Time to share strategies: Garuda

[Orophin]

If you can't skip Phase 2, don't worry too much about it. It's a combination of skill/gear limitations and if you're doing this with a PUG I would be amazed you could skip straight to Phase 3.

The important thing in Phase 2 is to let the plumes kinda gather up and use AOE, then pick off the stragglers. After that you just focus on your attacks on Garuda. Also, watch Garuda on the minimap when she jumps in the air so you'll know which way to run to avoid her frontal cone attack. That's all there is to Phase 2.

Edit: Reading your post above mine, sounds like you're having plume issues in Phase 1. All non-BLM DD should be focusing on them when they spawn. It gets tough when Garuda does the double plumage, but you really want to avoid the plumes blowing up the rocks more than a few times because the Aerial Blast damage gets a little crazy and even Battle Voice won't save you. (as you pointed out)

One of the issue's I see people have on plumes is using there big AoE's to early. An example Wars using SC as soon as they see plumes pops so only hitting 2-3 of them instead of most of them. People need to learn how to get the best out of their AoE's and not to rush it.

Yep, timing is pretty important. If you use SC as soon as they pop, you'll miss half of them. It's tougher as the tank but maybe a second delay will be better since most of them will have spawned by then. When I was playing the 2nd WAR in our setup, I waited until everything spawned then positioned myself to hit the most amount of plumes at once. You kind of don't have that liberty as tank due to positioning and stuff.