*Thump, thump, thump*
“Come on, brain… don’t do this to me…” *Thump, thump* “I order you to do your job properly…!” *Thump, thump, thump* “Ugh, my head is starting to hurt…” I hold my forehead.
After slamming it on the wall for so long, even if this is inside the game, I feel my vision spinning and a headache growing. It might have to do with my actions or, more probably, with the fact that I’m stuck with my next monster.
As you might remember, after the puzzle area and new monsters for the botanical garden, I was planning on creating a third Hunter. I have the bodies and the general direction I want to go with the monster, and have already created the Template and assigned the required units.
The problem is… that I don’t know how to continue.
When I was working on The Mountain and The River I nailed the concept and chose appropriate skills to go with it.
For the first, it was an immovable obstacle. The players can’t displace or pass through the area occupied by The Mountain, nor can they ignore it as it will attack from a long range. For the latter, it was constant movement. The River is constantly running, and will eventually wear down even the toughest of opponents.
So, for the third Hunter, I wanted something that didn’t overlap with the other two. Keeping it in the theme of natural elements, I thought of several possibilities. From a forest to the sea, and from a cliff to a ravine; but nothing quite satisfied me…
…until I thought of looking higher.
The sky. Or more precisely: the Sun.
The sun, standing aloof in the sky, moving slowly as the day passes, ignoring all that happens below. I also planned on using the famous saying of burning because you got too close to the sun.
I thought about what innate skills I could use, identifying the best skills to fit my idea. I spent part of the rewards from the last event on those monsters. And here I am now, in front of the Template, not knowing how to proceed.
“Ugh… I can’t come up with anything…!”
I can’t come up with the skills! I can’t even think of how to modify the AI so that it fits the theme!
The problem isn’t so much that I can’t come up with relevant skills, but that I’ve suddenly realized I made a huge mistake. A monster that does nothing, standing in the sky without a fight and waiting for the invaders to get close isn’t interesting. Nor is it a monster fit for ‘The Hunters’, the helpers that, roleplay-wise, are supposed to keep everything in my dungeon in place while chasing and eliminating all invaders that come to my dungeon.
Waiting for players to get close isn’t exactly what you would call exciting, nor is it a behavior fitting for a security guard.
“Haa… do I have to scratch it and accept I’ve wasted so much on it…?”
But I don’t want to throw it away. Let’s keep thinking. This time, without banging my head on the wall.
What else can you find in the sky? Birds? They are living beings, so they don’t fit with the theme. Clouds. But clouds are… if the sun was boring, then clouds are even worse. What can a cloud do? Nothing, it does nothing. The moon? But the moon doesn’t match with the monsters I have. Let’s keep it as an option and keep thinking.
“The sun… the sun shines in the sky and goes to sleep at night…” I keep coming back to my original idea. “The sun, the closest star to Earth…”
Wait a moment. A star…? Right! The sun is also a star. But unlike the boring sun, the stars also are mysterious. Often associated with fate and wishes, and appearing during the night. And since the sun is a star, I can use the original idea, using the bodies I have, and using the star idea for the skills.
The sun’s stability and predictability against the star’s whimsical nature. Dual nature. Furthermore, when a star dies, it goes kaboom. The largest imaginable explosion in the whole universe. Which gives me some nasty… uh, I mean, interesting, ideas…
“I think I can work with this. I can finally move on and create the third Hunter! Fufufu! Hahaha!”
The sun, the closest star to our planet. Everyone knows about it and it is as essential as mountains and rivers. Now that I’ve got something interesting to work on, I start by evaluating the three units I have prepared.
The first one I’m sure comes as no surprise to anyone. If I want to make players burn (literally) when they come close to it, the best option is to give it fire skills, possibly the passive ones that burn even the user. Taking this into account, I obviously chose a fire elemental with the Fire Elemental skill. To be more precise, the Pyris, the humanoid fire elemental in the 100 cp range.
Fire Elemental (Innate passive skill) Negates fire damage that deals less than (10 * level) damage. Fire damage higher than this amount is reduced by 50%.
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Thanks to the Fire Elemental skill I can go crazy with the fire skills without worrying about it taking too much damage from its own skills.
As for how the Pyris looks, it’s really simple. It’s just a humanoid body made out of fire.
When choosing the second unit I had it easy. I even thought about it a minute ago when I was thinking of how to fix my original idea. It’s birds. They’re the first animal everyone thinks when talking about the sky and being able to fly.
Unless they’re a weirdo who loves insects… uh, let’s not dive too deep into it.
If I wanted to create a unit inspired by the sun, it had to fly in the sky; and a bird is the first thing that came to mind. The unit I chose for this is the Werehawk. There are two reasons for this choice. First, it fitted perfectly with the original idea: a hawk observes its prey from above, waiting for a chance to strike. Second but more importantly, because I love how Werehawk’s wings look like. Dark brown with black spots, extending majestically on the Werehawk’s back.
The third reason is, it can transform into an actual hawk. The third and newest member of the Hunters was destined to be the team’s scout. With it, they’ll have the tank, the melee damage dealer, and the scout. A complete and versatile party.
‘But didn’t you say there were two reasons for choosing it? You just explained three reasons…’
Shut up! Sometimes, one makes up things as they come to mind!
Khm! Where was I? Ah, yes, the Werehawk. As I’ve said, it can transform into an unsuspecting hawk, the same as most units from the Wild Ferals faction. The skill’s name is Hawk Transformation.
Last but not least, the third unit that was supposed to break my monster after I had come up with a way to break this stupidly nasty and (situationally) overpowered skill; a skill that comes from the same faction as the ones shared by The Mountain and The River, called Lust and Pride respectively.
It could be nothing other than…
…from the Wicked Legion, standing up for the first time in eons just to say hello, comes the Sleepyhead, the most basic demon with the Sloth skill! Wooo, wooo! Applauses, please!
Haha, sorry for that. I got too excited.
Sloth (Innate passive skill) During combat, for each consecutive second you spend without moving, attacking, or activating any skill, increase the damage of your next attack or active skill by 10%.
As you can read, Sloth is a skill that rewards the unit for doing nothing during combat. You must kill the unit with Sloth before it awakens, because when it does… It usually spells your doom.
Yeah… leave it to the demons for nasty skills…
By the way, sloth, from the seven deadly sins, is the most misunderstood one. Similar to what happens with gluttony, but even more so. Sloth doesn’t mean sleeping. Sleeping could be part of sloth, but they don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand.
So what’s sloth, you ask?
Spending the whole day in your bed? That’s obviously sloth, this is what most people correctly recognize as sloth. Going to play with your friends instead of doing your homework? That’s sloth too. Leaving your work to your coworkers? Sloth. Feeling apathy for oneself or others? Sloth.
In short, you could say that sloth is not doing what you know you should be doing, or not feeling what you should be feeling.
Sloth is perfectly showcased in the skill with its said name. During combat, a struggle for survival, you can run for your life, stand your ground, or pursue blood and glory; the only thing you shouldn’t do is stand still without doing anything at all.
Because you’ll die, obviously.
Standing still in DMA usually means taking unnecessary damage, and not using any skills – both defensive and offensive – means you’re never going to win the battle. But this is a game, and there are no useless skills. Detrimental skills, maybe. But not useless.
Sloth is a high-risk high-reward skill. No, no, it isn’t a simple out-of-the-mill high-risk high-reward skill. Sloth is the KING of high-risk high-reward skills. By risking your life, you can accumulate so much burst potential that you eventually defeat a dragon with a single basic attack.
The problem is knowing when to stop waiting. If you delay it too much, you might be dead by the time you try to make your move.
Did you notice? It says active skills both times it mentions skills. This means triggered skills and passive ones are excluded. I assume this is because they’re out of your control, but also because creating a unit that does nothing until it dies in a massive Death Burst, would be way too overpowered and cheesy.
So… no stacking Sloth for an epic death explosion. No supernova here. What a shame.
My original idea was for the third Hunter to stand still, flying over the invaders, waiting for them to come close before burning them to smithereens, like the sun. But as I’ve said, it would be too boring.
Furthermore, players might never get close. This is why now that I’ve thought of converting the concept to a star instead of the sun, I’ll have to rethink this. Sloth will stay, though. There’s no way I’m going to pass on this amazingly broken and dangerous skill.
“La, la, la…! This is going to be so much fun! Hahaha!”
----------------------------------------
“I’m not going.”
“Why not? Didn’t we all agree it was my time to choose the next dungeon?”
“I know, but…” She shakes her head. “I’ve heard there have been some changes recently. You know I don’t like it when I’m not sure what we’ll find.”
“This isn’t fair…! I didn’t complain when you chose an Amorphous dungeon for our last invasion, and you know I hate them! Why do all players like to make slimes that eat the invaders?” I shudder.
“Mfh… fine. We’re going. But you’ll have to treat me to ice cream. Triple ball.”
Is this all it takes to convince her? That’s fine. “Sure, I will. Let’s go, hahaha!” The Mad Rat’s Lab, here we come!
image [https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]
One of the biggest appeals for playing the Wicked Legion, the demon faction, was getting access to some of the most powerful innate skills, including the Seven Sins series. Each one was either difficult to use or had a drawback, but if the players knew how to use them, they could achieve extraordinary things.