AAC Cruiserweight M4 Savage Raid Guide

Howling Blade is the final boss fought in AAC Cruiserweight (Savage).

AAC Cruiserweight M4 (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 740 to queue, but this requirement can be bypassed when entering with a full party.

Gabbro's words have sparked your imagination, inspiring you to envision your title match against the Howling Blade in new ways. Had he brought the full might of Fenrir to bear, the lone wolf's formidable strength would have reached greater heights still. How might you have fared if the battle continued to rage on...?

Video resources for this encounter will be posted when available.

Howling Blade is split into two distinct boss phases with no checkpoint. Both phases have a separate HP bar and differing hard enrage timer. All resources, including gauges and limit break bars carry over from the first phase to the second, and only upon defeating the second phase will you receive rewards and clear the encounter. The first phase has its own adds phase with a consolidated hard enrage timer as well.

In both phases, players can fall or get knocked off the arena. The first arena has a death wall as well.

Phase one has a hard enrage of around 6:50 depending on how fast adds phase is and requires roughly 204,000 raid DPS. The adds phase has a DPS requirement of 120,000 raid DPS. Phase two has a hard enrage of around 7:18 and requires roughly 217,000 raid DPS.

Positions are fairly set in stone for this fight: have two light parties of one tank, one healer, and two DPS each. These light parties will be split into various configurations for mechanics throughout, including colour partners and role partners.

Waymarks should be placed at cardinals and intercardinals on the first arena.

You fight Howling Blade in phase one before the adds phase.

The following mechanics are introduced in the first half of phase one.

• Extraplanar Pursuit: Heavy raidwide physical damage.
• Windfang: Hits all four players of one role with a conal AoE that deals split damage. Must be shared with one other player and inflicts vuln. Also does a donut AoE and conal AoEs towards cardinals or intercardinals.
• Stonefang: Hits all eight players with a small conal AoE. Inflicts vuln. Also does a point-blank AoE and conal AoEs towards cardinals or intercardinals.
• Eminent Reign: Spawns clones that charge in a direction, doing an AoE at the edge of the arena as well as in the centre. The boss then jumps to a random clone and does a line AoE, dashing across the arena. Then he does a wide conal AoE towards the middle which knocks back. This is followed by conal AoEs on both healers as well as #1 and #2 on aggro, which deals heavy damage that can be split and inflicts vuln.
• Revolutionary Reign: Spawns clones that charge in a direction, doing an AoE at the edge of the arena as well as in the centre. The boss then jumps to a random clone and does a line AoE, dashing across the arena. Then he does a large point-blank AoE which knocks back. This is followed by conal AoEs on both healers as well as #1 and #2 on aggro, which deals heavy damage that can be split and inflicts vuln.
• Millenial Decay: Heavy raidwide magic damage. Summons four wind wolf heads in succession, starting north or south and rotating in a random direction. These do a line AoE across the arena after a delay. Additionally, four players of one role will get a marked AoE that deals damage and inflicts a vuln. This repeats for the other role afterwards.
• Aero III: Knockback from the centre of the arena, dealing light magic damage. Knockback immunity abilities can be used.
• Wind of Decay: wolf heads appear that tether to four players of one role at cardinals or intercardinals. These do a conal AoE towards them that deals proximity damage.
• Prowling Gale: Towers that must be soaked by players, with the pillars in the tower determining how many players need to stand in them.
• Tracking Tremors: A multi-hit stack marker on a healer. Hits eight times for heavy magic damage.
• Great Divide: Shared tank buster on 1st in aggro. Can be invulned.
• Terrestrial Titans: Summons two pillars that are slashed via Titanic Pursuit, causing them to fall. Creates two safe spots at opposite intercardinals.
• Fanged Crossing: Cross or X-shaped AoE from bits at opposite cardinals. Determines safe spots for Towerfall.

The phase begins with heavy auto-attack damage into Extraplanar Pursuit. This is followed by the boss jumping to the middle and casting either Stonefang or Windfang. For both attacks, identify where Howling Blade's bits end up: if they are pointed towards intercardinals, cardinals is safe and vice-versa. Group up with your colour partner and go inside and stack if Windfang, and outside and spread in the safe spot if Stonefang, with supports on the left and DPS on the right facing the boss.

Next is Eminent Reign or Revolutionary Reign. Eminent is similar to Wolves' Reign from normal mode, while Revolutionary has a point-blank AoE instead of a conal AoE. Both have an additional conal AoE at the end. Tanks need to be #1 and #2 on aggro for this, so Provoke and Shirk as necessary. Tanks only need their short mitigation, while the party needs some other mitigation as well.

For Eminent Reign, the party chases the boss after the dash, as the two sides of him are safe. Light party 1 will be left facing the wall and light party two will be right facing the wall. Have the tanks be between the rear and flank, while the rest of the party stays on the flank.

For Revolutionary Reign, the party goes to where the boss jumps originally and does not follow after the dash. Light party 1 will be left facing the wall after the dash and light party two will be right facing the wall. Have the tanks at the edge, just over 90 degrees rotated from where the boss jumped to while the party stays and moves slightly into the AoE. Positioning is tricky for tanks as their conal AoE is quite large.

This is followed by Extraplanar Pursuit, so heal up and mitigate. The boss jumps to the middle, faces north, and begins the Millenial Decay mechanic sequence. The party will split into light parties east and west.

The boss will show four wolf heads spawning from north or south and rotation clockwise or counterclockwise. These do a line AoE across the middle of the arena, and players will have to rotate with them. In addition, four players of one role will receive a marked AoE, then the other four players will receive the same. These go off right after the first line AoE and third line AoE. All players are knocked back at the beginning of this mechanic as well.

Have the players marked for the AoE get knocked back to their colour, while the other role gets knocked back to the safe cardinal. All players will rotate after they get knocked back. Since the other four players of the other role will now receive AoEs, they need to rotate one intercardinal over as that's when the AoE goes off. Have the melee and tanks rotate to the further intercardinal and ranged and healers rotate to the closer intercardinal.

After the fourth wolf head goes off, four players of one role will be targeted by Winds of Decay. In addition, four 1-soak Prowling Gale towers appear at cardinals or intercardinals, wherever the wolf head tethers are not. Players with tethers will get knocked back by Aero III to behind the opposite wolf head, while the other role gets knocked back to their colour marker to soak the tower.

Come back to the middle, heal, and mitigate Tracking Tremors. After the eight hits, the boss follows it up with Extraplanar Pursuit so extra healing is required, though pressing a 15s mitigation ability after the second hit will allow it to last for the rest of the hits and the raidwide after. Mitigate or invuln Great Divide, then prepare for the next mechanic as well as burst.

Terrestrial Titans is a fairly straightforward mechanic. The two towers are large and spawn on opposite cardinals, but they always are sliced in the same pattern creating two opposite intercardinal safe spots. To identify them, look where the cut is pointing towards. Two bits will spawn, and one has a cross shape cutting off one of the intercardinal safe spots. Therefore, the safe spot is the intercardinal with the X-shaped bit beside it.

One final Eminent or Revolutionary Reign concludes this phase. It will always be opposite of the first one. Do the mechanic, then heal up and prepare for the adds phase, Tactical Pack.

Tactical Pack indicates the start of the adds phase. The raid is split into two changing light parties that rotate around the centre of the arena, resolving debuffs. One Wolf of Stone and Wolf of Wind are summoned east and west, which both must be killed before they finish casting Forlorn Stone and Forlorn Wind at the end of the phase. These tether to players, preventing damage done to them with a debuff. In addition, one Font of Earth Aether and one Font of Wind Aether are summoned randomly north and south.

The following mechanics are introduced in the adds phase.

• Howling Havoc: Heavy raidwide magic damage. A large persistent death AoE spawns in the middle of the arena.
  • One tank, one healer, and two DPS are each inflicted with the corresponding tether debuff, Stonepack or Windpack that negates damage to the indicated add.
  • One healer and two DPS are each inflicted with Earthborne End or Windborne End with different timers. This can be removed by running into the Aether Fonts. If this debuff expires, it wipes the raid.
• Font of Earth Aether: Spawns north or south. Rotates around the arena. When a player with Earthborne End runs into it, it stops moving for a second, swaps their debuff, deals roughly 25% of the add's health, light raidwide damage, and inflicts a 4 second magic vuln to all players. Wipes the raid if it touches an add.
• Font of Wind Aether: Spawns north or south. Rotates around the arena. When a player with Windborne End runs into it, it stops moving for a second, swaps their debuff, deals roughly 25% of the add's health, light raidwide damage, and inflicts a 4 second magic vuln to all players. Wipes the raid if it touches an add.
• Pack Predation: Each add does a conal tank buster on #1 on their respective aggro, as well as a conal AoE prey marker on one of the three other closest players.

Begin by moving opposite of your tether to other add. There should be one tank, one healer, and two DPS on each side. The non-tanks will have Earthborne End or Windborne End with two 20s, two 36s, and two 53s debuffs (one of each).

Both adds will begin casting Pack Predation. The tank points the conal tank buster in the direction the bosses are rotating. The prey will stand behind the boss, and everyone else takes the prey conal AoE. At this point, the Font of Wind and Earth Aethers spawn north and south. The party rotates clockwise or counterclockwise, away from the Font of the same element.

As soon as Pack Predation's damage goes off, which requires some mitigation and fast healing, the player with the shortest Earthborne End debuff runs through the Font of Earth Aether and rotates in the opposite direction to the other light party. This swaps their debuff, so they should start attacking the other add. Wait for the party to be healed up and the magic vuln to disappear, then the player with the shortest Windborne End debuff runs through the Font of Wind Aether and rotates in the opposite direction to the other light party.

This repeats two more times. Note that healers will both have the same timer. After the third set of debuffs run through, the Fonts will disappear. Drag the bosses north, and kill them. Note that the damage negation debuff is active until the add dies. In addition, if an add dies before all three of the debuffs expire, the Font will explode, wiping the party. To prevent this, after the second set, if an add is below 25% HP, hold DPS.

As soon as both adds die, the boss is targetable and becomes omni-directional. He casts five fast hits of a heavy physical raidwide, Ravenous Saber, so mitigate and heal through during your burst window and prepare for the final set of phase one mechanics.

Howling Blade becomes targetable again in the second half of phase one.

The following mechanics are introduced.

• Terrestrial Rage: Begins the next sequence of mechanics, summoning clones, bits, and wind wolf heads.
• Heavensearth: Stack marker on one player of a role.
• Suspended Stone: Marked AoE on four players in one role.
• Fanged Charge: Two sets of line AoEs from bits.
• Shadowchase: Line AoEs from Howling Blade clones.
• Roaring Wind: Line AoEs from wind wolf heads.
• Weal of Stone: Line AoEs from stone wolf heads.
• Beckon Moonlight: Summons clones at cardinals, which cleave one half of the room the sword is facing with Moonbeam's Bite.

The second half of the first phase involves two distinct mechanics, Terrestrial Rage and Beckon Moonlight. The first is Terrestrial Rage. The boss jumps to the middle and spawns two sets of bits which do line AoEs in succession. This creates two safe lanes across the arena. In addition, four players of one role get a marked AoE and one player from the other role gets a stack AoE.

Have all players go near their colour waymarks, with supports on cardinals and DPS on intercardinals. The four players in the role with the stack always goes under the boss in the safe row, which leaves ample room on the two rows on the outside to spread out near their clock spot. Remember that if you have one mechanic in the first set, you will have the other the second set.

Next, five Shadowchase clones will spawn and the boss becomes untargetable. These do a line AoE across the arena, and the role that had marked AoEs will have one stack while the role that had one stack will have four marked AoEs. Have the stack role go north to share damage, while the other four players fan out in the safe spots relative to the north safe spot near their colour waymark. Note that the north safe spot can be offset clockwise slightly; adjust if necessary.

The boss becomes targetable again right after and five wind wolf heads spawn where the safe spots were to cast Roaring Wind. Again, behind the wolf head is safe, and you can get one GCD as a melee before moving out to the safe spot. The boss then does one more Eminent or Revolutionary Reign. This time it is accompanied with stone wolf heads that cast Weal of Stone from where he jumps to, so dodge the line AoEs. This is followed by Great Divide.

The final mechanic sequence of the fight is Beckon Moonlight. The boss spawns four clones that do half-room cleave dashes, and the Heavensearth + Suspended Stone sequence alongside it. To make the dodges simple, we can do them in the first safe quadrant and final safe quadrant. Again, remember that if you have one mechanic in the first set, you will have the other the second set.

Have light party 1 on the left and light party 2 on the right facing the boss. The melee or tank will stand on the boss's hitbox line, while the ranged and healers use the waymark. The stack will disengage from the boss for safety. Identify the safe quadrant for the third and fourth cleaves. In the example below, it is the 4 quadrant.

After the first two cleaves, roles will get opposite mechanics. Move into the safe quadrant and position like previous, with light party 1 left and light party 2 right facing the boss. Immediately after, stone wolf heads will do line AoEs across the middle of the room, leaving cardinal edges safe. The boss then casts Stonefang or Windfang, so note if intercardinals or cardinals are safe, head to your colour waymark, and do the mechanic.

Finally, the boss will cast Tracking Tremors into Extraplanar Pursuit. He will auto-attack the main tank afterwards and cast Extraplanar Pursuit once more if the adds phase was killed fast. Otherwise, he will instantly become untargetable at roughly 6:50. If he is not below 1 HP at this point, the party will wipe. The moment he reaches below 1 HP and is not locked into a mechanic, he will stun the entire party, move them south, and transition to the second phase. If you can afford to save LB3 and resources, do so to make the P2 DPS check easier.

In phase two, you will fight Howling Blade's second form. The arena changes to five platforms that has teleporters on the left and right. Stepping onto a teleporter will send you to the adjacent platform and give you a cooldown preventing you from using a teleporter for 2 seconds. Players cannot jump in this phase.

Howling Blade is omni-directional for the entire phase, but where he is facing is important for certain mechanics. He will auto-attack #1 and #2 in aggro throughout the phase.

The following mechanics are introduced here.

• Quake III: Stack marker on both healers. Inflicts vuln and hits the entire platform the stack is on.
• Ultraviolent Ray: Four players of one role and one player of the other role are marked. This shoots a line AoE at the end of the cast that inflicts vuln and hits the entire platform.
• Gleaming Beam: Two bits spawn on the back of each platform. One will charge up and fire, dealing damage to one half of the platform.
• Gleaming Barrage: Donut or point-blank AoE from boss. Bits will be rotating around the boss, and the glow indicates if it hits in or out.
• Twinbite: Magic tank buster on #1 and #2 on aggro. Hits the entire platform.
• Hero's Blow: Howling Blade looks at one platform and prepares to swing his sword on the side it's glowing. This cleaves his left or right.
• Mooncleaver: Howling Blade looks at a platform and destroys it at the end of the castbar.
• Elemental Purge: A 210 degree cleave on #1 in aggro after binding them, inflicting a vuln. Either #1 or #2 in aggro receive the Patience of Wind debuff, which is an AoE magical tank buster, and one non-tank receives Patience of Stone, dealing shared AoE damage. Both hits inflicts a vuln.
• Rise of the Howling Wind: Increases the teleporter debuff timer to 7 seconds. Spawns a tether on a random player. This tether needs to be shared by two players, inflicts a magic vuln, and creates an expanding wind AoE.
• Twofold Tempest: Begins the first tether AoE. In addition, the closest player receives a shared line AoE that inflicts a short magic vuln. This will repeat three times for a total of four shared AoEs and four tether AoEs.

Players spawn on the south platform and Howling Blade is immediately targetable after the cutscene ends. Both tanks need to establish aggro. We will refer to the platforms as south, southwest, northwest, northeast, and southeast. Facing the boss, light party 1 goes left (SW) and light party 2 goes right (SE). This satisfies the stacks for Quake III.

To deal with Ultraviolent Ray, players will line up MRRM with supports closer to north and DPS closer to south. If light party configurations are set up correctly there will be one side with 3 marks and one side with 2 marks. The north-most marked player will always go to the north platform on their side, while the side with 3 marks will have their south-most marked player go to the south platform, while the others stay. At the same time, Gleaming Beam will be cast so be on the safe half of the platform.

Next, the boss will cast Twinbite. The two tanks will go to the north platforms and mitigate the cast, then return to where the party is. Everyone else should go to the SW or SE platforms. This is followed by Hero's Blow and Gleaming Barrage. Hero's Blow will always hit two and a half platforms, so identify the safe side and head towards there, while going in or out. Return to the SW and SE platforms and line up for one more Ultraviolent Ray with Gleaming Beam, then stack up for Quake III.

Return to the south platform to bait Mooncleaver. Wait until the boss starts casting and locks onto the south platform before moving off. The MT will go left to SW, while everyone else goes right. The OT stays on SE while the party goes to NE to handle Elemental Purge. Either the MT or OT receives Patience of Wind. One tank cannot take both unless they invuln, so if the MT gets the debuff the OT needs to provoke. Meanwhile, the party will have to move either NW or NE next to the tank with Patience of Wind to be safe from the cleave.

Finally, the boss will begin casting Rise of the Howling Wind. When the cast finishes, the teleporter cooldown will be set to 7 seconds. All players should preposition onto their platform with role partners, with healers and ranged on NW and NE, and tanks and melee on SW and SE. The boss then casts Twofold Tempest.

The tether will spawn on a random player. If not already on an outer melee platform, it needs to be taken to that platform by the ranged or caster, going to whichever one is closer to their side. The melee DPS takes the tether and brings it to the rear of the platform with their support partner stacking besides them. Be careful not to stand in front, as DPS are handling this mechanic. To ensure a smooth tether pass, the player receiving the tether should stand in front of the teleporter so that it instantly passes to them once the tether arrives.

At the same time, at the end of the castbar one other platform needs to bait the shared line AoE. As the tether can start either SW or SE, this mechanic can go clockwise or counterclockwise. The initial baiting platform will be the opposite side's healer to ensure the vulns expire between tethers and baiting.

Once the tether wind AoE goes off, the DPS takes the tether to the next platform either clockwise or counterclockwise. The DPS already on that platform receives the AoE and brings it to the rear, while the next clockwise or counterclockwise platform will bait the shared line AoE. This will repeat three times for a total of four tether AoEs and four baits. For reference, the two patterns can be as follows.

1. If the tether starts SW, it will go SW, NW, NE, and SE. The baits will therefore go NE, SE, SW, NW.
2. If the tether starts SE, it will go SE, NE, NW, and SW. The baits will therefore go NW, SW, SE, NE.

Once all four tethers and baits have finished, the south platform is restored. All players should move to the south platform to do the next mechanic together.

The final set of mechanics challenges player positioning, as well as a climactic soft enrage that breaks the arena platform by platform.

The following mechanics are introduced in this phase.

• Bare Fangs: Begins the next mechanic cycle. Faces the south platform and summons bits.
• Champion's Circuit: Each platform is hit by Gleaming Beam, as well as a wide line, donut, in-safe, or out-safe AoE. These AoEs will rotate in the direction indicated by the boss.
• Rise of the Hunter's Blade: Increases the teleporter debuff timer to 7 seconds.
• Lone Wolf's Lament: Two players in each role are inflicted with debuffs that tether them to opposite roles. Lament of the Close requires tethered players to be close to each other, while Lament of the Distant requires tethered players to be far from each other.
• Howling Eight: A multi-hit tower on a platform that hits eight times. Deals shared magic damage. This is followed by Mooncleaver. Every time this is cast, the boss gains a stacking damage up buff.

Once all players are on the south platform, prepare to do Bare Fangs and Champion's Circuit. Each platform will have an AoE on it, and the boss indicates a direction the AoEs will rotate. This will repeat four times, with each AoE accompanied by Gleaming Beam, making one side of the platform unsafe. Players need to identify the safe spots and dodge each AoE. It may be helpful to have a set of macros for the AoEs, and press them during the cast to remember them. Alternatively, look to the incoming platform once you reach the safe spot and check what AoE it is.

In the example above, the safe spots would be donut, in, out, donut, and sides. Getting hit inflicts a damage down, which is very bad as a 2 minute burst window is incoming.

After this, the teleporters return to normal. Prepare for Quake III into Ultraviolent Ray and Twinbite, which is handled the exact same as last time. Players should then preposition for the final mechanic, Lone Wolf's Lament on the following platforms. This makes the mechanic easy to solve, but makes the last few mechanics slightly more difficult.

Have the tanks on the NW platform, healers on S, and DPS on SE. All players will receive tethers, and the DPS and tank have to look at theirs. Healers can plant and focus on healing the tanks, who are taking heavy auto-attack damage.

The DPS with Lament of the Close (close green) can visually head left or right based on where their partner is. The DPS with Lament of the Distant (far blue) need to check where their partner is and go opposite: if they're tethered to a healer, they go to the NE platform, while if they're tethered to a tank they will stay. The tank with close green goes with the DPS to NE, while the tank with far blue goes to SW, satisfying the initial tether conditions.

Next, Prowling Gale is cast, spawning towers on each platform which may require multiple players to soak. However, there are only two patterns, with the S, SE, and SW towers always being 3, 1, and 1 respectively. Therefore, only the tanks and DPS have to adjust. One of the NW and NE platforms will require a 2 stack, while the other requires 1. Have the two close green tank and DPS go to the platform with 2 stack, and far blue go to the platform with the 1 stack.

The tethers then fall off, but the teleporters still incur a longer cooldown. The boss casts Hero's Blow with Gleaming Barrage. Players only have enough time for one teleport to dodge the half-room cleave. Ideally, dodge such that you are together, then move to new positions for Ultraviolent Ray. The DPS up north will be with the tanks, while the DPS down south will be with the healers. This is because there is only one teleport before the marks appear. Have the third mark go to the SW platform.

After Ultraviolent Ray, go as fast as possible to the south platform. This is the beginning of the soft enrage sequence, Howling Eight. The tower will be baited on a platform a random player is on, so if it's not south the party needs to adjust. Mitigate and heal through the incoming damage, wait for the Mooncleaver cast, and go clockwise to the next platform.

Tanks are able to soak towers together with cooldowns or by themselves with invulns. Therefore, it is recommended to have tanks save their invulns for Howling Eight. When tanks are soaking, the party must wait until the tower appears before they go clockwise to the next platform.

The recommended order of soaking is as follows.

1. Party soaks this normally. Use 90s mitigation slightly earlier so it's up for the fifth and final tower. Spread longer important healing cooldowns like Neutral Sect, Panhaima, and Seraphism out so that you have cooldowns for this and the fifth tower.
2. Non-WAR invulns.
3. Tanks use all their cooldowns and soak together. This is because the last tank buster, Twinbite was about 115 seconds ago, meaning all cooldowns should be up.
4. WAR, or any other tank invulns. WAR can invuln Elemental Purge and fourth tower because Holmgang has a cooldown of four minutes.
5. Party soaks this normally, using all mitigation possible.

After the last tower, the boss will begin casting Starcleaver. This kills the party and destroys the final platform. Kill the boss before he kills you!

• A more dangerous version of Millenial Decay has supports and DPS split into separate sides and use knockback immunity, allowing the marked AoE players to stay on the boss permanently.

When Howling Blade is defeated, a treasure coffer will appear that contains a Babyface Champion's Weapon Coffer and a random Babyface Champion's weapon. When opened by a player, these coffers contain an item level 765 Babyface Champion's weapon for the job the player is currently on. The amount of loot that appears depend on how many players have already cleared during the weekly lockout. If no players have cleared yet, both the coffer and random weapon will appear, as well as an Air-wheeler C9 Identification Key mount, The Faces We Wear - Groovy Glasses accessory, and Peerless Orchestrion Roll. If one to four players have already cleared, either the random weapon or everything else 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 IV token. Eight of these can be traded in for a Babyface Champion weapon of your choosing at an Arcadion gear vendor, as well as any other AAC Illustrated CW token from the raid tier at a 1:1 conversion rate.