AAC Light-heavyweight M2 Normal Raid Guide
Welcome to our guide to AAC Light-heavyweight M2, the second encounter in the first raid tier of The Arcadion. This guide aims to prepare players for the raid so they will know what to expect, with simple mechanic instructions and notes on what to watch out for.
Introduction
Honey B. Lovely is the second boss fought in AAC Light-heavyweight.
How to Unlock Honey B. Lovely
To unlock AAC Light-heavyweight M2, players must complete the quest "Sweet Poison." This is the second quest in the quest chain starting from "A New Challenger Appears," which can be received from the Stylish Stranger in Solution Nine (x19.1, y18.8). There is a minimum item level restriction of 685 to enter through the duty finder in a matched party.
Lore
Having bested Black Cat, you prepare to face your second opponent─Honey B. Lovely. With the pheromones of a queen bee and the charm of a songstress, she enthralls her foes before finishing them with deadly venom. If you are to resist her charms, you must steel yourself for a captivating confrontation...
Raid Guide
Honey B. Lovely is fought in a circular arena. The outside of the arena inflicts a lightning damage-over-time debuff if players are knocked or step into it.
During certain phases of the fight, players will receive a heart gauge on top of their character with three empty hearts. Getting hit by certain mechanics will fill these hearts up, and if all three hearts are filled, the player will be enthralled by Honey B. Lovely, receiving the Fatal Attraction debuff for four seconds and becoming unable to perform any actions.
Phase One
Phase one has you do battle with Honey B. Lovely. This phase will introduce players to mechanics in the fight.
Phase One Mechanics
The following mechanics are introduced in phase one.
- Call Me Honey: Raidwide magical damage.
- Tempting Twist: A donut AoE.
- Honey Beeline: A line AoE that hits both front and back.
- Honeyed Breeze: A conal tank buster on both tanks that deals physical damage.
- Honey B. Live: Raidwide magical damage. All players receive the heart gauge until Honey B. Finale is cast.
- Love Me Tender: Marked AoE on all players, or ground AoEs later in the fight. Increases the heart gauge by 1 if hit.
- Fracture: Towers appear that must be soaked by at least one player. A player being hit increases the heart gauge by 1.
- Loveseeker: A point-blank AoE that creates hearts that fan out. Getting hit by a heart or the AoE increases the heart gauge by 1.
- Blow Kiss: Honey B. Lovely turns and does a conal AoE.
- Honey B. Finale: Raidwide magic damage, and ends the heart gauge phase.
Phase One Strategy
- The fight begins with an introduction to the basic mechanics: the standard raidwide, a donut AoE, a line AoE, and the dual tank busters.
- Honey B. Lovely will begin the real fight by casting Honey B. Live. All players receive a heart gauge on top of their character model, and if it reaches 3 they'll be enthralled by Honey B. Lovely. Make sure to avoid getting hit by avoidable mechanics during this phase.
- Spread for Love Me Tender, then have players soak the Fracture towers. Ideally there is only one person per tower to avoid needless stacks.
- Dodge Loveseeker, and then start dodging the AoEs from Love Me Tender as well as the hearts coming from the middle. Hearts will give a vuln stack and increase the gauge by 1.
- Once Honey B. Lovely turns to a random player and starts casting Blow Kiss, get behind her.
- Start in the middle and move into the first AoE that spawns for the third set of Love Me Tender AoEs. Then, move behind her for Blow Kiss.
- Heal up for Honey B. Finale, which ends the heart gauge phase.
Phase Two
In phase two, Honey B. Lovely begins to coat her stinger with poison.
Phase Two Mechanics
The following mechanics are introduced in phase two.
- Splash of Venom: Honey B. Lovely coats her weapon with poison. This creates blobs on the ground that explode in large AoEs, and all players are marked with an AoE that inflicts poison resistance down.
- Drop of Venom: Honey B. Lovely coats her weapon with poison. This creates blobs on the ground that explode in large AoEs, and a random player is marked with a stack marker that inflicts poison resistance down.
- Alarm Pheromones: Spawns groupbees at the edge of the arena. These will have a green tether that indicates a line AoE in that direction.
- Heartsick: Two stack markers spawn on random players. Getting hit by the stack increases the heart gauge by 1.
Phase Two Strategy
- When Honey B. Lovely casts Splash of Venom or Drop of Venom, after the next Tempting Twist or Honey Beeline blobs will spawn on the ground. Avoid these and find the safe spot, then spread or stack based on the mechanic.
- Once she casts Alarm Pheromones, head to the edge of the arena behind the first line AoE and rotate around to continue dodging line AoEs.
- Another set of groupbees will spawn, this time forming two safe spots on opposite sides. This will be accompanied with Honey Beeline, so move to the sides of the boss.
- The next Honey B. Live phase will begin afterwards. This begins with Heartsick into Fracture towers. Make sure to separate the stacks, and only take one tower for a maximum of two stacks.
- Dodge Loveseeker, the AoEs, and hearts. The rest of these mechanics are the exact same as the ones in the previous heart phase.
- After Honey B. Finale, Alarm Pheromones is cast again. This time, the line AoEs markers will target random players, so dodge across the arena as a group. This is followed by Tempting Twist accompanied with Splash of Venom.
- Alarm Pheromones with two safe spots, Honey Beeline, and Drop of Venom follow this.
- After this is another heart phase, and the boss repeats mechanics until defeated.
Loot
Coffers that appear after defeating Honey B. Lovely will yield tokens that can be traded in for gear. The drops for this fight are listed below.
- 1x Lightheavy Holohelm;
- 1x Lightheavy Holoarmor;
- 1x Lightheavy Hologauntlets;
- 1x Lightheavy Holochausses;
- 2x Lightheavy Hologreaves;
- 2x Lightheavy Holoearring.
In addition, an extra coffer rarely appears that drops the Bee My Honey Orchestrion Roll.
Changelog
- 02 Aug. 2024: Added boss image.
- 16 Jul. 2024: Guide added.
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This guide has been written by Lyra an accomplished raider in FFXIV and has written raid guides for the game for the past five years. You can follow him on Twitter and he streams raids on Twitch.
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