So You Want That Auric Dagger! [Guide to Killing Cuelebre]

So You Want That Auric Dagger! [Guide to Killing Cuelebre]




Posted: 2010-07-30 05:53:36 | IP: Logged | Reply to this | Follow





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Score: Excellent





The Auric Dagger is certainly a sexy
piece of gear stat-wise (not to mention it looks nice), and it's not all
that difficult to obtain if you know what you're doing. Cuelebre is
NOT a difficult NM, he's like a very easy version of Ouryu. However, if
you fight him in the wrong place, or don't take care during his 2hr
spamfest below 50%, he can and will wipe even a full alliance.

Things to know:

1.) Location and Spawn Conditions
Cuelebre spawns around E-9 of Abyssea-Tahrongi amongst the Nauls (the
adorable baby Faffies). Spawn conditions are not 100% known but it is
believed to be a timed spawn with a 35-60 minute repop. You do not have
to kill Nauls in the area to get him to spawn. He wanders about the
Naul section of the canyon, however when you pull him, you'll want him
to be on the south side, near the Encampment. The fastest way to reach
this location is by the use of Verdical Conflux #3 (which is a short
walk through a bunch of Beholders from Verdical Conflux #2).

2.)
Cuelebre does not melee, instead his normal attacks are an earth based
magical attack. Barstone and Shell are recommended at all times. They
ignore shadows, so /NIN is useless for anyone.

3.) Cuelebre
always flies so melee is essentally useless. Melee attacks only work
after he uses Mighty Strikes. However, after Cuelebre uses mighty
strikes, he begins to spam Ochre Blast, so it's not a good idea for
anyone but a tank to be in range.

4.) GET PROSPECTOR BUFFS AND TEMPORARY ITEMS. CRUOR IS EASY TO GET, WHY WOULDN'T YOU GET THESE?

The Fight

Start
by pulling Cuelebre from the south end, through the encampment and past
verdical conflux #3. You'll see a little raised rock ledge in the
middle of the canyon and the ground past here will slope downward with a
somewhat steep grade. Everyone who is not the tank should stand on the
ledge, the tank should be down at the bottom of the hill. Cuelebre's
AOE will not hit anyone standing on this ledge even if they are in
technical range of the attacks (all of Cuelebre's AOEs have a 30' range
by the way). Mages may move in close to the tank for buffs
immediately after a TP attack, but if you see the 2hr animation,
Cuelebre is about to go crazy with Ochre Blast spam and everyone needs
to return to ledge immediately. It may be best to call Mighty Strikes
as it can be easy to miss until he begins his spamfest.

Cuelebre's Attacks: Bai wing: Aoe (30) Earth Damage and Slow (CANNOT BE OVERWRITTEN BY HASTE). Does about 600-800 damage unresisted.
Mighty Strikes: Followed by rapid spamming of....
Ochre Blast AoE Earth Damage (30). Hits for 300-400. But he spams it, so it adds up.

Cuelebre
also casts Stoneskin, Slowga (cannot be overwritten by haste) and
Breakga, so WHM is reccomended for Stona. Stoneskin can be dispelled.

Your
tank should be a job capable of curing itself, holding hate, and
sustaining an onslaught of magical damage. Possible choices: PLD, RDM,
BLU, PUP (the Automaton can tank the NM, actually).

You now
must deal damage to Cuelebre and keep the tank alive (this should be
obvious). You will have to rely on magic and ranged damage. I will
list jobs that do well and what they should do:

1.) Black Mage
is an obvious choice. Cuelebre has weaknesses to Water and Wind,
although I've seen much better performance from water elemental magic.
BLMs have Water V now, anyway. Cuelebre is also susceptible to stun.
Use this to your advantage.

2.)Blue Mage with a Thief
subjob is another great choice. SACA (0TP) Cannonball takes off ~3% of
his HP and SA Cannonball about ~1.5%. Regurgitation also does decent
damage, and can be spammed. If you are doing damage with a BLU/THF, be
sure that the tank keeps the dragon's back facing the ledge both for SA
and for the damage bonus on regurgitation.

3.) Ranger
just does what a Ranger normally does. Since NIN sub won't be very
useful to them, they can sub WAR for increased damage or sub COR for
magus roll to decrease damage from Cuelebre's attacks.
NOTE: If your
ranger has Annihilator, and you have a BLU/THF using cannonball, not
that Coronach <--> Cannonball generates a light skillchain that
will likely deal a lot of damage and the tank WILL probably lose hate.
Try to avoid this.

4.) Summoner can help the party
defensively and dish out great damage with the meritable magic blood
pacts. Wind Blade and Grand Fall are probably the most reliable,
although the Summoner I fought it with didn't have the new pacts yet so
they may or may not work as well.

5.) Scholar is another obvious choice for magic damage and party support.

6.) Puppetmaster
is an awesome choice as the BLM automaton is capable of dealing massive
damage to Cuelebre. Can also tank. Recommended to have the puppet in
full MDB gear and use the steam jacket since it will constantly take
magic damage if being attacked by Cuelebre.

7.) Melee/RNG. I've heard reports of WAR/RNG being effective. So anything with decent ranged weapon skill should work.

You
don't need a full alliance to take him down. A tank, 2 healers, and 3
ranged/magic DDs can take him down in 15 minutes or less. There are
several confirmed trios, as well. I'm still not sure what the !!
weaknesses mean in Abyssea, but for reference, it seems to be triggered
by water elemental magic (possibly magic crits, but this is just
speculation on my part, as water elemental magic did not ALWAYS trigger a
!!).

The first time we killed him we had a full alliance and
many black mages, so the !! got triggered several times. He only
dropped horns and coeurl meat. The second time we killed him, we had
only six, no black mage, and the !! was never triggered and we got both
the dagger and the MNK JSE neck.

The best part: the dagger seems to have a 50% drop rate. So go get it!