The fight against Geruda in Final Fantasy 16 is the first major Eikon battle where you will have the chance to test out your fighting skills and reflexes. To add to that it will be filled with awesome cinematic slashes, punches, and clashes that bring this game to a whole new level and made me feel like I was 9 again and participating in one of those intense Dragon Ball Z fights!
The fight consists of two stages and it involves a lot of careful strategizing and planning since Garuda is a very powerful foe and an Eikon you don’t want to play around with. To get all the details and tips about fighting this boss continue reading our guide!
Related: Every Final Fantasy Game in the Series
How to Kill Garuda in Final Fantasy 16
Benedikta Harman decided to transform into a multi-arm/wing Wind Eikon and you got yourself in a lot of trouble. However, Clive isn’t exactly food for these big mythical creatures so there a quite a few ways you can hurt her.
Further, what you should know is that your own in-game choices and fighting styles will dictate how the battle and the cinematics are going to look when some of them will trigger, and how many of them there will be.
First Phase of Fighting Garuda
Garuda is a tough boss, there are no two ways about it. She is much larger than Clive and the space for your maneuvers and fighting moves is pretty limited in this phase of the boss fight. That’s why you need to focus your attention on dodging her attacks most of the time and waiting for openings that she gives you for an attack. I advise you to try charging her and landing a Titan’s Windup attack for maximum damage.
She is most dangerous when she performs a sweeping attack or an Aerial Blast (performed when she losses more than 50% of her HP). The sweeping attack can only be avoided by jumping toward her, which is in a way good since it gives you an opportunity to strike her. Aerial Blast is actually an array of tornadoes that she releases that you need to dodge by moving left and right. At this time I don’t advise you to try and approach her. Instead, try using your ranged attacks (Titan’s Stone attack) to chip away at her HP pool while also avoiding the mass of attacks that she sends your way.
To quickly get her HP low, you can try using the Phoenix Shift ability that lets you dash forward, closing the gap between you and Garuda and making a couple of deadly attacks. You should know that you will stagger Garuda by removing the yellow gauge beneath her HP. Staggering opens her up for a combo of your attacks.
After you bring Garuda to about 5% HP you will be in a cinematic battle with her where you will need to react quickly with a couple of buttons on your controller. You will slice left and right, remove a couple of her limbs and send her down into the abyss. However, she is still not dead…
Second Phase of Fighting Garuda
Even though you’ve technically defeated the Garuda boss as you saw Clive stabbing her in the face, her disappearing into the darkness, and the screen saying “Garuda Slain” she isn’t dead quite yet. In the cinematics you will see that she comes back, grabbing Clive and triggering him to transform into Ifrit, his own version of Eikon.
Now this is a clash of the Titans if ever there was one. You now control a big fire Eikon and fight Garuda on a much bigger battlefield. Controlling Ifrit isn’t too complicated as you will be using the same controls as you have before (circle for lunging forward, triangle for ranged attack, square for regular melee attack, and R1 for evading). The only difference is that since Ifrit is much larger and more powerful, he isn’t as agile as Clive.
Garuda’s attacks will be quite similar to those she had before. You need to avoid her Tornados and other ranged attacks and try to lunge at her every time you can and kick her with melee attacks. Even though Ifrit is huge his lunges are quite fast so don’t hesitate to use them often.
This part of the battle will be filled with Quick Time Events (QTE) and a lot of cinematic clashes. They will be triggered when Garuda is at 2/3 of her HP, at 1/3 of her HP, and when she is about to die. This means you will need to be quick on your fingers to slam those buttons as fast as you can to resolve clashes in your favor. When you defeat her in the second phase of the battle she will finally be dead.
What is the Loot You Get From Garuda?
Garuda will leave some pretty nice loot upon death. In addition to gaining a nice amount of XP, you will get 1x Wind Shard, 60x Wyrrite, and 2x Meteorite. Wind Shard is a rare crafting material that you can use to reinforce your equipment so use it wisely.
Garuda will (literally) be cooked after you read our guide! If you wish to learn more about Final Fantasy 16 follow up with our articles How to get Braveheart Weapon in Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy XVI Looks to Solve One of the Franchises Largest Issues in Recent Years. Find us on Facebook and join in on the conversation about the latest releases in the gaming industry!
