Araxxor/Strategies

Araxxor is a large spider that can be found in the Araxyte Hive. Drops include parts of spider legs and Araxxi's eye, fang and web to create level 90 Noxious weaponry, currently the best 2-handed weapons outside Dungeoneering.

Players cannot teleport out of the fight; the only way to leave is by victory or death. As of the update of 12 January 2015, players will be unable to log out during phase 1 of the fight, attempting to do so will result in the message "Araxxor demands your attention right now." Therefore, it is recommended to bring an araxyte pheromone or hybrid armour and at least two forms of combat or create an instance, as chances of getting a spawn weak to your combat style becomes 100%. If you manage to encounter a form that you would rather not fight, and path 3 is open, it is usually a good idea to take this path as the second phase does not require fighting Araxxor directly, unlike the other paths.

Inventory

 * Overload flask (highly recommended)
 * Prayer renewal flask
 * Antipoison++ flask
 * 2 Super restore flask
 * 9 Saradomin brew flasks (fill remainder with Rocktails or Rocktail soups)
 * Runes for spells if maging
 * A beast of burden summoned and filled with high healing food


 * Recommended
 * Adrenaline potion
 * Portent of life (or Sign of life if the player cannot make the portent)
 * Elite enhanced Excalibur
 * Phoenix necklace (for the last 25,000 LP of the boss on phase 4)
 * A shield

Standard attacks
The primary combat style Araxxor uses is shown by the colour its legs are tipped in. A red tip indicates it only uses melee attacks, a green tip indicates ranged/melee attacks and a blue tip indicates magic/melee attacks. The special abilities from these standard attacks occur randomly. In a duo, ranged and magic attacks will bounce if players are close to each other.

The special effects from these attacks only occur on Araxxor's dominant combat style, and any can occur when fighting Araxxi.


 * Magic: Araxxor/Araxxi spits a large ball of acid towards the player. This attack can drain combat stats and run energy.
 * Melee: Araxxor/Araxxi smashes its legs at the player, dealing melee damage. This attack can cause style-less extra bleed damage.
 * Araxxor can use this attack no matter what his primary style is if you are within range.
 * If fighting Araxxor in his melee form, his melee attack will have an attack range of 3–4 spaces.
 * Ranged: Araxxor/Araxxi launches a ball of spider silk at the player. It can cause poison anywhere from 100–2000 damage. If the Poison Purge aura is used, it will heal the damage, but will also take off 1 minute of the aura. The timer for antipoison potions are reduced.
 * This does not come with the "You have been poisoned!" message.

Special attacks
These special attacks can be used on any phase. It should be noted that Araxxor will never repeat its special attacks back-to-back on the first 2 phases. If fought in a duo, all effects are doubled; this means that a cleave that would deal 4000 damage in a solo fight would deal 8000 in a duo. Araxxor/Araxxi's "rage" also affects damage from cocoon, cobweb and cleave attacks.

In a duo, Araxxor's cleave only targets the player he is attacking, while cocoons affect both players. He will rotate between players after using his cleave/cocoon attacks.


 * Cocoon: Five small spiders rush at the player, trapping them in a cocoon. To struggle free, you must click rapidly. If you fail to free yourself in time, Araxxor/Araxxi will stop reinforcing the cocoon and attack normally, while the player will take massive damage from the cocoon. This attack does 200 damage per tick, and damage increases by 10 for every 5% rage gained throughout the fight. Using Freedom/Anticipate will reduce the amount of clicks needed to break free to two clicks. (four clicks for duo)
 * This attack will remove the effects of Barricade, Devotion, Debilitate and Resonance, as well as resetting their cooldown.
 * Cleave: Araxxor/Araxxi bends its front four legs and then swipes the area in front of him, dealing massive damage and will deal up to 2,000 damage on familiars. If you are not within melee range, you will be dragged to the spider. If Freedom or Anticipation are active, you will not be dragged. The damage players take from a cleave only occurs within up to 2 spaces from the area the spider cleaved. However, for familiars and minion spiders they will take damage up to 5 spaces from Araxxor.
 * This attack only does damage to the player within Araxxor's two spaces, but for familiars/spiders, will deal damage from a distance.
 * Cobweb: A large cobweb encases Araxxor/Araxxi, healing 1% of the spider's maximum life points five times (2% if duoing). Similar to the player's Reflect ability, 50% of the damage is blocked, but the damage reflected onto the player can be higher or lower than the inflicted hit. (e.g. a 729 hit can reflect from as low as 229 to as high as 1542)
 * Utilising a shield, player can use Resonance followed by a single strong attack.
 * Using a damage over time attack like Fragmentation shot will prevent the heal while minimising the damage reflected back.
 * Autoheal: If Araxxor's health reaches 0 during phases one and two, the spiders above will "refuse to let him die", healing him back to 5,000 life points.
 * Egg drop: Araxxor's spiders drop two or three eggs onto the arena and launches an explosive attack. The explosive can hit up to five targets, but eggs will have higher priority than the spiders. The player, Araxxor and highly acidic spiders are not valid targets for damage reduction from the fireball. If there are no valid targets within range of the player, they will take 3000 damage. The damage is reduced by 900 for valid targets affected by the explosion; 2100, 1200, 300 damage for one, two and three targets respectively. If the fireball hits more than three valid targets (eggs/spiders), the player will not suffer any damage. The fireball has an 4x4 area of effect range. Leftover eggs from the explosion will either disappear or spawn combat spiders. These spiders do not count towards the spider minions assisting Araxxor when the top path is open.
 * This attack will remove the effects of Barricade, Devotion, Debilitate and Resonance, as well as resetting their cooldown.
 * Stomp: Standing under Araxxor for too long deals up to 2,100 damage. If no stun-immune ability was used, the player(s) will also suffer a 2 second stun.
 * Path specific:
 * Path 2 — Acid spider: Araxxor uses his melee attack animation and a ball of web resembling his ranged attack will fly off in a random direction, usually near the player. When it lands, that part of the ground will glow with green acid, and shortly after, an acidic spider will spawn. The spider will move towards you, and if it touches you, will explode and deal up to 32,000 damage. The speed of the spider is completely random; it is possible for a spider to spawn while moving one tile every 10%, or a spider that can move four tiles every 10%.
 * Path 3 — Darkness: Araxxor/Araxxi will make the area dark with one spot of light open. Staying in the darkness results in rapid damage, after which they will stop at a specific cap.
 * Area Attack: If Araxxor is moving, can see his target but cannot attack them, after 10–15 ticks, he will deal upwards of 2100 damage to the player. In addition, he will use his cobweb ability and the player's run energy will be completely drained.

Araxxor and Araxxi use one of their special attacks after every 4th or 5th standard attack. To prevent the drag attack and to reduce the time it takes to escape the cocoon, count 4 standard attacks and then cast either Freedom or Anticipate. Rotate between the two abilities after every 4th or 5th attack to save time and supplies.

Rage meter
During phases 2–4, Araxxor/Araxxi has a rage meter, which will affect their accuracy and damage output. The higher the "rage" goes, the higher the damage and accuracy of attacks. The following can affect the rage meter:


 * Successfully dodging Araxxor's charge when on the bottom path.
 * Killing Araxxor's hatchlings (1% rage plus 1% rage for each egg destroyed)
 * Letting Araxxor Cleave his minions (5% rage plus 5% rage for each minion cleaved)
 * Increasing its acid level by luring Araxxor into the acid on Phase 2 (1% for every 2.5% acid absorbed; this rage is removed on phase 3)
 * Increasing its acid level by luring highly acidic spiders to Araxxor. (1% for every 2.5% acid absorbed; this rage is removed on phase 4. Each spider gives adds up to 25% acidity, so 10% enrage per spider.)
 * Enraging Araxxi once her health reaches 50,000 life points. (1% every 2 attacks)
 * Enraging Araxxi further when her health reaches 25,000 life points. (20% rage increase)
 * Araxxi absorbing leftover acid if the pool was not completely drained (1% rage for every 2.5%)
 * Every time Araxxi attacks once she is below 25,000 life points, she gains 5% rage for every attack she does on the player.
 * Every time Araxxi is killed, the fight will start off with an additional 20% rage. This is capped at 300%, and is reset daily.

For higher rage levels, the abilities Devotion and Debilitate are invaluable for reducing damage at any time during the fight.

In a duo, the rage levels are combined, regardless of who started the fight; if player A has 20% rage and starts it, while player B has 60% rage, both players will suffer damage of the combined rage of 80%.

Starting
Only one player or duo can fight the non-instanced version at a time, per world. If someone is already facing the non-instanced version, other players will not be able to enter. To get around this, players can pay 200000 coins (150000 with Instance Cost perk from Soul Reaper) for an instance which will last for one hour. After entering the arena, Araxxor will spawn and the fight truly begins.

Phase 1
Araxxor will spawn in either his melee, magic or ranged form and will stay in this form for the rest of the fight. If the player has an Araxyte pheromone in their inventory, he will spawn in the form that is weak to your combat style based on your mainhand weapon slot. The same goes with creating an instance. At higher rage levels (at least 160%+), it is advised to gain 100% adrenaline off Leeches and Viridian chinchompas outside, as depleting his health quickly is a must at these levels, as at this point, he can hit 1000+ damage through protection/deflection prayers. If you plan to gain adrenaline outside the Hive before entering with a pheromone or instance, make sure you equip your weapon as soon as you enter or you will have an encounter with Araxxor in his ranged form. If a player does not use an instance or brings a pheromone, it is highly advised to take either path 1 (if 3 is closed) or 3 (if 1 is closed) and attempt to log out until a desirable combat form is acquired, or simply die to him.

During this phase, Araxxor will only use his cleave, cobweb and cocoon special attacks. Two of the paths will be covered by webs, and the other will be blocked by rocks. Choose a path and ignite the web immediately to save time while you are depleting his health. It will take 1 minute to burn through the web. Lower Araxxor to at least 1,000 life points before proceeding.

Use Anticipation as soon as you attack Araxxor, as he may use one of his unique phase one abilities before 4-5 attacks have passed.

Phase 2
The way this phase plays out is dependent on the path the player(s) took. Regardless of the path chosen, Araxxor will have his egg-spawn ability available to use along with his previous special attacks. Two paths are open while the other path is closed. The available paths change every four days, with the closed off path rotation counting up and rolling over; i.e. path 1 will be closed for 4 days, then path 2 for 4 days, path 3, then path 1 again.

Top path
If the top path (northern) is chosen, Araxxor will have 20 spiders to spawn (40 in duo), summoned in 4 waves, shown by spiders fleeing Araxxor. There are 3 combat spiders: bladed is melee; spitting is ranged; imbued is magic. There are also two support spiders: Pulsing spiders constantly heal Araxxor for 5,000 life points every 5 seconds; mirrorback spiders absorb damage taken by Araxxor and reflect it back on the player. Araxxor uses his egg drop ability much more frequently on this path compared to the other two, using it after he uses one of his other abilities (cocoon, cleave, cobweb, assistance).

The appearance of the spiders are completely random, but the order is not. For solo encounters, Araxxor will first call for two combat spiders, a support spider, and finally two more combat spiders. In the second wave, a combat spider, then a support spider, and finally three more combat spiders will appear. In the third wave, a support spider, then four combat spiders will appear. In the final wave, only combat spiders will spawn.

To keep damage low, Devotion can be used to mitigate damage from Araxxor and any spiders using the same combat style as him. Kill the spiders quickly, as although they have only 3,000 life points, they are very accurate and can deal moderately heavy damage quickly, which can be fatal if Araxxor's rage levels are high enough. Melee spiders can be lured to eggs, but this is not recommended as it will cause his rage levels to increase faster. In addition, if he cleaves his spiders, it will also increase his rage.

Phase 3 can be advanced to at any time by continuing down the path; however, it is recommended to deplete the reinforcements and reduce his health to 2,000 or less.

Middle path
In the middle path, Araxxor must be lured to the pool of acid in the center to absorb it, then use his acid to collapse a barrier. There are 100 units of acid, or 200 in duo, and it is recommended to allow Araxxor to absorb it all before continuing. During this phase, he will not use his cocoon attack. Instead, it is replaced with the ability to spawn an acidic spider, which must be avoided until it explodes or it will deal up to 32,000 damage at the player. The spider will usually deal 32,000 damage, but occasionally it may deal anywhere from 3,000-10,000 damage, but it is still recommended to avoid them.

This path is particularly dangerous because of the acidic spiders, which may spawn around Araxxor or the player, and for a short duration, increased accuracy and damage. Surge and Escape can be helpful in avoiding spiders, although the latter should be used if there is enough space behind the player. It is advised to watch Araxxor after every 5 standard attacks; if the player does not get cleaved, or if Araxxor doesn't cobweb/egg drop, an acidic spider is on the way. Shield abilities like barricade and immortality will ensure survival from an acidic spider.



When Araxxor is in the pool and on the ramp, he will get close to the player, up to two spaces from them. If he is standing in the pool, he will absorb 1 unit of acid every tick. This also increases his rage meter by 1%. Once enough acid is absorbed, run to the top of the ramp; Araxxor will soon follow. The acid Araxxor has on him will leak onto the platform, and once enough acid has transferred to the ramp the barrier will collapse and the player will jump down. Araxxor must be at least four spaces from the top of the ramp in order to transfer the acid; if he is too low he will leak it but it will not collapse, forcing the player to return him to the pool if too much acid was drained back into the pool. Watch the green skull from time to time when you are fighting Araxxor on the platform. If he is in the correct spot, the acid needed to drain should be still and not increasing. If the acid in the pool seems to continually rise, it means Araxxor was not lured properly and is recommended to return back to the pool if his base rage level is high enough to leave 5 acid for Araxxi. If players are concerned about cleave and/or acidic spider attacks, they should move under Araxxor to see where he moves when on the ramp; this will give ample space to avoid cleaves and good running space for either ability.

Regardless of Araxxor's position, when on the ramp he will lose one unit of acid per tick. As such, he loses 1% of his rage when he leaks acid. After 45 seconds, the ramp will collapse, with Araxxor fleeing also. Any remaining acid that Araxxor has will disappear, but will not return to the pool. Go down the ramp immediately, otherwise "noxious fumes" from the pool will begin to damage the player at 250, increasing by the same amount per tick up to 2000 damage per tick, which can easily kill the player in seconds.

Araxxor should be attacked the entire time he is in the pool and on the ramp; however, it may not be particularly worth it to deplete Araxxor's health to a certain point first, due to the increased rage. If dealt with properly, Araxxor can be drained to 45,000 life points or less by the time the ramp breaks, without stalling at all to drain it further. However, it is recommended to reduce his life points to at least 20,000 before luring him to the ramp.

Bottom path
In the bottom path, Araxxor flees to the ceiling, blocking out the light. The player must have Araxxor destroy the wall, which will have 100 units, or 200 when duoing.

Unlike every other part of the fight, the bottom path involves no traditional combat with Araxxor, so if your adrenaline is at 100%, you can use abilities such as Guthix's Blessing to recover any lost health. During this phase, the path will be engulfed in darkness with one small spot of light. Initially, damage begins at 50 and caps at 350 or 450. This initial damage increases by 10 per kill during that day when the path is taken. At higher rage levels, it may be worth it taking full damage from egg attacks, as the darkness attack on such rage levels can deal more damage then leaving the eggs alone. Regardless of starting base damage from rage, the maximum amount of damage done by the darkness is capped at 1000.

While in the light, players will take no damage, and the damage they took will be reset back to the lowest possible amount (so if a player took 450 damage outside the darkness, it will be dropped to 50). During this phase, Araxxor alternates between his ranged and magic attacks regardless of form, but attacks with a much slower attack rate. His standard attacks and his egg drop ability are the only things players will face when taking this path.

After some time, Araxxor will come down and charge at the player. 15 seconds after the warning, the camera angle will change to close and form behind, and you will be placed at the end of the path. All incoming damage from the darkness, Araxxor's attacks and the egg bomb ability will hit the player, but will not hurt them during the cutscene. There is a quick-time event that you must react to in order to dodge the attack:
 * When Araxxor swipes from the right, dodge right (right arrow key)
 * When Araxxor swipes from the left, dodge left (left arrow key)
 * When Araxxor's front legs are low to the ground and spread, dodge up (up arrow key)
 * When Araxxor's front legs are pointing down and close to each other, dodge down (down arrow key)

If Araxxor's attack is successfully dodged, it will reduce the wall's health by 50%. If Arraxxor's attack is unsuccessfully dodged, you will be dealt with 2500 damage, and the wall will take 25% damage. Failure to move at all will deal 5000 damage, while the wall will take no damage. In a duo, if both players dodge the attack successfully, the wall will take 100% damage. If one or both unsuccessfully dodge the wall, the wall will take less damage.

For the remaining phases, Araxxor and Araxxi have the ability to turn the area temporarily dark; they stop this after they reach a damage cap 100 lower than their maximum cap.

Phase 3
During this phase, Araxxor will copy the paths available to him. At the start of the phase, unseen spiders will watch Araxxor's health, and will heal him for an allotted amount before running out of energy. The allotted amount they can heal is 80% of the sum of the remaining life points Araxxor had for the first 2 phases. If path 3 is chosen, only the first phase health will be used. The amount of health tends to round up to the thousandth, so if his health is sufficiently depleted (less than 1000 on each phase), he will not be healed at all.

If path 1 is open then Araxxor will be able to summon spiders. Deal with them the same way as described above. If path 1 was taken, and all spiders were killed then, Araxxor will have nothing to summon. If there were still spiders that have yet to be summoned, he can summon them on this phase. The spiders should be killed immediately, as Araxxor's cleave hurts his spiders, and will increase his rage and also carries over to the next one, which can be problematic if low on food. The order of the summoned spiders are the same each wave, similar to taking the top path.

If path 2 is open, then any remaining acid in the pool will need to be taken care of. For every 25 units of acid (rounded up) there will be 1 highly acidic spider available for Araxxor to spawn. For example, if there were 42 units of acid, then 2 spiders will be available: one holding 25, the other holding 17. The spiders can be clicked on, and they will then follow the player. Araxxor will absorb any highly acidic spiders that are targeting you when they are under him. When Araxxor absorbs the spiders, regardless of the amount of acid they carry, he will heal 5,000 life points from each spider and gain rage appropriate to the amount of acid the spider had. If Araxxor does not absorb these spiders then they will be absorbed by Araxxi on phase 4. The best way to deal with the spiders is to lure them once Araxxor's health reaches 5000, to minimise the damage Araxxor will deal on the player. He will also spawn regular acidic spiders regardless if the path was taken or not. If path 2 was taken, he will spawn a highly acidic spider with 5 units of acid, provided that the player did not move Araxxor out of his spot when degrading the ramp.

If path 3 is open, Araxxor will have access to his darkness attack. Stay in the light spots to avoid taking heavy damage and those spots will always spawn in the phase 3 area.

Regardless of the available paths, Araxxor's attack rate increases significantly on this phase. Once Araxxor's health is depleted to 0, the fight will advance to stage 4.

Phase 4
Phase 4 begins with a cutscene of the injured Araxxor crawling to an isolated platform, only to be crushed and eaten by Araxxi. Drink an antipoison to prevent poison during the fight, as Araxxi can use all three combat styles, and like Araxxor, ranged attacks can poison and magic attacks can drain stats, unlike Araxxor her melee attack will not cause bleeding. Before she becomes attackable, drink your Antipoison potion if you did not fight the ranged version of Araxxor, and renew your overloads/prayer if needed. The player should use two abilities that do not drain adrenaline while doing so.

Araxxi's attacks are stronger than Araxxor's and will change style depending on your prayer. However, she only has two sets of attacking players; when within melee distance she will only use magic and melee, and if the player is not in melee distance, she will use magic and ranged. When attacking from a distance, she takes protection prayers into account. When attacking in her melee distance, she does not take them into account.

Changing prayers is the most effective way to reduce the damage of Araxxi's attacks, espically when Protect/Deflect magic along with high defence armours such as Superior tetsu or Malevolent used with Superior scrimshaw of vampyrism are sufficient. Araxxi still has access to the cleave, healing web, cocoon attacks and summoning minions for the first half of her fight. She will usually use her cleave attack much more often compared to her other abilities during the first half of the fight.

When the top path is open, Araxxi will spawn the remaining spiders into the arena (this includes the first three phases of the fight, and any leftovers Araxxor did not summon). If spiders were summoned and attacked the player while the transition from phase 3 to 4 occurs, killing them before Araxxi becomes attackable will count towards the amount remaining, so they should be killed quickly if it occurs. The spiders will also spawn around the player when Araxxi calls for reinforcements; if the player was in the northern edge of the arena when she used it, they will only spawn towards the northern end of the arena. When the middle path is open, if the pool was not drained of acid completely with Araxxor, Araxxi will absorb the acid from the pool, taking in anywhere from 25 to 75 units of acid each time she siphons the pool of its acid. When the bottom path is open, she can turn the area dark for a short time. If Araxxor absorbed any acid, the rage increase from it will not apply to Araxxi. Note, however, that this may not always be reflected in the tool tip for the fight.

When paths 2 and 3 are open, if there are spiders left in the arena due to his egg drop ability, they will be called to assist Araxxi; however, this will only occur when all leftover acid from phase 3 is absorbed.

Continue counting her standard attacks and casting Freedom/Anticipation to reduce the potency of her special attacks. Due to the increased attention that is needed to be paid during this phase, it is recommended to use Revolution to automatically activate basic abilities.

At half health, Araxxi's attacks will get stronger and faster; however, she will stop using all of her special attacks, only having standard attacks available. This means if she did not absorb all of the acid or summoned any remaining spiders, they will not be used against the player(s).

At 25,000 life points (35,000 in duos), Araxxi will increase her rage by 20%, drain the player's adrenaline by 50% of maximum, and release a black sludge (2 balls of sludge in duos). The sludge will bounce around the platform randomly several times before bouncing towards the player. When on you, it will deal rapid and powerful damage. Let the sludge hit you once and then move off of your square. If it hits you at least once, it will reset its bounce, allowing for more time before worrying about moving. The player should kill her as fast as possible, as her rage increases for each attack she attempts on you, resulting in the sludge dealing potentially fatal damage in tandem with her damaging attacks. Every attack Araxxi does will increase her rage by 5%.

Using an ultimate that increases damage (Death's swiftness if using ranged or Sunshine if using magic; even though melee users can use Berserk, it is not recommended because of the extra damage players will take from her attacks. It can either be used at the beginning of this phase or when Araxxi reaches about 40,000 health. After activating, you can either build up adrenaline to use Unload, or use threshold abilities. Keep an eye on Araxxi's health, as she drains adrenaline at 25% health. It may also be viable to use Debilitate or Devotion when she is at 27,000 life points, or if the player does not wish to use an ultimate ability, use it when she unleashes the sludge as it will also increase her rage level by 20%.

If players have brought along dual-wielded weapons, another viable alternative is to shield camp the remaining quarter of her health, using abilities such as Revenge and Reflect, which can help increase your damage as you get hit and decrease the amount of damage that her standard attacks do to you. This method works better when facing Araxxi with at least 200% rage, due to the her increasingly powerful attacks and the need to kill her quickly.

One item that may prove valuable during the final part of the final fight is the phoenix necklace. Phoenix necklaces can be used as a clutch means of healing back to 30% of maximum health when below 20%. Divination healing portents can also be used, provided that the player has at least 50% or more of their lifepoints still intact.