Chapter 556 - Sacrificial Roar
Provoke was considered a crowd control skill. Its effect could generate a huge amount of aggro, while causing the Taunted target to lose its free movement. It could only attack the character who had cast Provoke for the next 3 seconds. Unrivaled Super Hottie activated his Knight’s Spirit, which caused his Provoke to be enhanced to a Glorious Provocation. It generated even more aggro and would increase the forced attacks towards the caster to 5 seconds.
There were many NPC’s that were immune to Provoke, but Bone Dragon Aldton wasn’t one of them. After getting Provoked by Unrivaled Super Hottie, its attention shifted towards him instead of towards the other players.
Using such a skill in the event of an accident was what a MT would usually do. Crispy Bean was very adept with such methods. The problem was that his Provoke was still on cooldown when it had happened!
Provoke wasn’t a skill that would normally be used frequently. It was reserved for dire situations. Crispy Bean had intended to build up aggro while dealing damage. For his own convenience, he used his skills as soon as the skills went off cooldown. The usage of such skills would be able to stabilize the boss’s aggro, but this method overlooked the possibility of an aggro shift and there was no backup plan either.
The problem occurred because Crispy Bean had no intentions of stabilizing the aggro. Instead, his intentions were to compensate the skills, which would generate aggro gradually, with skills that would generate a tremendous amount of aggro in one go to make way for skills that had higher damage output.
This was the main reason he failed to stabilize the aggro, despite casting all of his skills. Even though his high damage generated a large amount of aggro, the calculation for aggro was very complex. Damage wasn’t the only thing that was factored in.
Critical attacks, bleed, poison, and armor break…. Each effect would generate additional aggro. As a result, Crispy Bean’s way of building aggro couldn’t make up for the aggro generated by players that were furiously attacking the Boss. He didn’t have a backup plan either.
He was lucky that Unrivaled Super Hottie had reacted in time.
When Bone Dragon Aldton shifted its attention to Unrivaled Super Hottie, the players let out a collective sigh of relief. Unrivaled Super Hottie’s equipment had also changed. He was facing Aldton directly with a sword and shield in hand.
“Stop attacking!” Clove shouted as she healed Unrivaled Super Hottie at the same time.
Even though the Boss’ aggro had been stabilized after being Provoked, there were still a lot of hidden dangers.
If the aggro wasn’t built up properly during the 3 to 5 second margin that the Boss was Provoked, there was no telling how the aggro would be distributed once Provoke ended.
Under normal circumstances, if the the main tank did his or her work properly and stabilized the aggro within the three to five second window, the boss’s aggro would be reset back onto the main tank. The reason others would stop attacking was to give the main tank a chance to build up the boss’s aggro again.
Crispy Bean was the only one who ignored the orders to stop. He wanted to use his own Provoke to get the boss back to him, but unfortunately, it was on cooldown, so he had to resort to using other aggro building skills and hope that Aldton’s aggro would be onto him once the effects of Provoke wore off.
Who would have thought that when he swung his word, the only thing he hit was air.
Bone Dragon Aldton had actually twisted its body and sidestepped the sword.
Despite its big size, the dragon wasn’t slow at all. It managed to dodge Crispy Bean’s attack.
If it was just this, Crispy Bean would have certainly shouted in anger, but Aldton’s sudden movement not only caused his own attack to miss, but the attacks of the others to miss as well.
These were the players who were unable to stop their attacks when Clove barked out her order. Unrivaled Super Hottie had moved around after casting the Provoke on Aldton and the dragon moved in an attempt to attack him. With that very movement, it dodged the attacks that were aimed at it.
This was undoubtedly a mainstream main tank strategy. When situation got out of hand, the MT would drag the boss out of range from the other players. After all, not everyone was fast enough to immediately stop attacking.
Unrivaled Super Hottie’s action was a textbook maneuver. Crispy Bean would have done the same thing himself. Unfortunately, this maneuver had caused his attack to miss, so he was still deeply resentful.
“Bang!”
Crispy Bean’s position was off and his vision was blocked by the Bone Dragon. He couldn’t see the skill cast by Unrivaled Super Hottie. All he heard was a thud, which was the sound of a shield being struck.
Was he defending or was he continuing to build aggro?
Crispy Bean was panicking. As a Knight, he knew that a majority of the skills that required shields could generate a large amount of aggro. This was also a way for main tank’s to build up monster aggro. Was Unrivaled Super Hottie doing all of this in an attempt to replace him as the main tank?
How could that be okay!
Crispy Bean was becoming desperate. He moved forward and hacked away at the Bone Dragon. He really hoped he could see Aldton’s bony skull again after the five second Glorious Provocation wore off.
The five seconds passed quickly. Crispy Bean was so focused on attacking Aldton that he even reposition himself in front of the boss. He had been counting down from five and when the time came….
“Bang!”
Crispy Bean was sent flying into the air. The dragon had caught Crispy Bean in the air with its tail!
Crispy Bean coughed up blood!
The aggro was back on him, but in a very pathetic way! He had been too careless!
The aggro reset meant that the Boss would resume its attack on him, but Crispy Bean forgot that the dragon’s attack range had a 360 degrees reach. It didn’t need to face its target to attack.
As a result, the instant the Provoke off, Aldon lifted its wings…..
The others were already standing far away after stopping their attacks. Only Crispy Bean was standing behind Aldton, expecting it to turn around. In the end he was sent flying away by Aldton’s wing. The dragon followed up with a swing of its tail.
Wing attack, tail whip.
Crispy Bean was helpless against Aldton’s combo. He could only block the attack with his shield and prepared to counterattack as soon as he landed on the ground. With the aggro back on him, he could withstand a few of Aldton’s attacks, especially with Clove healing him.
Bang!
With another dull thud, the dragon’s tail struck Crispy Bean. He had already prepared his shield in front of him, but the impact accelerated him towards the ground. Crispy Bean was well prepared though and had already began Quick Recovering. However, he suddenly heard the DPSers let out a collective curse, “Sh*t!”
Crispy Bean’s eyes began to water.
Aldton finally turned around, but its next animation made Crispy Bean cry.
Dragon Breath!
Aldton was going to use its strongest attack: Dragon Breath.
The dragon ignored Crispy Bean when it was supposed to and shifts its attention to him when it wasn’t. If anybody laughed at an NPC’s intelligence level, Crispy Bean would definitely give that person a heavy slap.
The worst part of the breath attack was that it was aimed in the direction of the damage dealers. The attack would hit everyone else.
If every one of them were hit by the breath attack, they were finished! Aldton displayed a high level of intelligence. With such AOE attacks, wouldn’t it finish the lot of them off in an instant?
Crispy Bean recognized the seriousness of the situation. How could the damage dealers not notice it?
But evasion was impossible.
They was quite a distance away from Aldton, placing them right in the center of its breath, there was nowhere to run...…
As for the Cleric? She was also a target that would be attacked.
As all hope was lost, a roar emanated from behind Aldton. It wasn’t man made. It was a skill called Roar, but with Knight’s Spirit’s buff active at the same time, it was known as Sacrificial Roar. Glory players gave a nickname to this skill based on its special effect: shoot at me.
Roar was a skill of similar nature to Provoke. While Provoke was a single target skill, Roar would often be used on a mob. A Sacrificial Roar, buffed by Knight’s Spirit, had an increased range. With an increase in range, the number of targets affected would also increased. With the concentrated attacks from so many enemies, the Roar was indeed sacrificial.
Roar didn’t have a time limit. It affected its target based on the number of attacks launched. It would force victims to launch a single attack on the caster alone.
In their current situation though, one hit was enough.
Breath was a continuous attack.Despite dealing accumulated damage, it still counted as one hit.
But could Unrivaled Super Hottie survive under the continuous damage of the dragon breath? He wasn’t Crispy Bean, who had superior equipment. With the quality of his equipment, he would need normally need a secondary tank to take the hit.
Everyone of the players couldn’t help but worry for Unrivaled Super Hottie when Aldton breathed towards him.
Sacrificial Roar… Would he really be sacrificed?