There's no reason to be fighting/farming these until you beat the game and have maxed the Crystarium. They are the only enemy that drop the Dark Matter item (you can buy it, but it costs 840,000 Gil), which is used to upgrade some items from one tier to another. They are a little different from Adamantoises/Adamantortoises/Long Guis, in that you don't need to take out their legs (you can't target them) to knock it down and be able to do good damage. There are a few preparations needed in order to fight this enemy. You need to finish Missions 56-62, which are a circle of Cie'th Stones on the Archylte Steppe (Eastern Tors area). After completing those and resetting the area (save and reload), all of the big turtles will be replaced by Long Guis and Shaolong Guis (except for one). You will need 3 Gaian Rings (upgrade from 2 Clay Rings and one Siltstone Ring), max Tier 2 weapons for the party members you use, 2 or 3 Genji Gloves (Missions 51, 62 and 63 are the only 3 places you can get them), 3 Sprint Shoes, 2 Aurora Scarves and 1 or 2 maxed Power Gloves. The following is the Paradigm set-up that should be used (this is using the team of Lightning/Fang/Sazh; you can substitute Sazh for Vanille). NOTE - If you're farming the Shaolong Gui, then make sure you have one Collector Catalog and one Connoisseur Catalog equipped on your fighting party. The effects don't stack, so you only need one of each. 1) Sentinel/Sentinel/Sentinel 2) Synergist/Saboteur/Synergist 3) Ravager/Ravager/Ravager 4) Commando/Commando/Saboteur 5) Commando/Commando/Saboteur The Shaolong Gui usually has a set pattern for how it fights, although it does rarely not follow this pattern. It will ALWAYS open up with Quake, so make sure you use the #1 Paradigm to minimize the damage (use it before any attack it does). It will follow up with three rounds of Stomps, then it will use Ultima not too long after the third stomp. After that, it will use Bay, which is something you never want to see (hence the lack of any Medics), because it debuffs your entire party and sometimes causes Daze, in addition to huge damage. If you manage to survive that, it will usually start using Ultima and Quake randomly for a while, then it will start the pattern all over again. You will want to start with #1, and always switch to it whenever the Shaolong Gui readies an attack. Switch to #2 after the initial Quake, and get your party buffed with Haste (if they don't use Sprint Shoes), Protect, Bravery and Enfire on your two main attackers. You'll want to try and stick the Shaolong Gui with Slow, Imperil, Deprotect and Deshell. Switch to #3 and build up the Stagger gauge to like 800% or so, then switch to #4 and start wailing on it (trying to time it with Daze that should be cast by the SAB). Switch to #5 only to reset the the ATB gauges and to get the timing for the Daze/attacking back on track.