『DEFEAT』

Yuel sighed as he put down his controller. Another match, another team that fell apart due to flaming. Everybody instantly locked their picks during class selection, then blamed each other for how the team lacked the necessary meta roles. Yuel went out of his way to fill in as a Support, but of course nobody thanked him for that.

In fact, half the team blamed him for random things and made him feel like the only player with a brain. Truly, Support was such an unrewarding role. He hated it.

Maybe there are Classmancers players in other classes? Yuel sighed again. He could play two more matches before lunch break was over, but he was no longer in the mood. He packed his things and left the classroom.

Supposedly, all sixth graders at his school received Classmancers lessons, so maybe some kids from other classes got into Classmancers as well. He wasn’t exactly the most social kid, so he didn’t know anybody from other classes. Nevertheless, he went out of his way to take a look. That’s how frustrating it was to play online alone.

“Gah! I hate this dumb squid ult!” A girl’s cry caught Yuel’s attention.

“Khaha, Kraken is mah bro!” A boy grinned triumphantly.

Are they playing Classmancers!? Yuel almost broke into a run toward their table. Ultimate ability + Kraken = somebody was playing the Pirate class.

A 2v2 Classmancers match was in progress, with two pairs sitting opposite of each other across the table. The only girl in the group played Cryomancer and her partner played Trickshooter. Their enemies were Pirate and Cleric.

They played on a map that was even smaller than the 3v3 map, with the only lane objectives being Golem and Colossus. Both pairs had a Carry and a Support, so this match was similar to the early game of the 5v5 mode’s Bot Lane. Were they practicing this specific scenario?

The girl’s tablet happened to be closest, so Yuel followed her point of view of the match.

Let’s see if they can make this combination work. The pairing of Cryomancer and Trickshooter had some synergy. It wasn’t the most practical combo, but it was exciting to watch when it was successfully pulled off. Sadly, the girl’s supporting was... abysmal.

Ugh. Don’t just run! Yuel barely stopped himself from shouting at her. Whenever the two teams exchanged blows, the Cryomancer was the first to distance herself from the fight. She left the Trickshooter alone on the frontline to 1v2 the enemies and soak all the damage. That was the first big no-no of supporting.

Trickshooter was the Carry class, the one dealing all the damage. Only he could bring victory in this 2v2. The Support should be ready to die for the Carry if push came to shove. There were Support classes which had a legit reason to prioritize their own survival, such as Cleric, but the Cryomancer definitely didn’t belong to that category.

Granted, Cryomancer wasn’t a tanky Support and didn’t have any reliable escape skills, so maintaining some distance from the enemy was important. However, she had to position herself in a way that’d allow her to hinder her enemies. By running away at the first sight of conflict, she wasted the important supporting tools in the Cryomancer’s kit.

For example, the Cryomancer’s passive, Frostbite, made her basic attacks slow down the target’s movement speed and attack speed. That was a great way to weaken the enemy Carry during a team fight, as most Carries relied on high attack speed for their damage output. Alas, by running away as soon as the fight broke out, she never made use of Frostbite.

She probably thought her playstyle made sense because of her ultimate ability: Cryo-Freeze. That’s a common newbie mistake among Cryomancers Yuel met online. Cryo-Freeze allowed her to freeze an ally to make them temporarily immune to all sources of damage and rapidly restore HP. By hitting the Trickshooter with Cryo-Freeze right before he died, she saved him from death and restored him back to full health, allowing him to continue the team fight. That meant she had a very good reason to prioritize her own safety, right?

Wrong. Cryo-Freeze definitely provided a lot of healing, but it froze the Carry in place. While the frozen Carry was healing up, the enemies had all the time in the world to retreat. Even though the Carry eventually returned with 100% HP, the team fight was already over. He merely cheated death, he had no way to finish off the enemies he injured. Cryo-Freeze didn’t help him win team fights in the slightest.

After retreating, all the enemies had to do was restore themselves to full health and start a new 1v2 team fight. Since Cryo-Freeze was an ultimate ability, it had a long cooldown and was usually be unusable during the following team fight. In other words, the Cryo-Freeze strategy only delayed the inevitable, it didn’t provide a way to actually win any of the fights.

In the first place, Cryomancer is all about the CC. You play Cleric if you want a healer. Yuel sighed. It was frustrating to watch. He knew all these Support classes like the palm of his hand. He knew them so well, that he even understood why the girl was making all these common newbie mistakes. Truly, he knew everything about the Support role, that’s how much he hated it.

Beyond her poor handling of the Cryomancer, there were many other issues with the girl’s playstyle. She didn’t set up last hits on minions for the Trickshooter, she built too many offensive items and so much more.

Compared to her, the boy playing Trickshooter was impressive. Yuel only caught snippets of the Trickshooter’s plays via the girl’s tablet, but everything he saw was awe-striking.

The Trickshooter’s main damaging skill, Trickshot, fired a bullet which bounced off walls. Each time the bullet bounced, its total power was doubled. It was an attack with incredible damage potential, but it was extremely difficult to land a hit after a bounce. Yuel practiced this skill a lot, until ultimately concluding it was too unreliable for team fights.

... is this guy hacking? Yuel couldn’t believe it. The Trickshooter on the screen landed the bouncing shots, each and every one of them. It was unreal.

Instead of taking the easy way out and firing Trickshot straight at the enemy, the Trickshooter always fired at a nearby wall and made the bullet bounce toward the enemy. And it always hit. Always. Without fail. Sometimes it even hit both enemies at once! What!? How!?

Even without any support to speak of, the Trickshooter held his ground in a 1v2 against the enemy Pirate and Cleric. No, that’s wrong. He was WINNING against them.

He juked the majority of their shots while perfectly landing each of his attacks. After enough hits, the Cleric ran dangerously low on HP and was forced to retreat to the backline, leaving the rest of the fight to the Pirate.

The fight became a 1v1, but the Trickshooter was still at a grave disadvantage... in theory. He only had 30% HP left, while the Pirate was at full health. Nonetheless, the Pirate was stomped on.

Was that Pirate just a bad player? No, it didn’t seem that way. It’s the Trickshooter who was too amazing. He was abnormally nimble and accurate, making it insanely hard to kill him in a duel.

“Now! Place a wall!” The Trickshooter shouted. In response, the girl activated the skill Ice Wall and erected wall ice on the lane.

Ice Wall was normally used to obstruct enemy movement, but here it served a different purpose. It was a wall for all intents and purposes, so Trickshot could bounce off it. This was the well-known combo between Trickshooter and Cryomancer. As expected, the Trickshooter aimed his pistol at... what?

“Hu-!?” Yuel quickly covered his mouth. Huh? What? The Trickshooter didn’t direct his pistol toward the ice wall. Instead, he fired Trickshot at a nearby wall. The bullet bounced off the wall and flew toward the ice wall, from which it bounced a second time.

A double bounce!? That makes the bullet four times stronger! Yuel trembled from shock. Both the base power and the power scaling of Trickshot were pretty high for a Carry’s skill, so quadrupling them allowed the bullet to erase 70% of the Pirate’s HP in one-shot. That is, if it miraculously hit.

But, there’s no way it’ll hit... right? Yuel was glued to the screen. Landing a hit after a single bounce was already hard and doing so after two bounces was exponentially harder. The Trickshooter didn’t even spend more than a second to take aim, so there was no chance this bullet would-

『An enemy has been killed!』

Y-You’re kidding me... Yuel’s jaw dropped so hard he couldn’t close his mouth for at least a minute. The bullet wiped out the Pirate after bouncing twice. Twice! It bounced twice! And it hit! What were the odds of that happening in the middle of a fight!? What would happen next? A meteor would fall from the sky and wipe out humanity!? Anything was possible at this point!

H-He’s amazing. Yuel gulped and clenched his fists. Despite having no support and effectively fighting 1v2, the Trickshooter didn’t give up and didn’t blame anybody. He fought his best and grasped victory. He was amazing, he was a god. He definitely deserved to win this.

Alas, the kill he scored was just the beginning of the fight. The Cleric cast his ultimate ability, Arise, on the dying Pirate. A ball of light traveled toward the Pirate’s collapsed body and refilled it with energy. It was a revival skill which brought the Pirate back from the dead with full HP.

While the injured Cleric was busy casting his revival spell, the Trickshooter used the chance to assault him.

『An enemy has been killed! Double kill!』

Two kills in a row in a 1v2 situation was nothing but amazing. However, that was the end of the line for the Trickshooter. The Pirate stood right behind him with full HP, ready to exact revenge. No matter how amazing the Trickshooter was, he couldn't possibly win with just 10% HP. He didn’t even have enough MP to fire Trickshot or flee with Trickslide.

The Cryomancer realized it became a 2v1, so she finally mustered the courage to step into the fight and attack the Pirate. However, her damage was lackluster and she was way too late.

『An ally has been killed!』

The Trickshooter fell. He fought well until the very end and left the Pirate with 60% HP, but it was a defeat. Both teams lost one member, but the team which lost the Carry lost the whole 2v2. Even if she wanted, the Cryomancer had no way to fight back against the Pirate. She immediately retreated back to her Golem to avoid getting killed, a good move for a change.

Winning the team fight allowed the Pirate to push lane hard and bring the Golem’s HP down to 60% in one go. The rest of the match progressed in a similar fashion, with the Trickshooter and Cryomancer getting pushed back. No matter how well the Trickshooter played, he couldn’t beat the enemy duo. Every time he killed the Pirate, the Cleric used Arise and the fight went south from there.

『DEFEAT』

“Hah, git gud, bro.” The Pirate laughed.

“Bah, I almost had you in the last one!” The Trickshooter held his head. Based on the back and forth between the players throughout the match, his name was Lars.

“You’re a way better player than him.” The Cryomancer, Julia, was quick to console her partner. “We only lost because they’re playing these cheap classes.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Huh? And who are you supposed to be?” Julia turned around and shot a nasty glare at Yuel.

“A-Ah, I just watched the match for a bit...” Yuel realized he just blurted his thoughts. What a great way to make a first impression.

“You also play Classmancers?” Lars asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“And you watched the match, right? Dude, can you believe we lost that? I was so sure we’d turn things around at end game! I just don’t get why we lost.”

“Well, about that...” Yuel threw a glance at Julia, who was still giving him the evil eye. “Can I be blunt?”

“Sure, go ahead and hit me with any criticism you got, dude.”

“Then, first I’ll say you played Trickshooter very well. You nearly beat them in 1v2.” Yuel tried to soften the incoming blow. “But, you didn’t have any support. Frankly, that Cryomancer played terribly.”

“Huh!? What’s that supposed to mean!?” Julia glared at him so hard that he felt like he was stabbed with a knife. Sigh, what a wonderful first impression he made.

“Haha, you were blunt alright.” Lars laughed while scratching his head. “I gotta agree, July isn’t the best Support, is she?”

“Eh?” Julia turned meek all of sudden. “I-I only picked it up recently, so I’m still learning. S-Sorry if I’m still making newbie mistakes.” She wore puppy dog eyes while addressing Lars, but she didn’t fail to somehow shoot another murderous glare at Yuel at the same time.

“Are ya any good as Support?” Lars asked.

“I can do better than her, at least.” Yuel affirmed. If Julia’s glares could kill, he’d be a dismembered corpse by now.

“Then let’s play another round, with you as my Support.” Lars said.

“Fine by me.” Yuel answered without hesitation. He hated Support so much, that he had an uncontrollable urge to fix the defeat caused by Julia’s lousy supporting. Not to mention that Lars clearly deserved to win this match. “I’ll go bring my tablet.”

“Nah, there’s no much time until the bell.” Lars waved his hand. “Just play on July’s.”

“H-Huh!?” Julia cried.

“Hm? Is that a problem?”

“N-No, of course not. Please, go ahead. Be my guest.” Julia smiled like an angel and offered her seat to Yuel. However, as she passed by him, she clicked her tongue and cursed him to death with her glare.

She sure likes me. Yuel shrugged and took Julia’s seat.

“Okay, let’s go with the same combo!” Lars picked Trickshooter again and locked in before Yuel could even react. “Pick Cryomancer so we can make savage plays with the walls.”

“Hmm.” Yuel didn’t comply right away. The combo of Ice Wall and Trickshot was rewarding to pull off and could help the Trickshooter in some scenarios. Based on how the previous match went, Lars could be trusted to perfectly land each and every bouncing Trickshot, even after two bounces. He was quite literally the god of trick shooting.

However, precisely because of that, it seemed like Ice Wall wasn’t really necessary for Lars on this small map. The lane was surrounded by walls and he flawlessly utilized them to land his bouncing shots. Throwing Ice Wall into the mix would sometimes allow Lars to land a super powerful double bounce Trickshot, but these scenarios were bound to be rare due to their insane difficulty.

“C’mon, what takes ya so long?” One of the opponents complained. Both enemies must had locked in their classes by now. The game room displayed a 0-3 score in the enemy’s favor, so they must had been playing against each other throughout the whole lunch break.

“Do they always play Pirate and Cleric?” Yuel asked.

“Yeah, they’ve been picking them the whole day.” Lars nodded.

“Then I’m going with Paladin.”

“Eh? But the synergy, dude! The sick combos, dude!”

“Let me ask you something.” Yuel turned to Lars with a serious expression. “Do you play to make cool combos or to win?”

“Oh.” Lars blinked for moment, then grinned. “To win, of course.”

“Then Paladin it is.”

“Why? It has some secret synergy with Trickshooter?”

“No.” Yuel shook his head. “Synergy is good to have, but sometimes it’s more efficient to counter the enemy instead. Paladin can do much more work than Cryomancer in this matchup.”

“I’m really not seeing it, dude. Paladin is melee, we gonna get zoned by their long range, yo.”

“There’s some truth to that.” Yuel was impressed by Lars’s keen observation. Ranged classes had a great advantage over melee classes while fighting on the lane. “But don’t forget that Paladin is also a tank. He can soak some damage.”

“Hrm. Hrmmm.” Lars still had his doubts. “Say, what level are you?”

“32.”

“Oh! You sure play a lot, dude!” Lars’s attitude made a 180. “I’m only Lv.26, so guess that makes you the expert here. Okay, let’s roll with your plan then!”

Grinding levels doesn’t make you an expert, but sure. Yuel stayed quiet and picked Paladin. The match finally started loading.

Lv.26, huh. Yuel felt stupid. Just what was he been doing all this time? He had been playing online alone for so long, even though there were such passionate Classmancers players right next door.

At first, he wanted win in order to show how proper supporting could decide games, but now he had an even more important goal. He had to prove his worth as a fellow Classmancers player so he could join this circle of friends. If he showcased his ability here, the days of playing online alone would be finally over. He had to win, no matter what.