Talk:Picolaton

= Testimonials =
 * Trio'd with BST/NIN, DRG/RNG, and WHM/SMN...with difficulty. Was unprepared when he popped and claimed before DRG/RNG could Nexus Cape from the PH camp. Wiped! BST and WHM HP'd and returned to find SAM/DNC trying to solo..with no success...SAM died with NM still at 90% health. Put Courier Carrie on him and stayed out of AoE range to avoid Stormwind damage. Swapped in Tulwar Scorpions until Call Beast cooled down. Received 39 exp as a trio.
 * Easily soloable by DNC75/NIN. Didn't require Utsusemi, could have killed as /THF.
 * Soloable by 75 DRG/BLU, with some difficulty.
 * Soloable by 75 SAM/DNC, with minimal difficulty
 * Soloable by 75 PLD/RDM, no difficulty at all. Keep up Baraera and Shell III and you'll do fine. 1/1 on Breastplate.
 * Soloable by 75 BST/*, with no difficulty.
 * Soloable by 75 MNK/NIN Fight was a joke, barely did any damage with Stormwind, killed in like 1minute no 2hr, Counterstance was up entire fight HP never dropped below 95% - {Camalus of Fenrir}
 * Duoed Easily with a 75THF/NIN and a 75RDM/WHM. Make sure to have Shell and Baraero up at all times to migitate Stormwind damage. Drop Paralyze, Blind and Slow and you are golden.--Lyraloo 23:10, December 7, 2009 (UTC)
 * I've killed it twice, and both times it popped at the southern end of the zone. Also, both times it gave 70 EXP solo, with signet.
 * Soloed by BST/NIN, with a lot of problems. Stormwind spam was doing 200+ per use.  Pet and I were both under 10% at end.  66 XP.  --Ctownwoody 00:15, November 23, 2009 (UTC)
 * If you solo as Bst75/whm, dont engage mob, use a 75 jug pet, and swap pets if you need to. i keep stoneskin up, incase it gets a chance to hit me, sometimes i take 1 hit when i swap pets. also, if you dont engage NM you wont lose claim when you swap pets. ive done this fight 15 times solo, no death. (no drop either)--CormacMacCart 16:20, November 28, 2009 (UTC)
 * Killed solo thf/nin no bolts + lvl 70 soothing healer npc for shell IV ,difficult to melee due to Stormwind spam had poor accuracy on his hits although proc'd an add effect on them for around 100 +10 fast damaging dd to avoid as much aoe advised npc also if soloing
 * Easily killed solo, Pld/Dnc with mdb/elemental resist set, max Stormwind damage was 70
 * Died with 75 PLD/WHM, NM spamed Aoe directly !!!
 * Soloed by a 75DRG/37BLU with some difficulty. Saurian helm/Wyrm armet is a must if you wish to solo as well as either Spirit Surge or a fresh Call Wyvern ready to go. Stormwind will likely kill your wyvern by 30%, and his melee attacks will do anywhere from 90 to 150 plus the additional effect with cocoon up. -Prothescar 12:24, December 17, 2009 (UTC)
 * Soloed with relative ease as a 75PLD/RDM. Bio II coupled with Phalanx and Stoneskin take care of his melee hits, though Baraero is a must to deal with the Enaero effect and the Stormwind spam at low health.--Crysten 17:51, December 26, 2009 (UTC)
 * Soloed very easily by 75SMN/WHM. Can effectively carby kite it around or use leviathan with spinning dive, run away and resummon when 10 sec is left on Blood Pact: Rage timer.--Creaucent cant remember date or time.
 * Soloed RDM/nin, Bio/Poison II + Slow/Paralyze II. Didn't engage, basically back tanked. Only used Stormwind twice. Pretty easy if you watch shadows and keep stoneskin up. --Willhem 12:43, January 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Duoed as rdm/whm and me as drg/blu. with shell4 and baraero, stormwind hit me for 19 constantly, hitting wyvern for 104. The add effect from nm raged from 5-40 dmg. Honestly expected the fight to be harder. NM only lived for 2 weapon skills. As for PH killing and claiming, i killed ph with nexus cape rdy and warped to the rdm. Easy fight and good luck^^. 1/1
 * Soloed easily as 75PLD/37RDM, buffed before engaging then kept Baraero and Stoneskin up, relatively fast fight.(Neshamah of Valefor)
 * Soloable by 75 DRG/BLU, with no merits, no food, and decent gear, including saurian helm. He hits hard and fast, around 150 without cocoon, plus anywhere from 15-50 additional effect. The fight got a little hairy around 25%, with stormwind killing my wyvern. I wasn't ready for that, and quickly dropped to red and had to call wyvern and 2hr to win. With good gear and attention paid to your wyvern's health, this shouldn't be too difficult. --Thess 04:34, November 19, 2009 (UTC)
 * How much exp did you get solo? --Kyrie 08:16, November 19, 2009 (UTC)
 * I got 39 EXP while solo as 75 SAM/DNC with signet. --Sanriku 08:32, November 19, 2009
 * Solo kill at 75 getting 39 EXP with that same chart says -19 Levels, making the mob ~57, so I'm really lost lol. Sanriku 08:38, November 19, 2009
 * Solo'd as bst/dnc, beast affinity merited, very easy fight. Funguar familiar only taking 25 dmg on stormwind. Pet killed it, didnt even engage. popped at E-7/E-8 and ToD 6:45am pst and 4pm pst in same spot. both ph mobs in that area were up both times, so ph is in D-10 area. no drops. 51 exp.--CormacMacCart 01:32, November 20, 2009 (UTC)
 * Solo DRG75/WHM37 with lvl70 Soothing Healer npc... was incredibly easy. Baraera, have spirit link up just in case (I didn't need to use it, I didn't even need to HB), have tp, engage, angon, ws, jumps, ws again, it's pretty much dead. Gorp 23:36, March 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * duo'd easily with pld/dnc and smn/whm. pld got tp outside fight first. smn killed PH, pld held mob til smn arrived, levi's grand all did over 1k dmg each time. fight lasted bout 3 mins. 0/3 on breastplate
 * Solo kill without signet as 75 THF/NIN with difficulty. Had to spam bloody bolts (ziska's crossbow came in handy) and use an elixir that I got from chest right before it popped.  Takes a bit of luck w/o baraero and shell.  Also, not sure if it matters, but there was double earth weather while I was fighting it and I noticed that Stormwind would occasionally only do 51 damage instead of the usual 250. Onishi22 19:36, March 17, 2010 (UTC) Onishi22

= Other notes =
 * I'd like to see a testimonial for the aggro part of this. I walked up to it just to test and it didn't aggro me at 75. So it might aggro lower levels, but I personally can't say for certain. Also, I will get a better screenshot the next time, dunno why I forgot when I walked up to it lol. Sanriku 08:53, November 19, 2009
 * Picolaton aggros, not sure by what though. I was watching videos online, and all of a sudden I hear my character getting beat down, tabbed over and Picolaton was beating my ass as RDM75/NIN37. Chainspelled to get buffs up, and melee'd him down and got drop ;x 1/3 --Animce 04:51, November 22, 2009 (UTC)
 * He does indeed aggro, the same way any other Greater Bird does, by sight. I was 75 BST and dismounted choco a little too close in front of him and he came charging at me.  --Jakk Frost 04:02, December 11, 2009 (UTC) --CormacMacCart 01:32, November 20, 2009 (UTC)== Information taken from main article ==
 * Editors need to stop putting information that hasn't been extensively tested in the notes section. I deleted the "resistant to piercing damage" seeing as I was doing 1100+ pentas to this thing on samurai. Genosho 19:25, November 20, 2009 (UTC)
 * That would be my fault, I should have added a verification tag to it, since I said "Appears". I did however cite my reason for putting it there, as a charmed Cactuar's 1000 Needles only did 625 damage to this NM, and 1000 Needles is piercing damage. (does 1250 damage to normal Phorusrhacos) --Jakk Frost 12:05, November 21, 2009 (UTC)


 * For blue mages, 1000 needles is a light based magical nuke and can be resisted. It is not a piercing attack. Don't know how it relates to charmed cactuar, but it might have something to do with you doing exactly 50% of the dmg. Would be interesting to have a definite answer.--Jolena 06:21, November 27, 2009 (UTC)
 * Well I can't answer for blue mages, I'm referring, as I said, to a charmed cactuar's 1000 Needles. I was 75BST/SCH, and to the best of my knowledge, mob 1000 Needles can't be resisted, apart from the targets natural damage resistance modifier. --Jakk Frost 10:13, November 27, 2009 (UTC)
 * You're probably right, but knowing SE, logic might not be at work here :P I agree with you that it shouldn't be resisted, normally. I was just thinking of why it seemed to resist you when other sources of piercing dmg seem to be working fine, and being a blu myself, it's the only thing that came to my head. --Jolena 05:49, December 1, 2009 (UTC)
 * 2 kills in a PT of 3 gaining 26 EXP w/o Sigent using Table from Experience Points page indicates 57.77 EXP or approx -14 or -15 Lv making the Mob 60-61 --MIKUMARU 15:32, November 19, 2009 (UTC)

Pop conditions

 * a friend camped this today starting yesterday @ 12:45 pm EST . it popped at around 3 pm EST with death @ 3:10 . i was not at the fight but was killing the supposed PH(s) at the 'secret area' @ D-10/11 when it did finally spawn @ G/F-8 west of The Rock . The 3 of us had been killing all the PH's for a total of about 2.5 hours  when it did spawn, how ever my friend (shown in current pic) hd been killing the PH's just around The Rock since 12:45 AM EST with no pop . it seems odd that killing Mobs half way across the map would cause this to spawn , but as stated on the page by another sorce that it can pop in the D-10/11 area , giving this NM an extremely wide pop area or multipple pop areas . as we were 3 and i had no signet , i was awarded 26 EXP with no drop (not surprising) . it was a clear day , there was no weather present and it was day , not night .--MIKUMARU 23:18, November 18, 2009 (UTC)
 * Camped for 7 hours, had a couple friends camp the spawn area while I killed the "PH" In the D-10 area (Although honestly it never popped in D-10 but instead in D-11 extreme SE corner.) "PH" There has a 6min respawn and generally spawned in the same area (that SE corner in D-11.) The only time it ever popped on the cliff above was when I first got down there for the initial kill. It never repopped back up there in 7 hours. Beginning to feel like this will wind up being a timed spawn given the time it was killed this morning without another pop. Oumura 02:48, November 19, 2009 (UTC)Oumura
 * not timed . its a lottery . possibly straight lottery . it repopped agin around 8pm EST on top of my BLU54 friend and owned him, was then claimed and killed only to repop approx 2 hours later . --MIKUMARU 04:11, November 19, 2009 (UTC)
 * The "two" Phorusrhacos that spawn in the southern section share a spawn. They will appear in different places within the widescan list and will pop either up on the cliff with the manticore, or down at the bottom of the cliff. They are not the same mob, but only one of them will appear at any given time. There are a total of nine Phorusrhacos in Western Altepa Desert (within the dats) but you will never see this many up at the same time, as I believe several of them share spawns and will alternate at random.
 * It is possible that only one of them is a placeholder and it may not be up all the time. It may be the bird that pops on the cliff, and because it alternates with the one at the bottom of the cliff, this will account for long periods of time with no Picolaton pop if you keep getting the bird at the bottom appearing. -- Orubicon 12:50, November 19, 2009 (UTC)
 * This is false, Lottery Pops as a rule can not have place holders that are shared spawns. --Ix&#39;Sindri 05:58, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the Placeholders

 * There is only 1 placeholder for this NM and it is the Bird at D-10/11 and E-11. The two other birds that spawn where the actual NM spawns (In that general area) are not PH and not needed to get Picolaton to spawn.
 * I killed this NM three times in a row last night. I killed the PH to the south -ONCE- every 2 hours and on the 2nd hour the NM always popped with sometimes taking 10-15mins after the two hour mark.
 * For the record, with TH4 was 1/6. Actually, the time I got the drop I only had TH3.  Ironic.
 * I hope this helps.
 * Regarding PH, from my experience the only PH is also the one south, at this point though I'm not even sure it can pop South (only saw it north) which make it a annoying mob to camp, with PH miles away from actual pop area. Better camp it with 2 people that both have access to wide scan.
 * On another note, PH repop time is 5 minutes. --Delarius 04:32, November 25, 2009 (UTC)
 * Removed verification tag on the PH pop area. I camped this last night and the PH popped 4 times at D-11/12 and twice at E-11. Only 6 pops worth of info, since it popped after 6 PHs. --Meph Phoenix 16:48, December 5, 2009 (UTC)
 * Been helping friends get this, 1/2, 1/1, and 0/3 so far. I was down at the PHs earlier, with my friend Andrius keeping a timer on the respawns, and I found what seemed to be a second bird down there, but only once. (It popped somewhere before 4:13 after the previous one had died, and another was up in about a minute.) It was around the entrance to the tunnel at C/D-11 when I found it; the previous PH died in the middle of E-11, and if I'm not mistaken the next one spawned on the ledge. I'm not sure if this was a weird glitch, another one that just wandered down there (though I'm not sure from where), or maybe something to do with the PH, but I'm leaning towards glitch since I've popped the NM 5 times and only seen it once. Either way I thought I'd post it in case anyone else notices it too. Another note, the last three NMs, I killed the PH just after two hours, and Pico was up within 1-3 spawns.  17:08, January 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * There are some minor complications with the PH, every so often you will get another bird popping BEFORE the 5 minutes are up (around 2-3 minutes after PH death in my experience). This happens if someone is killing the other birds up at NM pop area, so I assume it's a respawn of one of them appearing in the south section. I haven't let it live long enough to see if the PH will repop with this "extra" bird (giving 2 at the southern section) - I might try that if I see it happen again. Gorp 12:33, March 17, 2010 (UTC)

Helping hand
Hello, just letting you guys know a few facts about this NM, and hopefully after reading all this talk page you'll make you way down here and see this.
 * Placeholders respawn every 5 Minutes.
 * The "Favors Revelation rock spawn area" is a load of cow manure, probably lathered on the main page by someone who's never spent more than 20 minutes camping this NM, these things are constantly down by D-10/11 and E-11. Theres two birds, unless you have widescan kill them both, if you have widescan, kill them both. It can STILL spawn at the NM area, so be on the look out.
 * Minimum repop time for the NM is 2hours, After that point it becomes pure lottery, its not 21-24, its not 12 hour, its 2 Hour Lottery.
 * The NM Itself will -always- spawn (E/F-8) from my experience.
 * Drop rate isn't -THAT- Terrible, you're looking at average 1/5 with TH3, but there are extreme cases as we all know.
 * Bring 2 People, one to hang out at NM Spawn, one to kill placeholders at Southern area. Be sure the one at the NM area can handle his own against the NM at least until the second player arrives.
 * If you're camping solo its incredibly difficult (Near impossible bar use of Chocobo Whistle) to get form the Southern Area to the NMs spawn area within the 5 minute respawn, so its recommend to camp with a friend, or hope that you're completely alone at the NM!

Thats it, pretty simple, You don't have to believe me but those who do will have a big advantage in camping the NM. I'm already a proud owner of the Thrakon, Good luck to you all, i hope you get your neat little DRG haub!~

Heres a Small Map, the places (poorly) Circled in black are the places i've witnessed the NM spawning over 10+ Spawns, more often on the Left most circle.

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll241/Karbuncle/Western_Altepa_Desert_Map.jpg

About helping hand
The PH is indeed in the soutern section, but there is only one, the only difference that might confuse people is the fact that it can both pop up the cliff and down the cliff which make it's spawning point quite large. Also I already took the liberty of changing this favor Revelation rock thing on the article to reflect reality. I also pointed that it spawn only SW of revelation rock but left a can to make sure I wasn't creating any false data.

but I'm also pretty sure the NM itself doesn't spawn South --Delarius 06:10, November 25, 2009 (UTC)

I have killed Picolaton 10 times (no drop, even with TH4 ; ;) the ph is the mob in D-11 area, there are no others. Picolaton always spawns around E-8/F-8 with no exception. it will only move about 50 feet in any direction. And as a level 75bst it aggro'd me once, i was not low on hp, and i did nothing but follow it while waiting for my ph killing thf, but i usually claim it before getting that close. the part about there being 2 ph birds in D-11 area doesnt matter since only one will spawn at a time, kill that one, and in 5 mins the other might spawn. if you have Sprinters shoes you can make it to nm just before it pops, otherwise go with a partner, much less stress that way :) --CormacMacCart 01:11, November 26, 2009 (UTC)

Location?

 * "Seems to favour Northern Spawn area, but can Spawn in Southern portion from G-8 to Secret Area around D-10/11 ."
 * There is also one spawn. To add more than one implies that it has multiple entries in the dat tables, which this NM doesn't. It appears once. Whether it may appear at different locations on the map doesn't mean there is more than one copy of it. -- Orubicon 12:50, November 19, 2009 (UTC)
 * I dont know what you mean by DAT entries, but i have been under the assumption the number of spawns dictates how many locations it can spawn in , not how many monsters spawn at a time . Stating it has only one spawn then saying it spawns at 2 or more locations seems kind of confusing and doesnt really make sense . It has popped in the southern portion of the map but does pop more often in the north . Like Mysticmaker Profblix Spawns between the 3 rock in LoO but is known to spawn outside of them . Its possible that the 12+ hour spawn expierenced was becase no one was killing the Southern PHs for an extended period of time . Removing that info will hinder verification  IMHO . out of 5 pops in an 18 hr period it spawned 3 times in the North  2 in the South . making the Statement it Favours the North to be accurate at this Given time .please reffer to Spawn Point for clairification of this term . Amonster , such as this this , with such a Vastly HUGE pop area then encompasses 2 parts of the map has 2 spwans , not 1 . --MIKUMARU 13:56, November 19, 2009 (UTC)
 * There is only one instance of the NM in the data files for the Western Altepa Desert zone. Its name only appears once. The location it spawns in the zone is not related to how many copies of the mob are in the zone. There can be one and it can pop all over the map. See new Dahu NM for instance. There's only one of him and he's been seen to pop in totally different places.
 * Saying "it favours the north" isn't much help, given the sample size of people who've killed the NM and then come here to record their results. Nothing is concrete at the moment and if you are not sure of any information it goes here on the talk page, not on the main article please. For all we know, it could have a 50% chance of popping at either location and it's just that most people who have come back to report their findings have only seen it at the north pop.
 * I'm not being "mean" or "imperialistic" - I'm just trying to keep information really clean and helpful for people. Sorry if I come across that way. -- Orubicon 17:17, November 19, 2009 (UTC)
 * Saying it favours northern area meaning the area by revelation rock as was previously stated in the article before the edit war . Just because you get exp from a mob @ 75 and it doesnt aggro you doesnt mean it wont aggro some one say who below 75 . there ppl in this game who dont have 75 job remember ? If you dont think its aggressive and your 75 a good way to see if it is would be to stand next to it and /heal . if it attacks you, guess what , its aggressive . try dooin that with the Lv5 Goblins outside Windurst and you'll see my point . With the short period of time since the introduction all the info on these pages unless completely concrete should have a verification tag until we kill it 10,000 times and determine the 'truth' . i for one wont be editting it anymore sine everything i put on the page and other pages always seems to be removed regaurdless of what others think is true . as PS2 user i am unable to use the Windower and take full SS to prove what i have seen or Parse chat logs or read DATs or use other PC user methods that make the PC uses such experts on everything in this game . i'll just stick to reading all the misinformation stated knowing i know the truth and let the noobs get frustrated with it themselves . --MIKUMARU 17:51, November 23, 2009 (UTC)
 * Camped Picolaton for roughly 2.5hrs today before pop. When it popped it popped F/G-8 which is where we did most of our killing. Unfortunately my friend and I wiped. Hit 64DRG/WAR for 160 damge and 60 added effect. --Llyendar 03:47, November 25, 2009 (UTC)

Hunt Registry Evolith Reward
I've been camping Picolaton semi regularly and am using it to stock up on scilds from the registry. One of my evolith rewards was "Vs. Aquans: Attack +8   5" so I updated the wiki accordingly. --Maerina 20:49, February 12, 2010 (UTC)

Recently got a Vs. Aquans: Attack +9 6 from Picolaton. Must be rare as I've killed it over a dozen times so far (finally dropped: 1/16 or so). --Orinthia 16:51, February 23, 2010 (UTC)

Placeholder Myth
A friend (THF75/NIN37 with TH4) and I (WHM75/THF37 for Flee) spent 3 hours hunting this NM and never got the kill. THF was killing the PH while I was checking both spawn locations. After 3 hours, I ran to Rabao and changed to DRG75/RNG37 (for Widescan) which helped considerably in helping find and kill the supposed placeholder. We switched places and 5 hours later, we still had no spawn. The 90 minute window is completely false. There was no one else hunting the "placeholder." The THF was repeatedly getting bored and killing the two birds that spawn at the NM spawn locations as well. Still no NM pop. The spawn window is incredibly larger than 2 hours. WolfeMasters 06:04 March 03, 2010 (EST)

Ok had this NM 4 times now having the NM spawn around the 2 hour mark each time, on the 4th camp we had someone at each camp with wide scan watching all of the Phorusrhacos after 2 hours there was no NM. I was at D-11/E-11 camp and killing PH and after the 2 hour mark a second Phorusrhacos started to spawn off the map in the same spot as PH, we waited to see if it was one from north camp where NM spawns but all where accounted for. Killed both for a following hour and second Phorusrhacos stopped spawning next respawn was NM, Im not to sure if anyone else has had this issue could be some kind of glitch and could explain the above issue with PH. --~Nis~ 15:13, March 7, 2010 (UTC)

Ive camped this NM a couple of times.. once it popped after about 90 mins.. the next was over three hours. There were 2 people killing the PH's and after 3 hours still no pop! we all worked together to get the kill because we all waited so long.