《The Archon》 Chapter 1: A Duellists Farewell Ever onwards stretched the corridor, into the castle¡¯s gloom. A path of red carpet, lined with an endless procession of stately decorations and faux-gothic flourishes. A hundred years this place had laid abandoned, or so the stories went. One ill-starred night, agents of the dark ones descended upon it, driving its inhabitants to a terrible madness, then vanished from whence they came, as those inside slaughtered each other to a man. None had since tried to claim it. All knew the taint of the dark ones was not so transient. The curse that struck that night would continue to fester inside the walls, waiting to burrow its tendrils into anyone foolish enough to enter. No, let that evil rot and be forgotten. And it was so for a century. Curious, that it was so tidy. Not a speck of dust to be seen, nor ornament out of place. Too clean to have been left even a week without maintenance, let alone a hundred years. Did the restless spirits of the castle¡¯s staff haunt the corridor with duster in hand? It would not be the only menial task to be supernaturally maintained. Candles were lit and snuffed out as the aspiring explorer passed, leaving the hallway''s impossible length concealed in the opaque darkness. With time, even the least attentive visitor would find the place disquieting, as previously passed decorations appeared in new, inexplicably altered orders. With such narrow, encroaching walls, surrounded by darkness, it was a claustrophobic, paranoia inducing place, and yet...So alluring. It beckoned to the bold and ambitious. Such places were sure to house unimaginable treasures, were they not? Was House Frostbriar not once the greatest of the old Nobles? Surely, if it was as untouched as the stories told, the family''s vast wealth would be hidden somewhere, deep in the bowels of castle. Was that unimaginable fortune perhaps hidden just out of sight, beyond the end of the corridor? Short answer, no. There was nothing beyond the corridor. The corridor wasn¡¯t real¡­Well, nothing here was real, per se, but the corridor was more not real than most other locations in Archon Online. At least most places had consistent geography. The corridors of the castle barely had consistent geometry. ¡®Haunted and cursed¡¯ was the in-character explanation. ¡®It¡¯s keeps people distracted while matchmaking does its job¡¯ was the real one. An elevator button, if you will. A fancy loading screen, if one wanted to be more literal. One that could continue for, without exaggeration, hours. Not today, though. For one last day, as it had been in those halcyon times just after its addition, Castle Frostbriar was bustling and lively, metaphorically speaking. Thousands upon thousands of otherwise uninterested players had turned up for its farewell. It wasn''t surprising. There were achievements tied to the place, and with them, a tiny amount of extra ARC rating. It wasn¡¯t like they were new. Everyone had just been content to leave them till ¡®later¡¯. At least, up until there wouldn¡¯t be a ¡®later¡¯. The darkness shifted slightly, ever so slightly less impenetrable. My ears perked up as the silence shifted in texture, as the tiny, atmospheric spooky noises stopped and the physics engine kicked back into gear. I pushed myself off the wall I¡¯d been leaning against and walked towards it. A duel was imminent. With a single step forward, the corridor came to life, as a full row of candles burst into light and revealed a distant foe. Sixty seconds until duel start -Wolfram-74 v xXxSh4d0wEdgexXx- I suppressed a chuckle at my opponent¡¯s username. It was an appropriate name for his appearance, all dressed up in black cloth, adorned with a veritable gallery of exotic patterns. Dragons and lightning bolts and other such gaudiness decorated his ostensibly stealthy gear, all topped off with a shock of spiky red hair. A look at his stat page did little to change my initial estimate of his skill.
Character Stats
xXxSh4d0wEdgexXx LVL.80 ARC.810
Assassin [60] Charlatan [10] Fencer [10]
Attributes
Strength 60 [+95] Endurance 60 [+20]
Agility 255 [+513] Wit 60 [+20]
Focus 105 [+45] Fervour 60 [+20]
Blah Blah [+Blah] Etc Foo [+Bar]
The first two lines told me all I needed to know. I was vaguely aware that ASN/CHR/FEN was a meta raiding build -iframe abuse to supplement the Assassin¡¯s extreme single target damage for speed-killing bosses, if I were to guess it¡¯s exact purpose-, but my knowledge of such things was years out of date at this point and, in any case, it really didn¡¯t really matter. All I needed to know was that he was a non-spellcaster with no piercing attacks. As was to be expected, my opponent took the opportunity to size up my stats in turn. From his derisive grin, he didn¡¯t think much of my own build either. ¡°Holy shit, what the fuck is that armour you''re wearing?" he asked, barely able to contain his mirth, ¡°What¡¯s that meant to be? A fashion set?¡± An understandable response from someone with little experience in duelling. A set of full plate armour polished to a mirror sheen and ornately patterned with faintly glowing filigree, the Bronze Clover set was an impressive piece of 3D art -far more than an otherwise middle of the road armour set deserved-, and as a level fifty four quest reward, the Bronze Clover set may as well have been a t-shirt and jeans for all the defence it provided. Irrelevant in the Stomping Grounds, where equipment stats were ignored, but Castle Frostbriar bore no such constraints. Not that armour rating was relevant here either, but that was another kettle of fish. "Mmm, you''d be surprised, I think," I answered, rolling my wrists out of habit and carefully ignoring my opponent unsubtly edging his way into range of his gap closer. "Look, dude, tell you what, you surrender now and avoid wasting both my time and yours. The servers are going down in ten minutes, but I¡¯m nearly done with the achievements. I¡¯ll try to re-queue into you and trade it back, yeah?¡± he said. Perhaps the condescension in his tone was merely my imagination and he sincerely thought he was doing me a favour, or maybe he was a scumbag that didn¡¯t want to waste time. Either way, he¡¯d entirely misjudged my intentions. I wasn¡¯t here for achievements. I was here because, tomorrow, my preferred past time of half a decade would be gone for good. For most, it would likely be remembered as an unbalanced joke. Castle Frostbriar was broken beyond repair, or so the developers had declared. I was here to show as many players as I could, for the sake of posterity, that ¡®broken¡¯ didn¡¯t mean ¡®simple¡¯ or ''shallow''. Frostbriar had always been a place for the skillful and that was how I wanted it to be remembered. The more people I demonstrated that to, the better. ¡°Mmmmm, no... I think it''d be more interesting if you show me your best " I said, a confident grin concealed beneath my helmet. My opponent rolled his eyes and drew his two daggers. For the sake of not being entirely disrespectful, I drew my spear and shield, though my stance was no less loose or casual. ¡°S¡¯whatever.¡± -DUEL START!- He lead with a Cheap Shot. "A quick stab to the gut" was the skill''s description. A bald faced lie; the teleporting attack was neither quick nor to the gut. I juked forward. The attack¡¯s tracking broke, dumping the assassin a foot out of range. He lunged at me, with a flurry of attacks -Lacerate, Hamstring, Killing Blow, Coup de Grace- that I flowed around lazily. His attacks weren¡¯t slow, but I could read his flowchart better than he could. Again and again, he struck without progress, transitioning from an optimal rotation, to chucking out attacks as they cooled down, burning through energy and all the while growing more and more frustrated. "STAND -grunt- FUCKING STILL," he demanded with all the authority of a tantrum-throwing preschooler. Another rotation of abilities without anything closer to a solid hit was enough to trigger a change in tactics. With an easily punishable Back Dash, he opened up enough space to feel safe about his next move. ¡°UNSEEN ASSAILANT,¡± he declared, as he faded from sight with the Assassin''s signature ability. Unlike most forms of invisibility, which couldn''t be sustained through the user''s attacks, Unseen Assailant would remain active until the buff expired. Invisibility wasn''t a bad tactic by any measure (besides maybe regarding balance), but it required a certain subtlety and to be exploited to its fullest extent, and my opponent had proven anything but subtle so far. It was a good thing my helmet was down. I wouldn''t want my opponent to think I enjoyed tormenting him. Eliminate wasn''t a quiet attack, despite its described purpose. It was preceded by an audible *shing* that acted handily as a cue. I struck an authoritative pose against the backdrop of a great, red flag, magically conjured from the aether. There was a *thump* my opponent passed through me without resistance and landed on the ground. Like most panic buttons, Rallying Banner came with a short window of invulnerability, where I technically didn''t exist1. I spent two more similar iframes this way, which would''ve been utterly irresponsible if this were anything approaching an even match, but I had the leeway to showboat. Unseen Assailant only had a twelve second duration, followed by a two minute cooldown, which was more or less the end of the line. Assassin as a whole wasn''t known for its potential in sustained combat, nor for being a particularly multidimensional class as a whole. Fencer and Charlatan only exacerbated those problems. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Now, the ''correct'' decision for my opponent would''ve been to spend his remaining time putting himself in something of a defensible position. The most optimal strategy, for what it was worth, would''ve been to stall as long until his cooldowns came back up...But, if he did that, I would''ve laughed. The servers weren¡¯t going to be up for much longer. The clock was ticking. At this point, my opponent was desperate. He''d thrown everything he thought he''d had at me and seen nothing for it. He''d go for a Hail Mary, I was sure of it. There were plenty of ways I could''ve answered. I could''ve moved a step backwards, entirely out of range. I could''ve spent another iframe. I could''ve jumped to the other end of the corridor. I could''ve entered a Counter Stance and instantly killed him as he went for the attack. But I didn''t. Instead, I just stood there, arms crossed as the air around me turned an ominous green. It would¡¯ve been so easy to take a step forward, but I wanted to show the other side of a good duellist. "VIPER''S FANGS!" By conventional logic, the Bronze Clover set should''ve been an awful choice, but anyone experienced with Unadjusted PVP knew that very that few stats truly mattered in Frostbriar. For any player past level thirty, damage versus defence skewed so far towards the former that neither stat mattered. There was cooldown reduction, there was attack speed, there was cast rate and, of course... -Blocked- -Blocked- ...There was block chance. Oh, excuse me. Block ''chance''. Silenced reigned for maybe a second, as I looked back at my opponent. Mister Sh-four-d-zero-w stared at the two daggers embedded in my logic-defyingly unharmed back. His eyes were wide with incredulity and his shoulders were slumped in defeat. I opened my helmet''s visor to make sure he could see me wink. ¡°Good game." -Wolfram-74 has surrendered.- * * * * * * * * 1Better known as an ''iframe''. * * * * * * * * Logging out brought with it a bittersweet melancholy. It was a better feeling than I expected, really. Seeing Frostbriar busy for one last day was almost as satisfying as actually schooling the scrubs in how to really duel. Even with that balm, I''d expected it to hurt more. The dev update that''d announced the plan had been like a dagger at the time, but the painful knowledge had faded to little more than a dull ache at this point. It wasn''t like I didn''t understand why. As much as I loved PvP Duelling in Archon Online, even I could admit it was horrifically flawed. Beyond repair? No, but there was enough baggage that I understood regardless. Blocking was the worst gatekeeper, both for newbies and viable classes. Every duellist needed 165% Block Chance. That was the sweet spot where every blocked hit was reduced in damage by 100%, which naturally meant every hit. Most resorted to the infamous two shields build to achieve it, but a General like myself could barely reach it with one, plus the bonus received from wearing the full Bronze Clover set. For your average PvE player, blocking was bypassed easily by most bosses and thus a minor concern at best. Players had far fewer options. If you wanted to be a duellist, you needed a separate build, a class that could viably use that build AND could damage enemies through their 165% block chance. And that was just the beggining. Though it was the greatest divider, there were a host of other; invisibility, area denial, counters, iframes, to name a few. Though navigating such things were what made Duelling so fun and challenging, it was little wonder that it¡¯d never been as popular as it should¡¯ve been. At its base, Archon Online was game based around a team of players, fighting monsters. It¡¯d never been balanced with Duelling in mind. The Alchemist, the uncontested king of duelling, exemplified these problems. It was spellcaster that had no need for a primary weapon, short cast times and an impossibly diverse list of utility effects. Abilities like Acid Pool and Gas Grenade, usually balanced by their low damage, ground other players into hamburger right through blocking. Of the top twenty players, sixteen were Alchemists. Of the remaining four, there were two Magicians, an Inquisitor... ...And a General. Not that really I had any right to be proud of that. Though my dedication might¡¯ve been ''immortalised'' in the achievement and title ("Heir to Frostbriar") I¡¯d received a week ago when the ranking system had been discontinued, that was all it really represented. Rank had been a matter of number of victories. I wasn¡¯t the sixth best duellist to ever grace the game. I was just stubborn. Of the accounts ranked in the top twenty, only maybe eight had logged on in the last year and, of them, only four had been to Frostbriar in that span. If any of the others had, I''d have hoped to hear from them. I knew all of them by name, after all. At this point, they were about as close to ''friends'' as anyone I had left. I didn''t talk to many people anymore. The monolithic VR-Pod that dominated my tiny apartment could be assigned the majority of the blame for that. My parents had bought it as half-graduation, half-eighteenth birthday gift. Back then, everyone called them the future of gaming...And maybe they still were. Five years later and people were still trying. For now, however, the pod may as well have been synonymous with ''Archon Online''. No other game could replicate the response or feel of Archon''s immaculately responsive controls, nor the detail of its immersion. For a company that''d sprung up more or less out of nowhere, the polish that Aethernaut Games had put on their magnum opus was almost unbelievable. Unfortunately, they were also infamously cagey, especially when it came to the game''s engine. Whatever witchcraft they were privy to, they weren''t sharing it. Now, even if the servers were only to be down for a couple of hours, I felt lost and listless. In the year since I''d left university, my life had been divested of all definition. Finishing my degree had been the last concrete goal I¡¯d maintained, completing the roadmap I knew my parents would¡¯ve wanted me to finish. Without that, every day seemed to flow together into a slush that had been increasingly devoured by Archon Online. In that moment of clarity, I couldn''t rightly say how much of it was out of enjoyment, and how much had been driven by sheer competitive spirit. My obstinance extended far beyond enduring the excessive wait between matches. General wasn''t some secret powerhouse only I knew about. Nearly every round I fought against someone of comparable skill, I was at a disadvantage. Though access to a proper weapon allowed me access to tools unaccessible to nearly anyone else, it was in exchange for nearly all the utility of a better class. I couldn''t steal wins with a well placed Gas Grenade or Arcane Mischief. I had no Camouflage Potion or Unassailable Character to give myself breathing room. Against anyone of any skill, I lost more than I won. That feeling when I won, though? That feeling when I lined up my iframes and predicted my opponent''s position just right? It was what got me up in the morning for an entire year. I wouldn¡¯t be getting that from Archon Online anymore. I didn''t have the same investment in any other game mode, and Aethernaut had actually spent time and energy balancing them. Anything forward wouldn''t be the same...but then, did it really need to be? I wasn¡¯t so far gone that I couldn¡¯t remember a time where I enjoyed other things besides Archon Online. In a brief moment of insanity, I wondered if I might be happier ending my time with Archon Online, going out and finding a job. ...or maybe it¡¯s about time I get back into raiding. I booted the pod back up, eyeing the time. Five minutes. Surely, that was enough time to make my next character. I already had an image and an idea in my head. A fresh start for a fresh patch. Back when I was unlocking all the classes, I used the exact same model each time, which was more or less as close to creating myself as an avatar as I could get. Pale skin, a shade above average height, a dark brown mop in dire need of a brush and a build that sat on the midpoint between ¡®thin¡¯ and ¡®muscular¡¯, as the programmers hadn¡¯t deemed it worthwhile to allow for a male character that was neither. The look lived on with my General and main, Wolfram-74. In time, ''me, but slightly better'' had grown tired and I''d used my newer characters to become someone very different. The more permanent additions to my roster were an eclectic bunch. There was the tall, severe Gunslinger, the (tastefully) sexy Bandit Queen, the scholarly Diabolist, the innocent and affable Magister... ...And as the sixth and final member of the gang, I decided upon a young, spunky Tinker girl. I¡¯d vaguely wanted to revisit a Tinker-primary class for some time. Gunslinger didn¡¯t really scratch the same itch. It began with the bright purple pixie cut. Perhaps something more outlandish like a Mohawk would¡¯ve been more appropriate for the concept but, just like my Bandit Queen, I couldn¡¯t help dialing it back a little. Deciding on the perfect shade was a pain, but the rest of her appearance just sort of slotted into place once I decided on that. Short and thin; almost spindly in appearance, but the character creator wouldn¡¯t let me go that far. A sort of ¡®common¡¯, almost tomboyish face that would look perfect with a pair of goggles. I took one last pass at her, admiring my handiwork. Though she looked like a young girl, I was reasonably sure she looked ¡®interesting¡¯ enough to avoid attracting the wrong sort of attention. Vaguely pleased with myself, I confirmed her as a Tinker and christened her ¡®Aurum-71¡¯. My vision faded to black as I was pulled into the tutorial area. Considering the servers had been offline for a full three minutes, it was at this point I should probably have realised something was wrong. Chapter 2: When Suddenly... Even before the connection took hold and I could open my new eyes, I knew there was something off. For a moment, I couldn''t put my finger on it. It was little more than a strange feeling. Blearily, I forced myself into a sitting position, as I tried blink away the sudden lethargy that''d taken me. It wasn''t until my attention turned to the squelching mud beneath my hands that I started to catch on. There was a depth to my sense of touch that felt far more real than it''d ever been in the past. A chilliness that wouldn''t have been conveyed by anything less than a point blank Blizzard and an unpleasant realness to the mud and grime on me that wouldn''t have even registered previously. I pinched myself. I did so again, harder this time, with the edge of my nails, until I could feel the sharp, stinging sensation that warned me away from drawing blood. Moments passed as I stared down at the red mark on the back of my hand, while a confused, uneasy feeling rose in my chest. My in-game avatar had suffered injuries in the past that would''ve turned my stomach in any other context. I''d had my skull cracked open and my chest split in half. I''d bled from cursed wounds until I had not a single drop of blood left. I''d taken a lethal bath both acid and lava. That stinging sensation had been more painful than any of those, or anything else I''d felt in game before. I tried to log out. Nothing. I couldn''t even feel the attempt. Normally, the thought of logging out came with a certain what I can only describe as ''texture'', just like using an ability did. Now, it felt like any other phrase. As the question, ''What the fuck?'' was asked and unsatisfactorily answered, my thoughts circled as possibilities were considered and discarded without any thorough examination, for the scenario as just too fucked up. What the fuck was happening? What th- I stopped myself. A deep breath. Another. Each breath deliberately taken was a bucket of water on the bonfire of unease, stopping it from growing into anything resembling a panic attack. I calmed myself, cutting it off before it could get any momentum. Something had happened, obviously. What was unknown. What any of this meant was unknown. That was okay. Something really fucking weird had happened, and that was okay. I didn''t need to panic over it. I stood up to punctuate that thought and absently wiped my hands on my pants. Another strange sensation. The Tinker started equipped with a set of leather pants and a smock, neither of which felt very comfortable. The clothes had a stiffness that threw me off slightly. A minor nuisance that had no business being considered a problem, but it was what struck me in the moment. I was standing in a cold, damp, unfamiliar piece of countryside. I was wearing leather clothing1. And I was in the body of what appeared to be a teenaged girl. With the shock wearing off, that last part was probably the strangest feeling thing about the situation. Controlling another body in VR always came with a certain level of detachment that was, if not absent, greatly lessened here. When controlling my avatar, it always felt as though movements and sensations were ''mapped'' to my real body. Not so any more. The hands that shifted beneath the leather gloves I wore felt delicate and dexterous, moving in service of an unfamiliar muscle memory. The arms attached to them might''ve only been two thirds as wide as what I had previously, with a wirey strength that stood in stark contrast to my previous flab. This body felt alien in ways I''d never really thought about. Having always been a little overweight, I was used to a certain feeling to my movements, which were all suddenly different. I very deliberately didn''t check anything more thoroughly than that. Who knew if anyone was watching? A drop of water drew my attention. Miserable storm clouds loitered overhead, highlighting a horizonI couldn''t quite place, but felt familiar all the same. It took me staring at it for at least thirty seconds before I was able to place the silhouette of the truly gigantic mountain in the distance. Embarassing, considering it''d been what I''d more or less expected to see when I arrived, after all. ''It''s even further away than it looks!'' came the cheerful echo of some NPC from a vague memory I''d otherwise all but forgotten. A quick glance around with thoughts unclouded provided additional evidence. The field''s contents might''ve been different, but the treeline hadn''t changed too much. The mountain in the distance was the Grand Summit; an end game Raid that capped off the main quest. In turn, judging by my memory, the field I was standing in should have been the Tinker''s tutorial area. But if so, where was ''my'' workshop? The one the zone was named after. The Tinker''s story began in a workshop, putting the finishing touches on their master''s latest invention. It walked the player through the weapon''s completion, followed by a series of slice of life fetch quests that taught the basic rules of such things. Then, as was Aethernaut''s preferred method of moving the player onto the main quest, the forces of darkness attacked, dooming every character besides the player. Half an hour in total, if you moved at a decent trot, saw the player safe and sound at the capital, their ostensible backstory never to be mentioned again. Standing there, I couldn''t say what happened to the workshop, if it ever existed here at all. No evidence of its existence seemed to remain if it did, so if it was here, it''d probably been gone for some time. I didn''t care to speculate much further. Too many things were unknown. There were other, no less curious differences. What had been a lush, unbroken meadow in-game was now reduced to a yellow mush that faded in and out of the mud. The woods to the north had faired better, but dots of yellow and black were apparent in the leaves, rendering the entire place sickly-looking. Somehow, I suspected this was more than just a question of season. With neither a workshop nor civilisation in sight, there was little of value to staying in that field. I already had a vague idea of where I wanted to go next. In the tutorial, the path south had lead to a small hamlet that was forgotten by the plot almost immediately. Its fate didn''t even bear mentioning, though anyone could guess that the monster attack that ended the tutorial likely wiped it off the map. Still, with the differences already present, it was probably my best bet. * * * * * * * * 1Don''t laugh, you jerks. I''m a t-shirt and sweatpants guy. Anything stiffer or tighter than a school uniform feels wrong. * * * * * * * * Walking came with its own unfamiliar sensations that continued to throw me off. When forced to leave the comfort of my Oubliette, I was never too keen on moving quickly. My preferred pace had once been sardonically described as a ''stately saunter'' and I considered any scenario in which I was required to accelerate beyond a jog to be a minor catastrophe. This was a philosophy that my new body didn''t agree with. Whenever my attention wandered, an uncharacteristic bounce crept into my step, which threatened to break into a run if left unchecked. It wasn''t strictly ''new''; each of my avatars were possessed of their own unique walk cycle, but that always felt like an illusion overlaid on top of my usual gait. This felt like a well-ingrained muscle memory, and it was clashing hard with what walking should have felt like. This was not the place for ''Cheerful''. Especially not from me. If there''d been something else to distract me, maybe it wouldn''t have been so jarring, but the rolling heath that lead towards the town in-game was blank and empty. It also seemed a far larger place than what I remembered. There''d been maybe two hills between the workshop and the town, while I could have sworn I''d climbed a dozen so far with no end in sight. In my mind''s eye, this place was bright and vibrant, interspersed with low level mobs and newbies racing through their starting quests. In their absence, it almost felt like the land was grieving. Overly dramatic, perhaps, but I preferred that thought to just focusing on how the place was cold, damp and miserable. In any case, that wasn''t something I particularly wanted to dwell on either. As I approached the crest of another softly sloped hill, I could hear something growling in the distance. Many things growling, in fact. Slowly, I crept forward, till I could just barely see over the crescent and into the dale below. In the middle of the road, a small pack of Duskwolves had taken up a vigil. Twelve, or so I counted, all standing ramrod straight, only moving to search the horizon or snarl something to another pack member I wasn''t sure whether I could call that anticlimactic or not. Safe behind my VR Pod, Duskwolves were barely worthy of note. Just another trash mob that turned up in throughout the northern mountains zones. Glancing across their nameplates, there was one at level sixteen, and no other higher than ten. Though far above the level I expected of the zone, I wouldn''t have hesitated to engage them normally, even as a new character. The level gap meant little; monster species was a far more important determining factor and wolves just weren''t that difficult. On the other hand, without knowing how things had changed, I hesitated, for a variety of reasons. I didn''t know if combat had changed. I didn''t know what might happen if I messed up and got injured. I didn''t know if these were real, sentient creatures rather than bits of data, whether they''d use the same, linear ''tactics'' that they did as AI. Hell, I didn''t know if they were even aggressive. It didn''t help that I was also without even a starter weapon. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. As I finished that train of thought, I couldn''t help but feel there was something about it that didn''t sit right. ... ...Wait, hang on. It took a moment to click. Out of habit, I rubbed my eyes. The past hour of walking had seen me pour over a variety of possibilities regarding what this place was. How real was it? Was it a place that just resembled ? Throughout all that, it only now occurred to me that the HUD was still visible and that was weird. I still had knowledge of my character''s abilities and stats. More importantly, stats and abilities still actually existed. In the back of my mind, I could still feel the texture to the words. Regardless of anything else, there was still some connection between wherever I was and Archon Online as a video game, not just its lore. Assuming wherever I was, wasn''t just literally ''Archon Online, still''. Maybe I was being too quick to discard more grounded theories about what had happened. Reluctant as I was to admit it, I was more than a little biased. As shocking and uncomfortable as it''d been at first, the idea of being actually inside such a world had been something I''d fantasised about since I was young. It was one that''d been altered as I''d grown older -I hadn''t nearly the same illusions of how I''d actually fare in such a scenario (which was perhaps where that undercurrent of anxiety in my gut was coming from)-, but it was one I''d never entirely had the heart to truly give up on. I took a breath and forced myself to play Devil''s Advocate. Hell, maybe the VR Pod had always been able to induce more realistic sensations and this was just really messed up bug. It was unlikely and I would be super pissed if that was the answer, but it sounded as plausible as anything else in a vacuum. As my thoughts settled into such considerations and my guard dropped, the fact that I was still more or less standing out in the open1 slipped my mind. Of course, it was about then that the largest one swung its head to stare at me directly. As one, the rest of the pack re-orientated themselves into what could only be called a ''formation'' and every nameplate turned an angry red. The expletive I shrieked could probably have been heard all the way in town, wherever that was. The pack charged, lead by the highest levelled one, as I scrambled to my feet. Running was briefly considered and discarded. Would they still de-leash? I wouldn''t bet on it. Think, idio-Abilities. What do I- Anima Bomb: Elemental, Personal Suspension Field, Plasma Cutter and what''s tha-Quick Draw? Crap, no weapon. Bombs, then Cutter was the obvious choice. Wolves resisted Ice, so Lightning for the stun, fire for damage. Plasma Cutter needed to be armed per the Tinker''s gimmick2, so I held fast as they approached. As they charged into range, two bombs were there to meet them. Crackling static nearly drowned out the pained yelps as the fodder ground to a halt. Without even time to curse, the pack leader lunged for me. I dove past it. Another bomb fell among the fodder, erupting in a burst of flame that left no member above half-health. One, maybe two more for them. The next came as soon as the ammo returned, killing the two weakest. In the back of my mind, I felt the reassuring ''thud'' of their pelts added to my inventory; a far better indication of death than the frequently misleading health bar. One eye always on my arming trump card, I shifted to keep the wolves from splitting my attention. Again, the pack leader lunged at me, this time managed to barely clip me for maybe ten percent of my health. For its third attempt, I was ready. Glowing blue energy snaked out of a crystaline braclet (-Wait, when...?-), holding the wolf aloft. Just in time, as the stun expired and the pack swarmed me (-Guh, should''ve made more space!-). Claws scored gashes across my arms and legs as I desperately scurried away from the throng, teeth clenched in adrenaline-numbed pain. And yet, I felt compelled to let out a half-mad laugh as another fire bomb readied. Was this fun? It had all the trappings of fun. All but the hardiest fodder fell to that one. Only three left, I ran down one still rising out of hit stun and finished it with a heel to its throat. Only twenty damage, but it''d already been on its last legs. Bells jingled in my ears as I levelled up and I instantly started arming my newest abilitiy. The two remaining wolves weren''t quite so slow to react. Rather than wasting another bomb cooldown, I engaged the two in melee. A reckless decision. Though I took out the first one in a single, well-placed kick, the other lunged for my back and knocked me over. I rolled with it, barely throwing the wolf before it could take my neck. As the tables turned, I threw a half-blind haymaker that finished it. Some distant part of me was swearing, as my knuckles screamed, joining my arms and legs in concert. In the scuffle, I''d dropped to below half health. Normally, that''d be more embarassing than delibitating -''The only health point that matters is your last one'' and all-, but the pain and injuries that accompanied them couldn''t be laughed off like I might normally. I could feel my legs seizing a little. I tentatively clenched and unclenched my hand. The distant burn coalesced into jolts of pain as I did. After a moment, I turned back to the ''boss'' wolf. I rolled my neck, waiting for the crowd control to end naturally. The wolf dropped from its delayed lunge directly into another shock bomb explosion. Again, it resisted the stun and instantly rounded on me. Though an unfavourable outcome, a smirk crossed my face unbidden. I might not have been doing so well myself, but I''d dealt with its allies and chipped away half its health. Plasma Cutter was nearly armed. I could do this. It charged me again and, as my leg gave way under me as I went to dive again, it crossed my mind that I might be wrong. I blinked and it was on top of me, ready to Go for the Throat. Hands around its muzzle barely kept it from ending me. Teeth gritted, one eye remained glued to the arming time of my newest ability, I didn''t need to hold out for long. Like most of the Tinker''s initial abilities, Plasma Cutter made up for its back loaded damage with high base numbers. Once it armed, my next round of abilities would end this, I knew it. Time slowed as I struggled. The milliseconds crawled by. ...0.8... ...0.6... ...0.4... There was the sound of rushing wind, then a thump. The wolf''s weight was wrenched off me and it took a moment for me to parse what was going on. My eyes followed the movement over to where the wolf''s rapidly aetherfying corpse to had landed. Looking at the damage that arrow had done to its skull set my stomach turning. Adrenaline fading, I gingerly picked myself off the ground. Clamping down upon the indignance that threatened to bubble up, the gamer in me that snarled "I had that in hand'', I turned to greet my rescuer. * * * * * * * * 1If the wolves had been more ''realistic'', they''d have found me by smell long ago...But then, ''realistic'' wolves probably wouldn''t have attacked me as they did. 2Tinker''s gimmick is weird and gets complicated as it levels and advances but, for simplicity''s sake, ''starts each battle on cooldown'' is a good enough summary at level 1. As you might have guessed, Tinker-Primary classes are pretty trash in PvP duelling as well3. 3...It is not the only thing I think about, okay? Chapter 3: Brightsteel Point The man before me was clearly a Hunter. Excuse me. Assuming the world still ran on the system present in Archon Online (it wouldn¡¯t do to presume quite yet), the man before me was clearly a hunter. Bow and furs were the the distinct marks of a low level hunter. That''s just how it was. That said, my brain kept sliding back to ''Lumberjack''. Not that he was wearing flannel nor carrying an axe. It was the beard. A brown, scruffy thing that seemed like it saw only just enough care to be presentable. It was then that I realised my silence might be considered impolite. "...T-thank you very much, sir," I stammered, which was about all I trusted myself to say at that moment. Though it was clearly the voice of a young girl, there was a rough edge to my voice, that lead to my naturally quiet, apologetic demeanor sounding forced and almost insincere, even to my own ears. His expression was what I could only describe as ¡®Vexed¡¯ as he looked to say something, then changed his mind. "Six torments, girl, what are y'' doin'' oot here an''-an¡¯ what was that?" he demanded with what I only hesitated to call a ''gravelly Brogue'' as the Hallowed World had neither a Scotland nor an Ireland. ''That?'' "I, uh, don''t know, sir, and I...uh...don''t...know what you mean by that, s-" "Enough with the ''sirs'', lass, do ah look like a knight?" he asked, patience clearly waning. I swallowed nervously. Right, this place actually had knights as a class. You were even addressed as such in-game if you took the class yourself. Which sucked, since I more or less called anyone older than me ¡®Sir¡¯ or ¡®Ma¡¯am¡¯. "My apologies, uh..." I stopped myself twice. First from saying ''sir'' again, then from asking his name before introducing myself. That was a serious faux pass classically, wasn''t it? That, however, brought with it a conundrum. Who was I going to be to anyone I ran into? Unless I went with ''100% truthful'', I most certainly wasn''t going to be ''Matthew'', looking like this. And I most certainly wasn¡¯t going with 100% truthful. "Ah, I suppose...It''d be best to use ''Aurum''...? Please, call me...uh....that. May I ask your name?" I withered slightly under the weight of his entirely nonplussed expression. "Fer some''un that looks like they crawled ootta Whitecliff''s gutter, yer a queer stickler fer niceties, y''know? Malcolm Shields, Yeoman Rambler o'' Brightsteel Point. An'' if you call me by that, ah''m leavin'' y''ere." I blinked. So many answers to questions I hadn''t yet asked...And yet, it seemed like I was only left with more. First and foremost, though his title meant nothing to me (which was a curiosity all of its own), ''Brightsteel Point'' was where I''d been headed...But the idea that it might have...Whatever a ¡®Yeoman Rambler¡¯ was, was...I didn¡¯t want to admit thinking it¡¯d just be what I¡¯d seen in-game after having seen evidence of so many other changes, but...Well, okay, I had kinda assumed that as a baseline. The idea of the Brightsteel Point in my memory lorded over by any sort of notable authority figure was almost laughable. Who was there to even have authority over? The place had maybe five people living in it, tops. Also rather notably was his implicit decision to bring me with him. That reflexively contrary part of me piped up with something about ¡®presumptuousness¡¯, but I crushed that terrible voice under a metaphorical boot until it shut up. He was going where I was already wanting to go. I wasn¡¯t going to object to that just for the sake of arguing. Not when I¡¯m beaten up like this, at least. "Sorry, Mr-" "Just Malcolm ''ll do, an'' you were aboot t''explain what''ch were doin'' pickin'' a fight with a full pack o'' Duskies?" he insisted with just a touch of exasperation. That he¡¯d tunnelled on my immediate actions, rather than what I was doing before that was¡­good? It gave me more time to work on my story, whatever it was going to be. "...Malcolm...Uh, well, I didn''t. I came over the hill over there, waited there a little too long thinking they couldn''t see me and...they took objection to my good health," I ended with an embarrassed half-smile that didn''t seem to mollify the man. "What, an'' y'' didn''t jus'' turn around n'' leave? Light''s sake, are y'' mad?" "...I was reasonably sure it was doable," I answered, my voice tainted by just a hint of a recalcitrant grumble. While I didn''t want to be rude, but I had been perfectly fine without his intervention, thank you very much. I bristled at his skepticism, until he gave up the argument with an unspoken ''Fine!'' "...Well, y'' ain''t lackin'' in nerve, even yer bloomin'' daft," he declared- a laughable mistruth if I''d ever heard one-, "Well, if we turned oot anyone daft, we wouldnae have enough heads t'' open a dungeon. C''mon, if yer leg''s good. Y'' can say yer piece once yer patched up." * * * * * * * * Like much of the landscape that preceded it, Brightsteel Point had little in common with my memory of it. It was bigger for one, which was what I noticed first. Though both towns filled the same space from afar, the in-game representation had been warped and distorted, and shrunk in on itself as one approached. Though the town before me wasn''t exactly bustling, it was a far cry from the glorified townhouse it was in-game. A concession to convenience and hardware limitations, I supposed glibly. The same could not be said for the rest of the differences. When I looked at Brightsteel Point, I didn''t think ''Hamlet''. Ignoring Shakespeare, that was a word I associated with peace and pastoral bliss. No, if I were to describe my first impression of Brightsteel Point in a single phrase, it''d be ''Frontier Town''. Surrounded by a palisade wall and guard towers that seemed about the only structures given more than a week¡¯s work, pristine, straw-thatched roofs had given way to all manner of wooden shanties and glorified tents, all with a distinctly uneven slant. I could''ve sworn half would''ve blown over with a stiff breeze. Its wide, dirt roads were sodden and empty as we walked down what I assumed was ¡®Main Street¡¯. Few seemed willing to stomach the cold and damp. I couldn''t blame them. I''d expected more probing questions along the way, to be honest. Not that I was complaining, so to speak, but I''d psyched myself up for them, even though I didn''t have answers yet. No, instead he kept to quick walk that became a punishing pace with my injuries, which ached and stung whenever I pushed to keep up. In-game, I''d have been hale and hearty before we''d stepped foot in town but, of all the things to have suddenly changed from the game, my out of combat regen had dropped precipitously. Did that ¡®mean¡¯ something? What did anything mean at this point? I was quickly tiring of my complete lack of context for this place. The crudely drawn black cross tilted on its side above the shack we were approaching was at once reassuring and worrying. On one hand, the universal ''healer'' symbol from in-game told me all I needed to know about where we were going. On the other, its quality and that of the building it was attached to was telling. It was perhaps even more ramshackle than the average place we''d walked past, with notable gaps between the walls and both ceiling and floor. As we entered the healer''s office (or, less charitably,* ''shack''), Malcolm called out to someone in the back room. "Sawbones!" The man that emerged looked to be in his late forties or early fifties, dressed in black robes and a white collar that honestly seemed almost out of place. Short, mildly balding pale brown hair and a tiny pair of glasses completed the picture of a Pastor. It was a low level NPC-only class in game -a heavily gimped version of the Priest without any of the Divine Smiting, unique buffs or, really anything besides healing. That was more or less their point; they were there to top up low level players with free but slow healing and removal of death debuffs. All things priests could do, but they could be available in areas that would break if also allowed access to all the other utility an NPC Priest usually brought. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. "Eh? Malcolm? What''s the emergency?" he asked, with a tone distinctly not in the mood for an emergency. The hunter gave me a gentle push forward. "Found ''er oot in the foothills. Had a run-in w'' the Duskies. Give ''er a once over,¡± he declared. I could¡¯ve sworn there was just a hint of amusement to it, though it might¡¯ve been my imagination. There was an old, wooden bench I was lead to sit on, as the man retrieved an simple staff topped with little more than gnarled mass. As a priest you started with a better staff than that thing. As he channeled a trace of healing magic into it and passed it over me, my face was very deliberately blank. To be healed with Reknit -the least of all healing spells- stung my pride just a little. To need healing at such a low enough level that someone might use the spell was almost a mark of shame, even given the current circumstances. And also just stung in general; there was a horrible squirming sensation as my cuts closes and bruises vanished. Still, it certainly wouldn''t do to be ungrateful to someone healing my injuries more or less out of the kindness of his own heart (or so I chose to believe, at least). ¡°Hmm, you¡¯re lucky girl, you know that? If Malcolm hadn¡¯t found you so quickly, you¡¯d probably have died. There''s a reason our Yeoman''s the only one that scouts so far out, you know,¡± he said with that very typically condescending way Doctors talk to children. ¡°My apologies, Healer, but you have...made an incorrect assumption regarding the way the encounter proceeded. It was quite close to being over when Malcolm intervened,¡± I ground out, trying to avoid strictly voicing what I was actually thinking regarding that comment. The Healer chuckled, ¡°I know you¡¯re still nursing your pride, but you shouldn''t tell such obvious fibs like that, girl. I can''t see your class, but you haven''t the maximum health to have survived such an encounter long. Truth be told, I''d be surprised if you''re beyond level five. Would you set her straight, Malcolm?" He gave Malcolm a meaningful look. For a moment, the hunter hesitated, lips pursed like he¡¯d just swallowed something sour. ¡°...Nae, while ah ain''t gonna call her bright fer takin'' that fight¡­It didnae look near as bloody as it had e¡¯ry right t¡¯ be. Not unless the alpha went an¡¯ offed its pack itself. Whate''er witchcraft she pulled on those Duskies got ¡®em but good," he corrected reluctantly, giving the healer a pointed look. I watched a series of emotions play across the man¡¯s face as Malcolm¡¯s po-faced expression refused to yield. Joking scepticism, to shocked disbelief, to ¡®is this a joke?¡¯ confusion. The two shared a short, silent conversation I hadn¡¯t the context to follow, but it ended with the healer¡¯s resigned acceptance. He turned back to me, "An¡¯ if y¡¯know what¡¯s good fer ya, Lass, y¡¯ll keep that one in yer pocket. E¡¯ryone in Brightsteel has somethin¡¯ in the bank they¡¯d rather nae talk about, but we ain¡¯t no convent. Goin¡¯ even with a full pack o¡¯ Duskies, if any take yer word, it¡¯ll raise t¡¯ sort of questions that ain¡¯t gonna go unasked.¡± Accepting my hesitant nod at face value, the two men turned their attention to matters I cared far less to listen to. About certain happenings in town that I had no context for, and about people I¡¯d never met. I tuned them out. It was surprising that I was being let off the hook like this, so to speak, but it seemed whatever Brightsteel was now, it wasn''t exactly squeaky clean either. Which lead me to ask the most terrifying question. What now? It was a question that had carefully gone unvoiced for years. Maybe ever. Was I scared of it for having gone so long without asking it, or had it gone so long unasked because I was a coward? Probably somewhere in the middle. Throughout my education, there''d been a carefully laid path for me. One that I''d never looked too far beyond and that had ground to a screeching halt with the end of university. For as long as I could remember, I had been as a marble left upon a gentle slow, and my life had been a slow, lazy slide down the path of least resistance. Back home, that path had ended in two minute noodles and twelve hour gaming sessions, which was a fate I was ultimately okay with. In that moment, when I looked down the proverbial mountain I now found myself on, the drop was so far that I couldn''t see the bottom. I tabled the thought. Big ideas about my long-term future, whatever direction it might go in, could wait until the immediate present was dealt with. And perhaps I had read things incorrectly, but I couldn''t help but suspect the man I''d been found by was something of a local authority figure, not the least of reasons being that title. To get his opinion on what would happen next...Well, it just seemed like the smart thing to do. After what felt like forever, as my health topped off and the conversation lulled, I found an opportunity to ask without being impolite. "...So...May I ask what''s going to happen now?" Focused by the churning fear in my gut, I noticed the brief, imploring look shot by the healer that Malcolm answered with an equally brief dubious scowl, before looking back at me. ¡°We¡¯ll put y¡¯ up fer a couple days if y¡¯ain¡¯t in a hurry anywhere, enough t'' find yer balance, but ag¡¯n, we ain¡¯t a convent. If y¡¯ wanna stay here fer any time, y¡¯ll need to pull yer weight,¡± he explained. Part of me cringed at that, just out of habit. ¡°I...apologise, but I don¡¯t have any marketable skills beyond my ability to fight,¡± I said, ¡°Yeah, well, lucky we always need scoots, ain¡¯tcha? Ah¡¯m nae too keen on sendin¡¯ bairns int¡¯ the wild zones, but they¡¯d all hae a whinge if ah stopped ¡®em. Y¡¯ may s¡¯well join ¡®em. Ain¡¯t like y¡¯ can be any worse at it than ¡®em an¡¯ nae but Crows n¡¯ Hares near t¡¯ toon anyways. S¡¯long as there ain¡¯t nae ¡®incursion¡¯, y'' shouldnae hae much trouble.¡± Interpreting that, I nodded absently, thankful that I was fluent in Brogue. The scouting job didn''t exactly sound glamorous. I couldn''t remember much about any of the ''Crow'' or ''Hare'' monsters lines beyond a crippling weakness to damage. The sort of fodder enemy types easy enough to put in a tutorial without risk of alienating the unskilled. Still, I wasn''t going to turn down a way to help, even if it seemed entirely like a waste of my talents. "An'' y ''ll prob''ly wanna stash those pelts till the merchants come ''round next month, y''ken," he reminded me. A good thing too, as I''d forgotten about them entirely. Selling them for a pittance would''ve been my intention if I were still in game. Fur armour was universally based around Agility, which was of little use to a Tinker...But then again... "...Might there be a use for them otherwise?" I asked leadingly. If those wolves were considered particularly dangerous round here (an idea I¡¯d have found laughable if you¡¯d asked me an hour ago). ¡°Use ¡®em fer a bed, if that¡¯s yer thing. If y¡¯ want ¡®em turned into Gear, it¡¯s a week t¡¯ Soldier''s Drop an'' y''ll be makin'' it alone. We ain''t got a Tailor with t'' levels, nor the time t'' go oot n'' find one." ... ...Uh huh... I paused uncertainly, not sure of what to make of that. How big a deal was that piece of information? Crafting was one of the things that Archon Online didn¡¯t really do. Not in the same way that many other MMOs did. Turning drops into equipment meant finding the relevant NPC in the nearest town, giving them the right materials and, hey presto, you had a new piece of equipment ready for use. It wasn''t even like there was any difference between the NPCs'' crafting abilities; they were all identically perfect. Was this proof that things had changed, or was this just a side of the system that''d been gated off...? "...If I may, I''d like to begin earning my keep sooner rather than later, if it''s at all possible," I said hesitantly, cutting myself off before I was lost in thought again, "I wouldn''t like to impose." ¡°Ah¡¯ll roster y¡¯ in fer tomorrow night, how''s that soond?" he asked. I nodded. ¡°Oh, an¡¯ fer y¡¯ own sake, think o¡¯ something else t¡¯ call yerself. ¡®Aurum¡¯ makes y¡¯ sound like an elf.¡± ...Elf?! Interlude 1:How to NOT **** Your Party - A Rant on/Guide to Class Roles and Double Queuing How to NOT Fuck Your Party - A Rant on/Guide to Class Roles and Double Queuing User: Bushwack
So, how''s everyone''s evening? Everyone doing alright? Me? I just wiped on Reaper. First phase went fine. Fireballs went fine. DDR was a bit touch and go, but mostly fine. Then, we instantly wiped to Harvest Time because our fucking Sentinel didn''t pull aggro off our Guardian. He was busy being murdered because he decided to be a complete fucking arsehole and double queue as Merc, so we had three DPS, a solo tank, and me trying to desperately purge Death Sentence from the whole party. As I write this post, that is the fifth time it''s happened tonight. "Man, Bushwack, you just sound salty." YEAH, YOU BETTER FUCKING BELIEVE I''M SALTY. Ever since Aetherflux added multi-role queuing along with the new hybrid classes and had the fucking brilliant idea to make the MM''s ''one of every role'' balancing function count every role a player''s selected, it''s like every second queue involves a triple damage stack with a Merc solo-tank, or a Mech-ENG as our Sentinel, or a QD Gunslinger as our Breaker. To everyone bitching and moaning about queue times, I fucking blame you for this. Rather than trying to bash my head against this new shitty fucking matchmaking system, I''m gonna channel all my salt into this handy guide for anyone who doesn''t want to go to hell for torturing four other people with an unwinnable party. Who knows? Maybe someone will actually listen. At least, if Archon takes a nosedive, nobody can say I didn''t do shit. So, let''s start with the first and biggest issue. ''We don''t need a Senti-'' YES YOU FUCKING DO Everyone likes to shit on Sentinels, since they''re the least sexy Role to play. Sometimes, it feels like every second Guardian treats the Sentinel like a fucking slave. Plenty of players think of them as a necessary evil, with how the matchmaking works. That''s probably why so many think it''s okay to double queue Sentinel and ''fuck it, it''ll work out''. And yeah, if you''re running a premade, you can build a party around not having a Sentinel. You can take a Rune Knight, an Inquisitor and three high DPS classes and just mash nearly any boss into the ground. Good luck with that in a MM party, though. Let''s go over what a Sentinel''s jobs are, in order of most to least important. - BOSS MECHANICS. Doesn''t matter who you are, if you think there''s something more important than getting to the Fort during W.Drac''s Armageddon, you''re a fucking idiot. - Soak/negate direct-targeted tank busters. - Allow ''Rage'' debuffs to time out on the main tank by drawing or purging the effect. - Handling adds with AOE or aggro tanking - Boss Damage. People like to shit on Sentinels for not doing anything. Ignore them. Sentinels usually have the highest overall damage numbers of any role in higher levels of play. The ''weakness'' of most Sentinels is that their DPS is gradual and reliant on having a high up-time. Good when everything''s going smoothly and people are doing their jobs. Trash when you''re still getting used to a boss AND you''re having to keep track of your tank''s cooldowns for them.You''re gonna get hit hard by a bad team, especially a bad Guardian. Other optional responsibilities include holding the boss''s attention if the Guardian drops and calling tactics, since the Sentinel is usually the one with the widest vision of a fight. There''s nothing new on that list. Even peeps that hate on Sentinels know it more or less. They just think that, since most of it is situational, and everyone can do soak damage, that it doesn''t matter. They think ''yeah, if our guardian does his thing, we''ll be fine''. Ha. Ha. Ha. Peeps like to think that, since Archon Online is a full on Action MMO and that any fight is possible if played well enough, that means they can do fucking stupid shit without repercussions. They play through the main story, probably solo, get to the end and think ''yeah, I''m basically a god''. And then they go to MM and think it''s everyone else that''s shit. And yeah, Archon Online isn''t a super team reliant MMO when you get down to it. There''s certain classes that can, with a shit tonne of time put in, both in prep and during each actual fight, solo end game content. That goes out the window in Matchmaking, though. Getting good enough to solo in Archon means learning boss patterns, learning how to manipulate hitboxes and attack timings to line up with iframes and forced movement. It''s about being patient and taking forty minutes to beat a boss fight that''d take a full party five. Good luck with that, when aggro is now something that needs to be worried about and you have four other idiots messing with the boss''s AI. Good luck when your party starts raging in chat if you miss a quick phase, far less anything more time consuming. If you think you''re good enough to solo, solo. If you think you know a party combo that''ll let you ignore a role entirely, take it to the Partyfinder. If you want to queue into matchmaking, play the fucking meta. ''Finishers and Breakers are both DPS so it doesn''t mat-THAT''S NOT HOW IT WORKS'' Okay, lemme set this straight, for the record. You all have a basic attack, right? All roles can do damage. It¡¯s the sort of game Archon Online is. The best DPS in the game belongs to the Berserker, who''s a pure Guardian. The fourth is the Magister, who¡¯s a pure Steward. The lowest DPS in the game is the Sniper, though that¡¯s probably not intentional. That ain''t the point though. DPS ain''t why you need a Finisher or a Breaker. You can get that from anyone. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. So, why do you need ''em? Well... Breakers do damage to vulnerable targets. Finishers do damage to non-vulnerable targets. Easy, right? Breakers exist for burst damage. You line up your cooldowns, prep your buffs, wait for the boss to stand perfectly still, then punt ''em right where it hurts. A Breaker''s trying to condense five minutes of DPS from most other classes into like thirty seconds. It''s about having your shit ready to go when the boss starts charging up his spirit bomb so that you can take his head off and stop him pushing your shit in. Breakers bring the sort of damage that beats an ''offensive'' boss phase. Finisher are the other way. Finishers are more about accuracy, pinpoint amounts of reasonable damage and the kinds of crowd control that actually work on bosses. S''why the Trapper is a Finisher. Finishers are meant to open up a boss, one way or another, so that your team can make use of their strengths. Finishers bring the sort of accuracy and protection negation that beats a ''defensive'' boss phase. This is why dropping either of ''em is trash. Snek without a Finish ends with you wiping to Burrow as he destroys the whole arena without you ever touching him. Ariel without a Breaker ends with you wiping to Tsunami ''cus good luck doing 50 mil in 20 seconds without one. Plenty of people have spent years and pages, bitching about how stupid Archon''s Role system is and how slow its matchmaking system is because of it. Don''t look at me, I didn''t make this fucking system, I just play here ''Man, queue times are pretty long tonight. I guess I''ll just tick this box to help-''STOP Let''s go over the all the usual suspects responsible for this plague, with a short summary of why you shouldn''t double queue for each of them. - G/S Mercenary (All Builds): The biggest offender by far, probably because everyone watched that one time a certain streamer solo tank Bart in a MM Party. ''If it worked on Bart, the hardest boss in the game, it''ll work on-''WRONG. Not only was that a fully kitted Merc, which you probably aren''t, but Bart''s tank busters are super forgiving compared with Reaper, W.Drac, Snek or Ariel. Merc has no way to drop aggro, his iframes are trash and, as a result, if you try to face tank any of those with JUST Earn My Keep, you will rapidly find yourself tanking the floor. Merc can theoretically solo tank with the right comp (much like General). Hell, Merc can just solo if you have the gear and knowledge. If you had to read this guide though, you ain''t good enough to even think about it. - S/B Mechanic (Turret/Pilot Build): ''Oh shit! Here comes the Tank Buster!'' ''Don''t worry, guys, I''ll just sac 90% of my damage to absorb it!''. If you''re queuing for Sentinel as a Mechanic, have a Legion build on the backburner or you''re setting yourself up to wipe to Rage mechanics. - G/S Hell Knight (All Builds): Choose either, but not both. A Hell Knight taking aggro is mincemeat if Invoke Contract drops and, believe me, without someone that can take the heat off you on occasion, you''re going to drop contract. Hell Knight can''t tank without a Sentinel. - S/B Ninja (Weapon Builds): This is actually fine, if you remember that Smoke Bomb exists and you don''t queue into Reaper. If you queue into Reaper as Sentinel Ninja, you deserve everything you''re about to get. - B/F Gunslinger (Quick Draw): Don''t MM with QDG. Just don''t. QDG is a cheese build that exists to skip phase 2 for W.Drac and Burrow for Snek. It does no damage. Not only does that mean it''s trash everywhere else, but it''s also trash for MMs of those. QDG is meta when paired with Inquisitor, Rune Knight and usually Archmage. You don''t have that guarantee of damage for MM. Oh, and if you''re the sort of person that queues as Breaker with QDG, go fuck yourself. - B/F Vigilante (All Builds): Just like the HK, pick one, but even moreso. Dagger Vigilante is passable as a melee Finisher. Crossbow Vigilante is a worse Inquisitor (which isn''t even that bad; ''oh, you''re slightly worse than the most broken class in the game, what a fucking tragedy''). You can''t do both. ''Come on, Bushwack, it''s not that big a d-IT. FUCKING. IS'' I don''t go into matchmaking expecting perfect play. I don''t even expect particularly ''good'' play. I don''t expect optimised rotations. I don''t expect phase skips. Hell, I don''t even expect knowledge of the mechanics. Plenty of people go into matchmaking having never tried a fight before, hoping to learn it. Think about what happens when that newbie runs into someone Double queuing is super fucking disrespectful to the time and commitment of everyone you''re queuing into. People go into matchmaking for a bunch of reasons. Usually, because partyfinder is slow, or because it''s elitist. Most people who go into partyfinder want to clear, and by fucking up the party dynamics, you''re taking a dump all over them. When I go into matchmaking, I expect people to be trying to clear the content. When you double queue into a role you have no intention to fill, you''re putting your desire to get into a game over everything else. Don''t fucking do it. EDIT: For everyone asking my opinion on double queuing as Steward, how the fuck would I know? I''m a Bishop main. How many idiots do you think are going to try to legitimately try to take the main healer role from a Bishop as a Heretic or Antiquarian? Chapter 4: First Watch ¡°Uuuuuuuggh, why do we have to babysit the newbie?¡± The soldier, whose name I hadn¡¯t cared to memorise, was whining again. The opening groan was a carefully crafted composition designed to annoy any and all listeners. I carefully ignored him, my face the picture of stoicism. Keeping it that way was something to focus on, to distract me from my urge to throttle the brat. For reasons I didn¡¯t particularly care to divine, he had taken an instant dislike of me and, I had to assume, was attempting to get a rise out of me. It¡¯d started with nakedly insulting questions and, when it became clear that I wasn¡¯t going to answer, had morphed into just plain old indirect insults. Usually, I took insults in stride. Sometimes, I even welcomed them. Coming from my opponents, they were a sign I was doing something right. Coming from an erstwhile ally, less so, which had ultimately been part of what dissuaded me from raiding, but those were easy enough to dismiss. ''They''re probably just having a bad day'' or ''It''s the old problem with online anonymity''. This was different. This was someone, in person, trying to get my goat. And, though I was definitely not going to let him see it, he was succeeding. The crude length of scrap iron gripped tightly in my right hand was both solace and temptation. It didn¡¯t feel quite like the extension of self that my Magister''s empowered weapon was, but its presence was emboldening. Perhaps it reflected poorly on me, that I was even entertaining such a thing. A little heckling wasn''t exactly a crime worthy of the sort of corporal punishment I wished to visit. I knew as much, and I knew I''d probably feel bad reflecting upon it, but I was far too irritated to feel guilty at that moment. Over a day had passed and, as was my modus operandi, I had done very little and decided upon even less. I''d had far too much time to think, and far too little information to adequately answer my own questions. It''d left me uselessly restless, neither able to sit still, nor force myself to go out and do anything purposeful. In the end, despite all that time spent thinking, there was only one conclusion I had found at all satisfactory. This place was trash and I hated it. ¡®Harsh words¡¯? Perhaps, but they were well deserved. Brightsteel had done little to endear itself to me. A chilling dampness permeated every nook and cranny. The abandoned shack I was reluctantly squatting in was no exception. Sleep came only after hours of lying upon the wolf pelts, for there was little else to do after sundown and even then, it was a restless, stop-start endeavor. Morning found me only more tired than I''d been the night before, and still distinctly female. It was...a distressing way to awaken, to say the least. Awakening inside the pod was just that; inside the pod. The handful of times it''d happened to me personally, the game had switched itself off long before I awoke. That morning? Awakening to find myself and my circumstances so thoroughly different? Mortifying. There''d been just a second or two of horror before I remembered the day before, where my arms were far too thin, the bed beneath me was lumpy in ways it should never have been, and the light of my room was all wrong. It wasn''t something I was interested in dwelling on. What snapped me out of such thoughts was no less unpleasant. That morning was the first time I''d ever had to be truly concerned about food. Existential horror was drowned out by hunger, then a far less high minded horror as it occurred to me that, whatever was on the menu today, it wasn''t likely to be two minute noodles. My stomach grumbled and complained all the way until I returned from the market. Even once fed, it was less than grateful. Bread and ''vegetables'' (they were green and edible while raw, or so the grocer had me believe; after their consumption, I wasn''t so sure about that second claim) were the order of the day, and I was sick of them on first glance. Sure, there were other, more appetising meals I could''ve bought, but they were more than equivalently more expensive. Fifty gold to start and forty from the wolves could be stretched into a week''s meals if I was prudent. Food was another thing that aped real life more than the game. A pity. I''d have appreciated not needing to suffer through the process of actually eating that meal. Really though, such things I might''ve been able to stomach, if not for the deal breaker. More than anything, Brightsteel was boring. Pointlessly so. I could deal with ''boring for a purpose''. In fact, that could describe a fair portion of my life. Being bored with or without a purpose was the difference between...Well, between working for pay or for free, I supposed. Beyond my brief visit to the smith late in the afternoon, who¡¯d generously spent five minutes hammering out what could maybe count as a spanner if you were generous, the boredom had been paralysing. Which I supposed was something like irony. It was the memory of that recent boredom that kept me civil despite my frayed temper. I''d take this over that any day of the week, regardless of how frustrated I felt. That, and the knowledge that any fight I decided to pick with the pest would likely backfire spectacularly. I might''ve been confident in my duelling skills, but I was still a level 2 Tinker, up against a likely level 5 Soldier. At this level, I simply didn''t have the tools to even consider such a thing. People weren''t like mobs; victory wouldn''t be as simple as correctly using my crowd control. Once again, I reminded myself that this wasn''t so bad. There were situations I could''ve been in that were far worse, even if I couldn''t help but think of ones that were far better. Really, it was just the one bad seed. First impressions of the other two party members were better, though neither seemed particularly willing to speak over the jerk while he was taunting me. I couldn''t entirely blame (regardless of how much I wanted to). Sticking your neck out for a complete stranger over something so small? I''m not sure if I would''ve either. The thief, Jakob, seemed a friendly sort who didn''t exactly approve of the soldier¡¯s goading, while the mage, Xandar seemed, well, maybe a little annoyed at the task at hand, or so I guessed. Or maybe at something else. Or maybe he was just generally surly. It didn''t seem appropriate to ask. Especially not when it''d likely give the soldier an excuse to butt in. Looking at it from an overall view, our ''party1'' made me uncomfortable. Not that it mattered, of course, but its lopsidedness offended my sensibilities. We were without utility and, given that the soldier was likely pulling towards a damage dealing role (he seemed like the sort), likely lacked a main tank. We were all equipped so poorly that a player would''ve been handed better gear by the game before even reaching the point where partying up was available. We were dawdling along in an ill-formed cluster, rather than any sort of formation. All facts that factually didn''t matter. They were little more than a metaphorically askew picture frame. It still grated. At that point, it occurred to me that maybe I was looking for things to be annoyed at. As an awkward silence developed in the lull between insults, the thief tried to find something to fill it. "So, uh, what kinda class are you anyway? I don''t know the, y''know..." he asked. Though I would''ve preferred walking in silence, I tried to appreciate his attempt at including me. ¡°Tinker,¡± was my laconic answer. I said tried. ¡°T¡¯ fuck¡¯s that? Some kinda healer?¡± interjected the Soldier, genuinely confused. For a brief moment, I wondered if the old stereotype about girls and healing classes continued here as well. The groups of scouts that''d assembled were something of a sausage party, so to speak. Odd that he didn''t even seem to know of the class, though. ¡°Breaker.¡± He scoffed theatrically. Though he was behind (WHY ARE YOU BEHIND ME, YOU''RE THE CLOSEST THING WE HAVE TO A TANK) me, I could almost hear him rolling his eyes. ¡°Oh, a ¡®Breaker¡¯, lemme bring out the best tea set. Call it a ¡®DPS¡¯ like everyone else; nobody gives a shit about the Guild''s names.¡± I sighed. ¡°Do you even know what ¡®DPS¡¯ stands for?¡± I ground out through teeth I was definitely not gritting. ¡°T¡¯ fuck do ya mean ¡®stands for¡¯? DPS is DPS,¡± was his guileless answer. That I wouldn''t stand for. Whether or not it was something he actually cared about, I didn''t care. He was getting a piece of my mind. I tried to drown him in the full weight of my displeasure. Unfortunately, I couldn''t administer it directly. Doubly unfortunately, neither an unimpressed glare nor a stern explanation were particularly good conductors of displeasure. I''m sure it would''ve been lethal with a better one.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Like my fists. ... Okay, that''s a barefaced lie. Even if I were that annoyed, and even if I were that sort of person, the only person that my fists (and the response they''d provoke) would be likely be lethal to would be me. ... If I were ever to need a wingman, I''d be the last person on my list. All hyperbole aside, I was still quite irritated. He was getting a piece of my mind. And I was going to bludgeon him with it. With as condescending a tone as I could muster, I launched into an explanation. ¡°DPS is an acronym for ¡®Damage per Second¡¯; though it is technically just the ''average'' damage of an entity, whether that be ability, build, individual, etc, reduce to what the amount spread over a single second, it is usually taken to refer a sustained period, with classes designated as ''DPS'' implied to have a high value compared with other classes, and-" "Fuckin'' hell, an'' I was trying to get''cha to say something. You''re a DPS, you do ''DPS'', why''s you gotta get bent out of shape about what you''re called?" he gracelessly interrupted again, gormless smirk begging to be wiped off his face. The breath I took through my nose didn''t make me any less angry. It did stop me from yelling, however, which was mostly just as good. "Incorrect. I do not deal ''DPS'', you cretin. I do burst damage. ''Crit'', to be technical. My class''s damage over extended periods is middling at best," I stated. "Hey, hey, don''t get mad at me, I just pointed out a fa-" "No, you stated something that was strictly incorrect, in an effort to be antagonistic, and thus you are entirely deserving of my ire." "Look, I-" ¡°The designation of the five roles revolve around the advantages a class provides to a party that are both necessary and exclusive. Structure, safety, maintenance, precision and tempo, provided by the Guardian, Sentinel, Steward, Finisher and Breaker respectively. A Finisher and a Breaker solve entirely different problems, neither of which have ANYTHING to do with damage over time and, in fact, Breakers are defined by their abilities to COUNTERACT the normally flat and predictable damage curves seen in other classes, which monsters are equipped to take advantage of and..." The group had stopped. At some point, perhaps I''d gotten a little emotional and perhaps my deliberately pretentious explanation had turned into a rant at some point. "Excuse me, I''ve had a quite unpleasant day," I weakly tried to justify. The awkward silenced loomed in judgment. ¡°The fuck are you talking about? W-The fuck are any of those words meant to me?¡± demanded the Soldier, dropping any pretense of mockery. "...Indeed, pray tell?" finally spoke the mage. "A Guardian takes aggro and keeps it focused, keeping monsters from running around and becoming unpredictable. A Sentinel disarms the ''countermeasures'', so to speak, that monsters naturally have to the Guardian''s stability. A Steward ensures that the party is able to counteract attrition from naturally unavoidable damage. A Finisher negates the advantages an enemy gains from mobility. A Breaker ensures that the monster is unable to leverage its own durability through reckless offense. Those are the core conceits to each of the class roles. Traits such as ''durability'', ''healing'' and ''DPS'', while common to specific roles, do not define them, "...The fuck?" I took a sidelong glance at the other two party members. It showed them silently echoing sentiment. It seemed I''d need an even simpler explanation. "Monster attacks hurt. They hurt even more when they really try. They can sustain themselves. They can be fast. They can force you to be fast. The five roles are each defined by their ability to deal with one of those points." The silence was deafening. "Miss...Erika, was it?" cautiously asked the mage. I nodded curtly. Even if it still sounded odd to answer to, that''d been the name I''d asked to be rostered as. Thus, it was what I needed to answer to. "...How the fuck do you know all this?" My reflexive scoff at such an answer was smothered and shot before I could accidentally say something incriminating. I paused. Chewed over my answer. I''d started the rant explanation assuming that this was common knowledge and that the soldier was simply...Ignorant. That the idea that basic party dynamics wasn''t widely known? Well, perhaps that tied into why things seemed so...low levelled here. Seconds passed without an answer coming to mind. Though I tried to hold a stoic expression, I was squirming on the inside. I''d been so busy being bored, I still hadn''t thought up a good ''cover story''. "...Reasons...and...stuff...? I thought it was general knowledge..." was what my mouth came up with while my brained panicked. Immaculately done, Matthew, that''s sure to get them off your tail. I''m sure they''ll entirely accept that ''explanation'' wholeheartedly and without question. "...Alright, then." ...Uh, okay?. Neither I nor the soldier could quite believe the nonchalance that Xandar had dismissed that with. That said, only one of us had incentive to object. "Oh come on, Xan, you can''t just let her off the hook like that! The hell that''s general knowledge. She''s so obviously hiding something it''s stupid," he argued, a plaintive note creeping into his tone. Thankfully, the mage seemed dismissive of it, already walking off before he started his answer. Something told me the Soldier didn''t exactly get a great deal of respect. Just a hunch. "It''s obviously something she doesn''t want to talk about-" "Yeah, so we should press-" "and there''s no reason to press her for more details, Rob," he concluded with a pointed look. The soldier quickly conceded the staredown, and dropped into a sulking slouch as we continued forward. Score one for not having a proper cover story, I supposed. Though I said nothing, I was reasonably sure the mage could read the gratitude in my eyes. That short conversation was about the most interesting thing to happen that evening. It shut the soldier up and killed the mood for further chatting. We trekked on across the bitter cold heath in silence. Three circuits over two hours, and the extent of our encounters was a single Great Crow. With no regard for its own wellbeing, it swooped down out of the darkness to rake at Xandar. There was a flash of metal, the roar of a fireball, the sudden stench of ozone and, faster than you could blink, the crow was reduced to a rapidly fading plume of aether, as our party reacted as one. It was worth a whopping three experience- twelve divided by four- and one gold. Oh joy, if we run into seventy nine more of these, I''ll be level three. With its novelty quickly worn out, the patrol was just as tedious as staying in town. I supposed it was somewhat obvious why the Yeoman had been so willing to offer the job. This job was trash. * * * * * * * * 1 Okay, technically it wasn¡¯t officially a ¡®party¡¯ by the Archon Online definition of the word, which required the Hero¡¯s Crest obtained after the tutorial, but let¡¯s not get ahead of ourselves quite yet. * * * * * * * * The pay was also trash. Fifty experience and ten gold for three hours work, or so I was awarded by the quest system1. Though perhaps something approaching a ''fair'' pay for the lack of work done the night prior, it was an insulting rate for the time spent, even for my level, which was yet another small indignity. The longest I''d spent previously at level two was about five minutes, as the tutorial quest saw you quickly pushed beyond it. My walk back to the same shack saw me even twitchier and more irritable than I¡¯d been when I¡¯d left.. It was good thing, with the benefit of hindsight. If I¡¯d been satisfied, I¡¯d never have gotten anything done. If I''d been despondent or resigned, perhaps things would''ve gone a very different way. Lethargy was my natural state and I was well acquainted with such emotions. Any sort of pay approaching reasonable would¡¯ve likely seen me either relax, procrastinate or sulk. The torpor would¡¯ve been justified with speculation taken as bitter truth; that progress would naturally be slower without the liberties taken for a ¡®player character¡¯, that I shouldn¡¯t ¡®expect¡¯ things to be gratifying in any sort of reality and that I was best off finding yet another rut I could be content in. But no. The pay was insultingly low. It would¡¯ve taken a full five shifts of scouting to go from level two to three, and nearly a god damn year to reach level ten. The gold reward was barely enough to subsist on, let alone invest in anything more. Scouting was a tedious process that required social interaction to be bearable. And I was expected to rely on it, despite a far better solution sitting right there, where I¡¯d already seen it available. No, sir. This was a bridge too far and a fate I had no interest being doomed to. I was mad. (Or, at least, as close as I came to it) * * * * * * * * 1Yet another thing that I should perhaps have paid more attention to. Though a standard trope of gaming, such a thing seemed utterly baffling as something attached to reality if given any thought.