How to Hunt NM: Dragonscaled Bugaal Ja

Dragonscaled Bugaal Ja (DBJ)
Spawn Location: Mamook (D-7)
Respawn time: 59 to 62+ hours
HP: ~16500
Drops of Interest: Beast Bazubands
Special Notes: True Sight, 3x Tyrannobugard pets

I have been hunting DBJ for over six months now and am rather jealous at Monsters Inc.'s success. While this NM is not very difficult to claim or kill, DBJ has an abysmal drop rate and is fairly difficult to low-man. As such, this post explores DBJ's behavior and possible low-man strategies.















The quickest (and safest) route to DBJ is by taking the Mamool Ja Staging Point entrance into Mamook. Once inside, head to G-8, climb the stairs near Hundredfaced Hapool Ja, and run along the cliff until you cannot continue further north. Drop down the cliff, and head up another until you can enter the cave south of DBJ.

To scout if DBJ is up, simply walk to where I am standing above (around G-8), and see if the NM is up on "Widescan." I believe that DBJ might have a similar respawn time to that of Merrow No. 5, and on average, DBJ usually respawns around sixty hours after his last Time of Death.















Regarding low-man strategies, you will need a party unless you plan to Zombie DBJ, and furthermore, you will need to split the party to handle both DBJ and his pets. While I prefer to kite DBJ's pets using a 2hred Slime, I would assume a RDM or PLD/BLU with movement speed would work as well. Moreover, kiting DBJ's pets via Evasion jobs do not work very well because the Bugards possess very high Accuracy.

Since DBJ is a fairly strong NM, you will probably want a standard TP burn setup and spells such as "Barfira" or "Fire Carol" to lower damage from "Firespit." If you are really hurting for help, two well-geared SAMs (using their 2hrs) can skillchain DBJ to death in one minute, but they will need to be well-merited and coordinated for this to work.



















Now for the fun part. It turns out that DBJ cannot be stunned, and although anecdotes suggest DBJ's pets can be slept via "Lullaby," I am fairly sure they cannot. More importantly, DBJ's 2hr has a hidden effect; if you search DBJ's discussion page on FFXIclopedia, a certain BST claimed that he could kite all three Bugards indefinitely or so.

This is only true if DBJ used "Familiar."

Why? DBJ's pets gain the effect of Regain ("Meditate") immediately after, and they will try to spam back-to-back WSs as a result. By waiting for DBJ's 2hr and kiting the Bugards around the square ring (D-5) above, my pet could last as long as ten minutes, but if my PT needed longer than that, the fight usually went in DBJ's favor.















As for the drop rate, I ended up going 1/7 over a six-month period, and the most difficult part was finding enough help for DBJ. A special thanks goes out to everyone who helped me through this hellish nightmare.

Summary:
1/2 on Beast Bazubands with TH1
0/5 on Beast Bazubands with TH3 or 4

Estimated drop rate on FFXIclopedia: 33%
Theoretical odds of not getting the gloves six times: 8.77%

As such, either I won an unlucky lottery, or the drop rate on DBJ is lower than documented.