Garuda Ex NA/Japanese style

[Sibyll]

Nope, the provoke method makes sure that everyone can focus on their actual job.So DPS focus on DPS and don't have to either avoid Whicked Wheels (which will take away from your DPS as you will have to back up from your target as a melee) or stack up in front of your target (so to lose out on positionals) or even worse be forced to tank (which isn't actually the responsibility of a DPS class in the first place). Tanks are there to take care of the tanking part, so why would you want to take away from their tanking duty?

Chirada doesn't do Wicked Wheel and I'm pretty sure Suparna stops doing Wicked Wheel after Chirada dies (please correct otherwise), so neither strategy should require the DPS to avoid Wicked Wheel. Downburst (the stack mechanic) is cast after Friction, so really the DPS only need to stack after Friction is cast meaning that even a 4 melee DPS composition would only have 1 melee DPS not getting positional bonuses (the "tank").

DPS in WoW only DPS. DPS in this game are expected, and fully capable, of doing more than simply DPSing. They have Class Skills (Featherfoot, Keen Flurry, Fists of Earth) and Cross Class Skills (Foresight) intended for light tanking.

I'm not implying either strategy is "better" as that's a bit subjective, but the NA method is basically throwing more mechanics at the tanks and healers for the sake of giving the DPS less to worry about, hence why I said it's making up for DPS that fail at mechanics (which it is).

No, it doesn't really increase the gear requirement, as it's more a question of utilizing your defensive cooldowns rather than having a big HP pool to just suck it up. And I'm not talking about one melee DPS. The provoke method actually works with any kind of DPS setup, you could as well bring 4 melees.

For a tank going in there at ilvl 65-70 there is very little room for error on NA method, even if the tank is utilizing CDs properly. If you go in there with ilvl 80+ gear, which the majority of groups running NA strategy are in, then this doesn't become an issue because of the larger health pools. So yes, I would say that utilizing this strategy is artificially increasing the gear requirement for the tank and possibly healer role. It'd be like running Hydra and having the off tank pick up the adds so the DPS wouldn't be inconvenienced and having the main tank solo Hydra; it's possible if you over gear the content enough.

Once again, I'm not saying one is better, but implying that the JP method is for fail tanks seems quite silly considering the NA method is just throwing more mechanics on the MT so that the DPS don't have to think about mechanics.

I would agree with this, people keep on forgetting how much of a free pass the NA method gives the dps. I think it's all about distributing difficulty depending on your composition, I've done one cycle runs with either method so people who say a 3 stack is a dps loss need to go do their homework. 3 stacks are very good when you have 5 dps with 2 or more melee, when it's 4 dps with one melee either way seems fine. When it's all ranged it makes sense to 2 stack.

However what people want to do is instead design their composition around their strategy, and not the other way around. Being inflexible with your strats is bad play, I think there's a strat to suit any dps composition on Garuda.

This is why we preach on about 3 stacking, it has it's use but people are bad and don't want to think outside the box.

I agree with everything you said. People see one strategy that works and take it as optimal without thinking of how to better improve their tactics. Just because something can be made to work doesn't mean it's the best way of doing it.

One clarification: what are you referring to when you say 2 and 3 stacking?

[Chihaya]

I play on a JP server so don't have much experience with the way that MT takes Garuda and Suparna other than the first set of adds.

At least on my data center, Garuda EX have pretty high chance of success with Duty Finder so it works pretty well.

[SarcasmMisser]

One clarification: what are you referring to when you say 2 and 3 stacking?

The positions of Garuda and the adds. 2 stacks is MT taking Garuda and Suprana and OT taking Chirada, 3 stack is the DPS taking Chirada, OT taking Suprana and MT taking Garuda. Also called 2-way or 3-way.

Also Vodomir I'm curious, what makes you think it's not the DPS job to avoid attacks, considering we have fights where it is all about avoiding attacks (Titan)? With the way WW is designed and the low ilevel requirement, I actually think SE intended for the DPS to take Chirada much like in HM.

Also on the flipside Japanese players are pretty stuck in their ways as well, I went into a game with a 7 man premade last night and we did a 2-way method, and the melee pug was so confused he rage quit and abandoned a free clear. The nightmare mount dropped too lmao.

[Sibyll]

The positions of Garuda and the adds. 2 stacks is MT taking Garuda and Suprana and OT taking Chirada, 3 stack is the DPS taking Chirada, OT taking Suprana and MT taking Garuda. Also called 2-way or 3-way.

Also Vodomir I'm curious, what makes you think it's not the DPS job to avoid attacks, considering we have fights where it is all about avoiding attacks (Titan)? With the way WW is designed and the low ilevel requirement, I actually think SE intended for the DPS to take Chirada much like in HM.

Also on the flipside Japanese players are pretty stuck in their ways as well, I went into a game with a 7 man premade last night and we did a 2-way method, and the melee pug was so confused he rage quit and abandoned a free clear. The nightmare mount dropped too lmao.

That's what I figured, but thank you for clarifying.

The first time I went into Garuda Ex, the triangle method was the way we did it and it seemed obvious to me given that Garuda HM employed the same strategy and SE has had a strong tendency to design their fights to build on previously learned mechanics. That coupled with the mechanics of Downburst... it just seems like a no brainer. Honestly, you could even argue that the swap mechanic was implemented so that the positions of Garuda and Suparna could be managed during the tornado phase while leaving provoke available for the spiny plume.

As I mentioned before, both Monk and Dragoon are cross classed with Marauder and both classes also have a few class skills that would serve no purpose other than proxy tanking. I simply don't believe that SE would design these classes this way unless they intended them to serve as off tanks in certain content.