Kalphite Queen

The Kalphite Queen, also called kq, is the 3rd highest level monster in RuneScape. She is regarded as one of the most difficult enemies to defeat in the entire game. The Kalphite Queen is famous for dropping the valuable Dragon chainbody armour.

Location
This insect empress lies in a deep lair in the Kharidian Desert. After leaving the Shantay Pass going west, the team of players must use a rope to climb down into the Kalphite Queen's lair. The Queen resides at the very end of the cavern, past several chambers full of Kalphite Workers, Kalphite Soldiers, and Kalphite Guardians. Beyond these creatures is another hole that must be climbed down via a rope. In this last chamber, along with the Kalphite Queen, there are several of the smaller Kalphite beings, which pester players attempting to kill the Kalphite Queen, but these are generally ignored.

Two Forms
The Kalphite Queen has an extremely high combat level of 333. Each form has exactly 267 hitpoints. She transforms into two varieties of bug. In her first form, the Kalphite Queen is an immense scarab beetle; in her second form, she is a giant wasp.

As a beetle, she activates prayers preventing normal damage by magic and ranged attacks. As a wasp, she uses the protect from melee prayer. She varies her attack among melee, mage, and ranged attacks. Challengers must prepare beforehand for these changes, or must be able to adapt styles. It should be noted that the second form is much more difficult to defeat than the first form.

Her ranged attacks consists of her shooting Barbed Spines from her abdomen, inflicting up to 30 damage. Her melee attack can also hit 30 damage, but is more likely to hit around 25. And then she uses a mage attack that hit around 35 damage and bounces from player to player, hitting each of them very hard. This spell cannot, however, turn corners or go through the Kalphite Queen, which is why players like to stand on her opposites sides.

Tactics
The best armour for fighting the Kalphite Queen is considered to be a full set of Verac's armor, since the special effect of the Verac's set has a chance to ignore prayer and defence bonuses.

Usually, killing the Kalphite Queen is done in sets of two, as this is the easiest. Both player's usually also follow a tactic widely recommended by experienced KQ hunters.

The tactic is to stand each players on opposite sides of the Kalphite Queen; one in front of her and one behind her. This is done for two reasons: 1) She has to turn 180 degrees to damage either of you, so she will rapidly turn between you, and thus hitting you as little as possible, and 2) so her Mage attack no longer can richochet from one player to another.

A good idea is to bring an item like a Dragon Dagger(p++) or a Dragon Mace and use the specials as soon as you enter the room. The Dragon Mace can hit harder, but the DDP++ is recommended because it is faster (allowing you to switch back to Verac's Flail) and can poison the Queen. Some players bring Dragon Halberds, but this is dangerous because if you die, the Halberd will be saved instead of your Verac's Helmet.

One the first form of the Queen is dead, the second form pops out. The second form has the same amount of hitpoints and has max-hits that are the same as her first form, but she hits her max-hit more often. Also, she'll summon literally dozens of Kalphite Workers, but they are only level 28.

Recommended Items

 * Two ropes
 * Super attack potions
 * Super defence potions
 * Super strength potions
 * A few prayer potions for using protection prayers.
 * Shantay Passes
 * Teleportation runes to get out
 * Food (generally the best available)
 * The Keris dagger is highly effective against kalphites, but obviously cannot be used with Verac's armour.

For more efficient killing, players usually bring at least one other player or their clan to kill the Kalphite Queen.

Notable Drops
The Kalphite Queen is very hard to kill, but the rewards can be very satisfying. The Kalphite queen drops dragon chainmail which is very valuable. Do not go into the lair wearing items you are not prepared to lose unless you seriously plan to kill her.

Some of her more enviable drops include: Dragon chainbody, Dragon 2-handed sword, Shield Left Half, Dragon medium helmet, Lava battlestaff, Kalphite Queen's Head (see Construction to learn more about the Kalphite Head)

Other Drops
Coins: up to 3000

Runes: Law runes (up to 18) Blood runes (up to 49) Death runes (up to 54) Fire runes (up to 600)

Weapons and Armour: Rune Chainmail Body Rune Kiteshield Rune Squareshield Rune Hatchet Rune 2h Sword Adamant Spear Dragon Spear

Arrows\Range Equipment: Iron Arrows (up to 350) Steel Arrows (up to 150) Mithril Arrows (up to 500) Adamant Javelins (up to 15) Rune Javelins (up to 5)

Trivia
The Kalphite Queen somewhat resembles Metroid Prime.