The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Cassandra

Cassandra had to admit it. Absolutely wrecking the dailies and weeklies as a group was fun and an awesome change of pace. She and Zoe had both been slacking throughout the week, which meant they had to functionally fit a week's worth of dailies into a day if they could - and that meant running through some specific queues that usually got skipped because they were less interesting.

Typically, during periods when she was hooked, Cassandra would do the [Routine Quest : Monster Hunt] and [Routine Quest : Area Subjugation], which was basically a random boss fight and a random dungeon. Doing both of those daily for four days in a week would get the player to the weekly cap for the dailies' currency, called [Ulster] coins. Those two queues were the most interesting ones, thanks to the relative difficulty, and also paid out the most.

In contrast, there were other, lesser [Routine Quests] that had other uses, especially for players that were entirely caught up on content. For example, the [Routine Quest : Treasure Hunt] gave players a scrap of a map piece, and they had to go track down the location by searching an area to find the spot that matched. It was often skipped because it paid out minimal [Ulster], but had a large number of [Fae Glamour] options as drops. Of which, Cass and Zoe had already collected them all.

There was also a [Routine Quest : Area Safeguard] queue, which dropped players in a random location and tasked them with defeating waves of enemies. It, too, offered less [Ulster], but paid out extensively in [EXP], which was great for leveling alternate [Paths]. Again, less useful for them when they had already basically fully leveled ever [Path] they had any plans on playing.

The biggest issue with these activities was the difficulty. Unless the players queueing actively made the content harder for themselves by equipping lower level gear or choosing the minimum level [Gear Sync] option, max level players in end game gear would simply waltz through most of the [Routine Quests] without issue, to the point of being boring.

Of course, this wasn't so much an issue when you were crushing the content with friends and laughing the whole time instead of playing it alone together with random people you weren't chatting with. Truly, the idea that anything could be fun with friends was right on the money.

Once the [Monster Hunt] and [Area Subjugation] quests were done and behind them, the party decided to take on the [Area Safeguard] quest. Before queueing into what they all knew would be an easy win, Zoe raised her metaphorical hand. "You guys wanna make this a bit more interesting?"

"What did you have in mind? Gear Sync?" Firo asked.

"Nah, even with Gear Sync on, Safeguard quests are a little too easy."

"Solos." Cass said. It was something she and Zoe had done before, when trying to make their own fun in the easier modes.

"Exactly. We'll all take turns with the waves, tackling each one alone. See who can get the fastest clear time with the least amount of objective damage."

"It works surprisingly well." Cass said, adding a bit more explanation. "The waves of enemies between bosses are all different, but roughly the same level of difficulty. Only the bosses between the normal waves of enemies actually go up in difficulty as you proceed, essentially making each of the waves nothing more than an extended trash pull."

"That actually sounds like fun." Sylvia said. "I'm here for it."

"I'm down. There's even four waves between each boss, so we all get three turns before the end." Firo said.

"Yep. This'll be much better than Nyx and I trying to duo these for fun since we'll probably actually be able to beat the bosses."

"Yeah, despite crushing the waves, a DPS and a healer alone get overwhelmed by boss mechanics, no matter how easy they are."

"I guess between the occasional tank busters and the global cooldown on battle rezzes, you get stuck?" Firo asked.

"Yeah, basically. Even when we get lucky with Nyx critting enough to keep threat despite my healing, there's usually something that will basically necessitate one of us dying because of the lack of people." Cass said. "Which is totally fair, to be clear. It's kinda important that the game is designed specifically for the number of players meant for the content."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"And Routine Quests are specifically group content." Zoe added.

"Well? I'm ready if you all are." Firo said as the party leader. Once he got the okay from everyone, he hit the button and they were dropped into instance for the quest. The area chosen for their quest was a small clearing inside the [Manadh Woods], a forest-y location that was supposed to be haunted. In fact, Mag Mell had taken the concept of the area and run with it so well that players would actively gather for fun ghost hunts sometimes.

While the mechanics or behaviors behind the way the AI worked for the area hadn't been cracked yet, many players were still after the elusive answers. During nighttime in the game, the [Woods] got foggy and spooky. The ambient music retreated in favor of a more natural background of animals and insects, adding to the feeling of being in nature.

However, there was a fairly decent chance of the [Woods] spawning ghostly NPCs. They weren't usually hostile - although there were hostile undead enemies in the zone - and would flicker between distant trees. There were all kinds of rumors flying around online that if you managed to track the ghosts they would lead the player to some kind of treasure cache, or a big lore dump about the area.

There were even some pictures and videos floating around that showed groups that were led to a ghostly cabin in the woods that they were able to explore with lots of intractables inside like books and notes. But the whole building would suddenly vanish after a short period of time, leaving the party stranded amidst the trees suddenly.

Suffice to say, Cass liked the area. But none of the interesting stuff would show up during the [Safeguard] quest they were on. And it was day time in-game anyway.

Instead, they were dropped in and crowded around an old tree that shimmered with what Cass now recognized as likely to be Fae magic, with its silvery-white coloring. She noted that for later. It could be a fun thread to trace back in case no one else had noted that. She didn't have high hopes for being the first, though.

"Who's up first?" Nyx asked.

"I'll go." Cass said. "Show these two how it's done."

With agreement from the rest of the party, Cass slid Evie up to the tree, ready to defend it when the first wave showed. Evie, currently dressed in a somewhat frilly white dress with blue accents, spun her staff as she drew it from its floating position on her back. Cass had chosen a fairly simple wooden staff and dyed it white and gold to match the rest of the outfit, which altogether made Evie look almost magical-girl like - especially with her long brown hair currently in twin-tails.

With the enemies finally starting to appear, she moved away from the tree toward the first group. While [Radiance] weren't typically the best healers for offensive power, having altered her skills earlier for damage meant that she was at least a respectable blaster caster for the time being.

Admittedly, [Channeled Heal], her [Dedication Skill] would probably go unused here, given she probably wouldn't need a lot of healing. But she had enough offensive skills to move between while weaving in her basic attacks, which were simple blasts of light that she needed to actively aim.

[Solar Ray] was one of her main offensive skills at range. It did solid single-target damage with 450 [Might] and was spammable. [Sunburn] was another solid damage skill, especially when altered to maximize the damage. By default, it was a 45 [Might] [DoT], but now had an additional 600 [Might] explosion of damage around the target when initially used that applied the [DoT] to everyone hit, at the expense of a longer cooldown.

[Photon Blast] was another spammable skill that was a 200 [Might] AoE attack that hit everything in a cone in front of Evie. Once the wave had started building up numbers, that was Evie's main source of damage.

Other skills that had multiple uses had also been altered for damage. [Searing Light], for example, was a skill that would remove a physical [DoT] effect like a bleed from a friendly target by default. Currently for Evie, it had been altered into a 25 [Might] [AoE] [DoT] that included a short [Blind] effect, helping her do damage while avoiding attacks with a flat chance to miss her.

Unfortunately, most of the healer [Paths] didn't typically have a lot of offensive depth. It basically just came down to using the available abilities at the right time, and in the right order. For Cass, that meant making sure to apply as many of her [DoT] effects, making sure they were reapplied as they wore off, and keeping her other damage options rotating through.

When playing solo and operating normally, healers typically took more time to kill their targets than DPS or tanks, but would be able to outlive whatever it was that they were dealing with. A long battle of attrition was what would give them the victory over their enemies.

Unfortunately that would also mean that when it came to the race portion of this contest, she would almost certainly be last. However, because Cass had opted to alter her skills to an unreasonable point of offense, she was able to just barely compete. The loadout she was working with had left her with only minimal healing - just enough to carry their party through the boss battles between rounds of waves.

Instead, even her upgraded healing spells had been swapped to damage abilities wherever possible. And it really left her jumble of skills on [Radiant] feeling like a disjointed mess. She had access to [Kindle Fire], [Fervent Light], and [Dazzling Radiance], all of which were typically support abilities, designed to boost MP regeneration, [Physical Attack], and [Parry] stats respectively.

With her current spec, they were changed into two personal damage buffs and a targeted debuff respectively instead. Two of her major healing spells, [Healing Light] and [Flow of Life] had their healing outputs reduced to almost nothing to instead confer a [Spell Haste] effect and another damage amp.

Similar changes were scattered all over her skills and spells, leaving her juggling a dozen different buffs, trying to layer them in the best way to make her damage output respectable. It was a mess of disparate abilities that would have been basically useless in most cases, as it removed her inherent longevity as a solo healer that would allow her to win more even fights in favor of giving her somewhat decent sustained damage output that wouldn't kill an on-level enemy quickly enough.

But against the lower level waves of enemies in these quests, it was just enough.

Once the counter displayed on the screen showed that every enemy for her wave had entered the battle, she prepared her final move. The capstone spell for [Radiant] was [Starlight Lance], a combination damage and healing spell that hit all enemies and allies in a wide line in front of the caster. It had a fairly long cooldown by default, and carried a 1200 [Might] damage attack for enemies and a 1200 [Might] heal for allies caught in the attack.

Cass felt like she had really outdone herself with the alterations to [Starlight Lance] with her current loadout. She had tripled the cooldown, removed the healing portion of the spell, and tripled the cast time. With all of the negatives added, it allowed her to crank up the damage output on the attack to 6500 [Might]. In an AoE line centered on her target.

Once she was sure she had every last enemy in her wave on the field, she gathered them up and used [Lightspeed Step] to create distance between her and the mob of enemies. Then she cast the spell, targeting one of the mobs in the middle of the pack.

The resulting blast of pleasant light pink and yellow energy all but erased the entire pack of enemies. There were just a few stragglers that she hadn't damaged enough before her big attack that needed to be finished up, but it wasn't very difficult. Of course, [Starlight Lance] would be on cooldown probably all the way through the boss fight for round one, but she was hopeful it would be ready for her to use during her round two wave.

Sylvia whistled appreciatively. "Damn. Wasn't sure what to expect out of a healer, even with an offensive build. But that was nice."

"Remind me not to get on Evie's bad side, Nyx." Firo chuckled, trying to sound nervous.

"Don't worry, Firo. Lucky for you, I can't take this build into a raid night because we'll just die." Cass said, playing up her own teasing lilt.

"She's lying." Zoe said flatly. "She's taken that exact build into smaller dungeon runs with me just to prove a point."

Cass didn't expect the accidental assist from Zoe on her teasing, but decided to make use of it anyway. "And what happened in those dungeon runs, Nyx?"

Zoe let out a combination sigh and groan. "We cleared them. Quickly, too. And there were no wipes or deaths."

"Exactly. I know when I can get away with this. I won't bring it into a raid, because we really do need the healing. But for stuff like this? Basic heals are enough."

Sylvia laughed. "Firo, buddy, are you sure your raid team is alright?"

Firo snorted. "Of course. Didn't you hear what she said? She knows her shit."

"Fair enough. Still sounds insane. Fun, but insane."