Chapter 868: Combo Kill
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
"It won’t be like this forever!" Ye Xiu replied to Wei Chen, continuing to take care of the situation on both sides. Seeing how her situation had made the battle more difficult, Tang Rou was determined to work even harder. She decisively abandoned her extremely offense-oriented style and focused on avoiding damage from her opponent, immediately taking a lot of pressure off the healer’s shoulders. With this, it wasn’t long before Lord Grim’s aggro went over the the standard and the long-awaited OT finally occurred once more. Lord Grim turned, stepping into the room. At the same time, Tang Rou’s Soft Mist brushed by and exited the room, swinging her spear at Frigid Eagle.
The battle inside the room against Brown Bear made Tang Rou feel extremely constrained. She had been forced to abandon her offense-oriented style for the team, but this went against her usual habits. Now that she didn’t have to hold back anymore, Frigid Eagle immediately became the target of her katharsis. Soft Mist’s spear swung like a windmill, releasing all sorts of skills and beating Frigid Eagle away from the doorway all the way to the edge of the courtyard, almost throwing him outside.
With Tang Rou leading a vicious offense, the others could be a little more open with their attacks as well. Those who had cla.s.ses that weren’t appropriate for going inside the room and keeping Brown Bear busy had been sandbagging. Now that Soft Mist was mounting such a vicious offense, they didn’t have to hold back as much, only so much so that their damage output wouldn’t surpa.s.s Soft Mist’s. Their damage output increased greatly and when it next came for Tang Rou to switch with Lord Grim, Frigid Eagle’s health had dropped by a large fraction. "Not bad!" When Lord Grim came out, Ye Xiu was pleased by how much Frigid Eagle had been damaged. They encouraged each other, boosted one another’s morale, and with their strategy that used their advantage in technical skill to the fullest, they had broken the teamwork of the two bosses.
After Lord Grim and Soft Mist had switched places five times, their primary target Frigid Eagle finally fell. This boss was rather easy to deal with alone, not even giving everyone much trouble when he entered an enraged state. At red blood, Frigid Eagle became faster and rode his broom around a lot, attempting to use guerrilla tactics. Unfortunately for him, the formation that had surrounded him was close to perfect after fighting for so long. Frigid Eagle didn’t even get a proper chance to fight back. Soon enough, the last 10 percent of his health was gone.
As soon as Frigid Eagle fell, his First Kill was announced on the TV. Though he might be rather weak, he was still cla.s.sified as a boss by the system.
However, before everyone could be relieved at the death of one boss, a loud roar came out from the room. Tang Rou gave a warning shout and then Brown Bear jumped out of the room, through the roof with a resounding crash.
Red eyed and radiating a b.l.o.o.d.y aura, Brown Bear seemed to be fully in an Enraged State. Everyone noticed his speed as he swung his club down from the roof. It seemed like his stats had undergone a great increase.
"Has he already gone into an Enraged state?" Wei Chen asked in shock.
If that was true, then they had miscalculated in their original strategy. The current Brown Bear still had plenty of health left. If he stayed in an Enraged State like this, then the difficulty of this battle would rise again. After all, when most bosses entered such a state, they merely had a tenth of their health less and by then the battle was already coming to a close, so players could go wild with their DPS and quickly kill the boss. Yet now, a boss with over 95 percent of its health left had already entered an Enraged State. They had to be cautious when facing it; there was little room for error.
"Seems that way," Ye Xiu confirmed. There was no time for chit chat though; they had a boss to deal with first.
For a boss with immense strength like Brown Bear, players couldn’t possibly parry the attacks. When the club swung down, Lord Grim jumped lightly to avoid it as Myriad Manifestation Umbrella struck out in its spear form.
The others continued to spectate, planning on taking a good look at the changes the boss had gone through after entering an Enraged State.
Brown Bear’s roars rang in everyone’s ears. With each weighty attack, everyone’s view would tremble every now and then. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim stuck to him, prompting Brown Bear to make all sorts of attacks from different angles and directions and making sure everyone knew what sorts of skills this Brown Bear had.
"Ranged characters get to higher ground," Ye Xiu began to arrange everyone’s positions.
Dawn Rifle, Chasing Haze, Windward Formation and Concealed Light, who didn’t need to personally fight the boss, all jumped to higher ground. Cleric Little Cold Hands could also do such a thing, but, after taking a good look around, decided against it. Their current strategy relied a lot on avoiding the boss’ attacks to take pressure off the healer, so they wouldn’t stay in one place to attack, instead relying a lot on movement. The high ground in this courtyard didn’t have a position with no blind spots, so for stability, An Wenyi left Little Cold Hands on the ground.
After finis.h.i.+ng the arrangements, they opened fire on Ye Xiu’s order.
Though Brown Bear was in an Enraged State, his weakness had long since been noted by everyone, and that was his low resistance to magic. So in the following battle, Wei Chen’s Warlock and Qiao Yifan’s Ghostblade were particularly eye catching. Both cla.s.ses had many CC skills. As Brown Bear ran after Lord Grim, going berserk, One Inch Ash had already filled the courtyard with Ghost Boundaries, and caused all sorts of status effects to pop up on Brown Bear’s body. Wei Chen’s Windward Formation wasn’t slacking off either, a Binding Curse here, a Control Curse there, and a Hexagram Prison thrown into the mix. Take advantage of your own strengths and strike at your opponent’s weaknesses.
Brown Bear might’ve been in an Enraged State, but under the combined effects of all these CC skills, his offensive ability was limited. Under One Inch Ash’s Plague Boundary, Brown Bear’s defense had fallen, so his life was being depleted, just like Frigid Eagle’s had.
"Keep going, maintain this pace." After taking a look at everyone’s consumption, Ye Xiu quickly calculated that they would be able to maintain this without too much pressure, so he didn’t make them change their pace. With Brown Bear being bullied like this, there was naturally much less pressure on their healer’s shoulders. An Wenyi even had time to let Little Cold Hands throw a few skills like Hypnosis and Holy Commandment to support the team. In terms of supporting skills, Clerics mostly focused on ones to do with supporting an offense.
Finally, Brown Bear’s health was approaching 10 percent. During this time, he had maintained the increases in strength that he had gained. However, would he go into another Enraged state after falling to Red Blood?
This was something they definitely had to be wary of. Ye Xiu also decided to use the usual strategy to deal with this. When Brown Bear’s health fell to 10 percent, there were indeed some changes. Compared to how he had gone wild with his attacks before, he seemed to become much calmer and his resistance seemed to have increased.
Yet this strengthening from his Red Blood state wasn’t enough to turn the tides. For a boss that had more or less been in an Enraged State for the majority of the battle, the creator wasn’t wretched enough to have his strength skyrocket two times in one battle.
With just a tenth of his health left, Ye Xiu and co didn’t even really bother with too many CC skills. This change had come too late for Brown Bear.
Brown Bear fell and the system announced their First Kill in a timely fas.h.i.+on.
Brown Bear’s First Kill announcement followed Frigid Eagle’s announcement rather closely. The players who didn’t know what the dungeon was like at all naturally expressed their admiration and surprise.
Sealed Mountain Hideout had a total of five bosses. By now, four were dealt with. Did Guild Happy plan to clear the dungeon on their first explorative run?
The players had mixed emotions about this, and all sorts of thoughts were discussed without holding back in the global chat.
Ye Xiu’s group didn’t bother with these discussions. With the defeat of two bosses, it was once again time to check the system’s DPS charts.
In reality, Ye Xiu never had such habits. At his skill level, why would he bother with comparing dungeon DPS and taking joy in ranking higher than others?
Repeatedly showing everyone the DPS chart like this today had caused everyone to realize that there was an ulterior motive to it. The DPS charts were there for Mo Fan to see. This guy who ate, lived, and gamed with them, but was never truly a part of the team, probably wouldn’t listen even if you grabbed his ear and yelled. Now with the data open for viewing, there was no need to speak. He could figure things out for himself!
With the data for the new section out, no one bothered to check their own, all looking for Deception’s. In the end, it was the same as before. Deception appeared on the same level as Chasing Haze and Concealed Light, who weren’t as skilled as everyone else.
"If someone would stop slacking off, our battles could definitely end a lot more quickly." With that, Lord Grim headed off to the next area.
Everyone had their characters follow while stretching their necks to look at Mo Fan’s reaction.
In reality, everyone knew that with Mo Fan’s personality, he would either not join in, but if he did, he definitely wouldn’t slack off.
He was certainly doing his best to strike hard and fast, but for some reason, his DPS just wouldn’t rise. It stayed at the same level as Chasing Haze and Concealed Light, who weren’t as skilled and everyone was surprised.
Why was this happening?
Mo Fan was gritting his teeth hard enough to shatter them, but he really didn’t understand why. He was very familiar with the Ninja cla.s.s and was skilled at both PvP and PvE. When he went dungeoning with a few wild teams in the past, his DPS was always at a level that inspired awe in everyone. How come it fell so far after he had joined a team?
Though these team members were incomparable to normal players, he shouldn’t fall behind by so much.
"We have one more boss," Ye Xiu said.
To Mo Fan’s ears, it sounded just like "you have one last chance." But how could he improve his DPS? Thinking deeply, Mo Fan really couldn’t think of a reason for his low DPS. Was it because his hand speed wasn’t fast enough?
That didn’t seem right! After all, Mo Fan was always with everyone. He might not interact with them much, but he was aware of everyone’s circ.u.mstances. He had an understanding of things like their hand speeds. This probably wasn’t the reason why he fell behind.
Soon enough, their party arrived at the core of the Sealed Mountain Hideout: Sealed Mountain Hall. In here sat the big boss of the Sealed Mountain Thieves Hideout, Chief Sealed Mountain Tiger!