The Mad Rat’s Lab Ch 273 – Unfinished business

As soon as I enter the Control Room, I see the Hunters sitting on the chairs I created for them, and it reminds I have so unfinished business.

“Ah, right! I almost forgot about this…”

Since I upgraded The Sun to level ten, I should do the sa for the other two Hunters too, shouldn’t I?

“If I recall properly, they were level seven…” I talk to myself, fiddling with the ga’s nus. “...this gives three level-ups and three skill points…”

The Mountain was the unmovable tank, and The River was the stacking damage dealer. I think I have an idea for the first skill I can use… I’ll start there and then–

“Hey hey, Andreu. What are you doing?”

Sothing, or to be more precise, soone, starts shaking my arm. The unexpected movent makes touch one button for another and instead of opening the Templates nu, I almost press the log-out button.

Wow, that was close…! Can’t you see I’m trying to do sothing? Don’t bother right now!

I shake off the thing grabbing my arm, and after the interruption, there’s a short pause where I continue to fiddle with the nus, until…

“... hey, Andreu, why don’t you answer?” The shaking resus. “I thought we were going to design our dungeon for our fight against Ricard and Laura, but what are you doing? Heeeeey, don’t ignore ee. Andreeeeeeeu…!”

Ugh, fine, you win, Clara. I can’t concentrate like this!

“I’m sorry, it’s just… It’s just that I rembered sothing. I wanted to finish this the other day but ran out of ti, so I wanted to finish it now...” I lie.

It isn’t that I ran out of ti but that I decided to spend the remaining ti watching the upgraded Minitaur Queen and The Sun in action. After the close failure with the orc player, I wanted to make sure everything was working properly…

Okay, okay, you got , I lied again. I was having too much fun watching the invaders suffer and didn’t want to stop. Happy now?

“Do you mind waiting for a while?” I ask her before returning my attention to the screen in front of .

Knowing my little sister as well as I do, I’m sure she’ll accept.

“Heee…” Clara tilts her head to the side, acting cute. Which, given her current appearance, doesn’t look cute at all. If anything, it’s terrifying. She’s still using that tentacle thing as her Champion. “Why don’t you tell what is it? Maybe I can help you.”

As she talks, she entangles her tentacles around my arm, sending a shiver down my spine. Now, I have no escape.

“S-sure. But I need so free space, please…”

“Okaaaay!”

My arm is liberated from the oppressor’s grasp and I can finally open the Templates nu. I scroll down the list until I find the two Hunters. I was right, they’re level seven.

The reason Clara is inside my dungeon is to prepare for the matches we’ll have against Ricard and Laura. We’ll design a dungeon and use it for three or four consecutive Dungeon Battles. The idea is to limit ourselves to using the exact sa monsters, traps, etc. for all the matches; and then we’ll repeat this until we’re comfortable with it.

This way we’ll learn how to adapt to the opponent’s strategies with what we’ve got, the sa as the real event.

The ga has a function that allows another player to co to your dungeon as a ‘friend’, and gives them so of the dungeon owner’s abilities, like teleportation and opening locked doors at will. Monsters and traps won’t attack them, as they’re treated like an administrator, but they can’t modify anything inside the dungeon.

If you’re wondering why we’re doing this inside the ga instead of in real life, the answer is easy: it’s easier to access any information we require inside the ga, plus we can create and modify the dungeon after the first idea.

“I told you yesterday, I upgraded a few of my monsters as well as my Champion yesterday, but I didn’t finish everything,” I explain as I work. “Do you rember the Hunters?”

She nods. Of course, she does. They’re sitting right in front of us.

“The Hunters are kind of a pack, and I want them all to be on a similar power level. But now I have one that’s three levels higher…”

I leave my phrase unfinished, knowing she’ll understand what I an.

“Oh, I know!” Clara jumps on the spot and raises one of her… hands? “And you’re going to use this chance to fix them, right?”

“Fix them…?” I tilt my head.

Why fix them? They’re good as they are, aren’t they? Why should I need to fix sothing that isn’t broken? It makes no sense…

“You didn’t watch my last invasion?”

Now it’s Clara’s turn to tilt her head, and my turn to turn my head away. “...uh, I…”

“You didn’t? But you told you would!”

“I got distracted by the other invaders…”

Why would I want to watch you repeat the sa? There’s no fun in watching soone who knows everything and clears my dungeon as if it were a walk in the park. Soone who knows the placent of all the traps, and every monster’s weakness? There’s no fun in watching that.

Furthermore, her Champion and support mobs give the creeps…

Please don’t tell her I said that, although I believe she already knows and wants to make suffer on purpose…

Clara crosses her arms. “Humpf! If you had watched , you’d know they’re filled with problems. Especially the one that’s inspired by a mountain.”

Is she angry? I can’t tell because she has no face… Her pose and attitude, though, make her look like a puppy instead of nacing. Or that’s what usually happens when she gets angry, as her Champion does give her a dreadful feeling.

“Alright, alright… I’m sorry.” Did she crush my The Mountain so easily? Or is she exaggerating? “So, tell . What’s wrong with my monster?”

“I’m generous, so I’ll forgive you. I’m a good little sister!” Clara says, nodding to herself.

Yeah, sure. Whatever you say.

“The problem with him is that it’s weak to damage over ti effects. Once I ca into contact with him, I lted his HP bar like it was nothing!” Clara happily proclaims, patting her chest area.

“But that makes no sense… the Lust skill…”

I can understand that a tank is weak to continuous damage because stacking several effects is easy on a target that’s more of a nuisance than an actual danger.

That’s usually the downfall of monsters focused on defense.

But even so, if she used damage over ti effects, she should have taken a significant amount of damage from the Lust skill… After all, every damage tick triggers the skill and reflects a portion back… Ah, right! She heals as she deals damage, doesn’t she? The healing might have mitigated the damage taken from the Lust skill.

“The Lust skill? It’s useless if you don’t look at the monster!”

She’s right, but how did she kill it in lee without looking at– “I hugged your monster and looked over his shoulder. It was very easy because it didn’t move, and I took no damage. Hehehe!”

Being hugged by her and drained to death… Brrr…! I don’t want to even imagine it!

I shake my head to dispel the horrendous image.

“But fixing that would be very difficult. Tanks are inherently weak to stacking damage over ti effects…”

Let’s forget about the hugging part. Nobody sane would do that.

“I have an idea!” Clara walks to my side and starts fiddling with the screen in front of . “Take a look at this. It’s a skill I thought of giving to so of my monsters. I don’t want to ever lose in a battle of endurance, where one party tries to drain the other to death, and this skill is perfect for that. Hehehe!”

Yeah, no… Please, don’t act cute while saying that. It’s terrifying.

Well, let’s take a look at the skill. There’s nothing to lose.

It Tickles (Passive skill)Damage you take that’s less than 2% of your Max HP is reduced by an additional 50%.

“Hmm… interesting.”

This skill… it’s surprisingly good? It should solve the damage over ti problem The Mountain has, according to what Clara said.

Let’s make so quick numbers. Taking into account The Mountain’s base HP and the bonus for level ten, two percent of that is… Around 30? So all damage under 30 will be reduced by half? Not bad. Not bad at all.

It’ll make all basic attacks from weak opponents pretty useless on top of damage-over-ti effects.

Furthermore, it perfectly fits the mountain the. A mountain is sothing so big, that you require sothing on the level of a bomb to affect it. Regardless of how much effort you put into it, you won’t achieve much with a shovel.

Hey, don’t be rude! That’s the best comparison I could co up with! If you have a problem with it, you’re free to share a better one!

“I like it. Thanks for the idea, Clara.” I say, patting the tentacles forming her head. Ugh… slimmy…

“Hehehe…”

I imdiately regret my actions. But she’s happy, I’m happy that I found an interesting skill… so who cares about my disgust?

“Do you have any other ideas? You told that The River also had so problems…”

“Yes! I’ll help you as much as I can!”

Now let’s find a way to solve the ‘hugging’ part… The last thing I want is for other players to find out such an easy way to defeat The Mountain, one of my ‘security guards’.

I don’t even want to imagine ‘them’ finding out…

If that happens, I might not be able to watch more invasions, to prevent my head from exploding. Just the thought of them starting to hug my monsters is giving a headache.

“Alright. This is it! We’ve done it!”

I high-five Clara. Well, I suppose I high-fived her, you can never tell because she has no actual hands.

“Yeah! We did it! I did well, right?”

“Yeah, you did.”

It’s always good to have a second opinion and new ideas. Doubly so when I didn’t find any trouble with my current Hunters, so I couldn’t have known how to improve them.

Let explain which skills I picked for my Hunters. I’ll start with The Mountain.

Other than the It Tickles passive skill, I also gave my monster the Earth Wave skill to push enemies away if he gets in danger. Only against lee enemies, of course.

Earth Wave (Active skill)Cost: 50 MPCreate a wave of sand that pushes all units 3 ters away. This skill has a 20-second cooldown.

This skill is what you’d call a support skill. It isn’t weird for players to use Earth Wave together with other skills to create a devastating combo. That’s why it has a long cooldown.

But you can also use it as an ergency disengage button, as I did.

Now, The Mountain will use Earth Wave as a defensive asure to buy so ti to unroot itself if the need arises. Three ters doesn’t seem like much, but the delay caused by the displacent effect, which takes a while, adds up to the ti.

As for the last skill…

Well, I couldn’t pass up on the possibility of upgrading Lust, could I?

Lust - Lv 2 (Innate triggered skill)When a unit that can see you deals damage to you, it takes (5 * level) psychic damage. This damage isn’t increased or reduced by having higher or lower stats.UpgradesAttraction: Increase the psychic damage to (7 * level).

Seven tis ten is 70. It’s 70 damage every ti it gets hurt! It was impossible to pass up!

“Fufufu! Hahaha…!”

“Andreu, you’re doing it again.”

“... Sorry.”

The Lust upgrade will make it even less appealing to target The Mountain with any attacks. I wouldn’t disregard the possibility of the players actively avoiding it at all costs, even if it ans running away.

Not that I would mind if they did. The Mountain is there to hold its ground. The one to chase after the invaders is The River, and talking about my second Hunter…

According to Clara, The River has two problems.

First, it’s too much of a glass cannon. Once you get used to it, it’s very easy to take down before the damage from Pride stacks.

Second, its unpredictable, never-stopping movent becos its downfall. You can stay still and aim a few attacks every ti it passes near you, killing it without any problem. It’s just a matter of timing the attacks properly and avoiding the counterattacks.

This becos even more noticeable because, like in real life, the faster the speed, the harder it is to change directions.

But those problems are more difficult to solve, so it was a bit more tricky to fix The River compared to The Mountain.

Oh, how much I hate using this word…

Anyway! These are the skills I chose in the end.

Ram (Active skill)Cost: 50 EPDeal (20 3 * STR) physical damage to a single target and push it 5 ters away. This skill can only be used if your speed is higher than the target's. After using this skill, you co to a halt.Sound Barrier (Triggered skill)If you’re moving at your maximum speed, you have a 10% chance of avoiding all attacks. This skill can only trigger if your SPD is higher than 7.Backstab (Passive skill)Your lee attacks from behind another unit deal an extra 20% damage to that unit.

As you can see, it’s the perfect amount: one of each.

Ram serves to turn The River’s speed into damage. It also completely stops its movent while sending the enemy flying. It’s a perfect way for my monster to change its path without any warning while presenting a significant danger. The damage from Ram can work as a finisher after Pride has accumulated enough stacks, sothing The River was missing.

Sound Barrier is a good defensive option that requires no explanation, and Backstab is a perfect tool for when the players are trying to run away.

I like how they turned out in the end.

“Thank you, Clara. With your help, they turned out better than I expected.”

“If you’re so happy, I’ll ask you to reward later, okay? Hehehe!”

For so reason, I shudder at her words. It must be because of her horrifying appearance that doesn’t match her mood and words. Yeah, that must be why.

Let’s change the topic.

“Uh…” I take a look at the in-ga clock. “It’s gotten so late… We don’t have ti to work on the plans for our match. What do you say? Want to continue after dinner, or do we leave it for tomorrow?”

“Yes. Let’s continue tomorrow. It doesn’t matter if we couldn’t do it today, I’m happy I got to help you with this. It’s well-spent ti.”

“Learning how to adapt to any circumstance is an indispensable skill. Once you play enough DMA, you’ll understand that the situations you find yourself in can be completely unpredictable.

This also applies to the start of the match. If you know anything about your opponent, be it their play style, their monster and trap usage, or even if it’s just their faction, use it to your advantage. Adapt your tactics to counter them to the best of your ability.

If the player you’re facing is known for tricky traps and puzzles, bring support skills that will allow you to bulldoze through those for example. It doesn’t matter if it feels like cheating. You’re here to win, and you should do whatever it takes to achieve it.”

- Excerpt from ‘A journey to the top’, a guide to help players reach the top ranking in DMA.