Avatar fights from a Bard's view

[Peltar]

Hi all,

Recently my static pt has begun to do some avatar fights and I thought I'd share my experiences.

In a nutshell, to fight avatars, your whole pt needs to have high fame and get a tuning fork of XXX (wind, ice, etc.), then find the corresponding protocrystals in the Cloisters. Clicking on them will take you to a special battlefield (kinda like BCNM but much cooler looking). There's tons of details about how to get fame, where to get the avatars, where to find the protocrstyals etc. so I'll skip that here.

As a bard in an avatar fight, you have one main duty: keep resists up! Everything else depends on your pt setup, lvl, etc.

Buff up outside just like you would before a bcnm. For food, I picked pies since I knew I was gonna help out with healing and wanted some extra MP. Defense food wasn't really needed here as you shouldn't pull any aggro. I also made myself some juices since I didn't wanna bog down our RDM with refresh during the battle, but that's completely optional.

Our static pt is PLD, DRG, THF, WHM, RDM, BRD. We fought Garuda twice, Titan, and Ramuh, all at lvl 61, and are 4/4. As you can see we're somewhat heavy on the support side and low on nukage power, which somewhat hurt us in fighting Garuda (she heals herself like crazy), but on our second try, in the end the RDM chainspell Blizzard II'd her and it was all good. First time wasn't quite as easy ...

Went in, buffed up everyone with the correct Carol and Barelement, then melees engaged. In the beginning I hit the melees with Victory March; accuracy wasn't a problem in this battle, and they like the haste better than Minuet. Also most of the dmg in our PT comes from the SC's, so getting TP as fast as possible seems to be most beneficial to us - might be different for you. Mages with Ballad II in addition to the Carol, of course.

It should be noted that even if you have WHM sub you do NOT want to be the one in this battle to cast the Barelement-spells (which have to be up the entire battle). Remember, your enhancing skill will be capped at your subjob's lvl, and it really makes a difference. In our case, the RDM switched to WHM sub since she had the highest enhancing skill, but the WHM can do it just as well.

At 50% health the Avatar will use his/her 2hr. I'd suggest Stoneskin'ning up if you have the proper sub for that. Also, at this point it's especially important to have Carol up (not that you should ever let it drop throughout the battle).

Neither the RDM nor I were able to land Dispel/Finale, so we gave up after a while. Seeing how none of my debuffs landed though (with around +30 CHR), I may just try again at higher lvls.

My equipment was - full AF, Corsette+1, Jester's cape+1, Shellbuster (sold the Signa a while ago to fund my RDM :sweat: ), Star Necklace, crap earrings, Electrum Ring, Moon Ring. Don't have a Crumhorn yet for the Carols.

On our first Garuda try, she 2 hr'd and immediately followed up with a special attack on the PLD and went to the RDM next, they both died. At the same time the WHM and I were kinda low on MP. So I 2 hr'd and sang double Paeon on the remaining melees - big mistake!! The next big special attack took out the DRG. You do NOT ever ever want to let Carol down, trust me. Well the WHM was next and the THF blink tanked Garuda for the rest of the fight, and we still won with just us two remaining standing... the next one went much smoother. Ramuh seemed like a pushover in comparison. Titan wasn't bad but his 2 hr hurt and took some of us out again. Of course we're pretty low lvl to have tried this anyway and I think we'll wait a few levels before taking on the others.

[Arto]

I only cast Carol at around 60% HP then i go back to double minuet, both me and the rdm i go with melee too, they are easy.

[AurorABLaZe]

Heh, I think you overestimate just how tough these fights are. =)

Even at lv 60 they aren't all too hard(so long as PT knows what it is doing).


Only thing BRD has to worry about is keeping Carol up. Bard doesn't have any natural Enhancement so you should have the BLM, RDM or WHM(preferably BLM or RDM if they use WHM sub. WHM should stay on healing duty)cast Bar-ra.

Trust me, if you do not have Carol up on the melee, someone is going to be one-shot.

I think Garuda is the most unpredictable. She's been real easy for me some times, other times a pain in the ass(because she heals herself a ton, like Leviathan). Garuda also the only one that has actually killed me(twice, in fact. Both one-shots with 2 hour as I was finishing up Carol).

You should cast Carol at beginning when you enter fight, then again when you about to pull the Avatar, and again at 70% hp, then again at 30% hp. And heal when you can. Usually the WHM and BLM or RDM don't have trouble with healing, but sometimes they do so help out the most you can. As well, you can probably land Elegy(about 50/50 chance of landing it), but not sure if you want to do that until after 2 hour(the more hits the Avatar makes = more TP for your PT, but less hits also mean less damage, so less healing...up to you, the rest of PT won't realize what you doing lol).


Foods....you don't need it.


Oh yeah, you can still win the fight if you fight it on it's element day(so Garuda would be Wind day, Titan Earth day, Ifrit Fire day, etc), but they do hit harder, have more HP or something, and higher resists, as well as their 2 hour and special attacks sometimes can break through your Carol and Bar song/spell.
I've had that happen to me two or three time, the most memorable one being vs. Titan.

We go in on Earth day, and like usual we expect him to be a pushover. So we do everything like usual.

When Titan 2 hours, the PLD takes 1700 dmg or so and dies, and I just cast Carol on him 5 seconds before(BLM casts Bar-ra same time), so he had both resist song/spell on. XD Everyone else took like 100 dmg. Luck of the draw, I guess.

Also had a close call against Ifrit, our PLD got out of there with 47 HP(we fight him again another day and he went down in 5 min easy).


Garuda the most troublesome for me....I go up to cast Carol at 70% HP and sometimes our group does SC and BLM nukes and stuff, so he drops to 50% HP very quicky and uses 2 hr right before Carol gets off(and since I just did Ballad for Mages, I have no Carol).....happened twice, exactly like that and I one shotted both times. xD But that makes it fun, I guess. =)



Some tips from my personal experience. Just look at it as a regular fight but with only Carol, Ballad, and healing(Minuet might be nice too, but not really needed).