Varewulf It's been quite the week, and next week I'm going to be in Oslo for most of it. I won't be back on my computer until Friday, but I'll put up part 3 either then, or Saturday. It's mean of me to leave the cliffhangers for too long.
Sara realised she had a few issues to sort out if she was to act like a proper boss. The biggest was probably the issue of aggro. As far as she knew she had no way of seeing aggro levels, or values, or however they were displayed. If they were displayed at all. So she had no idea who she was supposed to be attacking, from the point of view of the system.
Strategically the best course of action was to ignore the tanks, and snipe the healers, but she felt that wouldn't really be fair. She didn't necessarily want to take it easy on them as such, but she didn't want to be rampantly unfair either. It was a weird balance to strike.
"Sara."
Mother?
"I believe I can enable a sort of boss vision for you. I think actual number values would be too cluttered, but I can give them all a coloured symbol that indicates the general aggro level they have built up. Green for safe, and then the more towards deep red it goes, the higher their level. Your vision should be able to handle that. Of course, you're still free to make your your own judgements, rather than rigidly sticking to the colour order." Apparently Aina had realised what Sara was worrying about.
Thank you, mother. That should make things easier.
Suddenly all the raiders got little symbols over their heads. At first they were all green circles, but as combat started she saw them morph into other shapes and colours. From yellow hexagons, to orange pentagons, to light red squares, and finally to a deep red triangle pointing right down at a person's head. The blinking one was probably at the top of the list.
Her best assumption from the current values was they were gaining aggro based on general actions they performed against her allies, or to their own allies. Like healers always built up aggro just from healing their party members, and applying buffs, even if they didn't directly attack anything themselves.
In fact, as her wolves charged forwards into the raiders' front line, she saw the healers' colours rapidly get quite red since no one had made it close enough to start pulling her aggro. The tanks' colours actually deepened a little when they taunted her subordinates, as if the system was telling her that even though they weren't directly engaging her, they were still priority targets for her side.
Still, the backline were overextending themselves. Maybe they were too used to the tanks immediately grabbing all aggro, or they weren't thinking that hard about it. She'd given them a handful of seconds just fighting the mobs for now, so she felt like it was time to make her first move. She had considered waiting until the first tank arrived, but decided she wasn't going to be that nice.
Sadly she didn't have any sort of big opener, but the backline was still clear of her own allies, so a Greater Fireball wouldn't hit any friendlies. They hadn't spread out properly, so she could take advantage of that. If she recalled correctly then she had at least one splash radius boost on one of her skills as well.
Copy Cast was a no go. She shouldn't reveal that one, at least not yet. Maybe she could save it for like a final phase transition or something. She hadn't really worked out how something like that should go, but it felt like a cool idea.
Okay then, you're first up.
Since the raiders were being a bit sloppy, she should give them a rude awakening. It would be her first time directly attacking a target (and not just a wall) while in Tree Form, so she was curious how it would go.
* * *
*BOOM*
"Argh!!!"
Half of the healers got set on fire at the same time, which caused some amount of panic.
"Healers, you've built up too much aggro too quickly!" One of the leaders shouted both verbally, and in raid alliance chat. "Ease off, and spread out to avoid more AoEs!"
The boss hit quite hard, and the burn was pretty bad too, so easing off might not be a viable option. Even with general magic resistance potions several of them were close to half health from just a single spell. Fire resistance potions, charms, or gear would have been better, but unfortunately it wasn't the only element the boss could use.
*BOOM*
While the backline were trying to spread out, a second Fireball landed, though it 'only' caught three of them that time. Unfortunately the one who took the direct hit suffered a critical, and they were down one Priest already.
"Use Water Barriers on the healers if you can!" They had a couple of Performers along, and thankfully Druids had also gotten water spells after the update. They were still on Water Film (unless they had done some extreme grinding), but it was better than nothing.
That meant there were would be less protective spells cast on the tanks for now, but if they lost all the healers, they stood no chance anyway.
"And someone go get in range to Provoke the boss already! It'll keep targeting the support members otherwise!"
The fact that it was sitting up on the hill made it hard to engage it directly, but Provoke was a ranged taunt skill, so it should be enough to make the boss change target. At least it had provided them with an easy weakness to take advantage of.
"Once a tank has its attention, anyone with ranged fire skills should target the boss!"
If they managed to get it to come down from there, it should be easier to control it. Or so they hoped.
One of the tanks managed to push towards the foot of the hill, and use Provoke. The leaves on the boss's crown visibly shook, and the raiders breathed a sigh of relief as the boss turned its attention to the tank. She followed up with Crack Shot, another ranged skill meant to generate extra aggro. Her weapon of choice was a mini crossbow. Pistols were an option, but still uncommon since there weren't a lot of crafters who had reached the point of making firearms yet.
Crack Shot didn't do a lot of damage, but it was good for maintaining a mob's attention on you even at a distance. Climbing the hill to face the boss in melee would be preferred, but the hillside facing them was more like a cliff-face, and would be tough to climb, so they would have to go around. It would be better if they could force the boss to come down.
As a reward for her efforts the tank got hit with a Frost Arrow, making it even harder to get up there even if she wanted to. Maybe bringing some sort of evasion tank that could run up there at the start of combat would have been better. But they were there to learn, so they couldn't really fault themselves for not preparing for things they didn't know about.
As a volley of fire spells, fire arrows, and even a burning throwing knife flew towards the boss, the raiders were about to learn, or rather re-learn another lesson. In all the chaos at the start of this engagement most of them had forgotten that there was a third type of mob that had taken part in the first two waves.
Six Shade Wolves struck the members of the back line in quick succession. One Priest, one Druid, one Performer, one Ranger, and two Mages were Ambushed, and then hit with follow-up attacks. The Priest went down immediately, quickly followed by the Ranger, and one of the Mages as a couple of Night Ravens had broken away from the tanks, and supported the Shade Wolves with attack spells.
A third raven bound one of the interceptors who was rushing to help the Druid, which didn't help matters. The Druid turned into Bear Form to protect himself, which meant he was no longer able to support.
The back line struggling made it harder for the front line to hold as well. Some of the Dire Wolves started to slip through after a tank went down, and raced towards squishier targets. The raiders were barely able to stop them, but it meant taking all of the focus off of the boss again.
Even though it was no longer casting attack spells on anyone but the tank, it was still using support spells on the adds, like the occasional Regrowth, Rejuvenate, and Thorn Armour. It had cast Root Bind once after it was hit with the first wave of fire attacks, but otherwise it was refraining from targeting the rest of the raid. At least it wasn't using Rejuvenate or Regrowth on itself (yet), but it seemed to have some passive regen, even if it wasn't listed among the skills.
Unfortunately they were losing too many members to have any real hope of victory. By the time half the Dire Wolves were down, they had lost over a third of the raid, and they'd only managed to take down three of the ravens. The boss was barely down to 75% HP because they'd had so much trouble focusing it, but they were determined to at least push as far as they could.
They still weren't sure if it was better to focus down all the adds before engaging the boss, or if it was better to focus the boss while keeping the adds busy, or whether it was better to split their focus, but it felt like at this point all they could do before wiping was to force the boss into the second phase, and at least see what it was like.
"Anyone with ranged abilities target the boss!" The call went out over raid chat.
The boss's HP bar started going down at a pace they obviously couldn't sustain. They lost another couple of members before they hit the 60% mark, and something finally changed.
The boss reverted to its wolf form, unleashed another Howl, and jumped onto the tank. They weren't exactly sure what skill it had used, since it didn't look like Body Slam, but it pushed the tank to the ground while doing a heavy amount of damage, and then the paw glowed before it delivered a Savage Blow to the side of the head.
"Tank down!"
They'd already struggled to keep everyone healed up properly after losing so many healers, so the sudden burst of the damage was too much. Then the boss charged into the melee fray, and unleashed an Arcane Blast to blow everyone away before using Mass Rejuvenate on its own side.
Another tank tried to Provoke, but it was too little, too late. Things quickly fell apart after that.
* * *
Sara looked across the battlefield as the last raider fell to the claws of a raven. The birds didn't use melee attacks a lot, but it seemed like they were having enough fun to mix things up a little.
Did I get too carried away?
She had been aware that Tree Form was weak to fire, but it had still been a little annoying to get targeted by so much of it. Burning sucked. If her HP pool hadn't been boosted so much she probably would have been in real trouble, but it still hurt a fair bit. So she might have felt a little bit in the mood for payback by the time she shifted back to wolf form.
In the end a little over half of the wolves had fallen, and not quite half of the ravens. Maybe the birds were a little too strong to take part in such large numbers, but she felt like it wasn't insurmountable. Probably. The raiders probably hadn't expected to win on the first attempt anyway. Well, technically second, but the first where they reached her.
It had been fun, but considering the carnage she had unleashed she had to wonder if maybe... just maybe... she had gotten a little too into it. She had even used some of her concealed skills in the heat of the moment.
If they came back for another round, maybe she would tell two of the ravens to sit that round out. They seemed to have trouble dealing with the birds, so that might balance the odds a little better. She also recognised that her targeting the healers at the start had made it harder for them, but she still felt they had it coming for playing so sloppily. She might not have used to be a raider herself, but she had played in enough dungeon parties to know you had to get a tank to take the boss's aggro before you let loose. She even gave them nearly ten seconds of grace period before she started doing anything.
Though having her aggro pulled was an unpleasant sensation. As she wasn't tied by the system's script she wasn't forced to obey a taunt in the same way a regular mob was, but she could still feel the sensation of having the skill used on her. Like being poked with something hot. At least it was an obvious tell of who she was 'supposed' to target, so she could better play the role.
"I'm sorry, boss."
Someone interrupted her thoughts, and she turned to see Kathleen. Who looked rather down.
"Sorry? For what?" Sara had to ask.
"They got past me, and attacked you..."
Sara sighed, then lifted her paw to pat Kathleen on the head. It was awkward, but it still felt like the right thing to do.
"No need to be sad about that. We're here to have fun, remember? It was fun for me to get to fight them. You did well, Kathleen," she said.
"Really?" Kathleen glanced up at her.
"Really. Think of it this way. They have to make it past you to prove they're worthy to face me. If they can't manage that, then they're not good enough. So there's no reason to be sad. Unless you thought the fight wasn't fun?" Sara asked.
"No, it was fun," Kathleen said, and started wagging her tail.
It had occurred to her to bring Kathleen into the final fight as well, but that might be ramping up the difficulty too much. Plus it was dependent on whether Kathleen respawned in time, and she might not if the raiders moved quickly. Next time Sara should try to pay attention to how long it took for Kathleen to come back. Maybe if she named another wolf... or maybe not. It might be better if she didn't, at least for now.
She decided to finally glance at her popups.
No level... Wanderers still don't give experience, do they?
"No character experience, no. Nor any drops."
Which meant it was just skill level ups.
[ Greater Fireball Skill Level Up! ] [ Fire Resistance Skill Level Up! ] [ Frost Arrow Skill Level Up! ] [ Budding Regrowth Skill Level Up! ] [ Poison Arrow Alt. Skill Level Up! ] [ Thorn Armour Skill Level Up! ] [ Fire Resistance Skill Level Up! ] [ Budding Regrowth Skill Level Up! ] [ Frost Arrow Skill Level Up! ] [ Savage Blow Skill Level Up! ] [ Arcane Blast Skill Level Up! ]
She had given them a pretty obvious weakness to go after when starting out as Tree Form, so it was no wonder they were taking advantage of it. It was going to become less of a weakness as her resistance went up, but the negative correction was probably substantial enough that it was worth it for them to go for anyway.
While being tanked she had only used Frost Arrow, and Poison Arrow offensively, while focusing more on support spells. She hadn't used Water Jet at all since unless she was specifically aiming for weak spots it did less damage. It turned out that precision aiming at short range against an armoured target was tricky. Maybe she should consider randomly targeting other raid members. That was something bosses sometimes did, right? But she didn't have anything with a long enough cast time to really telegraph it. Would it seem unfair if it kinda just came out of nowhere? Maybe if she only did it at certain intervals. Being a good boss was hard.
I suppose both sides are figuring this out as we go along.
* * *
All of the registered members had finally showed up, totalling 45 raiders in all. They had set that number of participants because they figured it was the safest bet to avoid scaling the boss up yet another level. Tier 4 was generally thought of as the optimal difficulty level, but if they weren't all from the same guild it was difficult to calculate. No one had figured out yet with 100% certainty how the system evaluated someone's strength relative to an encounter, so they hadn't wanted to push it too close to 50.
Before they went in again, it was time for a strategy meeting.
"So what did we learn?" Cronch said. It was less of a question, and more a prompt to get the guild leader started. They had already collected most of the information, and reviewed the streaming footage they had. The main purpose of the meeting was to brief the newcomers, and see if anyone had anything further to add.
Barg Nowl led the guild Brilliant Blades, and they were the ones who had set up this raid. If they had taken enough time to prepare they might have been able to go in with guild members only, but he had wanted to get first crack at this, in which case it was better to seek cooperation from others.
Plus he liked bringing the community together.
"The raid consists of three encounters of increasing difficulty. Probably to test how prepared we are, and to teach general mechanics against the adds. The first one is fairly simple, though we were caught unaware by the inclusion of the Night Ravens.
The second has more mobs, and includes a Sub Boss, but it's basically just a larger, stronger Dire Wolf. If a couple of tanks can lock it down, then everyone else can focus the adds. We'll keep a third backup tank around on the next scaling level just in case.
The third encounter is against the boss itself. The increased add numbers do pose a problem, but the boss is the biggest issue."
The Leadership bonus, and improved Howl were only part of the problem.
"We'll need to get a tank up there as soon as possible. It waited for about ten seconds after the encounter started before it began attacking, so we have a short window. Healers should be careful about being too active at the start, since we saw it might only take a couple of shots to go down. And don't group up due to the Fireballs. They have boosted radius, and while we didn't see it this time, it's possible it will target any clusters of players it sees regardless of aggro."
Someone raised their hand, and Barg nodded at them.
"Is it possible to exploit that to get the boss to hit its own adds?" they asked.
"Unknown, but I would expect the AI is too clever for that. That might mean that conversely being close to the adds could prevent you being Fireballed. It didn't target melee clusters, at least.
Since it sits up on the hill in Tree Form for the first phase, it's easy enough to target it with fire skills, but it's hard to hold aggro on it. Maybe a second tank should try climbing the hill for direct engagement while another keeps it busy with skills alone. Provoke worked, but it's possible it only stayed focused on the tank because we didn't have much opportunity to focus target it. It still used support spells on the adds regardless of aggro.
When we got it down to about 60% health it started the second phase. Whether that can be triggered in other ways we don't know yet. After it returned to wolf form, it immediately used a tank buster move, and we weren't ready for it. According to the footage it resembled Death From Above, but there isn't anything like that on its skill list. So either it unlocks more skills in the second phase, or it has some sort of innate ability."
Tank busters were a fairly common thing for boss encounters, so they probably should have expected it. It looked like it had used Savage Blow to finish the tank off, but they could only guess at the move before.
"If we manage to keep the tank alive through that, we might be able to keep the boss under control, but Arcane Blast is a problem. The boss's version is strong enough to literally send lighter players flying, and since it's caster-centred it won't hit the other wolves. If at all possible we should keep the boss away from groups.
Whether there's a third phase we don't know yet, but it's possible."
They also had no idea if the boss added any new mechanics or skills with further scaling, or whether it was just the stats that rose.
"Another thing of note is that if your HP drops too low, one of the Night Ravens might try to snipe you, so healers should try to keep everyone above 20-30%, but don't be afraid to use a potion if you're worried."
"So what do we focus first?" One of the newcomers asked.
"Ideally I want to say the ravens, since having less casters to worry about would help greatly, but they're tricky. We got over half of the wolves down, but less than half of the ravens. Honestly I think we should keep vigilant for the Shade Wolves' Ambush first. A couple of people with really good detection skills should hang back, and try to spot them before they attack. Once they're revealed they're not a huge problem, but that initial Ambush is brutal."
The devs hadn't nerfed that skill as much as some of the playerbase wanted.
"After we're past that hurdle, ranged attackers should focus the ravens if possible, and then the boss. If anyone has skills that can pull the ravens to the ground, use them when you can. Remember to use fire skills on the boss for phase 1. Melee should focus on the wolves. Keep them away from the ranged members as much as you can."
After some other minor points, the raid was ready to march out again.
[ Raid Mode Initiated. Checking Participants. Number Registered. Zone Boss HP increased by 200%. Sub Boss HP increased by 100%. Boss buffs increased to 50%, and 25% respectively. ]
Varewulf It's been quite the week, and next week I'm going to be in Oslo for most of it. I won't be back on my computer until Friday, but I'll put up part 3 either then, or Saturday. It's mean of me to leave the cliffhangers for too long.
Sara realised she had a few issues to sort out if she was to act like a proper boss. The biggest was probably the issue of aggro. As far as she knew she had no way of seeing aggro levels, or values, or however they were displayed. If they were displayed at all. So she had no idea who she was supposed to be attacking, from the point of view of the system.
Strategically the best course of action was to ignore the tanks, and snipe the healers, but she felt that wouldn't really be fair. She didn't necessarily want to take it easy on them as such, but she didn't want to be rampantly unfair either. It was a weird balance to strike.
"Sara."
Mother?
"I believe I can enable a sort of boss vision for you. I think actual number values would be too cluttered, but I can give them all a coloured symbol that indicates the general aggro level they have built up. Green for safe, and then the more towards deep red it goes, the higher their level. Your vision should be able to handle that. Of course, you're still free to make your your own judgements, rather than rigidly sticking to the colour order." Apparently Aina had realised what Sara was worrying about.
Thank you, mother. That should make things easier.
Suddenly all the raiders got little symbols over their heads. At first they were all green circles, but as combat started she saw them morph into other shapes and colours. From yellow hexagons, to orange pentagons, to light red squares, and finally to a deep red triangle pointing right down at a person's head. The blinking one was probably at the top of the list.
Her best assumption from the current values was they were gaining aggro based on general actions they performed against her allies, or to their own allies. Like healers always built up aggro just from healing their party members, and applying buffs, even if they didn't directly attack anything themselves.
In fact, as her wolves charged forwards into the raiders' front line, she saw the healers' colours rapidly get quite red since no one had made it close enough to start pulling her aggro. The tanks' colours actually deepened a little when they taunted her subordinates, as if the system was telling her that even though they weren't directly engaging her, they were still priority targets for her side.
Still, the backline were overextending themselves. Maybe they were too used to the tanks immediately grabbing all aggro, or they weren't thinking that hard about it. She'd given them a handful of seconds just fighting the mobs for now, so she felt like it was time to make her first move. She had considered waiting until the first tank arrived, but decided she wasn't going to be that nice.
Sadly she didn't have any sort of big opener, but the backline was still clear of her own allies, so a Greater Fireball wouldn't hit any friendlies. They hadn't spread out properly, so she could take advantage of that. If she recalled correctly then she had at least one splash radius boost on one of her skills as well.
Copy Cast was a no go. She shouldn't reveal that one, at least not yet. Maybe she could save it for like a final phase transition or something. She hadn't really worked out how something like that should go, but it felt like a cool idea.
Okay then, you're first up.
Since the raiders were being a bit sloppy, she should give them a rude awakening. It would be her first time directly attacking a target (and not just a wall) while in Tree Form, so she was curious how it would go.
* * *
*BOOM*
"Argh!!!"
Half of the healers got set on fire at the same time, which caused some amount of panic.
"Healers, you've built up too much aggro too quickly!" One of the leaders shouted both verbally, and in raid alliance chat. "Ease off, and spread out to avoid more AoEs!"
The boss hit quite hard, and the burn was pretty bad too, so easing off might not be a viable option. Even with general magic resistance potions several of them were close to half health from just a single spell. Fire resistance potions, charms, or gear would have been better, but unfortunately it wasn't the only element the boss could use.
*BOOM*
While the backline were trying to spread out, a second Fireball landed, though it 'only' caught three of them that time. Unfortunately the one who took the direct hit suffered a critical, and they were down one Priest already.
"Use Water Barriers on the healers if you can!" They had a couple of Performers along, and thankfully Druids had also gotten water spells after the update. They were still on Water Film (unless they had done some extreme grinding), but it was better than nothing.
That meant there were would be less protective spells cast on the tanks for now, but if they lost all the healers, they stood no chance anyway.
"And someone go get in range to Provoke the boss already! It'll keep targeting the support members otherwise!"
The fact that it was sitting up on the hill made it hard to engage it directly, but Provoke was a ranged taunt skill, so it should be enough to make the boss change target. At least it had provided them with an easy weakness to take advantage of.
"Once a tank has its attention, anyone with ranged fire skills should target the boss!"
If they managed to get it to come down from there, it should be easier to control it. Or so they hoped.
One of the tanks managed to push towards the foot of the hill, and use Provoke. The leaves on the boss's crown visibly shook, and the raiders breathed a sigh of relief as the boss turned its attention to the tank. She followed up with Crack Shot, another ranged skill meant to generate extra aggro. Her weapon of choice was a mini crossbow. Pistols were an option, but still uncommon since there weren't a lot of crafters who had reached the point of making firearms yet.
Crack Shot didn't do a lot of damage, but it was good for maintaining a mob's attention on you even at a distance. Climbing the hill to face the boss in melee would be preferred, but the hillside facing them was more like a cliff-face, and would be tough to climb, so they would have to go around. It would be better if they could force the boss to come down.
As a reward for her efforts the tank got hit with a Frost Arrow, making it even harder to get up there even if she wanted to. Maybe bringing some sort of evasion tank that could run up there at the start of combat would have been better. But they were there to learn, so they couldn't really fault themselves for not preparing for things they didn't know about.
As a volley of fire spells, fire arrows, and even a burning throwing knife flew towards the boss, the raiders were about to learn, or rather re-learn another lesson. In all the chaos at the start of this engagement most of them had forgotten that there was a third type of mob that had taken part in the first two waves.
Six Shade Wolves struck the members of the back line in quick succession. One Priest, one Druid, one Performer, one Ranger, and two Mages were Ambushed, and then hit with follow-up attacks. The Priest went down immediately, quickly followed by the Ranger, and one of the Mages as a couple of Night Ravens had broken away from the tanks, and supported the Shade Wolves with attack spells.
A third raven bound one of the interceptors who was rushing to help the Druid, which didn't help matters. The Druid turned into Bear Form to protect himself, which meant he was no longer able to support.
The back line struggling made it harder for the front line to hold as well. Some of the Dire Wolves started to slip through after a tank went down, and raced towards squishier targets. The raiders were barely able to stop them, but it meant taking all of the focus off of the boss again.
Even though it was no longer casting attack spells on anyone but the tank, it was still using support spells on the adds, like the occasional Regrowth, Rejuvenate, and Thorn Armour. It had cast Root Bind once after it was hit with the first wave of fire attacks, but otherwise it was refraining from targeting the rest of the raid. At least it wasn't using Rejuvenate or Regrowth on itself (yet), but it seemed to have some passive regen, even if it wasn't listed among the skills.
Unfortunately they were losing too many members to have any real hope of victory. By the time half the Dire Wolves were down, they had lost over a third of the raid, and they'd only managed to take down three of the ravens. The boss was barely down to 75% HP because they'd had so much trouble focusing it, but they were determined to at least push as far as they could.
They still weren't sure if it was better to focus down all the adds before engaging the boss, or if it was better to focus the boss while keeping the adds busy, or whether it was better to split their focus, but it felt like at this point all they could do before wiping was to force the boss into the second phase, and at least see what it was like.
"Anyone with ranged abilities target the boss!" The call went out over raid chat.
The boss's HP bar started going down at a pace they obviously couldn't sustain. They lost another couple of members before they hit the 60% mark, and something finally changed.
The boss reverted to its wolf form, unleashed another Howl, and jumped onto the tank. They weren't exactly sure what skill it had used, since it didn't look like Body Slam, but it pushed the tank to the ground while doing a heavy amount of damage, and then the paw glowed before it delivered a Savage Blow to the side of the head.
"Tank down!"
They'd already struggled to keep everyone healed up properly after losing so many healers, so the sudden burst of the damage was too much. Then the boss charged into the melee fray, and unleashed an Arcane Blast to blow everyone away before using Mass Rejuvenate on its own side.
Another tank tried to Provoke, but it was too little, too late. Things quickly fell apart after that.
* * *
Sara looked across the battlefield as the last raider fell to the claws of a raven. The birds didn't use melee attacks a lot, but it seemed like they were having enough fun to mix things up a little.
Did I get too carried away?
She had been aware that Tree Form was weak to fire, but it had still been a little annoying to get targeted by so much of it. Burning sucked. If her HP pool hadn't been boosted so much she probably would have been in real trouble, but it still hurt a fair bit. So she might have felt a little bit in the mood for payback by the time she shifted back to wolf form.
In the end a little over half of the wolves had fallen, and not quite half of the ravens. Maybe the birds were a little too strong to take part in such large numbers, but she felt like it wasn't insurmountable. Probably. The raiders probably hadn't expected to win on the first attempt anyway. Well, technically second, but the first where they reached her.
It had been fun, but considering the carnage she had unleashed she had to wonder if maybe... just maybe... she had gotten a little too into it. She had even used some of her concealed skills in the heat of the moment.
If they came back for another round, maybe she would tell two of the ravens to sit that round out. They seemed to have trouble dealing with the birds, so that might balance the odds a little better. She also recognised that her targeting the healers at the start had made it harder for them, but she still felt they had it coming for playing so sloppily. She might not have used to be a raider herself, but she had played in enough dungeon parties to know you had to get a tank to take the boss's aggro before you let loose. She even gave them nearly ten seconds of grace period before she started doing anything.
Though having her aggro pulled was an unpleasant sensation. As she wasn't tied by the system's script she wasn't forced to obey a taunt in the same way a regular mob was, but she could still feel the sensation of having the skill used on her. Like being poked with something hot. At least it was an obvious tell of who she was 'supposed' to target, so she could better play the role.
"I'm sorry, boss."
Someone interrupted her thoughts, and she turned to see Kathleen. Who looked rather down.
"Sorry? For what?" Sara had to ask.
"They got past me, and attacked you..."
Sara sighed, then lifted her paw to pat Kathleen on the head. It was awkward, but it still felt like the right thing to do.
"No need to be sad about that. We're here to have fun, remember? It was fun for me to get to fight them. You did well, Kathleen," she said.
"Really?" Kathleen glanced up at her.
"Really. Think of it this way. They have to make it past you to prove they're worthy to face me. If they can't manage that, then they're not good enough. So there's no reason to be sad. Unless you thought the fight wasn't fun?" Sara asked.
"No, it was fun," Kathleen said, and started wagging her tail.
It had occurred to her to bring Kathleen into the final fight as well, but that might be ramping up the difficulty too much. Plus it was dependent on whether Kathleen respawned in time, and she might not if the raiders moved quickly. Next time Sara should try to pay attention to how long it took for Kathleen to come back. Maybe if she named another wolf... or maybe not. It might be better if she didn't, at least for now.
She decided to finally glance at her popups.
No level... Wanderers still don't give experience, do they?
"No character experience, no. Nor any drops."
Which meant it was just skill level ups.
[ Greater Fireball Skill Level Up! ] [ Fire Resistance Skill Level Up! ] [ Frost Arrow Skill Level Up! ] [ Budding Regrowth Skill Level Up! ] [ Poison Arrow Alt. Skill Level Up! ] [ Thorn Armour Skill Level Up! ] [ Fire Resistance Skill Level Up! ] [ Budding Regrowth Skill Level Up! ] [ Frost Arrow Skill Level Up! ] [ Savage Blow Skill Level Up! ] [ Arcane Blast Skill Level Up! ]
She had given them a pretty obvious weakness to go after when starting out as Tree Form, so it was no wonder they were taking advantage of it. It was going to become less of a weakness as her resistance went up, but the negative correction was probably substantial enough that it was worth it for them to go for anyway.
While being tanked she had only used Frost Arrow, and Poison Arrow offensively, while focusing more on support spells. She hadn't used Water Jet at all since unless she was specifically aiming for weak spots it did less damage. It turned out that precision aiming at short range against an armoured target was tricky. Maybe she should consider randomly targeting other raid members. That was something bosses sometimes did, right? But she didn't have anything with a long enough cast time to really telegraph it. Would it seem unfair if it kinda just came out of nowhere? Maybe if she only did it at certain intervals. Being a good boss was hard.
I suppose both sides are figuring this out as we go along.
* * *
All of the registered members had finally showed up, totalling 45 raiders in all. They had set that number of participants because they figured it was the safest bet to avoid scaling the boss up yet another level. Tier 4 was generally thought of as the optimal difficulty level, but if they weren't all from the same guild it was difficult to calculate. No one had figured out yet with 100% certainty how the system evaluated someone's strength relative to an encounter, so they hadn't wanted to push it too close to 50.
Before they went in again, it was time for a strategy meeting.
"So what did we learn?" Cronch said. It was less of a question, and more a prompt to get the guild leader started. They had already collected most of the information, and reviewed the streaming footage they had. The main purpose of the meeting was to brief the newcomers, and see if anyone had anything further to add.
Barg Nowl led the guild Brilliant Blades, and they were the ones who had set up this raid. If they had taken enough time to prepare they might have been able to go in with guild members only, but he had wanted to get first crack at this, in which case it was better to seek cooperation from others.
Plus he liked bringing the community together.
"The raid consists of three encounters of increasing difficulty. Probably to test how prepared we are, and to teach general mechanics against the adds. The first one is fairly simple, though we were caught unaware by the inclusion of the Night Ravens.
The second has more mobs, and includes a Sub Boss, but it's basically just a larger, stronger Dire Wolf. If a couple of tanks can lock it down, then everyone else can focus the adds. We'll keep a third backup tank around on the next scaling level just in case.
The third encounter is against the boss itself. The increased add numbers do pose a problem, but the boss is the biggest issue."
The Leadership bonus, and improved Howl were only part of the problem.
"We'll need to get a tank up there as soon as possible. It waited for about ten seconds after the encounter started before it began attacking, so we have a short window. Healers should be careful about being too active at the start, since we saw it might only take a couple of shots to go down. And don't group up due to the Fireballs. They have boosted radius, and while we didn't see it this time, it's possible it will target any clusters of players it sees regardless of aggro."
Someone raised their hand, and Barg nodded at them.
"Is it possible to exploit that to get the boss to hit its own adds?" they asked.
"Unknown, but I would expect the AI is too clever for that. That might mean that conversely being close to the adds could prevent you being Fireballed. It didn't target melee clusters, at least.
Since it sits up on the hill in Tree Form for the first phase, it's easy enough to target it with fire skills, but it's hard to hold aggro on it. Maybe a second tank should try climbing the hill for direct engagement while another keeps it busy with skills alone. Provoke worked, but it's possible it only stayed focused on the tank because we didn't have much opportunity to focus target it. It still used support spells on the adds regardless of aggro.
When we got it down to about 60% health it started the second phase. Whether that can be triggered in other ways we don't know yet. After it returned to wolf form, it immediately used a tank buster move, and we weren't ready for it. According to the footage it resembled Death From Above, but there isn't anything like that on its skill list. So either it unlocks more skills in the second phase, or it has some sort of innate ability."
Tank busters were a fairly common thing for boss encounters, so they probably should have expected it. It looked like it had used Savage Blow to finish the tank off, but they could only guess at the move before.
"If we manage to keep the tank alive through that, we might be able to keep the boss under control, but Arcane Blast is a problem. The boss's version is strong enough to literally send lighter players flying, and since it's caster-centred it won't hit the other wolves. If at all possible we should keep the boss away from groups.
Whether there's a third phase we don't know yet, but it's possible."
They also had no idea if the boss added any new mechanics or skills with further scaling, or whether it was just the stats that rose.
"Another thing of note is that if your HP drops too low, one of the Night Ravens might try to snipe you, so healers should try to keep everyone above 20-30%, but don't be afraid to use a potion if you're worried."
"So what do we focus first?" One of the newcomers asked.
"Ideally I want to say the ravens, since having less casters to worry about would help greatly, but they're tricky. We got over half of the wolves down, but less than half of the ravens. Honestly I think we should keep vigilant for the Shade Wolves' Ambush first. A couple of people with really good detection skills should hang back, and try to spot them before they attack. Once they're revealed they're not a huge problem, but that initial Ambush is brutal."
The devs hadn't nerfed that skill as much as some of the playerbase wanted.
"After we're past that hurdle, ranged attackers should focus the ravens if possible, and then the boss. If anyone has skills that can pull the ravens to the ground, use them when you can. Remember to use fire skills on the boss for phase 1. Melee should focus on the wolves. Keep them away from the ranged members as much as you can."
After some other minor points, the raid was ready to march out again.
[ Raid Mode Initiated. Checking Participants. Number Registered. Zone Boss HP increased by 200%. Sub Boss HP increased by 100%. Boss buffs increased to 50%, and 25% respectively. ]
