No More Tanks for Garuda EX?

[givemeraptors]

Thought SE added mounts as an incentive to tank endgame content but I routinely see 3+ GEX parties up in PF and maybe one tank amongst the 6 open slots.

Garuda has imo always been the hardest to tank, so no wonder people are reluctant to join as that role, but it's ridiculous, especially since you can't unlock the full series of EX primals without completing it.

Join FC, static etc. etc. yes I know I wasn't born yesterday. I imagine I'm in the same situation as a lot of people who have joined various FCs but haven't found a good fit/are still in the midst of looking.

In the meantime, content shouldn't be completely blocked off while we search for a good group (with openings and mature individuals who don't use homophobic slurs and the like).

Perhaps too much to ask

[lxSch]

I have been doing Garuda EX in DF for several days, what usually happens is undergeared team (around i75) trying to learn it. Wipe1, wipe2 - team at 10% echo, someone impatient starts to spam 'vote abandon' because he was probably carried through HM primals and wants to get carried through EX too - either vote passes or someone *disconnects*, gets dismissed and everyone leaves.
So if you make a PF team - the very same people will join it and drop after few wipes, even before reaching p4/p5 where tank learning experience starts. The same with other EX - i don't see PF much different from DF now.
Adding mounts will give a reason for experienced tanks to do it, but new tank supply will remain cut off. The way i see to solve this would be to keep the myth tome weekly lock at 450, so people will have months to work before they start EX primals.
But otherwise 3 weeks old players will keep joining EX/Coil DF/PF teams - soon community will simply abandon doing them due to frustration and SE will just nerf EX/Coil so everyone can start Coil2 (carrying same issues).

[JonBigwood]

The way i see to solve this would be to keep the myth tome weekly lock at 450, so people will have months to work before they start EX primals.

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.

[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.

[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.

[lxSch]

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.

In 2.1 i90 grind was some kind of patience test, even CT gear was once week and random.

Over the last days i joined several learning PF groups and they disband after 2-3 wipes (even at titan HM). Doing HM primals through the roulette is much better now because there will be a plenty of i90 players. But EX/Coil are not on the roulette, so it will be mostly those impatient new players doing them.
SE mixed light and medium players in 2.2, which is wrong because medium players hate to see someone being new and light players hate to fail and be yelled at. Soon medium players will enter 2.2 content and cause problems to hardcore people for their lack of experience.
SE idea is to show the game as fast as possible to everyone, but i think content should be going slower with time to learn your class while collecting the required gear.

[Lemon8or]

There're just little incentives for experienced tanks to join those 3 primals now. They either farm turn 4 for the mount or tank Leviathan EX to get the new weapons. Why not ask your tank friends to join and help? Why not tank it yourselves? It doesn't take long to learn that fight especially with Echo buff now. If you're on tonight and need a tank, contact me. I'll help if I'm not busy.

[givemeraptors]

There're just little incentives for experienced tanks to join those 3 primals now. They either farm turn 4 for the mount or tank Leviathan EX to get the new weapons. Why not ask your tank friends to join and help? Why not tank it yourselves? It doesn't take long to learn that fight especially with Echo buff now. If you're on tonight and need a tank, contact me. I'll help if I'm not busy.

Yeah. I think SE should have upped the amount of tanking to be done and spread the love across all content, not just 8-man endgame. The way it's setup now encourages farming specific dungeons, or not attempting to get it at all >.>

Thanks for the offer, I'll look you up later tonight if I find myself in the same situation again.

[Illya]

The way the mounts works it actually discourage tanks from doing anything.

Also it will be hard to find people who are experienced with old content a week into a patch that adds new content that everyone is currently busy with. In a few weeks it won't be as bad.

[Demus]

There's no hidden reason for lack of Garuda Ex tanks. Her fending ring sucks and there's no reason for career tanks to farm it when Allagan + Hero's is better and easier to obtain thanks to enrage mode.