If you’ve played MMORPG’s for any length of time you’re well aware of the benefit a team mate’s buffs & crowd control abilities bring to an engagement. Vanguard goes a step further - In addition to damage improvement & mitigation buffs and aggro management Sigil introduced a whole new layer to combat strategy by pairing up synergistic cross-class combat weaknesses & exploitations. This means that players of one class can land blows that create a weakness in enemies, which players of another class may be able to exploit. Think of it as setting up the volley ball for your team mates spike.

Check out the complete VG Weaknesses & Exploits chart

Each class has moves that subject their target to a lasting effect such as a Monks ‘Ashen Hand’ ability which can render the target ‘vulnerable’. This is creates a weakness that other classes can exploit. Once the target is effected by a weakness, certain abilities can exploit the weakness - some players can exploit the weaknesses they create, sometimes a weakness can be exploited by another player of a different class. If you have a move that you don’t use very often because it seems to output nominal damage, you may want to review the VG Weakness & Exploits chart carefully, chances are it creates a weakness that a well picked partner can exploit. What would normally be 2 nominally effective moves, by two seperate fighters, now becomes a deadly combination dealing significant damage (set > spike!)

Below is a great example of a fairly powerful duo - a Monk and a Warrior - they share a number of synergistic weakness/exploit opportunities. One possible scenario could go like this… Monk attacks with ‘Ashen Hand’ (creates weakness Vulnerable) > Warrior exploits with ‘Devastating Blow’ (creates weakness Staggered) > Monk exploits using ‘Deadly Adder Hand’ (creating weakness Afflicted) > Warrior exploits using ‘Savage Cut’

Check out the complete VG Weaknesses & Exploits chart

Effective strategy that includes leveraging the various class abilities, managing aggro and now exploiting weakness can significantly improve your group damage output, and overall combat effectiveness. If you haven’t been giving it much attention to the little icons that pop up under your targets, now you can(and should). Armed with the information from the VG Weakness & Exploits chart and a bit of experimentation & practice you can deal with mobs much more efficently.

Love to hear your comments below, or join the forum discussion

The maiden voyage of the Raiders Digest!

Recent Vanguard SOH changes:

We’ve seen plenty of game patches since the January, 31st release. Most were really the finishing touches on the game that Sigil (under pressure from SOE) released several months earlier than announced/expected.

Nah-sayers have blasted Vanguard as being riddled with problems, from glitches to poor performance, giving the game much undeserved negative press. Still, even die hard fans have admited that its sometimes like playing ‘beta-in-a-box’. Refering to the fact that the game still has the sort of glitches you might expect in a beta release, but usually aren’t required to endure once you’re paying for the game.

Game revisions have included improvements to performance, removal of countless bugs, changes to experience gains, class skills & damage scales, basic crafting mechanics, and a number of other basic game elements from sound & graphics to character animations.

Latest Game Update & Patch Notes

Recent VanguardMMORPG.com changes:

Since around November of 2006 I’ve been working on VanguardMMORPG.com. I’ve added a ton of information from racial & class overviews to detailed dungeon guides. With your help I’ll continue to work on getting posting more guides and information.

Vanguard Dungeon reviews:
We’ve added a whole section of dungeon reviews. We’ve only reviewed a handful of dungeons so far, but have gotten a lot of great response from community members (THANKS!)

Feel free to send us your reviews of dungeons, it helps a lot!

Recent dungeon related content:
Vanguard Dungeon Finder, Reviews - Ksaravi Hollow, Arcanium, Karrus Fahrel, Gardens of Xia Liu, Gulgrethor Fortress, Temple of Dailuk

Vanguard Locations & Maps:
We’ve been to a lot of places through-out Telon since the games release. Wherever we go, we’ve been feverishly making notes so that we can share our findings with fellow fans. We’ve added some basic maps (expect to see more of these as time permits)

Recent locations related content:
Thestra Locations - Thestra Maps
Qalia Locations - Port of Khal, Hathor Zhi, Lomshir (pending), Mekalia, Qalia Maps
Kojan Locations - Tanvu, Ca’ial Brael, Martok, Kojan Maps

Vanguard Class & Race Overviews:
We’ve tried every class in Vanguard, but only up to about level 10, so we’re still relying on you guys out there to help us out. Send us your overviews and we’ll include that information in our reviews of the races & classes. Still, we’ve managed to put quite bit of information together. (Races forum - Classes forum)

Race & Class content:
Vanguard’s Unique Classes
Vanguard’s Diverse Races

Vanguard Crafting & Diplomacy:
We’re excited about the unique and challenging crafting & diplomacy elements of the game. We’ve provided a few basic guides to help new players get started, but our experimentation goes well beyond that. If you have questions about crafting be sure to bring them up in the forum! (Crafting forum - Diplomacy forum)

Crafting & Diplomacy content:
Vanguard Crafting Overview
Vanguard Diplomacy Overview

Vanguard Fans:

Stay informed
Sign up for our free update service and reciee email notification whenever we post news - don’t miss a thing! (Subscribe to Vanguard MMORPG email updates)

We want to hear from you!
Drop us an email (admin–at–vanguardmmorpg.com) or post in the Vanguard SOH Fan Forums - your input is what makes VanguardMMORPG.com helpful to your fellow fans!

Vanguard SOH updates - VanguardMMORPG.com updates

Thank you to all of you Vanguard SOH fans who visit the site, share it with friends and participate in the forums and/or drop me emails. Thank you in particular to Cyprus and the members of Sinister for your direct help collecting a good portion of the information shared here at VanguardMMORPG.com

Theres always news about the game, and lots of changes to the site each week/month and many go unannounced. I thought it might help to release a periodic outline of the most recent changes, announcements and toss in some random thoughts.

From time to time (weekly…semi weekly..?) I’ll compile these into a “Raiders Digest” for quick and easy review of recent game changes and site updates.

Sigil has announced a neat little token of appreciation for those early adapters for buying the game before March 31st. Players who have purchased Vanguard: Saga of Heroes before March 31st 2007 will recieve a unique in-game title not available to other players.

A Founder’s reward, in the form of an in-game title, will be granted to players who have purchased a copy of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes between launch (January 30, 2007) and March 31, 2007, and successfully registered an account. This title can be applied to each character created on a qualifying account now or in the future. In order to qualify a player will need to have consumed the account key that comes in the box (if purchased at retail), from a Web site (if purchased digitally) or successfully completed a purchase on the Station Store by the March 31st cut off date (11:59pm PST). The title is scheduled to be awarded in early April. More details regarding a full Veteran Rewards program will be announced in the coming months.

Dungeon:
Temple of Dailuk

Location:
North by Northwest of Ahgram in Central Qalia

Level Range of Mobs:
16-20, 3 and 4 dots. Some quest spawning 5 dot mobs. 

Overview:

1. The town outside has many quest chains, some are done outside the dungeon.  Most of the main quests for inside the dungeon are at the base of the tower, and at the very top. Repairs available at small town a bit E of the quest town.
2. There are a few different types of mobs: hounds, human covenant people, gargoyles.  Most are stationary or have a slow patrol, but there are a few roamers, mostly around the entrance area where there are a lot of humans.
3. Many of the human covenant casters have an AOE rain of fire spell that can really hurt cloth wearers, so stand back on those pulls, and watch agro on double pulls if you can’t handle it.  Counter spell can really help.
4. With a balanced trio or more averaging level 18+, you can grind lots of the 3 dots, but there are so many 4 dots all over that the battles tend to run very long.  DPS is really needed to speed up the encounters, or you’ll need to bring a full group- or just be a little bit higher level. 
5. Re-spawn isn’t much of an issue if you are able to handle double pulls on occasion, but if you are taking major breaks after single pulls, might want to hang outside and grind for a while with the other quests.
6. Because of the large number of 4 dots inside the temples (buildings with basements that have roughly 15-20 gargoyles) this can be a great place to camp with a good group, and grind out some good exp.
7. Loot drops aren’t too great, money drops isn’t great either, but so many quests chains makes it worth it regardless.
8. Many of the quests are kill quests or collection quests that have you killing specific mobs, so be sure to turn in quests whenever possible, and look at the types of mobs you are pulling since they all look similar.
9. This temple can be very crowded since it’s a main leveling area, additional mobs can be pulled from high above- gargoyles are perched on top of the buildings and walls and can be arrowed or spelled down. 

Walk through:

Once inside the Temple of Dailuk, there are lots of Covenant people who are key kills for several of the quests.  There are pockets of hounds all over, with gargoyles in several areas as well.  The temples and houses (just names for the buildings with actual entrances to them) are scattered throughout, but there are only a few of them, each with 15-20 gargoyles inside the basement, all 4 dot.  

Many of the quests are chains, asking you to kill several different types of mobs, but once you finish purifying the temple chain, you will receive a ring that requires you to stand in several locations all around the temple.  Have your group fight around, and stand in the different locations, using your compass to guide you.  None of the locations are difficult to find and most of them are altars outside, or just the very inside doorway of a temple.  

After finishing this quest, you will be on the quest to kill Kraelix, but the quest is very vague about how to spawn him.  Just inside the temple head to the right, and you will see a group of “summoners of Kraelix” who are all humans that throw fire angled at one another.  They stand in an area called “the altar of Scorn.” That may not be the exact wording but look for the word SCORN, and I say that because the summoners can take 45 minutes to an hour to re-spawn (and I’ve waited, so trust me).  If you can kill all the summoners, you have about 10 seconds before the “Protectors of Kraelix” spawn, there are 4-5 of them, and they are level 20, 4 dots.  You need to take them out to spawn Kraelix. 

He is supposed to spawn where you are located, but has been known to spawn in other areas.  He is also ONLY supposed to be vulnerable to your group, since your group took out the protectors/summoners, but that may very well be bugged also.  Once you kill Kraelix you can take his trinket and go summon the Xarkrafi in his house.  Go to the temple of Xarkrafi (might be the house of Xarkrafi, not sure but only one of the two exists) and go to the basement, clearing all gargoyles, using the trinket to summon Xarkrafi.  

There are other Elite quests for this zone including summoning Dailuk ( a level 21 5 dot mob in the temple of Dailuk) with the dust you can obtain from killing a spirit named Veraguut spawning around the back of the temple of Dailuk.  Go to the basement of the actual temple of Dailuk and clear all the gargoyles, then put the dust on the orb to summon the level 21 5 dot.  He spawns other mobs during the encounter as well, multiple groups needed if you are around level 23 or so.   

Final View:

Visually, this dungeon is average, but gothic.  The gargoyles is a very nice touch, and the overall creativity with the quests chains and difficulty scaling to 5 dot level 21’s is very nice to see.  Leveling in here is monotonous because every pull is the same of 3 types of mobs, and can get very old with little reward.  On the other hand, its easy to get into a rhythm with a good 3 or 4 group, as long as you have the dps to really rock the 4 dot mobs.  If it’s not crowded, you can walk around looking for the names that occasionally spawn on the rocks and pick them off for good loot, but since its usually a hot spot, its rough to find decent mobs. 

With the recent addition of teleporters in Khal and Ahgram, this place is very popular for extremely low levels (15-16 even) so its really easy to get trained with higher mobs.  I suggest getting a good group and going deeper into a temple, and holding it all day for really good 4 dot experience and loot; better loot tables and exp.  There are so many quests, and most are kill/collection quests, you get a ton of exp just grouping up and farming.  I highly recommend this place for any group in the level range, and with so many mobs everywhere- it’s easy to take a small group and farm singles 3 or 4 dots.

Sigil has just released some of the content that wasn’t ready for the early release back in January - 6 new NPC races, 2 new areas, 9 revamped dungeons, a number of new weapons and armor models and more! From the towering Sandgiants to the technologically advanced Xennu, from relit dungeons to revamped adventuring areas - this patch has added enough content to keep adventurers busy for a while

On Tuesday, March 6th 2007, Vanguard Update #1 will go live. It will be a much larger patch than usual as not only will there be new content but a great deal of additional art as well. Update #1 includes:

1. Dozens of new weapon models
2. Six brand new NPC races to battle
3. Two new mid to high level adventuring areas
4. Nine dungeons with revamped art and/or lighting

Details on the Vanguard Game Update #1

Sigil has opened up public access to a new Test Server where new patches and features can be pre-tested in-game

Check out the new Vanguard Test Server information

Welcome to the Test Server!

CODING NOTES
- Fixed a bug in which your corpses would disappear from your travel journal after you camped. You should now see all existing corpses in your travel journal, including ones you were unable to see before.
- Fix for a bug where items were sometimes being unequipped after looting a corpse then relogging.
- Fixed a bug that was causing abilities of the same ability line (or of mutually exclusive lines) to not display the same refresh timer.

Radical over at MMOspot posted a decent, unbiased review of the two newest MMORPG’s in the market; namely Lord of the Rings Online and Vanguard : Saga of Heroes.

LotR Online vs. Vanguard: SoH

 He compares Sound quality (from music to effects), Graphics (including general visuals) and finally (and most importantly) Game Play.

 While I had the highest hopes for LOTRO the ” I told you so” pessimist in me giggles gleefully every time I see anything about LOTRO. I suspected (despite my high hopes) that they would dissapoint lovers of the LOTR franchise by producing an under-impressive MMORPG.

 Radicals review gives LOTRO plenty of credit on the things they got right, but mirrors one of the biggest complaints I have about the game - the lack of class variaty and the too-familiar feeling of the slightly reworked WoW game play.

The review points out some Vanguards ‘flaws’ which I can’t argue with, including high-end PC requirements and the still slightly-stiff combat animations (although I’ve seen many improvements since release)

 All-in-all I think its a fair review and a decent rea