Time to share strategies: Garuda

[Psion]

Wait, you only have to take garuda to 70% hp remaining to skip phase 2? i've always heard it was like 30% hp remaining, and wondered how anyone but the best of the best parties could skip phase 2 at all.

[Merle]

So... the "tip" is to try to do a "semi-exploit" to skip phase 2...

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Ok........

[Ambuter]

So... the "tip" is to try to do a "semi-exploit" to skip phase 2...

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Ok........

Not so much an exploit... more so not having shitty dps

[Griss]

Wait, you only have to take garuda to 70% hp remaining to skip phase 2? i've always heard it was like 30% hp remaining, and wondered how anyone but the best of the best parties could skip phase 2 at all.

No no. you bring her down to 70. the blm's rest up mp while the dd's do there thing and get her to the pre af plume spam(third jump with competent dd's). Blm's go beast mode and burn her down as much as possible. The goal here is to drop enough damage on her so she will skip straight to the clone phase after astral. At minimum it will shorten the time she is in her second phase.

[solracht]

From what I've seen...

There are two types of plumages - "plumage" and "2hour plumage" (which is actually the two plumages in a row she uses right before Aerial Blast).

The 2hour plumage is used at 60%, and the normal plumage is used every time she jumps. They seem to share a cooldown, at least if she tries to use them in succession.

The trick consists in taking her to 70-61%, waiting for her to jump, and then waiting for her plumage before taking her below 60%. This way, she won't be able to use her 2hour plumage right away. Instead, she'll keep on doing her usual attacks for 40-45 seconds, and then she'll use the 2hour plumage.

This gives you extra time to DPS her.

Clones pop at 39%, which is very easy to reach in this scenario, especially if you have 3 DPS on Garuda.

[Churchill]

My group is able to skip phase2 easily, but has trouble in phase3. The clones run all over, and Suparna seems difficult to take down in time.

[Req]

Wait, you only have to take garuda to 70% hp remaining to skip phase 2? i've always heard it was like 30% hp remaining, and wondered how anyone but the best of the best parties could skip phase 2 at all.

It really isn't that difficult if you manage your time wisely, especially if you ever did the blm burn method back before it got patched. Long story short, after the second plumes spawn, the longer it takes for all plumes to die the more time you have before the 2 hour plumes spawn, and the longer those take to die, the more time you have to burn Garudas hp down. If you are having issues I would suggest leaving one of the plumes up towards the end to buy your party an extra few seconds. This could be the difference between getting garuda down to 40% and 35% because in the end the largest determining factor in how much damage you do will always be the number of actions you can do in the most efficient use of time possible, and gear will always be secondary to that.

[Darkillumina]

It's doable with not skipping phase 2 but since that phase is so random most will happily skip it. Dealing with Phase 2 makes the fight longer than it has to be. Once you can reliably skip the first phase the rest of the fight is simply identifying small issues with your group.

Your dps needs to be good though. The biggest problem I see when people are doing this fight is that people don't roll in with enough accuracy and magic accuracy + gear. Whiffing on combo's and TP gain really slows down this fight.

I am juggling with bringing in more monks instead of black mages though and going for a Monk/melee heavy set up. Anybody else tried a monk burn on Garuda? Usually my group attempts this with 2 Warriors, DRG, Whm, Blm/drg, Blm, Brd/blm, brd.

[Kagato]

Well I did a Garuda run all day today. Seems we can never deal enough damage to skip phase 2. Also, we seem to have the hardest time with plumes.

[Req]

Well I did a Garuda run all day today. Seems we can never deal enough damage to skip phase 2. Also, we seem to have the hardest time with plumes.

What setup did you use? If you post your setup then people might be able to give you some pointers.