Ability: Rallying Cry
All party members within 50 feet gain a 20% boost to base stats for 30 seconds.
Titus had no party members, but the ability affected him well enough. The increase to his base damage became apparent as he swung hammer strike after hammer strike at Slam. Each one hit hard, taking chunks out of her health. The wall helped as well, still spraying sparks as it electrocuted her. Her health plummeted. By the time she was able to regain her senses and pull herself off the wall she was down to thirty-seven percent health.
“Ha! There you go, big guy!” Kaiden cheered. He’d taken a definitive lead in the damage race with his wall trick. Now all he had to do was finish strong. Keep trading damage for damage.
“You’re tough, I’ll give you that,” Slamwich snarled. “But not tough enough!”
Ability: Fiery End
A high-damage attack. On a successful hit, the target is set on fire.
Slam wound up for a big swing, axe head spitting embers like a fire threatening to burst to life, but Titus seemed unfazed.
This is about the time that I would dodge away, Kaiden thought.
Titus scored another hammer strike, then Slam’s massive axe burst full-on into a roaring inferno. “Been a fun fight, but it’s time to end it,” she said and swung the flaming axe.
“I agree,” Titus said.
Ability: Reflection
Reflects 20% of damage absorbed by the warden’s shield back against the attacker for 10 seconds.
He raised his shield and blocked Fiery End. Flames exploded outward, charring and burning the turf around, but most of the damage never reached Titus. His shield tanked it, then began to waver and shake, clearly on the verge of overloading from Slamwich’s powerful attack. The flames from the attack caught on Titus’ armor and began eating away at it, dealing burning damage each second.
Reflection bounced twenty percent of the damage back at Slam and set her health bar to flashing. Improved Volt Field zapped her for half of Titus’ base damage and her life total settled at twenty-nine percent.
The exchange left Titus’ health in the red, all the way down to forty-five percent, and it was dropping by the second thanks to the flames. Still, Slam had a lot of work to do to make up the disparity from being thrown into the wall. Titus’ shield was near overloaded. She recognized that and charged in again.
But Titus knew what he was doing.
Ability: Improved Barrier
You stand still and become the epicenter of a large barrier to defend your allies, increasing in size depending on how much charge you use. During this time your shield does not absorb additional charge. 10% of all damage blocked during this time converts into a protective force-field around you once ability ends. Unable to use if your shield is already overloaded.
He fired off the ability and the barrier swelled around him. He kept pumping charge into it until it was big enough to encompass him and Slamwich. And then, all at once, he canceled the ability and the barrier fell away.
He’s dumping charge! Kaiden realized. Using any ability he can to burn off charge and keep his shield from overloading. Nice!
Slamwich huffed at that, pausing for a moment to take in the situation. She was facing a shield warden with a still-active shield and all the charge he could want. Sure, Titus was on fire – the flames had eaten away at him, dropping his health to thirty-nine percent – but Slamwich was even lower on health.
“Guess it’s just a damage race then, eh?” Titus said, then lashed out with a hammer strike. The blow connected, knocking three percent off of Slamwich’s health
She took that hit, then two more, health down to nineteen percent, before she used Meteoric Launch again – this time to retreat. She launched into the air and did her best to put distance between herself and Titus.
All the while, the flames on him chewed through his armor.
She’s trying to let the damage over time finish him off, Kaiden realized.
Titus was down to thirty-three percent. He wasn’t waiting around for Slamwich’s plan to play out, though. She landed from the Meteoric Launch to find an energy lasso wrapping around her torso. Titus yanked and she was dragged back to him.
She clambered to her feet and lashed out with her axe. Titus simply stepped into the attack. Slamwich seemed taken aback as he tanked the damage, then wrapped her in a bear hug.
“Wait, what’s this?” the announcer said, also taken aback by the strategy. Kaiden didn’t blame him – right up until he remembered their earlier fight on Odditor’s planet. Particularly the part where a flaming hominoid had wrapped Titus in a similar hug.
The still-burning flames from Slamwich’s earlier Fiery End spread from Titus’ armor back to their creator. Both players took damage from the fire, but with Titus holding such a large health lead – twenty-seven to nineteen, now – time was against Slamwich.
“Damn it,” she said with a frown as the flames snapped and spat. She heaved Titus off, clearly having the higher strength stat, and slashed with her axe, but Titus attacked as well. They traded blows back and forth, cutting chunks from each other’s health. Titus’ lead was too big, though, and as a tank he could take more hits than his DPS-based opponent.
“Hey, good fight. Though in future you might want to remember that shield wardens are one of the highest HP classes in the game,” Titus said with a calm, almost friendly tone, then landed a hammer strike on Slamwich’s head that wiped out the rest of her health. Her eyes rolled up and she crumpled to the ground.
There was silence for a moment, everyone seeming to try and process exactly what had happened.
“And there it is, folks! A surprise turnaround!”
“Yeah!” Kaiden shouted, jumping to his feet and cheering. Zelda and Thorne did the same, but they were the only ones in the arena to do so. The Maximus guild members who’d been watching broke out in a flurry
