Holy Cow

Startup Information: In order to get the key item required for any ENM at Bearclaw Pinnacle, you will have to make at least one trek up the slope in Uleguerand Range. When you zone into Uleguerand, there will be an NPC (Zebada) to your left, talk to him to get the Cotton Pouch item.

Now, begin your trek up the slope. Head counter-clockwise on the map past the buffalo, past the Brontaurs, past the Kindred Demons, past the Molechs, past the Oogliks, and past Jourgamand (if he's up) till you reach the western slope (please see Uleguerand Range). Fall down the slope so that you enter Cave W3 (please see Over the Hills and Far Away). Go down the cave, sneak past any mindgazers and trade your cotton pouch to the ??? to get back some Chamneat Ice. Take the ice back to Zebada to get your key item (Zephyr fan).

Now then, it's time to go back up the slope so you can fall down to Cave S2 (again, please check Over the Hills and Far Away). You must enter Cave S2 to enter the Holy Cow ENM.

Because of the time involved in getting the key item, I would recommend a minimum of two hours for this ENM, assuming nobody in your party has the key item. Assume three to four hours if you have no experience with Uleguerand Range.

If you are short on time and not all of your party members make the successful fall into the cave from the cliff, you might want to have them get aggro and die and have a person that did make the cave entrance tractor them up to the appropriate ledge.

Strategy This guide is not meant to be the be all, end all of strategies for ENM: Holy Cow. It’s simply from my own experience. My record (Mashengo) for this ENM is 1-0, so clearly, I'm not that experienced.

The Party Setup Used:
WAR/NIN
WHM/BLM
RDM/BLM
BLM/WHM
BLM/WHM
THF/NIN

Please take note, even tho this is an uncapped battle, because this is an ENM, all buffs are lost (except food) when entering the battle.

Yes, war/nin for the blink. Apis hits hard, and he has both physical and magic invincibility, so the name of the game here is to keep hate on your main tank as long as possible, waiting for those times when you can actually do dmg to him, at which point, your mages give it to him (and you release any of your SCs).

Because of this, you will find that your mages will gain hate, so keep stoneskin/blink up and run! RDM's gravity will work very well, and Apis doesn't seem to build up any resistance to the spell. In fact, the only time we got in trouble was when our RDM converted, C4'd himself (drawing hate) and dying. This lead to trouble b/c we didn't have gravity after that, so Apis made quick work of the next blm that got hate.

I'm not sure what kind of damage Apis would do against a PLD with good gear + earth staff. If you do take a PLD, make sure you control hate, b/c your WHM will not have enough MP to keep anybody else but the PLD alive. Because of this, I would highly recommend using Invincible to start and then kiting while RDM keeps gravity on Apis at all times.

Thanks to the BLMx2, we were able to break the record on this ENM, but there were many moments when, w/o gravity, Apis could have quickly taken us down in 2-3 hits.