Nia won the Qualifier match but it was too early to celebrate. She still had six more matches ahead of her and she has already lost the first three, so she had to work extra hard to not end up in Bronze. To make sure that doesn't happen, Yuel stayed by Nia's side to give her advice.
"Go to the advanced settings," Yuel said. "Here, you can choose what you want to mute."
"Oh," Nia nodded. The basic "Mute All" option muted everything: chat, pings, and even the voiced macros. As much as Nia wanted to have a peace of mind during matches, she had to agree this was overkill.
"You can keep the chat muted, that's probably what you wanted in the first place. But, turn the rest on. It's not much of a team game if you can't coordinate anything with your teammates."
"Mhm," Nia nodded and followed the orders.
Turning the pings on was definitely important. However, as for the voiced macros, she wasn't so sure. There were a bunch of smartasses who used the macros to flame, like spamming a sarcastic "Thank you!" or a "Your rock!" into "Cancel that!". Those were so annoying.
However, those were much rarer than chat flaming and it was usually at least somewhat funny. So, Nia turned it on anyway.
With that, she was ready to face her next qualifier match.
[Please don't match me with people who steal roles.] Nia has already typed "Jungler" in the chat in preparation. As soon as the match lobby loaded, she jammed it in! Nobody was able to beat the speed of her stealthy tech!
However, being fast didn't help her. Ranked drafting had a specific order and Nia wasn't anywhere near the top of the list. The second player on the list called Jungler after her but he had the privilege to pick it first, so he ignored Nia's call and went for Ninja. What a bully.
Since the system shoved Nia to the bottom of the list again, so she had only two roles to pick from: Top and Support.
[Nobody wants to play Support, huh.] Yuel smiled wryly. He had the urge to gather all the people who rejected the Support role and personally lecture them about the depth and complexity of the role.
Unfortunately, it wasn't a role that fits everybody. It required playing with a vastly different mindset than other roles and the Support player had to have sufficient game knowledge and experience to make the role be of any help. So, as much as Yuel would have liked to see more people give it a try, he had to concede that Nia was better off playing Top.
"I can Vampire," Nia selected the class but hasn't locked-in yet.
"Vampire? For Top?" Yuel knotted his brows. "Well, it [is] considered a bruiser and it got sustain, but it's not that tanky. You sure?"
"Mhm," Nia nodded multiple times. She was dead set on playing Vampire for some reason. It was primarily a Jungler class so maybe Nia had some experience with it.
"Sure, why not," Yuel shrugged.
Vampire Top was borderline meme territory but this pick had a few merits. For one, Vampire's basics were ranged attacks so it had range advantage over most Top Laners. However, in exchange, it had a lower attack and endurance. So, this was almost like bringing a Carry class to Top. It could either go extremely well or turn into a disaster right away.
The enemy team left their Top pick for last, a thing that would normally be frowned upon in competitive matches. But, this was Ranked and teams were formed out of random players, so meta drafting could be dammed.
"Ah," Nia twitched once the enemy picked their Top Laner. Oh noes. Nonono. Bad. Bad. Bad!
It was a Dark Knight. Out of all things, it had to be that bully. Nia was done for.
"This is a great chance for you to feel for yourself what it means to deal with a Dark Knight in Top," Yuel snickered. "What did you use to say about ganking Top? That the Top Laner should 'play better' and not get overwhelmed by the Dark Knight?"
"Geh..."
"So, this is your chance. Show us how it's done. Deal with that Dark Knight yourself. It's easy, right?"
"Gufu..." Nia curled into a ball. "Bully."
"Well, it's not all bad," Yuel said. "Vampire got range, so at least you can maintain distance whole farming. That's a huge deal against a Dark Knight.
"Oh, so I countered-picked him. I also countered picked that Pyro last game. Maybe I'm genius at counter-picking? Gotta be it."
"Sure, sure," Yuel rolled his eyes. Yeah, [counter-picked the Dark Knight before the opponent even picked it. Truly, such a godlike level of counter picking.]
With that said, counter-picking Dark Knight ahead of time during the Qualifier and at low ranks made sense in general. It was a popular "noob stomper" class because he usually required the enemy team to cooperate in order to take him down. And, with how well-organized teams of random people were... yeah.
"Hm, Tipmancer doesn't have anything for this matchup," Nia twisted her lips. Recently, the more she was using Tipmancer, the more it felt like a sham. Like, the advice was legit and all but there wasn't nearly enough of it. It felt like Yuel stored way more useful game than this entire app.
"I'd go aggressive," Yuel said. "Something like Giant Warhammer."
"Hm?" Nia tilted her head. "Shouldn't I buy defense to survive his attacks?"
"You can try that but it probably won't go well. Your clearing speed is mediocre but your opponent's is off the charts, so you need as much power as you can get to race him. Of course, you won't be able to beat him even with Warhammer but at least his minions won't get to push much."
"So, it's like 'offense is best defense'?"
"Yes, you can put it that way. Play safe from afar but be aggressive with clearing minions."
"Sounds all kinds of weird but I think I get it," Nia nodded.
As expected, the matchup was rough. The Dark Knight wiped out her entire minion wave with a single Dark Blast. Nia had to retreat to her Turret before she even got to sneak in a single hit on the enemy minions.
She resorted to firing at the incoming wave from her tower area. The little bats she sent flying packed a punch thanks to Giant Warhammer. Nevertheless, it didn't stop the enemy from invading her Turret. And, along with the minions, the Dark Knight also fearlessly jumped into her territory and hacked away at the Turret.
[I swear, players in low ranks got no fear.] Yuel smiled wryly.
Perhaps, that Dark Knight took into account it was risky for Nia to shoot him. Vampire wasn't too tanky despite being classified as a "bruiser", so Nia couldn't absorb too much minion fire, especially not during the early game. But no, this player probably didn't think about any of that.
That guy probably assumed the opponent will have to respect him because he was a Dark Knight. It was a typical arrogance that came with being a Dark Knight player. Back in the day, Gregory used to play it a lot and always acted like he was the strongest player in the world.
[Boy did he rage when he played against a competent team that shut him down.] Yuel chuckled. Unfortunately for Nia, her random team wasn't the competent type. She got zero aid from her peers against the Dark Knight.
『HELP!』『HELP!』『HELP!』
『GANK!』『GANK!』『GANK!』
No matter how much she spammed the macros, the Jungler didn't show any signs of caring. That antisocial Ninja only cared about his own farming and left Nia to die.
"Maybe he muted everything," Yuel wondered.
"What kind of Jungler mutes pings and macros?" Nia glanced aside.
"I know, right? Crazy people." Yuel chuckled. "So, looks you're on your own against this Dark Knight. Feeling like chances are in your favor?"
"Not really..." Nia twisted her lips.
"Right, because they really aren't. You need this guy to mess up big time to get anything going here. Otherwise, you'll be like a lamb to slaughter. So, you see why it's so important for somebody to land a hand in Top against a Dark Knight?"
"Guh. This class is broken. Can't he pick an honest one?" Nia pouted.
"It's a noob stomper class, same as Rogue. You're not playing the game for real unless you know how to deal with these classes."
"Then, guess our Ninja isn't playing the game for real," Nia glanced aside.
"Look who's talking," Yuel gave her a look. "Anyway, if the Jungler doesn't gank then you're in trouble. Our Mid isn't doing too hot over there so he doesn't have the luxury to help you either."
"So, GG?"
"Hey, don't write yourself off like that yet. Just because it's a tough position doesn't mean you don't have any chances of coming on top. You might be able to handle it yourself somehow."
"Like how? I wait for him to run low on HP and then attack?"
"Yes, that's a valid approach," Yuel nodded. "I take it you have a lot of experience dueling Dark Knights?"
"More than I care for," Nia shuddered. Back when she was just a naive greenhorn who jumped into Duel unprepared, Dark Knight players were everywhere. It was the most broken thing ever. Just thinking back on it gave her the yikers.
"Considering you reached Platinum, I suppose you learned know to deal with Dark Knight?"
"Yeah, it's easy," Nia nodded. "I just ban it."
"That's... not quite what I was hoping to hear," Yuel frowned. So, Nia's solution to Dark Knight was never fighting him. Huh.
Ranked Duel allowed each player to ban three classes, so it made sense to ban problematic classes. In fact, Dark Knight's bloated ban ratio at low levels made many players use it as justification to complain about the class being OP, even though Dark Knight wasn't nearly as dominant on the highest level of play.
In Duel, Dark Knight was undeniably strong. However, it suffered greatly from the fact the game started at Lv.5, which was halfway toward mid-game. Unless the Dark Knight managed to establish an overwhelming advantage in the first couple of minutes, he was doomed.
Alas, at low levels, players didn't know how to defuse a Dark Knight and it ran all over them. Therefore, it became a popular ban. People rather avoid a Dark Knight than learn the matchup. It was a valid, but the less skillful, approach to ranking up.
Unfortunately, Nia chose to do exactly that. In other words, she didn't [really] have much experience dealing with a Dark Knight on her own. Yuel will have to hold her hand here.
"At least you know the general idea," Yuel said. "Your best shot is to patiently wait for the Dark Knight to run out of HP or to overextend. I take it you learned it from Tipmancer?"
"Mhm," Nia nodded. "This strat kinda works but not really."
"Yeah, I know what you mean. This matchup can be frustrating sometimes. In this mode, it's even harder because you start at Lv.1."
"So, what do?"
"Just do it. Defend and wait. Let's see what kind of Dark Knight we got on our hands and find an opportunity to strike him down."
"Ok." [That's my favorite pastime.] Nia nodded to herself. Turtling and waiting for the opponent to make a mistake was her prime strategy in Duel. At some point, people lowered their guard and committed a grave overextension, which Nia immediately punished with a kill.
But, that was a lot way easier to pull off with an assassin class. Vampire was assassin-ish when built with power items, but it was still a world apart from a proper assassin with burst damage. So, even if this Dark Knight overextends, will Nia be able to properly punish him and get a kill...?
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The laning phase continued with a dark cloud of uncertainty hovering over Nia. Every time, she managed to sneak in one shot on the Dark Knight before he unleashed Dark Blast and wiped out her entire army. Then, she had no choice but to retreat and continue firing from under tower.
The Dark Knight fearlessly invaded with his minions and ravaged the Turret with his black blade. With every wave, Nia's Turret lost a bigger and bigger chunk of HP.
[In most cases, these would be punishable overextensions.] Yuel thought. If Nia were playing a class with heavier CC or more burst, she could've given that Dark Knight a hard time. Alas, Vampire didn't have such tools until Lv.5 so Nia had to play patiently.
Surprisingly, she didn't complain about this routine. In fact, it seemed she liked playing like this. Perhaps, turtling was her preferred playstyle, seeing as she also used it against Vincent and Lars back when she dueled them.
Eventually, Nia hit Lv.5. Alas, by now, the Dark Knight was already at Lv.6 and halfway to Lv.7. On top of that, Nia's Turret was down to 40%. This was a terrible position.
Still, as bad as it was, Nia successfully reached this position without any big losses. She was Lv.5 and had full HP. What little HP she lost to stray shots from minions was healed up via Bloodthirst, Vampire's passive life-stealing. So, she was perfectly healthy but the same couldn't be said for the Dark Knight.
With great power came a great price and the Dark Knight has been slowly but surely paying it. With each Dark Blast he fired, 5% of his HP was sacrificed. In due time, he'll wear himself out. He was already down to 70% at this point.
Fortunately, the guy didn't start off with a life steal item. His only ways to recovery were either killing Nia or using potions, which he didn't seem to have on him. So, as long as Nia stays safe in the back, the Dark Knight will exhaust himself in a couple of waves. That's when Nia will get her chance to strike him down.
Unfortunately, her Turret was in danger. If things keep going on like this, her Turret will crumble in a couple of waves. Not only she'll lose the lane, but it'll also rob her of any good opportunities to kill the Dark Knight before mid-game. Something had to be done before it comes to this.
"You have to spook him a little," Yuel said. "We can't let him keep pushing the Turret without worrying about anything. Next time he invades, Night Horde him."
"Hm, I don't wanna," Nia twisted her lips. "That'll remind him I'm here."
"Yes, that's the idea. We have to remind him that you're here to defend the lane or else he'll keep doing as he pleases."
"I'm ok with that. As long as he doesn't notice me, it's good. That'll let me surprise him real good." Nia snickered.
[So, she's waiting for him to lower his guard completely and then strike.] Yuel nodded to himself. That must have been the true nature of what Vincent referred to as "Vanishing Phantom". By playing passive like this for long enough, Nia made her lane opponent lower their guard and then delivered a fatal blow.
But, how trustworthy was this technique, really? If it was up to Yuel, he wouldn't bet the entire lane on something like that. Instead, he rather poke the Dark Knight out of the tower's area.
However, Nia was the one playing and she was the most familiar with her own playstyle, so it was her call. Besides, Yuel was curious to see whether it'll work this time as well. Still, there was one issue.
"It's good and all if you want to stay low," Yuel said. "But, if you keep letting him do as he pleases, he'll take the tower out. Waiting for the right moment to deliver your strike is pointless if you're going to lose the lane before that opportunity ever arrives.
"I was planning to attack this wave." Nia tilted her head. "I think I can get him."
"You do?" Yuel raised an eyebrow. "Remember, you're not an assassin. You don't have burst."
"Yeah, but I got CC. I did something like this before. I think it'll work."
"Is that so," Yuel wondered. He didn't see the play she had in mind. The Dark Knight has already wiped out Nia's wave and she was in the middle of retreating. What could she possibly pull this time that she couldn't do before?
Yuel wanted to ask but he stayed quiet. He didn't want to distract Nia during this important moment. Soon, the answer will reveal itself on its own.
As usual, the Dark Knight followed his minions into the Turret's range. Nia didn't have enough damage output to kill all the enemy minions on their way to the Turret, so she had no choice but to allow this scenario to play out every time. The repeated successes must have fueled the Dark Knight with confidence; he didn't even think twice about invading the Turret.
[He's not paying any attention to me.] Nia was convinced. Based on how the Dark Knight didn't bother to throw a single glance in her direction this entire time, it was safe to assume she has completely erased her existence from his mind. This was the opportunity to strike!
[I can see it. That should be a kill.] Nia replayed the scenario time and again in her head. [First aggro. Then stun. Then slow down. That should be at least three Turret shots. He's dead.]
Thump. Thump. Nia's heart quickened. It should be good, right? She wasn't missing anything in her estimation? Yeah, it should be good.
[Here goes nothing.] She took a deep breath and waited for the Dark Knight to start a new swing. Now! She rolled forward!
The Dark Knight was already in the middle of swinging his blade so he couldn't stop. He successfully brought down his sword but an unexpected obstacle appeared in front of him. Nia rolled right between him and the Turret!
"Wha-!?" Yuel jumped. What kind of suicidal play was this!? [But, wait. From here she can...!]
The black blade cut through Nia and erased 15% of her HP. It packed a punch but Vampire had decent HP so it was nothing. The only thing that mattered was that the Dark Knight's attack connected. Even though unintentionally, the Dark Knight undeniably struck Nia. He laid a finger on her under the watchful eye of the Turret!
WHAM. The Turret fired a giant bolt in response. This one wasn't aimed at the minions. BAM! It crashed into the Dark Knight and deleted 15% of his HP! The guy was in deep trouble now.
And, this wasn't the end. The Turret will continue its lethal vendetta on the Dark Knight. That bully had no choice but to flee with a tail between his legs.
But, Nia didn't give him the chance. As soon as she recovered from the roll, she activated her ult, Night Hunt. She transformed into a giant bat and crashed into the Dark Knight from point-blank! This CC ability, which was normally intended for traversing some distance, was used as a point-blank insta-stun!
[Brilliant!] Yuel found himself gasping. [She caught him. The Turret is onto him and he can't move. He'll have to eat at least two more shots.]
After bumping into the Dark Knight, Nia reverted back into her Vampire form and hugged the Dark Knight tight. She sucked his blood and locked him in place. Meanwhile, the Turret fired without mercy.
BAM. Another 20% HP gone! Each shot was stronger than the previous when a Turret was focused on a player. The Dark Knight was already down to 30% HP. Combined with the ongoing damage from Night Hunt, the next turret shot will seal the deal.
The enemy minions didn't appreciate this development in the slightest and opened fire on Nia. They did everything in their power to pressure her into leaving their master alone. However, it did nothing. Nia started this fight with full HP, so even heavy fire from an entire minion wave wasn't going to be too lethal.
BAM. The third and last turret shot connected.
『You have killed an enemy!』
The Turret dealt the final blow but everything about this play was Nia's achievement. It was amazing. How did she even come up with such a play? Such a bizarre idea didn't even cross Yuel's mind in this situation. It was art in the making!
[Seems like I didn't need to use Horde in the end. Oh well.] Nia shrugged and switched her focus to the angry mob that was slashing and firing at her. Thanks to these little guys, she dropped all the way from 85% HP to 60%. That wasn't very nice of them, was it? [Time to exterminate.]
"Wait," Yuel said. "Lure them outside the tower. You'll get more farm from killing them there."
"Oh, ok," Nia ran outside the tower area and dragged all the minions with her. Then, she wiped them out one by one.
Finally, the lane was clear. Nia stood there alone. She was victorious! She sized the lane all by herself against a Dark Knight! She did it! Now, she could go ahead and take the enemy Turret-
"Their Jungler is rotating over here," Yuel warned. "You may want to recall for now."
"Ah, um, sure," Nia twisted her lips. [There goes my epic chance to push. This mode is such a pain. Even if I beat my opponent, it doesn't guarantee anything. Such rewarding. Gufu.]
Nia followed Yuel's advice and recalled to base. By the time the enemy Lancer arrived in Top, there was nobody to greet him.
"Do I just upgrade Warhammer?" Nia asked.
"Yeah, that's good enough," Yuel nodded. "That aside, may I ask how in the world you came up with that play?"
"What play?"
"The one where you rolled into the Dark Knight's swing. That was something else."
"Ah, I had to aggro him so figured I could just roll in there."
"Just like that?"
"Yeah. Figured he wasn't paying attention so I could sneak in."
[She sure makes it sound simple. But, that was far from a simple play.] Yuel still couldn't wrap his head around what just happened there. It was indeed simple but, at the same time, it had a hint of brilliance to it.
It reminded of the crazy stunts Lars occasionally pulled in the heat of the moment. However, none of Nia's actions there were partially mind-blowing or even particularly risky. She had a big life lead, so things like being hit by the Dark Knight and aggroing the entire minion wave weren't a true danger. It was a creative play but also a safe and calculated one.
[Was it a fluke?] Yuel wondered. [No, she was too confident about it for it to be a fluke. So, it had to be a tech she learned from somewhere, right? After all, she said she did something like this before.]
"I'm sure Tipmancer didn't teach you that kind of play," Yuel said. "Where did you pick it up?"
"Hm, dunno," Nia shrugged. "I just remember tying something like that before and it worked. So, I did it again. Ah, but last time I was a Drow, though."
"With Drow?" Yuel raised an eyebrow at first but then it clicked. She probably blew up the Drow's phantom right in the enemy's face in order to stun them. Another smart tower jailing play.
Did Nia really invent that play all by herself? If so, there was more to Nia than met the eye. In fact, Vincent would immediately jump on the opportunity to make up a silly name for that "ability". He'd probably call her something silly like "The Tower Jailor!"
With every passing play, Nia was shaping up to be a more and more interesting player. Even though the club initially prioritized her over other candidates for her gender, she has been exhibiting a lot of potential. Her skill was raw and unpolished at the moment, but if Yuel helps her learn the game and solidify her foundation, she might transform into a scary player.
If you're enjoying the story, please review it and vote for it. つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
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