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.
Role-specific skills: coming soon.
✚ 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 5× more hate than equivalent damage. A big heal restoring 500 HP generates the same threat as dealing 2,500 damage. Healers should heal when the party needs it — but avoid spamming unnecessary heals, as sustained heavy healing can push a Healer toward the top of the threat table.
Role-specific skills: coming soon.
⚔️ 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 only 0.5× per damage point. A DPS dealing 1,000 damage produces just 500 hate — far below the Tank's threshold. This gives DPS players wide margin to attack freely without risking pulling aggro, as long as the Tank is active.
Role-specific skills: coming soon.
✨ 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 1.5×. More than DPS, but well below Tank levels. Support contributions rarely threaten the Tank's lead in a well-run party.
Role-specific skills: coming soon.
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.
| Role | Hate modifier | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 🛡️ Tank | 3.5× | Highest — designed to lead threat |
| ✨ Support | 1.5× | Above average |
| ✚ Healer | 1.25×* | Healing multiplies this further (see below) |
| ⚔️ DPS | 0.5× | Below average — safe to attack freely |
* Healing generates 5× more hate than equivalent damage before the role modifier is applied. A 500 HP heal produces the same base threat as 2,500 damage.
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 × 5 (healing) × 1.25 | 3,125 |
| Mira | ✚ Healer | Heals for 300 HP | 300 × 5 (healing) × 1.25 | 1,875 |
| Storm | ⚔️ DPS | Attacks for 1,200 damage | 1,200 × 0.5 | 600 |
| Blaze | ⚔️ DPS | Attacks for 1,500 damage | 1,500 × 0.5 | 750 |
Outcome: Ragna has the highest hate and is Aggroed — the boss targets him. Storm and Blaze are far below the threshold and can attack without worry. Aria is just under Ragna's total — if Ragna goes a few seconds without attacking, or Aria keeps casting big heals, Aria could overtake him and draw the boss.
The takeaway:
- Tank — keep attacking. Your threat lead only holds while you are active.
- Healers — heal when needed, not on cooldown. Every big heal is a significant spike in your threat.
- DPS — attack freely. Your multiplier is low enough that a healthy Tank will always stay ahead of you.
Role skills and assignment
To be defined. How each role is assigned in detail, and the specific skills or abilities tied to each role, will be documented here once finalised.