Araxxor Best in Slot Gear & Strategy Guide

Araxxor lives in his lair beneath the Morytania Spider Cave. The cave entrance sits north-east of Darkmeyer, and the lair itself is entered through a web tunnel just north-west of the cave entrance. A scoreboard by the web tunnel tracks your Araxxor statistics.

To fight him you need two things in place:

• Level 92 Slayer — Araxxor can only be killed while on a spider or araxyte Slayer task, so you must be able to be assigned one. Konar quo Maten can also assign him directly as a boss task.
• Access to Morytania — completion of Priest in Peril is required to reach the region.

Completing Sins of the Father is strongly recommended too, since it unlocks Darkmeyer and faster travel. The quickest ways into the cave are: teleporting directly with a spider cave teleport; teleporting to the Hallowed Sepulchre with a hallowed crystal shard and using the nearby wall shortcut (needs Sins of the Father, level 63 Agility and two installed long ropes); or using an ectophial or the fairy ring code ALQ and running south. If you die in the fight, your grave is placed outside the lair entrance and follows normal death rules.

Araxxor is a melee-dominant fight and the meta loadout reflects that. The Wiki recommends high melee combat stats before you attempt him:

• Attack 85+ and Strength 85+ — you live and die by your DPS here. Build these with our Attack guide and train hard before attempting him.
• Defence 70+ and Hitpoints 85+ for survivability.
• Prayer 70+ for access to Piety — see our Prayer guide for the unlock path.
• A way to cure or protect from venom, since every araxyte attack can poison you.

The dominant style is melee with crush, because Araxxor — like most spiders — is weak to crush, and his lowest defensive bonus is crush at just +15. Top-end setups centre on a Scythe of vitur (the fastest kills, set to slash with oathplate or crush otherwise), with the amulet of rancour or amulet of torture, an inquisitor's or Torva / Bandos armour core, a slayer helmet (i), and an elder maul carried for its defence-reduction special. A ranged setup built around a Twisted bow and fortified Masori is also viable and has the bonus of forcing Araxxor into ranged attacks (which you can dodge with Aranea boots).

Rather than memorise every item, plug your bank into our Boss Gear Finder above — it builds the optimal Araxxor loadout from the gear you actually own. For wider style picks, browse our melee gear and ranged gear pages.

A standard Araxxor trip carries a focused kit. The Wiki's recommended melee inventory includes:

• A special attack weapon — an elder maul (or dragon warhammer) for the one-time defence reduction, often paired with dragon claws for burst damage.
• A noxious halberd to safely kill the hatched araxytes, even when your main weapon is a mace (the mace can still one-hit acidic araxytes).
• Extended anti-venom+ potions — mandatory, since acid pools and attacks inflict venom constantly.
• Prayer potions or super restore potions.
• Super combat potions (a divine super combat is ideal).
• High-healing food, plus optional combo food like karambwans or halibut if you struggle to heal fast enough.
• Runes for Vengeance if on Lunars, or Thralls and Death Charge if on Arceuus — or extra runes for Spellbook Swap if you want both.

Watch your free inventory space for supply drops: Araxxor can hand back up to six items at once when harvested, and if your inventory is full the excess drops to the floor on the normal despawn timer. Losing those supplies cuts your trip short, so keep room.

Araxxor spawns in the middle of his chamber and attacks with melee at attack speed 6 (3.6 seconds). If you step out of melee range, he closes the distance and attacks with either magic or ranged, choosing whichever of your defensive rolls is lower. Every one of his attacks can inflict venom, and crucially all damage is calculated on launch — reacting late will not save you.

His maximum hits are 38 with melee, 21 with magic, and 34 with ranged. The mitigation differs sharply by style:

• Protect from Melee reduces his melee hit all the way down to about 5 — this is why the fight is so survivable up close.
• Protect from Missiles only reduces his ranged hit to about 18 (it cannot be fully blocked).
• His ranged attack drains 9% of your Defence level on a successful hit; his magic attack drains 9% of your Prayer points when it hits.

Because he picks his ranged-versus-magic style off your defensive rolls, prayers like Rigour can change which style he uses. Aranea boots can completely block his ranged attack once every 8 ticks (4.8 seconds), but they do not protect against his magic. He has an elemental weakness to fire spells, but the Wiki notes this is mostly thematic — his high magic defences mean crush remains the real weakness. For the prayer mechanics here, our Prayer guide covers the overheads you'll be flicking.

Nine eggs ring the lair — three red, three white and three green. The first egg hatches after three standard attacks from Araxxor, beginning clockwise from the south-easternmost egg, and each subsequent egg hatches after every six standard attacks. The eggs follow one of three set rotations (Green>White>Red, White>Red>Green, or Red>Green>White), with the last two sets copying the first.

Each colour hatches a different araxyte:

• Acidic Araxyte: attacks with ranged for up to 15 damage. When killed it explodes, splattering acid across a 7x7 area around it. Some players simply tank these.
• Mirrorback Araxyte: redirects 20% of the damage you deal to Araxxor onto itself and recoils 50% of that back to you — so you effectively take 10% of your own DPS. Hitting it directly with melee recoils 50% of that damage to you. Attack it with ranged, magic, or a halberd from one tile away to bypass the deflection, or have Vengeance active so the damage goes to the mirrorback instead of you.
• Ruptura Araxyte: does not attack directly but walks toward you and explodes in melee range. At full health an up-close explosion deals up to 80 damage; standing 3+ tiles away drops it to a minimum of 7. You can weaponise this — lure it to explode underneath Araxxor for big extra damage.

You can also destroy eggs directly: an egg has 65 Hitpoints. Damage dealt to an egg carries over to the araxyte that hatches, but if an egg takes more damage than the araxyte's 58 Hitpoints it simply despawns, costing Araxxor six more standard attacks before the next egg hatches. Both eggs and hatched araxytes count as on-task for the slayer helmet damage bonus, but they do not reduce your task kill count. With a noxious halberd, crush weapon or heavy ranged weapon, you always max hit the hatched araxytes when that style is your highest accuracy.

Every six standard attacks, Araxxor uses one of three special attacks — and he uses the same one for the entire fight. You can identify which one early by looking at the colour of the south-easternmost egg. All three leave acid pools that inflict venom and deal increasingly larger damage the longer you stand on them, starting at 4 and climbing.

• Acid Drip (red egg first): a single venom blob homes onto you, leaving you dripping venom and trailing pools as you move for 6 ticks. Keep moving so you never stand on the same tile twice, while staying inside Araxxor's melee range. A clean option is to stand under him right after the attack lands, shuffle a tile, attack, and repeat.
• Acid Spray / Splatter (white egg first): Araxxor launches venom blobs in a wide arc around you that hit for low venom damage, leaving acid pools behind. The splatter damages you before the pool forms.
• Acid Ball / Bullet (green egg first): a projectile flies in a straight line toward you. Its path has a 3x3 area of effect despite looking 1x1, deals roughly 18 venom damage, and leaves a trail. On hitting a wall it explodes into a 7x7 splatter. Try to position Araxxor facing a wall so the ragged tiles matter less.

The unifying rule: never linger on acid, and treat every special as a movement puzzle layered on top of your normal rotation.

When Araxxor drops to 25% health, he enters his enrage phase — signalled by a distinct screech and venom coating his two front legs. This phase makes him significantly more dangerous:

• His Defence increases by 35, Magic by 28 and Ranged by 31, and any stat drains you applied carry over into enrage.
• His attack speed jumps from 6 ticks (3.6s) to 4 ticks (2.4s).
• His melee attack is replaced by a cleave for the rest of the fight, hitting a 1x3 area around you and leaving acid pools. He still uses magic and ranged at a distance.

You can dodge the cleave by moving out of the targeted area the moment Araxxor shouts "Skree!". If you fail, Protect from Melee still cuts the cleave's damage by roughly half. Aranea boots also block the cleave once every 20 ticks (12 seconds), though they won't stop the acid-pool poison.

The advanced trick is the step-under technique: bait Araxxor into attacking the tiles he stands on, which makes him damage himself for 8-12. To do it, move two tiles into him as enrage starts, attack when he shouts "Skree!" (you'll step back two tiles to hit), then each cleave step to a clean tile and immediately re-attack. This both speeds the kill and keeps you off the acid.

A clean Araxxor kill is a rhythm, not a panic. Put it together like this:

• Open with your special. One elder maul special drains his Defence by the maximum (his Defence can only be drained by up to 45 levels, and the maul does it in a single hit). A dragon warhammer special is nearly as good, draining 40. Because of the drain cap, you only need one successful reduction per kill.
• Pray Protect from Melee and grind him down. Up close, melee is reduced to about 5, so most of your incoming damage comes from acid, araxytes and the occasional ranged poke. Keep Piety (or Rigour for ranged) on and keep your DPS weapon swinging.
• Manage the eggs efficiently. Lure red (ruptura) araxytes to explode underneath Araxxor for bonus damage. Bypass mirrorbacks with ranged, magic, a halberd from one tile, or Vengeance — never tank-melee them. A noxious halberd one-shots most spawns and saves real time over weakening eggs.
• Solve the special-attack pattern early. Read the south-easternmost egg colour, know which acid special you're facing, and dance around the pools while staying in melee range.
• Survive the enrage. Below 25% health he speeds up and cleaves — dodge on "Skree!", or use the step-under for self-damage. This is where most deaths happen, so stay disciplined on movement.
• Harvest, don't destroy. When he dies he won't respawn until you choose. Harvest rolls the normal loot table; Destroy forfeits all loot (except elite clues) for a doubled pet rate. Unless you are pet-hunting specifically, always harvest — destroying risks losing an araxyte fang or halberd piece.

Araxxor's loot is what makes the grind worthwhile. Every kill rolls a chance at his unique drop table. The marquee uniques are:

• Noxious halberd — assembled from three separate pieces (the noxious pommel, point and blade). It is a strong two-handed slash weapon and Araxxor is its only source. Like the abyssal bludgeon, you won't receive duplicate pieces until you complete the set.
• Araxyte fang (1/600) — combined with the amulet of torture to create the amulet of rancour, the best-in-slot melee amulet. This is the single most valuable repeat drop and the main reason mains farm Araxxor.
• Araxyte head — used to recolour the slayer helmet into the cosmetic Araxyte slayer helmet (costs 1,000 slayer points).
• Nid (1/3000) — the pet, doubled to a better rate if you choose to destroy the corpse instead of harvesting.

Beyond the uniques, Araxxor drops the usual mix of supplies, runes, seeds and resources, plus a guaranteed coagulated venom the first time you defeat him in under 1:15. The full drop table with every item and rate is rendered above this guide.

Most failed Araxxor trips come down to a handful of avoidable errors:

• Tank-meleeing a mirrorback araxyte. Hitting it with melee recoils 50% of your damage straight back. Use ranged, magic, a halberd from one tile, or Vengeance instead.
• Standing in acid. Acid pools start at 4 damage and grow the longer you linger, on top of inflicting venom. Every special attack is fundamentally a "keep moving" check.
• Going in without venom protection. Extended anti-venom+ is not optional here — venom alone can end a trip.
• Reacting late. All of Araxxor's damage is calculated when the attack launches, so flicking a prayer or stepping away after the animation won't reduce the hit.
• Wasting your defence-reduction special. His Defence only drains up to 45 levels, so one elder maul (or dragon warhammer) special is enough — don't burn a second.
• Destroying the corpse by habit. Unless you're hunting the pet, destroying forfeits the fang and halberd pieces that make up most of the profit. Harvest.
• Full inventory on harvest. Supply drops can return up to six items at once; if your bags are full they spill to the floor and despawn.