Ether was the first one to speak.
“Since our groups are uneven, then I think the purpose of the exercise is to evaluate which strategy would work best for both teams, regardless of composition.” Ether looked at Rix, who nodded. “Also, the event floor is going to be the focus, because both groups will probably try to get there within the first day.”
Three boss fights in one day would be a long run towards the Boss room. It had been taking around two hours to walk to the boss rooms from when we first started. Add in the time to fight the bosses and rest, and the math did work out, but it was going to be a very long day.
“Trent. Are you going to take us to the boss rooms?” I looked at my teacher. “Since you mainly want to see how we work on the fourth floor anyway. Wouldn’t it make sense to port us to the floor above, then have us backtrack into the boss room?”
“I’m thinking about it.” Trent shrugged. “Still haven’t decided how long I want to be in Mive.”
I had a feeling that he had some secondary reason for going there as well. Which would mean that it would only be Gesai who was taking us around. I hadn’t been in a dungeon with Trent since the second day, so that wouldn’t be anything different.
“That doesn’t have any bearing on your strategies.” Trent added from over his shoulder. “You haven’t finished the first one yet and you’ve got two more.”
“It says that the Authority has control of the third Dungeon in Mive.” Rix had been doing something in the bottom corner of the screen. “I thought we were avoiding the Authority.”
“Just because you aren’t going to go there, doesn’t mean that you can’t be tested over it.” Trent chuckled. “There are lots of people whose only job is to theorize ways to beat bosses that have never been challenged before and most of the strategists will never go within a Tier of those monsters. In fact, the best strategist in the world is in the Kingdom and is only Tier Three.”
I would have to remember to look that up later. For now, I needed to get back to the exercise at hand.
“Temple Dungeon.” I drew everyone’s attention. “All of them but the first floor look like they can be bound, then we can have our damage dealers focus them down?”
“I don’t think your Bind spell will work.” Rix pointed at the screen where she had zoomed in on the Earth Lizard. “It doesn't have smooth skin. It’s jagged.”
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She was right. Binding it would only slow it down or stumble it. I wouldn’t be able to lock it in place.
“I missed that.” I sighed. “How do you think we should handle it then?”
“The Wurm will probably clear taunt when it goes underground, which means everyone will need to spread out when it does that.” Rix switched the page back to the first boss. “Also, the longer the fight goes, the more torn up the room is going to get and the harder it will become to dodge.” She nodded at me. “Water might not do much damage to it, but I think it should force it to stay above ground if you keep flooding its tunnels.”
“Okay, so that’s how we make it surface faster, but how do we beat it?” I didn’t think I needed to point out that Jen didn’t have the Wave spell. That would go on the list of things to buy.
“We don’t know where the core is, so focus on taking off the head?” Ether pointed at the monster that was about three feet wide. “The Buffers could use Soften on its neck, then the Hitters smash it while it's on the ground and the Caster and Shooters focus on the Head if it’s out of reach?”
“That sounds like it could work. Should we move on or do people think that we need to go over this some more?”
No one said anything, which I took as confirmation that we could move on.
“Second Floor boss?” I changed the image.
“Second and Third boss should have almost the same strategy.” Ether changed the image to show both bosses. “Tank holds their attention, Buffer Softens the neck while the Hitter works on it. Shooter and Caster add ranged damage where they can.” She swapped to the Fourth floor. “For the Earth Elementals, Air damage should focus on their cores, while the spiders can be bound and then smashed.” She looked over at me, “I don’t think we’ll be able to solo these.”
“At Zeb, the ninth floor had spawns in groups of three, while the sixteenth floor had groups of four.” I nodded at the two monsters. “We know that after the first floor, monsters can start spawning in groups in higher rarity dungeons. So it’s possible that we might see combinations of those two monsters in groups of up to four.”
“I need a better taunt.” Ether tapped her fingers on the table. “I can only hold the attention of one thing at a time.”
“What about you, Mitchel?” It felt weird calling him that out loud when my mind was using the Shelly nickname that Aelin had given him, but I didn’t feel comfortable using it out loud until I’d had a chance to ask him about it.
“I can only taunt one thing too.” He leaned back. “This is going to get expensive.”
“Yes, but once you get the skill to let you keep multiple taunts up at a time, you’ll be good until floor ten.” That was the thing about skills. They had level minimums, but they were good until you reached the next Tier of floors.
“I guess…” He started fiddling with his thumbs.
“Does anyone think we need to add anything to our strategies?” I didn’t see anyone indicate that they did. “Alright, let’s move on to the Dispatcher’s Dungeon.”