The Great Thief

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

At the end of the day, the monsters were unable to obstruct everyone for too long. Soon after they cleared out the monsters, they arrived in front of the Boss.

The first squad wipe happened quicker this time because there weren’t enough Tanks. After all, including the Boss, there were five monsters they had to deal with at once, instead of the usual one or two.

Besides High Priest Thekal, there were two passionate followers as well, called Lor’Khan and Zath, along with two other elite tigers.

Compared to the tigers from before, these elite tier tigers had higher HP, but their skills were similar. These beasts were also designed from the same template as a Boss was, so they would be comparable with regular Bosses.

Lu Li swapped out Half A Cigarette. He had just received a mount, so even if another mount dropped, he would have no chance.

World’s Best Friend was the player who subbed in instead.

Before allowing World’s Best Friend to enter, Lu Li had directly messaged him.

“I’m afraid that your cooldown is going to be interrupted by us.”

The dungeon would be reset after cooldown, which was applicable to all players. However, since World’s Best Friend was just waiting outside, he could leave the party and join another party to enter the Instance Dungeon from the beginning, given that he hadn’t previously entered the dungeon with the current party.

However, once he entered the Instance Dungeon with Lu Li, the System would recognise his cooldown as the same as the party’s current progression.

“That’s okay. To be able to join your run personally is already my honour,” World’s Best Friend said with a smile.

Originally, Lu Li wasn’t planning to let him enter. His original plan was to let Moonlight wear a full set of defensive armour and let him aggro one Boss. He thought that the difficulty wouldn’t be that hard, but obviously, he had thought wrong. Perhaps the System would eventually nerf the two zealots’ attack power and stats, but in this current update, Moonlight was not powerful enough to tank either of them.

After World’s Best Friend joined them, the team now had three proper Main Tanks. These three were also the strongest Main Tanks in Ruling Sword.

With Drizzle Court and Peerless City alongside, they actually didn’t lack in Main Tanks and Healers anymore. However, Lu Li preferred to work with Ruling Sword’s own Main Tanks.

Ruling Sword’s elite squads weren’t stronger than Drizzle Court and Peerless City’s elite squads, but their Main Tanks were much stronger than the other two guilds.

“I’m pulling one of them, right?” World’s Best Friend asked.

“Yeah. You’re pulling the one called Lor’Khan. Wandering is in charge of Zath. Breezy, you’re pulling the High Priest. Moonlight, lure the tigers.”

Similar to the other Bosses, this battle also had two stages to it.

In the first phase, High Priest Thekal took the form of a human. Azure Sea Breeze was responsible for pulling him while the others cleared out the two tigers.

Because Lu Li couldn’t reveal the strategy from the start, they wiped a few times due to the experimentative nature of their battle. In the end, they concluded that these three monsters couldn’t be killed one by one. The High Priest Thekal and the two Zealots could revive each other.

This wasn’t their first time encountering a mechanic like this. The Ancient Core Hound from Molten Core could do the same thing.

This meant that the method to defeating them was simpler now. They just needed to kill them simultaneously.

After this, they also discovered that High Priest Thekal could heal the other two Zealots. The heal was obscenely strong, so their previous efforts were all wasted.

Lu Li then arranged for Azure Sea Breeze to force the Boss to stay at one end of the fighting area. Meanwhile, World’s Best Friend would pull Zealot Lor’Khan to left side, where Thekal would not be able to see him. Then, Wandering would also pull Zath to the right side. This way, they could simultaneously attack the three monsters.

The method to defeating this Boss was quite complex. Many of the mechanics needed to be discovered slowly.

Simultaneously defeating these three monsters at once was also not that easy. Once their HP differences exceeded 20%, they would immediately gather together and Thekal would heal them all. When this happened, all their efforts were instantly made a waste.

When they had payed the price of more squad wipes, Lu Li then formed a strategy that could work.

After killing the tigers, they would take down 10%-20% HP on one of them. Then, they would move onto the next Boss, then the next.

They would begin at Thekal, then move to Lor’Khan and Zath.

When they all had only 15% HP left, they would bring them all back together and kill them at the same time.

Once they were all dead, everyone besides the main Tank dispersed. After a few seconds, Thekal would eventually reincarnate in the form of a large tiger. After the transformation was complete, he would then begin attacking the players standing in close proximity. If the Main Tank didn’t use Taunt quickly enough, then there would be unnecessary casualties.

They had now reached the second phase, which was indicated by Thekal’s transformation into a tiger.

In this phase, Thekal would cast a disgustingly powerful AoE skill. This skill would interrupt all of the players’ skills, then cause damage to them and knock them back in a radius around him.

Since it was a knockback, their casting animation was naturally interrupted.

When the players made contact with the ground, there would also be fall damage. The first time

they were met with this situation, they immediately wiped. This was because the surrounding monsters hadn’t been cleared properly, and many of the players were knocked into the groups of monsters.

This was why Lu Li requested that everyone cleared out everything in this large area. This way, they would be able to avoid dying at the hands of the small monsters.

It was futile to try and escape the range of this skill because it was unavoidably large.

Lu Li also requested that everyone prepare their potions and bandages to heal themselves when needed. This was because the Healers would also be knocked back. After settling down, they would still need to worry about the Main Tanks and themselves, which meant that the DPS players wouldn’t be receiving the healing that they needed.

The DPS players would be responsible for themselves so as to lessen the burden on the Healers.

In the second phase, Thekal would also begin summoning tigers. After seeing the cast animation, Lu Li immediately directed everyone to kill the two newly spawned tigers.

No matter what Boss it was, if there were summoned creatures, they would be a priority to kill. An exception was if the phase of the battle was already nearing its end. This was because killing the Boss first would make things much easier.

Obviously, this was not the case in the current situation. Thekal had just entered the second phase and he had a little more than 40% HP.