Character Selection 101: Finding the right Character for you

I hate wasting time.

I'm sure you do as well.

I don't think of video games as a waste, no more than reading a good book or watching a good movie is a waste, as they both stimulate the mind and result in greater creativity, understanding, and problem solving. Provided you are having fun.

And no one enjoys losing time invested into a character that turns out to have a playstyle they absolutely hate, or are not good at playing.

That is the purpose of this guide. To let you new bloods or returning vets get some information on Player Characters and their combat styles for Vindictus before you start up the game.

This guide will list the characters in more or less chronological order of their introduction into the game. I will first include the commentary for the characters that is listed in the Vindictus Wiki, an invaluable source of information. Afterward, I will include my own commentary that further illuminates the playstyle of the character, as I have actually played every character in the game to the extent of becoming familiar with them, and there are meaningful nuances that the Wiki passed over that I can include.

Readers, feel free to make comments about playstyles and I will include the ones, with credits due, that are helpful for readers looking to select their character of choice for this game.

As one of the quickest melee combatants of the group, it is his responsibility to slice and dice while avoiding damage. It's a simple explanation but the skill of the person controlling Lann makes a large difference in combat success.

Twin Swords are quick and versatile, allowing one to slide around enemies and avoid their attacks via Slip Dash. On the other hand, Twin Spears are also quick, have greatly increased attack and critical rate and can recover Stamina quicker due to Fury Infusion, making him one of the top DPS (Damage Per Second) classes, but has a poor dodge mechanism, often causing them to take more hits. Spears also have an extremely limited playstyle as they only have one smash enhancement (Moon Splitter) and one additional skill (Fury Infusion), while Swords have three smash enhancements (Gust Sting, Pummel Storm and Fanning Slash), two additional skills (Thousand Needles and Double Crescent), two dodge enhancements (Slip Dash Proficiency and Nimble Dash) and an additional SP skill (Active: Raging Fever).

Unlike other characters, Lann has no actual self-defense skills, as opposed to Fiona's Guard & Heavy Stander, Evie's Mana Shield and Mana Amber, and Karok's Absorb Shock & Weaving. Both Twin and Spear Swords can slip in between attacks through Slip Dash and Rolling, respectively, although Twin Spears have much more difficulty to accomplish this. Therefore, they must take caution and space themselves from opponents in order to stay alive.

Regardless, Lann is definitely a fun and easy class to play, but difficult to master.

Survivability: Moderate
Soloing Capacity: Moderate
Damage Capacity: High - Very High

High DPS, but avoid hits. High maneuverability at a high stamina cost. Cuts through mooks like butter and can easily take a few hits, but has difficulty with bosses who require more than a single burst of damage to kill. Not a tank, so carry many normal HP Potions to refill life while on the run if playing solo. If you are not willing to learn timing for dodges, or have a laggy internet connection, do not play as Lann.

Moderate-speed Club dancing, with steps, hip turns, and arm movements showing he's enjoying the beat.

A Sword Lann has the Slip Dash skill, which is central to his playstyle. The amount of time Lann has for invulnerability is the longest of the characters, and he can Slip Dash twice in a row before having to "reset" his stance to dodge again. This makes him eminently survivable should the player be able to control Lann properly. It also gives Lann the greatest range for a Dodge out of an opponent's attack range, as well as the greatest range of dashing in to attack an enemy when a moment of weakness presents itself.

Double dash in, perform a Rising Crescent, and hopefully, hit a critical strike, which allows a Fury strike.

Furies? Oh, those are Lann's main damage dealing skills. When Lann gets a critical strike, an icon appears over his head showing a mouse with the right finger button pressed. Pressing the right button, or the Smash button as it will heretofore be known, will have Lann perform a dashing slash in the direction you are pressing to move in. This attack is fast, devastating, and has a good chance at knocking down a boss, or just blowing away a normal monster. A critical hit with a Gliding Fury opens up the chance to perform a second one, that does even greater damage.

To get the most out of your Furies though, you will want to use the Thousand Needles skill, Slip Dash in, hit the left button, normal attacks, repeatedly, and finish with a smash. This gives Lann a non-expirable buff called Keen, that ups your critical hit chance. Upon getting a critical hit, that buff is changed in for Furious, which vastly increases the power of your Fury attacks. For optimal damage on bosses, you will want to get Keen, then Furious, use the Active Skill: Berserker Spirit to get a party wide attack boost, and then use Active: Fury Number 7, slashing back and forth through the boss to pile on the damage and hopefully knock him down.

Your fast damage dealing will mostly be Slip Dashing into a Rising Crescent to get a fast Crit, and then go into a Fury, but all of Lann's Sword Smashes do superior damage except the One Normal + Smash attack, which has a high knockdown chance instead. For hitting a target beyond very close range though, wind up for the 4 Normal + Smash + Normal attack which has a very nice range for a melee character, so that the Boss is just inside the strike zone for the finisher, and then dodge back out if possible. And take care of the direction you are facing with your attacks at all times, especially with Furies, as Lann attacks in a straight line, destroying everything in front of him, instead of having circuitous attacks to hit enemies around him.

You are also going to be investing heavily in Stamina skills, like Battle Respiration, as Lann's combat style eats through Stamina fast. Lann is a hit and runner, not a toe to toe brawler. You're also going to want Life Flair and Standing Endurance, as they are improved by WILL, which is a skill you will invest in if you want those Critical Hits, and you DO want them. Investing in Smash Mastery with any character besides Staff Evie will not lead you astray, but it's especially important for a Lann.

Spin2Win. The Blender. The Lannmower.

The entire point of a Twin-Spears Lann is to build up a few attacks, and then go into his spinning slash attacks with either Moon Splitter, which is a standing slash 'em up, or the Grand Hurricane.

A Spear Lann gets a passive and active skill that ups raw attack power per hit, and increases Stamina regeneration. And the entire purpose of that is to fuel the Grand Hurricane, where Lann turns into a human top, spins himself at impossible speeds, and has the twin spears extended outward, slashing up anything he comes in contact with them to an incredible degree. A Sword Lann is a decisive damage dealer, but the Spear Lann outsines even him is raw damage. Unfortunately, a Spear Lann is a squishy prospect and typically does not survive long.

Your typical Spear Lann player thinks their goal is to wind up, get in close to a boss, and then just sit there as close as possible racking up hits until they take a blow and get blasted back. Rinse and repeat until they are hugging the dirt calling for a Rez. The real goal of a Spear Lann is to get comfy enough with a boss' attack patterns, find the opening, gear up their Grand Hurricane, zoom in, deal damage, and then spin their way back out without getting his ass handed to him in order to refill on Stamina and go in for another run.

It doesn't help a Spear Lann's survivability that they give up the Slip Dash and it's invincibility for the extra DPS either. Instead of the Slip Dash you have a rolling dodge that is useful, but doesn't protect against anything. As such, if a Spear Lann has the boss monster's attention turned on him for doing superior DPS, he's not going to get out unscathed. If he gets hung up on something, he's utterly screwed.

The Twin-Spears play style is severely dumbed down from that of a Sword Lann, but far more challenging to actually do right. Only a player who is willing to forgo survivability for raw damage dealing, and will spend a large amount of time learning how to replace that survivability gap with their own skill should play a Spear Lann. Or people with very understanding friends who don't mind Rezzing them multiple times in a boss fight.

Needless to say, I have seen very few Spear Lanns make it to the end of the game and beyond.

Fiona is best described as a tank, with great shield defense. She can utilize either a sword or a hammer as her weapon. Fiona has the ability to stun enemies allowing teammates to quickly overwhelm them. She does not overwhelm the enemy with slashes like Lann or Vella, but has slower smashes that deal an incredible amount of damage with a single hit.

Wielding a Longsword, Fiona can exploit the enemy's openings with a strong smash. She will strike at small openings with a simple slash, but strike at large openings with an extremely damaging kick. Wielding a Long Hammer, Fiona's attacks become even slower, but she is able to use different, potentially more damaging attacks. Her normal attacks are more powerful, can build SP and deal critical damage. She is able to use a smash that can be repeated over and over, dealing massive damage if uninterrupted. While the enemy is far away, she can charge up an attack, allowing her to unleash an earth-shaking strike much more powerful than the Longsword's kick when the enemy comes near.

As a shield using tank, it is Fiona's responsibility to do damage while nullifying attacks done to her by blocking attacks with her shield or outright avoiding the attack. Although she lacks the speed of Lann's slashes and Evie's magic arrows, she is capable of covering large areas with her sweeping attacks, conducting powerful counterattacks, dealing quick sprint smashes, and is the best character in the game when it comes to surviving, especially when it comes to blocking long combo attacks.

Survivability: Extreme
Soloing Capacity: Extreme
Damage Capacity: Low - High

Getting up close in one-on-one fights. Uses a non-directional Dodge Button press to block incoming attacks, and then strikes back during an opening. Fiona is not nimble, and her gameplay style is less urgent and slower than other characters. Get use to using short combos followed by blocks, or take damage often. Fiona has a high weight tolerance, and is naturally drawn to Heavy and Plate armors on top of the defense bonus from her shields, so her survivability makes her good for beginners and those with bad online connections. Mastering her mechanics makes you nearly unkillable.

A small two-step while making a sort of bird shape with her hands, as if it's flying, and then very specifically bends forward to shake them ta-tas.

It's has pretty average speed, and not much damage, but it's Fiona's fastest weapon. If you don't like slow paced attacks, like, at all, then the Longsword is your weapon of choice. It's specs are nothign to write home about, but it is reliable, and allows you to get your hits in. The smashes are really not to impressive, except for the Amaranth Kick.

The Amaranth Kick is the highest damage that a Longsword Fiona is capable of doing and is a high reward for being able to find holes in an enemy's defense large enough to get it off. It's not very easy to use when you are soloing, but in a group where someone else can pull aggro for a while and you land this baby, you can sometimes do an entire health bar of damage in one strike.

And in order to land the Amaranth Kick in the first place, it's very helpful to get Longswords with a bonus to your attack speeds. Just remember, the Longsword is there to allow you to land hits quickly and then get back on the defensive, not to see how many hits you can get in before getting hit back. Use shorter comboes unless you have a reliable opening to exploit.

Quite possibly my most favorite weapon in the game, the Long Hammer is slow, clunky, eats stamina like a hog, and deals insane amounts of damage per hit. And get this, as it's unique to Fiona's hammer. EVERY attack, not just the smashes, is capable of dealing a Critical Hit on contact, so invest into Critical Strikes whenever possible.

Your Fiona is a one-on-one tanker, and thus not as goot as handling multiple enemies as a Lann is, but the Long Hammer has the Butterfly Swing attack that allows you to perform a wide swing in a 360 degree circle, and then do it again, and again, until you choose to stop or run out of Stamina. This is very helpful to start up, and then wait for enemies to come to you, just to get a homerun in the face.

And when a Boss is killed with that attack, they fly like they took a hit from barry Bonds. It's a hell of a lot of fun, and extremely damaging when it connects. In fact, all of the Long Hammer attacks and Smashes are excessively damaging, especially the ones that can be charged up to deal even more damage.

The downside? The slowness. As Fiona is often standing toe to toe with the Bosses, she'll often have little time for a big bunch of swings with the Long Hammer. So very short combos are required, barring making a very large opening to attack through. And if you don't have a Hammer with a bonus to your attack speed when you get up in the level 50+ region, you're doing it wrong, as a positive speed modification is practically required to be being a good "Hammona."

The offhand weapon of choice when you are looking to solo a level, or deal a lot of damage as a Fiona, period. The reason being the ability to Counterattack after a successful block by slamming your shield into the enemy's face, sometimes repeatedly. The chance for a stun or a knockdown is exceedingly high, and works agaisnt bosses, even raid bosses, as well. This will open up an opportunity to get in your most damaging attacks on an enemy that can't interrupt or evade, and the opportunities this presents are priceless.

The downside is that every time you block an attack, your shield takes durability damage. If you want to avoid that, then learn to perform critical blocks, which is hitting the block button with just the right timing to go into your stance right before an attack hits you. You'll know you succeeded by the blue sparks on your shield instead of them being yellow. This nullifies the durability damage to your shield, and ups the percentage of damage reduced by normally unsoakable attacks you block.

My favorite main hand / off hand combo is the Long Hammer and Small Shield, to stun an enemy with a counter, and then go into Fiona's longest attack combo, charge it up, and then drop a hugely damaging smash on the boss just as he starts to stand up.

The ultimate in survival gear, and so unwieldly that it should only be used when you are intending to get punched in the face repeatedly by raid bosses ten times your size. With the Heavy Stander skill you'll be parking yourself in front of a boss, and then bracing hard. The boss will impact against you, and if things go well, will perform the rest of their attack animation while being stuck against the face of your shield. The Large Shield is meant to be the rock that the bosses break themselves on, allowing your team mate to attack from the sides and from behind without any problems.

The Large Shield also has a higher defense bonus to it than a Small Shield. But you cannot counter-attack with it. That means you will get almost no stuns on a boss that you can exploit, so either equip a Sword with it, or get use to only hitting once with a Long Hammer before putting up your shield again, and deflecting the next blow.

And even though you will be doing less damage, you're still going to have an Active: Taunt skill to draw attention to yourself, so get use to taking one for the team.

Evie is the most versatile character in the game. Her ability to create Golems, combined with her high DPS makes her an ideal class for soloing missions. Evie is also a great support character, as she can heal her party members with Healing Corona or Regeneration, buff party members with Insane Reaper, as well as slow down or distract enemies with SP: Clipped Wings as well as Alchemy Box-related items like Alchemy: Mana Pistol. Equipped with a staff, her Magic Arrow allows for a continuous damage. After taking a moment to focus, Staff Evie can use long range spells such as Ice Spear and Blind Arrow, which are great for taking out dangerous enemies from a safe distance, as well as Ice Blast and Fire Bolt, which can clear out nearby mobs. In times of danger, she can perform a short distance, yet quick and no-stamina hop to avoid attacks. Flying Sparrow allows her to dodge even further. Against attacks that are highly difficult to evade, she can engulf herself within a Mana Amber for three seconds or until it shatters to protect herself.

When equipped with a Battle Scythe, Evie can use entirely different melee-related abilities. Instead of attacking at a distance, she gets close, dancing with the blade, slashing enemies to shreds, and then smashes them with a smiting blow. After a smash, Scythe Evie can drain the life out of her enemies and slightly healing herself, capture a portion of the enemy's soul to use as a familiar or place a Mark of Death or Bloody Thread on her foes to deal even more damage. With a snap of her finger, she can activate one or all four of the above at once, dealing massive damage especially if she has multiple "drains" active since additional drains provide additional damage. In the face of danger, she can still hop, but she can not use Mana Amber. Instead, she can teleport or Blink a short distance through attacks and even the entire enemy itself, allowing her to escape from danger.

Evie is often considered to be an overpowered character in the game, but she has several weaknesses to balance her out. Evie has the lowest HP and defense out of all the classes, so she needs to rely on her Mana Shield, Mana Amber and Blink to stay alive; without these, she doesn't last long. Evie is also the only character who cannot learn Stamina Mastery and Battle Respiration, and has the smallest stamina pool. Because of this, a Staff Evie runs out of stamina frequently due to the high stamina cost of her spells. Staff Evies do not do well against faster enemies, as they will often attack her before she can finish casting her spells. However, a Scythe Evie is more versatile in combat, but she also has a vulnerability often after her combos, as she needs a moment to recalibrate for her next attack.

Despite all of this, Evie is still an excellent character to play, and brings a great deal of power and flexibility to the game.

Survivability: Moderate
Soloing Capacity: Moderate (With the update, Soloing stat is now HIGH)
Damage Capacity: High - INSANE

Support DPS, mainly. You don't want to be the center of attention, which means learning to keep the correct distance from the enemy and holding off on DPS when applicable to allow the Tank in your groups, or feebs who don't know how to NOT pull aggro, to take the hits until you are ready for another damage burst. Evie is not meant to be the focus of attack, as once her Mana Shield is gone, your day gets a whole lot darker, as it takes a LONG time to rebuild it.

Shuffling back and forth with her hands behind her back. Evie was the original cute character in this game.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but the Vinidi Guide got it spot on. Evie's Staff skills are overkill damage, and if you can keep your enemy off you long enough you can one hit anything. Repeated use of actual spells of different elements is suggested to let your cooldown cycle, and avoid the fast mana drain of Magic Arrow once you have spell variety. Distance and timing are your Staff Evie's allies.

Scythe Evie suffers from (yup) combo reset lag. Her attack range is excessively large and she's a hard hitter with powerful secondary effects, but she's a fragile close range fighter as the Scythe does not increase her defense. Use those special secondary effects, as they may just save your life, and don't hesitate to teleport away from the danger, instead of into it. She's a good fighter, but I personally have always just thought of the Scythe as being the fallback for players who started an Evie, but didn't like the Staff.

The GOOD NEWS is that Evie is one of the least AP intensive characters in the game, next to Kai. So you can potentially progress through both the Staff and Scythe skill trees without crippling your ability to fight, unlike most other characters that have so many skills, that specialization is a must.

Evie is an aquired taste for an action game where most of the characters are melee bruisers of some degree, and may not be to everyone's satisfaction. But one thing's for certain. When Staff Evie winds up her mega spells and hits with it, EVERYONE in the team will shout "DAYYYYYYUUUUUMMMM" like you just cracked an awesome Yo' Mama joke. And sometimes, that alone is enough.

Karok is a giant of a man. In the real world he would stand approximately seven feet tall and clock in at about 400 pounds. In-game, his character model towers over the other playable characters in terms of both height and width. In addition to carrying a lot of Weight from the start, Karok's power shines from his Pillar and Cestus, along with their abilities and his own.

His Pillar gives him slow but rather hard hitting combo attacks, which are not only consecutive but are also extremely fierce. When he gets tired with the pillar, Karok can throw it and switch to Unarmed Combat, allowing him to fight with his two fists. Although Karok lacks any form of evasion, his Absorb Shock allows him to reduce any damage received while also regenerating the HP lost.

His Cestus gives Karok an improvement to his fist fighting and also arms him with a variety of explosive armaments. Cestus's strength comes from Blast: Crushing Strike, Blast: Destroyer, and Blast: Terror Rush, which are obtained from using Blast Mastery and Big Bang Attack, increasing Karok's overall prowess. Cestus's self-defense ability, Weaving, not only nulls damage received from an impact but also strengthens his Blast abilities.

Karok's uniqueness lies within his own special brawler abilities universal to both weapons. His Power Grab allows Karok to instantly crush enemies that are ungrabbable by others, such as squashing Spiders and Toads like mere insects, pulling Hemdrills out of the ground, rip Wisps into two, and break a Vampire's spine. His famous brawler skill is Clash, which intercepts most boss's attacks and gives a huge opening to others as the boss and Karok struggle to succeed in their locked battle. Karok can also bash a downed boss's head in using Boss Bash, which not only lets Karok do more damage but also extends a boss's downtime.

Overall, Karok performs many impressive hand-to-hand combat feats while steadily maintaining his survivability.

Survivability: Extreme
Soloing Capacity: Extreme
Damage Capacity: Low

The Brick Wall of the game, if anyone is. Fiona uses the extra armor from her shield and it's mechanics to block an enemy's path, Karok just plants his feet and swings a fist. He's the only character with the Boss Clash mechanic, which is also unique, in that it's an ability that does not require one of his two weapons to be equipped to use it. Across the board, Karok is meant to be right up in the enemy's grill, smashing his face, or grabbing his neck with many, MANY, unique grapple kills, even with enemies that are unable to be grappled by any other character.

His only drawbacks are his low speed (because he's massive and cumbersome), his narrow attack range (he only smacks enemies right in front of him), and by extension how few enemies he can atack at once. He's easy to solo with, but it takes a while to kill everything in his path because, well, he was built to only do LOTS of damage to ONE enemy at a time. Some people will find that style of combat to be offputting (like I did, as I quit Karok in disgust long ago before hitting level 40). To counteract that slowness of mook clearing, I suggest running past (or over) the non-essential enemies to clear levels faster, but with less Battle EXP per run.

Homie groove, one hand resting on the non-existent gat in the belt. Mixes the groove up with a hip-hop set of hand swings, like he's laying down some sick rhymes. Seriously, Asia, what is up with your portrail of black people?

Having a character carry a pillar, as in a TOWER OF STONE AND METAL into battle as a weapon may seem odd, but Asia has many stories of brute strength empowered demons carrying just such a weapon into battle. Yeah. I still don't get it either.

The Pilar is slow, heavy, hits hard, flinches enemies easily, and can be thrown into enemies at range. It does not interfere with Karok's ability to grapple and tear enemies apart, either. So what are the down sides?

IT IS SLOOOOOOOOOOOOW! And has a NARROW ATTACK RANGE! Only the enemies directly in front of you get smashed, meaning it is so very easy to get mobbed over by enemies coming up behind you. You have a huge amount of defense and can carry the heaviest armors straight from the start, saving you on ranks in weight capacity, but it gets tired pretty quick if you are use to having ANY area or effect attacks to sweep away the garbage. But you can run right over enemies as you are going from point A to B, which is marginally useful. And you can throw it away! Not in disgust, as I so wished, but as an attack. The pillar will continually respawn near you as you progress should you wish to pick it back up, but until then you can use your faster attacking, less damaging, bare fists to get bonus SP per attack to charge up your SP Skills to use.

Karok's dodge mechanic is centered around the Regeneration of HP while mitigating damage, increasing his already considerable survivbility.

So the entire playstyle is meant to get you right in front of any and every enemy, and grab them. Which is what Karok does best, even to Raid Bosses. And those successful clashes are God Sends in raids! All Hail The Karoks! ...I just don't wanna be one of 'em.

The Cestus (pronounced: Kes-tes) is the second weapon Karok uses, but does not change the barehanded fighting rules Karok used with the Battle Pillar very much with his normal attacks, grapples, or Boss Clashes. It does greatly alter his SP skills, as Karok now has access to exploding punches of various forms through his new mechanics, the Blasts (pronounced W-T-F?).

That's right, Karok's Cestus either has an endless supply of gunpowder up his sleeve, or he's discovered the use of Ki from Goku (pronounced: D-B-Z). It's not the Kamehameha (pronounced: O-P), but it gets the job done. And the Cestus is not all that different from the techniques used for fighting with the Battle Pillar. Front and center, and punch 'em in the face. The hit box / area or attack for the Cestus is still small and straight forward, but it is faster. And that may be exactly what you want from a Karok weapon.

But wait, there's more! If you time the crunches or your attacks and dodges just right, you not only get invulnerability frames, but any damage you take instead fuels those Blasts! You soak it up, then dish it right back out, meaning you have less in common with Goku than with Strong-Guy (pronounced: Bad-Hair). So there really is no reason NOT to be doing the ultra manly thing of trading punches with a boss that is five times your size!

Kai is a swift and powerful warrior who wields a bow. Kai's bow can be configured for long range and close quarters battle, giving him the freedom to change tactics on the fly. Maintaining his distance will keep Kai alive. Kai can knock a boss off of its feet with his arrows.

Kai's primary weapon is the bow, one which has two modes. There is the short bow mode, which fires quick but close-ranged arrows; and the long bow mode, which fires further but needs to be charged first. Kai's smash attack depends solely on which mode the bow is in. Unlike the other heroes, the majority of his offensive skills use SP, and thus has the bar available from the start and has faster SP gain. These include Active: Ricochet Shot, an attack that fires an arrow that can rebound off of one enemy to hit others and Active: Eagle Eye Assault, an attack that fires multiple arrows at parts of a boss's body. While he can shoot arrows quickly and at long range, he suffers from having a hard time shooting small and fast enemies. He has a special dodging skill that lets him zip around enemies' attack, which gives him a short period of invulnerability. In times of great trouble, he can pull himself to safety with Active: Dodge Grapple. He can dodge anything if timed right.

Kai has a secondary weapon known as the Crossgun, similar to the one used by Van Helsing in the same named movie. Gameplay with the Crossgun is even more reminiscent to third-person shooters than bow as there are crosshairs on-screen. Kai can deliver a stream of bolts to his enemies similar to an automatic rifle with his normal attack. In addition to this, Kai can use other devastating abilities such as Active: Hollow Shot, which causes an explosion to occur in front of him; Active: Bolt Storm, where Kai fires an enormous amount of bullets at the enemy similar to a machine gun; and Active: Massive Impact, where Kai delivers an enormous nuke-like explosion. To use his specialized attacks, Kai cycles through his Bolt Revolver, similar to Evie's Focus, and can use abilities at each level. These skills use SP, just like Bow skills. Kai has a moving smash attack with the Crossgun where he swings the Crossgun like a bat after rolling and hits enemies with it. The Crossgun does require him to manually reload the chambers when they are empty unlike with the Bow, where reloading is automatic. However, reloading at the right time allows Kai to deal more damage for some bolts in the next clip. Survival with the Crossgun is more difficult as Kai loses the ability to use Dodge Grapple. However, he gains a roll, as mentioned earlier, that has a longer distance than the sliding evasion skill of Bow and is slightly quicker to chain.

Survivability: High - Immortal
Soloing Capacity: High
Damage Capacity: High - Extreme

He is the RAID MASTER!!!! Kai shines in groups, and especially against Raid Bosses. His range makes his ability to attack unparelleled in fighting those beasties with enormous attack ranges by staying out of said range, and enormous bodies to make it easier for him to hit them from said distance. A good Kai can often finish a raid with a full team, and score a third of the damage to the raid boss. He also has so very few battle skills, that it is not only possible, but effective to have Kai learn all the skills in both his weapons, so he can change from Bow to X-Gun depending on which raid boss he's going to be fighting, as different skills are more effecive for different bosses.

Super awkward shuffling, like he hears music, but has absolutely no inborn rythm. Remember, Kai's not grumpy, he's just completely socially inept.

Pew-pew-pew.

No, seriously.

With the bow, you're just either needling enemies to death, or you press and hold the attack button to charge your bow, and release a salvo of arrows into one guy. It is simple, it is effective, it is repetitive. It is also VERY SAFE. You will invariably remain outside your enemy's attack range for most of the game, circling and killing. You will gain a lot more freedom of attack as you level, which will ease the repitition, at the cost of your quickly accumulating SP. Which is nice, because when you get up to higher levels, a Bow Kai can become-

UNKILLABLE!

I have seen a Bow Kai tank and solo Irukul while the entire rest of the party was laying dead on the ground. The grapple dodge and other damage evasion skills can be used to maximum effect, one after another, should you be inclined to dig into them. For those guys who feel that the best defense is the best defense, Kai is a pretty good bet for gameplay.

But Kai is also a showy mo-fo. He has some combat skills that are a page right out of Legolas' play book. Including jumping onto a raid boss' head, and shooting a volley of arrows straight into their brain.

A Bow Kai has a somewhat slow and vanilla start, but he winds up fairly quick in the mid game, and becomes a juggernaught in the late game.

The Break-Off Master!!!

Every raid where you want the Break Off should have at least one XGun Kai, preferably two. Why? Because explosions.

An XGun Kai brings grenades and explosive arrows to the fight, both of which can be used to "Hit" the break off point on a raid boss, thus hastening the process to a high degree. The amount of skill required to pull off a Break Off decreases, and your access to sellable items increases because of it. It will tend to cost you a lot of SP Potions, though, whenever time is a factor to your gaming. It's well worth it though.

Combat in general also tends to increase in speed as you are shooting with a repeating weapon and don't have to be dependant on your mouse clicks to keep the rythm going. Kai is the only character with a crosshairs combat system in this game, which means that you may really love it, or really hate it. It's all down to personal taste, and I have had people tell me their enjoyment of the system that reaches to all the extremes of hate and love. It's a solid system, but it may not be for you, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Kai's survivability decreases with the XGun, though, as he loses most of his dodging skills, including his basic dodge. Which means a XGun Kai should only Raid with people he trusts to not die on him, and keep the boss distracted, or keep him rezzed for continual damage dealing. Kai is not a bruiser, but built to stay away from attacks. So keep in mind that your safety is what is important, and not the kill.

Vella is a versatile character who mixes equal measures of offense and defense to deal damage and leap across the battlefield, escaping enemy attacks without a scratch. She wields either Twin Swords or Twin Chainblades.

Her Twin Sword attacks shred enemies to pieces with multiple hits and deal more damage the more she attacks thanks to Blade Heart. She can spin around her swords to cut multiple enemies, zip around them while slashing at the same time, or even leap up into the air and land with a powerful slash. Even while the enemy attacks, she is able to deliver a devastating counterattack. She's capable of attacking even as she retreats and can reflect enemy projectiles back at them in the process. When necessary, she can dodge with Storm Step, quickly moving a great distance out of the way and avoiding attacks with invulnerability frames. Vella's Active: Cyclone instantly knocks down any boss and deals a stunning number of slashes, culminating with a powerful thrust of the blades. Her ability to attack, evade, and counterattack is what makes Twin Sword Vella so devastating.

Her Twin Chainblades allow Vella to operate at a distance with a completely different set of attacks, generally granting her crowd control. In addition to viciously swinging her Twin Chainblades around, she can also pull enemies to her via Frost Jack, can target Break Off points with Active: Frostbite, and can even pin down bosses with Active: Glacier Terminus. Although her Twin Chainblade dodge (Glint) has half duration of invulnerability frames compared to Twin Sword's dodge (Storm Step), she can nonetheless continue her relentless assault after dodging thanks to Biting Cold. Twin Chainblades may have less versatility, but makes up for it with brutal assaults, long ranged attacks, and pinning down enemies and bosses.

Survivability: Medium - High
Soloing Capacity: Medium - High
Damage Capacity: Medium - Extreme

Vella is a character that can't be pidgeonholed because of the fact that her two weapon styles are so vastly different from one another. What I can say is that Vella's weight limitations are able to get in the way of equipping her properly, so if you find that happening to you, feel free to Enhance a few pieces of equipment as doing so lowers their weight. As for the types of armors she wears, Vella is naturally drawn less to plate armors than other characters partly for her weight limitations and partly for aesthetic styles on player's behalves.

Swings her hips while sharply thrusting her torso in order to cause bouncing of her lady bits. After a few swings, she turns sideways, pumps her pelvis, while pantomiming running her hand over her frontside curves. A dance that would be at home in a Rap Video's back up dancers.

So much to say, so much to say.

First, Vella's version of the Slip Dash is inferior to Lann's for defensive purposes. She has one dodge, then pressing the dodge button again she'll do a leaping slash that has little range and a slow recovery time. Instead of her dodge mechanics being about dodging, they're about counterattacking. Use her dodge mechanic the right way, she zips behind the enemy to keep attacking. Use her dodge mechanic the right way, she deflects ranged attacks back at the attacker. Use her dodge mechanic the right way, she slashes an enemy as she bounds past them. And if you're really good, you can use her dodge mechanics to dodge. I just can't get to liking it because of how close a Swords Vella has to be to the enemy to damage them and how solid survival mechanics are required for such a proximity to giant flaming warhammers.

Second, her combat patterns are very curvy. She very easily changes her facing during attack chains, and not always on purpose. Her leaping strike is a bit unpredictable as well as it seems to "home in" some times, and other times completely overshoots your own intended target. Her combat pattern isn't bad by any margin, but require learning and management. They also deal multiple hits on every attack which increases her damage output, but at the same time makes it so her recovery from combos takes longer. This ends up reducing her survivability ranking to Moderate for Swords, and also her range of options for fighting when up against Boss monsters. You will end up finding yourself using the 1 Dodge + Smash + Smash attack to try and stun Bosses so you can do a full out combo on them, almost to exclusion of all other tactics in order to keep from getting hit. And good luck if you fight a boss that's faster than you are, Crescent Moon Island will be a biznitch with a Solo Swords Vella.

Playing a Swords Vella is strange. She's such a mash up of fierce offensive attacks, support skills, buffs, and of defensive skills that turn out to be offensive skills as well! As such, a Swords Vella player has to be highly aggresive and have good timing to be productive and durable.

Kratos if he were a smoking hot chick without the anger issues.

Now, a Chainblade Vella gives up about half the invincibility time per dodge of a Swords Vella, but in reality she's a much better dodger. It's because a Chains Vella is able to use her Dodge, Glint, multiple times in a row to quickly flip around the battlefield. Combine that with the extra distance she can take from enemies because of the mid-to-far range capabilities of her Chainblades and you also have the time to press the Dodge button to get out of the way of attacks, which makes it far easier for Vella to remain undamaged, resulting in a much higher survivability rating than a Swords Vella.

Dodging also doesn't interrupt her combos either if you invest in a certain skill. A Chains Vella can throw down attacks while winding up for the big skill, see an attack coming, dodge, and then immediately use her Smash to end the combo. This in itself lends to her ability to do more damage than a Swords Vella, but get this, Vella's Heart of Ice (properly invested in) which is powered by charges earned by fighting allows Vella to continue using her strongest rapid fire smash attack without end. Only Stamina loss or flinching from a hit can break that machine gunning of smash attacks, as she can just pick them right back up again after a dodge or two. This tactic is deadly against normal and Raid Bosses alike.

Vella is also able to use an Active skill to immediately and precisely do damage directly to a Break Off point of a Boss, meaning she will be very loved by Raid groups. The general tactic is to just spam a non-comboed Smash attack to build up the SP gauge and then use the Active skill, rinse and repeat until you get the break off. This tactic can be time consuming, should there only be one Chain Vella and no XGun Kai, but it is effective none the less.

And finally, I have yet to encounter a character that is better than a Chains Vella at taking out the trash monsters. While a Chain's Vella has a much smaller arsenal of attacks, she doesn't need them. Her strikes are far ranging, cover behind her as well as in front, and throws monsters around like confetti. When a Chains Vella fights, everything in the area is destroyed, monsters and terrain pieces alike, which will make it easier for a Chains Vella to be financially solvent as she'll naturally get more rare Erg and Magic Powder drops for all the terrain she annihilates.

Chains Vella is very fun, and pretty easy to play as. The down side though is that Twin Chainblades are far heavier than Twin Swords, so the weight factor may end up forcing you to wear lighter armor than a Swords Vella could wear, and there are far fewer types of Chainblades than there are Twin Swords in the game, which means you may end up having to pay more to stay armed.

Hurk functions as a male berserker. He, like Karok, fights on the front lines to deal massive damage and relentless assaults while also receiving damage as well, with his sheer willpower to support both his offensive and defensive prowess.

With a Greatsword, Hurk can do slow but hard hitting attacks that can be repeated almost indefinitely. Hurk can chain his normal and smash attacks without pause, and can sacrifice health to continue his onslaught should he run out of stamina. To complement his defenses, Hurk has two evasions that grant him huge damage reduction while being able to heal the damage received, along with another evasion that grants invincibility frames. Furthermore, he also has two parries that can interrupt a boss's attack, and continue exposing the boss's vulnerability, allowing him and others to take advantage of the opening. Finally, unlike other characters, Hurk has not one, but two abilities that trap a boss.

Due to his sheer lethality and survivability, Hurk can easily be defined as overpowered, but has some drawbacks to his game. All of Hurk's attacks use a very large amount of Stamina, leaving him tired after a few seconds of battle. Most of Hurk's attacks are also somewhat slow and have a narrow hitbox range, making it difficult to land some of his hits as enemies can easily move out of the way. As with all characters, Hurk's evasion and parry requires impeccable timing and can be difficult to master. Hurk's Active skills also have longer cooldowns than compared to other characters, for example Terminus's cooldown is three minutes while other characters who rival that skill such as Evie's Active: Reverse Gravity have a cooldown of only two minutes. Like Kai, Hurk is also heavily reliant on SP. Finally, unlike other characters, all of Hurk's combat skills require him to be at high levels in order for them to be ranked, preventing him from reaching his full potential early on. However, Hurk's strengths outweighs his weaknesses, but in the hands of a highly skilled player his flaws can be made completely irrelevant.

Overall, Hurk is a powerful rushdown warrior, possessing strong offense and defense capabilities and is capable of opening and exploiting holes in boss's attacks, but is easily exhausted after just seconds of fighting.


Survivability: High to Extreme
Soloing Capacity: High to Extreme
Damage Capacity: Extreme

Get up in your opponent's face, and hit them until they drop. You'll find yourself falling into this role naturally, and won't even want to try anything different unless your personal timing just plain doesn't mesh with the boss you're fighting, in which case you'll fall back and look for openings to get right up in his face, and then hit him until he drops.

Sideways shift to face a hip forward, and then a one legged forward step, back step, forward shift before shifting the other hip forwards for the same thing. It's a little bland, but it is in tune to just about any rhythm.

The Vindi DB description has a lot of accurate information, but it's most glaring omission is in not stating in what WAY you can completely miss enemies with your sword. Typically, the enemies you will miss while swinging right on top of them are Spiders. Hurk's attacks are mostly horizontal slashes, meaning they go right above the Spider hitboxes' heads, and you get bit by the most fragile enmies in the game, often, if they surround you. That is when you start kicking instead of normal attacking.

For Hurk's active skills, you're mostly gonna be investing in three of them. Berserker, so you can attack uninterrupted by those swifter, and more annoying, bosses because Hurk's attacks are NOT fast. Execution, the jumping slash attack that can nearly one shot sub-bosses, which makes it highly useful when a boss shows up with a bunch of mooks and you can deal heavy damage to both at the same time. Careful, as it has an auto-targeting mechanic, so you may accidently target a closer enemy to your right instead of the boss you are pointed directly towards. And lastly, the Terminus, which I think actually deals less damage than Execution, but stuns the enemy to give you breathing rom and works great as a final blow in boss battles.

As for Hurk's SP intentiveness, he's able to generate a LOT of SP quickly by using his four attack + smash skill with has his swing his sword in a circle around him a few times. Hurk can generated a lot of SP quickly, and spend it even quicker if you spam his Active Skills, so be aware fo that.

And lastly, Hurk is FUN. And HARDY. You'll find yourself getting really into the deflection mechanic to consistently parry boss attacks (you'll never bother doing it to normal enemies) instead of trying to kill them with combat chains. And the Deflection actually does damage to your enemy, so it's defense and offense at the same time. Hurk is a brick wall with spikes growing out of it, you hit him you'd better be ready to bleed. And once more he is HARDY. I didn't need to start using HP potions in my boss battles until Hoarfrost Depths, BUT when I did, they were the typically the Merc Recovery potions.

You see, when you're playing a Hurk, you are not nimble. You don't buy yourself time to run around and down potions while opening space with the enemy, you're glugging the Instant Effect potions that you get as gifts or buy from the NX store because you're so habitually right in front of the enemy, atacking, at all times. You find yourself not wanting to break that momentum for even a moment, so while you're attacking, you down a Merc Pot, so you don't have to stop, ever.

And with Hurk, you really don't ever stop atacking. You can carve through an entire level by only using normal atacks, because Hurk hits hard enough to make every enemy flinch (except bosses), meaning you can be surrounded by enemies, and just left click your way to domination without letting anything attack you.

And yes, Hurk starts slow. His final Smash improvement skills are unlocked in the level 50s, where typically those would be Active skills for other characters, meaning that a Hurk's combat style is not completed until later than other characters. His Stamina drain really is high for smash attacks, but in the North America and Europe servers, normal attacks don't use stamina, so you can literllay attack forever without needing a breath. Hurk is Plate Armored early on, and has consistently high defense, making him hardy, and his weapon makes him deadly.

And in the hands of a skilled player, Hurk transcends his mortal limitations. I have seen a Hurk face tank, dominate, and one sidedly killed the Earth Dragon in his Raid. Three players went in, two died, and the Hurk faced and finished the beast alone, without taking a single step back. Hurks will rival Kais in the total damage dealt in Raids when properly played.

BUT. Hurk is fun to play, and boring to excel at, since his most powerful combo is Space + Smash, done to infinity. It's an abuse of his skill set, shoulder charging to get Impenetrable, and then Deflecting to avoid damage. Which means that Hurk is capable of being abused most mightily by twinks and dinks, and possibly have people abuse you for playing Hurk to have FUN. Not likely to happen, but not impossible either considering how people act online.

Hurk is a mighty warrior, and easy and fun to play. But mostly, to really play Hurk to the end game and beyond, you have to be someone willing to buy NX Merc Recovery Potions. Vindictus is a game worth supporting, but some people don't have that option and may not be good enough at the deflection mechanic to stay afloat on Merc Pots that are given for free during events, even though Nexon is generous with Merc Potions.

Despite being the youngest of all characters, Lynn is a forced to be reckoned with; she is extremely agile, versatile, and powerful. She has many skills that bolster her evasiveness, all while returning large amounts of damage.

Armed with a Glaive, Lynn's offensiveness focuses on relatively fast or delayed but more powerful smash attacks while applying Swift Assassin marks. Though incapable of grabbing, she can use her grab attack Five Finger Death to release those marks to rack up even more damage while stunning the enemy and regenerating stamina with maxed mark stacks. Though lacking boss control, she also has a wide array of highly damaging Active skills. For her evasiveness, Lynn can quickly flip out of harm's way using Thunderleg or leap back a far distance with Little Rat and then teleport behind her enemy to resume her onslaught.

Survivability: Low
Soloing Capacity: Low to Medium
Damage Capacity: Extreme

Don't get hit.

No seriously. Lynn has the lowest HP of the Vindi heroes and it shows, even if she has the weight limit to wear plate, she is not very durable. As a Lynn your main goal is to do damage while avoiding any and all hits to you. If you are not already experienced with the Vindictus Dodge tactics, and know when to use those Invincibility Frames, then expect to be drinking a LOT of HP Potions, IF you get the time to drink them. Lynn is not for people with slow internet connections, and I can only recommend beginners that have massive experience dodging attacks already. Like, Ninja Gaiden skill in dodging attacks. Otherwise, you may be too angry to play her before you learn to master her insane DPS abilities.

Makes her hands shaped like paws and performs a batting kitty dance, then turns in a circle while continuing to bat at empty air. It is insanely cute.

Plants her polearm into the ground and pole dances on it. If you are attracted to her doing that, you are a Pedo. She's, like, 15 or 16 years old, dude.

Currently the only weapon for Lynn is the Glaive. This weapon has a long reach, hits pretty hard, has a few comboes that are crowd cleaners, but is primarily geared towards killing Boss monsters with enormous amounts of Spike Damage. The nearest comparison for Lynn's Glaive is your your typical Rogue style character in other MMOs. Characters that have normal attack power, but once their fill their gauge or activate a skill from the right facing, KABOOM! Massive death.

Only Boss monsters or MVLS' (Monsters of Very Large Size? I don't think they exist. OOPH!) are able to be tagged with Swift Assassin charges. These charges are your entire purpose of playing. You start the game with only one or two moves that deposit these SA charges, but as you level up almost all your Smash combos are able to deposite a charge, and a few Active Skills as well, which is all very good because it gets harder and harder to land them as the bosses get fasters and more savage. If you are soloing a map, by the time you're level 60 you'll be making sole use of Dodge + Smash + Smash to deposite charges to blow up with the Five Finger Death Punch (FFDP).

And yes, if you play Glaive Lynn, you are going to be centered around the FFDP. So level up your Swift Assassin and FFDP skills as quick as you can without compromising your Equipment, because Lynn lives and dies by the quality of both her weapons and armors. She is possibly the most equipment intensive character I have seen yet.

But just FYI, the FFPD isn;t the only way to detonate those charges. The Active attack skills ALSO detonate them, and even provide you the ability to do so from a distance away from your opponent. The stronger the Active attack skill, the longer it takes to wind up, and if you are interrupted by a strike and flinch (Lynn flinches EASY) you lose the SP and the skill has to go through recharge time, so only use the powerful ones when you have someone else taking the heat for you.

But the result of all this? If stacked right with Chages, or Zhen Charges for those who can do it right, one palm strike can knock out three full bars of health from a boss, or even a raid boss.

Just make sure you don't get hit. Little Rat is really good for that, as it has the farthest Retreat of any character in the game currently, and if you are REALLY good at it, you teleport behind the enemy to keep up your DPS. But Lynn is VERY Stamina intesive, so invest in Battle Respiration as much as is practical, even at the cost of leveling up non-Swift Assassin related skills.

Vindi Wiki:

Arisha is a mysterious character who is recognized as the "Sorceress of Blades", utilizing a mix of swordsmanship and magic to decimate the Fomors. She is said to be related to the Silent Brotherhood, but other than that nothing else is known.
Role

Arisha heavily relies on Strength and Intelligence to increase her swordsmanship and magic attacks, respectively. Her most noticeable feature is that she possesses a blue Mana bar. Unlike Evie whose mana only extends to her Mana Shield, Arisha uses mana to activate many of her skills. Her mana has comes in two forms: a dark blue that is obtained from attacking, which can be converted into deep blue useable mana via Mana Drain. Arisha's maximum mana capacity is 500.

Using a mix of swordsmanship and magic with her Spellsword and Focus, respectively, she combines sword attacks and flinging Mana Crystals. She has no smash combination attacks; instead she has five "normal" attacks and her fourth and fifth hits count as smash attacks. The Mana Crystals she flings acts as an extension of her arsenal, which are used as homing attacks, area of effect attacks, or allowing Arisha to teleport to them. She can also enchant her sword with magic using Arcane Flurry or Ruin Blade to deal frenzied slashes. Her survivability consists of Diffusion Shift, which is a straight dash with small invulnerability frames, and Mana Drain, which blocks incoming attacks similar to Fiona's Guard. Finally, Arisha is capable of controlling time and space, opening a damaging dimension rift with Resonance or completely stopping the enemy with Temporal Shift.

Survivability: High
Soloing Capacity: High
Damage Capacity: High - Extreme

For a character with such a low weight capacity, therefore requiring she wear a lot of Light Armor and Cloth Armor, Arisha is surprisingly durable. Her dodge is quick, reliable, and the Caster attacks allow her to fight from Kai-like distances when required. She has a healthy life bar for a caster type, and ends up being a very reliable Hybrid Class with versatile mechanics. She may be my new favorite combat style.

You'll want to pump up her Intelligence rating, though, in order to further fuel her Magic score, which is what most of her damage depends upon.

A very slow writhing dance, with a 360 degree turn to make sure you get a glimpse of her swaying booty. One too many drinks in the dance club, or a few too few singles in the thong, your choice.

While Arisha's close range attacks are repetitive, they cover a 360 degree angle most of the time, allowing her to keep anyone from sneaking up on her. The magic meter will fill quickly if you're in the forefront, but in groups with very Gung Ho players that don't care about stealing your kills, and thus you magic, the exploding Caster attacks (which cost no SP) will be putting you back on the damage board. The eventually unlocked Jumping attack (Press and hold Normal attack) adds to your mobility and can chain attacks, increasing Arisha's versatility.

Once you have 500 Mana, the max your gauge shows, you will want to Space Bar it into usable mana, and keep fighting. You can Bank the unusable Mana far past 500, activate the Spellsword Mode, slash people up, then Space Bar that Banked mana into Usable Mana and keep going.

And yes, Spellsword Mode is the meat and potatoes of Arisha's damage dealing aspect. She's pretty powerful anyway, but the Spellsword Iai style attacks are where she does Extreme Damage. Which means she's hampered in Raid Fights where there are no mooks to kill to build her Mana gauge up before reaching the boss. So you may find youself buying SP Potions to be doing high damage early out of the gate with skills instead of Spellsword Overdrive attacks.

Arisha's EX attacks are also a lot of fun. From calling down a Beam From The Heavens, to Stopping Time (and letting your team get in free hitsies), to my favorite, a super charged slashing attack. I know it has a name, but every time I kill a boss with it I shout IAI-KEN!!!!!! That attack get further powered up by button sequences like the old fashioned Tournament Fighter games with their special moves. It is not required, but it's pretty fun to add in. (Bad lag on the host's part can sometimes "Null" that attack when entering the sequence, thinking you moved and broke the attack animation. Sucks when that happens.)

The Teleportation is a God Send for solo play, as you can mark the boss, take your distance, wait for an opening in the attack animation, Teleport, Pwn, Rinse and Repeat. There is really so very little about Arisha not to love. It's like she took only good things from every class she's hybridized into, and left the bad stuff behind.

Vindi Wiki:

Sylas is a hybrid character between Staff and Scythe Evie, having similar yet still different skills. Vision Dash is similar to Blink. His support skill Active: Illusion Shield is similar to Active: Regeneration and Active: Impulse Zone have the similar stamina regen effect like Active: Insane Reaper, One can say that Sylas's skill is inferior in some aspect compared to its Evie's counterpart, with a glaring weakness of only affect 4 party members or being limited into a zone, but remember Sylas's skill require much less Sp than Evie's, and they also have an extra effect of reducing incoming damage. Sylas come with his own unique support ability Active: Soul Drain that act like a mini-Succubus Fang, with extremely short cooldown allow him to keep it up at all time if he choose to.

Sylas prefer striking enemies at mid range, generating Phantom Shards then launch it at enemies with his smash. Phantom Shard can be generate quickly and deal good amount of damage, striking enemies with Phantom Shards generated Phantom Force, further increase Sylas magic attack as well as giving him stamina regeneration. Phantom Shooter and Vision Trap allow Sylas to move swiftly across battlefield while dealing damage from a distance.Active: Phantasmic Slash, Cyclone Edge and Cyclone Crash are great when Sylas need to take out horde of enemies. And finally his most damaging skill Active: Extinction Roar, which can be stack up to deal 50% more damage while also make him Invincible upon activation.

Defensively, Sylas lacks any extra defense mechanic (Like Block, Mana Amber,....) and had to solely rely on his Vision Dash and the great mobility of his attack to get out of harm way. Being a magic user, Sylas share the same weakness of being low defense until late level, but he is made up for it by boasting large amount of skills to substain himself. Beside the aforementioned Support skills, Phantom Shard significantly reduce incoming damage to Sylas, Phantom Force automatically active giving Sylas a boost in defense and regenerate HP when Sylas's HP reach below 30%.


Survivability: Medium - High
Soloing Capacity: Varies
Damage Capacity: High

The new magical glass cannon, except slipperier than Evie. Sylas can NOT take a hit, his meagre life and defenses cannot handle damage, so you'll be kiting enemies and bosses around when you don't have the room to wind up for big long range attacks. And Sylas is good at kiting.

A teen idol dance that was very obviously meant to have Sylas equipped with a stage microphone, and an overinflated ego. It comes complete with pointed fingers during a hip drop. I cannot unsee him as an Asian Justin Bieber.

Hybrid, hybrid, hybrid. There are no more straight up any roles being released for Vindictus anymore, and I think I'm okay with that as ever hybrid character brings a new and unique combat mechanic to the table. Sylas' new mechanic is magically controlled flying daggers that he whips around like yo-yos, if yo-yos were deadly. ...And originally they were! They were made of iron and used in central asia like flails!

Sylas' attacks have a good range because of this, and some good crowd clearing abilities. He also attacks as fast as all flock, his attack speed probably being the highest of all the Vindictus characters right out of the gate. His natural speed is such that he is the ONLY character where I could say, "Yeah, it's fine to INCREASE his body size in character creation for the increased attack range, sacrificing some atack speed." But I did it because I was hoping to make Sylas' annoying voice a little deeper, and make him look less like an overconfident middle schooler. Partial success.

And Sylas is ANNOYING as a person. Every single one of his actions and emotes are completely arrogant! I hate him! As a person! So it's especially aggrivating that he's fun to play and powerful in the party! And he looks good while doing it! Sylas will routinely have really cool Pose Pics when you clear the dungeons! Sylas LIVES for the photo op!

Anyway, Sylas' only means of keeping himself alive is his dodge mechanic, a teleportation dash that allows him to move THROUGH enemies, with will prevent being bogged down in a corner by a boss as he continued hammering you. Super nice! His Squad Support powers are mapped to the Z key, while most of his offense powers are mapped the Right mouse button instead of a non-combo smash, like Evie's spells. Which is super nice! Handy for casting on the fly. And three of Sylas' attack combos are geared around long range attacks. Which is super nice!

And Sylas needs ALL of that to stay alive.

Sylas is fragile as flock with a low amount of HP. One solid hit from a regular mob enemy will take enough life off that he'll need an HP potion. And with all the slick dodge mechanics in the world, you cannot avoid taking the occasional hit. Make sure you husband your Merc Recovery Potions for boss fights and raids, especially if you are leveling solo. Sylas is probably the one character who is the most dependant on HP potions in the game, because unlike Lynn, increasing the quality of your equipment won't make you hardier, because Sylas is an Intelligence character, and Int gear is all cloth or light armor! So if you want a Sylas to stay alive, you need to get good at kiting.

You need to master your dodges, put AP into your low combo-ranged attacks, and actively make use of the Dodge+Smash attacks to chip away at the boss or adds in the fights. You also need to keep an eye on your Stamina at all times, because if you run out, you'll get hit, and when you get hit, you're in trouble. Boss fights as a solo Sylas are longer than with other characters. Sylas can HIT hard and from a distance, but he can't TAKE a hit worth a damn.

Yeah, VindiDB, Sylas gets good armor eventually, but you gotta get him there first! As such, I don't know if I can recommend Sylas as a Paladin or a Dark Knight. Paladin is easier for leveling, but Dark Knight shines for the end game content with Sylas.

In the end, everything about Sylas is about conflicting systems, and conflicting emotions. You arrogant Teen-Idol, photo-op loving bastard. Now get geared out so I can take you to kill some Fomor like a boss.

I'm not about to go back and rewrite everything I said just because of a game update. But what I CAN and WILL do is to write the major changes to character balance down here.

Changes for Lann in Season 3:

Lann will be getting a very overdue update to improve what is already central to his playstyle. Fury attacks, Critical hit frequency, Critical hit damage, Damage per hit, and Stamina use reduction.

Swords:

• Fury atacks will be much easier to control, with faster cancellation times to allow you to avoid attacks.
  
  
• The Furious status will increase Fury attack damage to 30%, and Sharp increases Crit chance to 10% greater chance.
  
  
• There will be a flat 30% increase to all Lann's damage equations, bringing him back up in the damage charts to compete with the other new full out DPSers.
  
  
• And a host of new skills that ups damage, increases damage, and umm... let's you use one Stamina draining action for free of charge after a successfully dodged attack using Slip Dash... so you can do more damage! Yeah.

Spears:

• Damage done with the Fury Infusion heals you up to the amount spent on Fury Infusion, incresing Lannmower survival.
  
  
• The Spear Lann is also getting it's own version of the Sword Furies, but they are new skills that appear to be tied into the rolling dodge mechanic.
  
  
• Spear Lanns will get a status condition they can inflict on an enemy, called Blood Pact, which increases the amount of damage that the casting Lann does to, and takes from, the afflicted target... which drops their survivability down again, but ups their DPS even more. Especially since a Blood Pacted Lann is easier to knock down, which would not only interrupt their attacks, but leave them open to follow up assaults.

Fiona has been made overall more hearty and given some Terminus attack skills, but the big change is instant shield deflection DURING combo sequences. By pressing the TAB button during combo chains, you can interrupt your own attack sequence to Deflect an enemy attack, and then carry on attacking. This is huge, because it no longer forces Fiona to remain on the defensive all the time to make use of her Shields.

For the Sword you can only deflect during the normal attacks and not during smashes. For the Hammer, you can deflect during the smash animations and then resume them. Just believe me, this is HUGE guys, it's a game changer for Fiona. If you played and disliked her before the update, go back and try her again because it's a whole different ballgame.

How do you improve something that was already awesome? Well, Nexpon found a way. With Scythe Evie, it was mere quality of life. A new Terminus skill and maybe some extra stuff. I dunno, Scythe Evie never appealed to me enough to try.

Staff Evie got a Beam Cannon.

Staff Evie now has a 5th tier to her Focus skill, that when charged, allows you to use Rage Conductor. A skill that makes Evie immune to PvE damage for the 7 second duration while firing a sustained beam that auto targets the closest enemy, and can then be moved around with the WASD keys to adapt to the changing battlefield. It requires no SP to use, and consecutively damages anything in it's path of attack. It is GREAT for raids, but need 90 seconds to recharge every shot fired.

Oh, and Evie can charge Focus while moving. And SPRINTING.

Also, Evie now has two Basic Terminus skills between both characters. The classic Reverse Gravity, and a new Meteor Swarm that is aimed much like Arisha's satellite beam strike.


Karok has gained a BUNCH of new stuff, possibly the biggest makeover for a character in Season 3. He's gained a passive buff that periodically IGNORES any damage inflicted, no matter the source (even Raid Bosses, people!), and another passive buff that ignores a portion of a target's Defense, leading to an overall increase in damage dealt. His Clashes are now more user friendly, including an Auto-Success version of the skill. Successful clashes give a party wide buff, and successful manually contyrolled clashes give BETTER party wide buffs.

Karok has also recieved new combo attacks, new Stances for means of dealing damage, and a Reactive Buff combo chain for his Battle Pillar, causing his damage output to rise significantly.

For Karok's Cestus weapons, he's been made even MORE tanky with Bobbing and Weaving skills, that makes him far more nimble than an eight foot tall man should ever be. So Cestus Karok is now an Evasive Tank on top of being a Face Tank.

Make me eat my words and tell me how to REALLY play these characters! Leave comments and the best playstyle suggestions will be copy & pasted here!

Funny thing is, Staff Evie is the hardest character to play in Dragons and Season 2-3 raids. She cannot rely on Mana Amber in those raids and missions as she will lose DPS and die often. Staff Evie is the only character who doesn't have i-frame in her dodge, minus the minuscule super tiny short i frame after mana amber breaks. Evie player has to rely on dodging boss WITHOUT the invulnerability frames that EVERYONE ELSE has in their dodges. That is the primary reason why I switched over to Crossgun Kai, whose mechanic and mobility are the desired perks sought by Staff Evie. In every video of Staff Evie, you will see the majority of her time spent in dodging instead of attacking as easily as everyone else. Staff Evie starts off easy at beginning, but suffers greatly at Dragons and any future contents. This is from a 4-year-former-Evie player.

you've got karok all wrong...his damage capacity is only surpassed by hurk. with pillar i can deal bonus damages of 2k per hit when im attacking a boss thats attacking me at the same time, and thats on top of the regular damage im doing, also karok is in NO WAY WHATSOEVER a short/narrow range attacker. i mean, do you see the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ spins he does with his pillar? the explosions from the cestus? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ man are you blind when you do his fourth smash? its a huge area in front of him. pillar's war slam also can be combined with his 250 sp skill to deal more damage than his ultimate, the big explosion that flinches bosses. you should really play a character to/past level 60 if you ever hope to truely understand all their abilities.

I'm not lucifer, but I main Karok as well, and he's probably talking about spamming headbutt/drop kick with Pillar, or spamming uppercut with cestus. With high enough attack speed in late game, you pretty much can just straight up face tank anything, even whole groupings of powerful and fast attacking enemies. An example would be your shadow clones in the labyrinth. Run up, left click, then right click, repeat. Take a stamina regen potion and really watch the hilarity begin.

Problem is, you do jack for damage while doing this, and ofc you get locked in absorb shock/weave frames, so you're pretty much put in slow motion for the duration of hits you're taking. So yeah, depending on your timing, you can essentially become unstoppable, except for a handful of powerful raid boss moves, like Thors Lightning AoE and a few others, and even then if you time it right, you can still absorb them, it's just a much smaller window. MUCH smaller, about .2 secs.

So all in all, Karok is a HELL of alot easier to play then many of the other characters, especially early game, when you're hurting the most for AP and gear. Hell his normal attacks hit as hard as some of the other characters freakin smash attacks early on.

it sounds like you underestimated sword lann a bit, as he probably hits the highest smashes in the game due to critical damage beyond cap followed by his high base numbers in gliding fury to begin with, not only that, any fool who's having stamina problems just needs to max slashing high. by the time you activate slashing high at max rank, you'd have enough infinite stamina to have slashing high again by the time it's off cooldown without being tired.

I did not underestimate Lann at the time of writing, as he is the Critical Hit King. Various updates happen, and I tried to reflect the change in the Updates section. But Lann still requires a fine touch, spacial awareness, and fast retreating abilities on top of knowing your invulnerability frames, so reaching his pinnicle of strength is harder than you make it sound. And he's worth the challenge if you're looking for fun instead of OP.