Final Fantasy 12 - Cuchulainn, the Impure location, requirements and strategies
Everything you need for tackling the tricky Esper.
There are thirteen Espers in Final Fantasy 12, eight of which are optional foes outside of the main story. Cuchulainn, the Impure is one of the earlier of those optional Espers that you'll be able to attempt tackling, but don't expect it to be easy!
All of the Espers are highly challenging, so here on this page we'll be taking you through Cuchulainn's location, requirements, and of course strategies for how to defeat Cuchulainn in combat, too.
If you're looking for one of the other Espers, you can head back to our Esper battles, locations, and strategy hub. For other tips and explainers meanwhile, head to our Final Fantasy 12 The Zodiac Age guide and walkthrough, where we cover plenty more.
Cuchulainn, the Impure location and requirements
Before you get to the actual battle, here's everything you need to know about Cuchulainn, the Impure:
- Prerequisites: Dawn Shard, Lost in the Pudding hunt.
- Location: Garamsythe Waterway, No. 1 Cloaca.
- HP: ~125,000
- Weaknesses: None.
- Absorb: None.
- You'll need: Black Belts, Hastega, Holy weapons.
- Recommended level: 47.
- Steal: Scorpio gem, Elixir, High Arcana.
We'd recommend your level is in the mid to high 40s for this one mainly because the fight features a lot of HP draining status effects for which armour or protective accessories do nothing, so characters at too low a level may die before they've had a chance to take their first action!
Head to Garamsythe Waterway and enter the Central Waterway Control room (the one with the blue save crystal). There's a switch puzzle here that takes a lot of sleuthing and running around to work out, so here's the solution:
- Interact with the switches so that 10 and 3 are closed (the lights are on) and 4 and 11 are open (lights off).
- Head down No. 3 Cloaca Spur to the south west and use the control at the far end to close No. 1 South Waterway
- Return to the central control and swap all the switches - open 4 and 11 (lights on) and close 3 and 10 (lights off).
- Head down No. 4 Cloaca Spur and use the control at the far end to close No. 2 South Waterway.
- Return to central control and operate the switches so that 3 and 4 are closed (lights on) and 10 and 11 are open (lights off).
- Head directly south down No. 1 Cloaca to a large area of water.
For more help with? Final Fantasy 12? Our Final Fantasy 12 The Zodiac Age guide, walkthrough, Switch and Xbox differences gives an overview of the game to get you started. Elsewhere, there's our hidden Espers strategy and locations and Elite Hunts and Marks pages, how to get the best Zodiac Jobs for each character, advice on farming LP from Jellies and even how to get the Zodiac Spear.
Cuchulainn strategies and how to defeat it
Now to the fight. The catch for this one is that you're in a permanent state of HP drain similar to Sap, but incurable. To add insult to injury Cuchulainn can throw a regular Sap on top of this to drain your HP like crazy.
Equip Black Belts on everyone to counter his Disable spell, cast Dispel at him if you have it, and Haste wouldn't go amiss. Assign one party member to pretty much spam Curaja, and another one to dish out Esunaga if available. Having Arise instead of Raise to resurrect fallen comrades can be the difference between success and failure - lower level characters may be able to get by with curative items, but it's a lot easier if you can resurrect fallen members with full HP.
His main standard attacks are Bio and Toxify and he will also try and disable or slow your party, but his party piece is “Invert” which swaps your HP and MP values - while this can wreak havoc on your health it can do a good job of keeping your MP topped up, so it's something of a double edged sword.
Shortly after battle commences Foobars will start dropping in. Once all four have arrived unleash a Quickening Chain and try and get a decent finisher - Torrent will nearly kill all the Foobars, and Ark Blast will wipe them out entirely. They're weak to Light/Holy effects, so a Cura makes an effective backup strategy in a pinch.
Once the boss loses his support he changes tactics slightly. Invert will appear less often, but he steps up the use of Bio and introduces a couple of new weapons in the form of Malaise (like Drain - he'll knock off a chunk of your HP and use it to heal himself) and Mana Spring to regenerate his MP, and like many bosses his defence increases as he reaches critical HP levels. Keep healing, curing, and pounding away until he finally kicks the bucket.
Head back to our Esper battles, strategies and locations hub for more on the various other Espers, or our main Final Fantasy 12 The Zodiac Age walkthrough and guide hub for plenty of other guides, too!