By Quetzalcoatl.Khrnos 2011-09-26 11:35:22
They do only drop from three types for a specific pop item; the odious scale drops from: predator, vexer and footsoldier but I believe they only drop from the higher levels ones (EM-T at 90, I don't remember seeing any VT-IT). My duo partner and I have been fighting the EP for the longest time and did not see a single pop item drop so we decided to go kill the higher level ones and long and behold, pop items started dropping soon enough. It says on the BG wiki that pop items only drop from the higher level demons for xarc so I assume it's the same for the rest as well.
As for the NM, I'm not really sure about a strategy. We tried to duo with an 90 Aegis PLD and NIN but he hits hard, strong magic and doesn't miss even in full evasion gear on NIN. It either just has high ACC or it's near lv 100. The biggest problem is that the ??? is at a spot where there's a buch of the higher lv orcs surrounding so links are gonna happen. You are either gonna have to sack pull or carby style pull with SMN or BST and run to the spot where the regular boss statue pops at. We did not win our fight due to all of the links.
Hope this helps.