Easy ways to beat crab king?

[Primalflower]

I would like to interact with the new content in the beta, but one of the big roadblocks for me is crab king. Im all honesty, i hate the crab king fight, and as such i would like to make it as quick and metaphorically painless as possible.

What are some strategies to do the crab king fight that y'all know of that would make the fight easy for me?

[Echsrick]

if your in beta there is no shame in just spawning in the 3 altars but if we are gettin real then well a great meme man that makes OP things used beemines durin spring many bee mines and it actualy worked you may only realy need to circle around whit a boat around him while the bees attack it crab king dont have any normal attacks that could hurt others he only attacks boats so usein the bees will do it sooner or later

[SirToastyToes]

The weird thing about Crab King is for all his magic and claws it's really hard for him to actually kill you if you play your gems right. This strategy assumes you're using the easiest gem setup: 1 Pearl's Pearl + 8 Purple Gems (Level 3 in all stats, Level 11 in Number of Geysers)

Damage Setup

Spring is the best season for him. Assuming you allow switching characters, Wolfgang using Volt Goat Chaud-Froid after a Spring rain can easily dispatch Crab King in less than a day. I start the fight with about six Dark Swords, but with this much damage you only need about two to three.

Geysers

Ice Staves are easily the way to go for Crab King in my opinion. When he starts casting his geyser spell you can easily put him on ice and use the time to heal. Four Ice Staves should be enough as any character who deals regular damage.

Freezing

The freeze attack is the only one that can actually kill you outright with its temperature-dropping aura. Wearing a Beefalo Hat or a Puffy/Hibearnation Vest will easily keep you from freezing. Not like you need armor anyway. You can simply run to the opposite edge of your boat to avoid being frozen as he casts the spell.

Imposing Claws

Imposing Claws will crunch up your boat if left too long, but with the damage setup mentioned before you can take them out in one hit. Keep a stack of boards, boat patches or trusty tape on you for repairs while Crab King is frozen. Also make sure your anchor is in the center of the boat, nothing worse than a claw smashing it off and creating a large leak.

Healing

As he starts healing, you usually have freshly summoned Imposing Claws latching on right as he starts repairing his crown. A single weather pain shot can block most of his rocks from reaching his head, but your damage output should work to easily cancel any that do make it through.

Wavey Jones

The Night Hands of the sea, Wavey Jones will spawn at low sanity and mess with your boat. Keep some form of sanity restoration on you while you fight Crab King and heal your sanity while he's frozen. At his worst Wavey Jones will tear up boat patches and pull your boat outright, which is an ill-afforded inconvenience.

Overall Crab King is just a dance of making sure a geyser attack doesn't get through, not getting frozen, and keeping your boat health high. If he does get you it's not a big deal, a bit of a drag to get back there but the worst of it is some max HP loss. Oh, and watch out for sharks.

 

[Owlrust]

The easiest way I know is to not fight him at all. Hope this helps.

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

Bee mines are the easiest and honestly, feel like an exploit. You have to place them really close, so that they procc once crab king becomes alive. Place as much bee mines as possible since you need a minimum bees to overcome his healing. Definitely use the purple gems for this method. Once you set it up and wake him up, you can just run away and watch from afar.

Otherwise, SirToastyToes' method looks like good guide, if you're not feeling like exploiting the game.

[Baguettes]

I did it with a pearl + opal and purple gems.
Of course, this is a Wolfgang-only strat, and requires the season to be Spring and the boss has to be wet.
This doesn't sound easy BUUUUT it's quick and could be done in less than 2 days.

Items (This is only viable for Wolfgang)
-About 2 Spicy volt goat jellies
-3 to 4 Dark Swords perhaps
-Ice Staves; 2 is fine but 3 just in case

Actions
- Sure, he heals time to time, but y'know your damage will outdo his healing anyway.
- Use the staves when he's about to cast geysers. You'll need to have a quick reaction for this one, or you'll be having a bad time.
- Run away when he uses his freezing spell, otherwise all your hard work is basically gone in a sec.
- Eat Something to tank the sanity loss, like dried kelp.

 

 

[Kelloggs Dogfry]

If you’re solo the easiest strategy is unfortunately just to freeze him at critical points as suggested above. My preferred way (difficult solo but doable), is just to have one boat with a malbatross sail and beak or two, an anchor, emergency blow darts in case of positional errors, and hambats. With two people one person can easily handle maneuvering around while the other does damage and occasionally assisting in said maneuvering when necessary. Both can deal damage too throughout the fight as long as you know your windows. I try to recommend it because it can be really exciting but it seems a good couple of people on the forums who talk about crab king have only ever fought using the freezing method or the bee method (no shame of course  ). Oh and this method you also need to clear out the sea stacks in advance. 

[Mike23Ua]

I figured a dummy boat with storage chests full of gunpowder or Snurtle slime ignited from a safe distance away using a fire staff would work, but I have not actually tested this yet- so if someone has they can confirm or debunk my suggestion.

[HowlVoid]

For anyone wondering what the bee method looks like.

You don't need any bee mines/tons of bees or multiple uses of the starcaller staff. You can also use bees to kill misery toadstool. 

[lakhnish]

1 hour ago, Lbphero said:

What are some strategies to do the crab king fight that y'all know of that would make the fight easy for me?

1. Killer bees with dwarf stars.
2. Flingo freeze lock
3. Gunpowder combined with number 2
4. Jelly Wolfgang when the world is wet in Spring.
5. Or learning how to do the fight mano-a-mano like in my guide (most people seem to do the first four though :'( ).

[ArubaroBeefalo]

19 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I figured a dummy boat with storage chests full of gunpowder or Snurtle slime ignited from a safe distance away using a fire staff would work, but I have not actually tested this yet- so if someone has they can confirm or debunk my suggestion.

bosses have gun powder resistance so you cant one shot him

 

56 minutes ago, Kelloggs Dogfry said:

If you’re solo the easiest strategy is unfortunately just to freeze him at critical points as suggested above. My preferred way (difficult solo but doable), is just to have one boat with a malbatross sail and beak or two, an anchor, emergency blow darts in case of positional errors, and hambats. With two people one person can easily handle maneuvering around while the other does damage and occasionally assisting in said maneuvering when necessary. Both can deal damage too throughout the fight as long as you know your windows. I try to recommend it because it can be really exciting but it seems a good couple of people on the forums who talk about crab king have only ever fought using the freezing method or the bee method (no shame of course  ). Oh and this method you also need to clear out the sea stacks in advance. 

some people called me crazy and lier for saying this was possible xD

[Kelloggs Dogfry]

8 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

some people called me crazy and lier for saying this was possible xD

People calling the method crazy is insane but the sad reality lol. I think most of it is people just don’t bother even trying it. The devs opened up ways to outsmart the boss, but I truly think the intended way was the boat maneuvering method. As a co-op boss I think he’s fantastically designed. He’s technically still functional for solo play as well but the difficulty is high enough that people just avoid it or don’t even bother to try it and they’re pigeonholed to the freezing/bees/whatever and in my opinion that method is way less fun which leads to people disliking him more than not it seems. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

[Guille6785]

2-3 flingos and a dwarf star and hold f