Stuck at Lady of the Vortex for two plus weeks

[TheFluffyCat]

OP, have you beaten it since the date of your post? I wish you were on my server -- I'd totally volunteer to help!

Despite the few people above saying it's an easy fight, I found Garuda story mode to be really challenging my first run through (was playing as a WHM that time)...even with a party of strong FC members helping me out. It's most definitely a check on your whole party's situational awareness, the healer's mana, the tank's positioning skills, and the speed of the DPS.

Are you attempting as a BLM? If so, your gear looks more than adequate for the trial. I'm usually anti-gear-checks, but for this one...it will be rough if people's gear isn't up to snuff. Make sure your gear is repaired, as well.

Here are some tips of things that helped me through it:

In general:
- I found it helpful to read articles (I thought this one was pretty good: http://www.gameskinny.com/jv6wh/ffxi...da-fight-guide ; this one is also excellent: http://www.ign.com/wikis/ff14/Garuda), but for this fight in particular, videos were extremely helpful. Just search YouTube for "Garuda Story Mode." YouTube user "Mr. Happy" has some good videos on all the FFXIV content.
- Set sprint to your hotbar if you don't already have it -- good for running behind pillars and towards razor plumes.
- During Phase 1, stay close to the edge on the opposite side of the tank, but make sure you are away from your other team members, and in particular, the healer. Friction (Garuda's range attack) is a targeted AOE that will randomly hit you -- and anyone else who is standing near you. This is also why it's incredibly important to stay as far from the pillars as possible, because Friction will damage them as well. No pillars still standing tall at mid-fight = no chance.
- During Phase 2, stay out of the way of the swirling edge of the circle around Garuda. If you step in it, you'll get hit with massive damage...and since BLM usually has lower HP, this could be trouble.
- Don't underestimate food bonuses -- it's a tiny boost, but it's a boost!

As a BLM in particular:
- Using the cross-class skill Raging Strikes when the razor plumes appear can help you take them down, because it boosts your damage by 20%. Try to make sure you have a full pool of MP to draw from when you're going to use it so that you get the full benefit of the boost.
- Swiftcast is your friend -- use it to toss out one or two faster AOEs when the plumes hit. I actually haven't tried this myself yet (have just stuck to regular AOE rotations to get them down), but I'd imagine using a Freeze -> Transpose -> Fires might work well, since it would prevent the plumes from damaging the pillars for an extra second.
- Popping Manaward & Manawall can help you maintain HP -- use them whenever you're able to.

As a healer main, I can tell you that the following things will help your healer keep up:
- Sorry for being repetitive, but...focus down the plumes as quickly as possible. Basically, as a DPS in this fight, you're in a race to reduce potential damage before it hits later on. If the pillars are down, the healer won't be able to do anything during Garuda's big attack except watch everyone die (very, very sad for us). Similarly, towards the end of the fight, White Mages may be running low on mana (ideally not, but if everyone has been taking damage the whole fight, it gets rough there at the end). The faster everything dies, the more chance everyone will come out alive.
- This is going to make it sound like you're between a rock and a hard place (which...is actually kind of true in this fight - haha), but while you're standing away from the pillars, away from your other teammates, and away from Garuda, try not to get out of the healer's line of sight. The pillars will block their ability to target you, and if you're taking damage fast, then you may be dead before they can reposition themselves & fire off a heal.

Anyway, I hope that helps a little!! I thought this fight was the worst of all the story mode Primals, and honestly, was much harder for me than the end game dungeons have been so far. You'll make it! Good luck