This is a Beta Test?! - A Literally Broken System

Apparently, we weren't done...

"How are we barely reaching three percent on his health?! This is so stupid!"

I couldn't help but chuckle as I listened to Guidance rant about the fight in front of me. She was pacing back and forth, her anger making her hands tremble as she just kept venting her frustrations.

"How?! How are we not dealing enough damage when he isn't even trying to kill us?!"

"Maybe we're just not high level enough?" I hesitantly posited.

"That's the most bullsh1t excuse I've ever heard," she scoffed. "Based on what you've told me, I can tell that we have enough damage to kill this thing. It's just that we're not doing our rotations properly enough."

Ever since we had seen the whole fight, what we once thought was an easy kill ended up being far more difficult than we expected. Despite doing everything to maximize our damage, Lewis's health just didn't seem to be dropping by the time we reach the last few seconds of his Enrage. It was as if he was getting more and more tankier the longer the fight lasted, and it wasn't fun trying to squeeze out as much efficiency as we possibly could from our [Moves]. Also...

"You keep telling me about that 'rotation' stuff, but I still don't get what that is," I interrupted her rant with a questioning tone. "Can you at least tell me what you mean whenever you use that term?"

"Huh? You mean you didn't even understand me back when I explained what I was doing?"

Seeing the murderous intent in her eyes, I quickly backpedaled from my question. "W-Well, I do, but I'd like to have a more formal definition of the word. All I can tell is that it's the way that you cycle through your attacks."

Guidance sighed. "That's exactly it, Moriya. Although, I guess you can also say that a 'rotation' is the most optimal way of dealing damage without losing uptime."

"And by uptime, you mean..."

"Do I really have to spell it out for you right now?"

I couldn't help but chuckle at the way she groaned at me. She really sounded like she was done with life right now. Still, I had a feeling that letting her do a lecture would actually help her calm down. "Only if you want to."

Guidance gave me a pointed stare before she rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Fine... I suppose we can kill some time doing this..."

Letting out another sigh, the dev visibly made a decision on whether or not to use her [Keystroke] for some kind of presentation. Not that I would like it to happen, but I was kind of disappointed when she shook her head before staring at me with calculating eyes.

"Right, uptime is what you call the amount of time you're consistently dealing damage," she sagely began. "This is in spite of the boss trying to kill you, so whenever I say you have good uptime, it means you're managing to deal damage to the boss even with all of the mechanics being thrown at you."

"I see," I nodded in understanding. "So I guess I can say that I do have good uptime."

"Well, that's because you have to no cast time to any of your [Moves]," she scoffed. "You're basically cheating since you can move while dealing damage."

"That's just the benefit of guns, I guess," I chuckled.

"But that also means you have more responsibility to deal damage since you can theoretically have a hundred percent uptime," Guidance pointed out with an accusing look in her eye. "There's no excuse for you to stop hitting the boss unless there's a mechanic that demands that you stop hitting the damn thing."

I blinked at her obvious insinuation. "Wait, are you saying that us not dealing damage is my fault?"

"All I'm saying is that you could probably deal more damage if you tried harder," she shrugged, not even bothering with laying it on gently as she just straight-up called me bad. "I'm pretty sure I'm already doing optimal damage with what I have available. You, on the other hand... I don't even know if your rotation is the optimal one for the fight."

Okay, that actually offended me a bit. "Are you saying that I'm not doing my best despite this whole thing meaning life or death for our friends?"

She flinched at my accusatory tone, but she quickly recomposed herself as she shrugged. "All I'm saying is that I'm not sure if you're doing everything that you can for the fight. You might think that you're doing damage, but you're actually not doing enough for us to clear."

"So you're saying that I'm being bad," I scoffed as I crossed my arms over my chest. "I can accept being called that if I knew why I was being bad, but right now, you'd have to prove it to me."

This was pretty much slander so far. Sure, I'll accept that I'm bad if there was proof of me being bad, but as of now, such a thing didn't even exist. Was there even a metric for how to measure stuff like that in the first place?

Guidance shook her head as she visibly fell into deep thought. "I suppose I can start with your rotation," she stated after a minute of thinking. "I can see that you're using your three usual [Moves], but are you using them often enough?"

I scoffed. "I use them whenever I have the health to spare. You do realize that everything I use revolves around my health values, right?"

"Yes, and you've told me countless of times to keep you topped up to deal all the damage," Guidance snorted. "What I'm saying is that are you using them properly? Are you maximizing their potential? Hell, I'm pretty sure you have more [Moves] in your kit that you just aren't using enough."

I opened my mouth to speak, only for me to hesitate as I thought about what she just said. I was already pretty sure that I was using my [Moves] properly, but I do have a feeling that I have more stuff to use than those three damage-dealing attacks that were essentially my bread-and-butter.

"You might be onto something..." I sighed in resignation. "[MOV]"

[MOVES]

[Level 4: Bloodwork: Passive. Causes the Somatic's blood to thicken. Adds the amount of [HP] drained every shot to damage.]

[Level 8: Blood Shot: Fires off a thicker bullet of blood at the target. Costs 10 [MP] and 20 [HP]]

[Level 16: Blood Screen: Showers the Somatic with a thin sheen of their own blood. Costs 50 [MP] and 100 [HP] Reduces bullet [HP] requirement by 10% for 15 seconds.]

[Level 20: Shroud: Covers the Somatic with a barrier of blood. Costs 80 [MP] and 20 [HP] Gives Invulnerability for 5 seconds] Requires Manifest Point

[Level 24: Iron Spread: Combos with Blood Shot. Fires out a barrage of blood in an arc. Deals 80% of normal shots]

[Level 28: Marked for Death: Debuff. Marks an Enemy for death. Killing the marked enemy will recover 20% of the Somatic's [HP]]

[Level 32: Hemolysis: Combos with Iron Spread. Fires out a stream of blood at the target, dealing consistent damage. Lasts 2 seconds. Costs 10% of Max HP]

[Level 36: Hematopoiesis: Passive. Increases Somatic's [HP] regen by 10% of current [HP]]

With a chime, the window that I haven't looked at in a long time flashed back to life. The damn thing had grown considerably wordier since last time, but it also meant that I at least had more stuff to play with as opposed to just sticking to the same three [Moves] over and over again.

Then again, that was assuming that most of my stuff wasn't utterly useless.

"Well, considering that aside from the three attacks I've been using, most of my stuff is kind of useless or a passive," I mumbled aloud. "I don't know why I'm constantly being given garbage [Moves], but I'm already using what's available to me..."

"Are you sure?" Guidance asked. "Is there something there that you aren't using? Maybe a tooltip that you haven't noticed in a while?"

Taking her words into account, I gave my [Move] list one more look over. Aside from my passives and attacks, there wasn't anything that I could use aside from maybe [Shroud]... Oh, wait...

"[Blood Screen] huh... I honestly forgot I had that," I awkwardly chuckled.

"And what does that do?"

"It reduces bullet [HP] requirement by ten percent," I replied as I looked over the tooltip. "It costs a whopping hundred [HP] though, so it's not really worth it right now, especially since my minimum [HP] needed for [Hematopoiesis] to keep me topped up is around 300."

"And you didn't think that I won't be able to offset that?" she scoffed. "I can easily just heal you once. From there, my regen would probably be enough that I can save a [Move] or two for attacks instead of keeping you healed. Ten percent goes a long way, you know."

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