The Great Thief

“The protection rune is destroyed. Brothers, take out these intruders.”

“Mere mortals, die before the son of flames!”

The entrance was flashy, and his lines were cool. As the highest commander in Molten Core, Majordomo Executus entered the scene with eight sidekicks. The Bosses before either had two or four sidekicks; none of them were special enough to have eight alone.

“Why can’t we hurt him?”

Azure Sea Breeze was able to accept any damage that the Boss dealt to him, but he couldn’t accept the fact that the Boss didn’t lose a single point of health.

Clearly, this Boss was a little unique and the team quickly came to the conclusion that he could not be slain.

“At least the minions aren’t invincible,” Lu Li remarked as he went up to poke at one of the monsters. Fortunately, they still took damage, but their overall attributes were quite high.

Things couldn’t get any worse – this seemingly invincible Boss could hit players, but they couldn’t retaliate back.

“Too much damage! I can’t take this…”

Wandering felt tired at heart, because he quickly discovered that he couldn’t even tank four monsters. On the other hand, although World’s Best Friend didn’t say anything, Lu Li could see the same situation from his health bar which was going up and down like a rollercoaster.

Three tanks didn’t seem to be enough.

There was no other way; they had to send out other Plated classes to make up the number.

Majordomo Executus had eight sidekicks. Four of them were Flamewalker Doctors and the other four were Flamewalker Elites. As their names suggested, the first four were healers while the other four were warriors.

Solely focusing on Fire Resistance for their gear wasn’t enough, but even if they were to diversify their attributes, they would still lose the fight. This was because the Flamewalker Elites would deal fire damage, but the Flamewalker Doctors weren’t a holy or natural type caster. Instead, their damage was classed as a shadow-type damage.

It wasn’t rare for Priests to deal shadow damage. Shadow Priests would become more popular later down the track and establish themselves as a proper class type.

The biggest point of discussion in the next patch would probably be the marriage system. However, in terms of the gaming content itself, the biggest change would be the special effect reduction and the talent system that would be released.

The special effect reduction would impact the way players geared up, while the talent tree system would impact how players developed their playstyle.

Warriors would reset their attributes, and would be able to develop into a Defensive talent tree or a Berserker talent tree. Priests would split into a Healer talent tree or a Shadow Priest talent tree. Thieves were split into an agility Thief or a battle Thief.

Paladins had it even better – they could develop to healer Paladins, defence Paladins or holy Paladins. However, the best of all would be the Druids that could develop into healer Druids, bird Druids, bear Druids and cat Druids, among some others that would be of no use besides being cute…

Overall, players would have to reset their gear and while keeping their Fire Resistance, they would also have to do something about Shadow Resistance too.

Majordomo Executus was invincible, so the players couldn’t damage him. However, just because he was invincible didn’t mean that he couldn’t hurt the players. In fact, he even dealt damage at random to targets around him. This meant that the aggression wouldn’t be stable and when the Boss ran around, someone would have to pull him back. The person in charge of tanking the Boss would have to focus, so it was best to have both a main and secondary tank.

Azure Sea Breeze and Wandering were old partners. World’s Best Friend, Moonlight and two other Paladins pulled one Flamewalker Elite each. As for the four Flamewalker Doctors, Lu Li assigned four Mages to Polymorph them.

This was necessary, or else the Doctors would heal the others.

“My, what is this!”

The team was caught by surprise; why did the Mages who casted Polymorph turn into sheep themselves?

Seeing Deadly Green Orange turn into a little sheep was a funny scene, but no one laughed because it meant that the Flamewalker Doctor that she Polymorphed had now been set free. The freed Flamewalker Doctor immediately healed the Flamewalker Elite.

It was all for nothing!

Counterspell reflected 50% of all negative spells within a certain radius and lasted for 10 seconds.

It was a shameless skill and when a target had this buff on them, anyone that attacked them with a spell would have it casted on themselves instead. This was why Deadly Green Orange turned into a sheep when she used Polymorph on the Flamewalker Doctor.

“March!” Lu Li called.

March Rain quickly debuffed the magic from Deadly Green Orange. As expected from a competitor, Deadly Green Orange had the quick reflexes to immediately turn the Flamewalker Doctor back into a sheep as soon as her Polymorph effect had been removed.

“When you guys Polymorph, make sure to check your target’s status bar for Counterspell. Don’t cast anything on it if the status exists,” Lu Li reminded.

“Heal me!” Her Tears called out. He was in charge of tanking a monster, but died right after.

The Flamewalker Elite that had been freed rushed into the group of ranged class players. Because it was slightly further away from the real tanks and normal Paladins didn’t have many taunt skills, a few of them died. In the end, despite finally stabilizing the situation, Lu Li still had to call it quits.

“How did he die?” Lu Li asked the healer who was in charge of healing Her Tears.

Without counting Wandering, who was a Defense paladin, and without Mu Qiu being around today, Her Tears was probably the best-geared Paladin around. It was unexpected for him to die.

The healer player was still at a loss.

“I didn’t pay attention; he just died very suddenly.”

“I think it reflected my damage onto myself. I happened to cast an ultimate spell and killed myself with it.”

Her Tears had a clear head during the fight, but he couldn’t accept the fact that he died to himself because his damage was too high.

“It’s probably similar to Counterspell, but a shield that reflects damage,” Lu Li said with certainty.

He had heard long ago that Majordomo Executus could buff his minions with two different types of shields. One reflected magic while the other reflected damage. Now, he finally got to see it for himself. He asked again for some further details and reconstructed the battle plan. Those that tanked the monsters were to fight without using ultimate spells; they just needed to hold onto the monster. Even someone like Her Tears wouldn’t be able to do much damage in the first place, even with his ultimate spells.

Meanwhile, the healers needed to focus on their targets.

Lu Li thought for a bit and swapped out one of the damage-dealing Paladins for Deep Watersong, a bear Druid from Drizzle Court. Deep Watersong could be counted as the number one bear tank in Dawn. He could be the secondary tank to help Azure Sea Breeze tank the Boss. That way, Wandering could go and tank one of the Flamewalker Elites.

Her Tears’ equipment was exquisite, so it was better for him to play as a damage dealer.

After this, he had another Mage join the team, which would make five of them in total. If someone was turned into a sheep and the priests couldn’t react in time to debuff the magic, the spare Mage could Polymorph instead.

Lu Li’s tactics were simple. He wanted to kill two Flamewalker Elites first, then the four Flamewalker Doctors. After this, they would turn around to kill the remaining two elites that would be left.

However, before they even took down the first Flamewalker Elite, they ran into some trouble again.

Majordomo Executus teleported a player at random into a furnace. The player that had been teleported was still casting and had no clue that his health bar was rapidly dropping.

“Huh, how come I died? Did you guys see me die.”

How clueless – the victim was the last to figure out that he died.

“The Boss will teleport someone there at random. Pay attention – if you guys find yourselves being teleported, immediately run away,” Lu Li said weakly. It wasn’t realistic to hope that these players would stay alert to their surrounding while they were fighting the Boss.

There was also another common situation for a team wipe.

During phase one, the Boss usually buffed his minions with the two shields. During phase two, he would still buff his minions, but also himself sometimes.

This was very troublesome, because this Boss didn’t really follow the aggression rules.

Sometimes, his aggression would clear out and he would attack other players at random. At this point, the tank would have to immediately Taunt to start building aggression again.

However, if the Taunt was reflected by Counterspell…

At that time, Azure Sea Breeze was left in shock. There was no harm in him Taunting himself, but he couldn’t build aggro if that happened.

“Deep Watersong, taunt!” Lu Li shouted. He had no choice but to give this instruction; not everyone had reflexes as fast as Azure Sea Breeze. Deep Watersong probably didn’t think that the Boss could reflect taunts either, which explained why he couldn’t react in time.

However, this was enough for the Boss to take out a few players.

“Let’s take a break; we’re doing well. After all, we got to phase two. Just watch out for the teleports and the shields; it’ll make things easier,” Lu Li announced.

Although they wiped a few times without too much progress, at least they took out one of the minions.

Taking out a minion meant that they still had hope. If they couldn’t even take out one minion, they might as well just give up already.

This Boss was very complicated. It tested the gear of the players, as well as their coordination. After all, they were battling against nine opponents this time.

Especially when the main tank couldn’t taunt the Boss, the secondary tank needed to make themselves useful.

Some guides said that bear tanks would find it easier to taunt the Boss in these situations, but Lu Li had no comment about this. However, since the best bear tank in Dawn was waiting outside the dungeon as a substitute, why not call him inside?

During their rest time, Lu Li still went fishing with Water Fairy.

No matter how much stress he was under, he would calm down during this moment. This was probably an unexpected surprise..