AAC Light-heavyweight M1 Normal Raid Guide

Black Cat is the first boss fought in AAC Light-heavyweight.

To unlock AAC Light-heavyweight M1, players must complete the quest "The Claw in the Dark." This is the second quest in the quest chain starting from "A New Challenger Appears," which can be received from the Stylish Stranger in Solution Nine (x19.1, y18.8). There is a minimum item level restriction of 685 to enter through the duty finder in a matched party.

At Metem's invitation, you have entered the Ascension Arcadia Championship, a competition in which the greatest fighters of Alexandria face off in a bid to become grand champion. Yet your opponents wield feral souls to augment their strength, so you in turn must use the simulacra of past warriors to balance the scales. Your debut match is against Black Cat, a fellow rookie harnessing the power of Cath Palug, and if you are to seize victory against this feline foe, you shall need to be agile indeed...

Black Cat is fought on a platform split into sixteen squares. Players can be knocked off the arena, or fall off if one of the squares breaks. Squares break when they are hit twice by certain mechanics: normal squares have no cracks, while squares that are about to break will have cracks on them.

Phase one has you do battle with Black Cat. This phase will introduce players to mechanics in the fight.

The following mechanics are introduced in phase one.

• Bloody Scratch: Raidwide magical damage.
• One-two Paw: Black Cat's left and right claws start glowing. She will cleave the left and right of the arena in the order they glowed.
• Black Cat Crossing: Blades on the arena that shoot a conal AoE from Black Cat.
• Biscuit Maker: Physical tank buster.
• Clawful: Stack marker.
• Mouser: Marks squares on the arena to be hit by an AoE - players hit take damage and receive a vuln stack. Each hit damages the square, so squares hit twice will be broken.
• Elevate and Eviscerate: Black Cat targets a player with a line. The targeted player will be knocked up and back about one square relative to Black Cat. This will damage the square, so make sure you get knocked into an undamaged square.
• Shockwave: A knockback from the centre of the arena. Knockback immunities do work.
• Predaceous Pounce: Black Cat marks the arena with paw tracks and large AoEs. These show where she will dash and do line AoEs as well as circle AoEs. There's a few safe spots on the outside of the arena, and her hitbox moves along with the dash.
• Grimalkin Gale: Marked AoEs on all players. Spread to avoid clipping each other.

• The first half of the fight introduces basic mechanics. Move into the safe spot for both One-two Paw and Black Cat Crossing.
• Mouser will break any square hit twice. Look for a square that's only being hit once and move into it once it's been hit. The vuln stack isn't deadly, but falling off the arena is, so prioritize finding a safe square.
• The arena will have a few squares restored after Mouser.
• Elevate and Eviscerate will target four players of one role first. Orient yourself relative to Black Cat such that a square with no cracks is behind you; the indicator will show where you'll land. Four players will be targeted in total each time, and there are more than four safe squares.
• Either use your knockback immunity ability for Shockwave or get knocked back to a safe outside square. The arena will be fully restored after this.
• For Predaceous Pounce, find the safe spots on the outside and go there after she starts dashing. Spread out afterwards for Grimalkin Gale.

In phase two, Black Cat has new mechanics that transpose her position while doing mechanics seen previously.

The following mechanics are introduced in phase two.

• Leaping One-two Paw: Black Cat jumps to the targeted position and does One-two Paw. Note the direction she is facing does not change.
• Leaping Black Cat Crossing: Black Cat jumps to the targeted position and does Black Cat Crossing. Again, note the direction she is facing does not change.
• Copycat: Summons a Black Cat clones at the edge of the arena, which does mechanics from that position.
• Overshadow: Line stack marker.

• After the first Mouser phase, Black Cat will begin to do Leaping One-two Paw and Leaping Black Cat Crossing. She will face the same direction after the jump. For the side cleaves, one side's AoE will cover a larger area on the arena, and the conal AoEs will come from the new spot.
• Mouser will happen again. This time, Copycat will summon a clone at the north edge that does Elevate and Eviscerate four times, once for each DPS. Each time this happens, someone will be targeted with Overshadow, so stack up and avoid hitting the player getting knocked back.
• After another Shockwave, the arena returns to normal.
• Black Cat then uses Copycat again, this time using Predaceous Pounce. At the same time, the real boss will be casting One-two Paw from the centre of the arena towards the end, so move closer to be on the safe side.
• This is followed by both Leaping abilities with Grimalkin Gale in between.
• The fight then repeats on from this point with another Mouser cycle.

Coffers that appear after defeating Black Cat will yield tokens that can be traded in for gear. The drops for this fight are listed below.

• 2x Lightheavy Holohelm;
• 1x Lightheavy Holoarmor;
• 1x Lightheavy Hologauntlets;
• 1x Lightheavy Holochausses;
• 1x Lightheavy Hologreaves;
• 2x Lightheavy Holoearring.

In addition, an extra coffer rarely appears that drops the It's Showtime Orchestrion Roll. Players will also randomly receive the Black Cat Triple Triad card upon successfully defeating the boss.