Chapter 670: A New Beginning
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: GravityTales
The news of another Level 70 boss excited Loulan Slash. His gloominess over losing three uncommon materials to Deception had diminished significantly. Taking advantage while the top guilds had no way of interfering in wild boss fights was certainly something to be happy about.
These kinds of opportunities didn’t come often. Wild bosses were one of the most important objectives for the Club guilds. It wouldn’t be too excessive to say that it was their reasons for existing.
After contacting Ye Xiu, who replied that he would immediately head out, Loulan Slash felt at ease. The battle at Darkness Palace had proven that a G.o.d leading a group battle could turn the situation from a disaster to a walk in the park. In the beginning, Loulan Slash had even been worried Ye Xiu’s individual influence would be too insignificant to matter!
While he was happy about this point, Loulan Slash couldn’t help but worry about the future of his team: if a G.o.d’s ability to lead a team was this incredible, what about us? How will we beat him?
Loulan Slash was both happy and unhappy. The first pro player he b.u.mped into was a top of the top player. The bad part was that Ye Xiu became his reference, crus.h.i.+ng Loulan Slash and his team’s confidence. They often realized things afterwards that only made it worse for them. Loulan Slash felt like he was already forcing himself with Team Heavenly Swords, but giving up now wasn’t a possibility. At this point, he had abandoned his initial ambitious hopes and s.h.i.+fted towards a more stable approach.
When Ye Xiu came over, he came over with three others, instead of two. Chen Guo could also follow them and partic.i.p.ate. It wasn’t like Chen Guo had no experience hunting Level 70 wild bosses. But her experiences could be summarized as “Hey, there’s a boss! Let’s go try and kill it.” and then die to the boss.
A wild boss wasn’t something that could be beaten by a random group of players. Even the elite groups of the top guilds would die to them from time to time!
So to be more accurate, Chen Gu had never killed a wild boss herself, but rather had been killed by one. Now that there was an opportunity to kill one, she obviously wanted a part of the glory.
The wild boss was the World Tree’s Forest Guardian Vich.
Vich was a complicated boss. Its skills spanned through all of the cla.s.ses. He used a rifle and could utilize any of the Gunner cla.s.s skills. Apart from that, he was also proficient in traps from the Thief cla.s.s. There were often traps hidden all over the forest, making it very frustrating for players to explore the map. Apart from these two attack methods, Vich could also use….. Cleric spells.
A boss that could heal himself! This was undoubtedly very troublesome for players. Interrupting his heals were crucial to hunting him down.
For the Club guilds, winning control of the boss was most important. Killing the boss itself wasn’t too big of an issue for them. However, Heavenly Justice didn’t have any experience killing wild bosses. Loulan Slash was quite worried about a difficult boss like Vich.
The G.o.d Ye Xiu was in charge of PvP, while he was responsible for killing the boss itself. How do we actually kill this boss? He was currently looking up guides as references! If the G.o.d successfully completed his task and beat the other guilds, and his group ended up getting wiped by the boss, how shameful would that be? If he also needed to rely on Ye Xiu to kill the boss, Loulan Slash would feel too ashamed to ask him for half of the materials.
He felt extremely uneasy. In the end, Loulan Slash felt like he should ask Ye Xiu to teach him!
“Oh, you’ve never killed it before?” Ye Xiu said.
“Yeah!” Loulan Slash replied.
“Let me see!” Ye Xiu said.
“What?”
“To kill this boss, there are a few key things to be wary of.” Ye Xiu said.
“Oh?” Loulan Slash hastily grabbed a pen and prepared to write everything down.
“Pay attention to the positions of your troops. They can never be in a straight line because Vich uses a rifle. Along with the power of a wild boss, he has the ability to have his shots penetrate multiple targets.”
“Got it.” Loulan Slash replied, but he didn’t write anything down.
“This boss also has traps, especially huge AoE poison and ice explosions. If players get hit, you have to make sure to heal them as soon as possible. Ice is mainly for control purposes. Its damage isn’t so bad. but for huge AoE explosions, a single person stepping on a trap could affect a huge area, so when an ice explosion occurs, you have to control the boss’s pathing well. If the boss makes some unexpected move during this time, your players might not be able to react because of the ice explosion hindering their movements. One way to deal with this is to intentionally step on an ice trap, when the situation is still under control, and then everyone can just stand still and attack.” Ye Xiu said.
“Okay okay, is there more?” Loulan Slash asked.
“More? The boss can also heal. Make sure you have some troops responsible for interrupting his casts.” Ye Xiu said.
“And?” Loulan Slash was still asking. He hadn’t written anything down yet. He realized that everything Ye Xiu had said was straight from the guide.
“And?” Ye Xiu asked himself. After a while, he said: “That’s it?”
“That’s all written in the guide!” Loulan Slash said.
“You’ve looked over the guide already? Then why’d you ask me?” Ye Xiu said.
Loulan Slash coughed blood. I didn’t feel very confident after reading the guide, so I thought I should ask you!
“Apart from the content in the guide, are there any other details or techniques I should know about?” Loulan Slash was patient.
But the G.o.d’s reply was devastating: “How would I know? I’ve never fought against it before either.”
Loulan Slash wanted to cry. They were all noobs here. They didn’t have anyone with experience.
After listening to Loulan Slash’s questioning, Ye Xiu could tell: “Are you afraid that you can’t kill the boss?”
“Yeah!” Loulan Slash replied. The fight against Darkness Palace’s Night Streak had scared everyone witless. If not, how else could Loulan Slash have been a.s.sa.s.sinated by Deception? It was because the battle had been so difficult that they were relieved after successfully killing Night Streak, giving Deception an opening.
Forest Guardian Vich was much more difficult to handle than Night Streak, giving Loulan Slash even less confidence in the fight.
“Oh, are there any guilds around?” Ye Xiu asked.
“Yeah! Conquering Cloud has already been seen.” Loulan Slash said.
“It’s Conquering Cloud again.”
Clearly, it wasn’t just Ye Xiu and Loulan Slash who wanted to take advantage while the top guilds were at war. These small Club guilds wanted to seize this opportunity to grab some difficult to get resources.
“Yeah. They haven’t even recovered their lost experience yet and they’re here……” Loulan Slash said. Conquering Cloud had suffered huge losses and had even been pursued afterwards. Only a bit of time had pa.s.sed, which wasn’t enough for them to recover that 20% loss of experience. Loulan Slash’s own stats were still red! He was Level 70, but his stats were equivalent to characters at Level 69. Even though his level hadn’t changed, his stats were still lower, so people still called it a level drop.
“That’s a good thing! You’re even worried about that?” Ye Xiu said.
“I’m worried about the boss.” Loulan Slash said.
“I’m saying that since our opponents are weaker, why don’t you go and deal with them, while I kill the boss?” Ye Xiu said.
“Uh…… what if other guilds come?” Loulan Slash said. If it was just Conquering Clouds, he had confidence in winning, but he didn’t have the skill to crush them with very few casualties. His group would certainly suffer a significant loss. If another fully prepared guild came, he wouldn’t be able to stop them.
“Then it seems like we’ll need to wait and control the situation at a later time.” Ye Xiu said.
“Let them attack it first?”
“Yeah and then we’ll kill the boss and everyone else at the same time.” Ye Xiu said.
It was quite a fierce method because, at a certain point, the first to act usually took the boss’s aggro. Taking the aggro away from them using conventional methods wasn’t likely. The only way was to completely wipe the other team or force them to leave, and then reestablish the boss’s aggro.
Apart from stopping the other side from taking the boss, it made the other side feel disgusted. Even long-time rivals wouldn’t be so fierce as to use this method. After all, in this close circle, compet.i.tion was important, but if you wanted to trade materials, you had to trade with someone, no? If you offended everyone, it wouldn’t be helpful for your guild’s development down the road. As a result, the Club guilds often wouldn’t be so impulsive like what other normal players might do in these situations. Whenever a Club guild made a move, the guild held itself up to certain norms.
This sort of method not only broke these norms, but there were other things to consider as well. Loulan Slash had clearly thought about this before and hesitated towards Ye Xiu’s suggestion: “That’s not too good, no?”
“Oh? You want to leave some leeway?” Ye Xiu said.
Loulan Slash could tell that it wasn’t that Ye Xiu didn’t know about the faults of this method, yet he still wanted to use such a fierce method? He thought about it again and realized: I’m such a pig! No matter how terrible their conduct is, the one to pay the price would be Heavenly Justice. Ye Xiu was currently working as a temporary worker. Once he finishes his task, he simply takes his portion of the materials and leaves. He won’t have to bear any sort of enmity, so of course he’d want to use this method.
Thinking of this possibility, Loulan Slash rejected it and also said: “If I do that, it’ll come back to bite me in the future, no?”
“That depends on how you do things. If we do it according to what you’re thinking of, isn’t that just who gets there first, gets it? When did fighting for a wild boss ever follow the rules?” Ye Xiu said.
“Then how should we go about doing it?”
“You just need to give them the appropriate amount of face.” Ye Xiu said.
“Give them the appropriate amount of face?”
“For example, if we immediately go up, see them, intentionally not do anything, and then right when they’re about to kill the boss, we suddenly kill them. That isn’t good. However, we can wait outside of their sight for a while, pretend like we arrived late, and then attack them. No one can blame us in this scenario.” Ye Xiu said.
“Is…. there a difference?” Chen Guo asked when she heard Ye Xiu’s explanation.