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Final Fantasy 14’s Arcadion raids feature a colorful cast of new raid bosses capable of merging with feral souls to augment their abilities. Among them, a community favorite, Honey B. Lovely, has emerged, doubling as both a pop idol and a fearsome combatant.
With the release of patch 7.05, the high-difficulty Savage version of the Arcadion Light-heavyweight Raid has been introduced, giving players the chance to take on an empowered version of Honey B. Lovely in a cartoonist’s reimagining of the real events. Those who triumph over even this improved version of the boss will be able to earn themselves gear from the item level 730 Dark Horse Champion gear set,equipment frequently found in each job’s best-in-slot equipment list. Read on to learn the best strategies for defeating Honey B. Lovely and earning this gear!
Honey B. Lovely (Savage) Party Setup
Before beginning the fight, positions should be assigned to each player in a cardinal or intercardinal direction (e.g., north, northeast, etc.), as well as a partner group pairing each DPS player with a tank or healer, and a four-player group with one tank, one healer, and two DPS (commonly referred to as “light parties”). These positions and groups will be important for executing mechanics later in the fight, so it is essential for players to be familiar with them before the fight begins.
Honey B. Lovely Introduction
Honey B. Lovely will begin the fight by introducing two abilities that will frequently appear throughout the fight: Splash of Venom and Drop of Venom. When cast, Honey B. Lovely will gain a buff augmenting their next use of Honey Beeline or Tempting Twist. Like the normal version of the fight, Honey Beeline will strike in a straight line in the direction the boss is facing, leaving explosive honey on the sides of the arena, while Tempting Twist hits in a donut shape, leaving explosive honey in a cross-shaped pattern. When augmented by Splash of Venom, an additional area of effect attacks (AoEs) will land on all eight players at the same time the honey explodes, while Drop of Venom creates four AoEs on either all DPS players or all tanks and healers, requiring them to share the hit with their assigned partners. The order and combination of these attacks is random, so players will need to look out for the name of the ability being cast and remember it while dodging Honey B. Lovely’s attacks.Whichever combination of attacks is used first, the remaining two options will always be cast second.
One trick that can help with remembering whether Drop or Splash of Venom was cast is having a player type the ability name in the chat window to have a written record, or to set up a dedicated chat tab to keep track of the abilities cast by the boss. To do this, click on the cogwheel in the bottom right of the chat window, and select the chat tab to be modified in the options menu. Under the middle “Battle” tab, select “Engaged Enemy” from the “Subject” list and make sure the “Actions initiated by engaged enemies” item is checked. All other items should be unchecked to reduce clutter.
After casting both Honey Beeline and Tempting Twist, Honey B. Lovely will introduce this fight’s tank buster abilities, heavy hitting attacks intended to be lethal to all but tank players using damage mitigating abilities. When executing a tank buster, Honey B. Lovely will randomly select between two attacks.Stinging Slash targets the two players with the highest enmity with a wide conal AoE, requiring both tanks to have their tank stances activated to prevent the attack from targeting the rest of the party.Killer Sting targets the player with the highest enmity with a circular AoE, dividing the damage with another player within the attack.Both tanks will need to stick together to survive the damage, or the main target can opt to use their invulnerability cooldown to survive the attack alone.
Honey B. Lovely Phase 1: Honey B. Live: 1st Beat
The phase will begin with Honey B. Lovely casting Honey B. Live: 1st Beat, altering the arena’s appearance and placing a heart meter above each player’s head. Getting hit by any attack, including attacks required to execute mechanics, will add a heart to the meter. If all four slots of a player’s heart meter are filled, the player will be stunned, heal the boss for one percent of its health, and give the boss a stacking damage buff. At the start of this phase, nine hearts will be distributed randomly among the players, starting players with either zero, one, or two hearts.
Centerstage and Outerstage Combo
Two attacks frequently repeated in the Honey B. Live phases areCenterstage Combo and Outerstage Combo, each executing three attacks in quick succession that players must be prepared to dodge.Centerstage Combo performs a donut AoE and four conal AoEs in each diagonal, requiring players to stand close to the boss along the cardinal directions, followed by a large cross-shaped AoE striking the cardinal directions, finishing with a circular AoE ontop of the boss and four conal AoEs aimed in each of the cardinal directions, requiring players to position away from the boss along the diagonals. Outerstage Combo will perform the exact same attacks, but in reverse order.
Love Me Tender 1
Following Centerstage or Outerstage Combo, Honey B. Lovely will cast Love Me Tender, creating a series of ground AoEs that must have at least one player standing within them when they detonate to prevent them from exploding unmitigated and hitting the entire party (commonly referred to as “towers” or “soaks”). 11 towers will spawn in various locations around the arena, each adding one heart to the meter of anyone standing within them when they detonate. The goal of this mechanic is to spread the distribution of hearts as equally possible across all players while avoiding reaching full hearts.If all hearts are spread equally, four players should have two hearts, while the remaining players should all have three hearts.
To help facilitate even distribution of hearts, it can be useful to assign players quadrants of the room based on their clock position to be responsible for.
Once all 11 towers have detonated, Loveseeker will be cast, creating a large AoE in the center of the arena, followed by a series of slow-moving hearts approaching from both the center and the perimeter of the arena, inflicting any player hit with a heart. During this attack, Honey B. Lovely will target one player with Heartsick, a tracking AoE that splits damage and four hearts between all targets hit. Players with two or fewer hearts should aim to stand in this attack to share the damage and hearts, while players with three hearts should avoid this AoE to not max out their heart meters. Once resolved, Honey B. Lovely will finish the phase by casting Honey B. Finale.
Honey B. Lovely Phase 2: Alarm Pheromones 1
Once the arena has returned to its default state, Honey B. Lovely will perform another tank buster attack, followed by Alarm Pheromones, summoning a swarm of Groupbees around the outside of the arena. This attack is identical to the version from Honey B. Lovely’s normal difficulty fight, with the summoned bees each targeting a random player with Blinding Love, a line AoE indicated by green arrows, firing off after a short delay. Players will need to dodge 16 of these attacks before Honey B. Lovely begins the next phase with Honey B. Live: 2nd Beat.
While the order the Groupbees attack in is random, the direction of their attack can be somewhat baited by stacking players together. Some groups have found success by stacking the entire group along the edge of the arena and dodging the attacks together, while others have separated melee and ranged players into two groups placed on opposite ends of the arena. Experiment and see what works for you!
Honey B. Lovely Phase 3: Honey B. Live: 2nd Beat
As the second Honey B. Live phase begins, two DPS players and two tanks or healers will start with one heart of their meter already filled, while the rest of the players will have a completely empty heart meter. Shortly after, Honey B. Lovely will cast eitherDrop of Love or Spread Love. Like Drop of Venom or Splash of Venom from the introduction of the fight, these abilities will give the boss a buff, augmenting her next use of Honey Beeline or Tempting Twist.Drop of Love will follow this attack with four AoEs targeting either all DPS players or all tanks and healers that must be shared with a partner,whileSpread Love targets all eight players with an AoE that must be spread apartto avoid hitting each other.
Love Me Tender 2
One DPS player and one tank or healer withzero hearts will be targeted with a stack marker that distributes four hearts among all targets hit, requiring the attack to be shared with at least one other player to avoid being charmed.At the same time, five AoEs will target their current position before exploding shortly after. These zero-heart players will have to stick together while dodging the AoEs to ensure the stack marker is shared with enough people.
Concurrently, one DPS player and one tank or healer starting the phase with one heart will be targeted with an unavoidable AoE that tracks their position, while two ground AoEs will appear that must be soaked to prevent them from exploding and hitting the entire party. Players with the tracking AoE will have to position themselves away from other players, whilethe remaining one-heart players with no AoEs on them should position themselves inside these new ground AoEs to soak them. If all mechanics are executed correctly,all players should have two hearts each.
A common strategy to handle this series of mechanics is to assign all players starting the phase with zero hearts a position next to the boss, while all players starting the phase with one heart position directly in the center of the arena. The zero-heart players will avoid the AoEs placed on their position by running in a circle around the boss and taking both stack markers as a single group of four, resulting in all four players ending with two hearts each. As the boss targets the one-heart players with their AoEs, these players should loosely spread to identify their next action. Players targeted with an AoE should spread away from other players, the DPS player without an AoE should soak either the east or south ground AoE, and the tank or healer without an AoE should soak either the north or west ground AoE.
After all these mechanics have been resolved, Honey B. Lovely will finally cast either Honey Beeline or Tempting Twist, and players will have to dodge the follow-up attack based on whether the boss previously cast Drop of Love or Spread Love from the beginning of the phase.
Honey B. Lovely Phase 4: Alarm Pheromones 2
Honey B. Lovely will once again begin the phase by casting either Drop of Venom or Splash of Venom, requiring players to remember which buff is activated until the end of the phase. Shortly after, Alarm Pheromones will be cast again, calling four Groupbees to cast Blinding Love in a crosshatch formation, leaving a square in the center of the arena and four smaller sections along the edge of the arena safe. At the same time, Honey B. Lovely herself will cast Poison Sting, targeting one random DPS player and one random tank or DPS player with an orange marker that will detonate and leave behind a lingering puddle, poisoning anyone within it. Poison Sting will be cast four times in a row, targeting each player will receive this marker once, and resulting in eight total puddles.
Players should approach this mechanic by starting off within the center square safe zone and waiting for the boss to cast Poison Sting. As the cast begins, players with an orange marker above their head should leave the center safe zone and move to a safe spot along the perimeter of the arena, with DPS players prioritizing safe spaces on the south and east of the arena, while tanks and healers prioritize safe spaces on the north and west. After the player’s Poison Sting puddle has been placed in an appropriate location, they can return to the rest of the party at the center of the arena, and the newly targeted players should make their way outside.
After all eight puddles have been placed, Honey B. Lovely will begin casting Bee Sting, targeting one random DPS player and one random tank or healer with a stack marker, splitting high damage across all targets hit. While still standing within the center safe square, tanks and healers should lean towards the north and west of the square to safely divide the damage amongst each other, while all DPS players should lean towards the south and east of the square to resolve their stack marker together. The phase concludes with one final tank buster, followed by a Honey Beeline or Tempting Twist, buffed by either Drop of Venom or Splash of Venom from the beginning of the phase.
Honey B. Lovely Phase 5: Honey B. Live: 3rd Beat
With the cast of Honey B. Live: 3rd Beat, all players will being with empty heart meters and be afflicted with the Poison ‘n’ Pop debuff, lasting either 25 seconds or 45 seconds, detonating in a large AoE when the debuff expires. The duration of these debuffs will always be organized based on the role of each player, meaning if one DPS player has a 25-second Poison ‘n’ Pop debuff, all DPS players will have a 25 second debuff, while all tanks and healers will have the 45-second variation. As is tradition, Honey B. Lovely will also cast Drop of Love or Spread Love which will need to be remembered for the end of the phase.
The phase continues with either Centerstage Combo or Outerstage Combo, summoning four ground AoEs that must be soaked at the same time. To handle this, players should first dodge the Centerstage or Outerstage Combo, with players whose Poison ‘n’ Pop debuffs are about to expire running to the outside of the arena to their designated clock spot immediately after. Players with longer Poison ‘n’ Pop debuffs should instead run to the middle of the arena to avoid being hit while also identifying which ground AoE they will need to soak based on their clock spot. Once the first set of players' Poison ‘n’ Pop debuffs have detonated, the remaining players should immediately move into the ground AoEs to ensure they are soaked. These set attacks will then be repeated a second time with the roles reversed.
After both sets of Poison ‘n’ Pop debuffs have detonated, the phase will conclude with Honey Beeline or Tempting Twist, augmented by either Drop of Love or Spread Love from the beginning of the phase.
Honey B. Lovely Phase 6: Rotten Heart
The final phase will begin once Honey B. Lovely casts Rotten Heart, inflicting all players with either the Beeloved Venom Alpha or Beeloved Venom Beta debuff, lasting either 12, 28, 44, or over one minute long. These debuffs will instantly defeat or paralyze the affected player at the end of its duration, and can only be cleansed by having one player with Beeloved Venom Alpha walk into a player with Beeloved Venom Beta, triggering a high-damage raid-wide explosion and applying a seven-second Magic Vulnerability Up debuff to all players. Additionally, Honey B. Lovely will cast Call Me Honey every 17 seconds, dealing heavy magic damage to all players, lethal to any players with the Magic Vulnerability Up debuff.
To correctly handle this mechanic, players should begin by spreading around the boss into their clock spots before the phase begins to prevent any players from detonating their debuffs prematurely. Once all players are healed up from Rotten Heart, the player with the shortest duration Beeloved Venom Alpha and Beloved Venom Beta debuffs should meet at the center of the arena to cleanse the effect. All other players will need to wait until the boss casts Call Me Honey before cleansing any more Beeloved Venoms, as the Magic Vulnerability Up debuff will not expire in time, and healers will need to be ready to restore the health of their party before Call Me Honey is cast. This process will repeat four times before Honey B. Lovely begins casting her enrage.
Sheer Heart Attack marks the beginning of the fight’s enrage,the time limit in which players must defeat the boss.If allowed to cast, Sheer Heart Attack will instantly inflict all players with full heart meters, restoring eight percent of the boss' health, and stunning all players for a final, lethal Honey B. Finale.
