The Great Thief

The key phrase was “stacking up to fifty times”. Fifty times was a considerable amount, but it was much better than stacking infinitely.

It was not that they could not kill the Fire Elementals; they just had to kill them strategically.

However, Lu Li decided to play around with them to create a false impression that it was difficult for him to achieve First Clears. Other players would always struggle in dungeons, but the Blackrock Depths run seemed much smoother under the command of Lu Li.

Even Sorrowless was completely impressed by him throughout this dungeon.

In the second run, none of the Fire Elementals were killed and all the pressure was placed on Azure Sea Breeze’s shoulders. Slowly but surely, Ambassador Flamelash grew stronger and bigger in size.

Fifty stacks meant that his attacks were 2.5 times stronger.

When other Bosses became enraged, oftentimes the buff they received to their attack was not even close to 2.5 times. As such, they had to fight Ambassador Flamelash as if he was constantly enraged.

When the Ambassador Flamelash actually became enraged…

Azure Sea Breeze was unable to survive even with his defensives activated.

Normal attacks were doing around 1000 HP in the beginning and 5000Hp at the end of the fight. They were on pace to be completely wiped.

“Both strategies don’t seem to work; we have to look for an alternative strategy. What if we pulled the Boss away from the Fire Elementals?” Lu Li suggested.

On the third try, Azure Sea Breeze kited the Boss and dragged it around the map while the DPS classes followed closely behind.

After a long while, the Fire Elementals burst into flames, setting the floor ablaze. They were discouraged because this was no different from actually killing them.

“Extinguish the fire, quick! Lu Li, what kind of terrible idea was this?” Azure Sea Breeze accused and gave up while the Boss continued to beat him to death.

When they were resting at the bar, their moral was very high and each of them was filled with excitement. However, after being wiped three times, hopelessness became their number one enemy.

Major guilds often had alternate First Clear parties to switch around in case the first team became discouraged and stuck. However, Lu Li never bothered with that.

He had spent a lot of time in his past life studying different dungeons and he was able to conclude that there was not a single dungeon in the game that was impossible. This was because the game developers would be crucified if they were to create a dungeon that was impossible.

The first two team wipes in this dungeon were opportunities to learn for future runs.

“We’ll only kill some of them this time. Sorrowless, Hornet’s Nest, you two stand where I put the markings on the minimap. If Fire Elementals spawn there, you two must kill them as fast as possible. Unforgettable Maple, Phantom Gaze and Hot Twitch, you three do the same as well at the three locations that I mark out,” Lu Li began to explain.

This time he was serious. Although the strategy wasn’t too flashy, based on Wendelian and Sorrowless’s expressions, it was clear that this was a good plan.

This was the next obvious plan of approach. If they were wiped, whether they kill the Fire Elementals or not, the next logical plan was to only kill a few of them. This way, the fire on the ground would not affect the Boss fight and the Boss could not absorb the Elementals to gain up to maximum stacks.

In the end, the Boss only accumulated around 30 stacks, which was around 1.5 times the attack. Azure Sea Breeze was definitely strong enough to tank the damage.

Usually, teams would bring more ranged DPS classes to this dungeon in order to save time. Ranged classes were able to kill the Fire Elementals from afar while also dealing DPS to the Boss. However, they didn’t have many class options in the All-Star team.

Because of their lack of coordination and team chemistry, they were wiped again.

However, this time, the morale was much higher because everyone realized that they had found the correct strategy.

In Dawn, whether it was PvP or PvE, dying and running back to your dead body was a daily occurrence. It was almost impossible to reach max level without dying at all.

This time, Lu Li moved around the personnel because he had realized that Hot Twitch had dealt more damage than Hornet’s Nest, possibly due to the attack speed of Hunters.

As such, Hot Twitch was paired with Sorrowless and the other three were grouped together. That way, the two groups would be more balanced and efficient.

As the battle continued, Ambassador Flamelash began using empowered Fire Blast.

His Fire Blast was quite different from an average Mage’s fire blast. For Mages, Fire Blast was an instant-cast damaging skill, while Ambassador Flamelash’s version really emphasized the word ‘blast’.

Flamelash began bombarding the melee players who were standing far away. If it wasn’t for Lu Li’s strategy of instantly killing the Fire Elementals and containing the flames, the melee classes would have been completely incinerated. Everyone managed to avoid the fire except for poor old Elevenless.

After entering stage three, the annoying Fire Elementals finally disappeared.

Abassador Flamelash then began casting Conflagrate. This caused the players to take fire damage over time and would spread to surrounding players.

However, everyone knew how to position themselves, retreat, attack and stay alive at the right timing without needing to be told what to do.

Ambassador Flamelash was finally killed, leaving behind some spoils of war for the All-Star team.