No More Tanks for Garuda EX?

[lxSch]

I don't think this would solve the problem at all.

DF or even PF are not the best way for a difficult place. You need patience and wipe many times until you have practice, and it's difficult for a team of people who don't know each other. Ultima is not so difficult and there are also problems for PUG parties.

There is also new content and many other things to do. Probably with time and when they have done other things, people who have not yet done the primals will go and do them. Many good reasons have already been said too for the lack of tanks.

With i90 gear and 25% echo DF works fine (i don't have a static anyway and PF is the same now). But usually it's 1-2 wipes and someone quits because they are not used to work for gear at all. The same is happening everywhere now - other EX, coil, Ultima, even HM primals. For garuda tank learning exp starts in rotating p4-p5, but many teams will not reach this and remain stuck. And without exped tanks team cannot pass, so it's a closed cycle until people get more patience.
This has worked in other games. One month old player is usually considered a total newbie, imo EX and coil should not be available this early.

Some tips (for DF people) that i learned during the week (still haven't got my ring lol).
1. Mark safe spots for MT, OT + melee and HL + ranged, and explain where to stand.
2. Mark the Satin plume so it wont cast sleep.
3. Explain to tanks they can dodge Slipstream, feather rain and Wicked Wheel. Also they should use cooldowns when garuda blinks.
4. Explain everyone to attack chirada, then suparna, then garuda.
5. Mark "target to ignore" the Spiny plume, otherwise there will be a player who does not speak english and will keep killing it. Tank LB works only on the first plume fail.
6. Make a macro with sound for Spiny plume switch. Healer can tank it for the first 2 stacks, then swap. Many tanks forget to swap and wipe the team.
7. Assign the better healer to MT and the weaker to OT + Revive + team heal. Otherwise without a direct responsibility both healers will fail.
8. Healers must dps. Only when sisters blink MH cannot dps, all the other time they can and should.
9. Do not agree to vote disband or vote dismiss - it accomplishes nothing: people are very overgeared for garuda now, only thing that fails is coordination.

[KimTaeyeon]

No one will do primal EX besides Levi for now. Hope SE will change this somehow

[blowfin]

Yep, no reason at all for anyone to go back and do Garuda/Titan/Ifrit EX once they've cleared them. It's poor game design which has basically screwed the content only a single patch cycle from when it was originally released.

There should be another purpose for these fights. E.g. Rowena's tokens need a secondary use, or something else useful needs to come from these fights.

[Ooshima]

Yep, no reason at all for anyone to go back and do Garuda/Titan/Ifrit EX once they've cleared them. It's poor game design which has basically screwed the content only a single patch cycle from when it was originally released.

There should be another purpose for these fights. E.g. Rowena's tokens need a secondary use, or something else useful needs to come from these fights.

10 Rowena's Token for 1 Rowena's Token of Soldiery

[Jestor]

And this is the mentality of things. This is part of WHY there aren't many tanks around. "Because it's not worth the waste of time." ¬_¬

Why not tank because you look fucking sweet and sexy with a big ass axe?

Oh, I do, but why waste my time on a bunch of random people in Party Finder who guarantee I get nothing out of it other then the sense of feeling cool when I can spend my time tanking something else where I will get something out of it?

You see, in this game you can constantly advance something for yourself, whether it be by farming tokens or running something for gear or grinding for crafting mats. While I would spend time on Primals for people in my FC or my friends, I am not going to waste time trying to get random party finder dude 4000 his Garuda melee piece when he is only meeting the ilvl requirement for the fight by equipping random gear that makes no sense.

Are there some really cool people in party finder? Absolutely. Why waste time in that lottery though when the rules are basically you can not advance any of your classes but please help me advance mine?

[JonBigwood]

With i90 gear and 25% echo DF works fine (i don't have a static anyway and PF is the same now). But usually it's 1-2 wipes and someone quits.../...

You are confirming what I said: DF of PF are not the best place, because people quit too early and have no patience, they think the situation won't get better with practice (and it might be like that in some cases.) But they are the only place for many people. (Including myself.)

Edit: I'll add more things now.
Party Finder should be better than DF because: You can state if it is a practice group, a farm group, a group intended to win but with patience to work, etc.

Garuda is different, but in Titan where the problem for a player may just be the difficulty to dodge (for connection quality or other reason), in a PF group decided to win, if you see, after several tries (not 1 or 2 or 3), that a player always dies before the heart, the best would be substitute that player and search for another one (it is probable he won't get better too quickly, but he may, it's just not too fair for the rest of the group if they already do well.) You can't do that in Duty Finder.

There are too few practice groups. There are people who don't have a lot of exp who join exp groups and many times win because they learn or really have enough exp (just not kill exp), or are carried. And others that create groups requiring exp and high ilvl who don't have the exp (or at least not the kill exp they ask for), but want an exp high ilvl group to have higher chances of winning.

It would be better to create practice groups than join DF just for practice.

[Lord_Zlatan]

How many fights can you say are really exciting to participate in as a tank?

5 different shades of pony, an okay looking bear, and a white chimera with some cosmetic surgery is not going to fix that problem

that is highly based off of opinion. I find a lot of the fights to be exciting from multiple positions.

[JonBigwood]

How many fights can you say are really exciting to participate in as a tank?

You could say this of any job, depending on your opinion.
I wouldn't say a ranged DPS is more exciting, maybe more relaxed, more safe, hits harder and has AoE attacks, gives satisfaction by killing quickly and knowing you contribute a lot to DPS, each job has its things.
I haven't tried melee DPS, this ones also hit hard, have positional attacks that need attention and skill, are near the boss and may get hit hard (without the protection the tank has) by close-range attacks,...each one has its fun. With healers the same, there can be emergency moments and you may save the day (or not...), you can also help a lot with DPS and have to know when to do it and when not, etc.

[Kimura410]

OP, i don't understand how you are being blocked off from content? Simply because people don't want to do the fight, namely tanks? Thats not SE blocking you out, they can't make people do a fight if people don't have an interest in it. At this point, a lot of players, even casuals, have beaten garuda ex and are probably stuck on titan id guess. if not, they've moved on to levi and mog ex. The echo buff is in effect, no reason you shouldn't be able to go into duty finder and beat the fight. party finders don't magically make players better at the game.

[givemeraptors]

I wouldn't say a ranged DPS is more exciting, maybe more relaxed, more safe

Really? I feel anything but safe as a ranged DPS (except maybe Bard). DPS are generally low on the healing priority list which makes dodging AoEs much more stressful in general in my experience. Occasionally when I heal I won't even bother dodging because I am fully in control of my own health. I will never just sit there and eat an AoE as a DPS. Tanks are...well, tanky.

OP, i don't understand how you are being blocked off from content? Simply because people don't want to do the fight, namely tanks? Thats not SE blocking you out, they can't make people do a fight if people don't have an interest in it. At this point, a lot of players, even casuals, have beaten garuda ex and are probably stuck on titan id guess. if not, they've moved on to levi and mog ex. The echo buff is in effect, no reason you shouldn't be able to go into duty finder and beat the fight. party finders don't magically make players better at the game.

I beat this last night, so my problem is solved. But I think it would be a good move by the developers to work the EX primals like the Binding Coil and allow players who haven't cleared previous primals to be taken into future EX primals by someone who has cleared it. That way we can at least get into practice parties for Levi EX or King Moogle EX and aren't left behind when all the experienced players move on to the next content.