Vanguard Combat
The combat of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is highly tactical, especially in party and raid situations. Not only do players have a large array of skills and abilities to bring to the battle, opportunities will arise to use these skills in combination with other party members to devastating effect. Additionally, combatants on both sides will be using their perception skills to spot opportunities for attack, and even the upcoming attacks of their opponents. This has been described as reactionary combat, but could also be called 'anticipatory combat'.
---— note: content from here down is subject to change ---——
taken from Silky Venom
Adventuring Classes fall into four categories, who each have a different role in combat. Each group fulfills their primary role with the same proficiency as any other member of the same job, but brings to a party unique and wildly varied talents outside their primary function. There may be times when a particular class is more suited to a specific encounter than another class of the same job, but as a general rule all classes within a job are equally capable of fulfilling their primary role.
Protective Fighters
Protective Fighters are Vanguard's tanks. Also known as 'meat shields', a tank's role is to protect other members of the party from taking damage.
Protective fighters are the best equipped to withstand offensive attacks, relying on their considerable stamina and heavy armor to survive. They also have abilities, such as rescue and taunt, designed to shelter other party members and draw an aggressor's attention to themselves.
Vanguard tanks, however, will not be able to simply gain aggro and stand in place while the rest of the party gets down to the business of dealing death. In addition to producing a reasonable amount of damage, the Vanguard tank will need to use numerous skills outside of taunt to ensure the attacker does not lay waste to the party.
Offensive Fighters
The Offensive Fighters are the masters of melee damage. Not only are Offensive Fighters capable of poking holes in things with sticks, they can counteract the attacks of their opponents - drawing on array of skills ranging from parrying blows to intercepting attacks directed toward other players.
Healers
Healers in MMORPGs have often been consigned to obsessively watching the health bars of party members without having the time to spare for anything outside their healing role.
While the primary contribution of the Vanguard Healer will still be healing, healers will be engaging the NPCs and healing as necessary, rather than devoting all their time to it. The need for healing during combat will depend on many factors, including whether the other party members are in offensive or defensive stances, the kind of attacks and debuffs being dealt, and the number of attackers.
Arcane Casters
Arcane Casters use magic as their weapon of choice. Arcane Casters are not only the nukers of Vanguard, they have the critical skill of the counterspell.
The job of the Arcane Caster is not only to produce vast amounts of magical damage, but to prevent the party's opponents from raining magical fire down on the party's own heads.
Targets
When engaging in party and raid combat, players will select both an offensive and a defensive target.
Offensive Target
An offensive target is the hostile entity you are trying to damage.
Defensive Target
A defensive target is the friendly entity you are trying to heal or protect.
Enemy Mobs
Like player characters, enemy mobs have a variety of attacks, some potentially crippling. Perception is vital to adequately anticipate and respond to the opponent's attacks.
Perception
Perception is an ability used in many situations. In combat, perception allows you to:
- See approaching threats (e.g. ambushes and adds).
- Learn combat moves from enemies you fight.
- Spot your opponents' weaknesses, and opportunities for special attacks.
- Detect opponents' incoming attacks. This is critical in combat; some enemy attacks may need to be proactively countered by tanks, and arcane casters must remain vigilant in order to execute counterspell abilities.
Stances
The abilities you are able to access during combat depend on your stance. A melee player in a defensive stance will be able to use primarily defensive skills, while an offensive stance will provide a different array of skills.
Stances are not confined to melee characters. Casters will also access different abilities depending on their selected stance.
Attack Chains
Although auto-attack is available to players, simply relying on auto-attack to bring down an opponent is an excellent method of courting death. Player attack skills are broken into four categories, three of which, when chained in sequence, and in combination with the attacks of other party members, produce sweet, sweet mega-damage.
Openers
Openers, unsurprisingly, are where attack chains start. Unless an opener is used, bridges cannot be accessed.
Bridges
Bridges are more powerful attacks than openers, and also give access to finishers.
Finishers
Finishers are the most powerful attacks available to a player, and can only be accessed by successfully completing an attack chain.
Stand-alone
Some abilities run independent of attack chains, and do not require an opener or bridge.
Defensive Moves
For those classes designed for defensive fighting, defensive moves will be available in addition to moves with which attack chains are formed. These moves may include taunt and rescue abilities.
Some may allow one to skip attacking in order to block and mitigate an incoming attack, however they have cooldown timers and must be used wisely.
Directed Damage
Damage dealt in combat is directed (randomly) to parts of the body. This directed damage can result in wounds to body parts which have received a great deal of damage, and it may not be unusual for players to select heavy armor for specific areas of the body.
However, it is not currently possible for players to choose a particular body part to attack.
Healing
Healing in Vanguard covers the usual recovery of hit points and the removal of debuffs such as poisons.
During combat, player characters may also receive wounds, which are a debilitating kind of damage not directly tied to your hit points. These wounds cannot be healed during combat, and must be tended during downtime between battles.