M9S Guide: Master AAC Heavyweight M1 Savage Tactics

M9S Guide: Initial Strategy and Mechanics

In the fierce battle of M9S, employing strategic positioning and awareness is crucial for mastering its mechanics. This guide opens with essential groundwork and tactics to streamline your approach.

Role Assignments and Initial Setup

To tackle the encounter effectively, players must divide into light parties and establish clock spots with unconventional placements:

• Melees: East and West
• Healers: Southern corners

Players using static strategies should follow standard positions, slightly angled for optimal execution. As the battle progresses, the boss accumulates an ether buff, increasing attack potency and AoE size. Players should avoid unnecessary contact with mechanics to prevent premature stack buildup, as this intensifies the challenge once the buff reaches eight stacks.

Key Mechanics and Strategy

1. Killer Voice: A raid-wide attack that demands attention at the fight’s start.
   
2. Hardcore: A tank buster hitting the top two aggro players, necessitating stance and mitigation from tanks.
   • Tanks should maintain stances to absorb significant damage.
     
3. Vamp Stomp: Players assume their clock positions as personal bats spawn, needing precise execution to cleanse debuffs without harming others. Players must:
   • Avoid contact with fellow players during the cleansing.
   • Melees explode their debuffs in sequence, while tanks wait a beat longer.
   • Healers and ranged members stay at a distance to prevent accidental explosions.
4. Brutal Rain: A multi-hit stack mechanic that intensifies with fight progression.
   

Additional Phases and Adjustments

In familiar patterns from normal mode, the boss transitions into ad phases, demanding adept dodging of telegraphed AoEs. Coordination is critical as players reposition and react to simultaneous AoE patterns and boss cleaves. Adapting to the phase shifts ensures smooth maneuvering through these complex sequences.

Ether Letting Mechanics

Ether letting involves a series of layered AoEs structured in pizza slice formations:

• Marker Assignments: Specific supports and DPS players take positions at arena edges to drop AoEs.
• Static Ether Letting Option: Players use predetermined starting positions, synchronizing movements to avoid AoE impact and maintaining clock alignment.

By adhering to these strategies, players can effectively navigate AoEs, maintain safety, and optimize their damage output throughout the encounter. With focus and precision, the encounter transforms from chaotic to manageable, paving the way for a successful conquest of M9S.

Final Phases and Strategies

As the encounter progresses, players must navigate several complex mechanics. Avoiding AoE attacks becomes crucial, especially with the vamp stomp and half-moon attacks. When the boss has fewer than eight stacks, these attacks feature predictable patterns, which turn into powerful arena-cleaves when the stacks increase. Stay mobile and aware to mitigate damage from brutal rain and insatiable thirst, which delivers significant raid-wide damage.

The AD phase introduces slow-moving saws that must be avoided to prevent bleed damage. Players also face the challenge of tank buster towers and red AoEs, which spawn deadly door nails and fatal flails. Manage these carefully by:

1. Assigning DPS to attack door nails immediately to prevent AoE expansion.
2. Shifting melee attention to flails when AoEs grow too large.
3. Destroying all threats quickly to mitigate enrage from barbed burst and prevent catastrophic damage from killer voice.

   This pattern repeats three times, testing coordination and precision.

Tower and Cage Dynamics

The hell in a cell phase spawns towers that players must soak while managing debuffs. Group dynamics are crucial:

• Towers Strategy:
• Group 1: Focuses on the first set of towers. Tanks start on the first tower, followed clockwise by healers. DPS positions are counterclockwise.
• Group 2: Handles the second set of towers, switching roles for ultrasonic spread and amp phases as needed.

After soaking, players are trapped and must defeat their personal charnel cell ads. Group 2 manages ultrasonic phases by spreading or stacking correctly to absorb the damage without overlapping.

Coordinated Movements During Undead Deathmatch

During the undead deathmatch phase, players must navigate two stacked towers shared by light parties and tethered to bats. Watch the following:

• Bats Movement:
• Stay close to avoid damaging chain tensions.
• Dodge alternating AoEs by moving to defined safe spots.
• React to telegraphed bat AoEs, avoiding point-blank effects or donut explosions using the boss's hitbox as a safe zone.

Repeat this sequence, adjusting movements as bats change directions.

Critical Phase and Final Push

The final phase introduces larger AoEs and intensified punk stomp and hardcore attacks. Tanks must lure these attacks towards markers, providing space for other roles. A sequence of Sanguin scratches and another insatiable thirst necessitates agile dodging and robust mitigation strategies.

When the boss reaches its final ether stack threshold, the raid faces one last challenge: finale fatal. All resources must be directed to eliminate the boss before this cast concludes, or risk a complete wipe. Successful execution of tactics across these final stages ensures victory in the encounter.