After the spicy drafting phase, the final game between Stratus and the Tycoons began.
Both teams were gambling in this game by running a hyper early-game class in their formation. However, at most, only one player will snowball this game. Will it be Maverick's Dark Knight or Luke's Orc?
Or, maybe neither. Yuel shrugged. How did this scrim even come to this? It was supposed to be a simple exercise that'd help the team build confidence. But now we're playing roulette here.
It was a terribly irksome situation. But, with that said, it was also an interesting puzzle in its own right.
It's not every day we get to face a Mid DK, so might as well learn something from this experience. Yuel thought. I assume the typical approach is to target the DK early and shut her down, so I'll have Luke work hard on that.
The fact that Luke was playing Orc was both an advantage and a disadvantage. On one hand, Orc was about the only class in the game that could take on an early-game DK in a fight. But, on the other hand, if Luke were to challenge Maverick and lose, he'd fall behind so hard that Stratus would effectively be playing without a Jungler.
I have to plan this carefully. Yuel knotted his brows. Ideally, it'd be best if somebody else helped Luke target Mid. Hmm. Maybe I can rotate over there a few times.
Given the skill level of the enemy's Bot duo, it was unlikely that Lars would run into any trouble against them even if left alone. In fact, Yuel had already "abandoned" Lars multiple times today to let the goof practice self-defense. It was a good exercise, and Lars passed it without any problems.
The way he plays now, he really does look like a high-profile Elf player. Yuel nodded. He even has almost mastered quickscoping by now, which is pretty much the final step.
In the context of Elf, "quickscoping" referred to a bug-turned-feature that allowed him to greatly increase his firepower. However, abusing that gimmick came with a risk that had to be carefully managed…
"Oh!" Lars exclaimed. "That Caesar dude over there be overextending into my quick shot range!"
"Is he really?" Yuel asked. "That distance looks borderline safe to me."
"Nah, it's totally within my firing range, yo!" Lars insisted. "I'mma snipe him real quick!"
"Well, you're the sniping expert here, so you know best." Yuel shrugged. "Just make sure you don't overextend to try to hit more shots."
"Okey dokey!" Lars grinned as he stepped further in. He was boutta snipe the heck outta these dudes, yo!
Normally, the entire point of Eleven Sight was to snipe dudes from hella far away. However, for this super duper advanced quickscoping tech, it was better to get a little closer. That'd allow Lars to spam tons of quick shots in a row. Ez.
One day, I'm gonna be able to land these sick shots across the entire map, believe it! But that day ain't today, so gotta do what I gotta do.
He got into position and carefully aimed at his target like a photographer trying to nail a masterpiece shot. He had to perfectly capture the distance and the angle, then burn that mental image into his mind.
Gotta be real tho, this quickscope trick feels way harder than nailing Trickshots and headshots. I wonder why. Is it actually harder, or do I have a skill issue situation?
Either way, this was the last technique Lars had to master to become a real Elf pro. And, there ain't a better way to practice than a proper pro game like this, yo!
Okay, scope in... and shoot! He pressed E, immediately fired a shot, then pressed E again. Behold, the secret technique!
ZAP! A laser beam flew out of his rifle and pierced through the Pirate's arm. Bullseye, yo!
Heck yeah! Lars grinned. Now, another one! He quickly switched into Elven Sight again and fired another quick shot! ZAP! Another hit!
Another one! Lessgoooo! Lars switched into Eleven Sight once again without waiting for the recovery animation or the cooldown. Such was the power of this quickscoping technique!
However… WHISH. His next shot missed the mark. Oh, shoot! He moved! As expected, the enemy wasn't going to just stand there and get shot. Dang, I should've shifted my aim a little to the right. What a bust.
It took him just a little too long to make that adjustment. To make things worse, missing the shot killed his rhythm. He ended up overstaying his welcome in Elven Sight, no longer able to take advantage of the quickscope tech. The gig was up.
Welp, now I've just gotta fire normally, I guess. Lars shrugged and aimed his laser sniper at the retreating Caesar. ZAP! Hit. ZAP! Out of range. And with that, the attack was over.
Dang, if only I didn't mess up back there. I could've landed like two or three more shots, yo!
Alas, by not pressing E fast enough to cancel Eleven Sight, Lars killed the entire momentum. This dang technique was so delicate, word.
"Hmm." Yuel inspected the result. "I'd call that barely passable."
"Nah, dude. It was a total fail," Lars said. "I should've been able to land at least three more hits, believe it! Like, c'mon. I'm supposed to be better than this!"
"I guess people online aren't exaggerating for once when they say this quickscoping tech is among the hardest in the game."
"Yep, it's sure up there," Lars agreed. "But, I'm gonna master it anyway, trust!"
"I really hope you will. You're going to need a strong weapon like this to deal with Apprentece."
"Yep. Dude ain't gonna lose against anything other than the absolute best tech."
"Right."
With this goof, specialization was key. Lars had the uncanny ability to almost rival pros when he was laser-focused on practicing a specific class.
He has to be at the top of his game if we want to beat Storm and Leo. Yuel reasoned. And, considering how close the regionals are, I don't see him mastering a fourth class in time. So, I guess it's fine to let him focus on practicing quickscoping until then. Other classes can wait until next year.
The end of this school year sounded like a reasonable deadline. Even if Lars doesn't quite reach the "200% accuracy" he wants, it'll be best for him to move on to other classes.
I hope he sorts it out, though. He can dominate the lane against any opponent if he gets the hang of this quickscoping glitch.
Yes, a glitch; that's what it ultimately was. Elven Sight was clearly not designed for the player to activate it briefly, fire one shot, and then exit it instantly. The fact that this sequence didn't trigger the cooldown and skipped animation recovery was an unintentional bug.
Apparently, it started as a "feature". The devs were concerned with scenarios where the Elf could be stunned as soon as he entered Elven Sight. They felt it was too harsh to have the Elf lose MP and wait the entire cooldown because of a stun. This skill was the class's main selling point, so it shouldn't be "wasted" so easily, according to them.
So, they wrote in a little "fix", but they implemented it poorly. Apparently, the code was a bit messy, so it wasn't easy to determine whether the Elf exited Elven Sight due to being CC'd. Nonetheless, the dev in charge decided it was fine to just ASSUME the reason was CC. He claimed he "couldn't think of any other scenario".
And so, he coded in logic that was based on the timing of Elven Sight being cancelled. If it happened too fast, it was assumed to be the result of hard CC, so a reset method was invoked. This occurred before the Elf had to pay MP or start the cooldown for the skill.
This decision somehow passed both code review and QA, then made it into production. And, as usual, some Korean player discovered an abusable exploit. By activating Elven Sight and cancelling it after firing one shot, this player fooled this reset feature. This allowed him to spam long-distance shots without paying any cost.
And so, the quickscoping tech was born. The devs caught wind of it and were supposed to patch it out, but they noticed that the hardcore Korean community liked this advanced tech.
Shortly after the bug was discovered and went viral, more and more high-profile Korean pros showed interest in the class. They even started a challenge, trying to master this new technique as quickly as possible to turn it into a reliable weapon in competitive games.
Considering all the positive reception, ClassSoft ultimately decided to keep this bug/feature in the game. However, it was too powerful in its original form, so they had to nerf it a little.
The original version effectively had no cost if executed perfectly. The player didn't have to wait for the cooldown and didn't have to pay any MP. So, any mechanical prodigy turned this exploit into an oppressive weapon.
After much consideration, ClassSoft decided to address the MP problem. They changed it so the player would lose some MP even if they execute the cancel in time. This kept the technique strong and oppressive in battles, but hurt its longevity. The Elf player now had to manage their MP more carefully than before, which actually led to some interesting build considerations.
For most use cases, this nerf didn't affect much. It was rare for a player to use quickscoping more than a couple of times per fight, so the MP cost didn't discourage players from abusing the exploit.
As such, Lars held nothing back when he punished that minor overextension from the Caesar dude. Sure, spamming a few cancels in a row cost Lars some MP, but it wasn't a big deal. If anything, the real punishment that hurt was the lengthy cooldown that came after the standard Elven Sight came to an end.
"Dang, yo!" Lars smacked his forehead. "I can't believe I let that happen! The timing on this thing is so rough!"
"Well, the devs wouldn't have kept it in if it were that easy to abuse."
"Yeah, I guess. That's what makes it cool to master, tho! And, I'm one step away from getting there, believe it!"
"That's good to hear," Yuel said. "By the way, you should retreat. The enemies are coming at you."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm already on it." Lars rolled his eyes as he made his way back to his tower. He had already started retreating before Yuel even finished the sentence.
"Good." Yuel nodded in satisfaction. From every angle, it was evident Lars won't have any trouble against this enemy duo. The goof knew how to punish them from afar for the slightest overextension, and he also knew when to call it quits and retreat.
Considering all that, Yuel was confident he could leave Lars alone in Bot for a while and focus on Mid. And so, he started formulating the winning strategy that'd rip the enemy Dark Knight apart.
However, in the meantime, the enemy was also making their own schemes for how to deliver a swift victory in this game…