Chapter 1016: You’re Too Hard to Predict
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
"You played well." Sun Xiang actually acted like a captain for once and comforted Qiu Fei, who was returning to the bench. Qiu Fei smiled, but didn't say anything before returning to his seat, but his gaze was aimed at Excellent Era's competition booth. On the field, they didn't have any way to communicate with words. Everything was based on their mechanics, attacks, defense, movement, and dodges. In this match, Qiu Fei had given it his all, but still lost. However, there would always be defeat in competition. He might've lost this time, but next time he'd win for certain, no matter who he was up against.
After giving his encouragement to one of their players, he casually glanced towards Happy and suddenly raised his voice. "It's just a shame that you left a Ye Qiu with only half his health for me. Even if I win, there will be no honor in it! Well, there's no helping it, seems like all I can do is clear him off quickly!"
Chen Guo's temper flared. If she had something in her hand, she'd have thrown it at him by now. After calling out arrogantly, Sun Xiang walked towards the competition booth with his head held high. Pan Lin and Li Yibo had also begun commentating on the line ups of each team in the television broadcast.
"Sun Xiang is the third to go up. If we consider this, then Excellent Era's plans for the group arena is clear. They want to finish the group arena up in three rounds, hoping to earn at least three points," Pan Lin said.
"Yes, considering the new rules, three points is an absolute advantage in the group arena. Two points can be considered being one step ahead and one point doesn't have much impact. You have to fight with your all in the team competition. If you lose, then the opponent has at least one point and the two sides will have to play a matchbreaker," Li Yibo said.
"If you can have the security that you at least won't lose, that counts as a psychological advantage, doesn't it?" Pan Lin said.
"This sort of psychological advantage will only matter towards the very end," Li Yibo said.
"Under the current rules, the team ace should appear fourth or third. Excellent Era has placed Sun Xiang as their third player, a very standard offensive arrangement. However, from the current situation, I feel like they could have been a little more daring and placed him second," Pan Lin said.
"I think Excellent Era is still wary about Ye Xiu's strength. If it were any other God, they could be a bit more offensive, but Ye Xiu knows them all too well," Li Yibo said.
"But they also know Ye Xiu very well!" Pan Lin said.
"Unfortunately, Ye Xiu has changed classes since then," Li Yibo said with a smile.
"Ok, now Sun Xiang has entered the competition booth and the two characters are being loaded into the game. On Excellent Era's side, we have Excellent Era's current captain, Sun Xiang with his account, One Autumn Leaf! And on Happy's side, his opponent is the ex-captain of Excellent Era, Ye Qiu, now called Ye Xiu, and One Autumn Leaf's previous owner." As Sun Xiang entered the stage, the match entered the preparation stage and Pan Lin excitedly began to introduce them. His words reflected what angle the audience's anticipation came from. Sun Xiang's identity and account were clearly emphasized. As for Ye Xiu? His old identity and old account were emphasized. Lord Grim, Happy, these crucial words that should've appeared in the introduction hadn't been mentioned once.
"Now for the countdown; the match is about to begin," Pan Lin said.
"This is a battle between the current and ex captain of Excellent Era! The account, One Autumn Leaf, that was once Ye Xiu's companion for so long is now in Sun Xiang's hands and has become the opponent Ye Xiu has to defeat. I wonder how he feels, facing this familiar and, you could say, closest ally. How will he perform?" As if afraid that someone wouldn't be able to catch the drama behind this match, Pan Lin went over the highlights again as the match officially started.
The two characters appeared on the map simultaneously. Without hesitation, Sun Xiang immediately pushed One Autumn Leaf into a sprint, foregoing strategic positioning entirely. Sun Xiang had thought and felt that it would be a shame that he would probably not have a chance to face Ye Xiu in an official match using One Autumn Leaf. He really wanted to use a spectacular victory to establish his ownership over One Autumn Leaf, and the previous user Ye Xiu was the best stepping stone in his eyes.
He hadn't thought that, after a year and a half, he really did get the chance to meet Ye Xiu in an official match. Though this stage wasn't as impressive as he had hoped for, the amount of attention this match had gained was satisfactory. Especially all the publicity done by the media, it made this all the more appropriate opportunity to perform his sacrifice.
However, due to the new rules, he couldn't have Ye Xiu duel him one on one. He could only act in accordance with the rules. Now, he had finally got the chance to face off against Ye Xiu. It was a shame that Ye Xiu was already at half health from his fight with Qiu Fei. This was frustrating to Sun Xiang. If he could be second in line, that would have been perfect. However, the team wanted to emphasize security, so he had to be third. This was agreed on by their boss, Tao Xun, making it so that Sun Xiang couldn't object.
Now look. Their victory was secured, but his perfect plan to crush Ye Xiu was completely ruined. There was no honor in winning against a Ye Xiu with only half his health!
"Where are you, Ye Xiu? Stop hiding, come out and fight me." Sun Xiang pressed forward with One Autumn Leaf towards the center of the map. Not seeing Lord Grim, he immediately went to yell at Ye Xiu in the public chat.
"Don't rush me, I'm recovering my health," Ye Xiu replied.
Recovering health? Sun Xiang was stunned for a moment. He had no idea that the stadium was filled with booing now. From the very beginning of the match, Ye Xiu's Lord Grim never advanced. With a shamelessness that rivaled his teammate, Wei Chen, he had hid in a corner and began to heal himself.
That's right, heal himself. Though Unspecialized could only use level 20 and under skills, but, for the players to fully experience the differences between classes, these low leveled skills displayed their class' distinctiveness. Clerics had two level 20 and under healing skills. Small Heal and Small Cure. One was a chant to recover health and the other was an instant cast. Though the effects weren't as good as high level healing spells, even level 75 Clerics still needed to utilize these two skills. Low level skills had advantages that high level skills didn't. Small Heals had a shorter chant, and Small Cure had a shorter cooldown.
In the pro scene, these advantages were very crucial. They often needed to be able to quickly use skills. By the time the slow chant of a Holy Heal was complete, the one who needed the heal might've died already.
The current Ye Xiu didn't use any Small Cures. Instant casts like this had cooldowns, and they usually weren't very short, so they were usually saved for dire situations, but chants were alright. They didn't have cooldowns so Lord Grim was chanting continuously, the white flash of a Small Heal hadn't dimmed since the round began.
Apart from that, Lord Grim had a Recover on him, too! He could use skills from all 24 classes. Amongst the 24 classes, Paladins could also heal! Recover was a low level Paladin skill, and was a healing buff, a legendary ability that even Clerics were jealous of. While on a character, that character would be healed every three seconds for a total of 18 seconds. Currently, Lord Grim's health stayed at a rhythm of jumping up once every three seconds. This made it hard to tell what rank his Recover was. This guy wasn't stopping with the heals at all.
Apart from the boos of the Excellent Era fans, this scene elicited a heartfelt speechlessness from everyone present.
Bringing healing to a one on one? It wasn't unheard of. While Clerics and Paladins couldn't really fight one on one, but there were still two other classes in the Priest class category, Knights and Exorcists. Level 20 and under skills were usable throughout the same class type, that meant Knights and Exorcists could also learn and use these healing skills.
.
Did that mean you were invincible if you brought healing to a one on one? Those who had some experience knew it wasn't so simple. Knights and Exorcists could learn a few low leveled heals, but their effects were incomparable with Cleric and Paladin healing. First of all, the two had bonuses from class specialization, and then healers also had special equipment to boost their healing. Healing was something unrelated to physical and magic attacks. If Knights and Exorcists wanted to boost their own healing abilities, they'd have to sacrifice other stats. After this sacrifice, no one would feel like it was unfair that they had healing abilities.
So healing in a one on one wasn't very rare, but people like Ye Xiu, who hid their character in a corner to continuously healed themselves without restraint was unheard of. The entire audience was struck dumb.
Even Pan Lin and Li Yibo were speechless for a long time upon seeing Ye Xiu's actions.
This should've been a drama filled match! Look at how pumped Sun Xiang was! Yet Ye Xiu had immediately turned this match down a shameless path.
"Ye Xiu's Lord Grim… is currently healing himself, er…" Pan Lin commentated. His passion from before had been completely extinguished. It wasn't like you could expect him to yell out in excitement "wow, so awesome, this God immediately hid himself away at the beginning of the match and started chanting heals continuously! The healing isn't stopping!" That wasn't something Pan Lin could do.
"Yeah, he's healing…" Li Yibo's comment was also very weak.
"The effects aren't as great as that of a Cleric or Paladin," Pan Lin said.
"Of course, he has no specialization bonus," Li Yibo said.
"He doesn't have any healing equipment either," Pan Lin said.
"He's relying entirely on his stats to heal."
"A shame we don't know if his weapon has any healing bonuses or not."
The two chatted had a discussion without any substance.
"But if he keeps healing, won't that put a huge strain on his mana usage? How is he going to battle after that?" Pan Lin finally found a problem to discuss.
Just as he said this, a blue light descended on Lord Grim.
"This is?" Li Yibo was stunned, and saw Lord Grim's mana suddenly shoot up.
"Wish… Prayer?" Pan Lin stared in shock.
"It's Wish Prayer…" Li Yibo wanted to cry. It was way too hard to commentate for this God's matches. You're too hard to predict!