The Great Thief
chapter-1097

In any case, the players could feel the energy and enthusiasm the game company had when they were designing Blackrock Abyss. This Instance Dungeon almost didn't feel like a game.

There were so many quests in it, but there were few quests that were required.

The Blackrock Abyss existed to show the Iron Dwarves' way of life. The game designers thought this meant that there should be a huge Iron Dwarf city in Azeroth. This city had prisons, taverns, mines, arenas, and royal palaces. There were members of different social classes performing their duties and maintaining order.

As you walked past the steel gates and down the road, this feeling became particularly strong.

They looked around casually, but the players could see the grandeur of the inner city. Its majestic buildings seemed to be looking down on them. It was almost as if the voice of Franclorn Forgewright's voice could be heard, saying, "Welcome to Shadowforge City! Welcome to the heart of the world!"

No matter how silly they thought the Iron Dwarves were, they had to admit that the creation of this place was nothing short of a miracle.

The walls slowly narrowed as they advanced. There was a dazzling torch on the wall that blinded them as they finally reached the exit to an inner city circle. This place was guarded by Incendius, one of the four Fire Elementals sent by Ragnaros.

Ragnaros' four Fire Elements were Incendius, Overmaster Pyron, Pyroguard Emberseer and Shahram. Pyron had already been defeated before this.

Incendius was responsible for guarding the black anvil. No one knew how long this burning elemental had lived; the legends said that Incendius would burn for all eternity.

Barron Geddon had taught Incendius to harness his destructive power, but the Baron didn't think that his student would pose such a great threat. As his concerns about Incendius grew, Geddon eventually decided to drive Incendius out of the Molten Core and ordered him to guard the black anvil of the Iron Dwarves. The Black Anvil was part of a quest line that Warriors had to follow to acquire an exquisite Epic axe.

Incendius was purely made up of fire, so naturally, its damage would be fire damage.

One of the most difficult parts of this fight was Curse of the Elemental Lord.

Curse of the Elemental Lord: Incendius reduces fire resistance of all players within 45 yards by 10% for 30 seconds. This effect can be stacked up to 5 times.

This effect could reduce their fire resistance by half, which meant that they would also take significantly more damage. Under normal circumstances, if a player's fire resistance was reduced by half, they would be taking 150% damage.

This problem was discovered as soon as Azure Sea Breeze began fighting the Boss. Within 30 seconds, he was forced to use one of his damage reduction skills to stay alive.

Another difficult part about Incendius was a skill called Flame Eruption. Incendius would deal fire damage to all players in a fan-shaped area of about 20 yards. This area would slowly expand and players had to escape it as quickly as they could. Otherwise, they would probably die, even if they did have fire resistance.

These two skills made up phase one of this Boss.

Perhaps it was because this was the first Boss of the day, but the team didn't cooperate well and many players died in this stage. Since so many players had died, Lu Li decided that they would try again once they saw the skills in phase two.

The new skill in phase two was a marking skill. After being marked for three seconds, a player would be ignited. This didn't deal a lot of damage, but the mark would spread to other players within four yards.

The main threat of this skill was that the players could infinitely pass it between them.

Before starting again, Lu Li gave an explanation of these skills. There was not much to say about the curse. It was just a test of fire resistance and those who couldn't withstand it would die.

Lu Li's equipment was quite exquisite, and everyone had several pieces of fire resistance equipment, so there was little pressure on the team in the first phase.

The second skill was fairly easy to deal with, even for ordinary players. After all, the flames would erupt in an obvious shape towards them. Lu Li had an array of escape skills and even the healers had a few, so Lu Li wasn't worried about this skill.

The most worrying aspect of the fight was the marking skill.

Working around it required a degree of cooperation, along with good situational awareness.

Of course, the players that were present had an advantage in this regard. No matter what the problem was, star players would always be more skilled than regular players.

Otherwise, how could this messy composition of a team be sent to such a difficult Instance Dungeon like the Blackrock Abyss, and be expected to take the First Clear as well?

The difficulty of the third phase was Flame Storm. On the one hand, equipment and strength was important, but on the other hand, dealing with it also depended on their luck.

Incendius would deal fire damage to all players within a 10 yard radius. The total amount of damage was determined by the number of players in the area. The greater the number of players, the greater the damage. However, if the number of players was less than a certain threshold, Incendius would become Beserk.

A 10-yard radius was not much space. If there were fewer players in the flame storm, then it would be fine.

However, if there were three or more players in the flame storm, then they would be in danger. If there were five or more players, then they would need to escape the skill range and not rely on the healer. If there were ten or more players…

Then there was nothing left to do – they would inevitably get wiped.

Many players hoped to join an elite team where they would never get wiped in an Instance Dungeon, but this was almost impossible in Dawn.

Regardless of the difficulty of the Boss, each had its own way reducing moral in a team. Even the strongest teams could be wiped when morale was low.

The first phase was cleared without any issues. Innocent Child died in the second phase, but he was easily revived and they continued the fight.

After entering the third phase, the first Flame Storm wasn't too destructive as it only hit four players. However, they weren't so fortunate the second time as it hit seven players. None of them were prepared for the sudden amount of damage and they were wiped soon after that.

Once they discussed how they would deal with this situation, Lu Li could only pray that everyone would perform better.

Flame Storm would be cast three times. If you could withstand three Flame Storms, then you could defeat the Boss.

They failed their second attempt, and the third… and again… and again…

For more than an hour, they had made countless attempts to defeat this Boss. When Incendius cast a Flame Storm that was about to catch six players, they were able to quickly escape on time.

Eventually, Incendius came crashing down, leaving a cloud of smoke and dust in the air.