Holding the Line: Heavy Fighters in Vanguard
A small band of adventurers fights their way into the depths of a remote dungeon. An adventuring party battles for their lives in a heavy woodland. A raid force assaults the lord of an ancient castle.
What do these three groups of adventurers have in common? At the center of every battle, heavy fighters hold the line and put their strength and steel between their friends and the creatures trying desperately to kill them.
Heavy fighter, tank, protective fighter… it doesn’t matter which term is used to describe them. They stand in the thick of battle and ensure the weapons of the enemy ring against their armor and shields rather than the soft robes and thin mail of their companions.
If they are the star of the show, then why can they be hard to find when putting together a group of adventurers? You would think that you couldn’t walk through a town without tripping over dozens of them waiting to lead a group to Hell and back. The answer is simple. In previous games it has been, quite frankly, boring to play a tank. The aggro management techniques used in previous games has resulted in aggro lock being the norm. And the tanks have been given very few tools to use in the rare cases where that aggro lock fails. They have had to rely on their companions to “back off” and “let the tank regain aggro.” So tanking has been a situation where you either obtain aggro and keep it, or you lose aggro and have nothing you can do to actively regain it. Tanks were in a position where their gear dictated if they could do their job or not… and if their gear wasn’t up to the task, no amount of skill could compensate.
Vanguard promises to change things.
Protective fighters will now focus more on protecting their allies than on trying to keep a monster’s attention. Certainly they will continue to try to be the main focus of attention for an attacker, but gone are the days when all a tank could do was stand idly by when a monster decided to eat Willy the Rogue or Cappy the Cleric. Now Waldo the Warrior can “rescue” Willy when the mean ol’ Badger of Doom decides it wants to chew poor Willy’s leg off instead of gnawing on Waldo’s thick plate steel. Also, combat promises to be more chaotic with several enemies fighting a group at the same time. Heavy fighters in Vanguard will have the tools to deal with these situations, and it will definitely be more exciting and challenging than the old “one mob at a time” paradigm.
A fighter’s perception skill may allow him to anticipate what an opponent will do next, and he can counter the attack. Fighters may also notice openings in their opponent’s defenses and take advantage of these openings with various special situational attacks. This promises to add an entirely new dimension to playing a heavy fighter.
In addition to a more dynamic tanking system, heavy fighters will be able to choose to fight in an offensive or defensive stance. Depending on the stance selected, various combat abilities will be available. This allows protective fighters to be valuable members of a party, even if another player is performing the main defensive duties for the group.
Fighters will also be able to chain together special attacks in powerful combinations. This will start with an “opening” that if properly exploited results in an opportunity to make a more powerful “bridge” attack. The chain is completed with a “finishing” attack that is even more powerful. Although damage has never been the main focus of a heavy fighter, having special attack sequences like these will add an element of fun to the offensive side of things. (Especially compared to the old, “auto-attack and forget about it” offensive strategies of previous games.)
Finally, each protective fighter class will have secondary abilities that will add variety and utility. Paladins will be able to cast buffs and group healing spells. Inquisitors will have anti-magic capabilities. The Warrior and Dread Knight secondary abilities have not yet been revealed, but we can be sure that they will add another dimension to the classes.
Skilled protective fighters will be as necessary as they ever have been in a fantasy game. But, for the first time, they will be challenging to play and will offer more than just high damage mitigation and a taunt button to their groups. Those who choose to play heavy fighters in Vanguard will be rewarded with an exciting and challenging role to play in their adventuring groups. And their skill will be tested as they hold the line.
--The Drunken Dwarf