M2S Raid Guide | FFXIV Dawntrail 7.05 (FF14)

AAC Light-heavyweight M2 (Savage) is the first savage raid in the first tier of the Arcadion in Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail (FF14). Read on to learn more about the boss, Black Cat, and a guide to the raid mechanics and attack patterns during the boss fight!

List of Contents

AAC Light-heavyweight M2 (Savage) Raid Guide

Honey B. Main Mechanics

Moves	Description
Call Me Honey	AoE attack that deals damage to all players
Killer Sting	A Tank buster attack that deals physical damage between two tanks.
Stinging Slash	A double Tank buster attack in wide conal shape, hitting everything behind both tanks.
Honey Beeline	A line AoE attack that hits anyone who's in front and behind Honey B. Summons Splinter puddles of honey around the room.
Tempting Twist	A donut AoE attack around Honey B Lovely, leaving her hitbox as the only safe spot. Summons Splinter puddles of honey around the room.
Drop of Venom	Honey B. Lovely coats her weapon. After the next Tempting Twist or Honey Beeline, four players of the same role will be targeted with AoE damage that's shared between each other. Deals magic poison damage, split between two players, and inflicts a poison resistance debuff.
Splash of Venom	Same with Drop of Venom, except all players will be targeted with an unmarked AoE. Deals magic poison damage and inflicts a poison resistance debuff.

This is the list of moves Honey B. Lovely will use throughout the fight regardless of phase.

Heart Gauge

The Heart Gauge is Honey B. Lovely's main gimmick, and is applied when Honey B uses her Beats move. Each time Honey B. attacks, one heart stack will be added, which increases DoT, and upon reaching four heart stacks, the player will be stunned for six seconds with Fatal Attraction. Each time a player gets stunned, Honey B. Lovely will restore a little bit of HP and gains a stack of Queen Bee, which increases her damage.

Honey B. Phase 1

Moves	Description
Honey B. Live: 1st Beat	A Raid-wide magical attack that transitions the arena and applies the Heart Gauge above the player's head.
Centerstage Combo	Donut-shaped AoE around Honey B, extending with cross conal AoEs, followed up by a wide plus sign-shaped AoE, then a point-blank AoE with cross AoEs. Getting hit by any of these increases the Heart Gauge.
Outerstage Combo	Same as Centerstage Combo but in reverse order.
Love Me Tender	Summons Fracture towers. Fracture: Towers spawned in the arena that must be soaked. Soaking a tower increases the Heart Gauge by 1; if not soaked, all players take massive damage, and everyone's Heart Gauge increases by 1. This inflicts approximately 12,000 magic damage.
Loveseeker	AoE attack around Honey B that inflicts 1 heart when hit.
Heartsick	AoE attack that inflicts a total of four hearts to players. If four players are within the area, each player will receive one heart each. Deals magic damage divided among the players in the stack.
Honey B. Finale	Ends the Beats phase, removes the Heart Gauge and deals magic damage to all players.

Centerstage/Outerstage Combo Patterns

Centerstage Combo Patterns
1. Donut-shaped AoE with extending cross conal AoEs.	2. Wide plus sign-shaped AoE
3. Point-blank AoE with extending cross AoEs.
Outerstage Combo Patterns
3. Point-blank AoE with extending cross AoEs.	2. Wide plus sign-shaped AoE
1. Donut-shaped AoE with extending cross conal AoEs.

Love Me Tender → Love Seeker → Love Me Tender

Love Me Tender → Love Seeker → Love Me Tender
1. Melee DPS will deal with the towers inside while ranged DPS will take down the towers outside.	2. After Honey B. uses a circular AoE, hearts will appear from the center and from the outside edge.
3. The Melee DPS team with two hearts will deal with Honey B.'s minions around her while dodging the hearts.

When stepping on a tower, each step accumulates one heart stack. The melee team should step on the tower to gain two hearts, while the ranged team should step on it to gain three hearts. Towers appear in two locations: some closer to the boss on the inside, and some farther from the boss on the outside. Ensure the melee team steps on the inside towers first.

Honey B then casts Love Seeker and performs a circular area attack around her, causing hearts to appear at both the center and the outer periphery. Shortly after the hearts appear, she casts Love Me Tender again to perform a split attack on the player with the fewest hearts. Use the melee team, which has accumulated two hearts from the first Love Me Tender, to avoid crossing hearts and manage the split attacks around the boss.

Honey B. Phase 2

Moves	Description
Honey B. Live: 2nd Beat	A Raid-wide magical attack that transitions the arena and applies three heart marks above the player's head
Alarm Pheromones (1st Time)	Summons Groupbees around the outer perimeter of the stage that use Binding Love. Binding Love: Line AoEs that knock random players back.
Spread Love	This is Splash of Vemon but it also increases the Heart Gauge by 1.
Drop of Love	This is Drop of Vemon but it also increases the Heart Gauge by 1.
Love Me Tender	In Phase 2, it summons AoEs with the towers from Phase 1.
Heartsick	Deals less damage this phase but still raises the Heart Gauge by 4.
Heartsore	Two players will be marked and damaged by an AoE and their Heart Gauge will increase by 1.

Alarm Pheromone (1st Time)

The first Alarm Pheromone is a mechanic also present in the normal version of this fight. It involves bees swarming around the outer perimeter and launching a linear AoE at each player. There is no definitive solution at the moment, but we are working on looking for a reliable strategy to beat this.

Memorize the attack patterns, then rush into the AoE attacks one by one. Alternatively, sprint around the arena to escape from the AoEs. Utilize any method you can think of to avoid these attacks with all your effort.

Honey B. Live: 2nd Beat

Honey B. Live: 2nd Beat Patterns
1. 2nd Beat starts. Players with 1 ♡s will gather on the south side, those with no ♡ will gather at Honey B's feet. She will also be charging Spread Love, which is an AoE attack, or Share Love which is a stack attack.	2. Honey B. will cast Love Me Tender. Afterwards, everyone will get a stack and start leaving AoEs. Move north.
3. The ♡0 group divides into east and west, with tanks and DPS assigned to each side to manage the range. The ♡1 group's members handle the range. Towers will then appear. The image shows them appearing in the north and south, though they can also appear in the east and west.	4.The pair stack lands between the 4th and 5th area discards of the ♡0 group.
5. Players with 1 ♡s who have nothing on them will step on the towers. Tanks will step on the towers that appear in the north or west, while DPS will step on the towers that appear in the south or east.	6. Tower stepping has been completed. Additionally, Players with 1 ♡s AoE lands. After this, Honey B will use Tempting Twist or Honey Beeline, so handle them appropriately to finish.

Honey B. Phase 3

Moves	Description
Honey B. Live: 3rd Beat	Same as the last two beats, but now she inflicts a debuff called Poison 'n' Pop. Poison 'n' Pop: A debuff that explodes and damages anyone inflicted and players around them after the debuff expires. Adds 1 heart to the Heart Gauge as well.
Poison Sting	Honey B. marks one player per role and drops a poison puddle that deals damage and inflicts a vulnerability debuff.
Bee Sting	This is a stack marker that's inflicted on two random players, one from each role. Deals damage that split between the two marker players and adds a piercing debuff.
Alarm Pheromones (2nd Time)	Same as the first time but now the line AoEs are static and form a square in the middle of the arena, forming safe zones outside.

Alarm Pheromone (2nd Time)

Alarm Pheromones Patterns
1.Honey B. casts Alam Pheromones. Tanks and healers gather in the north, while DPS gather in the south.	2. The Poison Sting target will throw the poison puddle at the safe zone formed by the outer bees' straight-line attack.
3. Honey B. will attack with puddles of poison where the green circles are. She will repeat this 4 times.	4. Bee Sting will be casted. Gathering at the center inner circle will be safer since there is not a lot of overlap between teams.

Honey B. Live: 3rd Beat

Honey B. Live: 3rd Beat Patterns
1. 3rd Beat starts. All players have the Poison 'n' Pop debuff. Note that Spread Love or Drop of Love will be casted immediately after.	2. Focus on dodging Centerstage/Outerstage Combo.
3. Roles with the shorter debuff will head to the intercardinal positions to let their debuff explode. Fracture towers will appear afterwards. Those without will stay in the center to get rid of the towers.	4. Debuff explodes, leaving the center as the safe space.
5. After the debuff explodes, the roles in the center can immediately go and attack the towers.	6. Another round of Centerstage/Outerstage Combos. Roles will be reversed now, and those in the center before will now be the roles with the debuff.
7. Repeat Step 3	8. Repeat Step 4
9. After the debuff explodes, the roles in the center can immediately go and attack the towers.	10. Honey B. casts Honey Beeline or Tempting Twist followed by Spread Love or Drop of Love, this image shows her Tempting Twist move.
11. Spread Love or Drop of Love immediately after the last spell. This image shows Spread Love attack.

Honey B. Phase 4

Moves	Description
Rotten Honey	Inflicts magic damage to all players. Each player receives either Beeloved Venom: Alpha or Beeloved Venom: Beta.

Rotten Honey

Beeloved Venom: Beta
Beeloved Venom: Alpha	When Beeloved Vemon: Alpha and Beta join together, they will neutralize and cause an explosion that damages everyone nearby and applies a magic vulnerability debuff.

Rotten Honey is a raidwide attack that damages and gives all players either the Alpha or Beta debuff. These debuff have four patterns: 12s, 28s, 44s, and 1m. Those with the shortest debuffs will go to the center to make sure no other players will get damaged.

Rotten Honey Patterns
1. Honey B. casts Rotten Honey. Everyone will spread out around Honey B..	2. Those with the 12s debuff, run towards the boss, and heal and attack. Running to the center will prevent damaging your other companions.
3. Honey B. casts Call Me Honey in between the debuffs expiring.	4.If you see a chance for recovery, make sure to take it. This leaves you with 5-6 seconds of the debuff left. Then repeat all steps.

Sheer Heart Attack

After the fourth cast of Rotten Honey, Honey B. will cast Sheer Heart Attack which will signal that the raid is about to end. Make sure to defeat this queen bee before she wipes the whole raid out!

How to Unlock AAC Light-heavyweight M2 (Savage)

Complete The Neoteric Witch

AAC Light-heavyweight M2 (Savage) will be unlocked after completing the quest “The Neoteric Witch” from the questline received from the Stylish Stranger in Solution Nine (X:19.1, Y:18.8)

AAC Light-heavyweight M2 (Savage) Information

AAC Light-heavyweight M2 (Savage)

Level	100
Item Level	705
Party Size	8
Time Limit	90 min
Requisite Quest	The Neoteric Witch

FFXIV Dawntrail Related Guides

List of Raids

List of Dawntrail Raids

All Dawntrail Raids
AAC Light-Heavyweight M1 (Normal)AAC Light-heavyweight M1 (Savage)	AAC Light-Heavyweight M2 (Normal)AAC Light-heavyweight M2 (Savage)
AAC Light-Heavyweight M3 (Normal)AAC Light-heavyweight M3 (Savage)	AAC Light-Heavyweight M4 (Normal)AAC Light-heavyweight M1 (Savage)
How to Unlock The Arcadion Raid

M2S Raid Guide | FFXIV Dawntrail 7.05 (FF14)｜Game8 (2024)