Classes

Embershroud has three classes, each with its own weapons, skills and way of staying alive.

Your class is the decision that shapes how you survive. Your offence you build yourself, out of gear and skills.

Armor and class mechanics

Every class can wear Plate, Leather or Silk, and each family carries its own defensive stat that scales with item level.

The signature defensive layer is class-exclusive, and armor does not transfer it:

Guard belongs to the Vanguard
Evasion belongs to the Hunter
Barrier belongs to the Arcanist

A Vanguard in Silk gets Silk’s base stats. It does not get Barrier.

Vanguard

Playable in the closed alpha.

The armored frontline - absorbs punishment and retaliates. Every closed-alpha Vanguard starts with a Sword or Axe and a Shield.

Guard is the Vanguard’s class-exclusive layer: a flat absorption buffer generated by its own skills. While the Shield is equipped, every hostile hit absorbed by Guard sustains Momentum’s combat rhythm. Pip generation and the short Counter Ready window have their own cooldown, so sustained pressure keeps your tempo going without multiplying the payout.

Vanguards also get +2% to maximum elemental resistances, reaching 82% where other classes reach 80%.

The Shield requirement

Three Vanguard skills - Bastion Wave, Unbroken Line and Shieldwake - require a Shield.

You can still enter combat after unequipping it; those skills become inactive. The Skills screen dims the icon under a Shield warning and the HUD mirrors it.

Your skill assignments and Battle Plan stay intact. The Battle Plan keeps its configured priority, records the ineligible skill, and moves to the next eligible one. If nothing qualifies, your character uses its default attack.


Strong against	Physical swarms (high Armor soaks many small hits); heavy elemental encounters
Needs investment against	Burst magic damage - there is no Barrier to absorb a spell burst
Shore up with	HP affixes

Hunter

Phase 2.

The sharpshooter. Hunters use Bows paired with a Quiver, wearing Leather for Evasion.

Hunters survive through a three-outcome dodge: a hit can Miss entirely, land as a Glancing Hit (half damage, spread over 2 seconds), or land in full. The mechanics are on Combat Basics.

Hunters specialise in Marking targets and Executing wounded enemies.


Strong against	Single heavy hitters and bosses
Needs investment against	Large packs (many dodge rolls means many concurrent damage-over-time effects); spells, which Evasion does not apply to
Shore up with	Resistance and HP affixes

Arcanist

Phase 2.

The spell-weaving controller. Arcanists wield Wands with a Tome off-hand, or a Staff, and wear Silk for Barrier.

Barrier is a separate damage-absorb pool displayed above your HP. Damage hits Barrier first; when it breaks, HP takes over. It recharges after a short delay without taking damage.

Against a single boss you live off the recharge window between attacks. Against packs, the Arcanist’s area strength creates more openings. Killing an enemy restores a small amount of Barrier instantly, bypassing the delay.

Arcanists specialise in Chaining spells between targets and leaving persistent Zone effects on the ground.


Strong against	Spell-heavy encounters; multi-target fights
Needs investment against	Pure physical damage - no Evasion and no Guard
Shore up with	Armor and HP affixes

Skills

Every character equips 4 skills, one per role:

Slot	Role	What it is for
1	Core Loop	Your bread-and-butter. Always firing, always useful.
2	Pressure	Burst or heavy sustained output.
3	Control / Field	Crowd control, ground effects, debuffs.
4	Survival	Defensive cooldown, heal or escape.

You unlock skills by levelling and hitting milestones; they do not drop as loot.

Closed-alpha Vanguard roster

Iron Sweep - Core Loop
Bastion Wave or Iron Verdict - Pressure
Shieldwake - Control / Field
Oathcall or Unbroken Line - Survival

You have one complete four-role loadout by level 5, and the second Pressure choice at level 8.

Skill tags

Skills carry tags such as Attack, Spell, Melee, Projectile, Burst, Sustain, Guard, Barrier, Mark, Execute, Chain and Area. Tags drive eligibility, Battle Plan logic and interactions.

Most tags describe behaviour and do not scale damage. The closed alpha ships Attack Damage as its damage-scaling tag, so 20% increased Attack Damage boosts every Attack-tagged skill.

Class-aligned loot

Loot tables are weighted toward your class’s primary defensive layer. A Vanguard sees more Armor and Guard; a Hunter more Evasion; an Arcanist more Barrier.

General and off-class defensive affixes - HP, Resistance, cross-class layers - still drop.

Offensive affixes (damage, crit, elemental) and Resistance affixes are class-neutral.

Where to go next

Combat Basics - the mitigation math behind each defensive layer
Battle Plan - deciding when your skills fire
Items & Affixes - where the rest of your power lives