So let's talk about White Maging Garuda.

Well, I'm well past this part of the story where no quests show up at all, and you're bound to grind eitherthrough fates or whatever comes to your mind.

I got wallpinned by garuda. 2 parties so far.

As per my previous post, linking the whole explanation to pastebin due to post size restrictions.

Now, I would like to talk about how I deal with the third stage, but I've only survived once - at the same time the rest of the party died.

So, any tips?

Hrm... Lesse
When garuda first teleports to use her big OHKO attack where you need to hide behind a pillar, she always does jump towards the rocky formation you can see. Her second jump is to the exact opposite location. At my single try (pretty great friends is what I got) I didn't see her use a third jump.

DDs need to make your life easier, don't stand even at her side, she has got a MASSIVE AoE front arc swipe that is her base attack, your DDs WILL REGRET standing in it, my Dragoon got trounced by it, if I didn't have a large amount of self-recoveries conveniently readied when I hit (since they were part of my burst sequence) i'd have died right after.

Her 2-hour (or astral flow- I've seen both terms to refer to a Primal's ultimate move) deals damage based on the pillars in the field, the more intact they are the less damage you take, that is why DDs need to deal with feathers fast. Be mindful she will spawn feathers 3 times, twice near her and once in the edges of the field

It just seems like you're not catching the patterns.

When Garuda disappears, that means she's doing a one of her one hits. First one will be from where she spawns, second from center, third from where you spawn. You should make sure you never miss this.

Garuda will also summon plumes/feathers that will try to attack the rocks. They need to die. The less rocks you have up during her reckoning, the more damage your party will take from it. During the reckoning, you don't have to stand behind the rocks, but it's a good idea to have all but your DPS stand on top of you for a quick Cure III and Cure II your tank. (I'd recommend leveling THM for surecast and swiftcast)

The center phase you just have to watch out for when she disappears and get to the opposite side of the arena from where she spawns. I forget the pattern for this one, but I think first one is from her spawn.

One thing you could do to better see when she disappears is, move the party list in the HUD editor to a more convenient area. Even if it means you have to put it in the middle of the screen so it is kind of centered around the tank/garuda. It might look odd and cluttered, but you can change it back when you aren't in an important fight.

Other than that, I'm afraid I don't feel like I can give any tips. Everyone has their own play style that fits better for them. Though I may have misunderstood one part. If you are casting regen on yourself and the tank before the tank pulls, do not do that. The first regen tic will count as an over cure, and Garuda will target you immediately. Sometimes she will no matter if regen is on or not, though. But regen before a pull is a bad thing to do in a group setting.

@Skies Than
The thing is that I don't see whne she's moving and what not. it's not after the whole party has move to the pillars with a big "Target is out of line of sight" on the screen that I realise. By then it's too late due to latency. Thanks for the explanation on her Ultimate.

@Kerikero
I don't get to see her disappear. I dont' get to see her, at all. I know she's on my screen but not in my eyes. She doesn't even give a sound alert. I turned off BGM to try to react quicker about it, but she doesn't make a sound.

@Shyluv
I'm totally trying that the next run. I'm casting both regens after Garuda does the first attack, along a Shroud of Saints.

I had this problem too! I wiped so many times before I found out. Here's an easy fix:

The teleport is actually patterned. At the start of the fight, shift+F to her. Do your job as usual, and then as soon as she disappears from your shift+F, she will teleport to the north. In which you will hide behind the rocks in that manner.. After that, do shift+F again, and the next one will be south. Repeat once again, the third and last one should be the middle. That's for Garuda NM, but for HM it's North->Middle->East. Hope that helps! Also, on the 4th time she disappears, it will be a moderate AOE attack, in which you probably should have Medica prepared. (about 50-60% damage on everyone)

Wow! Thanks! This is going to make a world of a difference!

By the way... I find out last night that in the last part, when she go back and try to destroye everyone with is wind attack... You can get out of the circle and get no damage whatsoever.

I have a question.. I'm a WHM who has yet to do this fight. How's your MP through the fight? Do you end with nearly no MP and had to use ethers, or can I be more liberal with medica's and keeping regen on people. Can I HOLY the plumes, or is that too mana intensive? :)

Done this as a DD, but I can at least attest to you that you don't want to holy the plumes unless you got pinpoint precision on your healing, did not seem to be like you would ever have sufficient breathing space to use Holy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by enthrop

I have a question.. I'm a WHM who has yet to do this fight. How's your MP through the fight? Do you end with nearly no MP and had to use ethers, or can I be more liberal with medica's and keeping regen on people. Can I HOLY the plumes, or is that too mana intensive? :)

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MP is typically fine, regens keep people up for the most part unless they are stacking on top of each other. Garuda does a random nuke she'll toss at people that does AE damage around the target. It also destroys the pillars if you are standing too close to them as well. However if you do need mana don't forget your Shroud of Saints which not only reduces your enmity but more importantly gives you "Refresh" which restores a portion of your mana over time. Most conjurer/white mages seem to forget this fact leveling up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by enthrop

I have a question.. I'm a WHM who has yet to do this fight. How's your MP through the fight? Do you end with nearly no MP and had to use ethers, or can I be more liberal with medica's and keeping regen on people. Can I HOLY the plumes, or is that too mana intensive? :)

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The weird thing is every time I used Hi-Ethers in this fight I lost. The one time I scraped through to victory I didn't run out of MP like all the other times and I used no recovery items at all. I really, really think this has to do with how the party works together. If the tank has good gear and the dd/dps know how to move out of the way, you're not going to hit the bottom of the mana pool.

I wouldn't use Holy in this. Long cast time, surprisingly short range, costs way too much mana. All three of those things hurt you way too much in this fight. Just hope that the dd/dps guys get the feathers like they should be.

Garuda is pretty easy to heal compared to a lot of the boss fights really; the "difficulty" comes from her attack at the end of the first stage based on how many rocks remain.

The arena's set up roughly as

...1
2 ... 3
4 ... 5
...A

where the numbers are rocks and A is her first teleport location. If the tank gets her facing 1, the melee dps are behind her, and then the healer and ranged dps spread out around the right of 3, far enough apart that her ranged aoe attack only hits one of you and far enough from 3 that it isn't hit by her ranged aoe, then you can heal almost all of the first half of the fight just by maintaining Regen on the tank + putting it on anyone that needs it, and maybe throwing out the occasional Cure. That means you should be free to watch the battle for the most part, just throw a glance at the party list every couple of seconds to check if you need to heal. Then when she teleports, you'll easily see it because you aren't starting at health bars. Run to the bottom side of 3 to dodge the attack, when she's used it turn 180 degrees and she'll be in the mirror position of 1 at the bottom (but no rock here, A on my diagram). Same process repeats, but this time when she teleports you put 5 between you and her. This time she'll pop up in the middle, make sure everyones healed up. Around this point you're probably going to be at about 60% MP, hit a Shroud of Saints around that point to get back to practically 100% and get a head start on the cooldown. After the third round of feathers, stay close to 5, hit a Medica as soon as you're hit by her big attack (the one based on how many rocks are left, as long as people aren't standing next to rocks and letting her damage them you should only really have lost a couple of stages of rock in total).

For the second phase, let the tank get things under control while you stay on the edge of the circle away from her and the tank and Medica up as needed to recover from her big attack. You'll still have a ton of MP at this point and Shroud of Saints should be well on its way to being available again, so MP shouldn't be an issue for the rest of the fight - most importantly if you've been careful about saving MP for this point by using Regen as much as possible, you'll be able to afford to spam Medica a lot more than normal should you need to. The only thing you have to watch for at this point is when she flies to rock 1, at that point get to the very edge of the circle between 4 and 5, as far away as possible from here, and you'll minimize the damage she does, Medica up and you should be good.

It's not too hard really. In fact, DPS are probably more important than the healer for Garuda seeing as they need to take down feathers fast. Just try to get into the habit of watching the field at least as much as you watch health bars (you pretty quickly get used to watching both at once) and the only time you're likely to get a death is if someone isn't dodging attacks properly. I suppose if you're really struggling and still using the default UI (party list on the left), you can reflect my positioning horizontally (so you're spreading out to the left of 2 instead of to the right of 3) which will let you have a good view of the field while keeping the tank + Garuda right next to everyone's health bars. All you really need to see at first is when she teleports; it shouldn't be too hard to miss a huge primal suddenly disappearing from right next to the health bars.

TBH, if your DPS are struggling to take out feathers (especially the third set, which is generally the one that people mess up on), you can probably afford to throw out a Holy or two as long as everyone's health is relatively stable.

Oh, and a final thing: apart from before the initial engagement, don't bother putting Stoneskin up on anyone once the fight's started. It costs as much as Cure II and is generally going to be less efficient. Even if she's hitting you or a DPS for ~900 damage before the tank can get things under control, just throw a Regen up and let them recover. I never found that she targeted a non-tank twice to start, so just let Regen do your work for you as much as possible; it's by far your most efficient spell.

To conserve mana as well, u can limit break when she enters 2nd phase after her big aoe. That way you dont have to use medica at that point. I tend to use Cure I in that whole phase and Cure II when it procs.