Like many other professions and specializations, adventurers create their own jargon words to describe phenomena important to their lives and roles. ‘Tank’ is one such word. It means both the act of tanking and the role, individual, or Css that specializes in it. To tank a monster is to deliberately attract its attacks. The usual tools are damage, proximity, and specialized Taunt skills to appear the most ‘threatening’ to the monster.
Many adventurers structure their groups acc to the cssical roles of tanking, healing, and damage dealing. The job of the tank is to take hits and specialize in mitigating damage. Typically, these are warriors with the heaviest pte armor, shields, css skills, and potions – all of which are focused on redug the amount of damage to manageable levels while ensuring the monster remains focused oank and does not go rampaging off to kill the other specialist members of the group.
Typically, good tanks are expected to be able to trol the creatures they are fighting, setting up advantageous positions for the rest of the party. A simplistic example may be to face a dragon with an area damage breath on away from the group.
Many legends and stories glorify the role of the tank, mistakenly thinking that their pt at the very forefront of the battle makes them more important, however, experienced adventurers know that all roles are equally necessary. Without a skilled healer, the tank will die, and without skilled damage csses, the monsters will stay alive, attag until everyone runs out of mana or stamina.
Some people try to cim that other styles of tanking are viable, for example, developing very high levels of dodging skill. However, nobody takes these people seriously. Probably because they don’t st very long – being only one bad string of luck away from death.
One important caution to novid seasoned adventurers alike: overrelian specializations such as tanking will ofte adventurers killed when they front higher-level se enemies or intelligent monsters. In particur, Taunt skills fun in much the same way as mental suggestion attacks – the tank uses their physical preseo coerce the eo attack them to the exclusion of any others. Much like aal attack, this be resisted with high wisdom, or aal prote skills or ables. Ahat figure out your strategy and ignore your tank while attag your healer directly is a signifitly more dangerous foe.
- Excerpt from The Adventurer’s Guide, Third Edition
Mato
Mato sat beside his friends, his mood unusually introspective iermath of the fight. He enjoyed listening to their excitement as they discussed their various advances, even adding his opinion here and there. Ali’s joyous ughter as she zoomed around on her golden disk made him smile, and ’s powerful new skill made him look so epic.
Mato hadn’t even looked at his notificatio. He had always sidered himself to be something of a brawler, good at fighting and standing up for himself and his friends on his own power. A bit impulsive and hot-headed, as his parents always said – or at least his mother did – but he had always felt like he had to take care of things by himself.
The fight with the wyvern had ged something for him, at least a perspective.
I would have died instantly without Ali and Malika stantly healing me, he reflected soberly. On some level, he had felt the powerful ay of being forced to rely on others for his very life. However, over the course of the fight, he had slipped into an almost trancelike zone, where he felt like he had found his purpose. Particurly, he end of the fight, when the giant Skeletal Wyvern had nded and was attag with frenzied speed and power. Releasing his o trol everything and trusting his teammates to keep him alive had allowed him to focus all his attention on trolling the monster. He felt like he had bee the core focus of the entire fight, the product of the eeam’s strength, but in no way diminishing the power and tributions of his friends – at least, until the cowardly thing had taken to the air.
I guess this is the feeling of real teamwork.
In that pce, he had discovered a powerful and deep sense of enjoyment, a feeling of testing himself against the giant undead creature, in a very personal and direct fashion, and ing out victorious.
I think I have found my role. Am I weird for enjoying it quite so much?
“You’re not usually one for deep, thoughtful moments,” ’s voice broke in, lightly teasing. “Get anything good from the fight?”
“And you’re not usually the one poking fun,” he responded with a grin. “Let me check.”
There were a lot of kill notifications for clearing the entire library, ending with the Skeletal Wyvern. After bypassing all those, he found the otifications he had been anticipating.
Druidic Shapeshifter has reached level 27 (+5).+50 attribute points.
Ugly fight, nice rewards. Shame I couldn’t hold the monster right at the end. Was I doing something wrong? Maybe knows… or maybe I will have to talk to Vivian Ross.
Mato’s attribute choices were fairly straightforward, if he ran out of health he died, and so would his friends. Ten points immediately went to vitality, followed by thirteen in strength and eleven in endurahis covered his primary tanking attributes. Eight points went to wisdom because so many of his abilities required it, and then six points to perception to boost his Survival Instinct. His two remaining points went to dexterity – it wasn’t an attribute he needed much of, but some iment definitely helped him move quicker when he o block or dodge. Happy, he moved on to the rest of his notifications.
Arboreal Sanctuary has reached level 14 (+2).Swipe has reached level 17 (+2).Brutal Restoration has reached level 17 (+3).Bear Form has reached level 20 (+5).Bestial bat has reached level 18 (+2).Natural Prowess has reached level 13 (+2).Survival Instinct has reached level 11 (+5).
His skill growth demonstrated just how hard he had been pushed. All his defensive and attack skills had leveled up dramatically – the particur standouts being Bear Form and Survival Instinct – his primary armor and avoidance skills. Even Arboreal Sanctuary had grown by two levels for doing nothing more than sharing his aura with Malika and siphoning damage from her when she popped in and out of harm’s way.
But there was more waiting for him. Lig his lips, he read on.
Requirements met for skill adva.
Bear Form has reached level 20.Tanked a raid-level threat.Defeated five or more monsters with greater than 80% physical damage redu.
Bear Fains Pierg Bite.Pierg BiteStamina: A powerful bite attack that does [skill + strength] melee pierg damage and ignores 20% of the oppo’s armor. Recharge: 15 seds. Physical, Melee, Strength
Requirements met for skill adva.
Bear Form has reached level 20.Tanked a raid-level threat.Held the attention of four or more monsters while under an area damage onsught.
Bear Fains Challenging Roar.Bear Fains increased size a.Challenging RoarStamina: Challenge your enemies with a powerful roar. Eaemy is Tauo attack you and receives a redu tth. Range: 15 feet, Duration: 30 seds. Recharge: 30 seds.Physical, Melee, Area, Debuff, Taunt, StrengthChoose up to one adva.
Notig the expet looks from his friends, he shared his choices.
“Bear Fot an advance,” he said, sharing his two choices. It looked like he was being offered one new skill that was usable when he was in his Bear Form.
“Those both look great,” Malika said.
“Mato is going to pick the bite,” predicted.
“Why?” Ali asked.
“It’s the ohat does damage, of course.”
“Actually, I think I like the roar better,” Mato answered, getting a surprised look from . “And no, I really mean that, I’m not just messing with you. This time.”
“Why? I mean it looks good, but I’m surprised,” said.
“Those Kobold warriors with their taunt shouts were very annoying,” Mato answered. He still remembered his fusioime the Kobolds had made him switch. Putting a few points into wisdom had definitely helped, but he was still frustrated every time it happened.
“So, you were inspired by them?”
“No, I want to be just as annoying to my enemies,” Mato decred. He grinned as Malika burst out ughing. “I ’t shout insults in Bear Form, and I like r, I may as well get a roar with actual power. Besides, I get to be bigger, too.”
“Yoing to pick it for those reasons?” excimed, looking fbbergasted.
Mato let stew for a few moments before he chuckled. “The strength redu looks very helpful for tanking, especially given how well adding armor worked, and aaunt will be very powerful too. I could have used being heavier against that Skeletal Wyvern – plus, it was able to break away toward the end.”
Watg ’s expression as he realized he had been had was worth the setup.
“So, you do know how to reason properly,” teased.
“Yes, but it was much more fun to watch your face when I said I was going to choose it just to be annoying, and because I like shouting at stuff.”
“You like tanking that much? You won’t miss the damage skill?” Malika asked, her face still rec from a good ugh, but her eyes held a note of seriousness.
“I think so, yes,” Mato answered. He sidered the straurn of his feelings, trying to find a way to put it into words. “I felt alive trading blows with a dragon. Even a crappy undead one. If I want to do that more, I o be serious about it and choose the right tools.”
nodded slowly. “o. You vinced me. Go ahead.”
He selected his Challenging Roar and brought up the description for Bear Form.
Bear Form – level 20Stamina: Shapeshift into a bear. Your hide provides +691 [css x 12 + skill x 12 + enduranbsp;natural Armranted Skills: Charge, Challenging Roar.Nature, Shapeshift, Buff, EnduranceCharge – level 20Requires: Bear Form.Stamina: Charge at high speed using your momentum to check or crush your oppo. Range: 30 feet. Recharge: 10 seds.Physical, Melee, Movement, Strength
Challenging Roar – level 20Requires: Bear Form.Stamina: Challenge your enemies with a powerful roar. Eaemy is Tauo attack you and receives a redu tth. Range: 15 feet, Duration: 30 seds. Recharge: 30 seds.Physical, Melee, Area, Debuff, Taunt, Strength
“Are you going to show us the new, improved Bear?” Ali asked brightly.
Mato just smiled and activated his shapeshift. It drew a little more stamina this time, and the shift felt like it somehow took more work, both to adjust and his body, and to apply the shift to his armor.
As soon as it finished, he realized why. His body was substantially heavier and denser, aood noticeably taller with his armor suitably stretched to cover a broader chest and rger shoulders. I feel powerful. He clicked his fangs together and made a trial Swipe with his heavier paws, making sure to keep the blow way over Ali’s head.
“Well, that’s going to be better for tanking the rger monsters,” Malika approved.
“Yes, if he keeps this up, he’s going to actually bee big someday,” Ali said. She was standing on the ground staring up at him from between his front paws.
Uo ugh in Bear Form, he just snorted and butted Ali gently with his head as both her and Malika broke into ughter.
Mato took his new Bear through its paces. It would take a little to get used to the weight ge and increased reach, but all told he was happy. I ’t wait, he thought, already imagining a rematch with a monster just as ridiculous as the Skeletal Wyvern.
***
Name: Mato BahrRace: BeastkinActive Buffs: Bear Form, Natural Prowess
Css: Druidic Shapeshifter – level 27- Arboreal Sanctuary – level 14- Swipe – level 17- Brutal Restoration – level 17- Bear Form – level 20- Wolf Form – level 4- Bestial bat – level 18- Natural Prowess – level 13- Survival Instinct – level 11- [Locked]- [Locked]
General Skills- Identify – level 7- Cooking – level 5- Wilderness Lore – level 6
Aptitudes- Languages: o- Mana (Affinity): Nature- Strong (Racial): +7 tth- Tough (Racial): +10 to Enduraributes- Vitality: 164 (+60)- Strength: 121 (+52)- Endurance: 156 (+77)- Dexterity: 12- Perception: 30- Intelligence: 9- Wisdom: 54
Equipment- Body: Banded Feral Pte Armor – level 20
Armor: 1008Physical Damage Redu: 57.14%
Health: 1640/1640Stamina: 1248/1560 (312 Reserved)Mana: 540/540
Aliandra
Ali swooped through the air seated upon her golden magical disk, leaving eddies in the smoky haze that swirled zily in her wake. I don’t think this will ever get old. I fly! As long as she could hang on to her barrier, that was. But the little she had ied ierity so far seemed to be enough for her to plete some daring maneuvers and quick turns without getting thrown off.
“Ali, watch out hat edge,” Malika said.
“I’m fine,” Ali answered, but she did angle her flight, swooping back toward the group. There had been a few tumbles, so Malika’s wasly mispced. After a few more minutes of attempting to bank in progressively tighter turns around her friends, she recalled that she had earned something else during the fight.
I got the Piercer Scorpion imprint!
The giant bone elementals had been terrifyingly powerful melee monsters, and Ali couldn’t think of a siuation where she would rather have a Bugbear or a Kobold warrior over one of those. Except the Bugbears jump, she thought. High enough to swat some flying monsters out of the air, she imagined. And they have stealth… Perhaps variety is the key. Certainly the Piercer Scorpions had been terrifyingly massive and she could use them as a wall, if nothing else.
Eager to try it, she guided her barrier to the ground and hopped off.
“Done flying?” Mato asked her, clearly amused. “You looked good – you know, like a green-haired, flying magical bat.”
“Mato!” she grinned. “I’ll get back to it in a minute. I want to try to summon a Piercer Scorpion.”
“Oh, you got it? That will be impressive,” said.
“I did!” Ali had lost t of how many she had destructed – several dozen at least. She made her Grimoire appear and flipped the pages open to the brand-neter imprinted with the ‘Bone Elemental’. Presumably, it included the Spitter Drone as part of the imprint, otherwise, she would have expected the title to be a little more specific. However, predig her Grimoire’s behavior was not nearly a sce yet.
She eled her mana into the Grimoire for several minutes before an enormous white monster suddenly appeared, t statuesquely over her.
Piercer Scorpion – Elemental – level 28
“Helleous,” Malika chuckled. It stood gleaming in the magical light that still illumihe shattered battlefield, majesti stature, vicious-looking, heavily armored, and dangerous. Then it colpsed in a heap on the ground with a loud crash.
What?
She stared at the rge pile of unmoving bone in surprise, but no mana flowed from her, and she had gotten no notification of a reservation increase. It was dead. No, she peered closer. It’s like it was never alive, just a puppet created from bone.
She tried again, making a sed one – but it, too, appeared to be dead oion.
“What’s wrong with this?” Ali grumbled in frustration. Nothing like this had ever happened before – her Grimoire, other than the random variation, had always been aremely reliable skill.
“I think yic is wrong,” Mato answered cryptically, bending down to poke the corpses with his rge finger.
“What do you mean?”
“You are a nature mage. Nature is the magic of life, creatures, and pnts,” he answered. “These things are not. They are pure structs of bone affinity mana. If I had to guess, I’d say your nature mana is incapable of giving them life.”
“Elementals are creatures born of a particur mana affinity,” said thoughtfully, “I think Mato has it right. It’s the same reason you ’t cast Fireball spells with your nature mana.”
“But I create Fire Mages,” Ali objected. She had been so excited about making the scorpions, she didn’t need problems with mana affinities getting in her way.
“When you make a Kobold, you’re creating a living creature with nature mana. It is the one creating the fire mana,” answered. “It might be a little i, but it works. A fire elemental is more like a Fireball than a creature. That’s probably why this doesn’t work. At least, that’s what I think.”
Ali frowned, “I was looking forward to making an army of them. I guess I wasted an imprint?”
“Maybe we find you some nature elementals?” Malika said. “Although, that seems unlikely down here. Don’t rush it – whatever you do, Ali. Don’t get rid of it yet.”
“Nature elementals would be nice,” Ali admitted, shaking her head unhappily. “Well, I guess I’ll keep this for now until I find something good to repce it with. Does anyone want that wyvern corpse?”
“It would probably be inveo sell,” Malika said. “We’ll probably make a lot more money with those fancy Eimuuran swords we found.”
“Ok, I guess I’ll destruct it, then,” Ali answered. At least it was something productive she could do – and she wasn’t about to gain a worthless imprint for Skeletal Wyverns after destrug just one of them.
Ali walked over to the enormous Skeletal Wyvern corpse draped across the nding and half the battlefield. She studied the surges and swirls in her mana for a few minutes as her Destru spell ran its course. As soon as it fihe great pile of previously undead wyvern dissipated into the surroundings, briefly lighting up the nding and the walls surrounding the atrium with an explosion of mana motes. From within the cloud of mana, a sizeable uneven spherical k of off-white bone fell cttering to the ground. It rolled about, ing to a stop against Ali’s feet pulsing with an intense tration of bone mana. Ali yelped and skipped backward, but it just y there on the ground.
Lesser Bone Essence.
To her surprise, the moment her mana pool filled from her destru, she felt a sudden precipitous drop as Sage of Learning sucked away a rge k of it, followed by the sing of chimes.
[Sage of Learning]Domain Magialyzed: Summoning (Piercer Scorpion).Domain Magialyzed: Attribute Enha (Strength).Domain Magialyzed: Enrage.
“Uh, I did… something,” Ali said, creeping up to the mana-dense bone sphere on the ground, simultaneously trying to uand her new notifications.
“Again?” Mato said, grinning widely. Ali frow him.
“Ooh! An essence!” Malika excimed, darting in, and pig up the uneven sphere of solid bone which was just a little smaller than her head.
“What is it?” Ali asked.
“A powerful crafting po,” Malika said breathlessly, examining it closely. “I’m not sure if there’s anyone in Myrin’s Keep who could even use something this potent.”
“Good thing we have Weldin,” observed. “robably trust him to find a buyer. Do you think it might be worth enough to cover some of our potion costs?”
“Oh yes,” Malika said, her feet tapping as if she wao dance. “I get a couple of gold for this! More than enough.”
As the others discussed the essence, Ali’s attentiouro the other notifications Sage of Learning had triggered. Domain Magialyzed? Where did it go? Her Grimoire hadn’t responded, so it was uo be in there, but she looked anyway. Nothing… Just in case, she opened her Sage skill description, but she found no clues lurking there either. She racked her brain trying to figure out what exactly it was that her skill had ‘analyzed’ but nothing came to mind.
“Hey, I got something new,” she said, turning to her friends for inspiration and sharing the ‘analysis’ notifications with them. “I don’t know what it is, though.”
“Those are all the wyvern’s biggest abilities!” said.
“Oh, you’re right,” Ali said, reading them again. Somehow reted to the domain? There was one for the enrage, one for the ridiculous strength, and one for summoning Piercer Scorpions. “I don’t see the bone spear skill though. Or the regeing bone armor.”
“Hmm…” said.
“I still don’t know what it’s for,” Ali said, but had at least pointed out the obvious e between the monster’s abilities, the domain, and her notifications. Still, the puzzle would bother her until she fully unraveled it. It must be something encoded in its mana. After all, she had got it by destru and her Sage skill.
“While you’re figuring that out, why don’t we go down and check out the bottom floor,” Malika suggested, making the lesser bone essence vanish into her ring’s ste entment. Whehers groaned, she said impatiently, “e on, you lot! We’re not going to gh all that just to miss out on some loht?”
“ing!” Now that all the monsters had been cleared from the library, they had free rein to explore. At least, until the dungeon decided to respawhing. Ali left the puzzle of the Domain Magid the obscure notifications for ter, ign the depressing thought that they might have to do all this again if the dungeon respawhe Skeletal Wyvern, and hopped on her barrier and flew off to join her friends as they desded the spiral stairs. She had never been allowed into the lower levels of the library and, as she floated beside everyone, her eyes gobbled up everything as she tried to imagine what it might have looked like in the past.
Eventually, she alighted on the ground of the bottom floor and stepped out into the middle of the atrium. There, t above them, beyond even the reach of ’s light magic, stood an enormous spire of accreted bone. While it ure white acc to her mundane vision, her Are Insight told airely different story.
Vast quantities of dense, dark mana billowed from the spire, filling the erium with a cloying pressure that made her skin crawl.
“This was the Skeletal Wyvern’s roost,” expined, stepping up beside her.
“I think it o go,” Ali said. The spire gave her the creeps. Perhaps it was just the density of the unfortable bone affinity mana, perhaps it was the sheer affront of having something like this in the ter of a space she had held to be sacred, reserved for study and knowledge. Either way, she was certain.
She stepped up to it, ign the scattering bone critters, pced her hand on the enormous pilr, and released her destruagito it.
I hope it doesn’t fall on me, she thought as her magic eled for quite a lot lohan it normally took. But it was just the extreme size that was taking the time, aually, the entire spire dispersed into a cloud of golden motes of light, with an audible popping sound.
Imprint: Bone pleted.
She sighed in relief as the bone mo vanished, opening up the spa the atrium. As usual, Ali dismissed the bone imprint that had been offered several times already. There was certainly more than enough bone around for her to learn it if she ever .
Just as she was about to turn around, there rofound ripple through the dense bone mana, and deep within the fual weave of the domain – in the bindiween bone ah – something tore. It wasn’t even just a little tear, the fabric of the domain ripped, sh the atrium with dark sparks that flickered and vahe giant ripple shot out across the atrium, up and out of sight as the ehing simply… unraveled?
Rooted to the spot, Ali stared at the darkly shimmering mana as it unbound and dispersed. The atrium echoed with a sudden skittering and scrabbling as thousands of bone critters fled. There was still a substantial amount of structured death and bone domain mana seeping out through the walls, indig that the dungeon was still alive. But the mana throughout the atrium and above y in tatters, like an immense wound that bled unstructured mana.
“You broke something, didn’t you?” Malika asked, standing beside her and staring out into the darkness.
whistled softly. “You don’t say.”
“Seems so,” Ali answered, not quite sure what she had done, nor what the impact would be. But she was afraid it wouldn’t be good.
“I think I broke the dungeon’s domain.”
timewalk
