บท 364: Power Support

While William only contributed to the lane's tug of war by landing a couple of basic attacks, Ronald hit the entire wave at once with his Ray of Light.

The AoE torched the entire enemy wave, and it dealt decent damage thanks to the power in his build. For all intents and purposes, his farming speed was nearly on par with that of an early-game Mid Laner.

"Hehe." Ronald grinned. "Did you see how I cleared almost the entire lane myself? It was all me, bro!"

"Yes, yes, very impressive." William rolled his eyes.

"Damn right!" Ronald nodded. "And to think that Cato still says that building early power is trash for Support. Hah! In your face, dumbass! Just look at this result!"

"I don't think I ever called it a 'trash' build," Cato argued. "You better get your ears checked, boy."

"C'mon, you always nag me about this shit."

"Yeah, because it's inefficient," Cato explained. "You're only enjoying the damage for now while flat power is better than scaling. But, by all means, show me your 'amazing' damage again when we hit the mid-game. I'll wait."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. It'll fall off and stuff. But, until then...!"

"Until then, you're wasting your gold on building items that will be borderline worthless in the late-game. But, you do you."

"You bet I will! We gonna dominate the lane with my mega clearing speed!"

As extreme as it sounded, it was no exaggeration. At this early point in the game, Ronald's clearing speed was impressive enough to dominate the lane. He flat-out outcleared everybody else in Bot, which allowed his side to gain the early momentum.

Against his unparalleled power, the enemy has no choice but to flee in terror!

"Let's retreat," Yuel said. "They won this round."

"Tch, what a bummer." Lars pouted. "I was even doing such a good job zoning the Droid, but this Lumi just woke up and chose violence. Impressive damage tho, not gonna lie."

"Yes, it is quite oppressive," Yuel agreed.

This oppressive damage showed off Lumimancer's potential as a viable Mid Laner. His Ray of Light delivered sizable AoE DoT and it liked flat power.

However, the power scaling of Ray of Light was rather poor. It was the main thing that held Lumimancer back from becoming a viable pick for Mid.

[But, Challenger is playing Support, not Mid.] Yuel analyzed. [He's probably planning to switch to a more traditional support build once we get into the mid-game. I can't say I'm a fan of his approach, but it IS a viable tactic. I've seen it a few times even in the pro scene.]

With that said, given the Leopards' game plan, it was odd that Cato approved of such an aggressively early-game build. AbsoluteChallenger was stacking early power that'll become borderline useless in the later stages of the game. Therefore, this build was literally the opposite of playing the long game.

In fact, out of everybody in the Leopards, Challenger was the only one focusing on the early-game here. Was that intentional? Or, was he just a disobedient troublemaker?

[Somehow, I feel like it's the latter.] For the better or the worse, Yuel had his fair share of experience watching various different troublemakers play Classmancers. Therefore, he was fairly confident about branding Challenger as a troublemaker who ignored the rest of his team in favor of pushing his own agenda.

[I assume he's the "filler" for their team.] Yuel deduced. [He'll probably be the one they sub out once the Korean player steps in.]

If true, then Challenger was nothing but a warm-up for the real challenge ahead. Therefore, he wasn't allowed to stump Stratus in any shape or form.

[The harder we shut him down, the more the Leopards will feel the need to sub him for Apprentece. At least, that's what I think.]

"Keep zoning the Droid," Yuel said. "I'll handle the Lumimancer."

"Okey-dokey!"

The next minion wave arrived. Like before, Challenger cast Ray of Light around the entire wave. Torching sunlight burned both the swordsmen and the bowmen.

However, Yuel didn't allow it to last. He cast Gaia's Protection, covering himself with a shield made of branches. Then, he stepped into the blazing light. The consequences were immediate.

The sunlight burned his shield, sapping at its HP. Even though Yuel himself didn't lose any HP from this, the allied minions still considered this an attack on him.

And so, they banded against the offender - Challenger. They charged straight at the guy, leaving the area torched Ray of Light.

Needless to say, this threw a wrench in Challenger's plans.

"Heh, so that's how they play." Ronald grinned. "Pretty smooth. But, also kinda annoying, not gonna lie."

Thanks to Chessmaster victimizing himself, the entire enemy army was angry with Ronald for no good reason. The little dudes charged at him like an angry mob coming to execute a criminal.

To make it worse, Ronald built Attack Power over HP and Defense. Therefore, the minions' attacks were going to hurt that much more.

"Yikes, I gotta scram!" Ronald backpedaled, all the while firing balls of light at the approaching mob. "What a nasty trick, seriously"

Chessmaster's little ploy messed everything up. It nullified Ronald's amazing clearing speed because the minions left the range of Ray of Light, and it also put Ronald himself in jeopardy. What a pain, dang it!

"It sure slows us down," William said. "But, we can use this to our advantage. Lure them toward me and I'll place a drone."

"Okay, got it." Ronald led the approaching mob like a shepherd, drawing them toward his brother.

In the meantime, William summoned an Assault Drone. And, unlike last time, he didn't order the drone to follow him around, as that proved to be too risky.

Instead, the drone was placed on the field as a stationary object. When placed like this, the drone will not budge from its fixed position, which was either a good thing or a bad thing depending on the situation.

In this particular scenario, it was far more advantageous to place the drone in a fixed spot, far away from Gunz's reach. With the drone residing this deep within the allied territory, Gunz would have to overextend in order to shoot it down.

And so, the drone safely popped up at the designated location and started shooting at the incoming minions.

In this stationary mode, the drone had a mind of its own and targeted enemies with the same priority a minion would. Therefore, the drone shot laser beams at the nearest minions first. Namely, the swordsmen.

[Not optimal, but good enough for now.] William nodded in satisfaction as he opened fire at the bowmen in the back.

Normally, besides the minion-like AI, a stationary drone would prioritize the Droid's targets. However, in this case, it was impossible. The bowmen were too far in the back at the moment, so the drone couldn't reach them.

As such, the drone defaulted to the usual minion AI priority and continued shooting the swordsmen. However, that was far from ideal and William wanted that fixed ASAP.

"Ron, draw the bowmen closer to the drone."

"Working on it!"

Ronald drew the minions deeper and deeper until the bowmen finally stepped within the drone's attack range. Next, William and the drone joined forces to eliminate the entire enemy backline first.

Thankfully, William didn't have to contest his drone for last-hits. Any kill scored by the drone counted as William's own kill, including the last-hit bonus. This made the entire situation rather convenient.

[Frankly, this is much easier than racing against Ron's spell.] William admitted. [I even missed a couple of last-hits in the previous wave because his spell dealt too much damage.]

Compared to that, farming alongside the drone was an easy life. This was the true way Droid was designed to be played.

With that said, even with the drone helping him, all of William's damage was single-targeted. On the other hand, the enemy side had a nice way to hit the entire wave in one shot.

BAM! Gunz unleashed Backfire Cannon. The big shell blasted through the entire minion wave.

[Dang!] Ronald pouted. [They gonna outclear us at this rate! Our flippin' drone is taking way too long to do any real damage!]

It was such a shitshow. Ronald went for a power build in order to dominate the lane, not to lose it against some lame shit like this…!

"Hey, bro!" Ronald called out. "This is taking way too long, so I'mma go in too."

"That's unnecessary-"

"Too late!" Ronald activated Blinding Light, coating himself in whiteness. Then, he used Flash and blinked right into the middle of the enemy formation!

All the minions still had their eyes on Ronald, so they raised their weapons to strike the reckless prey! But of course, he didn't let them to. His Blinding Light exploded faster than the minions delivered their attacks.

Whiteness exploded from Ronald, blinding all the minions around him. For a moment, all of them lost track of their target and lowered their weapons. For a few seconds, not a single one of them was going to hit Ronald.

"Huehue, did you see that tight timing, bro!?" Ronald grinned. "I disarmed them in the last moment!"

"As impressive as it's unnecessary." William shrugged.

"C'mon, don't be like that, bro. I even timed it so it hits right after you score a last-hit on that last bowman. It was perfect!"

"It was mechanically impressive, sure. But, leaving the last-hits to me is a given, not an achievement."

"Haha, okay. I see you aren't gonna praise my awesome play no matter what, huh."

"There just isn't much to praise there." William shrugged. "I know you're good enough to pull plays like this, so it's nothing new. I mean, I only allow you to play wild like this as my Support because I trust you to do things properly."

"Aww, bro~ No need to flatter me so much."

"Seriously?" William made a face. [That's why I hate giving any praise. It always goes to his head. Sigh.]

With all that said, William did think positively of Ronald's performance overall. Despite playing an off-meta supporting style, Ronald was doing a good job living up to the expectations of a traditional meta Support.

Meanwhile, there was someone else on the team who was far less impressed with how things were developing in Bot.

"Ronald, how did you lose so much MP so early?" Cato demanded.

"Oh brother, here comes the nagger..." Ronald rolled his eyes. "Well, how do YOU think I lost MP? By casting spells, duh. I made some sick plays and stuff."

"My, 'sick plays', you say." Cato opened up the list of Ronald's skills. As he feared, all three of the Lumimancer's spells were on cooldown. "Did you really just dump your entire kit on one enemy wave?"

"Haha, sure did!"

"What for, exactly?"

"Well, you see..." Ronald summarized the lane situation. "So, with how things developed, I had to even things out!"

"In other words," Cato said. "You wasted a lot of precious MP for no good reason."

"Pretty much," William agreed.

"Whaaaa?" Ronald pouted. "C'mon, seriously? Are you two certified bullies or something? Because I'm sure feeling bullied right now."

"Maybe you shouldn't make stupid plays, and then we won't have anything to criticize you for. Ever thought of that?"

"Hah, fat chance," Ronald said. "Even if I play better than the best pro out there, you two would still nitpick something. I'm like 1,000,000% sure."

"Hmm. I can't deny it's a possibility," Cato admitted. "But, jokes aside, you seriously have to take better care of your MP."

"But, look how awesome that play was!" Ronald insisted. "We won the entire lane thanks to it."

Just as he said, the damage he delivered with Blinding Light strongly shifted the lane advantage in their favor. It was only thanks to this marvelous play that their side outcleared the enemy Pirate, a bruh who had access to AoE damage via Backfire Cannon.

So yeah, it's only thanks to Ronald's amazing execution and brave effort that the brothers earned their second victory in the lane. They were 2-0, baby!

"My, you sure make it sound like you did such good work," Cato said. "10/10 effort, no doubt,"

"Right? Right?"

"Now tell me, considering the MP cost of this entire routine, how many more times do you think you can repeat it before you burn yourself out?"

"Welp, probably not too many," Ronald admitted. "But hey, it's the message that counts, right? I showed them that me and bro can outclear them every time, so they won't even try to contest us again!"

"Oh, my sweet summer child. I wish our opponents were that braindead."

Unlike that brainless buffoon, Cato was capable of reading a few steps ahead. That's why he knew this situation wasn't all sunshine and rainbows like Ronald believed.

And surely, Yuel reached the same conclusion on his end.

"Yo! You saw that?" Lars exclaimed. "Dude straight up blinked into the middle of the wave while everybody and their moms were aggro'd on him! But, they couldn't even hit him because of that flash! Sick play!"

"Yeah, I saw it," Yuel said. "As far as execution is considered, I agree it was relatively impressive." [But, it's just a cocky show-off. There was no real substance behind that play. It didn't solve anything for them.]

Although Challenger's slick combo of Blinding Light + Flash allowed him to reclaim lane advantage, it came with a great MP cost. The Lumimancer was already down to 70% MP after just two waves.

[He won't be able to keep this up for long.] Yuel thought. [So, this isn't a real solution for him. I can keep countering his AoE with the same tactic and wait for his MP to run dry.]

And so, in the next wave, Yuel was planning to do exactly that. Until the enemy comes up with a real answer, he was going to force them to repeat this unfavorable routine. Over, and over, and over again.