The Great Thief

After Lu Li outplayed his opponent, the situation now turned for the better. Green Flag Wine was not a dedicated healer either, so the tides of the battle did not change.

However, a complete turn-around was not impossible. Ruling Sword’s Sakura Memories and Kitty Likes Meat died, so the points were distributed evenly with Ruling Sword at 6 and Peerless City at 3.

Adding onto the points from before, the score was now 11 to 7.

“Ruling Sword is ahead by only 4 points. The gap doesn’t look that big,” Jiu Feng commented.

“The gap doesn’t look big, but 4 points equates to 4 people. Unless Peerless City can exceed everyone’s expectations and completely outplay Ruling Sword, I don’t see a way for them to make it past this stage,” Four Seas Dragon sighed.

“That’s right. Did you also realise that Peerless City used a lot of new tactics this time around?” Jiu Feng asked.

“This is their main map and they even used their trump card, yet they still could not catch up to Ruling Sword. This only shows the skill difference between Peerless City and Ruling Sword. However, if it was Green Flag Wine who was leading this squad battle, then the outcome may have been different,” Four Seas Dragon said.

“Why do you say this?”

“It’s the style of play. Deadly Gold Underpants plays a Berserker and his style is also quite aggressive. He saw a chance to kill Lu Li, and he immediately went for it, which caused the original plan to fail,” Four Seas Dragon explained.

Jiu Feng was in agreeance.

“Ah…Now that you mention it, that does seem like the case. He should not have rushed in straight away. However, if Green Flag Wine was the leader, he would not have given up a chance to kill Lu Li as well.”

“To kill Lu Li is a tempting prospect. Every competitor would at least consider it thoroughly. However, the choice of map clearly targets Thieves. Why would they not target Lu Li first, especially with the choice of map? That’s why I’m saying that it’s a failure on behalf of the strategy. I know Green Flag Wine. He would not have made a choice like this,” Four Seas Dragon said bluntly.

Jiu Feng quickly changed the subject of the discussion. After all, they were only analysts.

“I saw that Lu Li’s critical chance was extremely high. He dealt a third consecutive critical strike, even after two hits! There was no way that she would die like that with over 3000 HP!”

Deadly Gold Underpants’ decision was not unexpected. 90% of the competitors would go for Lu Li straight away.

“Ah, you’ve also seen the critical strikes then. Actually, I think that the first two were luck, but the third hit was definitely from an item effect. He used a skill, then immediately critical hit. This was the same as Half A Smoke. This wasn’t something that would naturally happen,” Four Seas Dragon deduced.

He was an aged man, but he never gave up on his passion to play and investigate games. In terms of practically playing the game, he would probably lose to a normal player. However, as far as analysing gameplay went, he was definitely in a league of his own.

“But their critical strikes should all be maxed, right?” Jiu Feng asked.

“I’m not sure about Half A Smoke, but Lu Li’s critical strike is definitely already maxed,” Four Seas Dragon said. “The testing shows that a level 50 Mage’s max Critical stat is 180. The same-levelled Thief’s max Critical stat was 150. I think that 150 is a fairly achievable stat, but 180 is a little high.”

The chance to land critical hits was not simply an addition of all the effects from items and equipment. If that was the case, Lu Li could lose some of his equipment and still have above 150.

Shouldn’t 150% critical chance guarantee a critical hit?

This was definitely not the case. Lu Li usually only had one critical strike out of five hits. To have consecutive strikes was unlikely, unless the opponent was three or more levels lower than him.

As such, some players would conduct tests investigating this. Different levels and classes had different requirements for critical chance. For example, a level 50 Mage with a sub-180 critical rate would have room for improvement, but if they exceeded 180, then some points would be wasted.

Thieves had a cap of 150. Lu Li now reached that cap, but because he was level 55, the cap was raised.

As for the critical cap for level 55 classes, no one had the ability to test it, because there were only two players who were level 55 and above and they were both from Ruling Sword. There was no way that they would go out of their way and help random players to test things like this.

If Lu Li swapped out Ghostclaw for Ocean’s Breeze, then he would add 10% more to his Critical chance.

If he used one more item and added another 60% critical chance, then he would end up with 220% critical chance. Lu Li did not remember the cap for a level 55 Thief, but it definitely did not exceed 200. When he activated the effects, his critical chance far exceeded the cap.

His whole body was equipped with exquisite items, so it was not unusual.

The top Mages would pursue 180% critical chance at level 55, while a normal player would be happy with 100%. After all, the implication of 180% compared to 100% was not that different anyway.

After the two analysts finished discussing, the points were counted and the battle concluded.

Then, it was time for the press conference and post-game interviews for both teams’ players. The questions were usually about how the player felt about his or her performance, the performance of both teams, and what they would do in the future. Although Peerless City was a young guild, they had sufficient experience to answer these interview questions. On the other hand, some of the Ruling Sword players were newer to the spotlight, so they were more cautious.

Fortunately, they did not say the wrong things. Competition remained competition and things were still peaceful on the personal end.

Finally, it was time for Ruling Sword to interact with their fans.

30 minutes seemed rather short, but it was an extremely valuable time. Professional players were either always grinding for levels, or busy with competitions. However, it was important to maintain a good reputation and gain more fans for the guild.

After all, it was normal to want to celebrate after winning a match. Some guilds’ players would play a game with the fans.

Others would tell jokes, such as Unforgettable Maple and Innocent Child. However, Innocent Child’s jokes were a little dirty. Bloody Dagger would occasionally tell jokes, but no one would laugh, because they were dad jokes.

For Ruling Sword, Fat Monkey would usually be the one to interact with the crowd. However, since he did not participate today, the mood was a little cold.

In the end, when the team entered the stage, the whole atmosphere was a little dead. Under the suggestion of the two analysts, the team decided to sit down with the fans and answer the questions that they had.