Final Fantasy V Walkthrough
Written by Djibriel
Contributor
2.15: The Fight with Catoblepas
Enemies: Cure Beast, Land Turtle, Dechirer, Druid, Ironback, Catoblepas
Blue Magic: 
Dark Spark
With the submarine, travel to the northern-most white dot on the World Map. You should find a cave here; take the submarine there to find yourself in the Sea Floor Cave.
There are two kinds of enemies here. Druids are magical adepts; they can slow you down with Web and weaken you with Dischord. They can also use Magnet and Image, an attack that makes them evade the next two physical attacks altogether. Their most dangerous attack is Encircle, which removes a character from battle. They have a rare
Angel Ring steal, which is part of the reason you're here. You can Control them to have them cast Dark Spark on you if you wanna.The Ironback is a massive beast with incredible physical force and impressive defense. They should be weakened with
Toad, Sleep, Flash or the like immediately. Their elemental weakness is Ice, so take advantage of that. They have an extremely strong !Release attack, so get one or more. A single Released Ironback one-shots the boss we're here to face.The
Angel Ring is much more of a protective Relic than the elemental rings are. Superior Magic Defense by far, superior Defense and immunity to two of the most crippling status ailments in the game, Old and Zombie. Nice. I suggest it as the Relic at this point in the game, surpassing the elemental rings, Elven Mantles and Genji Gloves.To be short, get four
Angel Rings and Catch an Ironback to use versus Catoblepas if you're so inclined. Level 4 Graviga can be used on both Druid and Ironback enemies, so that's useful for weakening Ironbacks and other kinds of violence.Back on the Map, there's nothing there. Sure, a Chocobo forest, but the only Chocobo present is a female, so we can't ride her. Make your own tasteless jokes.
Cure Beasts and Land Turtles were already swarming Castle Surgate earlier; the Dechirers are new. They're not dangerous and absorb Lightning. The thing we're looking for is Catoblepas, a random encounter. You'll randomly encounter it.
Catoblepas  Bestiary #281 |
Type |
Level |
HP |
MP |
Gil |
EXP |
Speed |
Magic Beast, Dragon | 38 | 5000 | 500 | 0 | 0 | 45 | |
Strength |
Attack Mult. |
Magic Atk. |
Evasion |
Defense |
Mag. Def. |
Mag. Evade |
|
55 | 10 | 50 | 0 | 20 | 10 | 50 | |
Stolen Items |
Dropped Items |
||||||
Common: Phoenix Down | Common: Catoblepas | ||||||
Command Immunities | Elemental Immunities | ||||||
Physical, Slow, Haste, Shell, Safe, Wall, Catch, Control | None | ||||||
Elemental Absorb | Elemental Weakness | ||||||
None | None | ||||||
Blue Magic | Status Immunities | ||||||
None |              | ||||||
Strategy | |||||||
Here's the eye! It's a pig. The pig is dangerous. It'll randomly attack physically and cast
Drain, but it's biggest annoyance is his Evil Eye attack, which it directs against everything that deals damage to it. The 
Ribbon protects against Petrify, but that's about it. The best you can do is prepare with Gold Needles.Summon Golem to protect against physicals. You can't really do anything about his
Drain spell. Evil Eye still lurks. Simply skip to whoever is the most powerful versus this guy. When Catoblepas counters this attack with Evil Eye, quickly restore the softness with a Soft or 
Esuna.Another option is casting
Poison on him and simply waiting. He'll attack you all the while, but after 16 turns he'll definitely be dead and Evil Eye never made an appearance.Releasing an Ironback will deal anywhere between 5400 and 6000 damage, instantly killing piggy piggy. This is useful! I suggest Catching another Ironback for the future. The next boss fight won't really need an Ironback, but being able to dish out that kind of damage at whatever level really is kinda useful.
Anyway, you get the Catoblepas item after the battle. It teaches your Summoner to summon him in battle. It's simply a single-target Petrify-inducing attack like
Break was, but Catoblepas' Demon Eye is more accurate, ignores the Reflect status and looks cooler. It's also much more MP-costly.When you're done (also with the
Angel Rings?), it's really really time to go visit Ghido. He's waiting for us and Krile's headache from the constant badgering probably bothers her. It's right there in the middle of your World Map.
Caves of Narshe: Final Fantasy V
Version 6
©1997–2025 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.
Version 6
©1997–2025 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.