Kepkhet Marrowfeast

Description
Referred to as The Queen of Scarabs, this vicious lady hides in 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).

Quests involved in

 * Family Soul

Location

 * 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

 * Kepkhet's Refuge (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 he 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/Arcane Echo/Glyph of Renewal 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.


 * "Queen Farming" can be done solo (with a great deal of patience) using henchmen (Alesia, Orion, Reyna, Little Thom, and Stephan) and a Death/Soul Reaping N/Mo build. Death 16/Soul Reaping 12/Healing 4 (use Soul Reaping 11 if you've not earned the extra 30 attribute points)  Equip Icy Veins (Canthan Elite Skill) Deathly Swarm, Bitter Chill, Rotting Flesh, Healing Breeze, Resurrect, Animate Vampiric Horror, and either Rising Bile or Signet of Capture (if you seek the Elite Mark of Protection from Kepkhet).  Approach and attack outside "minions" trying to single out the Marrow Scarabs, as they will consume valuable corpses with Well of the Profane.  Use the henchmen and your minions as bait to distract the horde while you work.  Keep your distance, avoid any wells, and resurrect only the spent corpses of fallen henchmen.  Take down the Marrow Scarabs one at a time (use Rotting Flesh, Bitter Chill, and then Icy Veins to finish on each) until you are left with just a couple Scarab Nest Builders, then resurrect your entire party.  Kepkhet will fall rather quickly, approach from a side with no Scarab Nest Builders straight in on Kepkhet.  Mark of protection or not, keep Kepkhet diseased with Rotting Flesh, and spam with Bitter Chill.  If you've equipped Rising Bile, try to lure the horde into one another by skirting the group, right around the time that it expires.  at 16 Death magic, you'll deal 120 damage to every adjacent foe, which can dramatically reduce the horde in one big hit, assuming that there is a plague of rotting flesh running rampant through them.


 * A one man ranger farm may be done on Kepkhet, but it requires plenty of patience. A ranger/necromancer should bring the following skills: interrupting shot, poison arrows, poison arrows, necrotic traversal, troll ungent, demonic flesh, and two skills that deal extra damage.  by slowly making you way out through the area, you can take out the patrols and minotaurs that plague the immediate area around kephket by using necrotic traversal to negate well of the profane, and demonic flesh if you are close to death. now comes the tricky part: the minions that form a circle around kephket will not move if you attack them with a bow and keep them outside of you aggro bubble. after you pick off 1 or 2, marrowfeast will pick up on what you are doing and rush you with 2 minions.  you must run kephket over to one of the griffon groups to the south or west, and they will ignore you and start killing each other. the minions die off easily, and kephket begins taking abuse from the griffons, who spam thrill of victory and final thrust to keep their health up. they will NOT die so you can focus your attacks on kephket. keep her poisoned as long as you can and use your damage attacks when you can.  after about 5-10 minutes of this, kephket will go down.


 * One-man with hench: A very easy, reliable method to defeat Kepkhet for Me/any or casterclass/Me. Put all points into Domination and leftovers to your primary attribute (Ritualists, change this to Inspiration). Equip Energy Burn, Diversion, Arcane Thievery, Shatter Enchantment, Inspired Enchantment, and Drain Enchantment. If you have it, take Energy Surge as well. The last slot is optional, perhaps Ether Feast or other self-heal. Fight your way to the Queen's area, eliminating any moving patrols along the way. Some of the Scarabs near her will attack you, eliminate these first. Then begin attacking the Queen. Use Energy Burn/Surge for armor-ignoring damage, spam Diversion and Arcane Thievery to disable her spells, and use the enchantment removal spells as needed. She should be down in only a few minutes, assuming you remove Mark of Protection constantly. Recommended henchmen: Alesia, Lina, Orion, Reyna, and Claude or Dunham. All attack at range and thus avoid the risk of running into traps and being hit with Virulence.