The Iron Ant Guardian(1)

"Zed cover us!" Yang shouted, dashing forward and ducking under a swing from a Warrior. As she moved toward the Guardian's right leg Alexx made his way for the left.

"Don't make it sound so easy!" he shouted back, cutting the head off a Warrior as the other end of his spear knocked a Drone out of the air. Unlike before, the horde of Drones didn't need to climb up the Guardian's legs and now were able to come from every direction with no effort. Furthermore, they were well behind enemy lines with no backup from the Mountain Goats. Even though Zed could see the end of the horde from where he stood, that was still in the distance, and the remaining Drones numbered in the thousands. He couldn't stop them all, but he could at least reduce the load on the other two.

As Yang got closer, the Guardian stomped its leg at her. She managed to evade the attack, but the spikes on the limb scraped across her armor, almost pulling her to the ground.

'Faster than I expected,' she thought bitterly. A split second later the leg kicked forward at her, knocking her back. She was close enough to it that the impact wasn't too damaging, but the spikes managed to dig into the gaps between her armor.

Rolling to her feet, Yang immediately charged forward to not give the surrounding Drones a second to swarm her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alexx deftly evading similar attacks from the other leg, clearly using [SPRINT] to boost his speed.

'Guess I better do the same,' she thought checking her HUD.

{HP}: 972/1125

{SP}: 367/375

Even with her SP practically full, she only had two minutes of [SPRINT] available, and that was without her using any other Skills. She understood that the others mostly used the Skill in short bursts, but even after having practiced during the trip out here she hadn't quite gotten the timing down, and an opponent like the Iron Ant Guardian certainly wasn't something she wanted to practice against.

Unfortunately, she didn't have much of a choice. The Guardian turned its head towards her and lunged forward to bite her in half. Activating [SPRINT] with barely a second to spare, Yang narrowly avoided the attack, the tips of the enormous jaws ripping off a piece of her armor as she leapt back.

Leaving the Skill active, Yang darted forward at the Guardian's leg, swinging the hammer of her War Pick at the joint that was just barely within reach. The carapace gave off a satisfying crunch as the ant swept its leg toward her in retaliation. Ducking under the swipe, Yang started to back away.

'Less of a reaction than for Alexx but still decent damage,' she thought as she looked at the injured area, the carapace visibly cracked. Yang deactivated [SPRINT] for a moment, when a few Drones suddenly jumped at her from the side. She knocked them away with a backhand, but the Guardian moved closer and stomped at her again.

'We need to kill this thing fast,' Yang thought as she just barely reactivated [SPRINT] and dodged the attack. 'Being surrounded like this is too much for just the three of us.'

"Alexx! Can you get on its back?!" she called out.

"Not without an opening!"

They had managed to get on the Guardian's back by jumping from a greater distance while it was focusing on the Mountain Goats. At this distance, they would always be within reach, and if they left themselves airborne while it was focused on them like this there was no way it wouldn't be able to bite them out of the air.

"I'll give you an opening, but you need to be quick!" She looked at the Guardian's face, and for a moment she thought that it locked eyes with her. Putting her War Pick away, she activated [TAUNT] with a roar. "YOU AND ME BASTARD, LET'S GO!"

The effect, and Yang's regret, was immediate. The Guardian's head bolted forward, trying to clamp its jaws around her, while its legs stomped frantically and shook the ground around them.

Yang desperately wished she still had her shield as she began dodging the Guardian's attacks, the massive jaws and jagged spikes missing her by a hair's breadth every time. Despite the several tons of iron within its shell the Guardian was fast, just a bit faster than Yang was even with the bonus from [SPRINT]. Fortunately, as a seasoned Tank player, Yang had plenty of experience fighting opponents that were faster than her, and while not as skilled as Alexx or Zed, she was able to avoid the giant ant's attacks without much issue. It took all of her concentration, but the Guardian's frantic attacks also stopped any Drones or Warriors from getting close to her, allowing her to maintain the stalemate in the center of the battlefield.

~~~~~

With the Guardian intent on turning Yang into paste, Alexx leapt toward the giant's back. A Warrior jumped up to meet him in the air, but Alexx was able to respond quickly. He punched the Warrior's blade before it struck him, effectively using the hardened knuckle of his weapons as a shield, he used his other hand to grab the ant by the head. Avoiding more of its attacks as the two fell to the ground, Alexx pulled the ant closer just as they hit the Guardian's back, breaking the Warrior's torso over his knee with the force of the impact.

Tossing the dead Warrior aside, Alexx leaned over to begin punching the Guardian in the center of its back.

'Yang said to be fast, so lets go all out.' Activating [POWER ATTACK], Alexx struck the carapace below him with all of his might.

*CRACK*

The power behind Alexx's punch was astronomical, totaling in at 320 damage after being reduced by the Guardian's armor. The force of the blow was enough to crack the ant's carapace, exposing the thick webbing of iron and flesh beneath it, and drawing a pained roar from the enormous insect.

Alexx pulled his arm back to strike again when the ant began bucking underneath him, trying to throw him off for a second time. He reached for something to hold on to, but was thrown forward before he could get a solid grip on anything.

Alexx's body bounced off the Guardian's head before landing on the ground. Quickly rolling to his feet, the brawler looked up to see the giant ant staring down at him with the same intensity that it had been staring at Yang just moments ago.

'Didn't Yang use Taunt already?'

Alexx didn't understand what was happening, but Yang did and she was mentally berating herself over having made such a rookie mistake.

She let Alexx deal too much damage and he stole the aggro.

~~~~~

The first and foremost job of any Tank player was to manage aggro, to ensure that the boss was focused on them and not the DPS or Supports. It was a careful balance of knowing what everyone else was doing, timing cooldowns, and all while going toe-to-toe with the enemy.

Yang knew all of this. She knew it so well that she could do parts of it unconsciously. But as she watched the Guardian turn to attack Alexx, she knew that she had royally screwed up.

The problem was that there was no clear understanding of how aggro worked in New Eden Online. Some MMORPGs focused on realism and therefore didn't have an aggro system, while others were similar to old-school games and had clearly defined rules.

NEO existed somewhere in between. While it did possess the [TAUNT] Skill, which was as simple as it was effective, absent of that most animals had realistic AI that would focus on victory. They wouldn't mindlessly attack whoever had dealt the most damage, or ignore those who had dealt less, they would go after whoever they felt they had the best chance of killing and sometimes would avoid whoever was dealing the most damage for the sake of survival. It was near impossible to combat the game's AI when they didn't understand its rules.

'No one had managed to steal the aggro from Taunt before,' she thought as she used the Skill again, only for the Guardian to ignore her.

Until now, [TAUNT] had seemed like it perfectly held the target's aggro for as long the [ENRAGED] debuff was in effect. Anytime the Skill was used the target would go mad with bloodlust and would ignore everything to try and kill the user. The effect would either disappear with the debuff, or the target would die, and there had never been an exception.

That is to say, until now.

Unfortunately, this was the first time Yang had fought an opponent that could be described as a 'boss' in NEO. There had only ever been basic enemies around the village, and even the encounter with The Wise One had been more like an event than a boss fight.

Apparently, it was possible to overwhelm the [TAUNT] Skill, but the damage necessary was so great that most enemies died before the threshold was exceeded. Only the Iron Ant Guardians and the larger Mountain Goats could live long enough for the aggro to be stolen.

Bates' team had managed to avoid this during their battle with the goat by having multiple DPS players, but right now Alexx was practically the sole damage dealer.

"Alexx! Just dodge for now!" Yang shouted as she leapt to the Guardian's back.

The brawler gave no response, and Yang assumed he hadn't heard her thanks to the Guardian's attacks.

Reusing [TAUNT] had no effect, so there was only one way for her to take back the aggro.

Yang needed to outpace Alexx's damage output.

'But can I?' Yang wondered, clinging to the Guardian's back as it frantically attacked Alexx. Yang had no damage-boosting abilities aside from [SKILL A], could she deal enough damage to get the Guardian's attention?

'No point in thinking about it.' Gritting her teeth, Yang pulled herself into a standing position next to the opening along the ant's neck. She raised her War Pick. 'Time to start digging.'

With all the progress that had already been made, it took only a few swings for Yang to expose the soft flesh beneath the iron and chitin. Feeling hopeful, Yang let loose another swing that she expected to easily tear through the pale meat.

Her hopes were confirmed as the heavy stone spike passed through with slight resistance, burying itself in the Guardian's neck.

The effect was immediate as the giant ant once again shifted its focus to Yang, and was now bucking to get her off its back. Yang held on tight, clinging to her weapon when a shadow passed overhead. She thought it might be a Warrior coming to aid the Guardian, but as her eyes focused she realized that it was Alexx.

With the ant's focus back on her, Alexx quickly used the opening to leap at its head, readying a powerful kick.

*CRACK*