Vanguard Monks

Hello there my fellow monks!  I was browsing through the Hilsbury server forums and came across this bit of information that I thought might be quite helpful, for those of you who were as clueless as I was about the Weakness/Vulnerability system.  Taken directly from http://www.hilsbury.com/viewtopic.php?t=34 (http://www.hilsbury.com/viewtopic.php?t=34)

The Vulnerability or Weakness System (lets go with Vulnerability) is a really cool addition to combat in Vanguard. It is kind of reminiscent of the "status" effects from the Final Fantasy Games (VII in particular).

The way it works is there are 19 Different Vulnerabilities that can occur on an enemy. They have names such as Staggered, Stunned, Vulnerable, Shaken, Chilled, etc. Each vulnerability has a different effect on the monster.

Depending on the ability, you can either Cause/Create a vulnerability on a mob, or Exploit/Consume the vulnerability.

On the GUI, you will cause the vulnerability if your Skill lists that vulnerability with a little '+' sign next to it. You will exploit it, if the vulnerability is listed without the '+'.

The power of this system, is that when you exploit a vulnerability, it greatly increases the effects of the skill you use to exploit the vulnerability.

For instance, Warriors have an attack ability called "Brutal Strike", which exploits the "Staggered" vulnerability. When I use Brutal Strike on a staggered mob, I get at least double my damage with it.

Another great thing, is that the Vulnerability system is spread out among the classes. So that each class will not be able to exploit all of the vulnerabilities they can cause. This encourages grouping, and each new combination of classes in a group will lead to different skills being used by its members.

Two different websites have charts depicting which classes Cause and exploit which vulnerabilities.

The one here is interactive and pretty:
http://home.swbell.net/coeurs/vgVuln.html

and this one is more breif and printer friendly:
http://van.forums.thedruidsgrove.org/showthread.php?t=12053

I really got sold on this system when my warrior and Airyet from Angry Goblins' Monk were duoing in Khenvor. I could cause Staggered with one ability, and then both of us would then use abilities that exploited it. We really improved our killing speed once we figured it out.

Great post!  I have had the +/- vulnerability info in the database for a while, but did not know (for sure) how to logically connect them.   ;)

Since there's no legend on this chart, could someone clarify for me?  Are the green squares "cause/create" and red "exploit"?

Spot on Hitomi - green creates the weakness, and red takes advantage of it.

The easiest example for Monks revolves around "Staggered" - Staggered Punch applies the weakness to the mob, then landing a Crescent Kick whilst the mob is Staggered takes advantage of it (usually doing double damage).

Groovy, thank you for the clarity :D