Sortie: Gartell Melee Question

Long story short, melee static seems to be really struggling with Gartell (F) for some reason. Usually wiping around 30-40%. Looking for some advice on how the hell to beat him consistently.

Comp: WAR/SAM/GEO/WHM/BRD/COR

Cor/BRD are using Savage hitting for 30-35k on average
War is using Stage 3 prime (diaster) hitting for 50-60k on average
SAM is using stage 3 prime (Mumei) hitting for 50-70k on average

Attempting to get blue procs with either SC's or magic burst from the Geo but not making it priority, we do manage to get one 50% ish of the time. Getting thunder hands majority of the time. the Aoe/enstun are limiting WS's for sure. Trying to swap out atk songs for carols, using barthunder as well. Usually starts summoning feathers around 1 minute in. We are trying to rotate out of them as much as possible. After feathers come out they hit for around 70 each but Gartell starts hitting for upper 800's-1.2k

The hell are we doing wrong? Based off wiki looks like feathers shouldn't be coming out until 3 minute mark. We are avoiding light/transfixion skill chains.

If it gets to 60s you are doing it wrong.

Suggestions on how to kill quicker? Stun is heavily limiting us. I'm the sam and struggle to get WS off during the fight from the constant stun lock. Seems like killing ixion isant the norm so not really sure how to prevent it. We are experimenting with carols but still occuring

Can the BRD switch to Rudra? That should help with ws wall on the COR cause they should be doing way more than 30k-ish. Also, is the GEO joining in? They should be able to hit around 30-40k.

Can give that a shot, I think we need more than that extra bit of dmg as it seems we constantly wipe at 30ish%

is the WHM using Asylum as soon as the DDs run in? Generally, should be able to kill this guy within the asylum window.

GEO should be in the fray w/ Black Halo. WAR on Disaster is fine, but stick the SAM on Fudo for this boss so that Disaster <-> Fudo makes Darkness SC adding a good bit of damage (doesn't matter who opens or closes).

COR and BRD can either both be on savage, or like Hydatos said, have the BRD swap over to Rudra's.

If I remember correctly when I ran this strat in the past, we did the following:

Split Procs > D (SV + CC on D to carry to H) > H > CBA > E > G (SV + CC on G to carry to F) > F

If you cutting cards after the SV on H, you should have it available on the G > F pull. Can save bolster for F unless you need to utilize it on H to get through that fight.

Yeah other than Rudra on BRD the only other thing is to swap GEO for RDM potentially.

It's hard to kill it consistently and safely without using the kiting strategy. Back when we were still using a WHM, it was very hit or miss with us. We wiped a lot, and we never got fast enough to kill it within the Asylum timer. Plus half the time it's win hands and that can destroy you in a different way.

If you can switch jobs to accommodate a RDM and tank, I would do that. There's a reason the strategy is ubiquitous now.

Will give these a shot. Last time i tried to use Fudo i ended up sitting on a lot of tp, others were being stunned locked and i would have to wait for SC window to close to prevent Fudo > fudo (light). Currently we are doing C/B/A/E/G(SV)/F (getting there with 4 1/2 -5 min left on SV songs.

Yes whm is asylum at engage

All points being valid, I wouldn’t wait for SC window to open, just spam and if it make SC great but with 5 ppl spamming WS, SC will be luck base but likely 3-5 per fight.

That Strat is very volatile for results, granted it was a lot more entertaining and stressful. I miss that, sometimes….

I second Philemon, try to work towards the main stream strat, there’s a reason for it, I would argue that you rather skip an entire week to make the jobs for it.

We only asylum for wind hands to avoid the absorb.
We just barthunder.
Songs are March min min mad aria (stage 4).
We don't go for any procs at all, just straight zerg.
Dia 3, light shot, 1 box step.
When we run with geo instead it's frail/fury and dia 2 instead.
Our kill time is usually around 40 sec

COR BRD SAM WAR WHM RDM (or GEO).

The SAM in our static uses Meikeo/Yaegesumi around 50%. The Fetters will not only be dodged by Yaeg but it will also grant 500TP per activation, making him able to go wild.

With thunder hands do you not run into issues with Stuns? we run basically the same comp. No Aria tho.

Sounds like a DPS problem which isn't uncommon for a newer group.

We used to run WAR,SAM,RDM,BRD,COR,WHM. The basic idea was zerg until Fetters. WAR would MS from the jump, SAM would SP2 about 15 seconds in. Once fetters popped, SAM would super jump, WAR would kite.

You could try it with indi Gravity, but RDM Grav2 is ideal.

Yaegesumi and Mighty Strikes are absolutely busted (especially the former). I agree with Taint & Hovann's suggestions and do a combination both of the DDs using their SPs and go HAM, and one super jumps the hate away while the other kites for the rest of the group to finish off. You can have the GEO change to indi-gravity and a wide-compass Fury bubble in the middle of the room at this time, and as mentioned, a Rudra's Storm would help.

SAM can alternate Fudo and Mumei if you feel like you're walling yourself during Yaeg/Meikyo.

Was thinking mumei > kasha > fudo

gotta disagree here, it is not hard to kill it with a melee setup without kiting regularly. my group does it every second night and have been since before we had any prime weapons and just aria.

I would swap the geo to rdm, then check to make sure you're hitting acc cap, that you have solid dt sets. really one or two fetters are an easy tank on my sam. 3 and I'll move but its usually dead at that point. we also never do any MBing. our rdm does use the right enspell that might make a difference idk. I see a lot of people mentioning 2 hours as well, my group 2 hours H and never have them back up as we usually make it to F with 12ish minutes left.

Mind sending me your build? I’m at 50% PDT AND 50% DT. Feathers do about 65 a tic and his AA hit for 380ish with some random one spiking to 800-1300. This is without him taking brd buffs

Keep in mind fetters (not feathers but that's not important) are breath damage, so your MDT and PDT don't matter for that calculation, only DT (and breath DT but you won't have any of that). MDT from stuff like Dark Ring also counts, I believe, but also unlikely to be on.

Another factor that might be *** you up is that Gartell counters but it doesn't show up very clearly in the log. If you're not tanking him, don't stand in front of him at all.

Doing it melee strat is significantly less consistent than kiting in my experience, to echo what others have said. We definitely had it down to a science and mostly won, but still had some wipes even when we had very good gear and lots of prime weapons. There are just so many ways it can go wrong.

Getting kill speed down is best and I recommend the same things others said above. BRD using Rudra's can hit better than Savage (or comparable at worst) and opens/closes lots of nice opportunities for SC. GEO should be meleeing rather than nuking or AFKing. Make sure to use all 1hrs, including Meikyo and BR.

ammo="Coiste Bodhar",
head="Kasuga Kabuto +3",
neck="Sam. Nodowa +2",
left_ear="Schere Earring",
right_ear="Kasuga Earring +2",
body="Kasuga Domaru +3",
hands="Nyame Gauntlets",
left_ring={name="Chirich Ring +1", bag="wardrobe1"},
ring2="Niqmaddu Ring",
waist={ name="Sailfi Belt +1", augments={'Path: A',}},
legs="Kasuga Haidate +3",
feet={ name="Nyame Sollerets", augments={'Path: B',}},
back="Null Shawl",

Is the set I am usually in, it's 1 point short of overall cap but I like the extra meva from null for the sortie bosses mostly magic arsenal, I still cap mdt with shell.

if you have access to Mumei i would recommend
Mumei > mumei > fudo - (or mumei shoha fudo if stun starts messing up your SCs and you need some wall relief) it'll be long dead before mumei hits kasha levels of dmg


IF TP moves are causing issues SAM can be solo dps/tank Gartell and kill in under a minute. Hybrid DT/Subtle blow tp set. maybe one fetter, sometimes none. Asylum pop at start and yaeg after the first Darkness SC. Since we started doing that we've started preferring wind hands as no ws interruptions from stun. I'm guessing people are popping berserk etc and he's absorbing too many buffs and countering hella hard.

My group kills Gartel almost daily with a melee zerg set up. Drk / War or Sam / rdm / whm / brd / cor. We do him first and burn one hours. If staring in thunder hands, brd will do lightning carol 1 to help with the stun. If wind hands, just normal Dd songs. If fetters spawn pull back out of them and continue. Rdm helps whm cure and trys to proc but usualy dosent even bother. Occasionally the dd with hate will get KOed by counter but at that point it is usually after one hrs are down and Gartell is under 10% health and the remainder standing bring him down.

If you're fast enough and he wipes songs from anyone in wind hands, alot of the time the brd will still have SV/CC active and can redeem before timer is up. Definitely not 100 percent of the time but worth noting incase you were fast enough to reapply.

Everyone fighting uses darkness based weapon skills. Drk = Fimbulvetr/ sam / mumei or fudo and or war = impulse drive or disaster / brd = evisceration or rudras / cor is typically doing savage.

We have around an 80% win rate doing this. Not saying it's the best way or the only way but it's what works for us.

You can leverage Scoreboard or some other parser to confirm everyone's Accuracy is ok. You can also get an idea of what the damage spread looks like. You ideally need everyone WSing if you're not making an attempt to proc. If you take their total number of swings and divide by number of WS, you'll get their weaponskill frequency, which could also help identify if anyone is holding TP too long. This could lead to heavier DD hitting the WS wall and neutering your dmg output.

If you still have issues hitting a wall, it might be because he's gaining too much -DT. Consider using SCs if that's the case so you can MB for proc. You can proc w/o, but it certainly helps.

FWIW, there's really no such thing as a "darkness based weapon skill", though it is a common misnomer.

From your list, for example:
Disaster (Gravitation) -> Fragmentation = Fragmentation (note: only WS that don't have other conflicting properties).
Evisceration -> Savage Blade = Fragmentation
Impulse Drive -> Savage Blade = Fragmentation
Fudo -> Fudo = Light

You can avoid all this with careful play, but it's not entirely safe just because a WS can open for darkness; plenty of them can also open for Frag (or possibly Light).

Also: Rudra's Storm absolutely shits all over the damage from Evisceration, and makes better SCs.

Do you start with H and save F for 8th boss? That's what we do and sometimes we have to kill Naakuals to kill a little time but yeah.

I'll reiterate that the kiting strategy is the best way to go for this fight. Pld, Rdm, Dnc, Geo, Cor, Brd. Stacking gravity 2 with indi-gravity basically slows him down to a slug's crawl, so you can just have the paldin kite him and the melees wail on his rear.

And skillchaining darkness is useful, but not mandatory. I alternate between ruthless stroke and rudra's storm on dancer, corsair uses savage blade, bard uses mordant rime, geo uses judgment and red mage is on black halo. That breaks up the weaponskill wall quite nicely so everyone is hitting for near full damage all the time. Gravity almost feels like cheating on this fight. It takes an otherwise painful fight and turns it into a simple zerg rush. Mobs are easier to kill when they don't use tp moves. I know, hard to believe right?

While true, (Just as an FYI, not disagreeing with you at all):
I've found after dozens of runs that Indi-Gravity is unnecessary on Gartell, due to his movement speed being slower than Aita. Between Rudra's Storm's -20%~ gravity and Gravity II, every melee in the group can hit Gartell just fine following him from behind. This allows you to use a BoG+EA+Widened Compass Fury Bubble in the center of the arena and use Frailty on yourself. If you feel iffy about not having a third Gravity on Gartell, entrust it to someone to make up the difference.

Rudra's Storm gravity doesn't stack with Gravity II though, does it?

That said, my group has been doing this lately too (no Indi-Gravity on F, just on H) and it does seem to be plenty slow so I'd encourage folks to try it as well.

Dh-cba-egf is our route, good runs we have about 10 to 12 minutes left after F. We generally kill all the upstairs nms, 3/4 down stairs and the narakuls on a good run. Sometimes we have reps or other small mistakes that eat up time and we'll miss either the narakuls or nms but rarely both.

I tend to tank H and F since I am using mumei and don't really run into much issues. I am blessed with some really fantastic whms in our group though so other milage may vary. I also use mumei almost exclusively on both F and H as our entire group melees except the whm so ws wall is never a consideration