Final Fantasy 15 guide: how to find and kill a Cactuar for massive experience
How to find and fight a Final Fantasy classic.
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Final Fantasy 15 guide: how to find and kill a Cactuar for for massive experience
It's slightly strange to think that an excitable, dancing cactus is one of the most iconic enemies of one of the biggest RPG franchises of all time… but it is. Go figure. Cactuars also appear in FF15, but they're remarkably rare.
I saw one in a preview session for the game months ago and when it cropped up the PR chaperone squealed with delight – across all the demos, even he hadn't seen one. In my play-through of the final game, I didn't see one for over 30 hours.
If you know where to look, however, you can find one more easily. There's three types of Cactuar in FF15 – the regular Cactuar, the Slactuar and the Gigantuar.
The Cactuar and Slactuar are found in the same areas as far as we can tell. You'll be able to find them in Leide just north-west of Hammerhead and north of Longwythe on the map. They also definitely appear in Duscae, and tend to be found around the Perpetouss Keep enemy base area.
Both of these enemies have a very low chance of spawning and as far as we can tell will mostly do so as the sun begins to rise – from 5am on, but not into the afternoon. You'll want to hang around one of these areas a lot and use the monster-summoning whistle item in your L2 menu to keep summoning and spawning monsters until eventually one of them is a Cactuar or Slacktaur.
Cactuar will try to run, so you'll want to try to lock it down fast. It's weak to Daggers and Gun type weapons. Avoid fire magic, as it resists that. Ice or Thunder are just fine, however. The same applies to Slacktaur.
Gigantuar is found as part of a hunt in the game – so we won't spoil details on that.
Oracle Ascension Coins and Cactaur Needle – the spoils of your battles
First off – both the Cactaur and Slactuar are worth 3333 EXP. That's a lot, especially for a (relatively) low-level enemy. Kill and cash in! Beyond that the pair also drop useful items.
Cactuar enemies drop Oracle Ascension Coins. These useful items can be traded for high-value items and gear at a vendor in Altissa, but also make for powerful magic boosting items when crafting spells.
Slactuar will drop the much-needed Cactuar Needle item. This item doesn't have as much long-term utility as the needles, but is required for some weapon upgrade quests for Cid to upgrade some machine-type weapons.
When you find yourself in need of one, go Slactuar hunting. Keep in mind that in many ways the Cactuar and Slactaur look and seem identical, and the latter is the rarer of the two – so you might be at it for a while.
