This is being written out of pure malicious hatred for that sorry excuse of a lobster dinner.

Purpose of this thread: to give people a place to bitch about why we hate Crawmerax and tell their sad stories.

I was reading a thread lastnight where someone was asking whether or not it was possible for Crawmerax to drop Pearlescent weapons while soloing in playthrough 2.5. I was honestly beginning to wonder that myself. He said he's already killed Crawm at least 25 times. Someone responded by saying that it most definitely is possible since he's already obtained 4 pearlescents from soloing Crawmerax, but he's killed him more like 50 times and in succession (by leaving his area and coming right back, not exiting the game). So I decided to suspend all logical reasoning for a night and solo Crawm 50 times straight without exiting in hopes of finding even one Pearl.

Summary of how this went: FML

I believe I started this little personal ordeal around 8 P.M. lastnight and I finished cleaning up the last of the loot at about 5:45 A.M. With minimal breaks and only 2 cups of coffee, I did it. Killing him is the easy part, cleaning all the s**t he drops takes forever. Usually I kill him five times then drop my inventory in the staging area and clean up all the drops. This was also done split screening with a Lillith, but being used purely as extra storage space and to up my chances of finding something decent (in other words, no one was controlling her), so I still consider it soloing since that Lillith provides absolutely no combat help.

After cleaning up thousands of drops, I found hardly anything worth mentioning. Other than a few guns that were margionally better than what I've got now and my first Reaper (which I gather is pretty rare), absolutely no Pearls, barely any decent Legendaries, and hardly any half-decent purples. I did do some math though and found that Crawm on average drops between 85 and 93 items per kill.

In conclusion: Whatever the chances are of Crawmerax dropping a Pearlescent weapon, they must really suck.

Either that or my game doesn't like me, something is wrong with my game, splitscreen chances are even lower than solo, or I just got an unlucky algorithm when I loaded up my game. I'm going with the unlucky algorithm theory on top of sucky chances.

I also heard from a friend the other night that when soloing Crawm, if you don't get a Pearl within 3 kills, exit and restart your game. If anyone can confirm that little theory or would like to test it, let me know how it goes.

So I'm off to bed, but if anyone has a story to tell, let's hear it...

AlexanderBlackX 10:22, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

P.S. This is my first thread, so if I didn't post this right or I forgot to do something or did something wrong, someone kindly let me know so I can fix it and be aware for next time. Thank you.

@AlexanderBlackX. I absolutely understand your pain. Me and a friend duo Craw almost every other night from about 4:30pm until around 8-10 pm. We have only had two pearlescent items drop: the Ironhide and the Undertaker. I owe another Wiki member a lot for hooking me up with an Aries, Tsunamia and Bessie (Thank you very much, you know who you are :) ). I am not sure about 2.5 drops (Unless these are the drops you get at Lv 61 after completing the main story line). It is more than a little anoying not to see the Pearls, but I guess that is why they are as rare as they are. I do wish they would give us a little more varity on the Legendaries that he drops. I have seen more Valcanos, Firehawks, Hellfires and Equalizers than I have any where else in the game. I am not upset about this as I like all of those weapons for different reasons, but I would like to see better varity out of the biggest boss in the game.

The only thing that I can suggest is that you try to decrease the amount of time it take you to farm him. My Siren is the best for speed and I use the following weapons: Desert Penetrator ( I recommend 1000+ pts if you can get your hands on one), Savage Aries ( 1300+), Pestalent Defiler (1100+), Desert Anaconda (800+ and Fire) with a 660 Specter Mod. The hardest part I have is getting his back plate, but I can strip the front five crit locations with out any difficulty.

I am the Keeper of Useless Knowledge ~ Proven Mayhem 12:06, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

The only thing he pisses me off with are his "minions" they suck so much ammo and need more awareness then i can get any my guns on the fuckers back, oh and he forces me to use phasewalk more then ADS Demonique 13:23, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

My friend killed Craw about 20 times a day, for a couple of weeks, and didn't get a single pearl. He gave up and got people to dupe all of them for him, but now he doesn't know what to do in Borderlands. That's what makes me sad. It's such a great game... there should be more fun to be had then killing a purple lobster a million times for good loot. Hell, If you're bored, start a newe character. Completely different game experience. Gunslinga 13:53, March 31, 2010 (UTC)Gunslinga

i as i got all purples and a good load of excellent legends, started to do themed characters, pick a char, pick a classmod, give 1 good weapon with each quality and a l55+l61 version and either shield/artifact/grenademod as starting gear, now the knack is to never change to another classmod except the given ones (unless you find a same, aka plaguebearer stay plaguebearer, sharpshpooter are sharpshoter) and dont use loot that does not fit the class. I enjoy it alot and did it for siren, soldier and mordecai (maybe i should instead sometime finish my l7 brick, hahaha)Demonique 14:20, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

Ok, i think most of you lost the concept of chance to drop and statistics, so let me remind you the general concept. Cyan weapons drop have a chance to drop once for every 66 oranges which means 1 cyan on 80 000 drops, lets say that craw drop around 5 oranges each times, it would take 12 kills to complete a cycle. However chance to drop doesn't mean that it WILL drop at every 66, but that it can. In fact, the statistic data of 1 for 66 is just an average, let magnify it: you have gathered your orange and over quality drop, you have gathered around 7 millions oranges, statistically you would have 60 000 cyans. But the distribution of those cyan isnt as constant as you would like, you could take half of all uor drop and only find 5 cyans in it, and some drops could contain no oranges and all cyans, or nothing at all! Statistically, you could flip a coin 6 thousand times and get the same side every times!(i dont want any comments that you can catch the coin to decide which side is on top, just let it fall on the ground and you'll have a random chance). So for those that think the game hates them, its merely luck...and about the trick of restarting after 3 kills....this trick goes very low on the IQ scale. Just remember that a multiplayer game increase the drop of high quality weapons (all fighting or not). That's about all that change the drop chances. and dont forget to get through all the drops, its easy to miss a single cyan in a ton of greens and blue. At last, im taking a wild estimation here, but to nearly guarantee a cyan drop (you cant reach 100% probability) you'd have to kill craw around...errmhh...1700 times, but that would be the worst of worst cases ever and has lower chance to happens that you would win the lottery...Valtiell 16:54, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

First off, Valtiell: Thank you for talking to us like we're a bunch of idiots. I think we're all (or at least most of us are) well aware that we're basing our hopes on statistical chances. I hate when people bitch that they haven't found something yet, because this game is all about luck of the draw. That's also why I personally hate duping and modding. The POINT of the game is luck of the draw. But the point of this thread was to share sad Crawm farming stories. Even though we're aware of the slim chances of finding these guns, it's still frustrating to go through all of that and have nothing to show for it. And please don't start insulting my IQ for asking a simple question about something a friend told me. So no, we have not lost the concept of chance and statistics. Apparently you have lost the concept of sympathy and common pleasantries, but have a wonderful grasp on the concept of "everyone's an idiot except for me." If you want to talk math, going with the lowest average I calculated last night, if he dropped 85 items every time, I killed him 50 times, so that yields 4250 drops. I don't think it's unreasonable to HOPE for a single Pearl or even decent Legendary within 4250 drops. I never said I expected to find a Pearl for every 66 Legendaries, but there's nothing wrong (or stupid) with hoping for better than what I got lastnight.

Second, everyone else: I did notice that he drops more/better items the faster you kill him. Fastest I've ever killed him was roughly 30 seconds. Before people start flaming me and accusing me of lies, let me explain. First off, yes I use the exploit spot on the cliff. If anyone knows a different quick and easy way to solo farm him with a hunter, you let me know. Anyway, he started turned to the side, so I could see the spot on his back. Two shots and his back was gone, then he turned towards me more. Two shots per claw, all gone, He stopped doing his spazmo routine and three shots, eye gone, dead lobster. Never missed once. I did get some pretty decent Legendaries from that. Other times, when he see me and puts up a fight, I get crap. Oh and here's my current loadout for solo Crawm farming:

-Skullmasher with 419x6 DMG (thus the two shot crit-spot kills while split screened)
-Orion with 844 DMG (great for ricocheting off rock pillars to hit his back if he's positioned right)
-Jackal with 1052 DMG (my only Pearl, found in a Lance chest on the way to the armory; see the Jackal talk page for my strategy for hitting his back while he's facing you using it)
-Crap, can't think of what it's called... The shotgun that regens ammo, mine has +22 (incase I run out of Jackal shots)
-Sniper mod with +100% sniper crit and +22 sniper ammo regen... can't remember other stats

With that loadout, I can hit any of Crawm's spots no matter which way he's turned and no matter where he stops moving, and each spot takes two hits with that Skullmasher excpet his eye which takes three (split screened and assuming all six bullets hit; each spot only takes one and the eye takes two when single player), so killing him isn't a problem. Like I said, killing him is the easy part, cleaning up all the drops takes forever. It's those little f***ing maggots hitting me off the cliff that piss me off. They kill me more than anything. I've been soloing him for weeks, at least 5 times a night, usually more. So I am getting a little frustrated that I haven't found anything truly awesome yet. I've found better from armory loot runs, such as the above Skullmasher. As frustrated as I am with this though, I will keep it up. I'm not bored with it, but I think I need a break. Those new Modern Warfare 2 maps look mighty tasty, might go back to that for a bit. Seeing all those multi-colored lights is fun though. I go through EVERY drop, so I definitely wouldn't have missed a Pearl if he's dropped one by now. I friggin hate when a blue and green drop perfectly lined up. You see that and get all excited that he's finally dropped a Pearl and run up to it to find.... DAMN, stupid greens and blues coincidentally falling next to each and fooling me, damn you all and such. And I've found more Equalizers, Hellfires, Volcanoes, Defilers, Thanatos', and Rebels than I know what to do with. It would be nice if even ONE of them was better than what I already have. But alas, that is the luck of the draw.

Keep up the fight my friends. AlexanderBlackX 18:36, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea how you people even kill him. I have only fought him solo, and I have run to that "glitched" spot everytime and I still draw his and his minions aggro. I watched that vide o like 100 times on how to do it and it just won't work for me. It pisses me off.GT: ConceitedJarrad XBOX360 18:41, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

My experience with Craw: Rode the elevator up, Craw runs up to me, Hits me with a claw, I die. I haven't been back yet...lolCrapStomper 18:47, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

Jarrad: I think it's all in the timing. It doesn't always work for me either. He killed me the first four times I did it lastnight because he saw me and started spitting. What I do is stand in the front left corner of the lift on the way up and try to approximate where the beginning of the ledge is and line myself up with it so I can immediately start running to it after the red barrier. If you get there fast enough, he won't see you. The longer you take to get there, the more there is a chance of him attempting to ruin your day. Keep trying and eventually you'll get it down. And try to keep an eye on your radar at the bottom. If any of the red markers start getting significantly bigger all of sudden, a maggot's probably going to try to kick you off the edge. The only way I can think to counter that without stopping to kill it is to jump a few times while still sprinting along the edge to the spot. Its no guarantee, but it allows a chance for the maggots to miss you and fall off the edge. Even if he sees you, you can still survive with a bit of luck and staying crouched in that spot. When he spits, try to watch the acid balls and strafe left and right JUST A LITTLE BIT, too far to the right (about three or four full steps) and you'll attract more attention from him and his little friends. If you stay crouched, he can't hit you with his claw attack. And if he starts spitting and you manage to take out a crit spot, he'll stop spitting and yell once or twice. If you can get to the spot and NOT attract his attention, congratulations, you're almost in the clear. There's still a small chance a maggot or something will try to attack you, but Crawm should stay wherever he is and just scream a lot. I hope you have something that can arc over his back (Jackal) or something that ricochets (Orion), otherwise his back spot is going to be a pain. Before I found my Jackal or if he wasn't close enough to the rock pillar to ricochet a few Orion shots to his back, I would step to the right enough to piss him off, dodge the spit and wait for him to turn around. Doing that is risky though, so kill all of his other spots first, and after he turns around, take out his back FAST or he will attack you more. Turning off aim assist helps if you're sniping. You can line up a shot while he's spazzing out and then take the shot at just the right time. Aim assist will move your sight to follow his movements, making it hard to line up precision shots. And remember that there is a delay between you shooting and the shot hitting him, so work out the timing. Ammo regen helps. Hope this helped. Good luck.

Stomper: That was my first experience too, until I teamed with some friends and spent over an hour trying to kill him. Then I learned how to solo him from the magic spot on the cliff and now he's my little lobster bitch. Now I can kill him in under 3 minutes on average. AlexanderBlackX 19:07, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Alex. I guess I'll just keep at it until I eventually get him.GT: ConceitedJarrad XBOX360 19:17, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

You might die a lot trying to get it down, but once you figure it out and can repeat it successfully, you can make back about $100 million from selling all the drops from 2 kills (that's approximate, don't hold me to the exact numbers, either way you make a butt-load of money). Of course, after a while, losing money stops mattering. Finding better guns becomes more important. AlexanderBlackX 19:55, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

@AlexanderBlackX,

I am still trying to learn how to solo him with anything, but my Siren. Demonique has mentioned it on a couple of other places, but the Siren is great for the job. I have watched my friend Spycaster solo him with a soldier. I am the Keeper of Useless Knowledge ~ Proven Mayhem 20:00, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

Proven: That's why I started splitscreening with a Lillith. I boosted her to level 61 to try the Phasewalk trick and had no luck with it. (I made her on a seperate non-Live account to splitscreen with my Mordecai.) I have more luck soloing with my Hunter. Like I said, I just splitscreen with her now to use her for added storage, up the chances of finding better items, and occasionally try my own trials with two mods with +2 Find Rare Items, which I've developed my own theories on. Unfortunately I don't have time to explain them right now. As a bonus, I've gotten used to fighting things throughout the game that are intended for two people (more enemies and stronger enemies) by myself, so I feel that much more capable of holding my own. AlexanderBlackX 20:48, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

@AlexanderBlackX you got me wrong here, my post wasn't specifically directed to you, in fact i tried to stay generally neutral all the way, but it seems i cant write something without angering someone, sorry...And i just got really really tired of seeing all these: crawmerax hates me, when will i get pearlescent drops and stuff. I just wanted to show that there was nothing special about having killed craw 50 times in solo and not having any cyan and most of those that can be seen online could be duped (im against me too but this isnt the thread). And about the reseting trick, you gotta admit that the guy that thought of it mush have been joking, firsthand i though it could be somewhat plausible, but why 3 craw kills? BTW im jealous of your skullmasher.

As for personnal experience, i killed crawmerax around 30 times while splitscreening with myself (and power leveling a lvl 1 that wasnt quite lvl 1 for long) using both glitch spots. I usually go through all whats drop (having it in the inventory forbid you to make mistakes), because we never know...and on the last one i was tired and as i was about to quit the game i caught a glimpse of cyan (i was too lazy to go through all the loot this time) and i got a rose shield! so yeah..i nearly done it dumb and missed a cyan...Valtiell 00:09, April 1, 2010 (UTC)

What pisses me off the most, "Suicide Mobs". These are those lovely Green Worms and Maggots that dart at you and push you off the ledge. I had a maggot do it to me, hit the shelf on the right side that registers as a kill when you hit...Only to jump back up and put me on my knees. I am calling BS on the play here. lol

I am the Keeper of Useless Knowledge ~ Proven Mayhem 19:01, April 1, 2010 (UTC)

Valtiell: I apologize for going on the defensive. It's a personal pet peeve that I hate feeling talked down to and immediately retaliate. I didn't think it was directed at me, I tried to make my response a defense for everyone. I understand where you're coming from though. Sorry for taking you the wrong way. I too hate when people bitch about not finding things, although we all do it anyway. My one friend bragged to me that he found 4 or 5 different eridian guns before even the halfway point of his first playthrough. I don't know about the rest of you, but I was really excited when I found my first alien weapon (this all happened a while ago, long before realizing they pretty much all suck), so I started getting pissed about the fact that I had only found 2 different eridians by the end of my second playthrough. It really does come down to pure luck. No amount of math and statistics on our part is ever going to help us find better guns. Which is why I still cling to those tiny shreads of hope that keep me playing. That's the one point I want to stress here: hope out-weighs logical reasoning. You're right, doing the math shows that finding a Pearlescent in a single night's work holds such a minute chance that I shouldn't have even bothered trying to kill him 50 times in one sitting. But I, and probably MANY other people, have developed these dumb little theories and possibilities and personal missions that statistical chances don't matter any more. Logic goes out the window and FIND THAT PEARLESCENT becomes the one and only goal in mind. And trying all these little things to possibily increase our chances, no matter how dumb they sound and how stupid they seem and how entirely pointless they are, well... they stop being dumb and stupid and pointless and we do them anyway. So I just wanted to clarify, I wasn't initially bitching about the fact that I did all of that and thought I should have found a Pearlescent and didn't, I was bitching that I decided to be stupid enough to kill him 50 times in one sitting and I don't have ANYTHING to show for it. Except a Reaper. I don't care if it sucks, I found it and that's what matters.

Once again, I am sorry for taking you the wrong way, and I hope you don't mind me clarifying myself anyway. And yes, my Skullmasher is pretty badass. The only one I've heard of that's stronger (and NOT modded) had 423x6 DMG, so that fact that mine is only 4 less makes me feel pretty awesome. I'm sure there are plenty that are better, but yeah, I love it. Found it in the Armory. Actually, most of my best weapons I found in the armory. *gears in brain start to turn* Hehe, screw Crawmerax, I'm going back to Armory runs.

One last note my friend... I might be new to forum posting, but one thing is defintely clear. Saying something on the internet is like publicly talking about religion; you can't say something without offending somebody. People are way too damn opinionated. I would know. I'm one of them. AlexanderBlackX 09:35, April 2, 2010 (UTC)

I think there really might be something to that random algorith thing I mentioned before. I've heard someone else say something about it that way, thus why I call it that. Lastnight I decided to go back to my normal looting routine (kill Crawm five times, loot the Armory, Exit, repeat) and I think that you can get luckier algorithms (or whatever you want to call it) when you reload the game. When I first loaded the game, I killed Crawm five times and didn't find anything even remotely decent. In my experience, it's almost a guarantee to find at least two or three Legendaries per kill. In five kills I found three. I went to the Armory. I walked away with two guns that I thought might be better than something I had in storage. Turns out they were significantly worse. Exit. Repeat. This time I was finding up to six Legendaries per kill. After five kills, I go to the Armory. I walked away with a full inventory of things that were better than some of what I had and other things selling for no less than $5 million. This has happened to me many times before. Sometimes I play and everything I find is terrible. Other times, everything is worth keeping or at least agood selling price. That might be why someone said to reload after killing Crawm three times if you don't find a Pearlescent. That does seem to be a little extreme and overly hopeful. But otherwise, if you're playing and finding crap, it seems possible to reload and have a better chance of finding overall better items. That doesn't supersede luck and the given chances of finding things, but what if something in the coding increases those chances and gives the player slightly better luck every once in a while? Based on experience, it seems possible to me. AlexanderBlackX 01:37, April 5, 2010 (UTC)

Alexander, I think you are right. At least somewhat, we wouldn't know for sure without knowing the programming of the game, but I do want to throw in my experience. I got my first pearl after killing craw and clearing the map completely each time about 20 times. there were four players in the game. I have a feeling "luck" in finding pearls may be weighted by completion of the game. I had gone back and finished every mission in the vanilla game earlier that day. I now only have a couple missions to finish in jacobs cove and Ill be 100% complete. Maybe the game rewards higher grade weapons based on completion as well as other variables. And maybe im just rambling, good hunting boys Hellz Lips 02:37, April 5, 2010

(UTC)

Yo, this might be totally pussy (and against the entire point of the game) but has anyone tried turning god mode on? It makes everything so very easy.

Lips: Good point. I have everything completed in both playthroughs except Moxxi's and first playthrough Knoxx. Now that you mention that, I think I'll go take care of those and see if there's any difference. Then again, this is purely speculation. We couldn't know for sure unless Gearbox revealed some secrets or someone good with programming ripped the game apart. Thanks for the input though. It's always nice to know you're not the only one that believes in a crazy idea.

Unsigned poster: This is not, I repeat NOT directed towards you. This is a general statement based on opinion.

F**k god mode. That is all.
AlexanderBlackX 04:15, April 5, 2010 (UTC)