The warrior (as well as the other protective fighters) is the meat shield, the tank. He will however have DPS that WILL contribute to the fight when not in a tanking role. If any class is useless unless performing their specific role, then we have failed as designers, and quite honestly, we're not going to fail. - Elidroth
As a warrior for example, I have to keep watch for defensive reactions like my party members needing rescue (don't they always? ), reacting to my attack chains, using tactical maneuvers, taking advantages of NPC weakness or states that open up, and much more. Sometimes you get multiple options and have to then decide which is more important. The decision you make could mean the difference between winning the fight or running back to your corpse instead of the fight taking 2 minutes or 3 minutes. - Elidroth
You will definitely dodge things and parry things in Vanguard. The only adventuring animations I've implemented so far that are representative of final content are for the 2-handed swords. I have A LOT more to do once the motion capture data is fully processed. Even the impact on the target animations aren't done yet.
As far as gameplay goes.. I think if you watch it.. it can look slow.. It's not until you actually PLAY the game that you find out just how short the interval is between actions. Having played a warrior in EQ for 6+ years, I can tell you playing the warrior in Vanguard is ANYTHING but boring. -Elidroth