Tank-specific tips for Extreme Primals

[Ehayte]

For Garuda the ROH animation is too long....

It doesn't matter, as long as you are in-range to start the skill you can go where ever you would like and it will still apply the damage, debuff, and enmity.

[Bigby]

I have off-tanked this fight many many times and I never provoke first, maybe our strategy is weird but it hasn't failed us yet. Since it never goes to the off tank I let it stay on whoever it attaches to (or mt can provoke if you want). Once it reaches 2 stacks I provoke it and throw a tomahawk or two at it, then I just proceed to heavy swing until it is at 1/3 health. Even healers can't take it from me. The only danger is if someone accidently attacks the spiny before I provoke as it makes it harder to get enmity.

Another tip: If your dps does not kill suprana before they jump, you can tank limitbreak with 1 bar to save your party. Use the LB just after they jump and only use the LB if your ranged can't kill it in the few seconds you have when they appears in the middle of the map.

[bokchoykn]

There are many ways to deal with the Spiny Plume. As long as nobody takes 3 stacks from it, that's all that really matters.

As OT, there are two reasons I start every phase by Provoking the Spiny Plume:

1. During the pocket phase, having the Spiny Plume on me allows me to pull it to the side, away from the group and away from Garuda. Everyone else stacks on top of Garuda, causing the Razor Plumes to also stack on top of Garuda. This way, when we AoE the Razor Plumes, the AoE hits Garuda as well. More damage on Garuda is always a good thing. Occasionally, some Razor Plumes attach to me, but these ones are ignored since I can survive them exploding on top of me.
   
   
2. During the sisters phase, Provoking the Spiny Plume off the bat allows for me to Provoke Suparna away from the MT once it cools down. The MT Provokes the Spiny Plume off of me while I Provoke Suparna off the MT. Tis makes it safer for melee to hit Suparna and eliminates the risk of the MT getting double Wicked Wheeled for a second time that phase.

[bokchoykn]

This is our tanking sequence vs Ifrit on the final nails phase:

• Warrior provokes after the first Incinerate after he spawns nails.
  
• Paladin provokes after the Warrior takes three Incinerates (mitigated with Vengeance).
  
• Ifrit will now cast Infernal Howl on a healer, and then turn back around and do three Incinerates to the Paladin (mitigated with Sentinel)
  
• Ifrit will then cast: Eruption, then Infernal Howl on a healer, and then turn back around to do three more Incinerates. Paladin uses Hallowed Ground to negate all three.
  
• By the time Ifrit casts Incinerate again, the stacks on the Paladin have expired. Warrior provokes after 3 from here.

Using this technique, the Paladin keeps Ifrit for the 3/4 of the final phase, taking 9 Incinerates in a row but never going above three stacks. It gives the Warrior complete freedom to drop Defiance and help kill nails. It gives Healers a lot of breathing room to keep the DPS topped up. The Infernal Fetters are pretty much a non-factor since you're taking out two tank swaps from the entire phase. It makes everything super easy.

[Serneum]

My reply is majorly late, but for those still struggling:

Garuda
To quickly and safely pick up your assigned sister, build up your combo with the first two hits (Fast Blade>Savage Blade or Heavy Swing>Skull Sunder) on Garuda. Then, hit a Rage of Halone or Butcher's Block on your assigned sister as soon as they spawn. Pre-emptively using an offensive cooldown helps with snap aggro too. Provoke is unnecessary here and should not be used in this situation. This is a basic and essential tanking technique and you should probably be already familiar with it.

A simple Shield Lob tends to snag me Suparna relatively easily. Then I Circle of Scorn, Flash, and Spirits Within as well.

During each sisters phase, predict the incoming burst damage (Wicked Wheel/Downburst) and pre-emptively pop a defensive cooldown to mitigate it. If you're tanking Garuda + Suparna, the burst occurs after they teleport and very shortly after Suparna casts Friction. It also helps to apply Rage of Halone / Storm's Path on one or both targets beforehand. If you're tanking Chirada, you'll get a red targeting symbol on your character a couple of seconds before it happens.

First phase, it's always after Friction from Suparna. Suparna/Garuda jump after Chirada takes a certain amount of damage, so the fewer people on Chirada the less likely they are to jump before the Friction and Wicked Wheel. We run a lot of ranged and burst Suparna down first. With one melee on Chirada, Suparna dies before they jump 90% of the time.

Second sisters phase, double Wicked Wheel will always come after Suparna casts her Slipstream.

Some feedback:
(4) Should mention what cooldowns you're using. For PLD, use either Sentinel or both Foresight and Rampart for each double WW (you can't have Sentinel due to CD time) -- go head and use Sentinel for the first. You only have one double WW, so Sentinel alone is enough.

Not entirely true. I can usually have my Sentinel up a few seconds before the next double Wicked Wheel. It's not a guarantee, but it is possible to do, even with really high DPS.

[bokchoykn]

Not entirely true. I can usually have my Sentinel up a few seconds before the next double Wicked Wheel. It's not a guarantee, but it is possible to do, even with really high DPS.

After the initial sisters phase, Garuda transitions into the next phase after a certain amount of time or when she reaches 55% HP, whichever comes first.

Therefore, the duration between the first two sisters phases varies, depending on how much DPS you have. You might have Sentinel barely before the next Wicked Wheel, but someone else's group might have better DPS.

[Serneum]

Therefore, the duration between the first two sisters phases varies, depending on how much DPS you have. You might have Sentinel barely before the next Wicked Wheel, but someone else's group might have better DPS.

I can agree with that. The group I usually run with from my FC tends to have relatively high DPS (Ex: we kill Garuda HM before the middle calm phase ever happens and we typically don't get a third sisters phase in Garuda Ex) and I can usually get Sentinel back before the double Wicked Wheel in the second sisters phase. If I know it won't be up, I prefer to use Hallowed Ground because I just don't trust the other cooldowns to save me even when used together. If a group had a lot of burst damage or a lot of crits on a specific run, I could definitely see the skill only being up some of the time, though

[Versiroth]

It's bad game design, but melee really do make Garuda X a lot more difficult than it has to be. I've only beaten it once at this point (though I've watched and read a ton of guides and practiced quite a bit before my win), but the best method seems to be having the MT pulls Garuda and Suparna, OT pulls Chirada. All DPS focus Suparna and then switch to Chirada.

Benefits:

1. The tanks only ever have to worry about provoking spiny. Currently, with the more popular method of killing Chirada first, if spiny lands on the MT, the OT will have to provoke the spiny once Chirada is dead and the MT will have to eat a second DWW. If Suparna is focused and killed first, the MT only has to worry about one DWW and the OT only has to worry about Chirada's downburst, which will never one shot him. Plus, with Suparna dying quickly, the MT won't have to dance around as many times avoiding double Slipstreams. Another advantage to this method is no teleport or feather rain thanks to Suparna dying before Chirada.

All in all, everything's easier. The MT only has one huge burst he has to CD up for each twister phase and provoking is always saved for the spiny plume alone. Plus you get to avoid mechanics like Feather Rain all together.

I suppose you could still do this method with one Melee DPS on Chirada as long as your ranged DPS was strong enough to three man down Suparna off the MT quickly.


The method I used in my first kill was all ranged, but I OT Suparna instead of Chirada. In the circle phase, I would provoke spiny first and keep it away from the group. In the twister phase, the MT grabbed Garuda, Chirada and spiney first and I took Suparna. The DPS killed Suparna off of me first, and I would then provoke the spiney off the MT. DPS switches to Chirada and kills her (MT would have to provoke spiny back near the end). This method is a lot more on the MT, having to hold two adds the whole time, but since there are no Wicked Wheels once Suparna dies, all he had to really worry about was eatting a single Wheel + Chirada's downburst and then when Suparna was dead, just the Chirada downburst. So, the damage he took wasn't too bad after Suparna was dead. But again, in this method, a Melee DPS would have had to dodge Suparna's WW and the range is so huge, it's very risky even if the tank tries to get Suparna into a corner (and sometimes, she simply doesn't want to move with you once the tornado's spawn). A Dragoon would be a little easier, since the can Elusive jump during Friction and then Spineshatter/dragonfire (depending on where the spiny is) back in.

[Alkimi]

It's bad game design, but melee really do make Garuda X a lot more difficult than it has to be.

The way SE designed the fight was for the DPS to tank Chirada (sharing downburst damage), OT to tank Surpana and MT to keep Garuda. It's hardly their fault nobody (except JPs) is doing the fight the way they originally intended which is a safer method (no double wicked wheels) and a lot more melee friendly.

[bokchoykn]

The way SE designed the fight was for the DPS to tank Chirada (sharing downburst damage), OT to tank Surpana and MT to keep Garuda. It's hardly their fault nobody (except JPs) is doing the fight the way they originally intended which is a safer method (no double wicked wheels) and a lot more melee friendly.

I've never liked this method of doing Garuda EX.

I don't like it because it is a big compromise to DPS output. If melee has aggro on Chirada, he no longer has full access to flanking or rear attacks. Meanwhile, casters have to dodge Slipstreams and interrupt their spell casts.

The supposed benefits of handling Chirada this way are: no double wicked wheels and more melee-friendly. However, I've never perceived double wicked wheels as something that couldn't be handled with better cooldown usage from tanks and healers.

As for melee, even in low DPS groups, I've found that having DPS kill Chirada and then having the OT Provoke Suparna from the MT works perfectly. There is no risk of melee getting hit by Wicked Wheel. The OT needs to Provoke the Spiny Plume to start every Sisters + Great Whirlwind phase. By the time the MT needs to Provoke the Spiny from him, Provoke will have cooled down and Chirada should be dead.

In high DPS groups, we simply zerg down Chirada and melee waits for Garuda to Wicked Wheel before diving in. Suparna should be dead before Garuda Wicked Wheels again.

This might not be what S-E intended, but I think it is the more efficient strategy.