The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Zoe

It only took a couple more tries before the party successfully saw the first phase through to the end. Things got smoother, too, as Mellody and Evie figured out a solid rotation of healing cooldowns, helping the party through the hellish barrage of AoEs.

"Alright, everybody, eyes up." Mellody said as the phase transition went off. They had prepared the party to the best of their ability, and everyone was basically at full HP again as soon as the transition finished.

The attack itself was such an intense volley of magic that it basically blocked out Zoe's entire screen with various effects. The visual noise was so bad that other than her UI, she couldn't really make anything else out at all - it felt like being flashbanged.

When the magical effects cleared, the Fae were still surrounding the tower. While they were generally too far away for Zoe to make out facial expressions, their body language was pretty clearly still combative. She expected no less.

"What now?" Aleister asked as the party began to move toward the middle of their platform to group up around [Áine], who was still in a small barrier in the middle of the space.

"I don't know." Bisky said.

"Keep your guard up!" [Áine] called, her voice line playing over the chatter. "They're not done yet. And I'm still working on the spell!"

"You don't say?" Caoimhe joked.

Zoe rolled her eyes as she finally saw several of the Fae enemies break away from the large formation that had them surrounded. There weren't many, only six of them, but they looked distinct from the trash mob types that had been on the platform previously.

"Is there a boss?"

"I don't think so. None of them look boss-like." Cass said.

"I feel like that would be a big insult." Firo said.

"True, but do you disagree?"

"Didn't say that."

"C'mon guys, focus up." Mellody said again as the 'new' enemies landed gracefully on the platform.

The six looked like they could have made a party of their own, in some ways. Two of them held large weapons, one with a greatsword and one with a halberd. Two others were clearly magic users, holding a staff and a magical focus. Of the last two, one held a bow and the last held a massive tower shield.

They spread out in a half circle around the southern end of the platform, but didn't attack immediately.

"Are they waiting for us?" Aleister asked.

"Somehow I doubt -" Fiona was responding when the enemies suddenly made their move.

Right from the get go, it appeared like they were more coordinated than the average trash-pull enemy, and more like they worked off actual programming beyond 'see target, hit target'. The two melee enemies had rushed straight at the healers, but Fiona and Aleister were quick to react, pulling one each.

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The two spell casters split off to different ends of the platform and began casting spells with different elemental effects, and the shieldbearer followed one of them and blocked the way. Finally, the archer had run off on their own, then stopped to take aim at Mellody, with a line AoE appearing for the shot's path.

Zoe looked up and groaned. "Now what?"

"I don't know. See any status effects on them?" Bisky asked.

"Nope, nothing." Mellody said.

"Great."

"Y'all, this guy hits hard." Fiona said, having intercepted the greatsword wielder.

"Same here." Aleister added, dealing with the halberdier.

And they weren't wrong. Zoe had no idea what kind of mit the tanks were using, but each attack from the enemies were shaving off between ten and fifteen percent of the tank's HP, and they weren't exactly slow.

Then more AoEs appeared, which Zoe guessed at a glance were from the two mage-types. One of them, who had been casting a fire spell, was emanating an AoE circle that took up around eighty percent of the whole field, leaving the party with only a crescent shaped spot on the far side, near the one casting a water spell.

The water spell, in turn, was indicating a knockback effect from the centre of the platform. It was a common enough pattern, and everyone recognized it immediately - use the knockback to get pushed to safety.

The group quickly grouped up toward the middle near [Áine], arrayed around in a semi-circle on the safe side. When everyone was in position, Zoe noticed that both the melee enemies' weapons began to glow and emanated a dangerous looking red color, reminiscent of an AoE marker, but the knockback effect and the fire AoE went off in order as expected.

Everyone was pushed back toward the water caster. Several things happened so quickly then, that Zoe had trouble processing it quickly enough. The shieldbearer dashed across the platform as soon as the party approached the water caster, shoving Firo and Bisky out of the way and doing some damage, as they were closest to the enemy mage.

At the same time, the archer took aim again. Although it was unclear who they targeted because the party had grouped up somewhat for the knockback, the line did travel through the middle of everyone. As the party tried to scatter, they continued to hover close to the edge they had been knocked toward, with Fiona and Aleister moving north together and bringing the melee enemies with them.

Zoe moved Nyx to follow, keeping up damage on the enemies and Caoimhe moved alongside her, keeping pace as well. That was when Zoe noticed that the enemies' weapons were still glowing, and it was getting brighter. But she had no time to actually say anything about it, because in the same moment that she actually processed the information, the two enemies reached out to one another.

They grasped hands and spun together violently, weapons outstretched. The attack cleaved right through both tanks, Caoimhe, and Nyx, dropping everyone except for Aleister, who had managed to only barely survive thanks to some miraculously well timed healing. However, when the spinning attack ended amidst a whole mess of shouting from the party over chat, the two melee enemies both struck at Aleister with basic attacks.

The red glows hadn't faded, and the two attacks together were enough to drop Aleister instantly.

"Bullshit!" Aleister muttered angrily, but Zoe had already passed from the anger and shock at the death to laughing about it.

"Well." She said, watching the two melee enemies make their way around the party members, murdering each one with a single combination attack each.

"So…did anyone actually catch what happened?" Mellody asked.

"I think so," Zoe said, "I think we need to keep the two melee enemies apart. Their weapons started to glow after they got close to one another."

"I can second that." Aleister said. "It's also worth noting that they didn't do the special attack thing until after we did the whole mechanic, so I think if we just separate after the knockback, we should be fine?"

"I'm willing to try that, at least." Fiona agreed.

"Unrelated, it looks like the shield enemy will rush to whichever mage we get near." Firo said.

"Yeah. He hit us, but the damage wasn't bad." Bisky added.

"Did either of you try hitting a mage with any attacks?" Fiona asked.

"Nope."

"We'll have to see if that triggers him to move, too. And, I guess, whether he's only interested in guarding the mages." Bisky said.

"Are we just leaving the archer then?"

"I think so, at least for now. They weren't really a problem, just an occasional line AoE to deal with."

"The first concern definitely feels like dealing with the melee enemies." Mellody agreed.

"Agreed. The healing while they're up is rough." Cass agreed. "And if they get that buff again, it's clearly game over."

"Yup. That shit one-shot me." Aleister said, a little heat still in her voice from annoyance. "Even with mit up."

"Eh, they two-shot you, but still…" Fiona said, trying to crack a joke, but it fell flat.

"So…is that our plan? Just run it back?" Zoe asked, stretching out her fingers while she had the chance.

"Think so. For now, talking will only get us so far. We need to just throw ourselves at it for a bit until we understand all the mechanics at play. Especially with six enemies with their own things going on." Mellody said.

"Right…" Zoe sighed. "I love add bosses!" She said, full of faux cheer.

"Don't we all." Cass chuckled. The sound made Zoe smile.

"Let's get it."

The following several attempts were mostly learning experiences as they figured out what worked and what didn't. The group even wiped in the first part twice while trying to get back to after the phase transition.

The individual enemy mechanics seemed to be fairly straightforward, but it was the way they all played off one another that made the phase tricky.

The melee enemies were arguably the simplest mechanically, but they were also the most deadly by far. The party had read their portion of the phase correctly. If the two enemies got close to one another, their weapons would begin to glow, signaling the danger. After being together long enough, they would trigger the spin attack, which dealt huge damage to anyone near them. After that, the red glowing weapons remained until they were actively pulled apart for a few seconds after which the effect cooled down.

Unfortunately, even if everyone avoided the spin attack, the buffed basic attacks were so deadly that it was an almost guaranteed loss without spending a ridiculous amount of resources to save the pull. They pulled it off one time, but it left Mellody and Evie low on resources, and the tanks with basically zero mit. Still, it was good to know it was technically possible.

The archer remained the easiest to deal with, mostly just there to be an annoyance, as far as they could tell. One of the party members would get randomly targeted with a line AoE that everyone had to be mindful of, but it seemed to be the only thing the archer did. They all agreed they'd need to keep an eye out though, because no one believed that was truly the only thing the archer did.

It seemed like the mages and the shieldbearer were the crux of the whole phase. The mages continued to cast big spells that had various overlapping effects that would dictate where the party had to go or how they moved. Over several pulls, they saw multiple combinations of spells that had various ways to solve.

The fire and water combination was easy enough, as was a double lightning attack that caused two cones. They figured out pretty quickly that the lightning cones were baited by the nearest players, so when they saw the casting animation for two lightning spells, Bisky and Firo merely needed to get closer to the mages and angle the cones away from the center of the arena.

Other combinations were less clear. There was a double wind cast that targeted two players to be the center point of knockbacks, and they hadn't figured out how they were chosen, or what the best way to handle it was. There was also a double fire cast that had been easy to avoid one time, leaving a sizable safe zone to stand in, while the next time had covered the entire tower, leaving the impression that there was a trick to it.

And then there was the shieldbearer. While seemingly simple to deal with, he still complicated the phase by making it difficult to target the mages quickly. If either mage was approached or attacked, the shieldbearer would dash over to them to defend them. Anyone in his path was knocked away and dealt a little damage, but not enough that it was a huge deal. However, whichever mage he guarded had a massive mitigation buff to most attacks, somewhere in the 80% range. The shieldbearer himself was immune to attacks from the front.

The trick to damaging the shieldbearer, at least, they had figured out quickly - AoEs. Firo's spells in particular were effective, as he could drop a fireball behind the shield, which would explode and deal solid damage to the shieldbearer as well as the mage he protected. Zoe imagined that the melee DPS could also get up behind the shieldbearer to really mess him up, but that couldn't happen until they cleaned up the melee enemies first.

Altogether, by the time they had spent an hour wiping to the adds, Zoe was pretty sure they had the solution; they just had to actually put it into practice.