Crab King

Exclusive to:

Crab King
Stats
	12000
Traits
Special Ability	Summons Imposing Claws, Freezes water around him. Summons Cannon Towers, Summons Crab Guards and Crab Knights, Heals himself.
Loot	×7, ×4-6, ×3-5, ×2-3, ×3-7, 2x, x8, for , for , (, if is socketed)
Code
"crabking"

“Yikes! A little too crabby for me.”

–Wilson

“He doesn't look too happy...”

–Willow

“This makes Wolfgang very scared AND hungry.”

–Wolfgang

“One of us will be sent to a watery grave...”

–Wendy

“A FLESHSACK DISGUISED AS A NON-FLESHSACK”

–WX-78

“I wonder if its size is natural or caused by lunar mutations?”

–Wickerbottom

“I think we might've bothered him.”

–Woodie

“Say, pal, why don't we try to work this out?”

–Maxwell

“Have at thee, cursed crustacean!”

–Wigfrid

“He looks pretty crabby!”

–Webber

“Oh, the dishes I could make with that much crab meat...”

–Warly

“Crabby...”

–Wormwood

“Looks like he thinks he's the boss around here.”

–Winona

“Another cursed soul.”

–Wortox

“Glurp... he kinda cranky.”

–Wurt

“YES!! Now that's a proper sea monster!”

–Walter

“Ah! There you are, you old codger!”

–Wanda

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. Players must socket 9 Gems to turn him into his aggressive form and start the boss fight. His position can be indicated by the Astral Detector if the Inactive Celestial Tribute has not yet dropped.

Upon death, the Crab King drops all the socketed gems, 7 pieces of Meat, 4 Soprano Shell Bells with a 50% chance and a 25% to get one extra, 3 Alto Shell Bells with a 50% and 25% chance to get one extra, 2 Baritone Shell Bells with a 50% chance to get one extra, 2 Messages in a Bottle pointing to treasures, 3 Barnacles plus 4 extra with a 25% chance for each, 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.

If the player leaves combat, the Crab King will return to his inert state, dropping all the gems socketed and summoning new Sea Stacks around him. He reappears 20 days after being killed.

Behavior

After socketing 11 Gems, Crab King begins the fight by summoning Imposing Claws that seek players and damage them on the boat. Crab King summons Cannon Towers around the that shoot Cannonballs towards the players, damaging them and the boat. The Cannon Towers may be erected on boats and can be destroyed for the given phase.

When Crab King's health falls by 2000, he begins to create waves around him, pushing the boats and floating objects away. After that, Crab King freezes the water to create a temporary platform of ice and a wall of ice around him, summoning 6-8 Crab Guards (And 1 Crab Knight when his health falls below 50%) and healing himself. Healing can be interrupted by damaging Crab King.

The Crab King fight cycles through these phases indefinitely.

He cannot be put to sleep. His resistance to freezing increases with the number of Blue Gems.

Gem Effects

The Crab King's fighting abilities depend on the number of gems of each color socketed into him. Iridescent Gems count as 1 of each color and the Pearl's Pearl counts as 3 of each color.

Below are the tables showing the effects for each Gem type and count.

• Red Gems
• Blue Gems
• Purple Gems
• Yellow Gems
• Orange Gems
• Green Gems

Gem count	Cannon Tower damage	Cannon Tower cause leak
×0	20	No
×1	25
×2	30
×3	35
×4	40
×5	45	Small Leak
×6	50
×7	55
×8	60	Big Leak
×9	65
×10	70
×11	100

Gem count	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
×0	3	100	25
×1	4		23
×2	5		21
×3	6		19
×4	7		17
×5	8	300	15
×6	9		13
×7	10		11
×8	11	500	9
×9	12		7
×10	13		5
×11	14	900	3

Gem count	Number of Crab Guards	Crab Guard health	Crab Guard sleep resistance	Crab Knight sleep resistance
×0	3	200	2	12
×1		220
×2	4	240
×3		260
×4	5	280
×5		350	12	22
×6	6	380
×7		410
×8	7	520	22	32
×9		560
×10	8	600
×11		840

Gem count	Number of Cannon Towers	Cannon Tower health	Cannon Tower damage when collision with Boats
×0	4	300	300 × Boat speed
×1	5
×2	6
×3	7
×4	8
×5	9	600	240 × Boat speed
×6	10
×7	11
×8	12	900	180 × Boat speed
×9	13
×10	14
×11	15	1200	100 times of speed

Gem count	Healing per rock	Attacked while healing
×0	50	Interrupting Healing Action
×1
×2	125
×3
×4	200
×5		Healing Action retrogress 13 frames
×6	275
×7
×8	350	Healing Action retrogress 8 frames
×9
×10	425
×11

Gem count	Number of Imposing Claws	Imposing Claws health	Imposing Claws damage
×0	5	200	40
×1
×2	6		50
×3
×4	7		60
×5		400
×6	8		70
×7
×8	9	600	80
×9
×10	10		90
×11		1000

Fight

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.

Number of Hits

Item
	12	-	0	0
	36	-	0	0
	48	-	0	0
	59 - 79	-	0 - 0	0 - 0
	60	0	0	0
	≥75	≥0	≥0	≥0
	76 as	-	0 as	0 as
()	85 (elderly) 123 (middle-aged) 148 (young) 442 (unfueled)	0 (elderly) 0 (middle-aged) 0 (young) 0 (unfueled)}}	0	0
	118	-	0	0
	118 - 236	-	0 - 0	0 - 0
	120	0	0	0
	134 (80 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )
	177	0	0	0
	177	0	0	0
	177	-	0	0
	200	0	0	0
	353, 267 or 200	-	0, 0 or 0	0, 0 or 0
	202 (135 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )
	202	0	0	0
	202 - 404	0 - 0	0 - 0	0 - 0
	221 - 442 -	-	0 - 0 -	0 - 0 -
	236	0	0	0
	240	0	0	0
	272	-	0	0
	277 (167 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )
	283	0	0	0
	300	0	0	0
	353	0	0	0
	353 (118 on )	-	0 (0 )	0 (0 )
	393	0	0	0
	402	-	0	0
	353 (118 on )	0 (0 on )	0 (118 on )	0 (118 on )
	442	0	0	0
	589	-	0	0
	600	-	0	0
	706	0	0	0
	883	0	0	0
	2824	0	0	0

Imposing Claw

Imposing Claw
Stats
	200
Combat
Damage	40 (30 )
Attack Period	3-4
Movement
Walking Speed	1
Traits
Loot	×1
Spawns from
Code
"crabking_claw"

“That's claws for alarm!”

–Wilson

“Keep your claws off my boat!”

–Willow

“Keep away from boat, big pinchers!”

–Wolfgang

“It wants to drag me down to the icy depths of the sea.”

–Wendy

“IT HIDES ITS FLESH WITHIN A HARD CASING”

–WX-78

“Thank goodness I'm not allergic to shellfish.”

–Wickerbottom

“Not the best time to make snap decisions, eh?”

–Woodie

“Best to avoid that.”

–Maxwell

“Prepare thyself tö be de-clawed!”

–Wigfrid

“Aaah! Leave us alone!”

–Webber

“I had a nightmare like this back in culinary school.”

–Warly

“Scary!”

–Wormwood

“Now that's some claws for alarm. Ha!”

–Winona

“Now that's claws for alarm, hyuyuyu!”

–Wortox

“Go away! No pinching!”

–Wurt

“Woah! Look at the size of those claws!”

–Walter

“You keep those big old snippers away from me!”

–Wanda

Imposing Claws are summoned by the Crab King at the beginning of combat an

Imposing Claws move slowly in the water towards the players, looking to damage them as they get in range. As they get in range, they swing at the player dealing 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.
• It's possible to insert more than 1 Pearl's Pearl using console commands. With these, it's possible to get the Crab King to have 527,000 health and an insane amount of other changes.
• 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 him, 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.

Tips

• Crab King's wave push ability can be negated by planting 4 or more Anchors on a boat, making the boat move away significantly slower. It allows for easier access for Crab King and slows down the battle, because the Crab King will not spawn Crab Guards and Crab Knights until all the boats are at least 2 tiles away from him. However, player will receive significant Wetness from stopping the boat this way due to all the waves crashing onto it.
  • A perfect way of exploiting this mechanic is using ranged weapons, summons or traps such as Winona's Catapults, Maxwell's Shadow Duelists or classic Bee Mines.
    • Maxwell with mid game upgrades for his shadow duelists can kill Crab King without allowing him to spawn towers or guards, making him the easiest boss in the game, which requires only minimal sanity restoration and some boat patches.
• Planting several boats around the Crab King will divert some attacks from Cannon Towers, preventing some early boat damage.

Bugs

• The Crab Guards and Crab Knights are immune to Maxwell's Shadow Prison ability when summoned 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

Animations

reappear

disappear

frozen

die

unused death animation

• DS
• RoG
• SW
• Ham
• DST
• All