Kepkhet Marrowfeast

Description
Referred to as The Queen of Scarabs, this vicious lady hides in the the Crystal Desert surrounded by her minions: Marrow Scarab and Scarab Nest Builders.

This is what Aurek the Scarab Hunter explains about her:


 * For years I have hunted the elusive and deadly Kepkhet, Queen of the Scarabs. Every time I have closed in on her location, she and her brood move on and seem to disappear into thin air again. Recently, I have noticed a pattern in their selection of nesting sites. It seems that they always travel to places where death is abundant, building their nests among rotting corpses and on blood-soaked grounds, usually places of warfare, sacrifice, or slaughter.

In this case, she was obviously attracted by plenty of corpses that were the result of excessive farming in the area (see Notes).

Location
Kepkhet is located along the southern edge of Prophet's Path, near the southeast corner of the area, along with the desert griffons
 * Crystal Desert
 * Prophet's Path

Skills Used

 * (Elite)
 * (Elite)
 * (Elite)
 * (Elite)

Note: Since most of these skills are enchantments, skills that hinder, remove, counter or exploit enchantments are very effective against Kepkhet.

Items Dropped

 * (Unique)

Strategy

 * Two or three man farming teams have a relatively easy time farming Kepkhet. A W/Mo or W/N, an elementalist, and a monk can form a good farming group.  The caster stays an aggro bubble away from the warrior when she aggros monsters.  The monsters around Kepkhet are arranged in a circle, with two outside patrol groups of four scarabs each.  Take out the patrol group first and then to take out all the monsters around Kepkhet.  Then go after the Queen herself.  Echo Meteor Showers when she is down to 3/4 health.  When she casts Mark of Protection, stop attacking for the full 10 seconds.  Repeat as necessary.


 * Mesmers specializing in Domination Magic are potent versus scarabs. Use Empathy on Marrow Scarabs and Scarab Nest Builders, and Diversion to halt the Marrow Scarab's Vampiric Touch.  Interrupt Well of the Profane when you can, though it's difficult to stop all of the Marrows.  Diversion is also useful against the Queen's Protection Prayers spells. Mark of Protection can be interrupted, but even should she successfully cast it, put any hex on her.  She will usually activate Contemplation of Purity to remove the hex at the cost of her enchantments.  Otherwise, use Shatter Enchantment to remove Mark of Protection.  Continuously cast Empathy and Diversion, and she will help kill herself.


 * A Ranger specializing in interrupts can be a good addition to a farming party. Nature's Renewal slows the casting of all her enchantments and makes the Queen susceptible to easy interrupts. Distracting the Queen while she spams Guardian will effectively hinder her ability to heal herself and her minions for 20 seconds. Mark of Protection which she tends to cast after she's below 50% health can easily be interrupted with Savage Shot. In addition, although expensive in energy cost, a timely Concussion Shot can render her pretty useless, if someone else with a high attack rating (such as a Warrior) is also busy with the Queen. Putting a Favorable Winds beside the Nature's Renewal helps greatly with the timing of the interrupts. Do not forget to consult other party members about their builds though, since the Nature's Renewal will also penalize their enchantments and hexes.


 * Monks using Life Bond are effective on three person runs. Boon protector monks note that Mend Ailment and Mend Condition are not enchantments and provide healing despite the effects of Well of the Profane, without sacrificing points in healing prayers.


 * Diversion brings the Queen down quickly and is very useful when you don't want to kill all the monsters surrounding her.