Marissa

  Marissa stared at the screen as she took a calming sip of her tea, once again thankful for her mug warmer. The tea had been on her desk for over an hour at this point, and it was still hot.

  “Cu Chulainn, huh?” She muttered, mostly to herself.

  The NPC in question strode further into the large cavern that the team had ended up in at the end of the small dungeon. His nameplate appeared over his head as text started to appear.

  “As the Registrar said, you’ve all done very well. But I always like to test any new Clans personally with a quick spar.” The smile in the voiceover was so obvious that Marissa wasn’t sure if he was supposed to come off as cocky and annoying or simply enthusiastic. “The first move is yours,” he continued, “whenever you all are ready.”

  At that point, his nameplate turned orange - the color of a targetable enemy, but one that wouldn’t attack without being attacked first.

  “I guess everyone form up?” Marissa said, positioning herself behind Aleister.

  “Kieran?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I assume you know the most about the Glaive?” Jazz asked. [Glaives] were the [Dedication] counterpart to [Tyrants]. Rather than a large two handed weapon, they focused on polearms.

  “Oh, uh, right. He’s got a spear, afterall.” Kieran said. “They play pretty similarly to Tyrants, all things considered. Their Dedication Skill is a dash attack that damages everything in a straight line, so I guess we should make sure we stay spread out around him.”

  He paused for a moment to think before continuing. “Otherwise, if we were to assume he’ll use the unaltered Glaive skills, it’ll mostly just be watching for big damage attacks. Glaive also gets more reversals than Tyrant, so watch out for parries and counters, I guess?”

  “You don’t sound very sure.” Ash said tentatively.

  “Well, yeah.” Kieran chuckled. “While it might be logical to assume that a spear wielder is just a Glaive, I’d honestly be kinda shocked if Cu Chulainn doesn’t have a bunch of original skills. Like, his spear, Gae Bulg, is famously guaranteed to be fatal when used.”

  “Yep, okay, that makes sense.” Marissa said. “I guess we’ll do this live, then.”

  Mellody started with her [Overture of Might], which would be great for their combined opener damage. If Mellody kept [Overture] up, though, they all may regret the lack of a defensive song if Aleister went down too quickly. Her own preparation began with [Snipe], as Hibiscus went down on one knee and took careful aim.

  “Okay.” Jazz said, and took a deep breath. “Pulling in ten.”

  “Watch your buff rotation, Ash.” Marissa said quickly, as she began charging Hibiscus’ [Master’s Shot]. “The last thing we need is Aleister going down too quickly because we underestimated Cu’s damage output.”

  “Copy.” Ash said.

  “Here we go!”

  As Marissa saw Aleister move forward while throwing out a ranged attack, she let her charged shot fly. She had already positioned her targeting reticle on a glowing weakpoint - Cu’s head, of course - and quickly cycled into her opener while she still had Mellody’s buffs.

  She applied [Venom Fang] to get the damage over time applied and the cooldown on it rolling. Next in line was [Critical Eye], immediately followed with a second [Master’s Shot]. While it took a few seconds to fully charge, the damage buff applied from [Critical Eye] made the charging time entirely worth it.

  Caoimhe had opened with [Damnation], keeping Cu stunned for the first few seconds of the fight to allow Hibiscus to get her opener off with Mellody’s damage buffs without needing to properly aim.

  But as soon as the second [Master’s Shot] landed, all hell broke loose. Cu immediately charged straight through Aleister with a piercing dash attack - probably the one Kieran warned them about. Marissa wasn’t familiar enough with [Glaives] to know the animations. But that thought was thrown away when Cu’s follow up attack clearly targeted her.

  “Crap.” Jazz said, as Aleister quickly followed behind Cu. “I’m at the top of his threat list, but he’s ignoring me.”

  “Well, shit.” Kieran and Marissa muttered simultaneously. Marissa hit [Slithershot] immediately - it was her only real escape option as a [Seeker], but it also cancelled [Snipe], triggering its long cooldown, a punishment for poorly timing the huge damage buff.

  Cu’s spear sliced in a huge arc where she had been before the backward leap, in an animation similar to a [Tyrant’s] [Wild Swing]. If it had landed, she had no doubt she would’ve ended up knocked down and in real danger.

  “I’ve gotcha.” Kieran said, as Caoimhe crashed into Cu’s back with her own [Wild Swing], deftly utilizing the forward movement included in the [Tyrant’s] version to close the sudden gap. Marissa watched it land, but Cu remained standing.

  “No knockdown effect.” Ash called, quickly swapping Mellody’s songs over to the more defensive [Bulwark’s Ballad]. With Cu seemingly ignoring traditional aggro mechanics, defense was suddenly much more important.

  “He did get stunned earlier, so he’s not immune to all CC.” Marissa called. “We’ll have to see what works and what doesn’t. I’ll try Pin next time he moves.”

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  “Got it.” Jazz said, who had Aleister back in control of the fight for now. Aleister had caught up to Cu, and launched a few attacks with high threat generation, which seemed to turn his attention back to the tank.

  “I’ve got him. Maybe try less bursty DPS?” Jazz said.

  “On it.”

  “Got it.”

  Hibiscus and Caoimhe both went into DPS maintenance mode, trying to deal consistent damage without any sudden spikes. Mellody kept Aleister’s HP above 50%, wary of sudden damage spikes from Cu, while Aleister kept rotating through his low damage but high threat skill options.

  This pattern carried on for almost a minute, when Marissa finally said, “Guys, we’re barely hurting him.”

  It was unfortunately true. Cu’s HP had barely dropped 4% in the minute and a half the fight and lasted so far. And almost 3% of that was in the opener.

  Mag Mell’s UI was fairly light on the gamier side of things. While creatures all had HP bars visible, as well as the percentage of HP, things like actual damage numbers and such were hidden. It left Marissa unsure of how the fight was progressing, given they should’ve done more damage by now.

  “He might have some kind of shielding?” Ash offered. “We might need to do high burst damage to overcome it.”

  “And he ignores Threat when we break the shield?.” Marissa said, nodding to herself. “Interesting mechanic.”

  “So, let me get this straight,” Kieran said, “we’re going to rotate between chaotic burst phases where we have no control over Cu, and calmer phases like this. And we need to balance them to be sure we don’t die.”

  “Seems like it’s worth a shot at least.” Jazz said. “I’ll try to up my damage too, and use less threat skills.”

  “Alright. Here we go, then.” Ash called, “In 3…2…1.”

  In an instant, the battlefield changed. Mellody swapped to damage focused songs, ready to spot heal if anyone took damage. Aleister ceased using threat generating skills, opting for the higher damage ones. He also dropped [Death’s Approach] on Cu, making the target take 10% extra damage for a short time.

  Caoimhe immediately laid into Cu with several high damage skills, including a [Stun], though this one wasn’t as long lasting as [Damnation]. However, it also had far less recovery time, allowing Caoimhe to flow into a combo of two more high damage skills before the [Stun] ended.

  It was also just long enough to give Hibiscus enough time to land a [Critical Eye] [Master’s Shot] which was her biggest burst damage ability.

  As soon as the [Stun] ended, Cu’s counterattack began. Even prepared for it, Caoimhe and Aleister got hit by the sudden wide sweep. It knocked them both down, leaving them potentially vulnerable. Aleister, as a tank, had several reversal abilities that would end the knockdown and retaliate all at once. He was back on his feet and throwing dark purple bolts of magic at Cu in an instant.

  Caoimhe, as a DPS, had fewer reversals available. Not zero, but with only two, Kieran was hesitant to waste one without knowing what was coming. Mellody was already getting Caoimhe’s HP back up to full, so Marissa figured Kieran made the decision to hold the reversals for a more dangerous moment.

  Hibiscus had already taken a knee as Marissa hit [Snipe], seeing she wasn’t the target this time, and was lashing out with her highest remaining damage skills.

  Cu, however, seemingly ignored the hits as he zeroed in on Caoimhe. The enemy made a small leap into the air, and crashed down on Caoimhe, who was still under [Knockdown]. There was a burst of red light when the plunging attack landed, and before Kieran could regret his decision to not reversal and escape, Caoimhe’s HP was gone.

  A big sigh came over the chat. “Shit. I should’ve expected a one-shot attack. I literally said to watch for it before we pulled.” Kieran complained.

  The animation that accompanied the death was unique as well, which was unexpected. Caoimhe suddenly looked like a reverse pin cushion, with barbs and needles erupting from her body.

  Kieran chuckled as Aleister fought to get control over Cu’s aggro again. “Yeah, that animation tracks for Gae Bulg.” He said absently.

  “Be ready to get back in there, Keiran. I’ll get you up in a sec.” Ash said, doing his best to keep his wife alive.

  Jazz, for her part, scoffed. “On the plus side, it looks like he goes into a cool-off period after he kills someone? Or rather, he functions normally based on aggro again. Still hits like a fucking truck.” She grumbled, while clearly doing her best to manage her mitigation skills.

  Mellody had to swap back to [Ballad], in addition to using other mitigation skills, to keep Aleister alive. Without the constant defensive boosts, Aleister may have gone down to an unforeseen damage spike. As it was, Mellody was already burning actual mitigation cooldowns trying to minimize the damage.

  Marissa was locked in on dealing as much damage as possible. They had managed to hit Cu for a full 8% more during their short-live burst window, before the party transitioned into another maintenance mode while letting cooldowns run down. Marissa was just rotating through her filler skills, waiting for their next opportunity.

  “Thanks.” Kieran’s grateful response to being resurrected successfully by Mellody was Marissa’s cue to pay attention again.

  “Ash! Incoming!” Jazz shouted, as Cu immediately responded to the resurrection spell. He used the same line AoE dash through Aleister to close the distance to Mellody fast and unaccosted.

  “Shit!” Ash said, quickly hitting Mellody’s one and only retreat skill, [Coda Step], which teleported her back to a spot designated earlier. It was a single-use get-out-of-jail-free-card that could only be set up once per encounter. When Mellody vanished and reappeared on the other side of the cavern, Cu turned toward Caoimhe’s respawning body.

  A vicious looking series of thrusts targeted Caoimhe, but luckily, she was still under the [Fae’s Grace] status effect, granting a brief window of invulnerability immediately after getting resurrected. But Cu’s attack pattern continued even as [Fae’s Grace] faded.

  “Not this time.” Kieran muttered, as he hit one of Caoimhe’s defensive skills. [Deflection] did exactly as it said on the tin, deflecting a single attack, allowing Caoimhe to entirely avoid one instance of damage.

  Marissa let out a sigh of relief as Kieran had either gotten lucky or correctly read that the incoming attack was a single hit, and not multi-hit like the previous one. Caoimhe’s [Deflection] triggered and stopped the damage, as well as allowing the follow-up skill [Infliction].

  It was one of Marissa’s favorite animations; it just looked incredibly slick to her. Caoimhe leveled her massive sword and made a horizontal strike while sliding past her target to end up behind them with a little distance, too. It was a very convenient escape danger combo, as long as the player timed the parry correctly.

  Thankfully, Kieran did.

  Aleister used a movement skill, [Shadow Step], which put him directly behind his target. As soon as he was in melee range with Cu again, things seemed to calm down some, rotating back into the maintenance cycle.

  “We’re going to have to do another burst phase in a second here, guys.” Marissa said. “And we need to control Cu as much as possible when we do.”

  “I have a few stuns I can try to link together. I need 25 seconds.” Kieran said.

  “Ok. But I’m going to struggle to get control of him again afterward I think.” Jazz said. “Several of my big mitigations still have 45 seconds or more, and all of my provokes are on cooldown.”

  “I’ve got you. Still have plenty of MP over here, and I’ve got a few ‘Oh shit’ buttons left. I think we can manage at least one more burst phase before things get dicey.” Ash said.

  Marissa looked over the status readouts all over her screen and nodded to herself when everything looked okay. “My highest damage skills will be back up in 10. Count us down to your stuns, Kieran.”

  “Aye aye, Cap’n.”