Classmancers A Moba Esport Story - 219 Outplaying Draconic Rush

“Yo, let’s invade these fuckers!” Bruce suggested. “We can strike them down before they get a chance to put a fight! Gonna teach them what it means to fuck with us.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Raymond objected. “Their lineup has a strong early-game. They have the upper hand at this stage of the game.”

“C’mon, don’t be such a wuss!” Bruce argued back and turned to the others. “Y’all wanna invade, right? Right?”

“I agree with Ray here,” Bryan said. “These bastards are clearly trying to end the game early with that lineup. It gonna be hard to beat them right now. We should just stall them until late game.”

“Yeah,” Zeph nodded. “I wanna wreck them as much as you do, but we can’t be reckless.”

“Tch, fine,” Bruce piped down and followed the regular game opening. He, Bryan, and Raymond traveled to the Orge Camp together.

[I said all that, but I actually wanna start attacking that DK scum as soon as possible.] Zeph was giddy. A tremble of ecstasy ran through his arms as he imagined bringing down his blade and decapitating Chessmaster. That bastard deserved nothing but cruel death.

Everybody else must’ve been eager to attack as well. But, they all managed to stop themselves and listen to reason. It was largely thanks to Bruce. The guy was acting like an enraged clown, so it made everybody realize how stupid and reckless their own thoughts were. It helped them to calm down and listen to reason.

That’s probably one reason why Bruce was considered the “captain” of the gang. He was always the first to jump at anybody who trash-talked him or his homies. And, he was always the first to trash talk the enemy. In short, he was a dumbass in every sense of the word. But, a necessary kind of dumbass whose existence made everybody around him feel smarter.

For example, after everybody shot down Bruce’s dumb invade idea, Zeph also woke up from his reckless delusions and developed some patience. He wanted to strangle Chessmaster ASAP, but he had to hold it back for now. There was no reason to rush. He’ll get countless opportunities to wreck that bastard during mid-game. For now, he had to focus on surviving through the early-game with minimal losses.

[Dragon got an alright matchup against DK. No problems there.] Zeph nodded to himself. He had more than enough experience dealing with cheap Dark Knights in Ranked. Dragonborn was definitely one of the few classes that could give Dark Knight a hard time.

In addition, Draconic Rush was an awesome attack that also granted brief damage immunity. It was hella convenient for contesting the lane against a Dark Knight.

Not to mention, Dragonborn’s ult allowed him to turn into a dragon. That was a huge game-changer in any fight. Dragonborn was ten times harder to kill in dragon form.

Seriously, this class was sick. People often banned it in Ranked. Nobody wanted to deal with an enemy that was so hard to kill. If Chessmaster thought he gonna get ez kills here, he was about to have a very bad time.

“I must ask,” Vincent addressed Yuel. “Was DK really a wise pick? A Dragonborn will prove to be a strong adversary for sure.”

“In a vacuum, Dark Knight is never a good pick,” Yuel said. “But, we agreed on a rushdown strategy, didn’t we? There’s no better Top Laner for that game plan. I’ll just have to work a little harder than expected for my kills, that’s all. Nia, I’ll be relying on your ganks again.”

“Okץ” Nia nodded. She was fully awake by now.

The tension of being on stage, in front of the scary audience, slapped her awake. This was no time to sleep. She had to play and prevail. She’ll sneak up to each and every foe without fail. Easy. No sweat. Yeah, easy. The team has already won one game, so they’ll win this one as well. Yeah, easy. No pressure. She wasn’t tense. Not at all. Yeah.

[Okay, let’s see how this plays out.] Yuel focused on the incoming minion wave. This laning phase will probably go in one of two ways. Either the Dragonborn will be cocky and contest the lane all the time, relying on the defense of Draconic Scales to keep him alive. Or, he’ll play it safe and let Yuel dominate the lane.

Both approaches were viable and had their ups and downs. Contesting the lane meant putting himself in danger, whereas playing safe meant allowing damage on his Turret. Yuel was fine with either scenario since he’ll get his early-game advantage either way.

[Heh, that bastard.] Zeph sneered at his opponent. Chessmaster advanced to the frontline without a single care in the world.[ He probably thinks I’m scared of his DK. Think again, bastard!]

As a Dragonborn, Zeph had nothing to be afraid of during the early-game. Nobody could destroy his draconic body, not even a Dark Knight. Therefore, he gonna attack! There’s no way he gonna let Chessmaster dominate the lane!

He activated Draconic Rush and charged straight at the enemy wave. The impact pushed the swordsmen back, bringing them closer to the bowmen. With all enemies packed in one place, Zeph activated Draconic Flame. He swung a fire blade in a cone, burning all minions in one fell swoop!

[How’s that, huh!?] Zeph grinned. [What’s wrong? You’re so shook you can’t even move? Haha, that’s what ya get! I ain’t scared of you!]

[So, he’s the type of Dragonborn who contests the lane.] Yuel finished his observation. Before handling the enemy wave, his top priority was to discern what type of Dragonborn player DragonMaster was. With how fearlessly DragonMaster charged in, it was clear he was the aggressive type.

[I can work with that.] Yuel moved to the side and found the perfect angle. Then, he unleashed a Dark Blast. The blast was supposed to travel through the Dragonborn and hit the minions behind him.

“Heh! Think it gonna be that easy!? No way!” Zeph rolled aside. “You ain’t hitting me, fam. Too easy.”

[Nice reaction.] Yuel frowned. His Dark Blast rammed through the entire enemy wave, but it failed to hit the Dragonborn. [So, he’s going to contest the lane, but he won’t drop his guard. Interesting.]

This made things a little tricker, but Yuel prepared himself for this. DragonMaster started the previous game on a weak note, but he slowly oiled his rusty performance. By mid-game, he became a decent opponent. It won’t be that easy to submit him with a Dark Knight.

A new minion wave arrived. More than likely, DragonMaster was going to charge in with Draconic Rush again. The attack had a brief damage immunity duration, so countering it with Dark Blast wasn’t an option.

There wasn’t anything Yuel could do to stop Draconic Rush, but he could prepare a counter ahead of time. A Dark Knight couldn’t allow an enemy to set foot on his territory and walk away unscratched. He had to dominate both sides of the lane, or else he wasn’t doing his job.

As expected, DragonMaster charged in with Dragonic Rush again, pushing all minions along the way. That was the cue. Yuel unleashed a Dark Blast.

“Whoa!” Zeph saw the dark slash flying straight at him. [Wait, for real? You gonna blast into my charge? It ain’t gonna do any damage, you know.]

However, the next moment, Zeph realized something. His Draconic Rush was just about to reach its destination. However, the Dark Blast hasn’t hit him yet. It was still on its way, heading straight at him.

“N-No way!” Zeph had a lump in his throat. This couldn’t be happening. No freakin’ way. His damage invincibility was about to run out, yet the Dark Blast was still on the way.

“I-It’s gonna hit!” Zeph mashed his spacebar. He had to Dodge Roll that Dark Blast! It was going to hit him right after the damage invincibility ends! Such nasty timing…!

Alas, it didn’t help. In exchange for having the amazing damage invincibility effect, Draconic Rush had a rather clunky recovery animation. It was impossible to quickly cancel it into Dodge Roll. In other words, Zeph became a sitting duck!

Wham! Zeph had no choice but to eat the Dark Blast in the face. It deleted 15% of his HP.

[Shit, how did he even time that!?] Zeph roared internally. A split-second too late and Zeph would’ve safely rolled away. This stunt required extremely precise timing. There’s no way somebody from Stratus could pull it off. [Gotta be a fluke. No way he can time it again.]

[Delicate timing, but I got it.] Yuel nodded to himself. The Dark Blast he just fired was carefully calculated to hit the target at the best timing possible.

Hitting the Dragonborn during Draconic Rush would easy, but it would be waste due to the damage invincibility. So, in order to launch an attack on a Dragonborn, it was neccessary to wait until Draconic Rush ended.

However, if Yuel waited took long, DragonMaster would be free to Dodge Roll the Dark Blast. Given the guy’s performance so far, he probably had the reaction speed to pull that off. So, Yuel wouldn’t get any damage in this case either.

Rushing was bad, but waiting too long was bad too. The optimal timing was firing Dark Blast right before the Dragonborn finished his Draconic Rush. The blast had to connect during the brief window of vulnerability, right when the Dragonborn was recovering from Draconic Rush.

[I didn’t expect to pull it off on the first try, but I’ll take it.] Yuel nodded. It was difficult timing to pinpoint. In fact, he partially owned it to DragonMaster. The timing of the guy’s Draconic Rush was simply too predictable. That made everything easier. Yuel didn’t have to react on the spot. Instead, he predicted when the Draconic Rush was about to start and derived the exact timing from there.

Zeph understood the gist of it as well, but he still couldn’t believe it actually happened.

[No way he timed that shit. That’d be inhuman!] Zeph gulped. [Well, “inhuman” might be an exaggeration. I’m sure some pros can pull it off. Probably.]

At the highest level of play, pros always pulled off amazing plays. So, perfectly timing Dark Blast on Draconic Rush wasn’t beyond them. But, a middle schooler doing that? A brat from the same region? Not even a Korean prodigy kid or some shit? No way. Simply impossible.

[Gotta be a fluke.] Zeph concluded.

To his credit, Chessmaster probably had the right idea there. There’s a good chance he was aiming for that specific moment. The guy seemed to be smart, so he probably knew it was a possible play. But, actually [landing] that shot with that perfect timing gotta be a fluke. It won’t happen a second time.

Therefore, it was safe to charge like this again next time. If Chessmaster attempts the same trick, he’ll mistime it for sure and Draconic Rush will soak all the damage. Or, alternatively, the Dark Blast will come too late and Zeph will have enough time to roll away. Either way, the next Dark Blast won’t scratch him.

[Here we go.] Zeph took a deep breath. The next minion wave arrived. He advanced to the frontline like before.

First, he examined the Dark Knight’s movements. The startup of Draconic Rush was yet another vulnerable time window. Despite what haters liked to say, Draconic Rush wasn’t an easy “panic button”. The damage invincibility was awesome, but it didn’t come out right away. Therefore, it wasn’t an easy button to press under pressure.

Chessmaster surely knew that, so there was a chance he’d aim for this opening. Many opponents in Ranked did exactly that. After suffering many bitter experiences, Zeph had no choice but to learn how to play around this weakness.

In time, he even learned to use this weakness as bait. He pretended to go for Draconic Rush, just to bait out the enemy’s skill. Then, he’d dodge the skill and go for Draconic Rush for real. Many greedy opponents fell for this 200 IQ bait.

But, not Chessmaster. The guy was calm like still water. Basic baits didn’t tempt him in the slightest. What an annoying bastard. Why couldn’t he misplay more? Seriously.

[Well, here goes then.] Zeph rammed into the enemy swordsmen with Draconic Rush. To be on the safe side, he started spamming the spacebar ahead of time. [Gotta roll as soon as I recover. Ez dodges.]

WHISH. A heavy blade tore through empty space, leaving a trail of darkness in the air. As expected, a Dark Blast was coming!

[Here goes!] Zeph finished the charge and began his dodge-roll. But, just a split second before that, the Dark Blast sliced through him.

“You gotta be shitting me…” His lips trembled. There was no way. It was simply impossible.

Zeph did everything possible in that situation. He spammed Dodge Roll ahead of time, so he should’ve rolled away at the first chance he got. But, such a chance never came. The Dark Blast hit first.

And, it wasn’t just any hit. It was a hit that shaved off 15% HP. Again.

[Is this guy for real?] Zeph shuddered. Was this level of execution even legal? Chessmaster gotta be some sort of cyborg with artificially enhanced motor skills, no other way to explain it. No human middle schooler should be legally allowed to pull shit like that. It should be banned! All of it!

[Okay, that went well.] Yuel sighed in relief. There was no guarantee he’ll succeed the second time, but it went well. He would have liked to claim it was thanks to his mechanical skill, but that’d be a huge lie.

A well-timed shot like this usually required superb execution, a thing Yuel didn’t possess. Lars would easily pull it off after a single day of practice, but not Yuel. It was simply impossible for him to react to Draconic Rush and fire his Dark Blast with precise timing. However, if he knew ahead of time when the shot was coming, it was a different story entirely.

Fortunately, DragonMaster made life easy by being so predictable. The guy telegraphed his intentions by running forward right before activating Draconic Rush. He didn’t even try to hide his plans. He sprinted a little, then went for Draconic Rush.

That gave Yuel enough time to prepare. Of course, even with all these advantages, he wasn’t going to perfectly nail it every time. But, so far, he scored two out of two. That should shake DragonMaster to the core.

Eventually, DragonMaster will crack and commit a mistake that’ll cost him his life. Yuel just had to keep pressuring until then.