Ashes of the Fallen

"Well even if that didn’t happen, those priests were healing all the damage we did," stated Ethan with a shrug. "We need to kill them somehow, only the minors died."

Without the ability to see much of anything with all of the pyrotechnics going on, I was woefully short of information. All I knew, was that the archers were deadly. Too deadly to be left alone again, less I wanted an arrow to the knee or throat again.

This fight was rough.

"I couldn't really see anything, how many died?" I asked after gathering my thoughts. "And were any others close, or what?"

Silence filled the room as we continued to walk back, with everyone thinking over the fight from their perspective. Barik and I couldn't watch all of the goblins, what with being stuck in melee and concentrating on swords and spears flying towards us.

That left the mages, to be our eyes.

"Most of the minor goblins were about dead," said Ethan after some time. "The guards were near full health at the end thanks to the priests though."

"The priests and archers were basically at full health," echoed the frost mage.

Ah, so our Area of Effect strategy wasn't good enough.

Not with the priests still up, but that was expected.

"How about you, Alan?" I questioned sincerely. "See anything?"

"Nope, too busy healing you," he replied.

By the time we made it back to the fifth floor and entered the boss's room, all fourteen goblins were standing pretty in the same position as before. They had been reset and spawned at full health and with full numbers.

Yeah, we wouldn't get the easy way out.

It would be too convenient for the minions not to respawn.

"So, what do we do?" asked Barik as he checked the condition of his shield.

"I don't think freezing rain will work here," I bluntly stated. "May have worked alright for some of the earlier fights, but we need to burn targets here not outlast them."

"Can't kite the boss either, it'll just leash," Barik explained.

"Yeah, we need some changes."

Strategy was almost always left to me, but it was a group discussion and all input was valued. Unfortunately some of the guys weren't very vocal, which kind of hurt the process. Racking my brain trying to think of a way to fix our issues, the only thing that came to mind was having a mage solo the minor goblins or splitting into two groups.

Friendly fire was a real issue.

We needed the priests and archers taken care of before we could worry about the guards or the boss. From there, I wasn't sure what should be focused first. Generally, if the guards could fall quickly you took them out, but if the boss did the most damage, then it needed to go. From our five second sample size, there wasn't enough information to plan around. I was at a loss on what to do.

This sucked.

"Positioning, let's start there," I exclaimed with some confidence.

"Yeah?" asked Ethan curiously.

"Need to ensure the priests die first, then the archers," I started to explain. "I think I can manage the minor goblins with my discharge to buy time for you guys to rotate after, but I can't do much to defend against arrows I can't see."

"Aye, this fucking ash and smoke has me fighting nearly blind," complained Barik, to everyone's surprise. "I can't see shit with my eyes watering, hard enough as it is."

That was the truth.

The environment was terrible, and the lousy conditions only increased the difficulty of the fight… we were already at a serious disadvantage before the fight even began. Toss in the huge number discrepancy and I was starting to wonder at what level were the developers expecting us to clear the damn place.

Ridiculous scenario, is ridiculous.

"Okay, how about this," I said with some enthusiasm as an idea hit me. "Ethan get up on the far right side, so you can easily and quickly flame spike in a straight line. Use flame wave first, of course, focusing on the secondary line. Follow up with a fire blast on the priest, if it happens to still be alive."

Scratching my head, I needed to figure out what to do with our frost mage.

Glancing at the frost mage, I got his attention then decided to explain his role, "do you think you can just fan far out to the left, get an angle on the other priest, and frost bolt nonstop on the priority targets? You're more efficient once you get rolling, right?"

"Yep, I'll get my chaining bonus and it's more mana efficient for a long fight."

As he nodded in agreement, his role was now solidified.

That left Barik and me.

"You're good with the chief," I said as I looked at Barik.

"Right, I can handle him for a bit," he replied with a grin.

"That just leaves me," I mumbled as I tried to think of the best place to tank all the little guys. "You know what, let's get all three of you casters to the right, I'll take the minions and the guards and pull them to the left, and Barik will take the chief where it is. Since the priests and archers won't move, you'll have line of sight, easy."

"Splitting the mobs?" asked Barik, with a tilt of his head.

"Yeah, I can kite with discharge and maybe even get a secondary spell off."