"How do I become a strong tank in one day?" I wondered as I slung stones at Snowy Swinelings while leisurely wandering through the Golden Forest. I kept repeating the question to myself as I gathered a bunch of the white-furred, six-legged piglets before finding a spot to kill them all.
The Swinelings didn’t provide me with an answer to my quandary. I’d be extremely surprised if they could suddenly talk. All they did was ram me with their heads, try to gorge me with their stubby tusks, and oink in frustration.
“Maybe I should’ve asked for at least three, maybe four days,” I muttered as I cast [Gnawing Rot] at my hooves. The sickly green fog engulfed the monsters crowding around me. But maybe it wouldn’t have mattered how many days I took to plan because there was no solution.
Was I overestimating myself?
How could someone overestimate the infinite greatness of Herald Stone? That was a great question. And I must be great if I could come up with a great question—the logic was flawless. Proceeding from that thought, someone great should be able to answer: How do I become a strong tank in one day?
Our party agreed to meet again tomorrow at the same time for another training session. The Great Hunt was looming close, and we'd need every chance we have to improve our teamwork and gameplay. I told them that I'd come up with something for our tank problem.
Expectedly, they didn't believe me. I couldn't blame them.
Why the hell would they trust the claim of a random level twelve player with the username of the owner of a fast-food chain? For all they know, I was just an overly optimistic newbie who didn’t know any better about the game.
I forgave them for not believing the words of Herald Stone and told them that if I failed to formulate a plan to beat the Living Statue, we'd just fight a weaker boss. A chance to take another crack at the Living Statue after a day of planning was all I asked.
Crack...statue? Dammit! Herald Stone, Stand-Up Comedian didn't catch that potential joke. I could've lightened up the mood after our rough practice session.
The four of us had known each other only for a couple of days and our newly formed bond was getting strained.
I could sense Kezo's frustration. Not at our sucky party lineup, but with himself. He was the strongest among us and felt pressure to defeat the boss. There were situations where sheer DPS could triumph—this wasn't one of them. A lone player couldn't take on the Living Statue; not at our level.
Luds was right—if we had a real tank, Kezo could switch to his actual DPS build and rip the boss a new asshole. But we didn't, and that was the problem.
However, I could feel in my gut that I already held the pieces to forming the solution. I should put together those pieces in an unintended way and come up with an unexpected answer to our apparently impossible problem.
That was what it meant not to think like a box.
That was what it meant to be Herald Stone.
After my teammates logged out to rest, I headed to farm Snowy Swinelings. I still had a Contract to fulfill with Chimichangaroo for Swineling fur. Furthermore, I wanted to do something repetitive that didn't require much thought.
Over the years, I found that doing routine tasks was conducive to brainstorming, more so than sitting down, fully focused on thinking. When I was stocking shelves at a supermarket, manning the cashier at convenience stores, or chopping vegetables at our restaurant, I'd listen to recorded lectures on my headphones and learn more about my high school and college lessons compared to if I read the book and concentrated on studying.
Grinding in a game was a return to form for building a suitable brainstorming environment.
How do I become a strong tank in one day?
Now that I had more time to mull things over, I realized I didn't have to be the actual tank. Nitana's barrier sprite and Eclair's advice about summons came to mind.
Although I would've preferred not to rely on minions, I didn't have much of a choice. Time was limited and conventional tanking wasn't an option.
"It should be something like Nitana's summoned sprite," I muttered to myself, barely audible over the squeals of the Swinelings dying to my retribution damage. Each monster that died was replaced by its fellow eager to attack me, just one Swineling after another.
If only there was a way to replicate this when facing the Living Statue.
I didn't need to have high-level, high-Quality summoning Ocadules. A level one minion would do fine absorbing an attack from the boss like how Nitana's barrier sprite protected us. The problem was endlessly sending minions to tank since they'd disappear in one hit. I should also make sure the boss would attack them.
And I might have the solution to that. I needed to check the market first if the ingredients for my masterpiece plan were available.
Lvl. 1 Spell Bonded Totem (Link): A hefty payment of blood establishes a contract with the world beyond for the aid of a spectral totem that you can control (limit 1). The totem will have 15% of the Offense and Defense attributes of its contractor, and it will continuously cast all damage-dealing linked Skill Shards. The contractor will pay for its costs.
(Can only be Linked to Skill Shards that have cooldowns of ten seconds or less)
Cost: 25% of Maximum Health
Duration: 45 Seconds
Cooldown: 1 Second
This was Megan’s priced Link Shard she bought with all her savings. However, this was for damage-dealing Skill Shards. I wanted its counterpart Totem for casting non-damage spells. And that was:
Lvl. 1 Superior Replicant Totem (Link): A hefty payment of blood establishes a contract with the world beyond for the aid of a spectral totem (limit 1). The totem will have 15% of the Offense and Defense attributes of its contractor, and it will continuously cast all linked Skill Shards that do not deal damage. The contractor will pay for its costs.
(Can only be Linked to Skill Shards that have cooldowns of ten seconds or less)
Cost: 25% of Max Health
Duration: 45 Seconds
Cooldown: 1 Second
Compared to the insanely expensive [Spell Bonded Totem], the [Superior Replicant Totem] only cost a fraction of it at a nudge over eleven million Artas. I say 'only', but its price was almost half of the money I had. Nonetheless, I'd consider the money well spent if my plan was going to work.
It was much cheaper than the [Spell Bonded Totem] because it was more limited in its use—not to mention DPS items were naturally more expensive than support-oriented ones. The [Superior Replicant Totem] didn't have the game-changing impact of its DPS counterpart.
Taking [Gnawing Rot] as an example, I could cast it on a certain spot while my [Superior Replicant Totem] simultaneously cast it in a different location. If both I and my [Superior Replicant Totem] cast the [Gnawing Rot] on the same area, it wouldn't double the rate of Armor and Magic Resilience decay on the affected enemies. It'd be better to use another Link Shard that directly boosted the effects.
In contrast, Megan and her Totem could hit the same target if she wanted to.
The [Superior Replicant Totem] was best paired with crowd-control skills. It would be as if two players casting the same CC skill. I surmised this was the reason that this Link Shard wasn't at floor price.
And I was going to use it to cast a CC skill—[Enraging Call] to be exact.
But this wasn't enough.
Similar to how [Gnawing Rot] was sort of an upgraded version of [Rotting Ground], there must be a weaker version of the [Superior Replicant Totem].
I scrolled through the listings in the auction house. Sure enough, there was. It was also easy to find because it was called [Lesser Replicant Totem].
Lvl. 1 Lesser Replicant Totem (Link): A payment of blood contracts the aid of a lesser spectral totem from another plane (limit 1). The totem will have 10% of the Offense and Defense attributes of its contractor, and it will continuously cast all linked Skill Shards that do not deal damage. The contractor will pay for its costs.
(Can only be Linked to Skill Shards that have cooldowns of ten seconds or less)
Cost: 15% of Max Health
Duration: 30 Seconds
Cooldown: 1 Second
"Superior...Lesser," I scoffed at myself. "I should've known with their names."
I smirked when I noticed the limitation the Totems had on the cooldowns of linked Skill Shards. The devs were aware of the strategy I intended to do, and this was supposed to stop players from exploiting it on stronger Shards that would consequently have higher cooldowns.
[Superior Replicant Totem] and [Lesser Replicant Totem] linked with [Enraging Call]—this was the first half of the plan.
The second half was making sure I could continuously spam both Totems. Every second, I had to pay the health cost of the Totems and the Energy cost of [Enraging Call]. Perhaps the Energy potions that Megan gave me could cover the Energy part of the problem, but I’d add Spirit for good measure.
Lvl. 1 Enraging Call: Taunts nearby enemies, forcing them to attack you. During the duration, the enemies gain 10% Damage, while you gain (+20 Armor).
Duration: 3 Seconds
Cost: 10 Energy
Cooldown: 5 Seconds
The real challenge was paying forty percent of my maximum health per second. I suppose I was lucky that I was only level twelve, and so I had low health. The next thing to do was to get it lower. A visit to the NPC to reset my remove all the points I invested in Vigor was in order!
In times like this, I question myself if I'm mad. But no.
This is simply not thinking like a box.
"How do I become a strong tank in one day?" I wondered as I slung stones at Snowy Swinelings while leisurely wandering through the Golden Forest. I kept repeating the question to myself as I gathered a bunch of the white-furred, six-legged piglets before finding a spot to kill them all.
The Swinelings didn’t provide me with an answer to my quandary. I’d be extremely surprised if they could suddenly talk. All they did was ram me with their heads, try to gorge me with their stubby tusks, and oink in frustration.
“Maybe I should’ve asked for at least three, maybe four days,” I muttered as I cast [Gnawing Rot] at my hooves. The sickly green fog engulfed the monsters crowding around me. But maybe it wouldn’t have mattered how many days I took to plan because there was no solution.
Was I overestimating myself?
How could someone overestimate the infinite greatness of Herald Stone? That was a great question. And I must be great if I could come up with a great question—the logic was flawless. Proceeding from that thought, someone great should be able to answer: How do I become a strong tank in one day?
Our party agreed to meet again tomorrow at the same time for another training session. The Great Hunt was looming close, and we'd need every chance we have to improve our teamwork and gameplay. I told them that I'd come up with something for our tank problem.
Expectedly, they didn't believe me. I couldn't blame them.
Why the hell would they trust the claim of a random level twelve player with the username of the owner of a fast-food chain? For all they know, I was just an overly optimistic newbie who didn’t know any better about the game.
I forgave them for not believing the words of Herald Stone and told them that if I failed to formulate a plan to beat the Living Statue, we'd just fight a weaker boss. A chance to take another crack at the Living Statue after a day of planning was all I asked.
Crack...statue? Dammit! Herald Stone, Stand-Up Comedian didn't catch that potential joke. I could've lightened up the mood after our rough practice session.
The four of us had known each other only for a couple of days and our newly formed bond was getting strained.
I could sense Kezo's frustration. Not at our sucky party lineup, but with himself. He was the strongest among us and felt pressure to defeat the boss. There were situations where sheer DPS could triumph—this wasn't one of them. A lone player couldn't take on the Living Statue; not at our level.
Luds was right—if we had a real tank, Kezo could switch to his actual DPS build and rip the boss a new asshole. But we didn't, and that was the problem.
However, I could feel in my gut that I already held the pieces to forming the solution. I should put together those pieces in an unintended way and come up with an unexpected answer to our apparently impossible problem.
That was what it meant not to think like a box.
That was what it meant to be Herald Stone.
After my teammates logged out to rest, I headed to farm Snowy Swinelings. I still had a Contract to fulfill with Chimichangaroo for Swineling fur. Furthermore, I wanted to do something repetitive that didn't require much thought.
Over the years, I found that doing routine tasks was conducive to brainstorming, more so than sitting down, fully focused on thinking. When I was stocking shelves at a supermarket, manning the cashier at convenience stores, or chopping vegetables at our restaurant, I'd listen to recorded lectures on my headphones and learn more about my high school and college lessons compared to if I read the book and concentrated on studying.
Grinding in a game was a return to form for building a suitable brainstorming environment.
How do I become a strong tank in one day?
Now that I had more time to mull things over, I realized I didn't have to be the actual tank. Nitana's barrier sprite and Eclair's advice about summons came to mind.
Although I would've preferred not to rely on minions, I didn't have much of a choice. Time was limited and conventional tanking wasn't an option.
"It should be something like Nitana's summoned sprite," I muttered to myself, barely audible over the squeals of the Swinelings dying to my retribution damage. Each monster that died was replaced by its fellow eager to attack me, just one Swineling after another.
If only there was a way to replicate this when facing the Living Statue.
I didn't need to have high-level, high-Quality summoning Ocadules. A level one minion would do fine absorbing an attack from the boss like how Nitana's barrier sprite protected us. The problem was endlessly sending minions to tank since they'd disappear in one hit. I should also make sure the boss would attack them.
And I might have the solution to that. I needed to check the market first if the ingredients for my masterpiece plan were available.
Lvl. 1 Spell Bonded Totem (Link): A hefty payment of blood establishes a contract with the world beyond for the aid of a spectral totem that you can control (limit 1). The totem will have 15% of the Offense and Defense attributes of its contractor, and it will continuously cast all damage-dealing linked Skill Shards. The contractor will pay for its costs.
(Can only be Linked to Skill Shards that have cooldowns of ten seconds or less)
Cost: 25% of Maximum Health
Duration: 45 Seconds
Cooldown: 1 Second
This was Megan’s priced Link Shard she bought with all her savings. However, this was for damage-dealing Skill Shards. I wanted its counterpart Totem for casting non-damage spells. And that was:
Lvl. 1 Superior Replicant Totem (Link): A hefty payment of blood establishes a contract with the world beyond for the aid of a spectral totem (limit 1). The totem will have 15% of the Offense and Defense attributes of its contractor, and it will continuously cast all linked Skill Shards that do not deal damage. The contractor will pay for its costs.
(Can only be Linked to Skill Shards that have cooldowns of ten seconds or less)
Cost: 25% of Max Health
Duration: 45 Seconds
Cooldown: 1 Second
Compared to the insanely expensive [Spell Bonded Totem], the [Superior Replicant Totem] only cost a fraction of it at a nudge over eleven million Artas. I say 'only', but its price was almost half of the money I had. Nonetheless, I'd consider the money well spent if my plan was going to work.
It was much cheaper than the [Spell Bonded Totem] because it was more limited in its use—not to mention DPS items were naturally more expensive than support-oriented ones. The [Superior Replicant Totem] didn't have the game-changing impact of its DPS counterpart.
Taking [Gnawing Rot] as an example, I could cast it on a certain spot while my [Superior Replicant Totem] simultaneously cast it in a different location. If both I and my [Superior Replicant Totem] cast the [Gnawing Rot] on the same area, it wouldn't double the rate of Armor and Magic Resilience decay on the affected enemies. It'd be better to use another Link Shard that directly boosted the effects.
In contrast, Megan and her Totem could hit the same target if she wanted to.
The [Superior Replicant Totem] was best paired with crowd-control skills. It would be as if two players casting the same CC skill. I surmised this was the reason that this Link Shard wasn't at floor price.
And I was going to use it to cast a CC skill—[Enraging Call] to be exact.
But this wasn't enough.
Similar to how [Gnawing Rot] was sort of an upgraded version of [Rotting Ground], there must be a weaker version of the [Superior Replicant Totem].
I scrolled through the listings in the auction house. Sure enough, there was. It was also easy to find because it was called [Lesser Replicant Totem].
Lvl. 1 Lesser Replicant Totem (Link): A payment of blood contracts the aid of a lesser spectral totem from another plane (limit 1). The totem will have 10% of the Offense and Defense attributes of its contractor, and it will continuously cast all linked Skill Shards that do not deal damage. The contractor will pay for its costs.
(Can only be Linked to Skill Shards that have cooldowns of ten seconds or less)
Cost: 15% of Max Health
Duration: 30 Seconds
Cooldown: 1 Second
"Superior...Lesser," I scoffed at myself. "I should've known with their names."
I smirked when I noticed the limitation the Totems had on the cooldowns of linked Skill Shards. The devs were aware of the strategy I intended to do, and this was supposed to stop players from exploiting it on stronger Shards that would consequently have higher cooldowns.
[Superior Replicant Totem] and [Lesser Replicant Totem] linked with [Enraging Call]—this was the first half of the plan.
The second half was making sure I could continuously spam both Totems. Every second, I had to pay the health cost of the Totems and the Energy cost of [Enraging Call]. Perhaps the Energy potions that Megan gave me could cover the Energy part of the problem, but I’d add Spirit for good measure.
Lvl. 1 Enraging Call: Taunts nearby enemies, forcing them to attack you. During the duration, the enemies gain 10% Damage, while you gain (+20 Armor).
Duration: 3 Seconds
Cost: 10 Energy
Cooldown: 5 Seconds
The real challenge was paying forty percent of my maximum health per second. I suppose I was lucky that I was only level twelve, and so I had low health. The next thing to do was to get it lower. A visit to the NPC to reset my remove all the points I invested in Vigor was in order!
In times like this, I question myself if I'm mad. But no.
This is simply not thinking like a box.
