How to defeat Crab Rave

One of the new additions in Patch 14.1 is the new portal "Crab Rave". It is quite similar to the Portal "Scuttle Puddle", since it will transform all PVE minions into Scuttle Crabs with bonus loot. These rounds are effectively free and can be beaten by any board.

The main difference with Crab Rave is the Stage 5-7, where you will encounter the Monster Crab. This PVE Stage is extremely difficult to beat, often resulting in players losing the fight and potentially dying in the process.

Some comps will have an inherent advantage, when it comes to beating the Monster Crab, but there are some units you can add to your team to increase your chances of shutting down the Monster Crab.

Starting in Stage 5-7 you will be facing the Monster Crab. It has some pretty impressive stats:

• 20.000 HP
• 300 Armor
• 300 Magic Resistance

The main problem besides the ridiculous defensive stats is the Board Wide Damage that increases with each cast. This means no matter where you position your units, they will take damage from each wave. After around 20 seconds the Wave is strong enough to effectively one-shot any of your backliners.

No matter the setup, the most improtant aspect you will need to defeat the Monster Crab is Omnivamp. Some popular sources are:

• Items: Gunblade / Bloodthirster / Death's Defiance
• Augments: Vampirism / Harmacist
• Traits: Mosher / Disco
• Integrated Healing: Yasuo / Olaf / Yone

Some comps like Yasuo Reroll won't even have to think about Crab Rave, because the combination of True Damage and Omnivamp makes the fight trivial. Other comps like Pentakill can often struggle, because carries like Akali or Karthus are rather inefficient against a single tanky opponent.

Since the Monster Crab has such a high HP pool and strong defensive stats, it only makes sense to run items with a burn effect to maximize your damage. Unfortunately this will only work to an extent. It doesn't matter if you have Sunfire, Red Buff, Blistering Strikes or a radiant Morello, the burn damage against PVE minions is capped at 100 true damage every second.

Since a Crab Rave fight becomes extremely dangerous after 20 seconds, you should not expect to get more than 2500 True damage out of a burn item. It is still useful and worth including, but you shouldn't expect the item to carry the fight for you.

Outside of Healing and Burn items you should also make sure you have a Sunder or Shred effect for your main damage type.

• Sunder (30% Armor Pen): Last Whisper, Evenshroud, Obsidian Cleaver, Yorick
• Shred (30% MR Pen): Statikk Shiv, Ionic Spark, Obsidian Cleaver, Ziggs

Some units like Vi or Twisted Fate can also reduce Armor/MR by a flat amount, but unless you are playing a Mosher or Disco setup this is not relevant and can be ignored.

One Artifact that is also worth mentioning is Deathfire Grasp. It blasts the target for 20% Max HP and heavily increases the damage output for one of your units. This adds another 1300-1500 magic damage at the start of the fight. You can also put the item on a true damage unit and you will benefit from the bonus true damage as well.

Depending on the comp that you are playing, you will have to worry less about the upcoming Monster Crab. For example Yasuo Reroll usually has an extremely easy time, because he scaled most of the game, has integrated Omnivamp and tons of true damage to bypass the high Armor/MR values.

A strong Yone, Riven or Disco board usually has a decent matchup, but depending on the items it is possible for them to get bursted down in the final stretch. Moshers are also quite recommended, especially with Jax carry, as he will be scaling a lot during the fight and has a lot of sustain from his items and the Mosher trait.

Overall the winning formula is sustain + high DPS. This is why a comp like Pentakill often struggles in this Portal. Both Akali and Karthus are incapable of carrying the fight and you will have to rely on a strong Viego+Yorick instead.

Ahri in theory is a pretty good unit to deal with the Scuttle, but the rest of her team often lacks behind. You should consider collecting a second Ahri on your bench and put her in for the fight, preferably with a sustain item. You can also move Ahri to the frontline, as there is no benefit to put her in the backline.

If you find yourself in a weak matchup, there are some units you can look out for in Stage 4 and 5 to help out your team.

Qiyana has easy traits to activate with True Damage and Crowd Diver and has an amazing ability to help you win the fight. She deals bonus true damage to enemies without an item, which does in fact work against the Scuttle. Some sustain and damage items on a Qiyana can massively improve your chances at dealing with the Crab.

Kayn doesn't even require any of his traits and his ability is perfect against here. Once he starts casting, he won't stop until the very end, since he will always trigger the condition of only hitting a single target. Give him a Gunblade and some AP items and he can easily add several thousand damage to help you win the fight.

This Portal is not intended to be fair and equal. Some comps will simply have an easier time surviving, because they excel at single target damage or have integrated sustain to survive the wave damage.

You can make the concious decision to commit on a comp that has an easier time from the very beginning if you want to avoid the trouble of losing to the crab in late game, but hopefully the tips in this guide allow you to find success regardless!