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The Witch Queen lurks deep within the south-eastern jungle of Conan Exiles, inside her palace. She’s an essential boss that you’ll have to fight at some point if you want to be able to remove your slave bracelet and set yourself free from The Exiled Lands, but the fight with this ancient Lemurian queen can be difficult if you haven’t managed to conquer her before. Today we’ll be looking at The Witch Queen, going over how to prepare, where to find her, what she gives you, and most importantly, how to defeat her. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
Who is the Witch Queen?
The Witch Queen is an ancient ruler of Lemuria, from a long line of female leaders. She resides in the Palace of the Witch Queen where she sits upon a grand throne, wearing a striking red & gold Lemurian Royal Gown. This boss has been in the game quite a while, as she was added with the 1.0 release of Conan Exiles. She’s a naturally aggressive boss with decently high health of 4500, though her behavior is quite simple. She fights like any other fighter thrall, just with a higher health pool, so as long as you’re comfortable with your skills in dodging and stamina management, this fight shouldn’t be too hard at all. The Witch Queen can be quite an imposing fight, as her arena is very grand and intimidating, with the throne she sits on being watched over by a giant Lemurian skull and flanked on either side by massive, ax-wielding statues. That being said, The Witch Queen is far from one of the most difficult bosses in Conan Exiles, and she becomes much easier when you know what to expect in the fight.
Where is She Located?
The Witch Queen is located deep in the south-eastern jungle, in the top right corner of Map Square N5. This area is considered to be a part of the Forgotten City of Xel-Ha, an ancient and ruined Lemurian capital city. This area contains many different important locations, including Dagon’s Eye, the Xel-ha Docks, The Black Garden, and many more. The area is crawling with aggressive monsters and animals, with the most notable being Gorillas, Apes, Panthers, and Silverbacks. These usually aren’t too troublesome for the experienced Conan player, you can usually either quickly dispatch any enemies that become troublesome or run away to avoid them. However, it is worth trying your best to reduce any combat you have to undertake on the way to the Witch Queen if it’s your first time, as you want to make sure you’re starting the fight on full health and supplies. The actual entrance to The Palace of the Witch Queen is down a steep set of stairs, and it’s pretty difficult to miss, as it’s built into a massive Lemurian tower. Walking up to the door will transport you inside a passageway, which you’ll then be able to run down to access the throne room, which serves as the arena for the boss fight with the Witch Queen.
What does she Drop?
The Witch Queen drops two important items, and her death also gives access to the ability to unlock a new feat. These two important items are the Key to Razma’s Quarters and the Mask of the Witch Queen. The Key to Razma’s Quarters allows you to unlock Razma’s home near Southlake in Sepermeru, City of the Relic Hunters. Razma is one of the main story NPCs that will help you to progress the main quest of the game. The Mask of the Witch Queen is an Artefact item, and it’s one of the six required to create The Keystone, which will allow you to remove your slave bracelet and finish the game in the canon way by escaping The Exiled Lands. After dealing with The Witch Queen, you’ll be able to approach her now empty throne and interact with it to learn some Lemurian crafting recipes. By interacting with the throne, you’ll learn how to craft Lemurian Royal and Warrior armor, alongside the Lemurian Pike and Sword. None of these recipes is particularly amazing, Lemurian Royal is a fairly middling light armor set with a Survival bonus, and Lemurian Warrior is a standard medium set with bonuses to accuracy and strength. The Pike and Sword are alright too, providing a decent option for arming yourself. I wouldn’t personally use them, but if you like pikes or one-handed swords, you might like these weapons. Harvesting the Witch Queen with a hatchet provides hide and bones, so nothing out of the ordinary there. The most important items she drops are the Key to Razma’s Quarters and The Mask of the Witch Queen, which is necessary to progress with the main questline of the game.
What Should I Take?
It’s hard to recommend a defacto best set of gear to take to this fight. The Witch Queen isn’t a difficult fight, so you can get away with not necessarily having the best armor or weapons. However of course, the stronger your gear, the easier this fight will become. As a general rule, you’ll want to bring a weapon capable of stunning/staggering a humanoid enemy, healing supplies, a weapon swap if necessary for the Witch Queen Guardians, and some food and water just in case. Below, you’ll see my budget setup for The Witch Queen, which includes a Nemedian Katana, 20 Concentrated Aloe Extract for burst healing, 20 Healing Wraps for slow-healing between fights, a Nemedian Warhammer for the Guardians, a Waterskin, and 20 Roasted Haunch.
Again, it’s personal preference, but I highly recommend a katana or daggers as your main hand weapon. Stacking bleeds on The Witch Queen is very helpful for burning down her health, and the fast attacks allow you to output a good amount of damage. Being a humanoid, she’s also vulnerable to staggers and knockdowns, meaning that the Katana can help to keep her stun locked and helpless for a little while. The Nemedian Warhammer is for the Witch Queen Guardians. They’re incredibly easy to fight, but being statues, they’re immune to the bleed and stun-lock effects of the Katana, so the Sunder effect of the Warhammer can be helpful to strip some of their armor. It makes a negligible difference in the long run, but if you’ve unlocked Salting The Wound in the Strength tree, you’ll do 15% more damage to any enemy under a status effect, so it’s a nice bonus to have.
How do I Defeat her?
The Witch Queen’s boss fight has 3 stages, each of which is pretty simple. Below, I’ll split the fight up into its respective phases and talk you through how to navigate the fights and challenges within those phases.
Phase 1
Witch Queen Guardian 1
The first phase involves fighting one of The Witch Queen’s Guardians. After entering the arena, the skull above the throne empowers one of the large stone statues, and it will become sentient and begin to fight for The Witch Queen. This is an intimidating visual, but don’t be scared by the size of the Guardian, this is a much easier fight than you may think. The Guardian is a slow and clumsy enemy, and whilst it does hit hard with its attacks, they’re very easy to avoid. You can quite easily slip between the Guardian’s legs with ease, allowing you to bait an overhead ax swing, evade it, and get some good damage in. The guardian will also stomp its feet, so you’ll want to keep an eye on it to see which attack is coming next, though the warning period is quite generous. The stomp doesn’t do too much damage and has a small area of effect, so it’s very easy to avoid. Generally speaking, hug the legs, attack after avoiding the Guardian’s next attack, and be patient. You’ll quickly and easily defeat the stone giant.
Phase 2
Lasers
The transition into the second phase introduces lasers into the arena, and unfortunately, we’re not talking about the harmless light show-style ones. These lasers will cut across the arena and do pretty hefty damage to anyone standing either directly in the path, or in a small area around the beam itself. Fortunately, these lasers are telegraphed quite early, as green particles will begin to coalesce together to show the path of the laser before the laser fires. This is incredibly easy to avoid and just requires some situational awareness.
Phase 3
Witch Queen Guardian 2
This is where the fight begins to challenge you. Whilst the aforementioned lasers are firing off, the second Guardian becomes empowered. You’ll then have to fight this Guardian whilst also avoiding lasers. This can sound difficult, but honestly, it’s pretty easy. If you’re familiar with the layered approach to avoiding active combatants and environmental hazards at the same time, something that is present in many fighting games (I’m looking at you Dark Souls) then you won’t struggle too much here. This is probably the hardest section of the fight, so take your time to make sure you avoid the Guardian’s attacks and the lasers, it won’t hurt to take a little bit of extra time just to be safe.
Phase 4
Witch Queen
Finally, The Witch Queen herself. She’s nowhere near as intimidating as her towering stone guardians, but just because she’s not 50 feet tall and made of marble doesn’t mean she’s harmless. She’s deceptively fast and strong, she’ll easily put a lot of pressure on you and will fight you relentlessly. However, you can easily use this aggression to your benefit. As I mentioned earlier, she’s vulnerable to knockdowns and stun locks, meaning you can easily get 3 or 4 attacks in whilst she stands there, staggered, unable to retaliate. If you’re using a Katana as I recommended earlier, I recommend using the combo of Light Attack, Heavy Attack, Light Attack, Heavy Attack. This spaces the stuns out pretty well whilst applying two stacks of bleed per combo.
Even though she is vulnerable to these attacks, she does have one get out of jail free card. Her weapon of choice is a one-handed ax, and sometimes she’ll lead with a heavy attack. This heavy attack is denoted by her jumping into the air, and leaving a purple trail behind her with the blade of her weapon. This attack has hyper armor, which means that it will ignore certain effects whilst the attack is being cast. If she casts this attack, her hyper armor will prevent her from being affected by the stun-lock mechanic that the katana enables you to take advantage of, so you’ll want to dodge this attack. Seeing as the Witch Queen herself is so aggressive, this is why we’ve brought Aloe Extract potions alongside Healing Wraps. There’s no way you’ll be able to take the time to step away, bandage, and let the heal build up, as the Witch Queen is simply too aggressive for that. You can easily bandage between the Guardian phases, but keeping some Aloe Extract potions for this fight is great for popping off a quick heal if you’ve taken some damage.
If you do get caught by her attacks, don’t try to trade or stun her out of her combination, just dodge away from her and get some space. She’s quite a big fan of throwing out large, dangerous combinations that can easily catch you with 3 or 4 pretty hard-hitting attacks, and whilst getting caught by her ax once or twice isn’t the end of the world, getting caught by a combination could easily spiral into her aggression getting the better of you and sending you straight back to your bedroll. Whilst she is a relatively easy boss, give her the respect she deserves and you’ll be able to easily deal with The Witch Queen.
FAQ’s
Question: Do I have to use a Katana and/or Warhammer? I don’t like those weapons
Answer: You don’t have to use a Katana or a Warhammer at all. If you’re more comfortable with swords, pikes, daggers, maces, or anything else like that, feel free to use them. A Katana or Warhammer is my recommendation for the stun lock and knockdown potential, but if you’re not comfortable with those weapons, you’ll perform much better with a weapon you are comfortable using.
Question: Is it worth trying to use Ranged rather than Melee for this fight?
Answer: In my opinion, no. You might see some limited utility against the Witch Queen Guardians, but when you have to fight the Witch Queen, you’re not gonna have a good time. Using a Bow relies on having the space to utilize your range to the best of its abilities, and there frankly isn’t enough room in this arena. Given how aggressive the Witch Queen is, you likely won’t even get a chance to fully draw an arrow. I’d avoid range for this fight.
Question: Should I bring a potion to boost my strength for this fight?
Answer: You can if you want to, but I don’t think it’s necessary. The Witch Queen and her Guardians aren’t that strong in terms of how much health and armor they have, so doing damage won’t necessarily be an issue. The bigger issue in this fight is avoiding incoming attacks and environmental hazards. The Witch Queen’s fight is fairly easy, and in my honest opinion, you don’t need to bring any stat-boosting potion.
Conclusion
So now you know how to defeat The Witch Queen! She’s far from the hardest boss, but it’s a fun fight in a pretty unique arena, and even though she doesn’t drop anything too fancy aside from main quest items, it can be an enjoyable mid-tier boss. With this guide, hopefully, you feel equipped to slay The Witch Queen. Grab your weapon, some aloe potions, and get yourself to the jungle, best of luck Exile!
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