Chapter 650: Doing Two Things at Once
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: GravityTales
“Left left left!!!”
“Interrupt interrupt interrupt!!”
“Retreat retreat retreat!!”
The constant yelling that was coming from Happy’s practice room almost completely drowned out the commentary for the finals. It was hard to believe that these guys were running an easy five player dungeon, even more so with two former pros and two mechanically skilled players.
After taking care of another chaotic situation, the four of them released a sigh of relief.
It wasn’t that the dungeon was hard, but rather that the none of them were fully focused on their playing. Even Ye Xiu, who had urged everyone to run the dungeon, also gave a few glances at the ongoing match from time to time. A slight misstep and the situation devolved into chaos.
Their progress through the dungeon was not going smoothly. Every small wave of monsters was as if they had encountered a final boss. If not for their high skill levels, who knew how many times they would have died already? In the end, they failed to clear the dungeon with still a third of the dungeon left to go!
“I say if we really need equipment, instead of running dungeons, why not just find a few players wandering around and kill them?” Wei Chen said angrily. In his eyes, obtaining equipment like how normal players got theirs through running dungeons was a complete waste of time. Instead, if they saw good equipment on a player, it would be more efficient to just directly treat that player like a boss and kill him for his equipment to drop. In addition, this method was less reliant on luck. If you wanted a certain class’s equipment, then just kill a player of that class. A Battle Mage obviously wouldn’t wear a Blade Master’s equipment.
Finding a specific piece of equipment by running dungeons was much more troublesome. There were a total of 24 classes in Glory and each class had their own respective equipment. Very few classes shared equipment. In the dungeon that they had just run, they hadn’t found any suitable equipment from the two bosses that they had managed to kill. The only thing they could do with equipment for other classes was sell them or find someone to trade with, which was also very time-consuming. Wei Chen felt that doing this sort of proper and upright practice was beneath him.
“Aren’t you afraid of the boss kicking you out if you randomly kill people for equipment?” Ye Xiu said.
“It’s not like she’s here right now! Steamed Bun, Little Tang, you won’t tell her, right?” Wei Chen said, “It’s you guys who will be getting the equipment!”
“Stop with your nonsense.” Ye Xiu said.
“This really isn’t a good way of doing things. Even using money to buy equipment is more worthwhile. The time needed is too high otherwise.” Wei Chen said.
“Do you think I don’t know that? I really need an equipment from this dungeon and I didn’t see it in the market.” Ye Xiu said.
“What do you need?” Wei Chen asked.
“Rising Wind Pendant.” Ye Xiu said.
“Oh, that one…… you want to stack jumping power?” Wei Chen immediately understood. It was a fairly famous piece of equipment.
Anything that came out of a five-player dungeon wouldn’t be considered too valuable. Its base stats, such as its Magic Resistance, couldn’t compare to drops from ten-player, twenty-player, or hundred-player dungeons. The tiny bit of intelligence and spirit bonus wouldn’t move any magic class, but its +8 to jumping power was its only highlight. It was the highest bonus of any pendant.
However, whether this +8 to jumping power was worth sacrificing Magic Resistance and even other base stats was something that needed to be considered. Normally, any class that didn’t require intelligence or spirit wouldn’t even consider this pendant. The sacrifice was too much. However, Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim was an unspecialized character, which could use skills from all of the 24 classes. Any stat was valuable to him, so he had decided on this pendant.
However, even though this Rising Wind Pendant came out of a five-player dungeon, it was still an Orange equipment, so it naturally had a very low drop rate.
With a very low drop rate and a low demand, no one would treat this kind of equipment as a valuable good. This dungeon had been one of the first Level 70 dungeons to be added to the game, so few players came. As a result, it was rare to see a Rising Wind Pendant in the market. Ye Xiu could only depend on his luck.
Wei Chen was quite clear about the circumstances, so he didn’t say anything more. The finals had already reached the team competition portion. In the previous individual and group competitions, the two teams each had their own victories.
In the individual competition, Blue Rain had sent Yu Feng as the starter. This All Star level Berserker didn’t disappoint and gave Blue Rain a good opening. In the next two rounds, each of them won one. After the individual competition ended, Blue Rain had a total of two points, while Samsara had one.
The scoring for the playoffs were slightly different than it was in the regular season. The individual competition wasn’t any different. Each round was worth one point. The group arena was worth more points than normal. It was worth 2.5 points. On the other hand, the final team competition was worth fewer points than normal. It was only worth 4 points. As a result, each match was worth 9.5 points. For both the home and away games, there were a total of 19 points possible. As long as neither of the matches in the home and away games were complete opposites of each other, there would never be a situation where both teams had equal points. Of course, a tie breaker still had to be considered. If both teams tied, they would add an additional competition to decide the winner.
Ye Xiu and the other four also glanced at the group arena competition following from time to time. In the end, Samsara won. Samsara currently held the lead with 3.5 points to Blue Rain’s 2.
The team competition was always the highlight of the match, whether it was in the regular season or in the playoffs, most matches would be decided here.
After a short break, the team competition began. The two sides readied themselves as the screen showed their lineups.
On Samsara’s side, captain Zhou Zhekai and vice-captain Jiang Botao would obviously be leading the team. Next was a Grappler player, Lu Boyuan, an Assassin player, Wu Qi, a Cleric player, Fang Minghua, and their sixth player was a Blade Master player, Du Ming.
On Blue Rain’s side, the three All Stars: captain Yu Wenzhou, vice-captain Huang Shaotian, and Berserker player Yu Feng would be competing. Next was a Spitfire player, Zheng Xuan, a Paladin player, Xu Jingxi, and the sixth person was a Qi Master player, Song Xiao.
Both teams had Blade Masters, but the one on Samsara’s side, Du Ming, was their reserve player. On the other hand, Blue Rain’s Huang Shaotian was their ace player. Of the two healing classes, which would directly be opposing each other, one team had a Cleric, while the other had a Paladin.
Healers were essential in the pro scene. They would almost always appear in the team competitions. It had been proven through countless matches that pure offensive teams weren’t dependable enough in the Pro Alliance. Pure offensive teams could sometimes win in an astonishing display of prowess, but consistently performing at that high of a level was way too difficult. At least, up until now, any team that had tried to attempt a pure offensive style had vanished like smoke in thin air.
Paladins and Clerics were both Priest classes. Both of them had healing skills and could be considered specialized healers. When Clerics weren’t healing, Clerics had other spells to restrict or attack their opponents. On the other hand, when Paladins weren’t healing, their defensive stats were outstanding. They would often take a damaging role or be a main tank like a Knight.
Often times, just by looking at whether the healer was a Cleric or a Paladin, one could usually guess what style the team was planning to use. Teams with a Cleric were more offense-oriented. They preferred to use damage to control the battle. Teams with a Paladin usually played a slower and steadier pace.
Samsara and Blue Rain had each settled on a style. Samsara’s offensive capabilities didn’t need to be questioned. While Blue Rain wasn’t considered a defense-oriented team, their team was more balanced.
“Are we going to be watching the match or continue with the dungeon?” Seeing that they might even miss the team competition, Wei Chen felt a bit reluctant. It was the finals! As pro players, they were still huge fans of Glory. Even if they didn’t have any emotional investment into the teams playing, watching high-level play was always a treat.
“Fine…… let’s watch!” Ye Xiu felt a bit reluctant too. He had wanted to watch the match while running the dungeon, but it seemed that they couldn’t do both at the same time. Now that it was the team competition, he didn’t want to continue either.
“Let’s watch the match first.” Wei Chen immediately let go of his mouse. The four characters stood in the middle of the dungeon as their players watched the match.
The lineups on the two teams were introduced. Each character had their own characteristics. Afterwards, the commentator and guest made predictions. Whether or not Samsara’s skill points had improved was no longer a secret. It was just that no one had an exact number and Samsara naturally wouldn’t announce it to the public. The commentator and guest made their guesses. When Ye Xiu and the others heard their guesses, they knew that they were being too conservative. None of them dared to say that Samsara had characters with maxed out skill points. They only guessed that these characters might have the most skill points in all of Glory.
Then again, Ye Xiu didn’t know if Zhou Zekai’s or Jiang Botao’s character actually reached 5000 skill points or not. According to the drop rate, it shouldn’t have been a problem, but who knows if their luck turned sour.
After listening to the commentary by the commentator and guest for a while, the match officially began. A team’s placing in the regular season could give the team an advantage in the playoffs. For example, Team Blue Rain was first place in the regular season, so for the two matches played in the finals, Team Blue Rain would play their first match as their away game and their second match as their home game. This allowed them to figure out how to fully utilize their home game advantage based on how the first game went.
The first match of the finals would be Samsara’s home game, so they had the right to pick the map. In the end, Samsara picked the map “Grass Blowing in the Wind”.
This was a map filled with tall grass, so the terrain could provide protection to the team. However, the tall grass only blocked vision. It didn’t help defend against an attack. To use this as their map, Samsara was clearly planning on making aggressive attacks.
There were many different ways a team could use a map to their advantage, but they generally followed one rule. After the map was chosen and the two teams gave their okay, they would quickly start the match. The camera swirled around the map as the audience cheered.
The two teams immediately began moving as soon as they loaded in.
Samsara were obviously very familiar with the chosen map. Their five characters headed towards the other team’s spawn point. Blue Rain wasn’t a complete stranger to this map. An old powerhouse like Blue Rain wouldn’t have a map that they had absolutely no knowledge of.
Team Blue Rain quietly set out as well. Their ace player Huang Shaotian and his Troubling Rain had already disappeared amidst the grass blowing in the wind…….