Catoblepas, also known as Shoat, is an optional boss in Final Fantasy V found at a large island forest covered in mountains in the northwest, which is accessible by submarine in Galuf's world. It appears as a random encounter, just like Ramuh did in Bartz's world. Defeating it in battle grants the Catoblepas summon. The player obtains the spell in the inventory as an item, and needs to use it for it to be listed in the summon section.
Stats[]
Battle[]
Evil Eye.
Catoblepas will counter any damage dealt to it with Demon Eye, which will attempt to petrify the damage dealer. It will also attack regularly with Drain and a standard physical attack.
Catoblepas is vulnerable to stop and poison status ailments, as well as old via Level 2 Old. However, due to being Heavy, it will not stay stopped for long.
Strategy[]
One of the strategies to defeat Catoblepas quickly is by catching an Ironback near or in the cave at the Northern Lake and then releasing it, dealing over 5,000 HP damage that will kill the Catoblepas instantly. On the now defunct mobile and Steam versions, two Ironback releases are required as they deal less damage.
Fighting it normally is difficult unless the attackers have immunity to petrification (e.g, Aegis Shield). Missing that, the player should have plenty of Gold Needles before engaging, or have a White Magic-user ready to cast Esuna.
An alternative strategy is to have a Black Magic-user cast Poison at the start of the battle, then simply survive and recover from Catoblepas's attacks. Because the poison damage ticks will not cause the Demon Eye counterattack response, the party does not need to worry about being petrified.
While stop duration is very short, Catoblepas will not counter if attacked while stopped. The player can time every attack they do immediately after successfully applying Stop to avoid the petrification response. Stop abilities at this point include:
- Beastmaster's Calm ability, as Catoblepas is a Magic Beast
- Singing Romeo's Ballad
- Time Magic's Stop spell
It is a good idea to haste any Stop-users. Stop does not work together well with poison status, as poison damage does not occur while Catoblepas is stopped.
Behind the scenes[]
The Final Fantasy V incarnation of the Catoblepas was used as starting point and reference when designing the catoblepas in Final Fantasy XV.[1]
The enemy ability known as Resploder in the PS version and Chain Detonation in the GBA version, is named ゆうばく in Japanese. It may have been intended to be a special attack (as it appears in the attack lists for Ramuh, Catoblepas, Sekhmet, Sandworm, Exdeath's normal and tree forms, Archeoaevis, Gilgamesh, and Wendigo), but it is just a normal physical attack. Crystal Dragon has it as a Catch/Release ability, but when used as a Release it acts the same as a normal Attack. The ability was removed (at least from Crystal Dragon) in the iOS version.
Related enemies[]
Notes[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 This ability is a normal physical attack, but appears to be intended to be a special attack. See Behind the scenes for details.