Newbie WHM struggling to heal Garuda normal

So I'm level 44 trying hard to get all leveled up and done with the main storyline, and I've been really struggling with some of these harder dungeons, and I'm really struggling with Garuda normal.

Either I screw up with the line of sighing on the autokill ability or I have a hard time keeping up with the massive amounts of damage the party takes and someone dies. I'm trying my best to heal people up but sometimes my heals don't go off in time to save them or it's hard to keep the tank fully topped up with the DDs taking a ton of damage at the same time, especially when the DDs go off to kill the feathers.

I'm trying to cure efficiently by mostly using cure 1 and regen, only using cure 2 when I get a proc, like guides have told me, but I still feel like i'm struggling so much, and my group generally agrees given all of the votekicks these past 8 groups.

I just am so flustered and upset that I keep screwing up and I just don't know what I should do anymore.

Garuda can be a pain for new healers. That being said, without more details or a video, it's hard to give advice on what you are messing up on.

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Either I screw up with the line of sighing on the autokill ability

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In normal mode, you just need to remember her pattern. She teleports to the back of the arena (where she starts), and then to the front (where your party starts). If she teleports to the center before phase 2, she'll just spawn plumes. You shouldn't be having any trouble dodging this after a few runs.

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I have a hard time keeping up with the massive amounts of damage the party takes and someone dies

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Ranged need to stay spread out but away from pillars so Friction isn't hitting multiple people. Melee need to be aware of Wicked Wheel. One Regen is enough for DPS; your focus should be mostly on the tank. Tank needs to dodge Slipstream, which is a hard hitting frontal cone with a long cast time. If your tank eats it, that's on him and not you.

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I'm trying my best to heal people up but sometimes my heals don't go off in time to save them

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Again, without seeing a video, can't comment on this. The obvious advice is to time your heals better.

General advice: Use Divine Seal frequently if health bars are dropping too low. It's on a low cooldown so there's no sense in saving it.
Following the above point, use Virus (cross-classed from ACN, which you should have from unlocking WHM).
Quickly top people off before phase 2 starts. Pre-cast Medica when she's blowing the rocks away.
Phase 2, all you need to do is make sure you're not near Garuda and watch for her when she teleports (to avoid that attack, you get as far away from her as possible, the attack takes up about 2/3 of the inner ring).
Finally, make sure your gear is up-to-date. If Cures and Regens aren't doing enough, you may be undergeared. This applies to tank and DPS as well though, because if the tank is undergeared, he's going to be taking too much damage for you to handle in a short amount of time. Just pointing out that it may not always be your fault.

You may want to consider holding off on Garuda for another level or two.

At level 45 you will be able to get most of your Artifact gear for WHM which will be a substantial effectiveness/survivability boost. Not to mention you will probably be able to get a new weapon at 45-46.

For a newbie, the Garuda story mode fight is no joke and it caps at level 46 so you might as well give yourself every advantage possible.

Do you happen to have Swiftcast? Its a cross class ability from Thaumaturge, this would help you tremendously when it comes to raising a downed player.

Anyways, to just kind of add to what Lyrinn already said:
1. Keep Regen on the tank at all times. (with the exception of Garuda teleporting for phase transitions)
2. If DPS are down more than 50% HP, and Tank has lost more than 30% HP, throw out a Medica. If Tank, still has more than 80% HP, make sure Regen is still active on the tank, and then throw a Cure or two on your DPS; or you can resort to just Regen and pray that they don't get hit til they get topped off from Regen.
3. For Regen, always make sure Divine Seal is up first before you throw Regen on anyone, Divine Seal will buff up Regen's HoT (Heal over Time).
4. As you're doing all of this, be mindful of your MP, you should have access to Shroud of Saints at this level, if your MP drops below 50%, pop Shroud of Saints to regen your MP.
5. You should also have Presence of Mind, if you're really struggling to keep up with healing, pop Presence of Mind, and Divine Seal at the same time and start using Cure on the whole party to top them off. As you're doing this be mindful of your HP and the Tank's HP. If Tank's dead, the whole party is gonna wipe. If you die, no heals, party is gonna wipe.
6. This should've been at the top, but be focused at all times. There's a lot of stuff to pay attention as a healer besides the things that are going on during the fight. Don't panic even if the situation gets tight. You've got to keep a cool head to heal.

And that should pretty much sum up this fight from a Healer's Perspective.

I actually decided to try to hit 45, but I found that I was out of quests and didn't feel like FATE grinding, so I just went back to the fight without AF armor with some of the knowledge you guys have left.

8-10 attempts later and I finally got my win. :) A DD died but somehow the 3 of us who were alive managed to hold it together and finally survive Phase 2.

FOr a while it was a lot of bad transitions and phase 2 death due to me getting overwhelmed, but eventually I got a group that did finally have a good transition (everyone staced on the tank, tanks LBs and I properly time the medica.) and it actually finally came together even though things still got dicey during phase 2 and the BRD died, but we still managed to win.

I'm just scared that all the dungeons from here on out are going to be even harder this, but I'll worry about that when the time comes.

Congratulations!

And don't forget to do your duty roulette and replay old dungeons, you will have fast queues as a healer =P

There are also the beastmen daily quests to give you some XP as well.

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Originally Posted by Granis

I'm just scared that all the dungeons from here on out are going to be even harder this, but I'll worry about that when the time comes.

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Grats in killing that b*tch! :)
I was a little late to offer advice. All advice was good, I was only going to add that sometimes its not only you, and the other team members can make your WHM life hard!

Anyway, ref your comment above - yes, they do get tough. But, if I tell you my feelings, maybe you will feel better:
I would rather fight Titan in all modes, than fight Garuda in any mode.
(seriously. she is one mean wench)
:)

grats i remember doing this on conjurer for the first time, this fight is a lot based on mana management and using cure 1's basically and using 2 procs. it can be done very easily with a full mana bank or close, unless get rly unlucky with procs. Medica should be avoided almost always, rather cure the pt. Also the key was like someone said is to spread out so only 1 player gets hit by one of her moves.

I found a funny way to pass garuda if team keeps ignoring fight mechanics. Requirement is to be lv46 in class quest gear and to have at least 1 dragoon/monk in team. I had a team that did not focus on plumes and did not hide behind pillars, on the 1st try only me and tanker passed to the 2nd stage, and i could not keep the rest alive, so it was only me, tanker and garuda at 50% hp (and lots of plumes around).
2nd try, dps kept doing the same (not focusing on plumes and not hiding behind pillars) - stones mostly ruined, i cast stoneskin and pass to the 2nd stage with only tanker alive. I revive mage - he dies, i revive again - he dies again. By this time tanker did enough hits for lv2 LB, so i revived dragoon - he used LB and died after it. Lv2 lb took around 7% of garuda hp, and i could repeat this combo every 120s (SoS cooldown).
My fight strategy was the following: avoid all avoidable aoe, self cast regen and stoneskin before stage2, cast regen on tanker. Stage2 - keep regen on tanker all time, on self cast only cure, cast all freecure/overcure on tanker, avoid garuda frontal nuke.

Glad you were able to down her finally. She's just pretty hard to heal through. And she has a DPS check near the end of the fight that can pretty much wipe a fair bit of your party.

I actually beat her this weekend myself, and it took me like...ten tries, so you're definitely not alone. Some of her mechanics are just random and you can be healing through the fight perfectly and still wipe. It requires a lot of party synergy to make it through. Hell, in the last fight against her, both my tank and one of my DPSes went down and it was me and a Dragoon, and I just healed him through the last like...1/8th of her HP bar.

As for future dungeons, Dzemael Darkhold isn't terribly difficult, it's pretty straightforward. You'll probably hate Aurum Vale though, I'm just going to let you know that right now. It's a dungeon full of Morbols/Malboros. No one should get hit by Bad Breath, but still, it's a healer's nightmare in there. Still, Garuda is probably the hardest single fight until the end game, so after getting past her, the rest of the content upwards until the end of the storyline should be pretty straightfoward.

You will have to fight Garuda's Hard Mode in order to get your Relic Weapon, but I think most people say its easier because you'll have much higher level gear by that point.

I feel your pain :)

I have both white mage and scholar healers, and have some frustrations sometimes myself. Sometimes, as a healer, you feel totally responsible when a wipe happens, even though a lot of the time, you aren't the cause. Just remember that, it's not always the healer's fault and it will help you let go of some of the stress.

Aurum Vale is a healer nightmare, so be prepared for that.

As for Garuda hard mode, it definitely lives up to it's name. That is one fight that, no matter how geared you are, you have to have a good team to beat her.

The first time I ever fought Garuda hard, I was with a full FC party. We beat her in one try, no problems. LOL, well that gave me a false sense of what the fight is really like. Because now, when I have to fight her via Duty Finder, it's a whole different ball game. Sometimes, I'll end up with groups that can't beat her after 7-8 tries. Other times, I'll get lucky and get a good group that beat her after just 1 or 2.

Congrats on finishing her!

I'm mainly a tank but just wanted to chime in agreeing that Garuda requires everyone to be working together and good team placement.
Particularly for the tank - Slipstream doesn't have the aoe marker but is dodgeable. Without me dodging it, our healer couldn't keep up and they were overleveled/geared.
No one else should be standing near the pillars.
DPS has to be on the plumes.
Everyone has to be on the ball about getting behind pillars and standing in the eye.

I think Normal mode is harder than then the Hard or EX in many ways lol, congratulations btw.

She was a complete pain for me to clear the first time. >< I ran with some fc mates (one who was sort of an elitist) and they basically dragged my corpse through the fight. My advice for garuda fight is to always prioritize moving to where you need to be first and then throwing out a heal. All the garuda fights are positioning heavy fights. It's better to move to the correct location first before throwing out a heal or you'll be the one dead. :P

A fight like Garuda is actually where Cure III shines. Against conventional wisdom I prefer the DPS to stay closer to me on the same side so LOS wont' become an issue. Make sure you take advantage of the Cure II proc as much as possible but if u need a quick AOE heal hug everyone and use Cure III. It's is very MP efficient (high potency) and more importantly has a shorter cast time. Needless to say use SOS as early as possible so u can cycle through. If Melee DPS is taking excessive dmg then that will be a problem no matter what you do.

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Originally Posted by Granis

I actually decided to try to hit 45, but I found that I was out of quests and didn't feel like FATE grinding, so I just went back to the fight without AF armor with some of the knowledge you guys have left.

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Grats on finally beating her!
As to your comment above regarding being out of quests, I can't see how as there are tons that open up in Dragonhead, The Obsevatorium, Whitebrim, Revenant Toll and the Sons of Coinnach camp there, which all open up after you hit level 42 or so.

Don't forget your class and GC hunting logs, also do the leve battlecraft quests in each town that has them, as well as guildhests and the roulettes.

Most WHM don't realize this with Garuda but because of the high threat we naturally put out because we are awesome you will be the target of Frictions. Simply separating/distancing yourself from the group slightly will drastically decrease the amount of dmg your party takes by only letting yourself get hit by it. You can easily out pace the dmg with a divine seal + regen on yourself.

Same logic is true for all Story / Hard / Extreme Modes.

- <3 Trauma

Thanks for the tip! :cool: