Battle Roles

The Battle Role system assigns every party member one of four combat roles. Many instances and raids use it both as an entry requirement (your party may need a specific mix of roles) and as a combat rule (your role changes how enemies react to you). It is part of the Instance System.

Why roles exist

Group content on Vortex Legends is balanced around a real team, not a pile of damage dealers. The role system makes sure a party brings the pieces an encounter needs (someone to hold the enemy, someone to keep the team alive, and someone to deal the damage) and it gives the Tank a reliable way to control where the monsters attack.

The four roles

🛡️ Tank

Holds the enemies' attention so the rest of the party can act safely. The Tank is built to draw and keep enemy aggression (threat), standing at the front and absorbing the encounter's damage while teammates heal, support and attack from safer positions. In instances that track threat, the Tank is the role that keeps bosses facing away from the group.

Hate generation: Tanks build hate at 3.5× the standard rate. Every action generates more threat than any other role. As long as the Tank is actively attacking, the boss naturally stays locked on them.

Tank role skills

Enrage

Max level	1
SP cost	30
Target	Enemy
Range	9 cells
Cooldown	60 s
Taunt duration	3 s
Threat	Raised to match the current leader
Buff duration	10 s

Enrage

A single-target taunt. Cast on an enemy, it forces that enemy to attack the Tank for 3 seconds and raises the Tank's threat to match the current threat leader — the emergency tool for ripping a boss off a teammate who pulled aggro. The match makes you level with the leader, not ahead of them: while the enemy is forced onto you, your threat generation is doubled for 10 seconds, and that window is your chance to build a real lead. Keep attacking after the taunt — anyone who out-generates you past the aggro margin can still pull the enemy away.

Bastion

Max level	1
SP cost	40
Cooldown	45 s
Duration	5 s

Bastion

A brief defensive stance that makes the Tank immune to knockback and crowd-control effects for 5 seconds. Useful for standing firm during boss mechanics that would otherwise interrupt positioning.

Blood Strike

Max level	1
SP cost	25
Range	2 cells
Cooldown	10 s

Blood Strike

The Tank sacrifices 10% of their maximum HP to deal that same amount as fixed damage to a nearby target, then generates full threat from the hit’s damage, a bonus equal to that damage again (double aggro), and an instant flat burst on top (+300) so aggro lands immediately rather than ramping up. A reliable way to spike aggro in a pinch, at a personal cost.

✚ Healer

Keeps the party alive by restoring health. Because instances apply a recovery penalty, healing is more demanding inside group content than out in the open world: a dedicated Healer is what lets a party survive sustained boss damage.

Hate generation: Healers generate hate at 1.25×, but healing itself produces less hate than damage: each point healed counts as 0.4 points of damage. A big heal restoring 500 HP generates the same base threat as dealing just 200 damage. Only effective healing counts (overheal generates nothing), and when several enemies track threat at once, the heal's hate is split between them. Heal freely when the party needs it — you will stay visible on the threat table, but well below the damage dealers.

Healer role skills

Tranquility

Max level	1
SP cost	80
Cast time	8.1 s (uninterruptible by DEX)
Area	9×9 cells around the caster
Cooldown	3 min

Tranquility

A channeled heal that pulses every 2 seconds for the full 8-second cast, restoring HP to the caster and all nearby party members within a 9×9 cell area. The SP cost is paid when the channel begins. Recasting the skill while it is active cancels the channel immediately. Taking damage also cancels it, so positioning and timing matter. The heal scales with the caster's INT and Base Level.

Fade

Max level	1
SP cost	30
Cooldown	60 s
Duration	10 s

Fade

Reduces the Healer's threat generation to half for 10 seconds. Use it after a burst of emergency heals to let the Tank reclaim top threat before enemies switch targets.

Divine Grace

Max level	1
Type	Passive

Divine Grace

A passive ability. While this skill is learned, the instance's healing penalty is completely negated for the Healer's own skill-based heals, so they heal for full value inside instances. It does not affect item heals or SP recovery.

⚔️ DPS

Focuses on dealing damage to bring enemies down. DPS players turn the time the Tank and Healer buy into actual progress, racing boss enrage timers and clearing waves before they overwhelm the group.

Hate generation: DPS generates hate at 0.75× per damage point. A DPS dealing 1,000 damage produces 750 hate, well below the Tank's rate. An active Tank stays comfortably ahead of steady DPS — but opening with a full burst before the Tank has established threat can rip aggro in the first seconds of a fight. Let the Tank land the first hits, then attack freely.

DPS role skills

Vanish

Max level	1
SP cost	30
Cooldown	2 min

Vanish

Instantly removes half of the accumulated threat the DPS holds against every enemy in the encounter. A panic button for situations where the DPS is about to overtake the Tank on the threat table.

Survivor's Instinct

Max level	1
Type	Passive

Survivor's Instinct

A passive ability. Inside instances, each time the DPS kills a monster they recover 5% of their maximum HP. This cannot trigger more than once every 3 seconds.

Bloodlust

Max level	1
SP cost	40
Cooldown	60 s
Duration	10 s

Bloodlust

A high-risk offensive cooldown. For 10 seconds the DPS deals 20% more damage, but also takes 40% more damage from all sources. Timing it carefully around predictable boss attacks maximizes the gain while minimizing the danger.

✨ Support

Assists the party with utility and backup: buffs, crowd control, and filling whatever gap the team needs. Support rounds out a composition and helps a party handle mechanics that raw healing and damage alone can't.

Hate generation: Support generates hate at 0.75×, the same rate as DPS. Buffs, debuffs and utility generate no hate at all — only damage and healing do — so a Support who also deals damage plays by the same aggro rules as a DPS.

Support role skills

Analyze

Max level	1
SP cost	30
Range	9 cells
Cooldown	30 s
Duration	10 s

Analyze

Applies a debuff to a target enemy that reduces its DEF and MDEF by 10 points for 10 seconds. Makes all physical and magical damage from the party land harder for the duration.

Empower

Max level	1
SP cost	40
Range	9 cells
Cooldown	45 s
Duration	10 s

Empower

Grants a party member a buff that raises their ATK and MATK by 10% for 10 seconds. Can only be cast on allies, not on enemies. Useful for covering a damage dealer's burst window.

Heroism

Max level	1
SP cost	40
Cast time	4 s
Area	Entire map
Cooldown	60 s
Duration	20 s

Heroism

Grants the entire party on the same map a buff that reduces their after-cast delay by 10% for 20 seconds. The Support's own skills benefit from this as well, letting the team chain abilities faster during the effect.

Assigning a role

Every member must have a role before the party can enter. If anyone in the party has no role assigned, entry is blocked until they pick one.

Composition requirements

An instance can require a minimum and/or maximum number of each role. For example, an encounter might require at least one Tank and one Healer, or cap how many of a given role can join. If your party does not match the required composition, entry is blocked and you are told what is missing.

Not every instance enforces a composition: each one sets the requirements that fit its design. Always check the instance's own page (or the entrance NPC) for its exact rules.

Roles in combat

Once inside, your role determines how much hate you generate. The player with the highest accumulated hate becomes the boss's main target. Hate also decays by 5% every 5 seconds: a threat lead is not a trophy you keep — it only lasts while its owner keeps generating.

Role	Hate modifier	Notes
🛡️ Tank	3.5×	Highest: designed to lead threat
✚ Healer	1.25×*	Applies to the (reduced) hate from healing
⚔️ DPS	0.75×	Below average: safe to attack once the Tank is set
✨ Support	0.75×	Same as DPS — buffs and utility generate no hate

* Healing generates 0.4× the hate of equivalent damage before the role modifier is applied. A 500 HP heal produces the same base threat as 200 damage, only effective healing counts, and it is split between all enemies tracking threat.

Playing to your role (rather than ignoring it) is what makes the harder encounters survivable.

A party in practice

Here is how hate builds up in a typical 5-player party (1 Tank, 2 Healers, 2 DPS) after a single combat exchange:

Player	Role	Action	How hate is calculated	Hate
Ragna	🛡️ Tank	Attacks for 1,000 damage	1,000 × 3.5	3,500
Aria	✚ Healer	Heals for 500 HP	500 × 0.4 (healing) × 1.25	250
Mira	✚ Healer	Heals for 300 HP	300 × 0.4 (healing) × 1.25	150
Storm	⚔️ DPS	Attacks for 1,200 damage	1,200 × 0.75	900
Blaze	⚔️ DPS	Attacks for 1,500 damage	1,500 × 0.75	1,125

Outcome: Ragna has the highest hate by a wide margin and is Aggroed (the boss targets him). The DPS are the closest challengers and the Healers sit at the bottom. To actually take the boss off the Tank, a challenger must not just match his hate but exceed it by a clear margin — small differences never flip the target, and attackers standing at range need an even bigger margin than melee to steal aggro. Remember that hate decays 5% every 5 seconds: a Tank who stops attacking watches his lead evaporate, and a DPS who overextended can simply hold fire for a few seconds to let their hate drain back down.

The takeaway:

• Tank: keep attacking — decay eats an idle lead. If someone rips aggro, Enrage matches your threat to theirs and forces the boss onto you for 3 seconds with double generation: use that window to take a real lead.
• Healers: heal freely when the party needs it. Healing hate is low, split between enemies, and overheal counts for nothing.
• DPS: let the Tank land the first hits — a full burst at the pull can rip aggro. After that, attack freely; if you climb too high, ease off and decay will do the rest (or use Vanish).
• Support: same aggro rules as DPS when you deal damage; your buffs and utility never generate hate.