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The Arcadion is open for business once more! The tournament-based fighting league inFinal Fantasy XIV: Dawntrailacts as the core setting for the next raid series, and what a way to start it with the ferocious Black Cat. This wild feline has more than sharp claws as she has quite a few abilities that will leave you battered.
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail - AAC Light-heavyweight M4 (Savage) Phase 1 Guide
Wicked Thunder is even more of a threat in the savage version of The Arcadion in FFXIV: Dawntrail.
Blood Scratch: Party raidwide. Simply shield and heal as needed.
One-two Paw: Black Cat will hold up her hand in one direction, then in another. This indicates which half the arena she will be cleaving first and second. Simply stand on either her left or right (opposite of her first claw) and then move into the attack after the telegraph disappears.
Black Cat Cross: Similar to One-two Paw, Black Cat will telegraph lines in a cardinal (north, east, south and west) or inter-cardinal (northwest, northeast, southeast and southwest) and this will indicate which goes off first. At the end of the cast, the first that showed up will shoot a large cone AOE in that direction, and then after the telegraph disappears, it will do the same in the second queued up attack.
Biscuit Maker: A simple tankbuster that doesn’t cleave.
Clawful: This is a simple, one-hit stack mechanic. Group with your party members to share the load.
This is where things get interesting. Black Cat will begin to telegraph her intentions to break the tiling on the floor. This will happen seven times. There’s a fairly easy way to identify the same spots. If you’re melee, pay close attention to the two tiles closest to the boss. You will have to figure out which is hit first so you’re able to move into it, and which is hit twice, because of the two, only one will take two blows (or one will take zero and is fully safe). For ranged and casters, you have it easy. Of the two further back tiles, one will not get hit, so you will have full uptime on your casts.
Elevate and Eviscerate: The announcer will announce that they will be repairing the arena, but in the meantime, Black Cat will target one player and knock them up and backwards onto a tile. If you’re selected, aim yourself towards a tile that hasn’t been hit (green good, red bad).
Shockwave: Be careful. At the end of this, the arena is still broken, but Black Cat will unleash a knockback from the middle that can send you off the edge if not positioned correctly, or if you don’t want to use your knockback immunity.
Predaceous Pounce
Black Cat will telegraph everything in this attack. It will show the direction she is moving and the giant AOE that she will do in these spots. The easiest way to deal with this is to locate the first telegraph and move into it after she does her attack. She doesn’t come overlap this area in Normal. If you do get hit, you will get a bleed and there will be personal AOEs after the mechanic is resolved, so it might be tight on healing.
Leaping One-two Paw / Black Cat Cross: This is the exact same as One-two Paw at the beginning of the fight, but instead, she leaps towards a location and then performs the attack immediately after. She will go east or west for the One-two Paw and then north or south for Black Cat Cross. Position yourself on the marker she has tethered to avoid the attack.
Copycat – Elevate and Eviscerate: This will come out after the next Mouser break of the arena. There will be a clone on the outside of the arena that now will be delivering the Elevate and Eviscerate.
How to Complete Tender Valley in FFXIV: Dawntrail
The endgame dungeon comes with a couple of twists and turns, but we have your back.
Overshadow: While the one person will be dealing with the copycat mechanic above, getting knocked onto the safe tile, everyone else will be stacking for a line AOE from the main boss. This will happen four times so shield and heal as necessary. This will then be followed up by the same Shockwave knockback from the center of the arena.
Copycat – Predaceous Pounce: This is the exact same as the original, except you don’t really have to worry too much about uptime, as Black Cat isn’t the one jumping around. You do have to worry about where the clone starts, though, as you can theoretically be in her dash path for the first attack if you’re not paying too much attention. Black Cat will then immediately follow this up with a One-two Paw, so be prepared.
And that’s the entire fight. Black Cat will repeat most of these mechanics from now on, but you should already have her down to low health, if not already taken her down.
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail
The fifth expansion to the award winning MMORPG, Dawntrail takes the franchise into a whole new direction, hopefully kicking off another ten-year long adventure.
