AAC Light-heavyweight M4, known to players as M4 or R4, is the fourth and final turn of the AAC Light-heavyweight tier of The Arcadion 
Raid in Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail.
Objectives[]
Normal[]
- Defeat Wicked Thunder
Savage[]
- Defeat Wicked Thunder
Story[]
Normal[]
In the midst of your crowning ceremony, you are challenged by none other than the electrifying Wicked Thunder, sister of Yaana and former heavyweight fighter of fame. The Ascension Arcadia president has authorized a special exhibition match for this thunderous clash, and now the realm waitst with bated breath, wondering who will emerge victorious: the unstoppable upstart, or the neoteric witch?
Duty Finder Description
Savage[]
Your match against the neoteric witch came to an abrupt end when the former heavyweight fighter decided to flee—but what if she hadn't? Inspired by a muse of your own from Gabbro's words, your thoughts drift back to that imaginary city of her creation once more, where you envision an altogether novel struggle taking place...
Duty Finder Description
Progression[]
Normal[]
Savage[]
Unlike the final turns of the Omega and Pandæmonium raid series and Eden's Promise: Eternity (Savage), this fight reverts to a singular boss structure with no "door boss" similar to Eden's Gate: Sepulture (Savage) and Eden's Verse: Refulgence (Savage). As such, Wicked Thunder's Savage-exclusive phase does not have a checkpoint.
Phase 1[]
The fight starts with a raidwide, Wrath of Zeus. This hits hard, so mitigation is needed. Wicked Thunder then makes wings and moves to the northern edge, and prepares the wing sweep seen in normal mode, Bewitching Flight. But this time there are also electrope clusters on the west side, that shoots line AoEs. Find a safe spot according to both the wing sweep and the electrope clusters. The wing sweeps leaves lines on the flor that will explode soon, either the two lines on the edge first, or the three lines in the middle first. After this, Wicked Thunder teleports to the middle to cast Electrifying Witch Hunt. Electrope clusters now spawn to the north and east to do line AoEs. Then, either all supports or all DPS will get hit by by AoEs, that they need to take alone, inflicting them with Forked Lightning-debuff. Spread out according to the lines on the floor. Next, Wicked Thunder casts Witch Hunt. This will show a either a pink or purple marker on the boss. If it is pink, Witch Hunt targets four closest players to her, and if it is purple, it will target the four farthest players. The players, that received the Forked Lightning-debuffs must not be hit by these. Check the marker on the boss, and spread out according to the final floor lines and who will bait the Witch Hunt.
Next, Wicked Thunder casts either Narrowing Witch Hunt or Widening Witch Hunt. Both of these casts are same in different order: two point-blank and donut AoEs around her that alternate. It also does the pink and purple marks four times, alternating. What this means is that every time an AoE is done, two closest or farthest players from her will also be hit a personal AoE that inflicts Physical Vulnetability Up. In order to resolve this, you will need to memorize the pink and purple mark order and handle the baits according whether the cast is Narrowing or Widening. Spread in clock positions and deal the baits with roles: have Tanks and Melees bait the pinks and Healers and Ranged the purples, supports baiting the first two. Always be mindful, who is baiting when and where, so that you don't accidentally bait someone else's bait.
Once Witch Hunt is resolved, the boss will cast another Wrath of Zeus, center herself, and cast Electrope Edge. This spawns four mines at the intercardinals of the arena. She will also cast Witchgleam, hitting the mines with line AoEs. Players must take note of how many times the mines were hit, as two will only be hit once. All players must also stay in the cardinal directions of the boss or they will get hit by the Witchgleam lines. Shortly after, she will cast Sidewise Spark, a half-room cleave that also cleaves one of the safe quadrants, leaving only one safe. Everyone must also take note of how many orbs are surrounding the boss during the cast: if it is eight orbs, she will cast Eight Star, requiring all players to spread in the safe quadrant. If she has four orbs, she casts Four Star, requiring players to pair up. Once the mechanic resolves, she will cast Wicked Jolt, a line cleave tankbuster that hits twice, with each hit applying a magic vulnerability up. The tanks can swap normally or use their invulnerability.
The boss will cast a second Electrope Edge, but this time, the boss will apply a long or short debuff. Players must spread to their clock spots and take note of how many times they get hit by the Witchgleam lines, with long debuffed players adding 1 to their numbers. The boss will then cast Lightning Cage, covering tiles with AoEs, with one tile being relative north. The short 2 players must spread to the north intercardinals (with supports going left and DPS going right), while the short 3 players should go to the south intercardinals. All the long debuffed players must head to the lone safe tile to the north. Once the debuffs go off, the boss will then cast another Sidewise Spark and Eight or Four Star. To resolve Four Star, the short and long 2 and 3 debuffed players must pair up, with the orbs around the long debuffed players signifying that the player will get hit by the stack. Once this resolved, the boss will cast another Lightning Cage and this time, the long players should go to the intercardinals, while the previously-short debuffed players must go to the safe tile north. Following the mechanic, The boss will cast Wicked Bolt, a five-hit stack requiring mitigations. The boss should also be slowly dragged true north for the next mechanic.
The boss will cast Ion Cluster, afflicting all players with three stacks of a yellow Positron or a blue Negatron debuff. Shortly after, she will jump north and create a cannon, which she will then tilt left or right. Three columns of the arena will be hit by six hits of Stampeding Thunder, requiring the party to move to the safe column that she isn't hitting, either far left or right. Non-tanks can usually take two hits at most, while tanks get full uptime. On the sixth hit, she will destroy those three columns, then jump to the middle of the remaining column. She will then cast Electron Stream, requiring all players to get hit by the opposite color of their debuffs with tanks in front. This will reduce their stack by one, but will also apply one of five debuffs: Roundhouse Conductor, which causes a donut AoE on them, Spinning Conductor, which causes a small AoE, Remote Current and Proximate Current, which hits the furthest or nearest player with a conal AoE, respectively, and Collider Conductor, requiring them to get hit by the Current debuffed players. An easy way to resolve this is by placing the supports and DPS with Roundhouse or Spinning Conductor on the small rivets facing the boss, with supports on the left and DPS on the right. To resolve Collider Conductor, players afflicted by the debuff must stand on the small square on the center of the tile facing the boss, with the Current players right in front of them. This mechanic will repeat three times, and may require groups to swap sides. Once this mechanic is resolved, Wicked Thunder will cast another Wicked Jolt, then jump to the center of the arena facing south to begin the intermission phase.
Intermission[]
Begin by pairing ranged players with tanks and healers with melees. As the intermission phase begins, the boss will cast Electrope Transplant and cover the arena in Lightning Field conal AoEs, which must be dodged seven times. As each set of AoEs cast, the next will signify a safe spot that must be dodged into. Around the fourth and fifth dodges, make sure to spread, as one of the roles (either DPS or support) will be hit with a Conduction Point AoE, requiring those not hit to stand in front of their partners on the sixth dodge to block the oncoming Forked Fissures line AoE. Following the seventh dodge, the mechanics will repeat themselves one more time. Once the boss finishes, everyone must gather up south directly in front of the boss and mitigate the next set of raidwides: Soulshock, Impact, and then finally, Cannonbolt, which destroys the arena and knocks the party back to the four-by-three arena behind them, beginning phase 2.
Phase 2[]
Now our battle truly begins!
Wicked Thunder
Once the boss becomes targetable, she will cast Cross Tail Switch, a very heavy hitting set of raidwides that requires everyone to use heavy personal and party mitigations, or a tank Limit Break 3 when the cast bar hovers around the letters S and W of "Switch". Once all ten hits resolve and the party survives, the boss will cast Sabertail, spawning Exaflare AoEs on the arena. To dodge this, identify the row with the two Exaflares going to the opposite side, and dodge into that row. At the same time, both healers will be targeted with Wicked Blaze light party stacks that hit three times, requiring them to move with their groups as they dodge the Exaflares. Immediately after this, the boss will cast Wicked Special, which will have two variations: a flaming sword that cleaves the middle of the arena, or electric tails that cleave the sides. Dodge them by staying on the sides or moving into the middle, respectively.
Next, the boss will cast Mustard Bomb, two tethers that must be picked up and mitigated by both tanks. At the same time, the party must spread onto their own tiles so that they won't clip other players by the incoming fire AoEs. Four players will get hit, and the tanks must pass their debuffs to the remaining two players who did not get an explosion and subsequent fire debuff.
After Mustard bomb, the boss uses Aetherial Conversion. Her two tentacles will be imbued with either fire or water. Pay attention which tentacle is imbued first to deal with this effectively. Once imbued, she then uses Tail Thrust to strike the platform with the tentacles on two glowing red spots. Fire tentacle causes a large AoE, and water causes a heavy knockback from the point of impact. If boss used fire, move to the northern edge on the safe side, and after the first hit, move to the other side. If boss used water, position yourself right next to the red spot that will be hit first and get knocked back to the other side. Then quickly position yourself next to the other red spot and get knocked back again. Arm's Length/Surecast won't help here.
The boss casts Azure Thunder-raidwide, which causes the arena to be shrunk into a circle, followed by Twilight Sabbath. She will target every player with wide AoEs while also spawning two clones, that will perform half-cleaves on the arena, which will cause only one quarter to be safe. Gather the party in middle and watch out, which sides the clones will cleave to identify the safe quarter. Then, as the AoEs appear, move there. Another set of clones will then appear, doing the same cleaves while the boss casts Wicked Special. Once again, identify the safe quarter, but also look if the Wicked Special is the middle cleave or cleaves the sides, and get to the safe spot according to that within the safe quarter.
The boss then casts Midnight Sabbath. She randomly spawns eight clones of two different types: wings or cannon. Wing clones causes donut AoEs around them, and cannon clones fire a line AoE. These clones are spawned in two waves. Look at the circles to determine which clones appear first. Also, boss casts either Scattered Burst or Concentrated Burst. Scattered Burst targets every player with a small AoE and Concentrated Burst with an AoE to be taken in pairs. As soon as you see, if the first clones are wing or cannon, act according to them and also spread or pair up in the safe place: get inside the donuts with wing clones; go to the second clones if cannon. After the first clones are done, do the same with second clones. With the second clones you need to deal with a Burst that wasn't done first: if you needed to spread with the first clones, pair up with the second ones or vice versa. The boss casts another Wicked Special afterwards, followed by a Wicked Thunder-raidwide that hits hard.
The boss prepares another Aetherial Conversion, but she won't release it yet, so you need to memorize it. She then uses Flame Slash, that breaks the arena's two central lines. Divide into light parties and have light party 1 go to the left line and light party 2 to the right line. This is followed by Raining Swords, that drops eight swords with towers, each to be soaked by a player, four on both sides. After soaking the swords comes Chain Lightning. Three lightning bolts are shown to jump between the swords in such a way, that one of the swords on the sides are untouched during each jump. These swords will then explode in order, leaving the swords that weren't hit as safe spots. Each sword will be affected once. Identify the order the bolts will jump to determine the order of the safe swords, and avoid the swrd explosions according to them. After this sequence is done, the arena will be repaired, and the boss uses Tail Thrust to unleash the the stored Aetehrial Conversion. This happens quite fast after the arena is repaired, so move quickly.
Following Tail Thrust the boss uses Mustard Bomb again, that is the same as the first one, followed by Azure Thunder and one more Aetherial Conversion. She then casts Ion Cluster again to give players the Positron and Negatron debuffs with two different timers, shorter and longer. These are meant for the next mechanic, Sunrise Sabbath, which is considered as the hardest mechanic in this fight. Six clones will be summoned, four cannons and two regulars. The cannons will light with Positron and Negatron, meaning that these cannon shots will have to be taken by players with opposing debuff, yellow cannon with blue debuff and vice versa. The two regular clones will indicate a position of two towers that will appear either north and south or east and west. These towers will need two players to soak them. Two waves of this will happen. First, have the players with shorter debuffs bait the cannons. The cannons will aim towards the closest players to them. Make sure the cannons are baited away from other players, particularly those that are soaking the towers. Meanwhile, the players with longer debuff find the towers and get ready to soak them. Recommendation is that supports soak west and south towers and DPS the north and east towers for uptime reasons. After the first cannons have fired, the longer debuffs will have to soak the next cannon shots and shorter debuffs soak the next towers. Immediately after this is done, the boss uses Tail Thrust.
The fight is almost done. Next, the boss uses Sword Quiver, slicing the arena three times and drawing three lines that will explode later. At the same time, either all supports or DPS will be tageted by an AoE to be taken in pairs. Pair up Tanks with Melees and Healers with Ranged, and find a safe spot according to the exploding lines. The lines have two possible formations, with the horizontal line either in the middle or in the north. Sword quiver happens twice. After this, the boss begins to cast long Wicked Thunder as her enrage.
Musical themes[]
The boss theme that plays in both Normal and Savage is "Give it All". In Savage, the boss theme that plays during the second phase is "A Risky Bet", an arrangement of "Give it All".
