NOVEL NEXT Chapter 26: Boss Fight
The party charged straight at the boss.
Maria and Zack waited for a bit until Milly could establish a decent aggro on the boss. Since she was playing as a Knight, she was the main tank while Lizzy was going to be the secondary tank as well as DPS.
Knight's also had much more skills which established aggro than Warriors. Like they're Passive Skill [Knight's Devotion], which literal stacks more aggro onto their characters if they were able to successfully defend or parry a monster's attacks.
[Knight's Devotion Lv.2 (22/200)
Rank: C
Passive Skill
A Knight's unwavering determination, increases defense by 6% while in combat. 10% chance to trigger [Taunt] when a successful Block or Parry is executed]
[Taunt Lv. 3 (2/300)
Rank: D
Active Skill
Taunt's the enemy into attacking the caster. Increases defense of caster by 1%. If the level of the target is higher, the less effective the skill will be.
MP Cost: 10 MP
Cooldown: 1 minute]
With her buffs to defense, Milly was able to cope with dealing against the Hobgoblin's assault on her own. Not to mention that in Unitale, that if a player successfully blocked an attack they would only take 75% of the damage that was supposed to be dealt. If you parried an attack, then you wouldn't take any damage at all.
Of course, there were different types of 'parries'. If you only held up your weapon and stopped an attack, then it wouldn't be counted as a 'parry', but a 'block' instead.
Parrying an attack was much more difficult than blocking one since it required exquisite timing and good hand-eye coordination. If you messed up, the attack might just slip in and hit you. You could also evade a monster's attacks and this wouldn't cause any damage at all as well.
However, for a Knight, evading attacks was one thing they wouldn't want to do. After all, their [Knight's Devotion] Skill wouldn't activate or proc the additional effect if the player didn't get hit.
Milly's [Taunt] and [Knight's Devotion] was already at level 3 and 2 respectively. Along with Amanda's occasional heals, it didn't take long before the Boss' aggro was firmly established onto her. Lizzy joined the fray and not long after, Maria and Zack also joined in.
"Everyone, watch out!"
BOOOMMM
Maria always made her entrance like this. She flew up into the sky and cleaved down on the monster with her [Calamity Cleave] skill. It was lucky since she had also managed to stun the hobgoblin, even if it only lasted half the duration it was supposed to.
Since she finally learned how to use her [Angel's Rage] skill as an active and not a passive counter, she sent a wave of her feathers pelting the monster before backing off. Maria also left behind a present in the form of her [Gehenna's Eye] and applied a burn debuff on the monster. She made sure she kept her damage at the same level as Zack.
Zack had started off by firing his crossbow at the Hobgoblin before unloading most of his skills onto the monster. He stacked bleeding debuffs onto the monster with his [Backstab], [Maim], and [Gouge] skills.
The bleeding stacked up his DMG pretty high up, but it wasn't enough to shift the monster's aggro onto him.
99%...95%...89%...
The monster's HP continued to whittle down. At times it would slam the ground with its arms and send an [Earth Shock] at the party.
Everyone was somewhat affected by the skill, but only Maria wasn't. She was always flying around to attack the monster so she was freed from any DMG and the STUN effect.
It was the 3 melee fighters who took the brunt of the DMG and at times, they would become stunned, but with a quick [Heal] from Amanda, it was swiftly resolved. Everyone did try to jump up when the [Earth Shock] skill was triggered by the boss when they saw that Maria wasn't affected by the skill since she was in the air.
However, things didn't go as planned since they would sometimes miss out on the timing and the activation for [Earth Shock] was pretty random.
Thanks to the Bleed and Burn debuffs that Maria and Zack continued to stack on the boss, its movements were impaired and the fight became much easier.
It was annoying how the [Pummel] skill of the hobgoblin worked. It totally ignored all aggro and the boss would just jump over to someone and begin smashing its club onto them.
This was why the current formation was heavily focused around Milly. No one dared to stray too far away from her since she was the only one in the party that could tank out the skill's DMG.
The first target for [Pummel] was Lizzy so everyone was able to quickly find out about this peculiar mechanic. If it was their healer, Amanda, then the party would have wiped pretty early on.
60%...55%...52%...
"Alright, guys! Get ready! It's almost at half HP! Keep the Bleed and Burn up, you two!"
"Yes!"
"Right!"
Zack and Maria responded, it was a little exhausting since they were facing against this boss for over 10 minutes now. The stupid thing's HP regeneration was so high that it rendered plenty of their DMG useless.
"Guys, its attack pattern will probably change! Everyone should stick close to Milly and Me! Maria you stay in the air and keep sending your feathers at it!"
"R-right!"
Amanda quickly made her way behind Milly, while Zack and Lizzy continued attacking the goblin.
Amanda would occasionally heal the rest of the party when they took damage from the monster's [Earth Shock]. She would mostly save her healing skills for Milly since she was the main tank and took most of the DMG.
"Guys! Here he comes!"
Once the Hobgoblin's HP went down to 49%, it immediately began roaring. Its green skin began turning red and its fangs grew out. The boss' green eyes also began glowing and its body buffed up.
"W-what the heck?!"
It immediately used its [Pummel] skill, but not on anyone. Instead, it used the skill on the ground. When it struck the ground 5 times, 5 [Earth Shocks] were triggered.
"SHIT!"
"Back off! Back off!"
Maria was okay since she was in the air, continuing to pelt the monster with her feathers, but when she saw the situation down below she knew immediately that her friends were in trouble.
She immediately swooped down and picked up Amanda. She was the healer of the party and also the one who had the lowest amount of HP. If she took the attack head on like this, then no amount of healing could keep her alive.
"Th-thanks Mary!"
"No problem!"
Maria looked around and found a branch to set her friend on.
"Wh-why here?"
"Hm? Well, can your healing still reach them?"
"Let me try!"
Amanda quickly casted [Cure] onto Milly, with her heavy armor, she couldn't escape from taking on the full brunt of the 5 consecutive [Earth Shock]s and was currently left with only 11% HP left.
+480
"Woah!"
"Awesome! Now you're safe to heal from here!"
"Yeah! Nice going Mary!"
Maria giggled as she swooped down again on the monster. The enraged hobgoblin was smashing its club onto everyone around it. It was no longer affected by the aggro and just attacked everyone indiscriminately.
"What the hell!"
"Damn, we can't get close!"
Zack and Lizzy cursed. They had been struck by the boss' previous outburst, but they were able to dodge on or two of the [Earth Shock]s. They took HP potions to heal up so they didn't really need to rely on Amanda's heals.
"Milly, are you alright?"
"I'm fine! But this thing's DMG is higher than before! This isn't only a 20% increase!"
"[Inspect]" Lizzy yelled out.
[Ogre Ul'moru Lv. 35
(Rare/Dungeon Boss)
HP: 100,000/200,000
MP: 7,500/12,500
ATK: 400 ~ 500
M.ATK: 100~200
DEF: 200
An evolved hobgoblin whose evolution was catalyzed by the Forest Deity's blessing and its blood lusting rage]
"Ohhh shit! Hey this thing's evolved!"
"What?"
"I can't see its skills anymore and it's turned into an Ogre!"