Kalphite Queen



The Kalphite Queen (Kalphiscarabeinae Pasha), also called the KQ, is the 14th highest level monster in all of RuneScape (13th highest level monster fought by conventional means), and is the sixth highest level monster that is neither quest or minigame related. 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 (having the Exchange price of about coins), and is the only monster besides the Dust Devil to drop it. It can also be received from a high-level Barbarian Assault gamble, but this is very rare.

The Kalphite Queen is one of the toughest monsters in RuneScape, and she can inflict incredible amounts of damage, sometimes constantly. It is recommended for players to only bring items into the lair they are willing to lose.

The addition of various options to the Quick Chat menu has allowed players a convenient method of communicating when organising and undertaking a Kalphite Queen attack.

Location
There are two ways to get to the Kalphite Lair. The first option involves the player finding their way through the desert. The easiest way to do this is from the Shantay Pass. The other option requires players to have completed the Death to the Dorgeshuun quest, so that they can go into Dorgesh-Kaan's southern Agility course, where on the ground level will be an entrance to the Kalphite tunnels, leading to the Kalphite Queen.

The Shantay Pass is located south of Al Kharid. To go through the Pass, you will need to either buy a Shantay pass from the nearby Shantay for a small fee of 5 gp or bribe the nearby guard into letting you through for 100 gp.

The entrance is due west of the Shantay Pass, and is really a short run. If you are lucky and fast, the heat of the desert will not affect you or if you use a Water skin. You will require a rope to enter the dungeon, which will be used in the process. You can also use Fairy Ring code BIQ to teleport just south-east of the dungeon entrance.

Alternatively, those with access to Dorgesh-Kaan will be able to find a tunnel in the Dorgesh-Kaan South Dungeon that leads through to the Kalphite Lair, emerging near the kalphite workers.

Please note: To enter the second tunnel into the Kalphite Queen area, you will need a second rope, so make sure you and anyone you bring with you has the necessary supplies.

Two Forms
The Kalphite Queen has an extremely high combat level of 333. Each form has exactly 255 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, these create such incredibly high defence seemingly preventing normal damage by magic and ranged attacks. Contrary to popular belief, you CAN still hit her with the attack styles she's protecting against and at full damage. As a wasp, she uses the protect from melee prayer. She varies her attack among melee, magic, 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 underside, inflicting up to 31 damage. Her melee attack can also hit 31 damage, but is more likely to hit around 25. And then she uses a mage attack that hits up to 31 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, giving them slightly more time, while she has to take the time to turn and attack the other players with you, standing on the other sides.

The Fight
Come very prepared. She is very tough to kill, much more powerful than her level suggests, and very difficult to kill by yourself. If you do decide to kill her alone, it may take multiple trips. Be prepared to leave and come back to reload on food and potions. Beware of the level 28 Kalphite workers, they are weak, but come in great numbers.

Your main priority here is to get a dragon or rune drop, these can fund at least one trip for you or numerous for a whole group. Many players also hunt for the Kalphite head for their trophy room.

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

Recommended Items

 * Anti-poison potion - Highly recommended as the guardians poison starting at 6
 * Two ropes
 * Super attack potions
 * Super defence potions
 * Super strength potions
 * A few Prayer potions for using protection prayers.
 * Shantay Pass
 * 1 click teleport item
 * Food (generally the best available, such as sharks, manta rays, tuna potatoes, or curry). High levels can take some monkfish if they have a good clan.
 * A Black mask or Slayer helmet if Kalphites are the players' Slayer task.

The best armour for fighting the Kalphite Queen is considered to be a full set of Verac's armour, since the special effect of the Verac's set has a chance to ignore prayer and defence bonuses. A Godsword is also very effective, especially if you have kalphites as a task, but unless you have a kalphite task, it's not recommended for soloing.

Usually, killing the Kalphite Queen is done in sets of two, as this is the easiest. Both players usually also follow the following tactic.

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 Magic attack no longer can ricochet from one player to another.

A good idea is to bring an items such as a Dragon Dagger (p++) or a Dragon Mace and use the Special Attack as soon as you enter the room. The Dragon Mace can hit harder, but the Dragon Dagger (p++) is recommended because it is faster (allowing you to switch back to Verac's Flail). Another alternative to a Dragon Dagger (p++) is the Keris.The Keris has the chance to hit higher on kalphites. Some players bring Dragon Halberds, but this is dangerous because if you die, the Halberd will be kept on death instead of your Verac's Helmet.

Once the first form of the Queen is dead, the second form appears. The second form has the same amount of hitpoints and her maximum hit does the same amount of damage, but many believe she has better accuracy and hence hits her max-hit more often. Also, she'll summon literally dozens of Level 28 Kalphite Workers.

Another tactic that might help, is to bring your highest levelled familiar (combat level, not summoning), but still using the normal tactic. This makes the battle easier, plus extra damage may come from your familiar.

If you have 99 summoning, you have a very good advantage. First, summon a melee based familiar to fight the first form, such as the iron titan. Once the first form is killed, dismiss your current familiar, and summon a ranged based familiar, such as the steel titan. Please note, that your titan might attack the other kalphites, and not the queen, so bring the best melee and ranged familiar you can. A magic familiar is not recommended.

Another tactic for summoning is to bring a beast of burden along with you, which can carry extra food, thus allowing your team to get more kills per trip. A recommended familiar is the spirit terrorbird or war tortoise, which carry 12 and 18 items respectively. A unicorn stallion could be useful, but you take so much damage that its not practical.

Notable Drops
The Kalphite Queen is very hard to kill, but the rewards can be very satisfying. If you are lucky, The Kalphite queen may drop a Dragon chainbody. However, due to the constant fall in price of the dragon chainbody, the Kalphite Queen is being killed less and less.

Some of her more enviable drops include:
 * Dragon two-handed sword
 * Kalphite Queen head (see Construction to learn more about the Kalphite head)
 * Dragon Chainbody

Other Drops

 * Coins (up to 3000)
 * Uncut gems (up to Dragonstone)
 * Wine of Zamorak (20 noted)
 * Lobster (8)
 * Half of a key
 * Nothing

Charms

 * Gold charms
 * Green charms
 * Crimson charms
 * Blue charms

Runes

 * Law runes (up to 18)
 * Blood runes (up to 49) common
 * Death runes (up to 54)
 * Fire runes (up to 600)
 * Nature runes (up to 75) very common

Weapons and armour

 * Rune chainbody(common 1 in 10)
 * Rune kiteshield
 * Rune square shield
 * Rune hatchet
 * Rune battleaxe
 * Rune 2h sword
 * Adamant spear
 * Dragon spear
 * Dragon 2h sword
 * Dragon chainbody rare (1 in 100)

Arrows and Ranged Equipment

 * Iron arrows (up to 355)
 * Steel arrows (up to 150)
 * Mithril arrows (up to 750)
 * Adamant javelins (up to 15)
 * Rune javelins (up to 5)
 * Rune arrows (up to 100)

Trivia

 * When the Kalphite Queen was first released, she only used two attack styles: Magic and melee. Players with the protect from magic prayer and a halberd + Ranged attack could kill her in both forms without taking any damage if the guardians do not attack the player, making it possible to achieve many kills in one trip. Jagex has added the ranged attack since then.


 * The Kalphite Queen bears a slight resemblance to the Toho monster Megaguirus from the Godzilla millennium series. She is the Queen of the meganula, a race of prehistoric bugs that flew out of a black hole when the dimension tide, a super-weapon developed by the Japanese was fired. She also has some of the abilities of the Kalphite Queen, such as fighting in hand-to-hand combat, and a ranged move, when she stabs Godzilla with her tail stinger, and drains his nuclear energy, firing it off at him. Some think this is where Jagex got the idea for the Kalphite Queen. The second form bears a striking resemblance to Megaguirus


 * The Kalphite Queen has become less popular to take on now that there is a Dragon Platebody. The famous drop, the Dragon Chainbody has dramatically fallen in price, thus making it difficult for big groups to get a decent amount if the chain were to be dropped while the Coinshare option was on. For example, if a clan of 20 people got a Dragon Chainbody drop, they would only receive around 200k each from Coinshare.


 * Both of the Queen's forms are similar to the life cycle of the Cicada. She starts off as a beetle, then transforms into an airborne opponent. [1]