Urth's Trial Size Guide

Introduction
Hi, I'm Urthdigger, resident galka and quest nut. I've noticed a lot of people having trouble with the 20 cap fights for the avatars, and decided to post up my own strategy that works fairly well, slightly tweaked from the current strategies up. This guide is currently under work, I will make the page look nicer as well as put links to all the gear and items and such that'll be required, and more special care as to what each avatar requires later... but for now it'll have to do.

Guide
Items required: Any form of refresh, pineapple drinks work well, 3 hi-potions (You may only use about 2), 3 hi-ethers, au lait (Might want to go all out with persikos, though pear works great as well), and some defense food like boiled crab.

Armor: Go full out defense: So long as you have over 40 MP, that's all that matters. Int, mnd: Forget about it. If you have abysmal HP (I didn't have to worry about this, but taru might) grab some +HP items. You'll want AT LEAST 170 HP, 200+ to be safe. Two items that are a must have however are a Hermit's Wand, and Heko Obi +1. They're not that expensive, and you'll want the spell interruption -%.

Other preparation: Raise your summoning skill. Mine wasn't capped, but the more you have, less chance of getting interrupted (Easiest way to raise it is to use bloodpacts while fighting foes that /check as EM or higher). Also, it really helps to fight the avatar on either Lightsday to make Carbuncle more powerful, or on the day their element is weak to in order to make them less powerful. It is possible to beat them on an off day though.

Sub: /whm. God help you if you don't have your spells.

Strategy:

Enter the crystal and throw up Protect, Aquaveil, and the relevant bar-spell if it's a low enough level (Barwatera for Leviathan, Barsleepra for Shiva as I've heard she can cast sleep, though I've never seen it). Use your food, your au lait, and your drink, they'll all last longer than the battle.

Halfway up the path (When the path curves), summon Carbuncle (UNLESS YOU'RE FIGHTING RAMUH. IF FIGHTING RAMUH, DO NOT SUMMON CARBUNCLE HERE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, WAIT UNTIL LATER). Go up the rest of the way, and you'll see one final crack shortly before the path widens into the avatar's platform. Now, most guides care about this: This is the furthest you can go before any actions you do aggro the avatar, but you've already got all your prep done, so walk just a little past it and cast banish on them to piss them off and do some decent damage if you've worked on your divine skill at all. (NOTE: IF FACING RAMUH, INSTEAD WALK STRAIGHT UP TO HIM AND LET HIM AGGRO AND HIT YOU WITH THUNDERSPARK. AFTERWARDS, CAST PARALYNA TO REMOVE PARALYZE, SUMMON CARBUNCLE, THEN PROCEED AS NORMAL). Now, if you've been following my directions so far, your drink should be active. If for some reason it's not, pop it now. Use your 2h, and use Astral Flow followed by Searing Light to smack the avatar for a good third of it's health and to really piss it off and get hate on carby (NOTE: IF FACING GARUDA, LET CARBUNCLE MELEE HER UNTIL YOU'VE SEEN THREE SHADOWS REMOVED. GARUDA'S BLINK IS DIFFERENT THAN YOURS MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE THREE ARE GONE BEFORE PROCEEDING). As soon as Searing Light goes off, RUN. Go down the path and back to the crystal. Once you see Carbuncle's name disappear from the screen (His health bar will be gone when you're far enough away, then his name will fade when he dies), resummon him so he'll run back and smack the boss a little more as it runs down to you.

Once you reach the crystal, pop one of your ethers, as well as a hi-potion, maybe a second one. No matter what, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE OVER 170 HP. Once the Avatar catches up to you, the minute will probably be up for Searing Light to be useable again. Use it. Now, once Carbuncle jumps up in the air, it's safe to run. When you hear what'll happen next, you'll be tempted to run right when you send the command, but DON'T DO THAT. While it is possible for a skilled player to do that by knowing the distance where he can send commands to carby, as well as managing to get carbuncle so he's closer to the path, it's not a big deal: If you've followed my directions, you'll live. So in short, wait for Carbuncle to jump into the air before running back up the path.

Ok, you ready? Right, once the avatar gets hit with Searing Light a second time, it's probably going to drop his HP low enough that he'll use his own Astral Flow. In all the times I did these, the avatar only saved it for later once. Now, it IS possible to outrun the spell. Please note: I have only done it twice, and I tried these battles a lot. However, the ability will totally kill Carbuncle, hence why you start running once he jumped into the air instead of once the Searing Light hit. As soon as you get hit by their Astral Flow, pop a hi potion. Or two. Pop a hi-ether if you have less than 10 MP. Once you feel safe, summon Carbuncle again. Things may seem at their darkest now, but they only use their Astral flow once, and you're almost done anyway. Once you summon Carbuncle, continue running up the path. Just let Carby melee until he dies, you'll need to wait for Searing Light to be up again. Once he's dead, resummon as the avatar glides toward you, and greet him with a Searing Light. Boom, he should be dead. If not, he'll almost be. Another Banish, or some melee outta finish him off.