"Not only that, their strategy requires a very specific set of cla.s.ses." Conflux added, "Don't you think that it would be too difficult to match our cla.s.ses to theirs?"

"I don't think so." Li Ming concluded, "After thinking about it a bit, its fully possible to have both Collisio and Lasks fit into this strategy without changing too much."

"In fact, we wouldn't have to change their roles at all, just how they think about their roles or perform them." Chie continued on for Li Ming.

After finis.h.i.+ng their hot chocolate at St*rb*cks, they headed to the Team Offices to speak with Coach Kimi and Conflux about the idea that they had concocted.

"I had this image while I was thinking about the strategy," Li Ming explained as he grabbed one of the styluses to ill.u.s.trate his idea on the holographic display that was projected from the oakwood table. "Basically, Collisio and Lasks will act as a modern military strike unit, similar to an actual tank. While that's going on, Conflux can act as the brains of the operation while closely guarding their rear."

Picking up a stylus of her own, Chie began to draw on top of Li Ming's previous drawing while she explained the latter portion, "Meanwhile, The Dawn and MeiChie will handle the spotting and vanguard positions. But instead of handling the spotting the unit and relaying the message, we will also execute the duty of a vanguard that will hold the enemies in place for our artillery unit to execute them."

"If that's the case," Conflux reb.u.t.ted, "I don't see why we don't just play it slower than the Tokyo Boars? It seems like a rather slow strategy to me."

"That's not so!" Li Ming continued his explanation, "In this strategy, we take fights back to front instead of front to back. We'll let the enemy frontline take on Collisio and possibly you, Conflux, while we hold their backline in place so that Lasks can focus on casting bigger spells to eliminate them."

"If we use this strategy, The Dawn and MeiChie will be creating a s...o...b..ll effect on the pressure of the map. If their frontline cant de-aggro from Collisio's Guardian Knight's taunts, then their backline will become sitting ducks for us to execute!" Chie exclaimed.

"Yes, but what if they try the same strategy against us? Or worse yet, what if we get flanked?" Coach Kimi asked warily, "That strategy would work in a headon battle with little to no set up, but we won't be able to pull it off unless the enemy willingly fights us head on, you know?"

"We actually don't need them to! The Dawn carries 6 long range spell trinkets, and MeiChie uses mainly ranged weapons as well. We can use those at the start of the fight to force the enemy to raise their defense while we charge them." Li Ming went further into detail, "As soon as Collisio gets within range of their frontline, Chie and I will use our gap closing abilities, in this case [Shunpo] and her trinket [Short Range Teleportation], to instantly engage their backline while Collisio chain taunts them. At this point, Conflux's Heavy Knight can choose whether he wants to defend Lasks' mage or if he wants to help Collisio defend."

"... It takes Lasks about 8 seconds per spell cast" Conflux sat in deep thought, "But those spells won't be enough to take out their back line on their own."

"Actually, combined with either of our possible damage output, it would be perfectly possible to take out the enemy backline if Lasks changes over to Heavy Artillery spells instead of his normal Artillery spells." Chie explained, "Li Ming's Spellblade and my Gunner are just about equal in terms of damage output, after all."

"Heavy artillery? You mean changing his regular spells like [Icicle Shower], [Lightning Storm], and [Volcanic Ballista]? What would you want to change them to?" Coach Kimi asked curiously.

"Well, for one, we theoretically won't need much crowd control abilities to interrupt their movements, so we can just use pure offensive abilities, even if they had longer chant times." Li Ming gave off a few examples, "For example, [Meteor Barrage], [Blinding Lightning Spear], or even [Wind Guillotine]. For his ultimate, he can keep [Heaven's Whisper - Spell Triplet]. I think that would be enough to take out the enemy's backline easily if they're suppressed."

"But that's the caveat, isn't it?" Coach Kimi lamented. "Spells with such long cast times like the ones you gave examples of would need targets that already can't move. How do you plan on suppressing a target with your two builds?"

""We can suppress them through pressuring them through damage!"" both Chie and Li Ming answered in unison.

"Well, why don't we ask them then." Conflux, tired from the debate, decided to consult with Collisio and Lasks themselves as he sent them a message to get into a private custom lobby on Legends Rise.

***

"Wow!" Li Ming exclaimed as he saw Collisio's character in its full glory dawning the team's costume in the custom lobby. Compared to his memory of Collisio's Guardian Knight playing on the former world champions 3 years ago on the Hamburg Hornets and their glossy black, green, and silver team costumes. Compared to that, the current Collisio in the red, white and gold Osaka Phoenixes looked extremely dominant, like a Gargoyle atop a mansion.

As a Guardian Knight, Collisio used a full suit of armor in addition to two Heavy Mithril Tower s.h.i.+elds as well as a couple of trinkets that carried defensive spells. He used taunt skills with a large area of effect like knight skills such as [Grand Taunt] and [Borne of the s.h.i.+eld] to taunt a large number of enemies, while using [Impenetrable Fortress] to survive the onslaught of damage. He would use the pa.s.sive ability [Platemail Skin] for a 20% increase in his resistances.

For his ultimate ability, he would use the Paladin Skill [Heaven's Whisper - s.h.i.+eld] for the invulnerability. On his trinkets, he would bring defensive abilities with disruptive capabilities such as [Air s.h.i.+eld] and [Explosive s.h.i.+eld] that would detonate after being struck, or abilities that he could cast on his teammates such as [Power Convergence] which would give the target bonus damage on all their attacks based on the amount of damage Collisio had taken recently and [Vow of the Guardian Knight] which would divert 40% of the damage taken by his ally to himself.

The hallmark of the Guardian Knight that set it apart from regular Guardian Knights or Paladin Knights found throughout the game was Collisio's unG.o.dly timing with the defensive abilities that could decide whether or not his teammates would live. With his skillset in being a pure defensive wall, he stood as the foundation to the old Hamburg Hornet's World Champions.h.i.+p run.

"Hey guys!" He greeted the team warmly, "Glad to see you all again!"

His costume appeared to be similar to both Chie's and Li Ming's. He had white base armor, with gold outlines, but with red under-armor chainmail and with red fire and phoenix insignia's spa.r.s.ely placed over his armor.

"Where's Conflux?" He asked, "Wasn't he the one who called this meeting?"

"Ah, Conflux went to the restroom first. He'll be here shortly." Li Ming explained.

"You all look das.h.i.+ng in your outfits!" Chie was very happy with their team's costumes, "The design team really did a good job with our costumes, huh!"

"Hey guys! I'm back!" Conflux joined the lobby, "How's everyone doing?"

Conflux's armor looked small when compared to Collisio's towering avatar, but it was a full set of armor as well. As a Heavy Knight, he would normally use an Arming Sword or polearm type weapon and a regular Metal Kite s.h.i.+eld, but Conflux's build focused on dueling.

Instead, he used a Zweihander sword with no s.h.i.+eld. His entire fighting style revolved around parrying and attacking in the same motion. Despite that being a common technique in chinese wushu or historical european martial arts for smaller weapons like a Arming Sword, a Jian, or a Rapier, Conflux was able to apply these techniques to his rapier to devastating effect.

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For his abilities, he used the Swordsman pa.s.sive [Sword Mastery] which removed any restrictions on sword weapons for him, and every sword strike would have it's damage increased by 20%. For his regular skills, he would use swordsman ultimate skill [Grand Invitation to a Duel] which pa.s.sively marked players struck by his sword for 5 seconds. He could then activate the ability to taunt all players struck for 5 seconds for each player taunted, meaning that if he taunted all five enemies, the taunt would last for 25 seconds.

He also used the abilities [Vampiric Sword Phantom] and [Dragonic Sword s.h.i.+eld] for sustainability during fights. [Vampiric Sword Phantom] would grant him a heal every time he parried an enemy's attack, while [Dragonic Sword s.h.i.+eld] would generate a s.h.i.+eld that would absorb one attack every time he struck with his sword for 10 seconds. His primary ability was the Knight's skill [Lunge] which would allow him to dash straight to an enemy. If he struck a vital or taunted an enemy, the skill would be refreshed.

All of Conflux's trinkets were dedicated to defenses. Half his trinkets were single use self-s.h.i.+elds like [Barrier] and the other half were different enchantments like [Enchant: Mana], [Enchant: Unmoving] and [Enchant: Stone]. He used [Enchant: Mana] to parry magical abilities and bullets, [Enchant: Unmoving] to tank an especially strong attack just once, and [Enchant: Stone] to increase his resistances at the expense of his speed.

Conflux's avatar, despite being physically smaller than Collisio, he was definitely more imposing than Collisio. There was a lot more red on his armor than any other character there.

"H-Hey guys..." a soft voice whispered as they joined the room.

Li Ming immediately turned around, to greet Lasks, the hyper-aggressive Artillery Mage who was super quiet during their last meeting. Contrary to Lasks' personality while playing the game, he barely interacted with anyone while at the team meetings and get-togethers in LA. He seemed content just to be a part of the group while he was there.

But when Li Ming turned around, he saw a rather pet.i.te teenage girl avatar, whos costume was also red, white, and gold with the Phoenix Emblem. It wasn't a staff emblem either, it was the team's Main Roster Emblem. She had short silvery hair that was kind of a mess.

She wore a suit similar to Chie's, with similar insignias and such. However, her gloves had trinkets embed into them, along with her shoulder guards. These gems glittered in unison with the gold tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. Her Mage Staff was also more modern looking, forgoing the regular wooden staff for a adamantium staff with a jewel on top of it, surrounded in a grand birdcage-like enclosure. She truly looked like a grand Archmage.

'Huh? Whos this?'