Karura Hachigane  

I got this headgear a long time ago, probably around the time my SMN was lvl 68. IMHO this is one of the 5 essential pieces of Rare/ex armor for the SMN. Add it to your normal Garuda summon macro and you have yourself an almost free Garuda.

My macro setup looks like this... (I designate each summon their own macro book)

/equip head "Karura Hashigane"
/equip body "Yin Yang Robe"
/equip hands "Nashira Gages"
/ma "Garuda" <me>
/macro book 2

This way... at lvl 75 you're looking at Garuda costing 13MP/tic before you factor in - perp gear.

Lets do the math, shall we? ^^

Karura Hashigane (-2)
Yin Yang Robe (-1) for refresh
Nashira Gages (-1)
Evoker's Ring (-1)
HQ Staff (-3)
Evoker's Pigaches +1 (-1)
Natural Job Refresh (-1)

Total -perp comes out to -10 ^^

You're looking at a lvl 75 Garuda who costs 3MP/tic!!!!!!!

Of course you can also swap out Yin Yang Robe for the Summoner's Doublet +1 for its -3 perp cost. It's really only a good choice if the weather is Wind. Otherwise it's useless. But if it works out, you have Garuda at 1MP/tic. Epic...

If you're looking to get this headpiece for yourself then I suggest that you find yourself an alliance to take with you. I went 1/4 on this in the fight against Vulpangue. I would also suggest doing research on the fight as well. Our alliance got him down to less than 5% and then we got cocky... which in turn made us sloppy. He then started to spam his AoE and we dropped like flies. In the end, our alliance lay on the ground helpless to do anything as we watched Vulpangue drop from the sky... our BLM DoT was what killed him. No credit... no drops... we were all dead and didnt have the claim when it happened. Some cried, some laughed... I did both.

Be prepared... stay prepared... and enjoy the reward when it finally does drop!

Helped a friend with NM and he said the head piece is freelot if it dropped... 1/1.

Drops from Vulpangue, a Tier 1 ZNM.