Carbuncle only summoners.

[riceburner4540]

garuda doesn't sleep, shiva does. also, afaik, shiva doesn't silence. uber help aside, from the summoners i've talked to, the difficulty goes something like...

garuda, titan, leviathan about the same..."easiest"
ramuh "medium"
shiva and ifrit "hardest"

i myself have just gotten through garuda, am about to try shiva with my linkshell. we had lvl 50 blm/whm, whm/blm, and brd/whm, lvl 60 drk/whm and war/nin, and 1 lvl 75 monk/whm. Garuda didn't pose much of a threat at all really. lvl 75 monk aside, it was a pretty easy win. the summoners i've talked to have told me that shiva and ifrit require something like a lvl 65 party to beat...now since i'm nowhere near that, it'll be interesting to see how the fight turns out

[Deedlit]

garuda doesn't sleep, shiva does. also, afaik, shiva doesn't silence.

Yeah, just saw the typo, sorry. The thing is, I didn't see either of these status attacks, possibly because on their weak days they don't bother with them.

Anyway, who was the tank in that group you mentioned? You really can't say "Yeah, we had a level 75 but he wasn't a real factor in why we won." Level is the biggest factor that determines your DEF against their Astral flow. A level 50-something DRK came with on two of the fights, and died quickly to Astral flow both time, one shotted, whereas the two level 75's didn't blink an eye - the RDM didn't even take damage.

[riceburner4540]

the monk didn't tank originally...the warrior did. the monk had to tank when the warrior got 1-shotted ^_^;;...baraera disappeared literally seconds before garuda's astral flow. according to him (the warrior) he took only about 300 or so with baraera up when he did garuda before. if the monk was say...level 60, yeah he probably would have died...but then again, the only reason the warrior died was because baraera wore off. barring freak accidents such as that, a party of lvl 60 melee and 50ish mages shouldn't have much trouble with garuda, but vs say ifrit or shiva, it might be another story.