Alone Against a Dark Knight

Nia won the Qualifier match but it was too early to celebrate. She still had six more matches ahead of her and she has already lost the first three, so she had to work extra hard to not end up in Bronze. To make sure that doesn't happen, Yuel stayed by Nia's side to give her advice.

"Go to the advanced settings," Yuel said. "Here, you can choose what you want to mute."

"Oh," Nia nodded. The basic "Mute All" option muted everything: chat, pings, and even the voiced macros. As much as Nia wanted to have a peace of mind during matches, she had to agree this was overkill.

"You can keep the chat muted, that's probably what you wanted in the first place. But, turn the rest on. It's not much of a team game if you can't coordinate anything with your teammates."

"Mhm," Nia nodded and followed the orders.

Turning the pings on was definitely important. However, as for the voiced macros, she wasn't so sure. There were a bunch of smartasses who used the macros to flame, like spamming a sarcastic "Thank you!" or a "Your rock!" into "Cancel that!". Those were so annoying.

However, those were much rarer than chat flaming and it was usually at least somewhat funny. So, Nia turned it on anyway.

With that, she was ready to face her next qualifier match.

[Please don't match me with people who steal roles.] Nia has already typed "Jungler" in the chat in preparation. As soon as the match lobby loaded, she jammed it in! Nobody was able to beat the speed of her stealthy tech!

However, being fast didn't help her. Ranked drafting had a specific order and Nia wasn't anywhere near the top of the list. The second player on the list called Jungler after her but he had the privilege to pick it first, so he ignored Nia's call and went for Ninja. What a bully.

Since the system shoved Nia to the bottom of the list again, so she had only two roles to pick from: Top and Support.

[Nobody wants to play Support, huh.] Yuel smiled wryly. He had the urge to gather all the people who rejected the Support role and personally lecture them about the depth and complexity of the role.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a role that fits everybody. It required playing with a vastly different mindset than other roles and the Support player had to have sufficient game knowledge and experience to make the role be of any help. So, as much as Yuel would have liked to see more people give it a try, he had to concede that Nia was better off playing Top.

"I can Vampire," Nia selected the class but hasn't locked-in yet.

"Vampire? For Top?" Yuel knotted his brows. "Well, it [is] considered a bruiser and it got sustain, but it's not that tanky. You sure?"

"Mhm," Nia nodded multiple times. She was dead set on playing Vampire for some reason. It was primarily a Jungler class so maybe Nia had some experience with it.

"Sure, why not," Yuel shrugged.

Vampire Top was borderline meme territory but this pick had a few merits. For one, Vampire's basics were ranged attacks so it had range advantage over most Top Laners. However, in exchange, it had a lower attack and endurance. So, this was almost like bringing a Carry class to Top. It could either go extremely well or turn into a disaster right away.

The enemy team left their Top pick for last, a thing that would normally be frowned upon in competitive matches. But, this was Ranked and teams were formed out of random players, so meta drafting could be dammed.

"Ah," Nia twitched once the enemy picked their Top Laner. Oh noes. Nonono. Bad. Bad. Bad!

It was a Dark Knight. Out of all things, it had to be that bully. Nia was done for.

"This is a great chance for you to feel for yourself what it means to deal with a Dark Knight in Top," Yuel snickered. "What did you use to say about ganking Top? That the Top Laner should 'play better' and not get overwhelmed by the Dark Knight?"

"Geh..."

"So, this is your chance. Show us how it's done. Deal with that Dark Knight yourself. It's easy, right?"

"Gufu..." Nia curled into a ball. "Bully."

"Well, it's not all bad," Yuel said. "Vampire got range, so at least you can maintain distance whole farming. That's a huge deal against a Dark Knight.

"Oh, so I countered-picked him. I also countered picked that Pyro last game. Maybe I'm genius at counter-picking? Gotta be it."

"Sure, sure," Yuel rolled his eyes. Yeah, [counter-picked the Dark Knight before the opponent even picked it. Truly, such a godlike level of counter picking.]

With that said, counter-picking Dark Knight ahead of time during the Qualifier and at low ranks made sense in general. It was a popular "noob stomper" class because he usually required the enemy team to cooperate in order to take him down. And, with how well-organized teams of random people were... yeah.

"Hm, Tipmancer doesn't have anything for this matchup," Nia twisted her lips. Recently, the more she was using Tipmancer, the more it felt like a sham. Like, the advice was legit and all but there wasn't nearly enough of it. It felt like Yuel stored way more useful game than this entire app.

"I'd go aggressive," Yuel said. "Something like Giant Warhammer."

"Hm?" Nia tilted her head. "Shouldn't I buy defense to survive his attacks?"

"You can try that but it probably won't go well. Your clearing speed is mediocre but your opponent's is off the charts, so you need as much power as you can get to race him. Of course, you won't be able to beat him even with Warhammer but at least his minions won't get to push much."

"So, it's like 'offense is best defense'?"

"Yes, you can put it that way. Play safe from afar but be aggressive with clearing minions."

"Sounds all kinds of weird but I think I get it," Nia nodded.

As expected, the matchup was rough. The Dark Knight wiped out her entire minion wave with a single Dark Blast. Nia had to retreat to her Turret before she even got to sneak in a single hit on the enemy minions.

She resorted to firing at the incoming wave from her tower area. The little bats she sent flying packed a punch thanks to Giant Warhammer. Nevertheless, it didn't stop the enemy from invading her Turret. And, along with the minions, the Dark Knight also fearlessly jumped into her territory and hacked away at the Turret.

[I swear, players in low ranks got no fear.] Yuel smiled wryly.

Perhaps, that Dark Knight took into account it was risky for Nia to shoot him. Vampire wasn't too tanky despite being classified as a "bruiser", so Nia couldn't absorb too much minion fire, especially not during the early game. But no, this player probably didn't think about any of that.

That guy probably assumed the opponent will have to respect him because he was a Dark Knight. It was a typical arrogance that came with being a Dark Knight player. Back in the day, Gregory used to play it a lot and always acted like he was the strongest player in the world.

[Boy did he rage when he played against a competent team that shut him down.] Yuel chuckled. Unfortunately for Nia, her random team wasn't the competent type. She got zero aid from her peers against the Dark Knight.

『HELP!』『HELP!』『HELP!』

『GANK!』『GANK!』『GANK!』

No matter how much she spammed the macros, the Jungler didn't show any signs of caring. That antisocial Ninja only cared about his own farming and left Nia to die.

"Maybe he muted everything," Yuel wondered.

"What kind of Jungler mutes pings and macros?" Nia glanced aside.

"I know, right? Crazy people." Yuel chuckled. "So, looks you're on your own against this Dark Knight. Feeling like chances are in your favor?"

"Not really..." Nia twisted her lips.

"Right, because they really aren't. You need this guy to mess up big time to get anything going here. Otherwise, you'll be like a lamb to slaughter. So, you see why it's so important for somebody to land a hand in Top against a Dark Knight?"

"Guh. This class is broken. Can't he pick an honest one?" Nia pouted.

"It's a noob stomper class, same as Rogue. You're not playing the game for real unless you know how to deal with these classes."

"Then, guess our Ninja isn't playing the game for real," Nia glanced aside.

"Look who's talking," Yuel gave her a look. "Anyway, if the Jungler doesn't gank then you're in trouble. Our Mid isn't doing too hot over there so he doesn't have the luxury to help you either."

"So, GG?"

"Hey, don't write yourself off like that yet. Just because it's a tough position doesn't mean you don't have any chances of coming on top. You might be able to handle it yourself somehow."

"Like how? I wait for him to run low on HP and then attack?"

"Yes, that's a valid approach," Yuel nodded. "I take it you have a lot of experience dueling Dark Knights?"

"More than I care for," Nia shuddered. Back when she was just a naive greenhorn who jumped into Duel unprepared, Dark Knight players were everywhere. It was the most broken thing ever. Just thinking back on it gave her the yikers.

"Considering you reached Platinum, I suppose you learned know to deal with Dark Knight?"

"Yeah, it's easy," Nia nodded. "I just ban it."

"That's... not quite what I was hoping to hear," Yuel frowned. So, Nia's solution to Dark Knight was never fighting him. Huh.

Ranked Duel allowed each player to ban three classes, so it made sense to ban problematic classes. In fact, Dark Knight's bloated ban ratio at low levels made many players use it as justification to complain about the class being OP, even though Dark Knight wasn't nearly as dominant on the highest level of play.

In Duel, Dark Knight was undeniably strong. However, it suffered greatly from the fact the game started at Lv.5, which was halfway toward mid-game. Unless the Dark Knight managed to establish an overwhelming advantage in the first couple of minutes, he was doomed.

Alas, at low levels, players didn't know how to defuse a Dark Knight and it ran all over them. Therefore, it became a popular ban. People rather avoid a Dark Knight than learn the matchup. It was a valid, but the less skillful, approach to ranking up.

Unfortunately, Nia chose to do exactly that. In other words, she didn't [really] have much experience dealing with a Dark Knight on her own. Yuel will have to hold her hand here.

"At least you know the general idea," Yuel said. "Your best shot is to patiently wait for the Dark Knight to run out of HP or to overextend. I take it you learned it from Tipmancer?"

"Mhm," Nia nodded. "This strat kinda works but not really."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. This matchup can be frustrating sometimes. In this mode, it's even harder because you start at Lv.1."

"So, what do?"

"Just do it. Defend and wait. Let's see what kind of Dark Knight we got on our hands and find an opportunity to strike him down."

"Ok." [That's my favorite pastime.] Nia nodded to herself. Turtling and waiting for the opponent to make a mistake was her prime strategy in Duel. At some point, people lowered their guard and committed a grave overextension, which Nia immediately punished with a kill.

But, that was a lot way easier to pull off with an assassin class. Vampire was assassin-ish when built with power items, but it was still a world apart from a proper assassin with burst damage. So, even if this Dark Knight overextends, will Nia be able to properly punish him and get a kill...?