FFXIV Dawntrail The Arcadion M2 Guide
This is the second encounter for the Arcadion raid series. The boss for this encounter is Honey B. Lovely. She 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 but will not kill them instantly like other arena edges.
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.
Table of Contents
Phase 1
Phase 1 has you do battle with Honey B. Lovely. This phase will introduce players to the mechanics in the fight.
Honey B. will first start with Call Me Honey, a standard raid wide that deals magical damage. She will follow up with Honeyed Breeze, which is a conal tank buster on both tanks. Both tanks must stay apart and pop cooldowns as necessary.
Next, she will execute either Tempting Twist or Honey Beeline, which is a typical donut AoE and a horizontal line AoE that hits her front and back. Dodge these appropriately.
The true boss mechanics starts when she casts Honey B. Live, which is another raid wide that introduces the heart gauge mechanic mentioned earlier.
Honey B. will then cast Love Me Tender, which marks all players with an AoE that will give all players one heart stack. However, this is followed up by Fracture, which causes 3 heart towers to linger on the arena. A player must stand on the tower and soak the damage, otherwise , the entire team takes damage and gains another heart stack for each unsoaked tower. Ideally, the tanks and a DPS should soak these.
After Love Me Tender and Fracture, Honey B. casts Loveseeker, starting off as a point-blank AoE that creates hearts projectiles that wander around the arena. This is followed up by a variation of Love Me Tender, which marks random locations with heart AoEs. Taking damage from any of these also gives players hit a heart stack. Prioritize and focus on dodging these first as this mechanic will give you no room to DPS.
Just before Loveseeker ends, she will do Blow Kiss, where she targets a random player and does a conal AoE on their position.
Honey B. Lovely will end this phase with Honey B. Live, which is another raid wide attack.
Phase 2
The following mechanics are introduced in Phase 2.
- 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.
Whenever she does Tempting Twist and Honeyed Beeline, either Splash or Drop of Venom will immediately follow up, so just react accordingly. Once the Venom mechanic is done, multiple poison drops will scatter around the arena, exploding in an AoE after a short delay.
Next, she will summon enemies called Groupbees at the edge of the arena using the skill Alarm Pheromones. These Groupbees will have a green tether that indicates a line AoE in that direction. Start by the side of the first group, then rotate around the edge of the arena to avoid the next consecutive AoEs. Another set of Groupbees will spawn after the rotating AoEs, but they will instead shoot all at the same time. The safe spot will be beside the group. Honey B. will cast a Honey Beeline on the safe zone, so leave immediately when the Groupbees are gone.
That’s when the second Honey B. Live mechanic will go off, but there is much more variance in mechanics than the previous Honey B. Live ones. First, two stack markers will appear on two teammates. There must be at least three people in the stack marker, as the AoE will inflict 3 stack marks on the marked player, which can be divided by stacking. Then, 4 heart towers will appear, so soak these accordingly.
Lastly, Phase 2’s Alarm Pheromones will go off, but functions differently. Groupbees will spawn one at a time and will fire their line AoEs at the same time. This mechanic can be troublesome due to the randomness of where they fire. Again, try to focus on dodging this mechanic first as a single hit will knock you back outside the arena.
She will end Alarm Pheromones with another Venom attack. After this, she will repeat the same Phase 2 mechanics from the start until she hits enrage or you clear the encounter.
Thanks Mate!
I appreciate how this guide thoroughly covers both phases of the Honey B. It will make a difference for players looking to master this encounter.