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Crab King
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Exclusive to: 
“Yikes! A little too crabby for me.”
“He doesn't look too happy...”
“This makes Wolfgang very scared AND hungry.”
“One of us will be sent to a watery grave...”
“A FLESHSACK DISGUISED AS A NON-FLESHSACK”
“I wonder if its size is natural or caused by lunar mutations?”
“I think we might've bothered him.”
“Say, pal, why don't we try to work this out?”
“Have at thee, cursed crustacean!”
“He looks pretty crabby!”
“Oh, the dishes I could make with that much crab meat...”
“Crabby...”
“Looks like he thinks he's the boss around here.”
“Another cursed soul.”
“Glurp... he kinda cranky.”
–Wurt
“YES!! Now that's a proper sea monster!”
“Ah! There you are, you old codger!”
The Crab King is a Boss Mob exclusive to Don't Starve Together, introduced in Return of Them.
It can be found in the Swell Ocean inside a circle of Sea Stacks in its inert form. Its position can be detected by the Astral Detector if the Inactive Celestial Tribute has not yet dropped.
To initiate the boss fight, players must socket 9 Gems to transform the Crab King into its aggressive form. This action will destroy all nearby Sea Stacks. If the player leaves combat, the Crab King will return to its inert state, dropping all socketed gems. It will also despawn all Crab Guards, Crab Knights, Cannon Towers, Imposing Claws, Ice Floes, while respawning new Sea Stacks around itself.
Upon death, the Crab King drops all socketed gems, 6 pieces of Meats, 2-4 Message in a Bottles, 8 Crab King Bumper Kits, 2-4 Barnacles, 1-3 Baritone Shell Bells, 2-4 Alto Shell Bells, 3-5 Soprano Shell Bells, and a Blueprint for the Strident Trident. If the Pearl's Pearl was socketed, a Cracked Pearl is dropped instead of the Pearl's Pearl, and an Inactive Celestial Tribute in the form of an Underwater Salvageable appears as well.
The Crab King reappears 20 days after being killed.
Crab King has Explosive Resistance and cannot be put to sleep. Its resistance to freezing is 3 and increases with the number of Blue Gems socketed.
Fight
After 9 gems are socked, the Crab King turns aggressive and summons 5 Imposing Claws and 4 Cannon Towers to start the fight.
When Crab King's Health drops below 10800, it will try to heal itself for every 1500 health lost or whenever all claws are killed, after a delay of 12 seconds.
It will first despawn all Imposing Claws and generate a large number of Waves to push all Float Platforms away. At the same time, it summons a ring of geysers, indicated by bubbles, in a circle of 8 units around itself, in all directions except south. After 8 seconds, the geysers will erupt once per second until there are no Float Platforms within 14 units. The Crab King will then create a 16 unit radius Ice Floe around itself, destroying all structures or plants within this area. It will then summon 3 Crab Guards and creates a circular Ice Barrier around itself. As long as the Ice Barrier is intact, the Crab King cannot be targeted by any attacks.
If the Crab King's Health drops below 4200, it will also summon a Crab Knight each time.
After summoning the Ice Floe, the Crab King taunts for 10 seconds and then begins to repair its shell every 1.2 seconds, restoring 50 Health each time. If any attack hits during the repair process, the repair fails and health is not restored. This behavior continues until the Crab King returns to full health or the Ice Barrier breaks up.
25 seconds after the Ice Barrier is broken, the Ice Floes will break, starting with the Ice Floes closest to Crab King. The Crab King will then summon Imposing Claws and Cannon Towers up to their original numbers.
Below is the number of hits it takes with each weapon to kill a Crab King when playing with characters with a default damage modifier. The Weather Pain is not included due to the random nature of its projectile.
| Item | 
|
|---|---|
 |
60 |
|
≥75 |
|
120 |
 
|
134 (80  )
|
 
|
177 |
|
200 |
|
202 |
|
202 - 404 |
|
236 |
|
240 |
 
|
277 (167 )
|
 
|
283 |
|
300 |
|
|
353 |
|
393 |
   
|
442 |
      
|
706 |
|
883 |
  |
2824 |
Gems
The Crab King's fighting abilities depend on the number of gems of each color socketed into it. Iridescent Gems count as 1 of each color and the Pearl's Pearl counts as 3 of each color.
These gems will flash when Crab King uses the respective ability.
| Gem Count | 
|
|
|
|
|
| |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cannon Tower Damage | Cannon Tower cause Leak | Freeze resistance / Ice Staff hits required to freeze | Ice Barrier health | Time between the break of the ice barrier and the breakup of the ice floes | Number of Crab Guards | Crab Guard health | Crab Guard sleep resistance | Crab Knight sleep resistance | Number of Cannon Towers | Cannon Tower health | Cannon Tower damage when collision with Float Platfrom | Healing per rock | Attacked while healing | Number of Imposing Claws | Imposing Claws health | Imposing Claws damage | |
| 0 | 20 | No | 3 | 100 | 25 | 3 | 200 | 2 | 12 | 4 | 300 | 300 times of speed | 50 | Interrupting Healing Action | 5 | 200 | 40 |
| 1 | 25 | 4 | 23 | 220 | 5 | ||||||||||||
| 2 | 30 | 5 | 21 | 4 | 240 | 6 | 125 | 6 | 50 | ||||||||
| 3 | 35 | 6 | 19 | 260 | 7 | ||||||||||||
| 4 | 40 | 7 | 17 | 5 | 280 | 8 | 200 | 7 | 60 | ||||||||
| 5 | 45 | Small Leak | 8 | 300 | 15 | 350 | 12 | 22 | 9 | 600 | 240 times of speed | Healing Action retrogress 13 frames | 400 | ||||
| 6 | 50 | 9 | 13 | 6 | 380 | 10 | 275 | 8 | 70 | ||||||||
| 7 | 55 | 10 | 11 | 410 | 11 | ||||||||||||
| 8 | 60 | Big Leak | 11 | 500 | 9 | 7 | 520 | 22 | 32 | 12 | 900 | 180 times of speed | 350 | Healing Action retrogress 8 frames | 9 | 600 | 80 |
| 9 | 65 | 12 | 7 | 560 | 13 | ||||||||||||
| 10 | 70 | 13 | 5 | 8 | 600 | 14 | 425 | 10 | 90 | ||||||||
| 11 | 100 | 14 | 900 | 3 | 840 | 15 | 1200 | 100 times of speed | 1000 | ||||||||
Imposing Claw
“That's claws for alarm!”
“Keep your claws off my boat!”
“Keep away from boat, big pinchers!”
“It wants to drag me down to the icy depths of the sea.”
“IT HIDES ITS FLESH WITHIN A HARD CASING”
“Thank goodness I'm not allergic to shellfish.”
“Not the best time to make snap decisions, eh?”
“Best to avoid that.”
“Prepare thyself tö be de-clawed!”
“Aaah! Leave us alone!”
“I had a nightmare like this back in culinary school.”
“Scary!”
“Now that's some claws for alarm. Ha!”
“Now that's claws for alarm, hyuyuyu!”
“Go away! No pinching!”
–Wurt
“Woah! Look at the size of those claws!”
“You keep those big old snippers away from me!”
Imposing Claws are summoned by the Crab King. Their health, attack damage and quantity are determined by the number of Green Gems socketed.
Once summoned, the Imposing Claws will slowly move towards to target to attack. Imposing Claws only attack Characters (all characters, not only players) and Monsters, and will never attack any other Mobs, even if they are attacked by them.
It takes 4 hits of an Ice Staff to freeze Imposing Claws.
They drop 1 piece of Meat when killed.
Cannon Tower
“I knew there was mortar these crabs.”
“That's not very welcoming.”
“Cowardly crabs like to toss rock.”
“Futile.”
“CHEAP TACTICS OF A FLESHLING”
“Curious. These crustaceans have learned to launch projectiles.”
“These guys don't fight fair.”
“Watch it where you shoot those things!”
“Nöw THIS is a battle.”
“Oooh fun! Heads up!”
“It reminds me of a seafood tower, but more deadly.”
“Boom Tower”
“There's no way they've got a permit for that.”
“Well don't go ballistic, hyuyu!”
“Hate skyrocks.”
–Wurt
“Incoming!”
“All this fuss!”
Cannon Towers are summoned by Crab King and will periodically respawn if destroyed during the fight. Their resistance to being rammed by boats, health, and numbers depend on the number of Yellow Gems socketed into Crab King. Their damage and ability to cause Leaks on boats depend on the number of Red Gems socketed. With 5 to 7 Red Gems, cannon hits will cause small leaks, while 8 or more Red Gems will enable the cannons to cause medium leaks.
Cannon Towers will only targets Characters on boats and boats themselves, favoring boats when a character is not on them. Ramming into them with a boat does an exponential amount of damage determined by the boat's speed as well as the amount of Yellow Gems socketed into Crab King.
They are immune to freezing.
Cannon Towers drop 2-4 Rocks, 0-1 Kelp Frond, 0-1 Barnacles, and 0-1 Cannonball when killed.
Cannonball with 5 to 7 Red Gems socked.
Cannonball with 8 or more Red Gems socked.
Tips
- To make the fight easier, the player should try to use a variety of gems, as reaching 5 gems of a same color will add much more difficulty to the fight.
- For example, going from 3 to 4 red gems only increases Cannon Tower damage a little bit. But going from 4 to 5 red gems means that Cannon Tower shots will cause leaks, in addition to the increased damage.
Trivia
- The Crab King was introduced in the She Sells Sea Shells update.
- Barnacles were added to the Crab King's loot table in the Troubled Waters update.
- Crab King's combat was fully reworked in the Staying Afloat update.
- About Crab King before this update, see Crab King/Old
- There is an unused animation of the Crab King dying as opposed to falling into the water when defeated.
- The Crab King was once Pearl’s love interest, as the Pearl she gives the player is intended for it, the Shell Bells dropped by the Crab King also prove this relation further, as Pearl also awards Shell Bells to the players. When many characters examine the Pearl, they comment on Pearl not giving up on her love interest and when giving the Cracked Pearl back to Pearl herself, she appears to take it as being rejected by the Crab King.
Gallery
Crab King in the She Sells Sea Shells Trailer
Crab King in the She Sells Sea Shells Trailer
Map Icon
Unused menu background with the Crab King
Cannon Tower concept art from Staying Afloat update stream from Rhymes with Play.
Claw fight animation from Staying Afloat update stream from Rhymes with Play.
Claw fight animation from Staying Afloat update stream from Rhymes with Play.
Claw joke animation from Staying Afloat update stream from Rhymes with Play.
Cannon Tower Crab Guard joke animation from Staying Afloat update stream from Rhymes with Play.
Animations
reappear
disappear
frozen
die
unused death animation
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