Cactuar (Final Fantasy VIII summon)

Cactuar is a Guardian Force in Final Fantasy VIII. A towering cactuar, it shoots needles at enemies to deal fixed damage. As a late-game GF, it learns the rare Evasion and Luck junctions and support abilities that enhance these stats. It learns a command ability that nullifies all physical damage while the user is defending, and is the only GF to naturally learn a self-destruct command that deals immense damage that breaks the damage limit at the cost of sacrificing said character. The Cactuar's unique feature is that it learns all support abilities that give permanent stat boosts upon level up; players who want to min-max keep avoid leveling up until they gain Cactuar and then equip these abilities for grinding sessions. Cactuar doesn't learn any refine abilities.

Profile
Cactuar looks the same as a regular Cactuar enemy, only bigger. Though gained from defeating the Jumbo Cactuar, it doesn't have the mustache the jumbo version did. Cactuars are green sentient plants that live in deserts. They are notoriously fast and flighty.

Obtained
After defeating the optional boss Jumbo Cactuar on the Cactuar Island, the Cactuar is obtained as a Guardian Force. Jumbo Cactuar appears on the world map by popping out of the sand on the island and moving about. Cactuar Island is an island off the coast of Kashkabald Desert in Centra, and is reached by Ragnarok. Jumbo Cactuar can flee battles on low health, and if that happens the player can re-encounter it but it will have recovered all of its HP. Weak to Water, a good strategy is to Triple-cast Water spells, summon Leviathan, and use Limit Breaks when the message "Jumbo Cactuar is hesitating" pops up.

Obtaining Cactuar in the Steam version earns the player the achievement Cactuar.

Battle
The Cactuar Guardian Force uses its signature 1,000 Needles move like the other Cactuars, however, the damage is calculated by the first digit in Cactuar's level times 100. At level 100 it will always do 10,000 damage to all enemies, one of the few attacks that breaks the damage limit. Because the damage is fixed, Cactuar cannot be boosted, and SumMag+% abilities have no effect if taught to it via items.

Compatibility
The charge time for summoning depends on the compatibility between the character and the GF and the Battle Speed. The greater the compatibility, the less time it takes to summon. Compatibility can be boosted with compatibility boosting items. Other GFs are boosted by casting magic compatible with the Guardian Force, but Cactuar is unique in that it has no effect on its compatibility. Cactuar also doesn't have an "opposing" GF whose summoning would deduct from its compatibility the most; summoning other GFs only has a minor effect.

The below values are the base compatibility values with all playable characters at the start of the game. Although Seifer cannot junction Cactuar in a normal playthrough, a default compatibility value still exists for him.

Stats
The following table represents the base stats:

Abilities
Abilities learned naturally by Cactuar are listed below: