The Hunt for Danjuro

[-Omni]

Hey, guys. I was reading through the other threads, namely the "endgame" gear thread and what I've found on the Danjuro is pretty vague.

So, I figured I could start this and clear up any rumors/speculation.

I've seen a lot of different methods for spawning the Larvae Eater. Most people say you have to chain Necrophobes, some have said you have to kill bombs, some say you just kill whatever is around.

Tell us how you spawned it so we'll know where to start.

And if you have the dagger, tell us how you got it.

Ok just found this little gem:

[Gamespot content deleted]

UPDATE:

[Gamespot content deleted]

Just used this method, and went 1/2. Very happy.

[Eaglestrike]

Man, I might pick the game back up now, I had been farming for the Danjuro, went 0/10, leveled my main guys like 25 levels and backline 40 levels in the process, then my power went out and I had never saved, lol...this sounds decent though, thanks for posting.

[Resin]

Oh man, that sucks, Eagle.

Reminds me of when I was chaining wolves solo in the estersands around lv.7 and died to neckhbet (or however you spell it) after chain 160 or so.

I'm thinking I might give the Danjuro another shot as well. Thanks for the tip!

[Fluid]

So is picking up the Danjuro worth it? Its damage seems fairly low, but if the delay's low enough it could be fun.

[Fayttt]

Man, my luck sucks..I spent all this morning trying to get it and it wouldnt drop -_- wtfff

[StaplerGuy]

It's the Yagyu Darkblade of... well, I guess it kinda is just like that really.

[Lagunasa]

When can I get this? I just got passed the Esper fight here and got the treaty blade.

[Resin]

Now. Beating the esper opens up the rest of the area. You can also kill Ultima now, if you were so inclined.

[-Omni]

I'm about to fight Ultima, actually.

And after having the Danjuro for a few days, I'm glad I got it. I've kept Vaan with a dagger pretty much the whole game and have him on a speed setup. He hits pretty fast and the dagger does pretty good damage, but it's nothing compared to Bash's Excalibur damage in the great crystal. Light weakness allows for 9999 per swing. I'll probably switch Vaan to a new weapon once I get them all and have a chance to mess around. But for now he does decently.

If you're a perfectionist and want 100% on FFXII, go for Danjuro. Otherwise, you could probably go without it.

[Neosutra]

I'm about to fight Ultima, actually.

And after having the Danjuro for a few days, I'm glad I got it. I've kept Vaan with a dagger pretty much the whole game and have him on a speed setup. He hits pretty fast and the dagger does pretty good damage, but it's nothing compared to Bash's Excalibur damage in the great crystal. Light weakness allows for 9999 per swing. I'll probably switch Vaan to a new weapon once I get them all and have a chance to mess around. But for now he does decently.

If you're a perfectionist and want 100% on FFXII, go for Masamune, WyrmheroBlade, Zodiac Spear, and Tournesal. Otherwise, you could probably go without it.

Edited.

[-Omni]

But not necessarily fix'd.

100% = loleverything

I guess an "A" or at least "B+" rating could be achieved with Masamune, Wyrmhero, Zodiac Spear, and Tournesol.

(even though Masamune was easy to get...)

[StaplerGuy]

Also, and irrelevantly, why has no one shopped "Danjuro: The Hunt Begins" yet?

[evilbau]

I'm almost positive you don't need a high chain of necros before larva eater spawns (first time, or ever I believe) because he was up when i was passing through the zone with a low/no chain. The last method from the OP seems to work really well, and clearing an adjacent zone of necros makes resetting teleporter XIV area much easier. I eventually got danjuro (1/20).

Also it can spawn at Teleporter XVII, before ultima and the save crystal. It was up when I was going to save and I also had no chain at that time. No drop that time (so i guess i'm 1/21 now).

[Stilgar]

I found a much clearer explanation:

I've just tested, and confirmed, that Karchy's method works as he described in his first post. It has nothing to do with divided Necros, as it seems. It works the same way as Bombshell (the mob that drops the Yagu Darkblade). You really only need three zones on the map for this to work: The platforms with Waystone XIV, the Leo Gate Switch, and the Leo Gate.

Here's exactly what I did:
Starting from Waystone XIV, I went up to the platform with the Leo Gate Switch (LGS), and down to the platform with the Leo Gate (LG), chaining necrofiends until I hit around 221-ish. During this time I killed every last Necrofiend in the LGS platform, to the point that they would no longer respawn. I kept going down to the XIV waystone to reset the LG platform to get more mobs to kill, and after a 221-chain the Larvae Eater spawned, so i stopped short of 255. It's worth noting, however, that I have chained 255 previously to get the Larvae Eater to spawn for the first time.

After killing the Larvae Eater (no drop this time), I ran through LGS to LG to reset the Waystone platform. I then returned to the Waystone platform, and checked for LE. Since he wasn't there, I walked up to the Waystone/LGS zone border, and zoned back and forth for around 5-10 minutes by holding down on the analog stick with a rubber band, while I was browsing these forums.

Once 5-10 minutes had gone by, I stopped zoning, and checked the Waystone again, and lo and behold, there was a Larvae Eater. Kill (again, no drop), and run back to LG to reset the zone.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat. I just killed 5 LE's in about half an hour. Unfortunately, so far none of them have dropped anything, but I'm going to keep at it. Keep in mind that you don't have to kill anything in between LE kills, so you are chaining LE, which means eventually you will start going up in chain levels and will reach the increased drop % that people have suggested the bomb method yields.


Now, here's why it works:
Much like the Bombshell, there's a small chance that the LE will spawn every time you enter the Waystone platform. Once he does spawn, he will stay there until you reset the zone or kill him. Thus, if you just keep zoning back and forth between the two platforms (Waystone XIV and LGS), he will eventually show up. Once you've killed him, you have to reset the zone before he'll spawn again.

The trick that makes this different from the Bombshell is that LE does not seem to have a % chance to spawn UNTIL after you've chained a bunch of Necrofiends. However, once you've completed this task, he does have a small % chance to spawn each time.

Thus, you start your Necro chain and continue it until LE spawns. After you kill the first one, you run through LGS to the LG platform to reset the Waystone platform, and return to it. Then you zone between LGS and the Waystone platform until he spawns. Since at no point do you ever go two zones away from LGS, you never reset it, and thus don't have to deal with Necros anymore, allowing you to chain LE's with impunity.

Since you don't need to kill another chain of Necros to get this to work, but it won't work after using a save crystal, I presume this means that you need to make a large chain to get the first LE spawn after using a save crystal. It may also be that waystones interrupt this method the same way save crystals do.

This could explain why some of the people trying to replicate Karchy's method were failing. Maybe some had already completed a 255 chain earlier, but had saved or used a waystone or save crystal since then and thus re-set the flag that enables LE to spawn. They came back to try Karchy's method without creating a new chain to get the first LE spawn, and thus weren't able to spawn it with the zoning trick.

There is at least one other thing that could be important here: clearing the LGS zone (and I mean really clear -- you should be able to make several laps around the place from end to end without getting anything to spawn). There's nothing in my experience to indicate whether it's the chain level of Necros or the actual clearing of the LGS platform that triggers the first LE spawn. It could very well be that the trigger is clearing this platform, which would explain why some people get their first spawns after 20-30 Necros (they just clear LGS) and some take 200-250 (they kill a few in LGS and mostly clear LG over and over).

I'll be glad to answer any questions people can come up with, in the hopes that someone else can duplicate this and confirm what Karchy and I have discovered.

Also, some tips:
1) I check the zone every time I reset it, to make sure there are no reapers. I've tried fighting LE a few times with 3-4 Reapers around, and let me tell you, it makes it a bit of a pain (even at lvl 85). Having to deal with LE's Invert is annoying enough, but having a few reapers throwing KO and Annul around on your party members is downright ugly. Luckily, if you get reapers, you can just run back to LG and reset the zone again.

2) The number of times you need to zone really is random. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes of zoning, other times it's 5 minutes. Once the LE even appeared the very first time I reset the zone, during my reaper check. If he doesn't appear after 10 or 15 minutes though, chances are you've done something wrong.

3) He doesn't always drop anything. He didn't start dropping loot for me until the 6th kill, and still hasn't dropped a Danjuro for me (i'm at #8 right now). So far I have 2 Demon Eyeballs and an Arcana to show for my work.

There is one hitch, though. I had some repops in the 'LGS' (leo gate switch) zone without ever leaving the XIV-LGS-LG set of zones. This was after my second Larva Eater.

I'm 0/4 on LE now, chain 4! But, I discovered that I don't have the monograph to enhance drops from fiends, which gargoyles are. ><

[evilbau]

If you get repops you didn't clear it 100%

That explanation you quoted is pretty good, it was what I did but I was a bit lazy to spell out explicitly. some stuff isn't correct, you don't need a high chain to start with. I mostly just wanted to mention in my post, when I made it, that necros weren't a factor and that larva eater has at least one other spawn location. didn't really think to mention that it pops like other rare mobs.

side note on reapers: its pretty easy to pull larva eater with dispel even if there are reapers around.

[Stilgar]

I'm fairly certain did clear the area 100%. I was running back and forth through it I don't know how many times over the course of an hour or two with no repops, and then one time after killing LE, all the sudden the necros were back. I cleared it again, and it never happened again in the next hour or so, though.

Apparently you don't need a high chain, only need to have killed a lot (250ish) mobs since entering the Great Crystal. Unless you're saying you're certain you hadn't killed very many mobs since entering and still saw LE. In any case, killing a lot of stuff seems to coax it into popping the first time since entering the zone (or using a porter switch).

I got the mage's monograph and I plan to go back and try for Danjuro more later. 0/6 now ; ;

[Newk]

After killing LE and getting it to drop something, did those who successfully obtained Danjuro use a Diamond Armlet to pick it up or not?

I'm using the second of the 2 methods posted by the OP and am like 0/20 or so now with only 3 of those dropping something >.>

[Stilgar]

I never got the damn thing. lol, fuck it. Not worth sweating over.

[layoneil]

After killing LE and getting it to drop something, did those who successfully obtained Danjuro use a Diamond Armlet to pick it up or not?

Diamond Armlet only affects chest, it has no bearing on what you pick up.

[Newk]

After killing LE and getting it to drop something, did those who successfully obtained Danjuro use a Diamond Armlet to pick it up or not?

Diamond Armlet only affects chest, it has no bearing on what you pick up.

Ah I see. Thank you. I'll just keep at it then.

Edit: Got my Danjuro finally! :D Chain 15 -_-