“This can’t be right!” Bart exclaimed, his tone incredulous.
“It is,” I said.
“But it’s…”
“Completely overpowered!” Bell added, her eyes glazed over as she read the build description.
“Perfect!” Kink said excitedly.
“Won’t they patch it right away?” Tear asked as she scrolled through the build.
“You mean like how they patched me right away?” I asked, my brows raised. “There’s something about me they can’t touch, for whatever reason.” I didn’t mention the extremely troubling news I had learned from Peter the night before. “I mean, they could probably do a balance patch, but we can’t really plan around that,” I said with a shrug. “We just have to go with the best build we have at the time and see what happens.”
Every member of the Council was examining, poking, and prodding the Wolverine build, looking for holes or flaws in the Path. So far, none of us had been able to find an issue.
It was like Bell said, completely overpowered.
The description of the build read:
Wolverine Build
Description: Hey Ray, here’s my submission for the Skill Competition. I figured you wanted a build that maximized your survivability and gave you a few escape options. The core of the build is centered around deflection. I haven’t seen anyone else figure this out, but there’s a synergy between [Blurring Defense] in the Warrior tree, [Bloody Retaliation] in the Rogue tree, and [Ursine Regeneration] in the Druid tree. [Blurring Defense] gives you a 75% to deflect for 12 seconds at Rank 5. That’s your mitigation. [Ursine Regeneration] gives you 1% hp regen for 5 seconds for every deflection for 18 seconds. That’s your healing. And finally, [Bloody Retaliation] inflicts a 5-second bleed on any target that you deflect an attack from for 10 seconds. So if you need to run, you switch on [Bloody Retaliation] and bleed everyone! Then they can’t chase after you without hurting themselves.
Okay, so that covers projectiles and melee attacks - but what about spells!?
That one’s a bit trickier. You can pick up [Smoke Bomb] on the tier after [Bloody Retaliation], which helps with AoE and targeted skills. But you still have to worry about clearing debuffs. I think your best bet for physical debuffs is [Balanced Stance], which negates physical debuffs for 10 seconds at Rank 5. But every debuff negated adds 1 second to the cooldown, so it might only be usable once in a big fight. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do anything for magical and mental debuffs. But, it’s on the way to [Blurring Defense], which is convenient.
Your other option is to forget [Smoke Bomb] and go for [Peace of Mind] in the Priest tree. For 5 seconds, it removes a magical and mental debuff every 0.5 seconds and heals for 0.5% HP for every debuff removed at Rank 5, but you can only afford to put a single point in it. That’s 0.1% HP instead. The good thing about going the Priest route is you can pick up [Guardian Shield] which you can use to get another 5 seconds of deflect every 15 seconds.
The final piece is to slam all your remaining stat points into Vitality. That’ll get you 5000 Health Points before taking gear into account. With [Ursine Regeneration] at Rank 5, a single deflect will net you +50 HP healed per second for 5 seconds - or 250 HP total. If you deflect 10 attacks, that’s +500 HP per second! Or 2500 HP over 5 seconds! Half your health returned in 5 seconds!
But wait - there’s more! We didn’t even take into account your defensive stats! Let’s say you're at 25% physical mitigation with a 75% chance to deflect while [Blurring Defense] is active. Using 10 level 60 Berserkers with a normal attack averaging 200 damage points.
Scenario 1 (10 Normal Attacks):
Damage Out: 2,000
Attacks Deflected: 7.5 (Round down to 7)
Damage Deflected: ~1,400
Damage Taken: ~600 * 0.75 (after physical mitigation) = 450
Healing Per Second: 7 * 50 = 350 healing per second
Healing Over 5 Seconds: 1,750!
But what if they are critical attacks?
Scenario 2 (10 Critical Attacks):
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Damage Out: 3500
Attacks Deflected: 7.5 (Round down to 7)
Damage Deflected: ~2450
Damage Taken: ~950 * 0.75 (after physical mitigation) = 712.5
Healing Per Second: 350hp/sec (no change scenario 1)
Healing Over 5 Seconds: 1750 (no change scenario 1)
So you see that over a 5 second period, while [Blurring Defense] and [Ursine Regeneration]are both active, 10 level 60 Berserkers cannot kill you! Let’s go even crazier…
Scenario 3 (100 Normal Attacks):
Damage Out: 20,000
Attacks Deflected: 75
Damage Deflected: ~14,000
Damage Taken: ~6,000 * 0.75 (after physical mitigation) = 4,500
Healing Per Second: 75 * 50 = 3,750 healing per second
Healing Over 5 Seconds: 18,750
Scenario 4 (100 Critical Attacks):
Damage Out: 35,000
Attacks Deflected: 75
Damage Deflected: ~26,250
Damage Taken: ~8,750 * 0.75 (after physical mitigation) = 6,562.5
Healing Per Second: 3,750 hp/sec (no change scenario 3)
Healing Over 5 Seconds: 18,750 (no change scenario 3)
So with a health pool of 5,000, 100 level 60 Berserkers cannot even kill you, unless they ALL critically strike you at the exact same moment! If they stagger their attacks even by a second, your gross amounts of healing will out pace their damage!
And this doesn’t even take into account Raid-level gear which could boost your vitality another 100 points if you grabbed Tank items. Plus the physical defenses from that gear would easily push you above 25% mitigation, making these scenarios more like worse-case than real life.
Weaknesses:
1. Can’t defend against debuff builds AND AoE builds - have to choose
2. The uptime of [Blurring Defense] and [Ursine Regeneration]together isn’t 100%. The downtime between is when you’re vulnerable. But if you timed it right, you should have massive amounts of regen for 5 seconds of that window, meaning you only have to survive for another 7 seconds until the cooldowns come up.
Notable Skills:
Warrior Tree
[Rallying Shout Rank 5]: Increase move speed of allies in earshot by 35% for 12 seconds (45 second CD)
[Balanced Stance Rank 5]: For 10 seconds, you cannot be stunned, incapacitated, hobbled, or bleeding. Every negated effect adds 1 second to cooldown (25 second CD)
[Blurring Defense Rank 5]: Deflect 75% of all melee and projectile attacks for 12 seconds (45 second CD)
Druid Tree
[Natural Resistance ]: Increase magical defenses by 35% for 120 seconds (300 second CD)
[Nutrient-Rich Soil ]: Increase Vitality and Endurance by 5% for 300 seconds (300 second CD)
[Ursine Regeneration]: For 18 seconds, regenerate 5% HP over 5 seconds for every deflected attack (30 second CD)
Rogue Tree
[Bloody Retaliation Rank 5]: Every deflected attack puts the bleeding effect on the attack for 5 seconds. Last 10 seconds (30 second CD)
Rogue Tree (Optional)
[Smoke Bomb Rank 5]: Drop a smoke bomb in 15-meter radius for 20 seconds. While in effect, not targetable by direct attack skills. Area-of-effect abilities have 50% damage reduction (60 second CD)
Priest Tree (Optional)
[Peace of Mind Rank 1]: Every 0.5 seconds, negate 1 magical and 1 mental debuff. Heals 0.1% HP for every negated effect. Lasts 5 seconds (21 second CD).
[Guardian Shield Rank 5]: Grant an ally (self-targetable) 75% deflection for 5 seconds (12 second CD)
“I can’t find any issues with it,” I said after another close examination. “There’s a gap in uptime, but that makes sense. I would actually be unkillable otherwise.”
“That would make our jobs a lot easier,” Bart joked. There were light chuckles around the table, but everyone was still engrossed in examining the build.
“I really think this is the winner,” I said after a moment. “Let’s take another few minutes to check for any errors, then take a vote. Sound good?” There were nods all around the table.
I watched as Jeremy, Kink, and T looked over as Denise ran the numbers for the regeneration depending on different scenarios. She ran through a dozen different possibilities using Shadow Blades, Berserkers, Quickdraws, Longshots, and all the other melee and projectile based classes. It was like the build said, the only weaknesses were during the downtime between cooldowns, and magical attacks.
When everyone looked up from their number crunching, I led the vote.
“All in favor for the Wolverine build?” I asked. There was some hesitation among the Council. This would be locking in my Skill Path for good and was no light decision. Still, everyone’s hand went up, including my own. “It’s unaminous, then. Now for the tricky part - the optional skills. Do I go down the Rogue Path to be more resistant to magical attacks, or the Priest Path for longer deflect and debuff cleansing?”
“Before we do that,” Denise said. “I had a suggestion.”
My eyebrows raised in surprise, but I waved for her to continue.
She looked across the table at the Angels, then at my three friends, then finally back to me. “I say we lie about the results,” she eventually said.
Confused mutters went up from around the table.
“Huh?” Tear asked, her nose crinkled.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, we declare a different winner - one of the boon builds, or whatever,” she said with a dismissive wave. “Doesn’t matter which, as long as it’s believable. But you actually choose the regen build.”
“But why?” Bart asked, looking around to see if he was the only one that was confused.
But the reason hit me suddenly. “Ahhh,” I said and Denise gave me a knowing look. “Because the regen build can be countered if they know what to look for. By telling the world I picked something else, we can trick the Necks into game-planning for a different build.”
“Won’t they eventually figure out the real build, though?” Bell asked.
I shrugged. “They’ll see me deflect, and they’ll see me regenarate a silly amount of HP. But it’ll probably take them a couple fights to put two and two together,” I said. “But in the meantime, we can take them by surprise and wipe them a few times. Maybe even scare them off from attacking all together.”
“Okay, that all makes sense,” Bart said. “But what about the guy that made the Wolverine build? That’s not really fair to him…”
I nodded. “I’ll make it right with him later. But the element of surprise is just too good,” I said.
“Now,” I continued. “Let’s talk about these optional skills…”