Arcadion Savage M1S Guide

Welcome to my guide for the AAC Light-Heavyweight M1 Savage encounter, the first raid tier in The Arcadion. This guide is designed to help players prepare for the raid by providing detailed mechanic instructions for clearing and consistent weekly farming. Note: These are the week one strategies, which means that the execution in PF can change later and the execution in different regions can be different.

Small Preparations Before The Pull

Before pulling the boss it is recommended to assign clock spots for your party. Standard is MT – South, OT – South, H1 – West, H2 – East, and dps on 4 intercardinal positions. We also need to split group into 2 light party’s and 4 pair groups.

First Phase – Quadrupple Crossing

quadruple-crossing

The fight begins with the mechanic Quadrupple Crossing. This attack will fire two conal AoE attacks at the 4 closest players, dealing high damage and applying a slashing vulnerability debuff. Players who get hit twice will be instantly dead.

To resolve this mechanic, 4 support players should stand close to the boss and take the first 4 hits. Immediately after, they should step back and let DPS players come close to the boss and take their 4 hits.
After firing the first 2 sets of conal attacks, the boss will fire follow-up conal attacks on the same spots in the same order. So the players should step back from cardinals and dodge conal attacks that were baited by support and then step aside to dodge the last conal attack that was baited by dps players.

After that, the boss will cast Biscuit Maker – a physical tank buster that hits twice and inflicts a slashing vulnerability up debuff. Tanks can swap or invuln.

Then the Black Cat jumps into the middle and begins the cast of Nine Lives – that gives Black Cat a buff that causes to project her next attack onto a soul shade clones that she will spawn later. When the clones tethered and activated later they will copy the exact same order and mechanics that she did. The first Nine Lives is One-two Paw – just dodge the half-arena cleaves and remember which side she cleaving first.

Right after, this mechanic will be projected to the soulshade clones that spawn on the arena, who after being tethered, will do the same One-two Paw cleaves. And this leaves a 1/8 of the arena pizza slice safe spot for two back-to-back hits. When you find the first safe spot, the second safe spot will always be directly opposite of the first:

During the dodge she will start cast either Double Swipe or Quadruple Swipe.
Double Swipe – targets both healers with a light party stack. Quadruple Swipe targets 4 dps players or 4 support players with a pair stack. For the light party, move to the B and D markers right after the paws are done. For pairs, go to the cardinal positions based on our color pair spots.

Next, she will cast Leaping Quadruple Crossing and repeat the first mechanic, but this time Black Cat will jump to the tethered position, and you must preposition yourself there on your assigned clock spots to bait 2 sets of conal AOEs and then dodge them twice. After the dodge, the clone will repeat the Swipe mechanic. Whether it’s a Double or Quadruple stack, you need to stand with your partner or light party group, depending on the previous swipe.

Right after, she will cast Bloody Scratch, which is a hard-hitting raid wide. Make sure to mitigate and heal because, without mitigation, players with 710 ilvl gear will probably die.

Second Phase – Mouser 1

mouser-1

After the raid-wide Black Cat attack, it will jump to the middle and cast Mouser 1, destroying most tiles. Focus on safe spots on the two southern tiles. After the restoration of some tiles, Black Cat will create Copycat, summoning a clone to target 4 players with two different attacks Elevate and Eviscerate.

Watch out for the paw symbol which indicates stun when hit and ensure the party is in a safe spot during the attack.

If the Copycat raises her glowing left fist, she will damage the platform. To safely bait the hit, stand on an uncracked platform.
If the Copycat is crouched and raising her glowing right fist, the target will be knocked up to the platform they’re facing. Stand in front of an undamaged platform and make sure you’re looking at it before you’re hit (DON’T GREED).

After Copycat hits 4 players, she will repeat Tank Buster Biscuit Maker – Mitigate and tank swap (don’t use Invuln here). Then she will cast a Shockwave like in normal mode, but this time it cannot be immune by Arm’s Lenght or Surecast. Position yourself toward the reconstructing platforms to land a safe spot, and make sure that you knock all the way to the CORNER.

Third Phase – Nailchipper

nailchimper

Now we reached the hardest part of the encounter, and the successful resolving of this mechanic depends on the Main Tank or the person who can do callouts for the party to navigate the group to safe spots:

Black Cat will start by using Nine Lives and Leaping One-two Paw. Then, she’ll use Soulshape to create a clone at either the A or C marker. Players should dodge the One-two Paw and remember the direction Black Cat leaped in (left or right), the initial safe spot for the cleaves (inside or outside), and where the tethered clone was (A or C). It’s helpful to write this down in chat for everyone to remember.
Next, the tank needs to bring the boss back to the middle. One of the sleeping clones will activate, and players will need to perform the mechanic remembered by the clone based on where the clone is facing. After the first clone’s mechanics are resolved, the second clone’s mechanics begin.
If it’s a Leaping One-Two Paw clone, the boss should be moved to where the clone will jump to, as Black Cat will cast Tempestuous Tear. One light party should be relative north, and the other light party should be relative south of the clone. One-two Paw will occur at the same time as the stack marker, so players need to dodge as they take damage.
If it’s Leaping Quadruple Crossing clone, the boss should be moved to where the clone will jump to, as Black Cat will cast Nailchipper. The role without the marker will have to bait first on their clock spots, as the AoE is quite large. Keep in mind that the clone is the one doing the conal AoEs, so bait using the lines on the ground and not the boss, as the boss may be slightly mispositioned.
The four marked players need to move slightly away from the boss to avoid hitting anyone else with the AoE. The first baits go off at the same time as the first Nailchipper AoEs, so the marked players need to be ready to run in to bait the second set of conal AoEs. Another set of prey markers will go out on the role that didn’t get them before, so players need to spread out in the safe intercardinal quadrants.

And at the end of this phase boss will cast Bloody Scratch raid-wide AOE.

Phase Four – Mouser 2

mouser-2

The next mechanic will be Mouser 2. The patterns will be the same as in Mouser 1, so be prepared to dodge in the same way. In this phase, each Elevate and Eviscerate will be accompanied by either a Splintering Nails or an Overshadow. There will always be two of each, but the order in which they occur is random.

The Copycat will target the four players of the role that were not targeted in the Mouser 1. When it’s Overshadow, all players should already be stacked in the safe tile and avoid Copycats AoE. As for Splintering Nails, all players need to look at the boss and position themselves in roles relative to the safe square T H D (don’t overlap roles or all players will die). The players marked with Elevate and Eviscerate should run out to their tiles while everyone else heals up in between each hit.

In follow-up we have the buster Biscuit Maker into Shockwave, but this time, tanks should save their invulnerability to cheese the next mechanic and make the healers life much easier.

Final Phase – Raining Cats

raining-cats-1

This is the final phase of the fight called Raining Cats. Two tethers will appear from the boss. These tethers will cast a conal AoE attack, which will inflict a long-lasting slashing vulnerability debuff and deal approximately 140,000 physical slashing damage. At the same time, the two players closest to, and farthest from, the boss will receive an unmarked stack marker. This marker inflicts a magic vulnerability debuff and deals roughly 200,000 magic damage split between the two players who are stacked together.

Right after Shockwave, you should preposition your light parties except tanks. The main tank should stay on A (North), and the off tank should stay on C (South), while the rest of the groups stay on B and D. Group 1, located on D, should stay at max melee range, while Group 2 should stay on B very close to the Black Cat hitbox.
When the tethers spawn, tanks should take them and absorb the first hit without using invulnerability. Right before the second tether hit, they should pop their invuln so they can absorb the second and third tethers without taking any damage. Immediately after this, the fourth tether should be taken by any members from Groups 1 and 2. Make sure to mitigate this because while the tanks are taking the tethers, the AOE attacks hit the rest of the group very hard.

The Last mechanic Predaceous Pounce. This mechanic is the same as in normal mode, but Black Cat will also cast One-Two Paw towards the end. Copycat will jump across the arena, unleashing large AoE attacks and line AoEs in between. Players who are hit will be affected by damage over time (DOT). Right after that, Black Cat will jump to the middle of the arena, and begin to cast her enrage Mouser.

This move will break all the tiles on the arena causing all players to fall to their deaths. Make sure to defeat the boss before she finishes you off!

Predaceous-Pounce

FFXIV AAC Light-heavyweight M1 Savage Loot

After defeating AAC Light-heavyweight M1 Savage in Final Fantasy XIV, you will receive the following rewards:

30 Allagan Tomestones of Heliometry.
1 Black Cat Card.
1 AAC Illustrated: LWH Edition 1.

If your party has not cleared the raid this week, you may also find Treasure Coffers containing the following rewards:

Dark Horse Champion’s Earring Coffer (IL 730).
Dark Horse Champion’s Necklace Coffer (IL 730).
Dark Horse Champion’s Bracelet Coffer (IL 730).
Dark Horse Champion’s Ring Coffer (IL 730).

This concludes the details about AAC Light-heavyweight M1 Savage in Final Fantasy XIV! There are more Savage fights awaiting you in the Arcadion. Was that too overwhelming? Use our Arcadion boost to get the rewards from the rain or learn it with a pro team!