Astea Frostweb

Astea Frostweb is a Dungeoneering Boss. She summons ice creatures while attacking the player directly with magic.

Style Recommendations
Recommended defence:

Prayer -- Protect from Magic

Armour -- Melee armour/Ranged Armour

Recommended offense:

Style -- Melee or Ranged

Attacks
Astea usually summons Ice Spiders (level determined by the raid's average level and difficulty). She will summon two per person, for up to 10 at once for a party of five. If you're alone she can summon up to 6 spiders; however, it is possible that she doesn't summon any at all, especially when she is fought on the first floor. Using Protect from Magic will result in her summoning more spiders to the player protecting against her spells. The ice spiders hit low but with very high accuracy, unless the player wears good armour (Protect from Summoning can help reduce the damage dealt by the spiders), they cannot safely be ignored (food is rapidly consumed as the spiders deal small damage), With lower levels either protect from melee or magic should be used; however at higher levels or with good armour protect magic is more considerable. Her summons will disappear when she dies. Her main attack uses an Ice-like Entangle spell, Ice Barrage and an spike attack (whose strength varies depending on her level). The spike attack targets all players, appearing as icey spikes growing on ground and deals damage whenever the player(s) cannot move away quickly enough, deal unblockable damage. Protect from Magic should be used, and prayer flashing is possible if you can anticipate her offensive casts. Because her Entangle spells can keep the dungeoneer at a distance, fighting her with ranged or magic attacks may be easier. Melee works well, however, if you can stay close to her, or trap her.

Defence
She uses protection prayers which switch every 25 seconds or so; the switching is irrelevant of player's style of attacking. If using melee only, the best way is to turn on protect from mage, and stay close to her, until she switches prayer, then attack her with your melee choice. Using magic is not recommended because her magic defence is very high, and it appears to make her summon more spiders; however, fire spells seem to work well against her, due to her icy nature.

Strategy
Firstly, turn off auto retaliate. Otherwise the player will significantly be distracted from killing the boss by the spiders and finishing the floor would be rendered very difficult.

Generally, ranged is weighted over melee, but both strongly weigh over magic. Either melee or ranged armour will work for the formed two style, that means ranged armour with a rapier is okay. Should a player choose magic, make sure to bring runes for Fire spells (at least Fire Bolt is recommended). Using both ranged and melee is strongly recommended, this can be easy achieved by free players, by binding a melee weapon, then they can take the ranged supply at the smuggler room.

Astea summons Ice Spiders, and uses Ice Barrage and Entangle. When she freezes a player within melee range, she takes one step backward. Ranged players should have no problem fighting, just turn on protect from melee (if with good ranged armour) or just ranged boost prayer (if less than 40 prayer) to fight. Being frozen by Ice Barrage will cause the character to stop targeting her. Click Astea again until the character continues attacking again. Pure melee fighters should turn on protect from magic except with full ranged armour, and ignore the spiders, possibly make them stuck to minimise the damage. Dual combat types character should have arrows wielded and click the alternate weapon once Astea changes to ranged/melee prayer, and when she freezes you with Ice Barrage just change to ranged. Summoning a familiar will not force Astea to change her protection prayer, as she seems to have no control over it.

Drops

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Trivia

 * Her surname is a reference to the fact she summons ice spiders.
 * Her first name is likely a reference to "aestas" which in Latin, means summer.
 * In her journal, she writes about finding out something horrible about someone named Bill, making it necessary for her and Lexicus Runewright to "kill Bill", which may be a reference to the movie of the same name. "Bill" is actually the mahjarrat Bilrach, who is known to have been there. Lexicus is a boss later on in the skill. The 18th part of the journal revealed that Bilrach defeated them, placed them under his control, and separated them forever as punishment for their rebellion.
 * Her journal also reveals that she and Lexicus are either lovers or husband and wife.
 * She fights in a similar way to the Kalphite Queen and Tormented Demons as her prayer changes.
 * She fights with a method players may use, which involves holding the player in place with a spell, then moving out of melee range. This is often called "farcasting".
 * Astea's face is one of the first human faces in RuneScape to have detailed features, along with Commander Korasi her fellow Void Knights, and Lexicus Runewright. Nomad also seems to have a mildly detailed face as well.
 * Astea fights unarmed, but when using melee, she appears to use an invisible staff.
 * Originally, attacking Astea with melee caused no exp to be gained. This was later fixed.
 * Astea can use Ice Barrage at level 3, which is impossible since Ice Barrage is a level 94 spell.
 * Although Astea uses Ice Barrage, it only freezes players for 5 seconds instead of the normal 20.
 * Sometimes the ice spiders she summons would wander off instead of attacking the dungeoneer(s).
 * She and Lexicus Runewright are hundreds of years old. Their journals were written in the year 1724 of the 4th Age; when fought it is year 169 of the 5th age, which is approximately a 445 year difference.
 * Astea Frostweb is the only boss that is human in the icy floors.

Astea Frostweb