Wouldn’t having ended up as a melee-melee pairing mean that if the regularly falling spread-type damage overlapped, DPS loss would be unavoidable?
But contrary to Suyeong’s brief worry, Yeonjun spoke first.
[Party/Ignis: Crusader-nim]
[Party/Middle-Aged Hunter: Yes yes]
Was he going to ask him to be careful so that they could each step away a little when they were DPSing?
Contrary to what Suyeong expected, what came out of Yeonjun’s mouth was something he had never expected.
[Party/Ignis: I’ll move out on my own]
[Party/Ignis: So just stand there and turret-DPS from the front]
‘…?’
Before Suyeong could even fully dwell on the question, the time-attack gimmick began at once.
At that moment, when they had to destroy the collapsed pillar while avoiding the boss’s persistent interference, trapped in a separated space alone with Ignis-nim, Suyeong felt like he understood at least a little why Haein was so stalkerishly obsessed with Ignis.
[System: <Inferno Cutter>]
The moment Ignis swung his blade in a long horizontal stroke, blazing effects erupted at once and medium-range damage slammed in hard.
But if he did that, wouldn’t he be unable to land his melee combo and fail to maintain his stacks?
Contrary to Suyeong’s worry, Ignis did not miss even that tiny instant when their spread-type debuffs did not overlap, and quickly stuck to the pillar to pour in damage.
How is that possible?
Just as Haein was famous for his petty evasiveness, the way he never let himself get hit even once, Ignis too was landing melee hits at perfect timing, then pulling right back out without wasting the cooldown on his medium-range attack skills.
[System: <Phoenix Feather>]
For a melee class, the fact that it did not have to rely on rooted turret damage and instead kept full freedom of movement made it practically a scam class.
‘No, fuck, shouldn’t Flammer be the one getting nerfed?’
For a moment Suyeong, as a melee player whose position overlapped, burned with jealousy toward Flammer, but he quickly came back to his senses.
As far as he knew, there was only one person who could handle control like that so freely.
There was a reason Haein had wailed like a zealot that, in this world, there were only two kinds of Flammers.
Before Suyeong could even finish admiring him, Yeonjun’s DPS came surging upward toward third place at a frightening pace.
Even while the boss kept interfering with all kinds of gimmicks, Ignis was showing off a perfect damage cycle, gliding elegantly between melee and medium range.
To be outputting damage on par with rankers fully decked out in Epic raid gear while only wearing newly max-level artisan gear.
Suyeong was seeing with his own eyes right then that he really was good, but if he had not confirmed it directly himself, he definitely would have treated it as one of two things: hacks, or bullshit.
[Guild/Middle-Aged Hunter: He really is crazy good]
[Guild/Middle-Aged Hunter: ㄷㄷ]
At Suyeong’s pure admiration, Haein glared at PleaseScoldMe’s nickname with murderous eyes.
Because of that bastard, he had missed his chance to directly witness a max-level DPS cycle from right next to him.
If it weren’t for this piece of shit, Ignis-nim would be standing in that spot right now instead of you.
Oblivious to Haein’s situation, Yeonjun was by then sharpening all his senses in the darkened room so he could focus.
The gimmick itself was not that difficult, but sweat dampened his hands from the sense of obligation that he had to keep his damage from falling too far behind the other DPS.
By ordinary common sense, no one would even think of trying to out-DPS rankers in full raid gear with crafted gear, even if it was artisan gear.
But for Yeonjun, who until the day he quit had never once lost first place in party DPS rankings, things like gear difference were of no interest and none of his concern.
The simple fact that, as a Flammer, he was losing first place to another class was itself intolerable.
Isn’t there time to cram in one more instant cast?
Even while quickly twisting sideways to avoid the damage from the rocks falling away from the pillar, he savagely dug for any opening where he could squeeze in one more hit.
[System: <Ignition Flare>]
With the skill effect of the blade shooting straight up toward the sky and then slamming back down toward the ground, the pillar in the space where Suyeong and Yeonjun were trapped shattered first.
Immediately after, the other sections also succeeded in breaking free, and the boss charged twice toward the center, unleashing a knockback attack.
[???: You vermin! To defy the will of the Great One!]
The boss slammed down its long tail with a crash, spreading a ground-pattern attack across the floor, and Haein quickly applied the Fair Wind buff to Ignis-nim.
A small icon appeared in Yeonjun’s status bar indicating that the Fair Wind buff had been applied, but Yeonjun did not seem to notice it right away.
That was only natural.
He had never received it before, so even if something like that got attached, he would not even register that it had.
‘Though if he’s maintaining stacks on his own anyway, it probably won’t even be necessary…’
Haein immediately confirmed that the buff link with PleaseScoldMe had been severed and switched over into damage-sharing mode with Ignis-nim.
With the gear gap, the linked damage coming in would probably fall below what it had been when it was connected to Hon-nim…
‘…?’
Rather than dropping, it had gone up?
The moment Haein rubbed his eyes and checked the DPS record widget, irreverently enough, he had no choice but to doubt his own eyes.
Real-Time DPS Ranking
- Middle-Aged Hunter
- Ignis
- PleaseScoldMe
- DoHaesal
Ignis-nim’s DPS had somehow edged past PleaseScoldMe by a hair.
Are you insane, how is that even possible?
At the moment Haein narrowed his eyes at the unbelievable ranking, the boss’s HP dropped to zero, with even the phase getting skipped early after only ten minutes, earlier than expected.
[System: You have completed Chapter 7 Final Chapter Normal Difficulty <Altar Singing of Despair>.]
‘It’s over…!’
At the moment when everyone was so stunned by the absurd DPS maintenance of a Flammer who had only just hit max level that nobody could even say a word, Yeonjun was thinking something entirely different.
‘Ha… in the end I couldn’t beat that Crusader.’
He did not know whether it was because the phase changed partway through and fire-attribute damage started landing better, but the damage had definitely improved a little.
No, wait a second, if it was just because fire-attribute damage was landing better… looking at it, the Battle Mage seemed to have dropped a bit instead…
At that moment, Yeonjun did not know that the reason was because Haesal had shifted the buff over to him.
If it had been the old him, then gear difference or no gear difference, he naturally would have taken first place in DPS…
But this was a raid he was seeing for the first time today, and his physical skill really had dulled a lot, so it was not strange at all even if he had given up first place to the Crusader.
Still, there was no helping the fact that it stung his pride.
Among all DPS classes, if you measured pure damage potential alone, Flammer was unquestionably number one.
The difference in potential should have overcome the gear gap.
While Yeonjun was chewing over the kind of regret that would make anyone hearing it think, what kind of nonsense is he talking about, Planaria was the first to recover and pour out admiration.
[Party/Planaria: Amazing]
[Party/Planaria: This is the first time I’ve ever seen a Flammer do more than two people’s worth in a raid]
[Party/Planaria: You’re seriously so good;;]
Everyone had expected he would be good, since he was that legendary Named, but thinking that after all the time that had passed, he would probably just be a bit better than a freshly maxed player, that had been a huge mistake.
Even Haein, who had kidnapped Ignis into the party, of course had known he would be good, but even so, now that he was seeing it with his eyes, he found it hard to believe and could not bring himself to type right away.
And at that very moment, PleaseScoldMe caused another accident.
[Party/PleaseScoldMe: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Ah of course, Ignis-nim is crazy famous and stupidly good]
[Party/PleaseScoldMe: Not just like some representative master or anything]
[Party/PleaseScoldMe: Honestly, the idea of not knowing Ignis-nim while playing Flammer]
[Party/PleaseScoldMe: is on a level that just makes no sense, yeahㅇㅇ]
Yeonjun had been about to respond modestly that he was not that good, that he had been disappointed because he had fumbled in the middle and missed the timing for instant casts a few times, but the moment he saw PleaseScoldMe’s chat, the blood ran cold.
[Guild/Middle-Aged Hunter: ?]
[Guild/Middle-Aged Hunter: What the hell is Hon-nim saying right now]
[Guild/Green Onion Checks: Hon-nim wait a second]
Before the chill atmosphere could fully spread through Yeonhwa guild chat, Yeonjun immediately denied his own identity.
[Party/Ignis: I think you’re mistaken because the nickname’s the same]
[Party/Ignis: I just picked up the nickname, I’m not that person]
Even in the face of Yeonjun’s direct denial, PleaseScoldMe showed no sign of accepting that something might be wrong.
As a result, before anyone could stop him, he blurted out a bombshell that never should have come flying out.
[Party/PleaseScoldMe: What are you even sayingㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[Party/PleaseScoldMe: There’s no one here who doesn’t knowㅋㅋㅋ]
[Party/PleaseScoldMe: What kind of ancient joke is thatㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[Guild/Baesuk Heuin: What the fuck is this idiot saying right now]
[Guild/Middle-Aged Hunter: Someone shut Hon-nim’s chat off]
But PleaseScoldMe finished typing faster than anyone could mute him.
[Party/PleaseScoldMe: Our guild master has been talking about Ignis-nim nonstop for basically almost 3 weeks latelyㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[Party/PleaseScoldMe: He said Ignis-nim kept insisting he wasn’t him, so we even did stakeoutsㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[Guild/Seol Heewon: I’m going insane………………]
[Guild/MintChocoJokbal: ◕‿◕………………]
[Party/MintChocoJokbal: I’m sorry, but I’m going to leave first]
[System: MintChocoJokbal has logged out.]
Only then, in the dead, frozen silence that had seized the entire chat window, did PleaseScoldMe realize with a start that he might have had a slip of the tongue, and he slowly scrolled through the messages that had gone by.
Finally spotting the traces of his guildmates, who had been trying to stop him for some time now, he hammered the final nail into this disaster with one last line.
[Party/PleaseScoldMe: Oh shit;;]
[Party/PleaseScoldMe: Wait, were you still pretending not to be him even now?]
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