AAC Cruiserweight M1 Savage Raid Guide

Dancing Green is the first boss fought in AAC Cruiserweight (Savage).

AAC Cruiserweight M1 (Savage) can be unlocked at level 100 after completing the Normal difficulty of the Light-heavyweight raid and talking to Gabbro in Solution Nine (x22.3, y17.1). It requires a minimum item level of 730 to queue, but this requirement can be bypassed when entering with a full party.

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?

Video resources for this encounter will be posted when available.

Dancing Green is fought on a square arena with eight columns and eight rows. The outside of the arena is a death wall, and north of the arena is a stage players need to watch out for during the fight.

Dancing Green's enrage occurs at around 10:06 into the fight and requires at least roughly 171,000 raid DPS.

Begin by dividing the raid into two light parties of one tank, one healer, and two DPS each. Split these light parties into colour partners, with tanks and ranged DPS on the north side and healers and melee DPS on the south side. Finally, assign ranged-melee-melee-ranged (RMMR) spreads based on role.

Place waymarks with letters on inner cardinals and numbers on outer intercardinals.

In phase one, you face Dancing Green. This is a relatively straightforward encounter that requires players to understand what spots they need to go to for each mechanic.

The following mechanics are introduced in the first phase.

• Deep Cut: A physical conal tank buster on first and second on aggro. This inflicts a 12 second bleed DoT.
• Flip to A-side: The next Drop the Needle will do a magical conal AoE on one random tank, healer, and DPS.
• Flip to B-side: The next Drop the Needle will do a magical line stack AoE on both healers.
• Do the Hustle: Dancing Green or a Frogtourage add points to one side of the arena, doing a half-room cleave on that side.
• X-snap Twist: Dancing Green points to one side of the arena. He does the amount of half-room cleaves on that side indicated by the number in the ability name, then hits the opposite side with Do the Hustle. Ranges from 2 to 4 snaps.
• Celebrate Good Times: Magical raidwide damage.
• Disco Infernal: Deals magical damage and summons spotlights. Inflicts all players with Burn Baby Burn. Players must be standing in spotlights when their debuff expires or they will die.
• Funky Floor: Floor tiles light up in a checkerboard pattern and explode. These tiles will continue to explode in an alternating pattern.
• Inside Out: The boss does a point-blank AoE into a donut AoE.
• Outside In: The boss does a donut AoE into a point-blank AoE.

The fight begins with a tank buster that targets both #1 and #2 in aggro, so tanks should both pull with tank stance and stand together until it targets them. Check if Dancing Green casts Flip to A-side or Flip to B-side. A-side requires players to spread into roles, while B-side requires players to split into light parties. Do the half-room mechanic, then spread based on the mechanic: if it was roles, tanks will be north, healers will be on the flank, and DPS will be south. If it was light parties, light party 1 goes north and light party 2 goes south.

The boss continues with Celebrate Good Times, then heads directly into Disco Infernal 1. Players will be inflicted with the Burn Baby Burn debuff: one role will receive 23 second debuffs while the other role receives 31 second debuffs. Debuffed players must stand in spotlights with no other player when their debuff expires. To do this, divide the arena into east and west, with light party 1 west and light party 2 east.

As the floors alternate, there are only four given safe spots for each set of spotlights: two one each side, one in melee range and one at ranged on the marker. To identify the safe spot, look only on your side when the spotlights appear and locate which spotlight is on an unsafe tile. That quadrant will be where the safe spotlights are when your debuffs expire. In the example above, the safe spots for ranged are the 1 and 3 marker, while melee have to adjust in the 2 and 4 quadrants.

Throughout this phase, the floor will continue to explode, so players must keep moving, alternating tiles to avoid taking damage and a damage down debuff. The boss will soon cast either Outside In or Inside Out. Players will have to do this in-out mechanic while dodging tiles. Afterwards, the role whose debuff is resolving first needs to head to their spotlight. At the same time, the boss casts Flip to A-side or B-side, which needs to be remembered. The other role then needs to go to their safe spotlight.

The boss then does an X-snap Twist & Drop the Needle. Players need to remember which mechanic was flipped to previously and either do roles or light parties. There is one more Celebrate Good Times raidwide before the second phase begins.

Phase two introduces the Frogtourage as seen in normal mode. During Arcady Night Fever, succeeding in mechanics will result in the Grooviness meter going up. At 100, the raid receives one bar of limit break.

The following mechanics are introduced in phase two.

• Ensemble Assemble: The boss jumps to the middle and becomes omni-directional. Eight untargetable Frogtourage adds appear at the north stage on each platform.
• Arcady Night Fever 1: All eight players get targeted in sequence with a conal AoE, dealing magic damage. The boss alternates point-blank AoEs and donut AoEs for each hit. In addition, each conal AoE will repeat once where it originally hit. Each player hit receives the Wavelength A or Wavelength B debuff, which must be stacked with the other debuff when it expires.
• Let's Dance!: Dancing Green tethers to the Frogtourage in order, who point towards east or west. Dancing Green does a half-room cleave based on where the add is pointing towards.
• Let's Pose!: Raidwide magic damage. Players who were not hit by any mechanic receive the Perfect Groove buff for 20 seconds, increasing damage dealt.
• Ride the Waves: Panels from the north will start glowing and moving down the arena, dealing damage. There will be two safe lines three rows from each other, but these change.
• Eighth Beats: Unmarked AoEs on all players. Inflicts a vuln debuff.
• Quarter Beats: Unmarked stack AoEs on four players in one role. Inflicts a vuln debuff.
• Frogtourage: Untargetable Frogtourage adds spawn and dance down the arena, creating lines that form areas that explode in AoEs.

Start by spreading into pre-assigned RMMR spots, with supports on the north side of the boss and DPS on the south. For each conal AoE in Arcady Night Fever, players need to move out or in, alternating each time starting with out. In addition, players will be hit by conal AoEs, alternating by role. Once the conal AoE hits them, it will repeat once where it hit for the next AoE. There are two general ways to do this: either keep north and south safe at all times with less room for the conal AoEs, or have each player hit dodge their repeat conal AoE by moving into someone else in their role and then move back after.

The out-in AoEs repeat eight times, but there will be a ninth conal AoE hit due to the repeat. Players then need to dodge the half-room cleaves from Let's Dance! similar to normal mode. However, they will also have to resolve their Wavelength debuffs at the same time. Have players line up based on their debuff duration to resolve the mechanic easily.

Each debuffed player should look at their debuff duration when the castbar finishes and lines up accordingly on each tile. An easy way to remember their debuff duration is the sequence of hits during Arcady Night Fever: players 1 and 8 are the longest, 2 and 7 second longest, 3 and 6 second shortest, and 4 and 5 shortest. They then can do the half-room cleaves without worrying about their debuff duration.

The boss finishes up with Let's Pose! Players who succeeded the mechanic completely will receive the Perfect Groove buff, and if everyone succeeded, the Grooviness meter will be filled, giving a bar of limit break.

Remember the A-side or B-side mechanic that was cast. Split into colour partners for Ride the Waves, ideally with the main tank moving the boss quickly in between the two safe lanes for uptime. Either stack with your colour partner for Quarter Beats, or spread with the ranged far for Eighth Beats. The opposite mechanic will be cast immediately afterwards, so heal up and spread or stack, obeying the lane change if needed. Dancing Green then jumps to the middle and casts Outside In or Inside Out, then an X-snap Twist & Drop the Needle. Remember the mechanic that was stored previously and split into roles or light parties. This is followed by Deep Cut and Celebrate Good Times.

Dancing Green then summons the Frogtourage, creating AoEs across the arena. The first Frogtourage will cover opposite cardinals, creating two safe zones on the other opposite cardinals. A quick way to find the safe spot is look where the frogs end up at the end of the first line. If the two frogs move away from each other, that cardinal and opposite of it is safe. If they move towards each other, that cardinal and opposite is unsafe.

At the same time, the boss casts either Eighth Beats or Quarter Beats. Have light party 1 go north or east and light party 2 go south or west. If it's partner, have the melee and tank go together closer to the boss and ranged and healer near the wall. If it's spread, spread in the corner with supports left and DPS right facing the boss.

The next set of mechanics is Disco Infernal 2. All players receive the Burn Baby Burn debuff again, with one role with a 9 second duration and one role with a 19 second duration. Four Frogtourage adds also appear in the middle of the arena. These do a conal AoE towards the closest player and inflicts a short vuln debuff. Players that have the shorter debuff need to stand in spotlights that spawn. They will always spawn in outside cardinals or intercardinals, and move to the opposite. Like the image above, the other role needs to bait the conal AoEs away from the players in the spotlights. Find the frog and spotlight at your colour and do the mechanic. Once the first set of baits and spotlight s are done, switch roles and do the mechanic again for the longer debuff players.

The boss does a Flip to A-side or B-side and an X-snap Twist & Drop the Needle. This is followed by a raidwide and then the final phase.

The final phase expands on mechanics previously seen with new variations.

The following mechanics are introduced in the third and final phase.

• Arcady Night Encore: The same as Arcady Night Fever, but does not inflict Wavelength debuffs.
• Let's Dance! Remix: Similar to Let's Dance! but the adds can point towards any cardinal direction.

The boss begins to cast Ensemble Assemble, then Arcady Night Encore. This is done the same way as Arcady Night Fever, but players do not have to worry about any debuffs. Next is Let's Dance! Remix, and players need to pay careful attention to where the adds are facing as they can point towards any direction. Stay close to the centre of the boss hitbox and make small movements if possible. At the end, Dancing Green will cast Let's Pose again, and grant Perfect Groove if done correctly and a bar of LB if everyone did it correctly.

The next mechanic is Frogtourage 2. This version has several sets of adds that spawn in sequence and do mechanics. To start, we have the frog adds spawning at intercardinals and doing half-room cleaves. There will be two sets of adds and the boss afterwards. The way the adds spawn, each set will have a cardinal safe. Dodge the half-room cleaves and then the boss's half-room cleave.

The next set of Frogtourage adds will spawn at one edge and create an AoE in the middle or on the outside. In addition, four adds spawn in the middle intercardinals that need to be baited. The other variation will happen again right after. For the first set, identify if inside or outside is safe. The supports will bait the cleaves out, and the DPS will stay slightly away from the frogs at max melee range.

For the outside safe section, the baiting role needs to be as close to the adds as possible. The role not baiting should stand on the middle line and away, but not too far or else they will be hit by the cone. The final set of add spawns will have the boss and two frogs at intercardinals all cast Do the Hustle at the same time. Identify the safe spot by going to the safe cardinal from the adds and then going on the safe side of the boss.

This is followed by Deep Cut into the final Funky Floor of the fight. Players will need to dodge the tiles near their colour partner as the boss casts Eighth Beats or Quarter Beats, so spread or stack depending on the mechanic. The boss then does either Inside Out or Outside In, so do the in-out mechanic while adhering to the safe tiles. He then casts the opposite Beat mechanic, so stack with your colour partner or spread on a safe tile again.

Dancing Green then casts two Celebrate Good Times raidwides, then begins the enrage sequence. Hi-NRG Fever is the enrage and will finish casting at 10:06, wiping the party. Kill the boss before he kills you!

Depending on the data centre and strategy used, party finder pugs may use different strategies for the fight. All differences are explained in the guide, and if new preferred strategies appear they will be documented here.

When Dancing Green is defeated, a treasure coffer will appear that contains Babyface Champion's Accessory Coffers. When opened by a player, these coffers contain an item level 760 Babyface accessory for the job the player is currently on. The amount of coffers that appear depend on how many players have already cleared during the weekly lockout. If no players have cleared yet, all four accessory coffers will appear. If one to four players have already cleared, two accessory coffers will appear. If five or more players have already cleared, no treasure coffer will appear.

Players who defeat the encounter for the first time during the weekly reset will also receive an AAC Illustrated: CW Edition I token. Four of these can be traded in for a Babyface accessory of your choosing at an Arcadion gear vendor.