Pest Queen

The Pest Queen is the final monster encountered in the quest The Void Stares Back, and is featured as the boss. At level 599, it is the third highest combat level quest monster, between the Decaying avatar and Nomad.

The Pest Queen is fight-able along with Pest drones as a class A boss monster in the Dominion Tower minigame if the player has completed The Void Stares Back.

Background
The Pest Queen is the leader of all pests. She decides what strategy pests use during one of their assaults, and she is summoned and controlled by the evil Wizard Grayzag. Due to her, pests always attack the same. E.g. ravagers are the front line and clear the battlefield, while leeches stay back and heal wounded pests. She is summoned by Grayzag through a portal in the Void. Usually, the Queen would be instantly defeated by Valluta, but she cannot fight due to being under the effect of "foodgoo". Therefore, the player has to kill her.

Goal
The main goal in this battle is to prevent the Queen from using her special attack while keeping your rangers alive. The rangers are important because they kill the drones, which heal the Queen. However, the Pest Queen will summon elite defilers to kill the rangers. Therefore, it is your job to distract the defilers.

-Note- ''Do not kill the defilers or they WILL respawn so as soon they get summoned, go and hit them once to distract them and get them both stuck behind the Queen, then you won't need to think about them for the rest of the fight and they won't do a thing to anyone. Anytime you move away from the queen turn protect/deflect magic on.''

There can be a maximum of eight rangers present in the battle (two at each corner of the battlefield). When this is achieved, the drones will be killed off rather quickly.

'''Note: if you use a terrorbird, it WILL attack the defilers, potentially killing them and forcing you to trap them again. If you make your terrorbird attack the pest queen, it will take immense damage when you are unable to stop the queen from using its special. To prevent either of these scenarios from happening, you need to get your familiar on the opposite side of the pest queen, by frequently calling it. '''

Defence
The Pest Queen uses magic and melee attacks, using magic attacks when the player is out of melee range. When the player is in melee range, the Pest Queen will use both attack styles, although she will use melee attacks more. Pray Protect from Melee with Piety or Turmoil when next to the Pest Queen, and switch to Protect from Magic when at least one step away from the Pest Queen (for example, when you're going to attack the Elite Defilers). However, neither protection prayer will fully block all damage. Therefore, it is recommended to wear armour with good magic and melee defense. A combination of dragonhide armour/Karil's and Verac's works well.

Initially, the Queen will constantly be healed by the drones because there will not be enough rangers to kill the drones quickly. This is why it is important to distract the elite defilers (more details in the Offence section), because they are responsible for killing the rangers. As soon as the defilers are distracted, the rangers will accumulate and begin taking down the drones.

Offence
Korasi's sword is a must in this battle. You must use the sword's special attack to prevent the Queen from using her own special attack, or else she will hit you and most of the NPCs assisting you for about 500 lifepoints. You do not want to let this happen, because she can also kill the Void rangers, who are extremely valuable in the battle because they are the only ones who can kill the drones (which heal the Queen). You can tell when the Queen will use her special attack when she stops attacking and rears up.

For this battle only, the sword's special attack will drain 15% of the bar (normally, it drains 60%). Despite this, it is almost guaranteed you will run out of special attack power unless you have special restore potions. If the battle rages on for too long, you may be forced to take some of the Queen's special attacks (and have some of your reinforcements killed) while waiting for the bar to refill. Do not try to avoid her special attack, or she will heal. Try not to use the special attack with any other weapon (unless you have Recover special potions) as you need the special attack to stop the queen powering up (or you will get hit 500+ lifepoints). A Ring of Vigour (requires 62 Dungeoneering) will keep your special attack bar from draining as fast, which may also be useful for this battle. The Queen is weak to Korasi's sword, which is convenient. An abyssal whip or a chaotic weapon also work well (especially against the Elite defilers), but you will lose an inventory space.

Distract the two defilers as soon as they spawn. The defilers will kill your rangers, who must remain alive. When starting the battle, wait for a ranger to run into the battle, because a defiler will soon appear to attack it. As soon as the defiler spawns, attack it once to get its attention. When the second defiler appears, distract it as well. Afterward, you can trap the defilers behind the Queen to prevent them from attacking you or the rangers, and you will be able to concentrate on killing the Queen. Be aware that when facing the Queen in the Dominion Tower, this blocking strategy will NOT work, as the defilers will be able to walk through the queen.

It is possible to hide behind the wall and wait for rangers to enter, then run and kill any defilers as they spawn, return to your hiding position and repeat until there is nearly a whole set of archers on the battlefield. This can reduce damage taken at the start of battle. Note that the queen will charge her special attack as soon as you re-enter the battlefield so some fast clicking will be required for this.

Piety or Turmoil is recommended in this battle. Be sure to bring prayer potions. Soul Split is counterproductive, even with extreme potions as the damage caused by the inability to use protection prayers will greatly exceed the amount of health Soul Split heals, particularly if the defilers are attacking you.

Ranged strategy
For people who think they would be unable to tank the queens magic and melee attacks side by side, it is a decent strategy to range the queen praying magic and run in for her special with the sword, and run out again. It is recommended to take the best bolts possible to fight her, along with armour with good ranged defence if you wish to tank the defilers instead of kill them.

A good ranged setup can be:
 * Headgear: Pernix cowl > Armadyl helm > Karil's coif > Helm of neitiznot
 * Body slot: Pernix body > Armadyl chestplate > Karil's top > Black d'hide body
 * Leg slot: Pernix chaps > Armadyl chainskirt > Karil's skirt > Black d'hide chaps
 * Weapon: Chaotic crossbow > rune crossbow
 * Shield: Eagle-eye kiteshield > Illuminated unholy book > Illuminated book of law
 * Cape slot: Ava's alerter > Ava's accumalator
 * Boots: Glaiven boots > Ranger boots > Snakeskin boots
 * Glove slot: Swift gloves > Mercenary's gloves > Black d'hide vambraces
 * Ring: Archers' ring (i) > Onyx ring (i) > Archers' ring > Explorer ring

Summoning
Players are advised to use war tortoises, spirit terrorbirds, or any other beast of burden to store healing supplies and bring a Spirit kyatt along with 100 ambush scrolls so that it can aid in combat after the beast of burden has run out of supplies.

Healing and stat-boosting
There should be 3 Saradomin brews for every 1 Super restore.
 * For players barely meeting the Quest's combat requirements
 * Saradomin brews
 * Super restores


 * For players with very high combat stats (120+ combat) and herblore (96+ after boosts)
 * An overload potion
 * 2-3 Super prayer potions
 * An inventory of rocktails or sharks
 * A Unicorn stallion



Strategy for those without recover special potions
Players will notice that at the beginning, the archers can't really handle the 4 drones. As such, most of your hits will do nothing anyway. Furthermore, the Pest Queen charges her special attack more often when she is at low health. A surprisingly useful tactic is to NOT block the Queen's first special attack. This will save you special attack energy, and your archers will be able to withstand one of the queen's specials. Therefore, later on in the battle you will be hit by several special attacks. After the pest drones stop spawning, the rangers will help you finish off the Queen faster. As a result, by taking that one hit, the Queen can be finished rapidly and you will take less overall damage. Players should not overestimate the Pest Queen as with 78 attack, 78 strength, 65 defence, 80 magic and using a Spirit Terrorbird (all are bare minimums), players can finish the Queen easily with Saradomin brews.

Dominion Tower
If you are fighting the boss in the Dominion Tower, do not bring Korasi's Sword. There will be one provided that acts in the same fashion as the original one.

If you bring your own sword the special attack will consume 60% of the bar instead of 15% that the provided sword uses and does not prevent the Pest Queen from using her special attack.

If you are looking to fight the Pest Queen, doing endurance is recommended as she can appear in rather low waves (6 and up approx).

Trivia
It appears that the Ava's device does not function while fighting the Pest Queen. Praga Rainha