I was reading this text guide for the final Garden of Salvation boss encounter, and I noticed a couple points that might be particularly helpful (I’ve attempted this boss fight twice with two different fireteams, and these points would likely have helped both groups).

*** Encounter spoilers from here on. ***

Point 1: Mote Collectors - Stagger your banking.

Probably the most common cause of failure that I’ve experienced with this fight is having the first pair of mote-chasers bank their motes, use their buff to clear shielded ads, but then their buffs expire before the next mote collectors are done, so the defenders are left watching a bunch of shielded ads sacrifice themselves with no way to deal with them.

The guide I linked above has a smart solution to this problem. When the first pair of mote collectors returns from the portal, 1 player will bank right away and start clearing out shielded ads. The other mote-carrier waits. There’s actually no need to bank them right away. They should just hold on to them for a while... wait until a full wave of ads has been cleared, then bank your notes as the next wave spawns. This way, the 2nd banker will still have a buff 15-20 seconds after the first banker’s buff has expired, which should give the 2nd pair of mote collectors plenty of time to return from the portal.

In order to hit 2 birds with 1 stone, the guide also suggests having the 2nd mote collector (the one who waits before banking) be in charge of destroying the Cyclops that spawn as the portal team returns. Upon being “pulled back”, the first mote-collector runs straight for their bank and deposits, while the second mote collector stays up on the ledge, waits for the cyclops to spawn, and destroys it. From up on that ledge, they should be safe from the other ads, so they’ll have an easier time hitting the cyclops than the defenders on the ground.

Point 2: Boss tether - 4 players form a “Tether Team”

This point strikes me as something that might work really well for some teams, but not others.

During the DPS phase, 2 tethers will need to be formed and linked to the boss. The common strategy seems to be to split the fireteam into 2 groups of 3; one group on each side. Each group is responsible for completing the tether on their respective side, when it is the appropriate time. In my experience, this can lead to several problems (sometimes 3 players struggle to form their tether, or there’s too much of a delay between 1 team forming their tether and the other team getting into position).

The guide proposes a different strategy. For the DPS phase, select 4 players who will be responsible for building the tethers, and assign each player a number (1, 2, 3, 4). Player 1 will be the one closest to the tether box, player 4 will be the one closest to the boss, with players 2 and 3 completing the line between them. Once the first tether point activates, the tether team gets into position and builds the tether (which will be more forgiving with 4 players than with 3). As soon as the first tether is complete, the whole tether team just shuffles sideways over to the 2nd tether position, maintaining their line formation as they move. This will make completing the 2nd tether very quick and easy.

While all this is going on, the remaining 2 players are shooting the boss the entire time. The tether team can fire at the boss a little while they’re moving from the first to second tethers, and then join in for full DPS after completing the second tether.

The big risk with this strategy would be the extra 2 players; they need to make sure they rotate away from whichever side has an active tether, so they don’t get caught up in the tether construction and mess it all up. Still seems like a better overall strategy to me, but might work out differently for different teams.