FBPP C17

Chapter 17

In the upper tiers, if Dennis uses his right-click right in front of you without attack-speed gearing, nine times out of ten he gets countered. His nasty groan is audible too, so you can’t miss it.

It irritated Ji-han so much that he went into the free practice arena to experiment.

The condition for arriving at the enemy at the instant the groan is heard is simple: set your avatar loadout, traits, and runes entirely to attack speed, swap the movement-speed potion for an attack-speed potion, and replace the special kit with a right-click skill enhancement kit.

The problem is that the downsides are brutally crippling—this setup is unthinkable in high-tier play. You’d be dumping other skills and even your ultimate just for a faster right-click cast; who the hell would do that?

Ji-han, who picks whatever kit suits his taste regardless of whether it’s Akashana Todro or Bellatan, nonetheless avoided Dennis.

First of all, that groan was filthy.

[JiniHaniJihani (Nasarun):] Are you sure the windup was short enough that you couldn’t react?

Melee characters rarely meet one-on-one in earnest. Especially with an assassin-chaser like Dennis and Nasarun who moves with his team, their clashes are uncommon. So Ji-han had never actually seen Dennis fire the right-click in full.

[ChouxCreamLatte (Inegro):] Yeah ㅠ He died before he could even use his spell
[AkashaPhilban (Chaplin):] Social skills utterly destroyed, huh? Are you asking or picking a fight?

“Ah, really, why is this asshole acting up again.”

[JiniHaniJihani (Nasarun):] I’m asking, are you fucking dense? If you treat people the same as you treat me, just leave, die in D2 or something. What’s your problem??
[AkashaPhilban (Chaplin):] You’re the one acting like trash
[Class1Grade4 (Bark):] Guys, we were fine a second ago—what happened? When did you two fight?
[JiniHaniJihani (Nasarun):] That’s what I’m saying—this is your delusion LOL stop grabbing at people, go to the hospital
[RiceAndNothingButRice (Gaien):] What is wrong with you
[AkashaPhilban (Chaplin):] Want me to come get you to test for dementia too?
[Class1Grade4 (Bark):] Let’s not do this, our vibe was good, calm down
[JiniHaniJihani (Nasarun):] He’s clinically paranoid lol why’s he clinging to me? Bring a guardian, words don’t work

AkashaPhilban and JiniHaniJihani fought like mortal enemies one moment and then instantly stopped chatting as soon as the minimap showed enemies.

Yet whenever there was a lull, they resumed taunting and trash-talking. Even as Ji-han landed perfect skill-shots on minions, his fingers churned out endless chat lines.

[JiniHaniJihani (Nasarun):] Called it when you banned our picks without knowing who we were lol
[AkashaPhilban (Chaplin):] I could smell the garbage from your first sentence, so I knew
[JiniHaniJihani (Nasarun):] Yes yes, the sommelier has arrived LOL clap clap clap!!!

Then Dennis’s location flashed on the minimap. It was such a brief blip that anyone could have missed it—but not Ji-han.

[JiniHaniJihani has requested assistance.]

If Dennis’s right-click windup claim was true, then with no Catherine nearby the sub-tank, Dennis would be nothing.

Ping!

[JiniHaniJihani has pinged for vision.]

Grumbling while tailing along, AkashaPhilban placed vision. The world’s most insane lunatic apparently still wants to win.

The moment Dennis came into view, AkashaPhilban used his bind to stop him. Ji-han deliberately avoided striking and instead danced left and right near him like he was testing the waters.

Ping!

Ji-han put down a retreat ping. Maybe because AkashaPhilban was so close, Dennis didn’t use his mobility.

AkashaPhilban read the ping and backed off; Ji-han intentionally turned and retreated as if the situation was getting bad.

That flicked Dennis’s chase instinct on.

The disgusting “hruuung” groan sounded, and at the timing Ji-han fired his Q. Nasarun’s skill pushes enemies slightly in the direction the caster is facing—normally it stacks three bleeds—but by deliberately mis-landing it, the first hit staggered the timing so Dennis wasn’t pushed and only took damage.

“Try to run. If you can’t, you die.”

The bleed ticks tore down the soft melee’s HP, and as expected Dennis tried to turn and sprint away instead of using his mobility.

Watching from a distance and seeing the skirmish brewing, AkashaPhilban quickly rejoined. Vines rose to snare Dennis’s ankles along his escape route, and a bog skill was planted behind him to block any backup.

Ji-han landed autos. Stacks built fast; with an R he left Dennis at one HP, unable to resist, and the bleed took him to the scoreboard.

JiniHaniJihani has slain an enemy.

[JiniHaniJihani (Nasarun):] Dennis’s right-click has at least a 12s cooldown and he can’t use it twice in a row. If the cooldowns aren’t aligned and you don’t weave autos, he can’t chain spells properly.
[JiniHaniJihani (Nasarun):] Gaien, when you face Dennis don’t use skills—just auto him down. If he commits, he always starts with autos, and Gaien’s auto wins the trading.

This was the reason Ji-han had researched it but never bothered to use it in real play.

Dennis, obsessed with his concept of “riding a water stream,” has a one-second post-arrival penalty where all other skills grey out under the pretext of “unsheathing his weapon.” When Dennis first appeared, players would right-click in and then rinse the enemy with autos.

The problem: Dennis isn’t an auto-attack champion—his auto’s windup, recovery, and hitbox are trash. If the enemy frantically clicks while taking hits, they can overwhelm Dennis’s hit registration and land autos in his face. With no escape or super armor, Dennis has no chance but to be reversed.

Everyone’s reaction was unanimous:

“This is fucking garbage.”

Besides, Dennis already has the highest base move speed among all characters—can’t he just walk in, kill someone, and right-click out?

Using right-click increases his attack and crit chance. Apparently surfing makes him feel good or some similar bullshit. And among melee, Dennis has the worst crit ratio; the buff is mandatory.

So right-clicking is essential, but when he goes in, his skills are on cooldown and his autos are crap—he gets countered by ADC autos and usually ends up getting killed. A worthless mess.

The solution is cooldown reduction setup.

Every piece of gear must be stacked with extreme CDR. Even the pregame traits normally chosen by melees—crit damage, bonus human damage, movement speed—get replaced by pure CDR. Not a single slot can deviate.

With that build, Dennis can arrive, fake settling in, and immediately continue his spell chain. Also, Dennis can use the legendary item Blue Eye to instantly reset his right-click cooldown after using it, enabling repeated entry and exit.

So Dennis’s textbook sequence becomes:

Right-click entry → spell chain enabled by extreme CDR → right-click again to escape before enemy backup arrives.

But focusing so much on attack speed means you must forgo putting Blue Eye in favor of attack-speed items, and CDR has to take up all other slots.

It’s a hopeless garbage design. Even the aesthetics are ugly.

Unfortunately, Inegro’s auto registration is worse than Dennis’s, so she’d been getting wrecked up to now.

[RiceAndNothingButRice (Gaien):] Okay, we’ll trust Nasarun then.
[Class1Grade4 (Bark):] Yeah vibe’s good, friends, let’s keep it.

After that, Gaien followed Ji-han’s orders properly. Every time Dennis tried to dash on Inegro, Gaien stuck to him and shredded him with autos. At first they thought it was luck; after Dennis failed three times in a row he stopped attempting the initial assassination.

Good—he stopped trying first.

Ping! Ping!

ChouxCreamLatte has requested assistance.

This time they came in with Catherine at the front. Catherine was a menace: chaining across objects, dragging the battlefield around and mocking Gaien, who helplessly got pulled and left Inegro exposed.

Inegro’s dodge usually got her out once, but Dennis—always hiding somewhere—would suddenly pop out and relentlessly chase. With top movement speed plus a speed potion, she couldn’t fend him off; if she climbed an object, Catherine pulled her down with her chain.

But now things were different.

Chaplin: Will you come to me in my dreams again tonight?

AkashaPhilban bound Catherine as she came in—an ultimate aimed solely at Catherine. He must have judged Catherine to be the most dangerous and, confident he could lock her down, used his ultimate without waiting for Dennis.

Bark: Judgment of the King!

The main tank used his ultimate to block any backup from the front. Another ulti-initiate. Ji-han was getting confused. Were the enemy team idiots for always getting caught, or were the Bark players just habitually blowing ults? Did it work because the opponent was dumb, or did the Bark players not realize other uses for the ult? If you get hit ten times, you’d think they’d learn to be cautious; if they use the ult ten times, they’d think to try different applications. But none of that happened.

It was comparable to the chicken-or-egg debate.