AAC Light-heavyweight M2

AAC Light-heavyweight M2, known to players as M2 or R2, is the second turn of the AAC Light-heavyweight tier of The Arcadion in Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail.
==Objectives==
===Normal===
*Defeat Honey B. Lovely
===Savage===
*Defeat Honey B. Lovely
==Story==
===Normal===
===Savage===
==Progression==
===Normal===
===Savage===
Unlike the previous turn, this fight starts with a raidwide attack, Call Me Honey. It is then followed by the most standard mechanics used throughout this fight: Spread of Venom or Drop of Venom paired with either Honey Beeline or Tempting Twist. The Venoms are stored mechanics, where Spread, as the name implies, must be taken by the party spreading, while Drop needs to be taken in pairs. For uptime reasons, pair Ranged DPS with Tanks and Melee DPS with Healers. Then, Honey B. uses either Honey Beeline or Tempting Twist. Honey Beeline is a line AoE that goes through her, which also spreads 8 poison bubbles to the sides of the arena, that will explode soon after. Tempting Twist is a donut AoE, that also spreads 8 poison bubbles, but in such a form, that safe spots are located at the near edge of the arena in the intercardinals.
* If you get Spread of Venom and Honey Beeline-combo, evade the line AoE by going to the sides, and then move to your spread positions and keep enough distance from other party members, as the Spread is resolved few seconds after the Beeline. If you instead get Drop of Venom with Honey Beeline, pair up in the intercardinals next to boss' hitbox.
* If you get Spread of Venom and Tempting Twist-combo, evade the donut by going inside her hitbox, then spread in your pre-assigned intercardinal at the edge. If you get Drop of Venom instead, pair up in the same intercardinal position.
Honey B. does these combos in such a way that she will use all four moves before advancing to the next mechanic, which is a randomly one out of two possible tankbusters: Killer Sting or Stinging Slash. Killer Sting is a double tankbuster to be taken by pairing the Tanks, while Stinging Slash is a wide cone tankbuster targeting both tanks separately, and to be kept away from the rest of the party. This random tankbuster will be cast several times during the fight.
After the tankbuster, Honey B. casts Honey B. Live: 1st Beat. This causes raidwide damage and turning the arena darker. Every player gets a heart gauge above them, that has 4 hearts. If this gauge is filled, you'll be charmed for a time, and Honey B. gains a Queen Bee-stack, which boosts her damage and also heals her. There is no way to remove them once she receives them. You will need to do your darnest to make sure Honey B. doesn't get too many stacks, preferably 0. As the raidwide happens, the party will randomly receive some hearts from 0 to 2. Every time you get hit by the mechanics at this point will increase the hearts in the gauge.
Honey B. will then cast either Centerstage Combo or Outerstage Combo. Centerstage Combo does three moves in the following order: a donut AoE and Proteans to the cardinals, wide line AoE's in a +-form and finally point-blank AoE with Proteans to the intercardinals. Outerstage Combo is the same, but in reverse order. Simply follow this pattern for Centerstage, and you'll be fine: go inside, then move to intercardinal, and then to cardinal at max melee range in minimum. With Outerstage, do the same order in reverse. Once you have evaded this, Honey B. casts Love Me Tender, and then towers will start to appear. Try to soak these towers, so that Tanks and Melees soak those close enough from Honey B. to be still hit from melee range, and Healers and Ranged DPS handle those farther back. Every time you soak a tower, you will get a heart, there's no avoiding it. But if you fail to soak a tower, every player gets a heart. Once you have soaked the towers, Honey B. casts Loveseeker. She does a point-blank AoE and then hearts will start to spawn from Honey B. and from the edges. Avoid these hearts like a devil. Also, have all players that have less than 3 hearts accumulated to prepare to take a party stack that Honey B. casts with Love Me Tender, that targets the player, who has the least amount of hearts accumulated. For the stack itself, it will divide four hearts between the players in the stack, so make sure you can still take that many hearts. Honey B. will then do the opposite combo. If you manage to do this part perfectly, Honey B. shouldn't have any stacks. Honey B. ends this phase Honey B. Finale-raidwide, turning the arena brighter again.
Honey B. will then do another random tankbuster, before casting Alarm Pheromones. This will spawn honeybees to the edge, that charge towards the direction their arrows are pointing towards. Getting hit by these charges causes a knockback, Piercing Resistance Down-debuff and Damage Down-debuff. There is no concrete order on how these honeybees will spawn, so all you can do is to keep your wits about, and move around carefully to not get hit. Be also prepared to give up uptime, as it is more important to avoid the honeybees than doing damage. Also remember that getting pushed to the very edge is an instant KO. Arm's Length/Surecast and Sprint can help a lot here.
Honey B. then casts Honey B. Live: 2nd Beat. It starts much like the 1st Beat, but is otherwise different. Half the party receives one heart already, the other half receives none. Have the half with one heart stack up in the middle, and the half without stack up at the south in max melee range. First, Honey B. casts either Spread of Love or Drop of Love. These work exactly the same like Spread of Venom and Drop of Venom, only they instead give hearts to the players. Honey B. casts Love Me Tender, which targets two players with stack markers and also spawns AoEs on the feet of those remaining two players without hearts. Normally, when you have two stack markers, it would mean to keep these away from each other, but this time you can safely keep both stack marks together, as it makes it easier to evade the AoEs, and they don't really deal any damage, they just give hearts. Just make sure you don't get too close to the players in the middle, as they will need to deal their own stuff soon. Circle around the boss until the stacks are resolved. At the end this half should have 2 hearts each. Then, the half in the middle will act. Two players from them will receive a personal AoE, that will give hearts to anyone inside. The remaining two players will need to soak towers that will appear. If all is done correctly, every player should now have 2 hearts. Honey B. will then cast either Honey Beeline or Tempting Twist and also resolve the Spread or Drop. Evade it like the Venoms, and you should resolve this with every player having 3 hearts. Honey B. will then again use Honey B. Finale to end the phase.
Next, Honey B. again stores Spread/Drop of Venom, before casting Alarm Pheromones again. This time, however, the honeybees spawn with concrete order. Each wave has four bees, that will charge in such a pattern that it leaves a safe square in the middle and safe spots on the edges. Each wave also turns a little bit to counter-clockwise from the previous wave. Gather the party inside this square in the boss' hitbox. At the same time, Honey B. casts Poison Sting. This will target a random support and a random DPS with markers, that will cause them to drop a poison pool on their feet. Each player will receive this marker during this phase. Because of the honeybee charges, you'll need to drop these pools to the outer edge to keep them away from other players while also avoiding the charges. Have supports drop their poison pools on the eastern edge of the arena, and DPS to the western edge. Immediately after dropping your pool, run back to the middle to avoid everything. Once every player has dropped a pool, Honey B. casts Bee Sting. This will target a random support and random DPS with a stack marker. Instead of normal light parties, make a support stack and a DPS stack to resolve this. Stay inside boss' hitbox and keep as much distance as you can from the stacks until they are done. Also beware the final honeybees. Then deal with Honey Beeline/Tempting Twist and the stored Venom.
Next comes Honey B Live: 3rd Beat. This is the last one of these. Again, she stores Spread/Drop of Love. Once the cast is done, each player receives a debuff with two different timers, short and long. Supports will have either the long or short debuff, DPS the other. This debuff will explode with a very wide AoE, when timer reaches 0. There will be no hearts on anyone in the beginning. First, evade either Centerstage Combo or Outerstage Combo, then have the half with short timer go all the way to the edge, either to cardinals or intercardinals (not on both). The half with long timer will go to the middle and get ready to soak tower after the short debuffs have exploded. Switch positions for the long debuffs, evade a second combo, and then resolve the debuffs and the towers again. Honey B. will then cast Honey Beeline/Tempting Twist with stored Spread/Drop, ending the phase with Honey B. Finale.
The fight is now close to the end, and Honey B. is starting to get irritated. She casts a random tankbuster before casting Rotten Heart, which is kind of like a soft enrage. It does raidwide damage and inflicts every player with a debuff, Alpha or Beta with different timers. You don't really need to know, which Greek letter you have, only the timer matters. The goal here is to have Alpha and Beta debuff with corresponding timers to be stacked to cleanse them, but this must be done at the right time. First, have the party spread at the clockspots. When the debuffs have 7 seconds left, have them meet at the middle to cleanse them. This will cause raidwide damage and Magic Vulnerability Up, that lasts for 7 seconds. Having an effective mitigation plan can help a lot here. Honey B. will also cast Call Me Honey-raidwides in between, so make sure to heal up. Keep cleansing the debuffs at 7 seconds, until all of them have been cleansed. Once the last debuffs are done, Honey B. casts her actual enrage, Sheer Heart Attack: she instantly gains 8 Queen Bee-stacks, charms the whole party and causes a wipe, unless you defeat her before that.