“Now hold on,” Quince said, skepticism obvious in his voice. “You said you’d be bringing me on for mid. Plus, don’t you need to report the roles everyone is playing to the tournament organizers?”

Jade laughed lightly, a sound that– in a less stressful situation than the game earlier– stuck in Emma’s head enough that she barely managed to pick up the sentence that followed. “You have to tell them people’s potential roles, and each person only gets three. It’s supposed to be used for a bench, but I hope it’s clear here that we won’t exactly be coloring inside the lines.”

She found herself speaking before she could trip herself up thinking again. “Um… what kind of abilities do you already have?”

“Well, you saw Nathan’s Carry set. Jessica’s Ranger set is… well, it probably needs to be seen to be believed, but it’s a single-target lockdown and burst. My support set is a little strange, partially because I needed to make up for some of the weaknesses we had and partially just because we could—it’s a sort of structure-based enabler with a touch of CC. It essentially gives allies nearby range and a movement ability.”

“Eesh. Don’t envy playing against that carry set with extra range.” Quince said. “Obvious you built it after he did though.”

Jade hit him with a look just a step away from a glare. “That isn't exactly something we'd need to hide. Unless you have a compelling reason..?”

“Nah. But it means you won't get as much use out of it if you pick up randoms.”

“True. But I’m not likely to play support for randoms anyways.”

“Just notable. It plays nicely with Emma’s and Jeremy’s sets, though. Does it hit minions?”

“Players and structures. Plus, I function as a start point for the buffs.”

“So my spires would be affected.”

Jade’s eyes closed and she took a long breath in. “It was a consideration.”

“That seems–”

Nathan cut in, a little bit louder than normal speaking. “Do you actually have anything against playing Diver in some games, or are you trying to fish out more information?”

Quince took a moment to process that, coming back with a lot less accusation in his tone. “Diver? I would have thought…”

“It was obvious you don’t like North much, and I’m tentatively hopeful Jeremy can figure something out for mid,” Jade answered. “And I’m certain Emma could work something into mid if we needed her to, but I think she’s probably better in North given that she’s the highest stat total on the whole team.”

That plain statement was enough to make her jump, though luckily nobody commented on it. She’d known that her stat line was a bit higher than normal, but it still made her uncomfortable to be recognized for that.

“It’s going to be about a month before a set opens up.” Quince said, not really responding to anything that was said.

“Not an issue, and more time to work on the two we can field currently and stats. Which… I’m going to share everyone’s. Assuming everyone agrees, but I strongly think you should.”

Mostly nods, this time. People didn’t seem to want to say it.

“Alright… Here.”

It took a few seconds for her to process the numbers that were in front of her, but when she though about it, she was proud of Jessica and Quince for how much they’d been able to progress in such a short period of time. On the other hand–

“Holy fuck.”

Quince about summed it up for her. “I knew y’all had some crazy scores, but what the fuck. Jeremy– how.”

He just shrugged and half-smiled in response, though she thought that it was a decent question. The stat numbers didn’t make up a linear scale, with ninety as the average and Olympic athletes usually placing in the two hundred fifty to three hundred fifty range in their relevant categories, but that kind of number wasn’t looking out of touch for some of them in the next few years.

“Um. Nathaniel and Jessica… aren’t far off of that, either. Plus, you’re still capped–” a flash of anger ran across his face, and she had to force herself to continue on through it. “So that’s going to go up fast…”

“We’ve actually got two caps that are issues. Seven that we need to be concerned about, but two of them are mine, so…” Jade laughed, then shook her head. “Well, getting Quince’s Concentration and my Energy up shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Rayne was the next one to speak, and everyone else went silent the moment she made a sound. “Those are some of the most unbalanced scores I’ve seen in my life. It’s a good thing I know you guys can deal with it– you’re going to have an advantage in being stronger in your specialties for it, but you’re all seriously weak out of your primary areas.”

“We wanted to show that for a reason,” Nathaniel said. “And it’s not to show off, it’s because we seriously need to examine how we’re thinking about the stats in relation to abilities. Emma, what would you need to be an effective northlaner?”

She had to think about that one. Standard theory said that she’d be totally okay with one of the standard builds, though she was a little bit high on Agility and lower on Energy than was considered ideal. Still, that seemed wrong to her, and it took a minute to put her finger on why.

When she found it, she almost groaned.

“I… don’t actually know. I think, probably, CC and something to farm with? I’d also need something pretty strong on movement and engage, so I think that will actually be basically my whole set.”

Quince nodded. “Yeah, because we need to be able to play either set with either set, right. We have time on this one?”

“To a degree,” Jade answered. “I do want to have some idea of it in advance, and if the other two can start practicing their side of it before we can really implement it that’s ideal.”

Jessica stood up, walking to the board. “It won’t be that hard, really.” She waved her hand over it, and what must have been a preprepared diagram showed up on it, showing an effective range comparison between the two setups that they’d have in the south lane. “I can help with set creation somewhat, but as long as we don’t totally ignore what the team needs to have we should be fine.”

Jeremy raised an eyebrow, finally speaking. “You’re the set person? Thought it’d be one of our co-captains.”

Jade shook her head. “We can help you tune it, but she’s in charge with the concept. That said– we should probably call it for today. Tomorrow is going to be mostly practice, so block out four, four and a half hours. See you then.”

Aetheo

Hey, actual stat numbers! They do change over time, but not extremely. More importantly, you get an actual view of what everyone's distributions are.

Notably, I think, is the mental/physical start split which is... not illusory, but not really total, either. Both Energy and Endurance are a little bit rooted in both categories, with leanings. Specifically, Endurance is "willpower" plus "toughness" where Energy is more "mental energy", related but distinct concepts.

As last time, the ranger...

Spoiler

Impermeable Shields	50% of post-reduction shields that you would lose to damage are lost over the next 5s instead. This damage cannot be reduced by any means.	Passive	General
Warp Walk	When you take a step, you may teleport a short distance as you step through the void instead. Lasts 10s. Range is 5 + (END/20)m. Reserves 20 concentration, costs 30 energy, causes pain and damage to you as you get closer to maximum range. 20s CD.	Normal	Void, Movement
Scapegoat	Create a sacrificial duplicate of yourself that takes on all effects on you, clearing them from yourself (instant effect). The duplicate attempts to attack but does not move. High-priority reserves 30 concentration, costs 30 energy, lasts until destroyed or 40 seconds. 1m CD	Normal	Duplication
Curse of Zeno	Curse a target for 5s. For every meter traversed by the target, the next meter they traverse will have its relative length doubled for themselves only, resetting every 1s Every 1s, momentum is canceled. (Moving at 7 m/s will move 1m : .5m : .25m : .125m : .0625m : .03125 : .015625 :: 1m) Reserves 40 concentration, costs 40 energy, 1m CD	Normal	Void, Curse
Leeching Bond	Choose a target within 5m, creating a link that drains their shields, then health, returning the same to you. Damage scales with magic power, link strength. Link will break if the target gets more than 15m away from you. Costs 30 energy to start, then 2/s. Reserves 30 concentration. Each target can only be linked once.	Normal	Link, Curse
Touch of the Trickster	Any target you've damaged in the last 30s can be swapped with any other target that applies to. 3/6m CD	Penultimate	Void, Curse, Movement
Infinite Halves	Scapegoat equivalent with no concentration requirement every second for the next ten seconds. On each trigger, teleport a short distance (randomly if undirected, or in an intentional direction.) 15/30m CD	Ultimate	Duplication, Movement

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and the diver.

Spoiler

On Impact	When suddenly losing speed, any abilities that deal damage have their power boosted. When stopping from high speeds, deal damage in an area around the user.	Passive	Movement
Meteor Step	Your next step instead heavily accelerates you in that direction, causing fire to wreath you (or your shields) as you move through the air and granting you damage reduction. When you make contact with a surface, cause an explosion at the location with damage and area dependent on your speed. Costs 10 Energy. 5s CD.	Normal	Fire, Earth, Movement
Enhance Ability (Fire)	Choose Duration, Range, or Area. That aspect of your next-used fire basic ability is multiplied by (Calculation/45). Reserves 20 Concentration while active. Costs 30 Energy. CD 20s For Duration: Instant abilities will repeat FLOOR times, instead, unless the ability exclusively creates an area(e.g. Fireball), in which case it gains a base duration of half of one second. For Area: Single Target same as instant for Duration. Self becomes allies within x meters, starting at 0.5.	Normal	Fire, Buff
Time Sink	Each target within 5 meters of you is slowed by (CALC/5)%. You are sped up by (CALC/3)% for each player or epic monster target affected, (CALC/6)% for minions, (CALC/5)% for monsters. Lasts 4s. CD 20s. Costs 20 Energy.	Normal	Time, Debuff, Buff
Curse of the Beacon	Curse a target for 10s. While cursed, they burn with golden flame, restoring a moderate amount of health to them but also causing attacks against them to gain Life and Shield Leech. Reserves 40 concentration, costs 40 energy, 45s CD	Normal	Fire, Curse, Healing
Momentary Light	Next hit target(s) is/are frozen for 1s, emitting a healing pulse that does not affect frozen targets. 8/15m CD	Penultimate	Time, Debuff, Curse, Healing
Starstrike	Become the rod from god. 30/50m CD	Ultimate	Fire, Earth, Movement, Buff

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