Garuda's Difficulty

[Irzibe]

One reason is that the fight is hard, second reason is that the rewards you get from Garuda aren't that appealing.

It's the second reason why I don't bother with Garuda, and the first reason just kills off any inkling of motivation I have.

[Zezlar]

At least you need to fight Garuda for the relics.

[Lux_Rayna]

The majority of the community hasn't even had a chance to touch Garuda. The majority of the population isn't doing Garuda because the majority of the population CAN'T do Garuda. They don't have melds, they don't have Darklight, and they don't have the weapons.

This is true, you actually need great dps in order to even have a chance of winning. It is literally impossible without meeting the dps requirement. Most casual players, myself included, do not have the gear to be a viable option in Garuda...nor the skill to make up for the gear by increasing our dps through great play and risk-taking. Garuda is that primal that checks ppl into realizing they're not as good as they think they are, for those who can't do it. After I did Garuda I realized my DRG, and I, sucked. Flat out sucked. I was like "man I suck so hard, what a letdown". The whole time I actually thought I was pretty decent at DRG, but Garuda made me realize my gear and my skills were trash. So it was back to the drawing board, to learn how to be awesome at DRG in endgame scenarios. Only Garuda can do this. I've never had problems being effective in other fights, but Garuda was a huge smack in the face.

Most can't do Garuda because they lack the skill/gear to do it. Instead of admitting it, most ppl will just say its "too hard" and continue believing that "skill is not the problem". IT is always the problem.

[Vanguard319]

That is a problem, it means the fight itself isn't a question of skill, but rather who has the best, most powerful gear.

Two words: Power Creep.

[Soukyuu]

The majority of the community hasn't even had a chance to touch Garuda.

Let me change that to "the majority of endgame guilds".

The majority of the population isn't doing Garuda because the majority of the population CAN'T do Garuda. They don't have melds, they don't have Darklight, and they don't have the weapons.

As was intended by the devs. It was supposed to be a hard fight, but was a lot easier because of the bug, so most people who had the gear already got the weapons.

There are actually some shouts for Garuda now and then, mostly by Japanese players. The English speaking community doesn't seem to be interested in Garuda anymore though, either because they don't have the equip, or because they already got the rewards.

[Crimzon]

Garuda is definitely a DPS check. With high enough DPS pre-AB, you can still easily skip the 2nd phase...which is probably where most Garuda parties have issues. If you get her HP low enough following the Aerial Blast, she will either summon the 2 adds or go to the plume/rotating whirlwind phase...both of which are not that hard to react to. The middle phase in my opinion is harder than either of those 2 and where low DPS groups are probably wiping.

A side note to those needing this for relics, it needs to be a win with 0 deaths to get the item.

[Lux_Rayna]

That is a problem, it means the fight itself isn't a question of skill, but rather who has the best, most powerful gear.

Two words: Power Creep.

No, the fight is definitely a question of skill. Yes you need to meet a certain gear minimum, but its not exactly hard to meet. I've heard of ppl beating Garuda in single melds. This game has always been balanced around a set of single melded gear, and I know Garuda has been beaten with a set of single-melded gear. The problem is that most players who have sufficient gear, do not have the skill to back it up. Garuda is *actually* hard. I mean you *actually* have to be good in order to beat it. You don't have to be all that good to beat Ifrit. Nor Moogle. Nor any other boss in the game really from what I've heard. Garuda is pretty much the only one where being good is basically a requirement. The game leads you to think you're good until you do Garuda. Then if you can't beat Garuda, you just have to accept you're not as good as you thought. It's not really that bad, just practice and learn how to be more effective.

The #1 mistake people make is that they can't accept that they aren't as good as they think they are. Your skilled parties? Not as good as they thought they were. You? Probably not as good as you think you are, but I have NO idea what you think, nor how good you are, so you're the only person who can make that call. This is a long way of saying that its not Garuda, its you. If its not you, its the party as a whole (which includes you). Blaming Garuda = denial.

[Kinseykinz]

My ls is learning it now....AFTER the blm burn thing was fixed. I really didn't even suggest we try it pre-fix simply because, to me, it wasn't worth it. Sure, we could have gotten a quick achievement and farmed the weapons...BUT what were we gonna do when a new person in the shell wanted to fight it? Say No? That being said, we've maybe set aside 5-6 times now post patch to attempt to learn to kill her. Of the group,2-3 have cleared the content (w/ BLM burn), but the rest do not. We've been adjusting our gears/jobs and strategy accordingly so that now we safely skip the second phase and are getting closer to taking down both of her adds before we wipe. But as we only try once every 5-6 days or so, and are learning as we go, it's taking us some time. Some people would say 'well, you all suck, that's why you haven't beaten her yet.' I'd argue that we just haven't spent enough time to learn the fight and our respective roles in it yet.

But people judge how they judge. Also, unlike Moogle/Ifrit where experience players are STILL doing the content, very few experienced players kill Garuda...so we don't have parties of 6+ experienced players teaching the 'noobs' like we did before. This also keeps people from learning/achieving the battle. Yes, there IS a DPS check...and yes, you need to know how to keep the damage up and the plumes down, but at the end, most people who have this down, just need to learn the battle mechanics (where to stand, when to rest mp/when to burn/when to save tp, run etc). And this takes practice...practice most people in game aren't motivated to do atm.

[Vanguard319]

yes, and like I said, the parties I've been in have the skill, and most have excellent gear as well, finally a well crafted fight should NEVER require you to have the best gear available, it should be enough to provide a challenge, not a one-sided curbstomp battle for either the players, or the boss.

[SwordCoheir]

This is true, you actually need great dps in order to even have a chance of winning. It is literally impossible without meeting the dps requirement. Most casual players, myself included, do not have the gear to be a viable option in Garuda...nor the skill to make up for the gear by increasing our dps through great play and risk-taking. Garuda is that primal that checks ppl into realizing they're not as good as they think they are, for those who can't do it. After I did Garuda I realized my DRG, and I, sucked. Flat out sucked. I was like "man I suck so hard, what a letdown". The whole time I actually thought I was pretty decent at DRG, but Garuda made me realize my gear and my skills were trash. So it was back to the drawing board, to learn how to be awesome at DRG in endgame scenarios. Only Garuda can do this. I've never had problems being effective in other fights, but Garuda was a huge smack in the face.

Most can't do Garuda because they lack the skill/gear to do it. Instead of admitting it, most ppl will just say its "too hard" and continue believing that "skill is not the problem". IT is always the problem.

True, another big point is Garuda, unlike other primals is almost completely unforgivable if something goes wrong. If you die pre-Ariel Blast it throws the entire process into disarray, because the lost firepower for that 15-30 seconds could mean a portion of a pillar/s get knocked down. If you can't burn her down to Ariel Blast within 5 minutes, there's not going to be enough of the pillars to survive it no matter how great your group is at taking out the plumes. If you get lag/latency it can mean life or death most of the time from getting hit with Mistral Shriek/Scream which can one shot players not careful.

The entire fight basically forces you to speed run it in order to win, and as you said people just don't have the capability or gear to pull it off. Frankly if they just lowered the minimum amount of pillars needed to survive Ariel Blast and perhaps tone down her Mistral moves a few hundred points of damage or at least remove the instacast post Ariel Blast so people could actually dodge I think she would be much more manageable for less hardcore groups.