Drops
getting her to show up
She belongs to the Frost Moon and appears nowhere else, so the whole approach to her is the event. Start it after dark with a Naughty Present and fight your way up the waves. She does not begin spawning until wave eleven, which is deep enough that you need post-Plantera gear and an arena that has already coped with everything ahead of her. There is no way to call her on her own. If you have run the Pumpkin Moon, she is this event's answer to the Pumpking: the last thing it has to throw at you, and the only one of its heavy hitters that flies.
waves, points and drops
Every kill feeds the wave counter and she is worth more toward it than anything else in the event, so she is the fastest way to push into the later waves where the good loot actually lives. That cuts both ways, because her own chances of dropping something improve in those same later waves. Killing her at wave eleven is progress rather than payday. By the closing waves several of her can be on screen together, and that is usually where a run ends. On Master Mode she always leaves a relic behind, and often the Frozen Crown pet with it.
how she moves
She ignores terrain completely and passes through blocks, so an arena cannot wall her out and a box will not protect you. She is fast, she changes direction constantly, and she works to sit above you while she throws things down. Chasing her is not a plan. Set up so that she comes to you.
her three attacks
She picks between three patterns more or less at random, and each one asks something different of you.
- A run across the screen, sweeping frost waves at you as she passes. This is the one that punishes sitting at her level.
- A hover directly overhead, raining shards down from underneath her. These land the hardest of anything she throws, and the answer is to not be under her.
- A stationary twirl that sprays shards outward in random directions. They fly in long flat arcs before gravity takes over, so they reach much further sideways than they look like they should.
the twirl is your window
The twirl is the only time she holds position, which makes it the only reliable moment to commit to damage instead of dodging. The spray has a bias worth knowing about: shards are far more likely to leave her near the diagonals than straight up, straight down, or flat to the sides. Standing directly above, below or level with her puts you in the thin part of the pattern. Sitting off at forty five degrees puts you in the thick of it.
she speeds up in steps
Her acceleration, top speed and rate of fire all climb as her health falls, but not smoothly. The increases land as she crosses set health thresholds, so the fight does not tighten gradually, it lurches. A pattern you were comfortable dodging becomes one you are not, in the space of a single hit. Plan for the last quarter of her health to be a different encounter from the first.
the debuffs are what kill you
Raw damage is rarely the problem. Chilled slows you at the exact moment you need to move, and her frost waves can freeze you outright, which takes your controls away while everything else in the event keeps coming. Frozen also throws you off a mount, and being dismounted at the height people fight this event at will finish the job on its own. A Hand Warmer or an Ankh Shield removes that entire category of death and should be treated as required equipment. A Warmth Potion takes a real bite out of everything she throws and lasts the full night.
sitting above her
She will not aim frost waves at anything above her. Hold that position and you have deleted a third of her offense outright. Infinite flight makes it easy to hold, either a mount like the Witch's Broom or wings with the Soaring Insignia. Pair it with lifesteal and a Cross Necklace or Star Veil so the hits you do take buy you a longer invincibility window to heal through.