escape further. It could work in team.

But I won't never try it to be honest. I would try solo on purple if we had something we could farm on him, but as I have now the tribute... I'm not even close from a new fight !

[ArubaroBeefalo]

7 minutes ago, Moonatik said:

And if I'm not wrong, you can't cancel the freeze attack. You could need 2 boats, one near the boss, and one just "under", then you could have space to run and escape the radius. But in solo, you should be sure to cancel every bubble attack... Which is very hard if you have to freeze him with 8 hits.

2 players at least, 3 to be sure to cancel every bubbles, and this 2nd boat to escape further. It could work in team.

But I won't never try it to be honest. I would try solo on purple if we had something we could farm on him, but as I have now the tribute... I'm not even close from a new fight !

I tried with malbatross peak and is easy to evade the water atack but when the claws comes here comes the nightmere. You dont have time to kill the claws (without grind thousands of darts, they have a lot of damage and health) and evade. Also if they catch the boat you will have a bad time.

The freeze radius atack is sooo big when you put all blue gems so idk how distance you have to cover to stay put (he was in the top edge of the screen) and drops your temperature to -150°C more or less 

 

Edit: i forget to keep writing xddd

 

For a team could be easy: 1 rowing all the time and the rest atacking and repairing but for solo you just dont have time. Maybe with more pratise will result in a no so difficult fight as happend with other bosses like fw that seems impossible the 1st time you try but then is about timing, etc

[WhatTheCabbage]

Also this, but I don't know if it's intended

https://youtu.be/FTMXn2X0Ofw

[Yuuko]

Just wanna bring this back up since its a Crab King discussion, and I don't like opening new threads...

Is Crab King's healing possibly bugged?  According to the wiki with only Pearl's pearl slotted his healing should break with just 2 hits.  I have been doing nothing but attacking him and he'll still get heal after heal passed me.  The best I get is every other one breaking, but even that isn't consistent.

Or is the wiki wrong?

Also - any cheese for the hands to keep them off me?

[Bird Up]

gems could definitely be improved. blue is too harsh.

good points... for solo playing. but I don't see at any point do you consider this is multiplayer and not strictly solo. You say solo crab king feels like cheesing, but do you think that misery toadstool or beequeen solo strategies don't also feel like cheese? They definitely do. Anyway, I've seen solo fights against crab king without using any freezing methods.

[Yuuko]

7 hours ago, Bird Up said:

gems could definitely be improved. blue is too harsh.

good points... for solo playing. but I don't see at any point do you consider this is multiplayer and not strictly solo. You say solo crab king feels like cheesing, but do you think that misery toadstool or beequeen solo strategies don't also feel like cheese? They definitely do. Anyway, I've seen solo fights against crab king without using any freezing methods.

What video did you see of someone solo crab king?  Was it with pan flute?  Panflute only worked on him in beta, it no longer puts him to sleep.  I'd be interested in whatever solo strategy beats him without freezing now.

Also lets be real - picking Wolfgang feels as cheese as anything else.  Picking Wolfgang is effectively cutting the HP values of every mob in the game in half for you...  I can't respect any strat that pretends to be "no cheese" but picks Wolfgang.

[0rutyna0]

1) I am only interested in whether it is possible to teleport a boss (to the ground) with a staff?
2) In my opinion, Pickaxe against a STONE crab should be more effective than a spear or a shadow sword.

[Bird Up]

10 hours ago, Shosuko said:

What video did you see of someone solo crab king?  Was it with pan flute?  Panflute only worked on him in beta, it no longer puts him to sleep.  I'd be interested in whatever solo strategy beats him without freezing now.

 

 

[Yuuko]

10 hours ago, Bird Up said:

 

 

Nice, except it's Wolfgang.  Double the time spent attacking hands and the boss and I don't think this would work nearly as well...  Not bad for positioning to get less hands on him.

[GarfDLie]

Klei: so now and then every time crab die you’ve to explore map for his new location for more adventures!!!!  Well i’m really sure people like new adventures (judge from number of griefer in public server).  I would like to have a little more hint is enough. Like if you’re in range your compass will start malfunctioning (reuse divining rod method). Easy solution plus give purpose to old item too!!!  I’m really sure klei won’t nerf boss. Since you’ve to suffer more while play this game.  Maybe they should add decoration option to lure people to defeat (or defeated by) him. If you add something like turf that use same color from gem. I think it enough to drive people mad and farm this boss more frequently. Aww rainbow turf is so precious I really want that.....  pearl can be totally dark turf since real pearl can’t reflect color to shine. Gem is reflect Specific wave Spectrum out so it can contain their old color. Like even in totally yellow or green light ruby will stay shine Red. cus reflections of light ray inside gem. 
but pearl is only just trash in shell. So it’s kind of nonsense to see it has any color ( well many steamer complains about decoration turf too tbh and pure black is one of what they want) 

 

About lore of crabking too. 
i imagine plot being like crabking has to go out with lovecraft alien god to made pearl (that hermit) immortal object In her island like calypso in ogygia.
so I wish someday we can took her out Of island and toss this lady to be shark food.That’s what she deserved after we kill her husband over and over again!!!!  

[minespatch]

3 hours ago, GarfDLie said:

so I wish someday we can took her out Of island and toss this lady to be shark food.That’s what she deserved after we kill her husband over and over again!!!!