Offtank Garuda Ex (Warrior Help)

[Kitfox]

@kitfox yes it probably is easier that way but not alot of ppl are experienced in this way especially the melee and healers.

No offence, but using an inferior strategy (both dps and safety wise) "just because" shouldn't be a thing. Certainly not in parties that claim to be experienced. Changing tornado phase pulling to optimally use melee DPS requires very little adjusting if the party has the basics of the mechanics down, so there's absolutely NO reason to put melee into an unfavorable position in the fight on purpose. Tanks pull less mobs with no fear of dps pulling early hate = easier, DPS deal with more predictable moves with clear tells that don't cause disconnects (slipstream/downburst) = easier, healers deal with less high burst on tanks = EASIER! Why on earth would it not be worth it?

[Roffel]

I'm pretty sure there is more than one solution to everything and what your calling as an inferior strat is how most of us got our wins. There's nothing wrong going to the wind of caution to make sure ppl live to do max dps. Even experienced ppl make mistakes and that one mistake could cost u a run. Most ww can 1 shot anyone who isn't a tank. Your blank statement of an experienced means just that. They could be experienced on there own way not ur way

[Kitfox]

Of course there is more than one solution to the problem, that was exactly what I was pointing out. However, most people refuse to accept that some solutions are better than others. Majority of the people on our server got their wins, and still do, by solely stacking ranged DPS, in which case MT tanking one sister with garuda is indeed the safest way to do the fight assuming the tanks are overgeared to take the double punishment. I was talking from the perspective of melee DPS in the fight since it came up.

My point is: don't use "ranged only" strategy with melees when there are better alternatives and that bringing melees to the fight is just as safe as bringing ranged DPS, it just requires tanks to pull one mob less. If that's a problem for anyone even slightly experienced in the fight, they are either on a power trip, bad players, or lying about being experienced.

[Roffel]

Well we do agree on that. I get pissed when ppl just want all ranged on Garuda ex. I kno what ur saying. Ppl make it a big deal bc they think melee are gonna die or hinder them or its too hard on them which isn't true at all. I can honestly say on excal that I haven't seen them do it at all and on sargantas they really didn't try either. All I ever here is that it's the jp strat lol

[MythToken]

General guideline is nothing should be provoked except the spiny. Obviously in first phase you can pull sub off MT, but in Tornado phase this really isn't necessary.

P.S. to make this whole fight a helluva lot easier take 1 healer. The extra dps means you only have to do the tornado transition 2-3 times instead of 5-6.
It also means you can afford melee to just stand around instead of running in on Sub during tornadoes, ect. There is no reason for 2 healers on this fight.

[Lemon8or]

General guideline is nothing should be provoked except the spiny.

This works if the range can kill Suparna in time OR the melee to know exactly when Wicked Wheel is coming and hop over tornadoes. There's really no reason why OT can't provoke Suparna over his side and let the melees work on it as well.

[Gamemako]

Someone in my FC told me that we just let the spiny agro a healer and the OT takes it when there's 2 stacks.

That's needlessly risky. Healer aggro continuously goes up, but you have a limited amount of room to build aggro because the spiny has 2000 HP. It will inevitably go back to the healer, not to mention that you can't move the other sister if you're provoking the spiny. Instead of risking the raid for no reason, you should always be at the top of Garuda's enmity list. This is Garuda 101. Spiny targets one of the two leaders on the enmity list, so the OT controls the spiny's behavior by leading the rest of the pack. One tank should have the spiny for the start each phase and trade once during the phase. This means there's no confusion, no healers ripping enmity back, and perfectly-reliable timing for the business.

1.your pt destroys spiny and all move inside bubble. YOU Wii heavy swing + skull sunder Garuda while inide bubble she will than disappear.

I just HS Garuda repeatedly until she jumps, then SS her when she comes back down (before sisters have spawned), then BB the sister. I've found that trying to stretch the combo all the way to the sister results in the combo breaking and you using a rubbish non-combo BB. A combo BB, especially if you have Maim up, will be all the enmity you need to get her positioned.

You don't need to pick up spiny at the start of tornado phase. Just let it build 2 stacks and then voke it.

This is bad for the reasons already stated by Lemon8or. Unless you've got the DPS to zerg Suparna (admittedly, most groups do), you're risking your melee DPS and probably risking a plume detonation in the next phase when the plume targets the OT because the healer it targeted last has since used Shroud of Saints for the MP recovery.

If you have a melee group, you should do triangle with DPS bursting Chirada, MT on garuda and OT with Suparna. Much more effective for melee DPS with high uptime, safer with no wheel dodging and easier to heal tanks since no double wheel or high burst in general. Also no spiny voking conflicts.

No offence, but using an inferior strategy (both dps and safety wise) "just because" shouldn't be a thing.

Triangle method pretty much blows. It raises the DPS requirement, raises the gear requirement, slows you down, and really doesn't reduce the risk of a wipe at all. You ask 4 people to do the job of one, and if they screw up, it's a wipe. Even worse when people think you should flip tank positions to avoid the stacks, going ever higher on the risk scale. Says enough that it basically requires extreme overgear or using a melee LB every single sister phase -- you can ALWAYS zerg Suparna if you're going so far as to use LB.

[Maelwys]

Triangle method pretty much blows.

This.

Triangle is fine if your group's tanks are undergeared but the group as a whole has high co-ordination. That's why it was popular on JP servers. English PUGs are generally much less co-ordinated.

If you have at least one well geared tank that knows the fight, it's MUCH easier for a PUG to just have that tank take a sister with Garuda (and my own preference is for Garuda and Suprana- I find the forced jump means I can usually get away without eating a Double Wicked Wheel before the Storm phase) - two Healers if the group suck at dodging... one if they don't.

IMO the off tank is there for exactly two reasons: to voke the spiny at the start of every phase; and to safely hold the aggro of one sister at a time.
Voking the spiny at the start of the storm phase means the OT's voke is up again mid phase to take the other sister off the MT if needed and the MT has voke free to get the Spiny off the OT.
(The OT grabbing the second sister once the first is dead can be a good idea if you have melees; but sometimes it's just plain easier for the MT to keep aggro, especially if solo-healing it)

Due to the confined dimensions of the arena during the Spiny phase; it is VERY rare for the Tanks not to be able to get a melee attack off on Garuda when standing inside the plume's barrier.
(i) Use Fast Blade/Heavy Swing on Garuda when inside Spiny barrier
(ii) Run away from middle to dodge Windburn
(iii) Run back to middle to use Savage Blade/Skull Sunder on Garuda
(iv) Hit sister with RoH/BB >> Provoke spiny and Shield lob/Tomahawk it >> Run into position
Bonus points for popping Rampart or Vengence to mitigate "Downburst" whilst running into position in (iv).

If for whatever reason you can't pre-emptively build a combo, just pop Berserk or FoF and then use an uncomboed RoH/BB on the sister.

Alright but what I've been told to do is only kill the spiny when garuda disappears, which gives me no real time to prep a BB for chirada. Are there any tells to when we should kill the spiny?

Slightly unrelated, but usually the following happens:
1. The second stack will apply from the Spiny onto whoever has hate
2. Garuda will use Slipstream
3. Slipstream finishes, gap of 2-3 seconds, then Garuda flies into the air.
4. Kill Spiny. Dodge 1st Windburn (if possible).
5. Garuda roars (stand in plume) then flies into air again.
6. Dodge second Windburn (always possible).
7. Garuda Reappears. Followed by Sisters approx 1-2 seconds later.
8. Sisters lead off with Downburst; next major attack is Garuda's Slipstream.

Usually the MT will taunt the Spiny from the OT here right before Step 2's Slipstream's cast - as MT I usually Provoke it, then immediately dodge Slipstream and FLASH to secure hate on the spiny whilst dodging.
After Slipstream has finished casting, target the spiny and get ready to DPS it down.

[Lanceton]

I just HS Garuda repeatedly until she jumps, then SS her when she comes back down (before sisters have spawned), then BB the sister.

This is THE thing you need to do, it is also THE ONLY WAY for anyone with substantial lag to get a solid grab on Chirada or Sprana (focus target ninja fix made it even easier now).

As for the spiny, there're ONLY 1 scenario when OT needs to grab it at the begining of the tornato phase, that is "when the spiny spawns on MT AND there's a need for the OT to grab Saprana later on". the reason here is obvious - you cannot provoke Saprana AND spiny at the same time. for any other situation you just grab Chirada, then either taunt Saprana and have the MT taunt the spiny, or you can just taunt the spiny, give it a BB and take a sip of your coffee.

but if you did what Gamemako suggests, grabbing spiny initially shouldn't be an issue anyway (unless it spawns on healer, or MT paladin does a rage of halone on the spiny)

[kayuwoody]

Triangle method pretty much blows. It raises the DPS requirement, raises the gear requirement, slows you down, and really doesn't reduce the risk of a wipe at all. You ask 4 people to do the job of one, and if they screw up, it's a wipe. Even worse when people think you should flip tank positions to avoid the stacks, going ever higher on the risk scale. Says enough that it basically requires extreme overgear or using a melee LB every single sister phase -- you can ALWAYS zerg Suparna if you're going so far as to use LB.

First of all I've seen some of your other posts and tend to agree with you in general. You generally present and reason out your posts quite well.

On this I'll have to disagree though. I'm on Tonberry and learned the 2 way method first simply because I'm english speaking, and the 2 way is still the standard method in english speaking PF groups. But as Tonberry is a JP server, the 3 way method is the default method for any other parties.

The 2 way method raises the gear requirement, not the other way around. I completely do not see how the 3 way requires higher gear. I definitely wouldn't want to do the 2 way pull with the minimum ilvl requirement, but the 3 way is quite doable.

It definitely reduces the risk of a wipe in comparison to the 2 way pull. Major cause of tank death (and subsequent wipes) in 2 way pull is tanks messing up with the double wicked wheels by either not having mitigation up, or more commonly, eating a slipstream just before and healers not topping them up in time. Major cause of death for melee with the 2 way: tornadoes (but you'll have those with the 3 way too of course) and wicked wheels. Double wicked wheels for a sure death! Removing this mechanic directly results in less chances for wipes to occur.
In trade what you do get is higher chance for dps to die if they cannot understand just one thing: they need to split downburst damage. That one thing in exchange for never having to deal with double wicked wheels is a pretty good trade off.

You are completely correct in that the fight takes longer with the 3 way pull. However the fight is much safer, and doable with relatively crappier gear.

I think when discussing strategies one must do so not from the position of someone farming the content, but a strategy that can be used by new players to clear the content. The 2 way pull is riskier, but faster, so much more suitable for people who have it on farm or overgear the content. The 3 way pull can be done if everyone is reasonably decent at playing their roles. I think this is where a major difference is with JP and other servers. I cannot help but think that the majority of people who dislike the 3 way pull simply do not come across decent DF parties.

When I think about it this way, if people have the 2 way on farm and then try to do the 3 way method, it might actually be worse for them. There's more work for everyone involved rather than just having the tanks sort it out and dps can zerg with the 2 way.