At 5:59 AM PST, 8:59 AM EST, or whenever the fuck time it was in England, we ripped Garuda's wings off like a starving college kid going at one of those delicious Kirkland Signature whole rotisserie chickens – or eight baby penguins going for that delicious, delicious regurgitated fishmeat.

The casualty count: 31 wipes, 7 Five-Hour Energies, 9 Monsters, 1 Adderall, 8 shots of espresso, half a box of Chocolatey Chip Teddygrams, leftover cold McDonald's Chicken McNuggets, and a can of Coke.

Everything that we've been working toward as a linkshell has culminated in this, our best ever push at new content. Blood, sweat, and tears were shed as we small-talked Louisoix, triggering PTSD flashbacks to the days of Ifrit. We nervously shifted our pants to disguise our excitement after watching Raubahn flex his sculpted muscles for ten minutes straight in an unskippable cutscene. And then we set ourselves to the task of destroying Garuda.

Out of all of the endgame fights we've seen in FFXIV, Garuda displays the best balance of fundamental difficulty and creativity. We have to commend Foxclon and his team for designing a fight like Garuda while pushing up against the obvious and crippling constraints of the current engine. It took our absolute best efforts and an analytical approach to dissect the encounter to the point where it became manageable – and even then, Garuda still requires the highest echelon of performance seen yet in this game.

After this, we can't wait to see what Yoshida and the rest of the devs have in store for us with 1.23, the Legatus battle, and beyond in 2.0.

-Carraway Author

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