Resource Analysis

BAM! Lars's third shot assuredly hit the drone and eliminated it.

However, he couldn't see any of it. Why? Because his entire screen was covered in pure white!

"This is kinda bad, yo!" Lars shifted his attention to Yuel's screen in order to see what was actually going on. It was even worse than he expected!

As soon as the light exploded, Winner summoned a drone behind his back and advanced on Lars. The AbsoluteDudes were planning to double-team Lars all along, yoooooo!

"Don't worry, I got your back." Yuel cast Gaia's Protection on Lars. At this early stage of the game, the shield could absorb more than a couple of hits.

"Thanks, my dude!" A confident grin returned to Lars's face.

With a thicc shield protecting him, he didn't have to worry about the enemy's duo attack. However, that didn't mean he was in any position to fight back against the AbsoluteDudes.

"Okay, I'm out!" Lars announced his plan to retreat. "But, before I go..."

BAM! He fired one more shot while backpedaling from the danger zone. His target? The drone dude who was chilling behind Winner's back.

[Bullseye!] Lars grinned in satisfaction. He fired that shot from a perspective that was far from ideal, but he was used to shenanigans like this. After all, he and Yuel practiced situations like this plenty.

Against classes that could cover up Lars's screen, he trained himself to immediately switch to Yuel's monitor. And, Yuel was also used to these situations.

[I have to remember not to turn around.] Yuel slowly backpedaled from the scene, making sure to keep the enemies within his field of view. He was Lars's eyes right now, so he had to make sure Lars could catch all the important details.

ZAP. ZAP. WHISH. The enemy spared no time assaulting Lars. The Droid and his drone fired lasers, and the Lumimancer backed them up with balls of light.

All three attacks struck against the defensive branches covering Lars. But, even with all their powers combined, the hits weren't enough to penetrate Gaia's Protection.

Obviously, that didn't make the enemy happy.

"Man, this shield!" Ronald ranted. "Cheapest thing I've ever seen, word!"

"Yeah..." William gave a half-hearted response.

Of course, he didn't appreciate the shield blocking his damage either. However, his attention was focused elsewhere, on something far more troubling. And, that something became even more concerning in the next moment.

BAM! Gunz fired in William's direction again. However, the bullet wasn't aimed at William himself. Instead, it targeted the drone floating behind him.

And, the shot was spot on! After these two hits, the drone was on the verge of falling apart.

[He just hit my drone. Again.] It was an undeniable fact. Gunz hit the mark twice in a row.

Of course, that's to be expected from that sharpshooter under normal circumstances. But, this situation was different.

[He should be blinded.] William frowned. [How can he aim like this without seeing?]

And, the mystery extended beyond just shooting accuracy. As William, his drone, and Ronald were about to shoot Gunz again - the guy rolled away in the nick of time! It's almost as if he saw the shots coming and waited for the best moment to make his move.

"What the-!?" Ronald gritted his teeth. [Was that just a lucky guess? No, that doesn't seem right...]

Coincidence? Luck? Could vague concepts like that truly explain the feats Gunz was pulling off?

BAM! Gunz fired once more, right after recovering from the roll. And, this shot also headed in William's direction!

[No, you don't.] William was prepared this time. He moved to the side the moment he saw Gunz taking aiming.

For the most part, it was a timely response. If Gunz's bullet were aimed at William himself, then he would have successfully sidestepped it in time.

Unfortunately, like before, the bullet didn't target William. Instead, it went after the Assault Drone that was following behind William.

Since William moved aside, the drone followed suit. However, the drone's actions always had a small delay to them. Therefore, in the end, the drone wasn't fast enough to sidestep the shot.

BOOM! The drone exploded behind William's back.

"Wait, what!?" Ronald exclaimed. "I thought he was shooting randomly, but he actually took down your drone!?"

"Congrats for finally noticing," William said. "Yes, he landed every shot on the drone."

"What the actual heck? He's supposed to be blinded!"

"Yes, I'm sure he is. But say, what do you usually do when the enemy blinds you?"

"Welp, if I'm playing alone, then I just gotta suck it up. But, if somebody is close by, then I'll check out their screen."

"And there you have it."

"Wait, so you're saying he used his partner's screen to land these three shots?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, that kinda explains things, but at the same time, it totally doesn't. Like, can you really land three accurate shots like this from a totally different point of view?"

"Gunz can, apparently."

"That's hax! We even caught him by surprise and all! He was supposed to be mad confused about the situation."

"Looks like he maintained his cool just fine. Anyway, we're done here." Willaim issued a retreat.

With both drones destroyed, the duo didn't have much leverage against their lane opponents here. The enemy minions were still very much alive and still targeting Ronald.

[We have to clear out the fodder first.] Willaim concentrated his fire on the enemy bowmen first, as they were squishier and had the higher DPS.

Meanwhile, Ronald fired balls of light at the swordsmen who were hot on his trail. He didn't have the luxury to shoot the enemy backline because that would require pausing, and he sure didn't want to do that right now, not with this entire brigade chasing him down.

And so, the two brothers fired basic attacks at the two different sides of the enemy wave, all the while retreating deeper and deeper into allied territory. It was a decent pincer technique, but their progress was painfully slow.

[Maybe I should've rolled Gunz's last shot.] William thought in retrospect. [It might've made the drone move along faster, though it's hard to say for sure. After all, the reaction speed on that scrap of metal is garbage tier. Hmph. On second thought, maybe I made the right call there, after all.]

Rather than salvaging the drone, it was probably better to hold onto Dodge Roll in case the enemy was planning to mount a counter-attack. Especially, the Druid's pull was dangerous CC, so Willaim constantly had to keep watch.

Fortunately, this time, the enemy disengaged nicely without making Willaim's life needlessly difficult.

[Well, it makes sense they didn't bother counter-attacking.] William thought. [They rather play the long game with Pirate. The Druid could go out of his way to continue the fight and pressure us with his CC, but he chose to prioritize the Pirate's safety.]

Essentially, this Druid existed solely to supplement his Carry at the moment. Pirate wanted to take things easy and rack up gold until the mid-game, and the Druid utilized his strong shield to make that sailing smoother. And so, the two classes synergized very well in that sense.

[On the other hand, my Support…] William made a face. [Well, it's not like there's no synergy at all. Ron's fast clear definitely helps out my own slow clear, but it's very flawed and Chessmaster has already exposed it.]

As a lane clearing tool, Ray of Light was clunky. It was an AoE DoT spell that was easy to turn against the Lumimancer himself.

Aeromancer suffered from a similar issue in Mid, but his Whirlwind scaled much better with power and its DoT ticked faster. In addition, Whirlwind also slowed down the Movement Speed of the enemies it hit, which made it harder to step in and out of the spell's AoE without getting hit multiple times.

This small but important difference was the reason Lumimancer was far less viable as a Mid Laner. And, Ronald's "solution" of dishing out more immediate damage with Blinding Light didn't remedy the situation at all. It was nothing but a waste of MP that was going to burn him out.

"I hope you learned your lesson this time," William said.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." Ronald sighed. "They not gonna let me farm so easily, and burning more MP isn't a real solution."

"My, it sounds like someone is finally developing a brain," Cato interjected. "I thought I already explained all of this the first time, but it looks like you're the type who has to get burned once before you learn to stop playing with fire."

"Hey, no need to rub salt, okay?" Ronald pouted. "Yeah, I didn't make the right read on how these guys will play, I get that now. Let's move on already."

"Yes, it's always good to move on as long as you understood the mistakes you made."

"Yep, yep."

"But really, you're so forgetful," Cato said. "I always have to remind you to keep better tabs on your resources, be it HP or MP. Contrary to what you like to think, these resources don't belong only to you; they're a part of the team's entire stock. So, when you waste them, you're wasting the entire team's resources."

"Yeah, yeah. You've told me that like what, a billion times?" [Not that I agree with any of it, but okay.]

"I'll keep repeating it over and over until it sinks in. Because so far, I feel like it hasn't."

[Hah, you can preach it all you want.] Ronald shrugged. [I'm not gonna join that religion.]

That weirdo Cato had a cult-like approach to resource management. According to this preacher, nobody's resources were truly their own. Everything was part of the team's "shared pool of the resources", or some shit like that. Basically, it was like communism or something.

[Sure, I kinda get the overall idea behind it.] Ronald thought. [Basically, he's saying that my actions have team-wide consequences. Like, when I spend MP, it's actually a bigger deal than just losing some points from my MP bar.]

Stuff like that usually had bigger implications than it initially seemed. For example, the more MP Ronald burned during laning, the earlier he'd have to recall to base in order to recharge.

In turn, it also meant he'd have to leave his bro all alone in the lane at that time. And, 1v2 lane situation like this always had the potential to go south.

[So yeah, in a way, that preacher has a point.] Ronald admitted. [It sure guilt trips me when I think of things through these goggles.]

Cato's communistic religion would surely condemn Ronald to hell for his careless actions. According to this nonsensical bible, wasting just a little bit of MP was going to drop the apocalypse on the entire team.

[It's such a hyperbole.] Ronald shrugged. [If everybody analyzed games the way Cato does, then they'd be stuck in analysis paralysis. I mean, pretty much anything you do in this game has a chance of backfiring or messing something up. Bleh.]

And so, there was no good reason to believe that wasting a little bit of MP will prove SUPER MEGA ULTRA FATAL for the entire team. Ronald's mistakes will surely have some short-term consequences, but that's about it.

However, Cato didn't see things that way.

[Seriously, that fool.] Cato sighed. [No matter how many times I explain it to him, he never learns.]

Perhaps, Cato's approach to resource analysis was a tad too advanced for some. Nonetheless, any self-respecting competitive player had to be aware of such analysis, especially if they wanted to play on an elite team like the Leopards.

Regardless of opinions, it was an objective fact that every player's actions had team-wide consequences. Some players didn't like admitting to it, but that didn't change the facts.

[It's like chess.] Cato thought. [Even a small step forward with a pawn may have great implications for the rest of the match.]

All players were like pieces on the same chessboard, and every move they made had the potential to cause a ripple effect that'll spread throughout the rest of the board.

For example, Ronald wasting MP will assuredly lead to an early recall. As a result, the lane situation in Bot will temporarily turn into a 1v2. Even for Willaim, these were extremely unfavorable odds, as his lane opponents were Stratus' finest.

But, there was more. With Ronald stuck at the base, the entire game board would temporarily turn into a 4v5. Therefore, this had larger implications than just Bot's situation.

More than likely, Yuel would try to take advantage of a situation like this. There were many available lines of plays that this schemer could go for, and it'd be up to Cato to counter such ploys.

[Look at this kid, adding more work to my plate.] Cato shook his head. [He probably thinks this is just some "butterfly effect" talk, but it's a very practical analysis.]

Every blunder affected the entire team in one way or another. And, such mistakes easily accumulated over time until they snowballed into one big defeat.

It was just a question of time. Ronald's ineffective power build and irresponsible MP management were bound to come back to bite the team later. Hopefully, the consequences won't be too dire in this case…