AAC Cruiserweight M1, known to players as M5 or R5, is the first turn of the AAC Cruiserweight tier of The Arcadion 
Raid in Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail.
Objectives[]
Normal[]
- Defeat Dancing Green
Savage[]
- Defeat Dancing Green
Story[]
Normal[]
The first opponent of your cruiserweight campaign is to be the shameless playboy of Solution Nine, Dancing Green. Wielding the soul of a terrible toad, he prefers to engage his opponents in duels of dance, using his heightened abilities to command the dance floor. If you are to claim victory, you shall need more than might and magic─indeed, you shall need a sense of rhythm.
Duty Finder Description
Savage[]
Once more you have shared your firsthand account of your matches with Gabbro, Solution Nine's acclaimed cartoonist, and once more you cannot help but picture the spectacles he describes. Indeed, how might your battle against Dancing Green have turned out if the night had reached an even higher fever pitch?
Duty Finder Description
Progression[]
Normal[]
Savage[]
Phase 1 - Funky Floor 1[]
Shortly after the boss is pulled, the boss will cast a Deep Cut tankbuster cone cleaves on the players with the two highest enmity just like in Normal mode, but with a bleed DoT. Dancing Green will then cast Flip to A-side or Flip to B-side, which will dictate what his Drop the Needle cast will following the 2-, 3-, or 4-snap Twist: if it was A-side, then the cast target one tank, one healer, and one DPS with a cone cleave each, while B-side will target both healers with line stacks. Like in Normal mode, he will cleave one half of the arena based on the number of times indicated by his cast, followed by an extra cleave on the other half, followed by the Drop the Needle cast. He will then cast the one he did not cast initially, along with another Snap Twist. The boss will then cast a Celebrate Good Times magic raidwide, followed by a Disco Infernal raidwide, which lights the floor up in a Funky Floor checkerboard pattern.
Following the cast, all players will be affected by a Burn Baby Burn debuff, which expires in either 23 seconds or 31 seconds. Players must cleanse those debuffs under a spotlight on an unlit tile and must not share them with another player; if they fail either or both conditions, they will instantly die. Split up into light parties with one group taking the west half, and the other taking the east half. For ranged players, an easy way to remember where their safe tile ends up being is by looking at where the first spotlight ends up in the far intercardinals of the arena; if the spotlights were in an unsafe tile, the 23-second debuffs will cleanse there, while the 31-second debuffs will cleanse on the other corner. For melees, they must pay attention to their sides inside the boss's hitbox; depending which side of the boss's hitbox is not lit up, they will be taking one of two tiles adjacent to it to cleanse in spotlights. Continue to dodge the red floor tiles until the boss casts Inside Out or Outside In, requiring players to stay out of his hitbox in max melee range then going into his hitbox for the former, and the inverse for the latter. The boss will cast another Flip to the A-side or B-side, and the first set of debuffs should expire shortly, so go to a spotlight and cleanse, with the next set of spotlight cleanses following after. The boss will then cast another Snap Twist while the floors are still active, so keep dodging the tiles while going into your spots depending on the cast before Drop the Needle goes off. The boss will cast another Celebrate Good Times raidwide before jumping to the middle, his hitbox becoming omni-directional and casting Ensemble Assemble, spawning eight untargetable Frogtourage adds on the north stages.
Phase 2 - Arcady Night Fever 1[]
Position yourselves so that you are sufficiently spread out around him, with supports on one half and DPS on another. The boss will begin casting Arcady Night Fever, starting with a point-blank AoE and alternating between that and a donut AoE around him. He will also hit players with cone AoEs, alternating by roles, with players hit receiving a Magic Vulnerability Up debuff and a Wavelength α or Wavelength β debuff with one of four timer lengths. Additionally, Dancing Green will also hit the last position of the player he last cleaved, ensuring that the next hit will be fatal and requiring players to sidestep them into another's position then moving back, and will repeat this for eight times, with a ninth cone AoE due to the repeat, until all players are hit once. Everyone should then line up based on their debuff timers, with the shortest to the north and the longest to the south, with a DPS being paired to a support each. Stand right on top of each other and pay attention to where the frogs are pointing: from left to right, Dancing Green will cleave the arena based on where they are pointing. At the same time, players should resolve their debuffs if they are right on top of each other; if no one has the correct partner as the debuff expires, then they will suffer a bleed DoT. Dodge all the cleaves while resolving the debuffs, and the boss will cast Let's Pose!, which has varying effects based on mechanics executed correctly as indicated by the Grooviness gauge: all players who executed their mechanics perfectly throughout the entirety of the phase will receive a 20-second Perfect Groove buff, increasing their damage dealt. If the entire party executed their mechanics flawlessly, then one bar's worth of the Limit Break gauge will be filled as well. Additionally, if any players failed a mechanic at any point during the phase, Let's Pose! will do heavy raidwide damage to them based on how low the Grooviness meter is; any individual players who succeeded in executing the mechanics will be unaffected by the raidwide.
Once the mechanic finishes, Dancing Green's hitbox will return to normal and will cast Ride the Waves, lighting up the northern tiles which will make their way south. The tiles will also have gaps in them just like in Normal mode.
Behind the scenes[]
Many of Dancing Green's attacks and major mechanics are named after 1970s media in accordance with his disco theming.
- His ring name Dancing Green refers to the song Dancing Queen by Swedish pop group ABBA. In the German localization, his name is Springhis Khan, referring to the German Eurodisco pop band Dschinghis Khan.
- Disco Infernal is a play on the song Disco Inferno by American disco and pop group the Trammps.
- Do the Hustle refers to the song The Hustle by musical ensemble Van McCoy & the Soul City Symphony.
- Arcady Night Fever is a play on the movie Saturday Night Fever by British director John Badham.
- Celebrate Good Times refers to the song Celebrate by American R&B, soul, and funk band Kool & the Gang.
- His Savage enrage, Hi-NRG Fever, is named after the disco subgenre Hi-NRG.
Musical themes[]
"Ride the Rhythm" plays in the Normal and Savage versions of the encounter.
