INTRODUCTION

General Use non-helminth [Garuda] build which is steel path endurance viable and great to use in the open world. Use [Garuda]'s airborne acrobatic abilities to leap across the map with [Dread] Mirror and Blood altar, nuke from the skies with [Dread] Heart, heal with Blood Altar, regenerate energy on demand with Bloodletting and get shield gating, brief stun and insane scaling slash procs from Seeking [Talons].

Up to date with changes to [Garuda]'s abilities (March 2022). Now that [Garuda]'s passive has changed from being based on missing health to the number of kills, there is now no reason to run a traditional 2hp/quick thinking/tank build. The addition of invulnerability frames to both [Dread] Mirror and Seeking [Talons] makes shield gating much easier and in combination with status cleanse from Bloodletting means you can even drop rolling guard.

Update June 2022 : Dread Mirror now gives full knockdown/stagger immunity! This means you can drop [Primed Sure Footed] and run an alternative like Kavat's Grace to prevent hard landings.

ALTERNATIVE BUILDS
Breach Surge max range variant: https://overframe.gg/build/489274/
Gloom high strength variant: https://overframe.gg/build/314683/garuda-prime/the-slow-bleed-gloom-garuda-for-general-use-steel-path-endurance-levelcap/
Run and Gun / Weapon Platform / Speedrun variant: https://overframe.gg/build/314689/garuda-prime/the-fast-bleed-weapon-platform-garuda-for-speedrun-steel-path-molt-roar-xata/

TALONS BUILDS
Light Attack Combo Talons: https://overframe.gg/build/314691/
Heavy Spam Talons: https://overframe.gg/build/314738/
Hybrid combo x12 heavy Talons: https://overframe.gg/build/314696/

PLAYSTYLE

General Ability Rotation
1. Cast Bloodletting (tap 3) twice at beginning of a mission to hit near max energy (240 energy per 50% health consumed), and recast whenever needed e.g. energy drops below 300
2. Cast up to three Blood Altars (aim at enemy and tap 2) and either spread out circles evenly throughout an area for maximum coverage or concentrate in one location for maximum heal rate.
3. Keep [Dread] Mirror (aim at enemy and tap 1) active at all times and face direction of enemies to block frontal damage, while absorbing damage into dread heart. Dread Mirror also prevents knockdown/stagger. Leap onto additional enemies (trying to target heaviest units) to build up more [Dread] heart damage.
4. Charge [Dread] Heart (hold 1) and release to nuke, ideally keep at least 100 energy so you can still cast 4 on demand. If you built up sufficient damage via leaping and absorbing prior to charging, you can just charge for a very short time and release it immediately so you don't stay in a vulnerable charging state for too long.
5. Cast Seeking [Talons] ([Double Tap] 4 for narrow cone, tap 4 and allow it to expand for maximum cone) to cause slash procs and mark enemies to take slash procs from damage from any source, including [Dread] Heart. If you're running [Blending Talons] augment, you can just simply tap 4 once for full shield gate.

Survivability
We rely on a combination of shield gating, crowd control and invulnerability frames (i-frames) to survive.

• Shield gating: Whenever you deplete shields you gain a certain number of i-frames based on how much shield you had. Brief Respite and two augur mods allows a single cast of seeking talons generate 230 shield, which is approximately 1s of i-frames. Having even more Augur mods on your pistol allows you to generate 310 shield, giving almost 1.3s of iframes.
• Crowd control: Both [Dread] mirror and Blood Altar create an 8m radial stagger on landing and Seeking Talons both knocks nearby melee enemies back and the slash procs create a brief stagger animation.
• I-frames: Both dread mirror and seeking talons now have inbuilt i-frames, meaning Rolling Guard's i-frames are no longer necessary when you can simply cast seeking [Talons] once to get full shield [Regen], rather than rolling followed by either [Dread] mirror or seeking [Talons]. Status cleanse from bloodletting also lets you quickly get rid of damaging status procs or annoying cold procs.

Combos and Aerial Combat
[Garuda]'s abilities can be linked together in certain 'combos'. [Garuda]'s 3 and 4 abilities also launch her into the air particularly when cast while already airborne. The combination of the two can cause you to [Reach] very high altitude without even bullet jumping. There are many benefits for aerial combat. You become a harder target to hit while airborne and moving, melee units cannot hit you, ground based damage sources cannot hit you e.g. mines, toxic sludge, grenades, you have a better overview of enemies allowing for easier targeting of dread mirror, dread heart and seeking talons.

• Heart to Heart (Aerial Chain Nuke Combo): With [Dread] mirror active, while in air, tap 4, aim glide, hold 1 to hover and release dread heart to nuke, aim glide, tap 1 on enemy before they die to refresh dread mirror for new dread heart.
• Clean Energy (Status Cleanse): When you are afflicted with a damaging status, cast 4 and immediately start tapping 3 to fit a cast of Bloodletting within the last few i-frames of 4 to get a safe status cleanse as well as regenerate energy safely. You get 1.75s of i-frames from the beginning of casting 4 and become free to move/cast new abilities for the last 0.5s. Bloodletting takes 0.8s to finish casting.
• The Ascension: With [Dread] mirror active, while aiming down sights, tap 3 to ascend into sky. This means you don't need to bullet jump to achieve air time and can keep dread mirror facing enemies the whole time
• Honing Altar: Attack a blood altar enemy with melee to build up melee combo to x12 without killing the enemy, great for x12 heavy attacks.

HELMINTH

[Garuda] does still lack a good crowd control option which is where helminth can come into play. We always replace Blood Altar as it is the weakest component of her kit:

Breach Surge
Gives a wide range blind for crowd control and surge sparks have a positive feedback loop with Seeking [Talons], creating self propagating sparks that deal infinitely increasing slash procs over time. Garuda's passive also double dips on Breach Surge sparks (i.e. 4x damage to spark). Max range variant for breach surge: https://overframe.gg/build/489274/

Expedite Suffering
Expedite suffering compresses all existing slash procs and their remaining duration and deal them in one instance of true damage. This new damage instance can also create a new big bleed proc on enemies afflicted by seeking [Talons]. Casting expedite suffering again compresses the 6s of the new bleed proc into an even bigger instance of damage, which again can feedback into seeking [Talons] creating an infinitelyscaling feedback loop. No change to build except maybe [Brief Respite] in aura.

Gloom
Provides both passive healing (with infinite range) and insane crowd control with a radial slow field (up to 95%). Slightly different build with overextended swapped for stretch and augur message swapped for augur secrets or blending talons: https://overframe.gg/build/303690/

Molt with [Regenerative Molt] augment
Gives speed boost, quick cast for shield gating, draws aggro, explodes with damage in wide radius (which can become slash with seeking talons) and the augment gives 50hp/s at base to 500hp total over 10s which is not dependant on the presence of enemies. Great choice for speedrunning, particularly when used in combination with Blood Forge. A dedicated molt build uses mostly duration and strength: https://overframe.gg/build/304728/

Nourish (UPDATED Dec 2022)
Nourish now gives double energy from all sources including Bloodletting, meaning you always gain full energy in a single cast AND infused viral damage/procs into both [Dread] Mirror explosion AND Seeking Talons. If you run Combat Discipline, you can also proc forced viral in an AOE every kill. See this build: https://overframe.gg/build/443145/garuda-prime/nourish-discpline-garuda/

Reave
Reave heals health to power bloodletting AND the true damage triggers bleed procs on enemies afflicted by seeking [Talons]. You can also reduce enemy health by an exact %, which works well with [Dread Ward] augment.

BUILD SPECIFICS

Duration
Positive duration helps maintain uptime of [Dread] mirror, blood altar and seeking [Talons] mark. Use a combination of [Primed Continuity] and [Constitution] or [Augur Message] to offset [Transient Fortitude].

Efficiency
Neutral efficiency is suggested because the amount of energy returned from bloodletting scales positively with efficiency, meaning you get 364 energy per 50% health at 100% efficiency (2.5 casts to refill whole energy bar from 0), compared to only 228 energy per cast at 45% efficiency (4 casts required to refill whole energy bar from 0). This means you need to spam bloodletting much less often (less vulnerable periods) and one cast provides enough energy to perform multiple combos of Seeking Talons and Dread Mirror/Blood Altar. Neutral efficiency also means you can channel [Dread] Heart more efficiently and get more damage for less drain. [Primed Flow] is essential to hold more energy for chaining combos.

Range
High range is used to increase the pounce range of dread mirror/blood altar, the size of the [Dread] Heart explosion, Blood Altar heal radius. Use [Overextended] with either [Augur Reach] or [Stretch] to hit above 200% range.

Strength
We only need to hit the 134% strength breakpoint to give Seeking [Talons] a 100% chance to cause slash procs. This can be achieved with Transient fortitude and Umbral intensify to offset overextended.

Aura
Brief Respite - Essential for good shield gating.
Swift Momentum - Good for melee/talons focused build for maintaining combo and heavy attacks
Combat Discipline - Only for activating arcane avenger

Exilus
Primed Sure Footed/Handspring - not needed for most weapons as Dread Mirror blocks knockdown, but still has inconsistent stagger resist for certain AOE weapons
Kavat's Grace - prevents hard landings which is very common when using Garuda, as all her abilities cause you to launch into the air
Vigilante Pursuit - if no [Enemy Radar]

Augments
All augments are optional and can be placed over [Augur Message] depending on preference (means you need to use [Brief Respite] in aura or add one augur mod on pistol for shield gating) and there is really only room for one augment at a time:

Blending Talons - Tapping 4 gives a radial area of seeking [Talons] and also helps build combo quicker. This is more a quality of life change and up to personal preference, as you can get a quick shield gate in one tap rather than [Double Tap] of 4, as well as being able to target enemies behind you with no animation lock. You can still hold to charge 4 to cover the original 60m range.

Blood Forge - Allows you to reload your weapon by casting bloodletting. Great with certain weapons hampered by insanely long reloads e.g. [Strun], [Kuva Zarr], [Trumna], Sepulcrum, Tenet Envoy, Quellor, Gorgon, Komorex, Kuva Chakkhurr, Tenet Arca Plasmor, Akarius. Note: this does NOT work with Hata-Satya on Soma Prime as it counts as a proper reload.

Dread Ward - gives a long duration of invulnerability if you either kill directly with [Dread] mirror (requires health < 40% threshold) or kill with a slash proc just as the [Dread] mirror leap animation occurs even if they die before you land. Pairs well with Reave which harvests a set % of health per cast, but the micromanaging of the invulnerability period and enemy health values can become tiresome and is overall inconsistent compared to just shield gating. The other issue is if you run [Panzer Vulpaphyla], matryr symbiosis will trigger BEFORE [Dread Ward] prevents your death and your Panzer will [Sacrifice] itself for no reason. In my opinion, it is safer and more fluid gameplay wise to rely purely on shield gating and crowd control.

Other
Natural talent is MANDATORY on Garuda.

Arcanes

• Molt Reconstruct - gives you healing on spending energy, particularly useful if you subsume something over blood altar that doesn't heal you e.g. breach surge and expedite suffering
• Arcane Eruption - good passive crowd control choice to help since Garuda doesn't have very good in built passive crowd control
• Molt Augmented - more strength
• Molt Efficiency - more duration
• Avenger - only if you run [Combat Discipline]. Bloodletting does NOT trigger Avenger.

Archon Shards
Two or more amber cast speed shards allows you to drop [Natural Talent] for a flexible option like an augment or [Rolling Guard]
Can use Azure shardswith HP [Regen] as an alternative to running molt reconstruct.
Fill remaining slots with duration, strength or energy max based on preferece.

ARSENAL

Weapons that have AOE spread and have high base damage or damage source are very deadly in combination with Seeking [Talons]. Remember that bleed procs do not scale off elemental mods, only +damage mods, +faction mods and crits.

Probocsis Cernos (1003 base damge with innate viral): https://overframe.gg/build/438592/
[Zymos] (953 base damage with innate toxin):

Sobek (acid deals 65% health which means it is infinitely scaling when turned into slash): https://overframe.gg/build/298052/
Note [Acid Shells] only scales from faction mods. The resulting AOE slash procs will not be affected by the +dmg or elemental mods.

GLAIVES/CONTAGION
Garuda's +100% dmg passive applieis TWICE to Glaives and Exodia Contagion

Glaive Prime: https://overframe.gg/build/270712/
Pathocyst: https://overframe.gg/build/602033/
Xoris (influence): https://overframe.gg/build/325681/
Cerata: https://overframe.gg/build/325682/
Contagion: https://overframe.gg/build/241631/