The Solo Challenge

[Shin Gouken]

Cuchulainn will try to poison and cause sap status on you on top of the field sap status, so you will have to pay very close attention to those, because it builds up very fast. He also likes to use invert which when combined with the field sap is potentially lethal.

Well that complicates things just a bit Shame i can't find myself a Ribbon. I can quickly equip the Tourmaline Ring when i see him ready Poisen or better yet go a find a Goggle Mask. Invert swaps your HP and MP values if i remember? I'll open the third quickening to increase my MP as much as i can. If i can find Pheasant Netsuke and some X-potions then i can heal from Invert extremely quickly. Not needing to use Curaga will keep my MP that bit higher so the double Sap hopefully wont finish me before i can use an X-potion. I'm pretty exited now

Do you know what kind of damage he can inflict? The guide puts him down as an end of game fight, all this prep would be kind of pointless if he can just 1 Hit Scathe me to death

[Wolf Kanno]

I don't remember him using Scathe but he does hit hard, he mostly tries to overwhelm you with Poison and Sap as well as having an endless horde of flans that beat the crap out of you like most of the mid-tier Espers do.

You'll need an effective crowd control ability so I hope you have a few of those Warp Motes.

[Shin Gouken]

I don't remember him using Scathe but he does hit hard, he mostly tries to overwhelm you with Poison and Sap as well as having an endless horde of flans that beat the crap out of you like most of the mid-tier Espers do.

You'll need an effective crowd control ability so I hope you have a few of those Warp Motes.

If i defeat 24 Marks i can buy Warp Motes from the Muthru Bazaar, as well as Bravery and Faith.

An idea for the flans is to keep them alive but Blind and Silence them. Then i can simply ignore them. It's their status ailments that's the most worrying.

[Shin Gouken]

Can't Silence the Flans (Foobars) but i can hit them with Disable and/or Sleep. That should keep the pesky little buggers off me.

I can cast Regan when Sapped, Protect from Poisen with Goggle Masks, and hopefully have Protect+Shell+Bubble to keep me alive. X-potions aren't readily available until Archades though so i'm relying on Curaga.

[qwertysaur]

Remember if Cuchulainn readies Invert to have Curaga ready, the HP sap field can kill you.

Exodus is the esper that uses (more like spams) Scathe as well as Flare during his fight. You will also have a No items field and he loves to cast reflect on himself. At least he fights you alone.

[Shin Gouken]

Remember if Cuchulainn readies Invert to have Curaga ready, the HP sap field can kill you.

Exodus is the esper that uses (more like spams) Scathe as well as Flare during his fight. You will also have a No items field and he loves to cast reflect on himself. At least he fights you alone.

Ah, well for Exodus at least there are Opal Rings to bypass Reflect. An Aegis shield would be bloody handy too!

Here's the thing with Cuch. The rate in which my HP drains WILL kill me if i am hit with Invert. Either because my MP is so low or because Curaga takes too long to charge.

That leaves me with two options as far as i can tell.

1) Level up. For the sake of not dispointing anyone, i will not be doing this.

2) Find X-potions.

Despite remembering them being available as a Muthru Bazaar item... i was wrong. They aren't and never will be available from the Muthru Bazaar.

They become available to buy from Archades but it's a long way and i'll gain too many levels on the trip and have other bosses to worry about along the way.

Thus, ive had to find another means... which i think i have but i'll let you know if/when i have some. I'll keep this updated...

[qwertysaur]

Also you can try timing Curaga so you cast it as soon as he casts invert.

[Shin Gouken]

Also you can try timing Curaga so you cast it as soon as he casts invert.

I might have to... i had planned to spawn a rare game that i can steal Behomoth Steaks from, which make X-potion packs in the Bazaar. But i just found out that it's a Phon Coast Hunt Club rare game and i can't activate it until Archades


The semi-good news is that i can still grab a few X-potions for the fight. 12 to be exact. Two are a reward i'm already about to receive from Montblanc so no effort involved with that one. The other 10 are from a Potion crate i can make in the Bazaar by selling 3 Screamroots. It's a one time only item though unlike the X-potion packs which you can make as many times as you want. I'm just spawning the rare game now i need for the screamroots...

[Shin Gouken]

The bad news is... wow did i just take one hell of a beating. Foobars quickly overwhelmed me, i went through almost all my X-potions just trying to incapacitate them. I was fighting a losing battle from the start but as soon as invert appeared it was all over.

I need a fresh approach i think. Let's give this another shot with something different...

[Shin Gouken]

New approach. I cast Reverse at the beginning of the battle to try and safely clear up the flans without worrying about their combined physical might overwhelming me, but Cuch used Invert less than 30 seconds in and killed me.

Not sure what else to try atm. I'll have to come up with something

[Shin Gouken]

It's not happening tonight.

I cast my buffs at the nearest crystal to ensure i enter battle with full MP. I cast Disable on him straight away, am careful to equip the apropriate accessory to protect from whichever status ailment he's aiming at me and the switch to Niho + Remedy systematically on the Foobars as they appear which hits them with Sleep, Slow, Doom, Oil, Disable, Immobolise and Blind. Things look good for a while as a gain the upper hand, but slowly i make my way through my supply of X-potions and i know i wont last the entire battle.

It's all irrelevent though because when i see him ready Invert i use an X-potion, but it doesn't matter how quick i am, Invert kills me near on instantly. Ive yet to get a perfect timing and i'm not sure it exists.

[Shin Gouken]

New plan when i get home tonight. If i chain Surianders in the Barheim Passage, i can aquire an Indigo Pendant. It allows status ailments to hit with 100% success by ignoring vitality. I can use this to maintain Reverse status thyroughout the battle. By doing that, although Sap, Poisen and Invert are still dangerous, the Foobars will become my healing machines. I can simply ignore them and focus on Cuchulainn.

Invert will still be a problem, but i'll gain levels as a result of chaining Surianders because they're a high level and the drop rate for the Indigo Pendant is only 1%

[Shin Gouken]

Cuchulainn has fallen



Ive been at it for 4-5 hours tonight including the prep work. And i have to be honest, i almost gave up after my 4th attempt. But for some reason i decided to give it one last go and managed to pull it off... i'm pretty ecstatic


First, i didn't want to disappoint anyone by progressing the story to Archades and then opening up the Hunt Club Rare Game sidequest which is filled with beautiful rare steals, and having access to a never ending source of X-potions (Which would have made this 10 times easier) as well as levelling up a dozen levels. But i also knew that this was going to be impossible in my current condition. So here's what i did...

First, i did what i said i would do, and that is chain Surianders for an Indigo Pendant. After aquiring it, i attempted keeping Reverse active, while equipping lower defense armours so the Foobars would keep me healed in the fight. But timing Reverse to stay active was too hard because often i needed other accessories equipped to survive Disable and various other status ailments so this didn't work out as i had planned.

So i searched Chest treasures, rare drops/steals, Hunt rewards and Bazaar goods in a desperate attemt to find some improved weapons or equipment. And as luck would have it i found something with drops that i could aquire in my current place in the game.

I needed 7 Forbidden Flesh's, 9 Prime Pelts and 8 Fire Crystals. The Forbidden Flesh was right next to me in the Garamsyth Waterway, as a rare steal from a rare game called the Drowned. It's chances to appear were 8% for every 15 seconds i spent in that location so i waited for him to pop up, lured him to the edge of the zone, blinded him and began stealing until i had his Forbidden Flesh (thankfully he doesn't have a common or uncommon steal so it was simply a matter of waiting until i got the rare) Saved, reset and repeated. The Fire Crystals and Prime Pelts both come from the same enemy, the Cerberus in the Feywood and are both common drops/steals so this was a quick process.

The loot when sold makes "Nature's Armoury" which consists of a Rubber Suit and Crown of Laurels. The Rubber Suit increases my HP by 700, and the Crown increases it by 680. So at level 53, my HP hits 4933HP which with Bubble is 9866HP. Now that's more like what i need for this fight.


The battle itself was the hardest thing i have ever done. Harder than a solo chemist against Omega in FFV, or solo Bartz verses Neo Shinryu. There's so much happening in this battle, if you lose concentration for even a second it's all over.

I cast all my buffs before entering the arena, including Reverse, though my strategy doesn't revolve around it, it's just to make the initial few seconds go more smoothly. Usually, i try to aim Dispel at him straight away but more often than not he aims a status ailment at me and i have to switch to the apropriate accessory which means interupting my action and having to input the command again once equipped. How the Foobars enter varies. Sometimes they come in systematically one 15-20 seconds after the next. But other times they almost all drop in immediatley after one another. It was the former in this case. I eqipe Niho + Remedy to completley incapacitate one, but have to switch accesories to block certain status ailments on top of trying to keep healed. This is probabley the hardest part of the battle. It's very messy as Cuch throws out all manner of status ailments and Foobars attacking left right and center, i'm using X-potions every few seconds, switching accessories to defend against various status ailments while trying to find a window of opportunity to equip Niho+Remedy. Once all flans are incapacitated it gets a little easier and i work my way from one to the next killing them off. It's worth noting that they ignore evasion so shields don't help me fight off their physical attacks and they hit for 500HP each so between them and Cuch i can lose 2500HP in a matter of seconds.

With the Foobars down it's just me and Cuch. I had only reached this stage in the fight once before and it takes 10minutes of Foobar battling to get here. It's still extremely tricky because whichever attack Cuch decides to use, it requires a different accessory. His physical hits and Toxic cause poisen, his Malaise and Bio cause Sap and his Slowga, Immoboilisaga and Disablaga cause Slow, Immobolise and Disable respectfully (Duh) So i'm swapping accesories constantly! Obviously his Invert is the real killer. Not only did the last attempt where i got him this far end with a badly timed Curaga after Invert, but one attempt ended immediatley when he cast it at the start of the battle... through me off guard dint it

OK slowly i chip his HP down but he gets ALOT more agressive when his HP falls below 50%. If you're really lucky, he doesn't even use Invert in the first half of the battle. From here, he spams the living crap out of it. Even to the point of using it multiple times in succession. I had learned to time Curaga to heal as it hits but the timing has to be perfect. By this point in the fight, i have no X-potions and am heavily using Curaga to stay alive, so my MP is usually far off max, giving me about 300HP after Invert which is about a second before i die. Although i was getting good at it, i expected a game over screen every time i saw it. Just like in the last attempt where a second is all you need to mis-time Curaga by. Also, if he casts it after Haste has worn off and before you have a chance to recast it, it's a certain game over so the whole time i'm praying for him not to cast it at that moment.

I should also point out that his attacks Slowga and Disablaga are also as good as instant death because if either of them hit, you havn't got a chance of recovering from them. Sap and Poisen can be Remedied off but if he uses Invert after then it's all over. Thus why you have to pay close attention to the battle log at all times (Not to mention your ever depleting HP.)

Anyway, the last test of the trial is when he falls below 20% of his HP, his defense sky rockets and my physical attacks are lucky to break the 300 mark. From this point onwards i'm using 1000 Needles as my priority attack, which, if you skip the lengthy animation time is only slighty slower than a physical attack. 40 or so minutes of dancing with this jolly green giant and eventually he falls... thank smurf for that!

I should definitley thank Wolf Kanno and Qwertysaur, both for your help and for the inspiration to tackle him now. If i had been left to my own devices i would have returned to fight him after at least as far as Archades. He wouldn't have provided half the challenge at that point. I'd probabley of had the Zodiac Spear by that point as well as better armour, higher levels a Pheasants Netsuke and pleanty of X-potions. Back to Mark hunting next i should think.

Actually, i'll be taking a break after all that exitement i'm on Holiday from Friday next week so i shall resume in two weeks time

[Shin Gouken]

This isn't an update, just me pondering on a few things. I might get a few hours in for mark hunting this weekend, but no promises.

Firstly, ive been searching the net for every bit of solo Cuchulainn info i could find to see how other people tackled the challenge. I have yet to find anyone who has tackled him without the Zodiac Spear and a Ribbon. Levels average from 67-97 and people even have the cheek to bring Reddas along. I'm feeling quite good about myself for being the only person to have documented a battle on such a low level, so early in the game without any ultimate weapons or equipment.

Also, i take Omega MKXII, Yiazmat, Hell Wyrm and Zodiark to be impossible, which is universally agreed and as of yet noone has beaten them. But i have an idea for Omega, i like to know what people think. Omega cannot see you if you use Vanish, unless you go stand directly under him. Possibley i could use this to get close to him with a long range weapon (Or fully charged Dark Matter) get in my attack and then survive a hit while running away. If he manages two hits then perhaps Reverse can help with the hit and run strategy. The only problem is his additional Beserk side effect of his attack. Is their a way to protect from Beserk? I remember i fought him for about 15minutes and only saw it once, by having Shell active it might not ever connect. Hmm just a thought

[superbeckie.]

This is actually amazing. Keep it up.