The Great Thief

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

It wasn’t Time Lapse, it wasn’t Corrosive Acid, and it wasn’t Ignite Flesh…what more could you ask for?

Although Incinerate could really give you a headache with 1500 damage, at the moment, the players’ HP was above 3000, so this wasn’t enough to be fatal. Since it wasn’t enough to be fatal, they were able to recover with healing. What was relatively troublesome, though, was the Incinerate. Mages and Warlocks who were targeted would really suffer, let alone those playing an occupation with lower Magic Resistance.

Fortunately, this skill could only be used once every 30 seconds.

Additionally, it could only attack in a straight line, which was right in front or right behind the boss. It was only the people who were standing on this line who would be hit, so not every player would lose 1500 HP just like that.

There was a warning signal before the attack was about to happen. Players who could react quickly enough were able to get out of the way beforehand.

Apart from this, it was only at this stage that Chromaggus began to change colour.

Different colours corresponded with different resistances, and players had to choose their attack skills based on the resistance. When it was resistant against Shadow, the Shadow Priests and Warlocks had to use other skills, or else their attacks would be nothing more than a tickle to the boss.

When everyone first started to see the Boss change colour, they were all a bit dazed, thinking that he was holding back some sort of ultimate attack.

Only Lu Li knew what skills Chromaggus had. To the ordinary player, they would have no idea what would happen in the next second. Even if something did happen, they might not be aware of it.

There needed to be a process of realisation.

Without Lu Li reminding them, they realised by themselves the change in resistance that the Boss’ colour-shifting indicated.

The second AoE had been cast – Time Lapse!

Lu Li silently sighed in his heart, but this was something that he had anticipated. Even if the System treated them like family, it still wouldn’t be easy to defeat Chromaggus. The Time Lapse AoE was the hardest to deal with, not because of how much damage it dealt, but because it could stun for so long.

The situations with and without Time Lapse were completely different.

If Time Lapse was not case, Chromaggus was simply a Boss with a few more debuffs than normal. As long as they could deal with the debuffs in time, he wouldn’t be any harder to deal with than the previous few Bosses.

However, with Time Lapse, the situation was akin to their fight with the little Red Dragon. Unfortunately, Lu Li and his team no longer had the Dragon Slayer’s Roar that they had during that fight.

At the very least, Time Lapse had not been used with Ignite Flesh or Corrosive Acid. Otherwise, the difficulty wouldn’t be comparable with the little Red Dragon. At that time, they were quite confident of themselves with the buff that they had.

When Time Lapse was used, the whole team could die at any given moment.

There were three Main Tanks, who at the time, had already put up with quite a bit. There was also a group of players with melee roles who had been affected by the attacks, even at a longer distance. A stun in a Boss battle was a pretty fatal thing.

Having revived, Azure Sea Breeze still felt some lingering fear.

“This skill is just too fierce.”

“We didn’t do too badly. If we’re more careful next time, it will work.”

They had more or less found out which skills they required, and had worked out the effects of each AoE as well. Lu Li was quite satisfied with how they had fought this first time.

“We used the hourglasses really quickly,” Wandering said, then continued, expressing his helplessness, “Actually, when we first started and the Boss’ HP was at 20%, there wasn’t any need to only use hourglasses. If we could save a few, then we should have. I feel like the Boss isn’t actually too difficult; we just need to make sure everyone performs to their very best in all aspect.”

“What you’re saying is right. When we feel like it’s going ok, we can use one less hourglass,” Lu Li agreed.

If they were facing Time Lapse with Ignite Flesh or Corrosive Acid, Wandering wouldn’t think that the Boss wasn’t too difficult.

They made it to the second stage smoothly in their second attempt.

The difficulty of the first stage was in coordinating the various roles to dispel Brood Affliction in time. Even if they couldn’t get rid of them completely, they could try to get rid of the debuff that was most threatening to them. Apart from this, they had to maintain a certain level of damage output. After all, between the Boss casting Incinerate and frequently changing resistance, their damage had noticeably suffered.

Quite a few of Lu Li’s First Clear teammates were competitors, and quite famous competitors at that.

Lu Li, March Rain, Moonlight, Deadly Gold Underpants, Deadly Green Orange, Star Baby, Water Fairy, Vegetarian Mosquito, Half a Cigarette…

Seeing more than ten celebrity players together was rare, even in a competition.

The output of the competitors was not necessarily as great as a PVE expert like Lonesome Flower, but with their quick eyes and swift hands, they had great awareness in what they were doing. Dealing with debuff quickly was their strength, so when they battled the second time, almost no one was killed in the first stage.

Lu Li was originally standing a little further away, but after Time Lapse came into effect, he wilfully went on up to take the damage of this effect.

Time Lapse: Stuns and reduces the target’s HP by 50%, but temporarily reduces a portion of their Aggro and permanently reduces a portion of their Aggro as well. After the duration ends, replenishes a portion of their Aggro and 50% of the target’s HP.

First, there was a short stun, then in an instant, Lu Li’s HP dropped by 50%.

Lu Li’s Enhanced Shadowstrike was much more powerful than the normal version, but if he could achieve as high of a Skill Completion as possible, then it would even be more powerful than his Ultimate Skills. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t dare use it like this. After all, the Boss could switch aggro to him instantly. Even if the whole team didn’t die, Lu Li could still suddenly be killed.

Because he was commanding, Lu Li’s output was originally very low. He would usually be ranked in last position in terms of his DPS.

However, his DPS suddenly shot up to first place, and his total damage was slowly adding up as well. Under these circumstances, he would probably be in first place within a few minutes.

“Lu Li, what are you doing? You’ll steal aggro.”

Azure Sea Breeze, who had taken over from World’s Best Friend, was surprised by Lu Li.

“Look at my Aggro,” Lu Li said calmly.

Everyone looked and found that his aggro was still as low as before, even though his DPS was scarily high.

“If you are hit by Time Lapse, your aggro will be reduced,” Lu Li explained.

Everyone suddenly understood, and saw that this skill did have a certain advantage.

However, after it wore off, the aggro would still be replenished to a certain degree, so that was the time to be careful.

Lu Li evidently wouldn’t make this error, and he didn’t forget to remind them of the time either.

Everyone thought that Lu Li was observant, so they didn’t doubt him at all.

The two AoE skills made everyone feel an unspeakable pain, but that was all. They just needed to use their damage reduction to avoid the whole team dying.

At this point in time, you could see the advantage in having good equipment. Whenever everyone thought that they were running out of healing, they would also resort to testing out some new special effects, especially March Rain, Innocent Child, Star Baby and Darkness, who would try and preserve their Mana as much as possible.

As for Hachi Chan…

She looked like she cared even less about the problem of Mana. Her new Hat was allegedly not only able to reflect damage from projectiles, but could also regenerate her MP by 20% every 5 seconds. It really was quite like a perpetual motion machine.