by Aimee Norin
"We've been through that with this one three times, now. There's something that's messing John up as heals." Ted said.
"We tell him to avoid the AoE, but it's not clicking," Bill said.
"We might as well type '/getdown' and party, because we're not doing much of anything else," John said.
"You guys are friends," Lourdes said. "I can see that."
Heads nodded.
"You hang together, even when there's a problem."
"Of course," Ted said. "All except Bill. We trade him for pizza, but they keep bringing him back."
"That gig's been working out pretty well, though, if you like free pizza," Ted said.
The three young men giggled.
"Let me think, guys," Lourdes said.
Her burger was finished. She didn't want the fries, so Bill reached across the table and started helping himself. The other two guys chomped away at their lunch.
"Okay," Lourdes said, gathering her thoughts. "First of all, you realize this is U.C.L.A. talking to you dwips."
"Dwips?" They asked?
"Dweebs slash drips."
"Forget U.C.L.A.," Ted said in mock horror.
"Hey!" Lourdes said in mock umbrage. "We have a bronze bear in the quad, so don't mess with us!"
The young men laughed again.
"Okay," Lourdes said, feeling comfortable with the guys. "I haven't seen you play, but were I to guess? You're focused on your healing like you used to focus on your D.P.S. You can't do that. You still have to do all the hundred things in there you're supposed to do-as well as heal.
"Hundred? He's from Michigan State. Two is his limit," Ted ribbed.
John laughed at Ted and shook his head. "They never give up. Even though neither one of them has a Ph.D.
"Neither do you," Bill said.
"But I can fly," John said, triumphantly.
Ted and Bill held their hands up in acquiescence.
Lourdes laughed at the screwy bunch.
"First of all," John said to Lourdes, "U.C.L.A. what? Computer nerd? The arts? What? Just out of curiosity."
"I'm a nurse," Lourdes said.
"See there?" John said to his geek buddies. "She's real heals! So give her some slack!"
Ted and Bill had smiles on their faces while they worked on their fries. They were comfortable with the banter.
"Okay," Lourdes said to the table. "You know how there are a lot of things going on in a Flashpoint?"
"Yes," they all said.
"And we each have a role to play to maximize our capability against foes?"
"Yeah."
"The tank develops a lot of aggro and has great armor, so he gets in the middle of the fray to attract the mobs and keep them on him-and off the 'fragiles.' D.P.S.-like the gunslinger here, or you, John, as the Jedi Sage in D.P.S. mode-dumps D.P.S. on target. You can stand back and bang away-all the while and at the same time, avoiding all AoE. And if you're focusing on a certain mob, or the boss, or whatever, and adds show up, you might quit focusing on the boss and hit the adds, then go back to the main mob and finish him off. Or something. Right?"
"Close enough for government work," Bill agreed.
"Depending," Ted said.
"Right. So when you're in a Flashpoint, you're trying to defeat the mobs, dump D.P.S. on target, while at the same time, you're avoiding AoE and switching to fight mobs when they appear."
"Right," they agreed.
"So," Lourdes said to John, "You're in there as a healer, now, and you're focused on trying to keep them alive-"
"Right," John said.
"So you're looking at their icons, clicking on the one whose life is most depleted, and hitting heals buttons."
"Right!"
"Which is why you all die," Lourdes said simply. "You can't heal well if you focus mostly on healing. If you focus more on your own survival, you'll find it's no biggie keeping everyone else alive, too. Usually."
They quit eating their French fries.
"In the game," she continued, "If you let either you or the tank die, then everyone else in your party will die."
"Right," they agreed.
"It's more involved than regular D.P.S., like with your Sage. You've got to attend to the game and all that's going on in there, avoid AoE, only you're firing your healing at your party-so you're on the mouse also, and you need to switch to D.P.S. now and then to fight your own adds off."
"And I can't heal when I'm on the move. If I'm running away from mobs or AoE, I can't heal, so they die."
"And when you suddenly die sometimes? Probably you were dying and you didn't notice, because your focus was on them. That, and AoE can kill you quick.
"So," she summed, "take care of yourself first, or you're no good to anybody else."
"What about the tank?" John asked.
"I think the tank is also a first, there. You gotta care for him, too. Watch AoE. When you need to heal and survive at the same time, survive first, heal second. Any adds come your way? Hit the tab key, target 'em, and take 'em down. Gotta let one of your party die doing it? Then do it to save the team."
"Oh!" Ted and Bill pretend-complained.
"You can res 'em later, if you survive."
John laughed. "It makes sense."
"Yes," Lourdes said. "I think it's a harder role to play than the others. But more fun, because you're both a soldier and a healer, all wrapped up in one. And I like it, too, because if I'm alone fighting a bad dude boss? I am all set up to heal myself in the middle of the fight and outlast him. It's not a bad role. I like it."
"Oh, you have got to come show us!" Bill said. "We're too new at this. Never seen heals in action in person before."
"Right!" Ted said. "Tonight, we're having a T.O.R. party over at a vendor tent, over by Hangar A. The guy, there, plays. Got a wifi connection there."
"Excellent!" John said to them, then to Lourdes, "Come on!"
"I-" Lourdes tried a retreat.
"We have four or five guys coming. One gal, other than you. About five o'clock? You can play John's toon on his laptop, right there in the same Flashpoint we've been doing." Ted said.
Lourdes was immediately thrown into defensive mode, for no other reason than her years-long fear of getting in close to groups. "I don't know, guys," she said. "You don't need me."
"Would you rather we be left with him?" Ted asked, indicating John.
CHAPTER 32
Lourdes moved with her refreshed drink among six guys and two gals who stood around the four on laptops in the after-hours, closed, large vendor tent and watched the team try to perform. They were yelling and screaming helpful hints to the players-none of which were heard or followed, which was good, because the advice was mostly bad.
"No! Stop it on that one! Get that add! Blast him!"
"Don't you have an interrupt?"
"Not with a blaster! Use a push-back, then zap him! Use the blaster last!"
Ted was there as a Jedi Knight/tank in the middle of a melee frenzy along with some other Jedi Lourdes didn't know. Light sabers were flashing all over like Yoda. Mobs were yelling and growling. The evil Boss was obviously a megalomaniac with issues-and a lot of minions, because Adds kept appearing out of nowhere adding to the fray, some going for Bill as a gunslinger, some going for John as the distant medic.
"Lead him back over this way," someone behind yelled.
"Use the Force!"
With all the noise, it was hard for Lourdes to get through to John, but she gave it the old college try. "Adds coming in from the left!" She yelled.
They were on John before she could finish her sentence, and he was still trying to heal the tank.
"HIT YOUR TAB KEY!" Lourdes yelled, spilling a little of her drink. "TARGET THOSE ADDS!"
It was information overload, Lourdes knew. She took another sip of her drink. "It does no bloody good," she said to some man standing next to her. "He's too busy."
John got killed by the adds.
Then the other knight in melee got kil
led.
Then Bill as gunslinger got killed.
Then Ted as the knight/tank got killed, last.
"Bloody friggin' wipe," Lourdes yelled, and the boss stood there with (she imagined) a smug grin on his face.
"See?!" John asked her.
"Yup. I saw," she said. "Train wreck," she said about the fight. Then, "What's this stuff?" Lourdes asked him about her drink, sipping again.
"Cowboy Lemonade," some guy behind her said.
"What's in it?" she asked.
"Everclear," came the reply.
"That's a hundred ninety proof," John said, "so take it easy."
"Okay," she said, downing the rest of her drink and tossing the cup into a trash can. "I've already had enough, anyway."
All having been killed, the flashpoint team was standing on the space station outside the flashpoint entrance, waiting on direction.
"You get on here and show me," John said. He got up giving Lourdes his seat.
Lourdes sat down. "How am I gonna do that? All your buttons are different."
"These green ones, here, are for healing," John said,
"You mind if I rearrange the little buggers?" Lourdes asked.
"Sure, go ahead," John said.
Bill laughed. "When you get tipsy, Lourdes, your British starts hanging out."
"It's not me, it's a friend of Jim's," she said. She typed in "Muahahahaha!" and they all looked at her funny.
"So," she said, "Okay." She ran John's Commando toon over to the repair droid to repair all her armor, and then headed back near the start of the flashpoint. "Getting killed hurts the armor. So, where are your buttons?" She started looking over the laptop, unfamiliar to her.
Someone brought her some pepperoni pizza and she took a bite to help her think. "Good pizza!" she said, and when she laid it back down, part of it went onto the keyboard, causing her toon to jump and run.
"Hold it!" Ted said.
"Okay! I got it," She said, bringing the toon back over to stand with the others.
She preferred to work the mouse with her right hand, so to organize her action bar, she brought the healing skills to the left side of the keyboard, buttons #1, #2, #3, and #4. Then-she took another bite of pizza.
"Good pizza," she said. "Did I say that again? Got any soda that has no alcohol in it? 'Gimme another beer, bartender!'" she ordered, like Don Knots in "The Reluctant Astronaut." "Lo que es esa mierda!"
One man behind her burst out laughing at what she said in Spanish.
The other guys behind her laughed at the scene.
"Honey, can you get her some coffee?" a lady said to a man beside her.
He looked at her absurdly.
Let me find something to shoot with," Lourdes said. "Where are your guns? You have some kind of cannon? I'm a Sage. I don't know from Commandos. How do you guys get through life without the Force?"
"Big, honkin' guns," someone behind them said.
More good-natured laughter.
Jim showed her the firing skills, and she loaded a few of his better shots into the right hand keys.
"So, I'll click on their icons with the right hand mouse-if the mouse will hold still for me-and I'll heal with my left hand as needed. All very quickly. I'll not stand in AoE stuff, and when the mobs attack me, I'll hit the tab key there, which switches me into targeting them, and I'll fire with my right hand on those keys. Then when they're done, I'll click on our party members' icons again and heal with my left hand.
"READY?" she yelled to the crowd.
"Ready! They yelled back to her.
"We'll do it or die trying, got it?" She yelled back.
"Got it," they said, among general laughter.
Ted as Tank led the four of them back into the Flashpoint. Lourdes trailed along behind the group, keeping everyone in sight, periodically healing them, even without any mobs attacking, to practice her new keys. A large green laser, like Val Kilmer would have loved, beamed out of her gun right at them, with one of her healing keys-and her helmet emanated beams of energy to heal with her more powerful skills.
"Do you have anything that imparts Endurance or something like that?" she asked John.
"Yes. Here," he said, pointing to a skill on a side action bar.
While they ran, Lourdes clicked on each person's icon and then the endurance skill John pointed to. A little flag appeared above their icon to show they'd been buffed.
"We take all we can get," she said.
When they got to the middle, the Boss there-the one that had wiped them all a few minutes prior-was a stinker.
Ted lead the charge and the fight was on.
Lourdes yelled at the screen while she played. "Aaaah!!! Get-that! Ooooh!"
She watched the entire battle, all the time. Twice- "See that, John? The tank and one D.P.S. went out of range. Their icons faded. Can't heal. Gotta close in." She moved closer to the battle. They brightened, and she healed them some more.
"See here?" she asked.
"Yes," John said. "I'm losing some health. Not sure why. But-" Lourdes clicked on her own icon and hit a healing key to- She suddenly yelled, "ADDS FROM THE LEFT!"
With her own health at half, she hit her tab key to target the adds attacking her, and fired into them. They were weak, so they went down fast. She clicked on her own icon again to finish healing herself.
The crowd behind her cheered her on, laughing.
"Look at that, John. Blasted, she plays better than you!"
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" John mock laughed, defending. "She's been at it a while!"
Then the Tank's health was down, so she clicked on him and healed him mostly, then clicked on the two D.P.S. and gave them some, then, "My health is still okay, so I'll stay on the tank." She clicked on the tank again and healed him?
And the Boss for that phase of the flashpoint died.
All team health near one hundred percent.
There were cheers from the 'cheap seats' behind them.
"I want a SITH LORD!" Lourdes yelled, jumping up from her chair and turning to play with the crowd. "I am fed up with bad dudes!"
"Yeeeaaaaa!" Others yelled. Most laughed, enjoying the spectacle.
"Right now," she told everyone, "I'd like nothing better than to get in there with all of them bad dudes and sass 'em off! That'll show 'em!"
Several laughed.
"I have a sith," someone yelled into the fray. "An inquisitor. And he's 'light side.'"
"How's that work?" Lourdes asked. "He's a bad dude."
"He does good things, and the Imp's hate it, but what are they gonna do? He's the one paying the subscription!"
More laughter.
"Get back in your chair!" Bill yelled. "We have one more boss to go!"
"Lourdes! We're still in the flashpoint!" John told her.
The other team members in the flashpoints waited at their laptops for their healer to reengage.
Lourdes didn't notice, walked away to the pizza table. "This is good stuff. Where'd you get it?" she asked.
Several of the people laughed.
"She's drunk," someone said to everyone. "She beat that boss drunk," then to John, "so surely you could do it sober."
The look on John's face was a mixture of humor and pain.
"John?" Ted asked.
"Okay!" John said, sitting down.
Lourdes grabbed another slice of pizza and started working on it. Noticing John was at his laptop, she went over to cheer him on. "Hey! Atta boy. You can do it," she said.
Ted as tank headed out further through the flashpoint, and the team followed.
John trailed, clicking on their icons, healing them with the beam from his gun as they ran, a couple of times, to top them off.
As they approached the final Boss, Lourdes remembered the flashpoint and yelled, "Wait."
The team stopped, before attacking.
Lourdes said, "This boss has wicked AoE. Avoid the fire he floats around."
"We already know that," Ted said.
&nb
sp; "He's killed us a three times, already," Bill said.
"Okay. Sorry," Lourdes said.
John, by habit, typed, "r" to indicate "ready."
The "r" appeared on every one else's screen, who was in their group.
Ted attacked and all hell broke loose.
Both knights were in the fray.
Bill was off to the side firing his guns at the target.
"Yeeeaaaa! Get 'em!" the crowd yelled.
John was watching the scene as a whole, clicking on group member icons, healing them as needed, when fire started floating around in the air over the players.
"That's the AoE!" Lourdes yelled.
"It'll kill you if you don't move," someone behind yelled.
John stopped healing for a moment and maneuvered around behind the fire-so it went away from him, not toward him-taking a little heat, with loss of health, as he passed the edge of it. He stopped healing others, clicked on his own icon and healed himself, switching back-
"That's it!" Lourdes yelled. "Yeah!" Then, "Gunslinger taking heat!" "Get away from the fire!"
"I know," Bill said, moving.
John healed him quickly.
The megalomaniac, evil boss boasted wickedly for a moment, then attacked again. The team fought valiantly. Fire moved around the scene trying to catch people.
John switched from the team members to himself to heal, back and forth, running when needed to avoid the AoE.
The crowd behind them helped in their way.
"It's over there!"
"Look out!"
"That's it!"
"Blast him!"
Until they started noticing the boss' health beginning to run low.
"We're gonna make it!" John yelled.
"Yaaaaaaa!" Ted screamed as he swung his light saber another thousand times at the boss. "Sith spawn!"
There was such a melee frenzy no one could tell who was swinging what. Light sabers were flashing at blinding speed with their customary sound: wom wom wom. The boss fought better than two should have been able, and the party fought mightily, dumping D.P.S. into the boss, until finally John hit his tab key, "Switching to guns!" he yelled, firing his huge blaster repeatedly into the boss to help finish him off.
The boss keeled over, dead.
"Yeeeeaaaaaaaa!" the crowd yelled.
"Die evil skum!"
"All the way!"
Ted congratulated John by shaking his hand. "Well done," he said.
John smiled and slumped into his chair.
There was general laughter and back slapping, and sipping of Cowboy Lemonade.
