M1S - Nine Lives 1
Quadruple Crossing
Black Cat starts the fight by casting Quadruple Crossing, which is a baited protean that targets the four closest players twice. Getting hit by a protean inflicts a linger slashing vulnerability, so avoid getting hit a second time as that would be fatal. Split your group into two by roles and have the first group bait the first set, while the second group baits the second set. Now here's the catch, after the second set of baited proteans, both sets of proteans will now replay back based on where the players baited them. After the 2nd set is baited, the players now need to manually dodge the proteans again based on the order of how the first two sets were resolved.
The PF has two ways of approaching this.
| +x bait (Nukemaru/Hamkatsu) | ++ bait (Inumaru/game8) |
|---|---|
After dodging the proteans, Black Cat casts Biscuit Maker on the player with the highest enmity, which is a tankbuster that hits twice. The same player cannot take both tankbusters without invuln, so tank swap accordingly. This tankbuster is not an AoE, so feel free to stack together at north for the tank swap.
Nine Lives
After dealing with the introductory mechanics, the boss will now start casting Nine Lives for the first time. During the Nine Lives sequence, every time the boss casts Soulshade, the boss creates one or more shadow clones of herself which will mimic the last action that was used. This effectively means that it now becomes important that you remember the attacks once you see a clone being spawned in from Soulshade, because the same attacks will reappear again at some point which you have to resolve.
Black Cat demonstrates this by casting One-two Paw, which is the same halfroom cleaves you've seen in normal mode, and follows this up with Soulshade to spawn in two shadow clones. These shadow clones will mimic the exact order in which the halfroom cleaves happened. The shadow clones will always spawn in a fixed pattern, so an easy way to orientate yourself for this mechanic is to immediately locate the clone that spawns at a cardinal and dodge from there.
| Left cleave | Right cleave |
|---|---|
 |  |
The mechanic is not over yet as this is only the first part of the Nine Lives sequence. Immediately after dodging the shadow clones, the boss will cast either Double Swipe or Quadruple Swipe. Stack with your light party at west/east if its Double Swipe or stack with your partner at the cardinals if its Quadruple Swipe.
| Double Swipe | Quadruple Swipe |
|---|---|
 |  |
After resolving the stacks, the boss will cast Soulshade again, so make sure to remember whether it was Double Swipe or Quadruple Swipe. After creating a clone, the boss will follow this up with Leaping Quadruple Crossing. This mechanic is exactly the same as the regular Quadruple Crossing earlier, but with the added difference now that she will leap 1 block to where her arrow is pointing. Preposition yourself to where she is going to jump and resolve the protean baits normally. Don't forget that Double Swipe or Quadruple Swipe will immediately resolve right after the last set of proteans are dodged.
Once everything is resolved, the boss will cast Bloody Scratch, which is just a generic raidwide attack. Mitigate the raidwide and once some time passes, Black Cat will teleport back to the middle on her own and prepare her next set of attacks.