The Great Thief

After entering the second phase, the pressure on the team immediately increased. A wave of Thaurissan’s hand could stun and deal damage to one of the ranged players.

This effect didn’t matter too much, but Emperor Thaurissan could also go into his Avatar of Flame. This effectively turned him into a God, as he became immune to all magic and dealt constant fire damage to the melee players.

This phase was quite difficult for both the ranged and melee players.

Most of the ranged players used magic attacks and the Boss would become periodically immune to all magic. The other ranged players also had to deal with being stunned from range.

When the melee players were being burned, sometimes they couldn’t receive healing support. The first time this happened, the all-star team got wiped.

In their second attempt, Lu Li divided the three Healers into three positions. Each of them stood at a different point around Emperor Thaurissan. Two of them were as far as they could be, without being out of range of the Main Tank. However, one of them stood outside of the Boss’ range, and served as a backup Healer.

When Emperor Thaurissan cast Thaurissan’s hand, he could only target the two healers at the very most.

This way, they would always have a healer ready to cast a skill if they needed to save everyone.

This strategy didn’t come without its disadvantages, but it was better than having three stunned Healers, which would ultimately result in their team getting wiped.

In fact, if they had more Hunters, they could have used a bug to pull Emperor Thaurissan away from the throne. The princess wouldn’t follow him, so this meant that they could isolate him on the battlefield.

However, this wasn’t a bug that was obviously exploitable, and Hot Twitch probably didn’t have the requisite skills.

They had now reached the second phase for the second time.

Some of the star players were starting to get impatient. They rarely participated in obtaining the First Clears because they thought it was too time consuming. They thought it was better to go farming until the Instance Dungeon’s strategies had been worked out. Then, they would enter the Instance Dungeon and do it according to the strategies that had been discovered.

“The main problem is our melee damage. Don’t get greedy with it – we can attack in close range, but we need to ensure our own safety. This is still the second phase, so losing anyone means we’ll get wiped,” Lu Li said, speaking primarily to the melee players.

Before the ranged players could laugh, Lu Li turned towards them and continued, “You guys who deal magic damage, you can’t deal any damage to him, so why are you just stupidly standing there? Why don’t you get out of the Boss’ range?”

If they stood too closely, they would likely be attacked by Thaurissan’s area of effect skills. Princess Moira was also often finding ways to damage the players, which increased the pressure on the Healers.

“This is too slow, especially with the princess who keeps healing him. If we can’t crowd control her or kill her, we won’t be able to do it,” Wendelian commented, thinking about this differently.

Lu Li was silent for a while before nodding. He then assigned Hornet’s Nest to Silence the Princess.

Silences didn’t deal any damage, so it wouldn’t ultimately affect her.

However, they only lasted for three seconds. After three seconds, Princess Moira would start channeling her healing again and would also cast Shadow Word: Pain on Hornet’s Nest. Hornet’s Next couldn’t take the attacks, so he immediately casted a two second knock down effect that also dealt damage.

Although Moira wasn’t a Boss, she still had 150,000HP, so this kind of damage wouldn’t kill her anytime soon.

However, Lu Li sighed silently in his heart.

In an instant, Emperor Thaurissan started going Berserk. His hammer blazed with fire and a sea of flames rose from the ground as everyone was killed.

The group of players soon returned to the main hall and were dumbfounded.

If you attacked Princess Moira in the first stage before Thaurissan borrowed the power of Ragnaros, he wouldn’t do anything. In fact, when Princess Moira died, Emperor Thaurissan would lose all hope and this ultimate skill wouldn’t appear.

However, after the first stage, Thaurissan was able to summon the power of Ragnaros at any time.

As such, the group was always moments away from getting wiped.

With Hornet’s Nest and Wendelian squatting there, Lu Li clapped his hands and said, “Now we know that we can’t attack the Princess after stage two. Nothing good will come from it.”

Just like that, they started over and quickly reached stage two once again.

The reason as to why this stage was difficult was mainly because of Princess Moira. Most of her healing skills were interrupted by Lu Li, but there were some that were instantaneous and could not be interrupted.

Regeneration: Iron Maiden Princess Moira Bronzebeard casts Regeneration on an ally, giving them regeneration every 3 seconds.

This state was almost always active on Thaurissan, which greatly increased the duration of the fight. During this time, they had to stay on their toes because any mistake could result in their death.

Emperor Thaurissan was a Boss that was extremely difficult for magic players. He could basically only be damaged by those who were close-ranged.

Once one or two melee players died, it was almost impossible to enter the third stage.

After being wiped a few more times, Lu Li declared for everyone to take a break.

“Hey, this Instance Dungeon is really difficult. Sorry Lu Li, I shouldn’t have chosen Nightmare Difficulty,” Azure Sea Breeze sighed as he sat down. He had to swallow his pride as Nightmare Difficulty was much harder than Elite Difficulty.

“Don’t say that. How could Elite Difficulty be worth of a line-up like ours?” Elevenless comforted.

“We have been making progress. I feel like we will make it into the next stage with a few more attempts.”

Lu Li shook his head, but not because he was offended. Even if he chose the difficulty, he would have also picked Nightmare.

If such a team was placed in the later weakened Instance Dungeon, they would have already defeated Emperor Thaurissan even without the bug.

At the present, the most crucial thing was that their teamwork wasn’t there yet. The synergy between the different healers, the melee players controlling their damage output and the ranged damage dealers hadn’t been developed. These were all important factors that determined the ability of a team to clear Instance Dungeons.

It had only been two days since they had started together as a team. It was far from perfect, but it was still commendable. Otherwise, they wouldn’t standing here before Emperor Thaurissan.

Wendelian thought that running between the Emperor and the Princess was a waste of time for Lu Li.

“The princess’ healing can be interrupted by the magic players, so Lu Li’s damage output can be increased.”

“That works too. If you have a skill that can interrupt channeling, make sure you cast it,” Lu Li agreed.

In the end, it was determined that Phantom Gaze, Unforgettable Maple and Sorrowless would be the three players to interrupt the Princess. If they had any crowd control skills, they would also use them on her.

After everything was ready, the battle began once again.