The two guilds had tracked the creature that had killed Rygor’s guildmates to an old interstate. Smash wasn’t sure they had a chance against this creature. However, the Survivors helped them in San Francisco and he wanted to try to return the favor. Looking out of the forest, cars lined the broken highway but a swath of destruction tore down the middle. On one side, he could make out a hulking creature the size of a large tank or military transport vehicle. It was squat, with four legs and a spiked tail. Essentially, this thing was a Level 90 stegosaurus. The star next to its name indicated that it was a boss.

Smash looked at Rygor and could see the grim but determined look in the other guild leader’s face. It didn’t seem likely that the leader of the Survivors would back down. He had talked with Rygor on the way from San Francisco and it was clear that he hadn’t become their leader by accident. Although he was a quiet spoken man with young features that made him appear boyish, he had survived someone dropping a nuclear bomb on his city, dealt with seeing his family dead in the streets because they had left their bomb shelter, and lost his wife and son in the whole ordeal. There was nothing scarier than a man who had nothing left to live for but that wasn’t the case for Rygor. He clearly lived for his guild and the looks he gave his people made Smash both proud to be in charge of the Misfits and ashamed for the fact that he had shrunk back from his duties in the last several weeks since Shelly’s death and the ousting of one of their own. Had Smash been immersed in his own concerns at the cost of leading his guildmates and keeping them safe? Would he have ever forgiven himself if something like the creature in front of them had killed his own? Probably not.

He gave Rygor a silent nod. The Misfits would stand with them. Smash didn’t have everything figured out about how to keep his mind from attacking him with depression but he wasn’t in such a state that he couldn’t stand tall with his friends – old or new.

That said, they were going to need to take a look around for some tactical advantage, similar to what the Misfits had done in San Francisco with the last mini-boss. There was no way it was possible to charge this creature head-on. While Smash was scanning the area trying to figure out what they could use to tip the scales in their favor, the beast charged. It must have sensed that its enemies were nearby and much like everything they had encountered since landing in California, this monster was much smarter and more ruthless than anything they’d previously dealt with.

Rygor nodded to him and Smash figured out that the two of them would be tanking the creature. Rygor would give his guild directions and Smash his. If they survived this encounter he needed to talk to Rygor about more efficiently distributing and commanding their forces. This piecemeal method could get them killed.

Although he was a tank, he wasn’t just going to stand there as the nearly house-sized creature barreled down on top of them. “Scatter and regroup,” he ordered both guilds in raid chat. Smash did the same. Let the creature run after them. It wasn’t as fast as they were. A few seconds later after he saw Rygor engage the creature in combat he revised that assessment. For something the size of a large transport or even small house, this this was remarkably fast. It was also remarkably tough:

-787 bludgeoning

-841 bludgeoning

-1047 piercing

The stegosaur swiped twice at Rygor and then snapped at him with its massive maw. Rygor was able to manage its next tail attack but he had taken quite a hit there right from the get-go. Fortunately, he’d also bought the raid some time and both the Misfits and Survivors joined the fray and started their attacks. Melee fighters stayed on its flanks and Smash could see Cheezus in the fracas trying to stab the hell out of its armored hide. Casters and ranged fighters of all sorts threw down volleys of arrows, fireballs, and stranger things than that at the monster. Looking at the creature’s health bar was disappointing to say the least. Even after a full thirty seconds, the creature hadn’t even lost one percent of its health. Considering how many players they had here, it was obvious this was going to be a long and arduous fight.

Smash didn’t have time to watch everyone for long and soon switched with Rygor. He was again doubly impressed with the baby-faced leader. It took all of Smash’s skill and resources to remain standing there taking hits from the Stegosaur for as long as he had without using up all his health. Fortunately, Linca had some assistance this time and was no longer the lone healer. She worked tirelessly with a small group of individuals scattered throughout the raid and silently followed the orders given by a robed man with a full white Santa beard who looked like he was in his sixties.

At the end of his thirty seconds, Smash gladly switched with Rygor and looked at the raid. Several members had been badly damaged in the last patterned boss attack. Most bosses from Champions had a similar pattern: they would attack the main tank(s), did some localized effects that could affect melee fighters, and then did some sort of AOE damage. The house-sized beast in front of them was no different. It had its claws and a bite to deal with the tanks, used its tail to fend off pesky melee fights, and then fired out armor plates from its sides in all directions once every thirty seconds or so. Smash heard Deathberry calling out positioning to the rest of the raid, letting them know where he anticipated the next set of armored plates to be fired. Soon, Cheezus had found a pattern for dealing with the tail attacks as well. Melee would stack on one side for a portion of the time and then move to the other side. This threw off the creature’s ability to swipe at them with its tail.

So far, everything was going by the book and was pretty smooth. Smash allowed himself some hope that they would be able to win this fight; however, once the creature lost about 20% of its health everything changed. The raid wasn’t taken completely unawares, it was quite common for a boss to change tactics when it had lost somewhere between 20-33% of its health and Smash had no doubt that if they survived the next phase there would be at least one more phase after that – a final phase. Sometimes there were as many as five phases but he hoped that since this wasn’t an end boss it wouldn’t go that far.

Smash had just picked up the boss from Rygor when the change occurred. He waited, trying to calm his nerves and prepare for what happened next. Suddenly, he lost aggro and the creature turned with its tusk and impaled one of the raid’s melee members. The hapless player was stuck on its horn as the creature charged back and forth across the interstate. Both he and Rygor tried to taunt the creature but with no effect. The raid scattered to minimize trampling damage but the AOE output of the creature’s thundering hooves beat down everyone’s health bars.

However, Smash had seen this type of move before on another boss. “All ranged DPS hit the creature’s face, melee get up there as well and try to stun it,” he called out. The player was nearly dead when they finally managed to stun the creature. Both Rygor and Smash had switched from tanking mode to assist the melee players since they couldn’t hold aggro anyway.

Smash was at the top of the aggro list when the creature reverted back to its previous mode. Shit, he thought, that was a poor miscalculation not switching back. One hit from the creature took him down to 2% - he saw red throughout his vision and staggered. A second later Rygor had picked up the monster, having reverted back to tanking mode.

“Careful,” he warned. “I don’t want to have to scrape you off the pavement.”

Smash grinned back at him, “Still alive.” But that had definitely been too close. He’d gotten so focused on saving the other player trapped by the stegosaur’s horn that he’d forgotten that those types of phases usually ended abruptly and the tanks needed to be on the spot to pick up aggro. It was a newbie mistake but he’d been so caught up in the moment. It was a different thing playing a game like this where someone else’s life was on the line and he needed to remain clear headed.

Everything went pretty smoothly for the rest of phase two. Smash didn’t make any more mistakes and neither did the raid. They’d done a remarkably good job of keeping everyone alive although looking over at Linca’s face, it was drawn and tight with concentration. The pressure of being a healer was nearly the same as being a tank – you had a responsibility to keep your raid alive, sometimes even despite their own mistakes. When he’d gone down to 2% earlier, it was Linca who had thrown out a healing cooldown that had kept him up in case he’d gotten hit one more time. Lighting fast reactions and being cool under pressure. He definitely couldn’t do his own job without folks like her.

Phase three started as soon as the beast was down to 33%. It enraged and started hitting harder and worst of all it called out with a frightening roar which was echoed a second later. The stegosaur had a mate and it charged down the freeway toward the raid just as they were trying to figure out how to deal with the harder hits from the enraged beast. “I’ll go pick it up,” Rygor said with surprising calm. Smash just nodded. He wasn’t sure how long he was going to be able to last and looking over at the healer’s collective mana pool it was disturbingly low. Seeing Rygor’s determined face, he didn’t want to tell the leader what he already knew. There was a good chance that they couldn’t win.

Thirty seconds later Smash looked at his own health bar which was barely holding steady at 30%. The creature hit hard which made the tanks’ and healers’ job a living hell as they watched the health bars of the raid and their tanks fluctuate massively between the cooldowns that allowed them to stay alive. Rygor was in even more trouble. He only had a couple of the healers on him since he had a larger health pool than Smash; however, even that had been strained by the ferocious hits of the stegosaur’s mate. If we get out of this we need to avoid fighting dinosaurs and we need to setup a more effective raid chat so that orders can be distributed more efficiently, he thought.

Suddenly, Rygor’s health went down below 1%. It was a miracle he was alive but he hadn’t seen his healthbar grey out, which would indicate he was dead. Thag was rotating between the two fights, providing off tanking to each main tank during the enrage period that each of the stegosaurs had. Fortunately, their enrage periods were not coincident or the fight would have been completely impossible. The two healers tried desperately to get Rygor healed up but Smash could see that Thag would have to come back and switch with him before they could get Rygor into decent shape.

Smash called out for a kiter to volunteer. A kiter was typically a skilled ranged player that had slowing spells or abilities and on top of that they needed to be highly mobile. Their job was to keep aggro on a target but not let the target hit them. It was a difficult job even for a skilled player. There was a female archer in the Survivors who spoke up first, “I’ll go,” she said, and sped off towards the other stegosaur. Hopefully, that would buy Rygor the time needed to get back into shape.

Things settled out after a few seconds with the female archer kiting the other boss, Rygor healing up and he and Thag handling the enrage. The first stegosaur was down to 10% health while the first one was at 90% health. This was a very long battle and it started to weigh on the raid. There was a certain psychological effect that long fights had and Smash could see when raiders’ concentrations started to lapse. But he knew that they needed to be sharp since it was possible that the creature could enter a fourth or final phase once it was under 10%. He started singing, “Jody, jody, don’t be blue…” and the Misfits knew the tune, “three more minutes until we’ll be through.” It was an old army song that his grandfather had sung to him when he’d taken him hiking as a little boy and he had to carry a pack for the first time. It was also the perfect distraction for a weary raid. Soon the Survivors had taken up the tune as well.

Seeing the raid’s spirits lift, Smash was certain that they would down this boss and finish up its mate. That was until the creature entered its final phase.

-1047 enraged bludgeoning

-1231 enraged bludgeoning

-1402 enraged piercing

Smash didn’t even look at his health bar but focused on timing his cooldowns with Thag’s. Since the creature hadn’t relented in its enraged attack, she hadn’t been able to switch again with Rygor. Rygor and the archer switched off tanking the other creature. The archer was exceptionally skilled to be able to handle doing something that really was an off-tank’s job. It seemed like they might be able to hold through this final phase when an unlikely hit caught the archer off guard. She had been moving into position quickly and trying to pull the stegosaur back to the other side of the freeway. She had to have enough room to move around and keep the beast from her but at the same time stay within range of the raid and the healers. A tail swipe had sent her flying and her health spiraled down to less than 5%. When you were knocked down that far you lost your mobility and she was no longer able to move quickly enough to avoid the creature. Fortunately, Cheezus was there immediately to help kite tank the other stegosaur. Even though melee players weren’t optimal for the role, he had immediately assessed the need and jumped into action. A few seconds later the female archer was back in range and had taken over again. The first stegosaur was down to about 2% health.

Both guilds cheered when the first beast went down; however, they weren’t out of the woods yet. The mate of the first monster went into an extended enrage and it was all that Smash and Rygor could do to remain standing even with both of them splitting the damage now and switching with Thag occasionally to get healed up. Winning was seemingly possible though and they had a second wind. Everything was going smoothly until the mate’s two children showed up.

Looking over at Rygor, Smash said, “I hate to say this but we should run.” Looking at what was bearing down on them and considering that the mate was double enraged it looked like that might be the only choice. Smash and Rygor called out to the guilds to retreat.