A (Hopefully) Comprehensive Guide to Crab Wrestling
Introduction
Alright, so I have never had the chance to make the guide on something because a) There is already a guide made for a certain subject or b) I am not proficient enough at a certain subject to make a guide on it. However, since I have few crab wrestling wins under my belt and seeing as how no one has made a crab wrestling guide as of yet, I decided to make one.
What is Crab Wrestling?
Crab wrestling is a bot hosted event in which players will be permanently morphed into crabs and fight it out in a sandy arena. Your goal essentially, is to be the last crab standing by clawing (:rolleyes:) your way up to the top. During this time, you will only be able to hurt others by tapping your action button, which extends your claw just like a normal crab would. Also, you will not be able to use healing staffs, food or any health related items while competing (a mistake I see sometimes in new players.)
A Few Optimal Settings/ Tips
Turning off nicknames makes a world of difference especially when it is an ec crab wrestling event. There are people with obnoxiously long names and looking at them generally makes me dizzy. If you need to look at someone's nickname, you can briefly tap on the screen to see them so don't worry.
Allow yourself to be able to zoom in on your screen. In the first 10 seconds of them match when no one knows what color crab or where they are, being able to zoom in on your screen helps you identify where you are in the arena and what color crab you are.
Don't stay in the middle. I understand that people sometimes lag and just stand in the middle. A sitting target attracts TONS of people to your immediate vicinity, so even you were able to move in real time (normally), you will take severe amounts of damage since you have to worm yourself out of the mess.
I know I said turn off the nicknames but just take a look at who you are competing right before the match starts. If a person is wearing a gang tag that you are familiar with, (as in the "pro" gangs), just take note of what color they are and where they are on the map. Avoid them early on and wait for others to whittle them down. These guys generally try and avoid conflict and just camp the bottom right and left corners. Someone will bum rush them eventually.
Defensive Fighting
I am going to start with the defensive option, since its less risk, safer, and easier to manage. Basically, what you need to do in a nutshell is avoid all conflicts without looking like a target. Don't spin around while moving. Move normally. Spinning around while moving attracts attention to you, and more specifically, your health bar. Avoid the middle, since that is where most of the action will be and instead, be on the outskirts, and avoid players charging towards you.
Part of defensive playing makes it so that you use less aggression. If there is someone who manages to land a hit on you, don't go after the person because most likely, it was just a blind hit with no intentional purpose. Although it seems like the corner would be easy to defend since you can just hit two sides to protect yourself, there's always going to be the one person who just goes for you without any regard. Also, if you make one wrong move, they can pretty much chain hit you to death.
If there is a person who is specifically targeting you however, I encourage you to explore offensive playing immediately.
Offensive Fighting
As you get better and better at crab wrestling, you will slowly gear yourself to become more aggressive and actively going after players. An active participation of fighting is pretty much high risk high reward. You are essentially putting your hp bar on the line so that you can increase your chances of making it into the last two.
Remember, make every hit count. Randomly jabbing at the air with no purpose will get you punished immediately. Get nice and close to your opponent, bait out their hit by making yourself look easy to hit and during that small window of opportunity, strike. The goal here is to get first. Second might as well be last.
I would say that there are 2 stages of offensive fighting. The first half is when there is pretty much a feeding frenzy of people jabbing and getting a lucky shot since its crowded. The second half is when the serious and lucky players are able to be differentiated, forcing you to play smart.
In the first half, I do something that I call "Thinning the Herd." Essentially what I do is going around middle (not through) and take a few shots at low health players and those who just don't move and just swing. Getting rid of these players makes it easy to move around and lowers the chance of a random swing hurting you.
In the second half, things become serious. There's always going to be the one guy in the corner and there are probably 30% of the players left. At this time, I have three options: Go after crabs my color, getting crabs of the same color to go after one guy, and just going full berserk.
Going After the Same Species
Going after the same color crab serves one and only purpose. Reducing error. What this does is reducing the possibility of you getting confused on which of the two blue crabs you are in a fight. However, the downside is that making yourself the only bright red crab in the arena could also potentially get you killed.
Teaming Up
I wouldn't recommend doing this unless there are 5 or less people remaining, if you are at a decently low health and if you can type really fast. The idea here is that you just call the shots. If there is a person remaining, you could type out "Get (color)." Drawing attention to others can immensely help against corner campers who are still at 40,45,50 health. People are more inclined to go for a same color 1 v 1 and are more likely to realize that a full health person is more important than someone with 20 health. They will probably re prioritize their initiative and help you go after the camper.
And Of Course...
Going full berserk doesn't really require an explanation. Just go after everyone and win. lol.
Additional Things
Moving is super important in the event. If you move in a straight line, people are more likely to intercept you and get a few free shots off of you. Move unpredictably. If someone is chasing you, lead them around a couple of times, juke them, suddenly stop... do ANYTHING that makes you unpredictable. If you don't know what your next move is, neither will your opponent.
Play smart. If you're in a 1 v 1 and have more health, still be careful versus a 5 health player. They are still perfectly equipped to take you down. If you notice that someone only attacks horizontally, make it look like you are about to face them head on, bait out their hit, and hit them vertically as you move.
Closing
Well, that's it for my crab wrestling guide. I might edit and add a couple of things here and there but this is it! I hope you enjoyed and found this guide to be helpful in giving you an idea of what crab wrestling might be like. If you have any ideas, suggestions, corrections or questions, please feel free to ask.
Ciao! ~thyme
