The Great Thief

“Should we surrender then?”

As soon as Lu Li said this, he received angry glares from everyone.

“Look at yourselves – if you’re not going to surrender, then why are all of you acting depressed? How do we know if we never try?” Lu Li asked casually, not feeling threatened at all by their glares.

“How can we not be depressed? Unless you have a surefire way of defeating Glory Capital,” Square Root Three said.

“Nope,” Lu Li answered honestly.

“Then why aren’t YOU depressed? Have you actually given up?”

If that was the case, this tournament may as well be over.

“Do you remember the goal that we set for ourselves at the start?” Lu Li said before anyone responded. “It was to make sure we make the semi-finals then Top 4. Now that we’ve won the semi-finals and the quarter finals, we should feel proud of ourselves for making it into the Finals.”

“That’s true, but who doesn’t want to win it all?” Daddy Cat shook his head, disagreeing with Lu Li.

“That’s right. Even though we won the Shadow Cup, it was an unofficial tournament. If we’re able to win this official tournament held by the gaming companies, then no one would ever doubt our position in the gaming community ever again!” Square Root Three said passionately as he slammed the table.

“Then let’s come up with ideas,” Lu Li responded.

“He’s basically invulnerable. What else can we do?” Fat Monkey questioned pessimistically. March Rain was already overpowered and almost unkillable, but now West Whitehill was even scarier than her.

“Wait, can we Dispel it?” Fat Monkey asked.

“The skill is called Pain Suppression, a very rare skill for Priests. I bet the drop rate is very low. However, I think with time, it’ll become a staple defensive for Priests. This is the information that I researched about the skill,” Lu Li said as he opened up the screen.

5 seconds, 50% damage reduction, castable while stunned…

65% chance of negating dispel…

“In other words, it can be dispelled right?”

Fat Monkey’s eyes lit up. Although there was only a 35% chance, it was definitely better than nothing.

“Yes, but this only works assuming that he only has one point in Pain Suppression,” Lu Li added.

“Wait a minute, 5 seconds… I don’t think Pain Suppression lasted 5 seconds on West Whitehill. It was more like…” Moonlight trailed off.

“3 seconds, which means that his Pain Suppression isn’t a skill, but a special effect on an idea,” Lu Li finished his sentence. Top players were able to count very precisely, some even down to the milliseconds.

This was what separated the casual players from the professionals. Instead of watching the matches for the fun of it, top players like Moonlight and Lu Li would count the duration of certain skills for future reference.

Everyone was so impressed with West Whitehill’s defensive that no one bothered counting the duration time.

Most defensives had a set amount of damage that could be blocked, for example, 1000~2000 HP and 200~300 HP for the lower-tier defensives. Other defensives like Lu Li’s Ultimate God Ring blocked the damage of a single skill, requiring precise timing and game sense.

The best defensives were mostly on a Main Tank’s shield, but no one would bother bringing a giant shield to a tournament.

Some classes had invulnerability skills such as Paladins. They had the longest duration of invulnerability in the game, but the caster would lose movement speed and attack speed. Other skills such as Mage’s Ice Block froze the caster, preventing them from taking damage as well as casting skills.

The only invulnerability skill that had no downside was Gale Steps, but even then, the invulnerability only lasted 1 second, which wasn’t even enough time for them to run away.

Lu Li had been targeted and bursted twice because the invulnerability time on Gale Steps was too short.

“Pain Suppression can be dispelled. If Drizzle Court had reacted in time and dispelled when West Whitehill activated the skill, the end result might have been completely different. When we’re matching up against Glory Capital, we have to make sure to dispel other buffs that West Whitehill has, and when he activates Pain Suppression, March Rain will use Mass Dispel, which can dispel more than 1 effect,” Lu Li summarized his plan.

In reality, most classes in the game had a dispel skill besides Warriors.

“No matter what, that skill will make or break our chances at winning,” Square Root Three said.

Strategies required time and effort to come up with, so they kept suggesting different possibilities of stopping Pain Suppression.

“Besides this, there’s also something very important,” Lu Li added upon seeing that everyone was feeling down, then continued, “Although Pain Suppression can be casted while stunned, it doesn’t say that the crowd-control skill will be cleansed.”

In other words, although West Whitehill could reduce the amount of damage taken, he could still be crowd controlled.

“If that’s the case then we can just CC lock him and prevent him from healing himself.”

March Rain’s eyes lit up. When she heard that she played an important role in countering Pain Suppression, she became quite nervous. However, the fact that West Whitehill can be CC locked relieved a lot of that pressure.

“We should be thanking Drizzle Court. If it wasn’t for them, West Whitehill would have used that disgusting skill on us,” Lu Li said.

“How do we thank them?” Square Root Three asked while laughing.

Although the pressure was on, as the top player, he had to help everyone calm down and relax.

“Haha, we have nothing to offer them besides Lu Li. Should we send him over and make Water Fairy happy?” Fat Monkey giggled.

“Hey man, you’re getting real cocky these days. I thought you wanted to defeat Sorrowless? Big Brother Cat, make sure you really torture him during training sessions,” Lu Li chuckled coldly.

“Please sir, I’m sorry.”

Fat Monkey’s legs turned into jelly. Although he liked to strengthen himself, he hated boring training sessions.