Vigor
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Vigor
Vigor is a high-level combat endurance resource introduced with Release 154. Beginning at Adventure Level 80, a gold bar beneath health and focus gradually falls during sustained combat. A full bar represents the character's normal health regeneration, focus regeneration, and critical-hit performance; as Vigor is spent, those values fall, reaching half their rested values at an empty bar.[1]
Vigor is meant to matter during long encounters and repeated fights rather than ordinary travel. It runs down over roughly an hour of active fighting and recovers most readily by returning to town—especially when a Bard is performing. It does not reduce a new character's stats while they are still learning which end of the sword is traditionally pointed away from oneself.
At a glance
| Rule | Effect |
|---|---|
| Applies from | Adventure Level 80 |
| Full Vigor | Normal health regeneration, focus regeneration, critical chance, and spell critical chance |
| Empty Vigor | Half the rested contribution to those values |
| Typical drain | About an hour of sustained, qualifying combat from full to empty |
| PvP | Combat in PvP areas does not consume Vigor |
| Ordinary recovery | Towns and time logged out |
| Faster recovery | Town performances and active Bard entertainer abilities |
| Combat support | A party Bard's Melody of Mending can restore Vigor during a fight |
Published timings describe the launch system and may be adjusted by later balance work.[1]
Who has Vigor
Vigor begins at Adventure Level 80. Below that level, the bar is absent, the meter does not run, and the character sheet applies no Vigor adjustment: health regeneration, focus regeneration, and critical chance remain at their full values.[2]
At level 80 and above, the Vigor bar appears on the player's status frame beneath health and focus. Its gold fill represents how much of the character's rested performance remains available.
What Vigor changes
Vigor affects four character-sheet values:
- health regeneration;
- focus regeneration;
- critical-hit chance; and
- spell critical-hit chance.
At full Vigor these are the character's normal values. Vigor does not raise critical chance above the normal full-bar figure. The Vigor amount shown by the character sheet is the portion that would be lost as the bar empties, rather than an extra buff piled on top of the displayed total.[3]
The regeneration rows and the critical rows display the contribution differently. Regeneration can show the amount supplied by Vigor and its percentage relative to the empty-bar rate. Critical chance is derived from a critical rating, so its Vigor contribution belongs to the rating shown in brackets rather than being added directly to the final chance percentage.[4]
This distinction matters when reading the sheet: a line such as “+12.4% Vigor” identifies the part of the displayed chance that an empty bar would take away. It is not a promise that Vigor raises the current chance by another 12.4 percentage points.[3]
Losing Vigor
Vigor falls during sustained qualifying combat. The published launch description puts the full-to-empty span at roughly an hour of real fighting, so a brief skirmish or trip across the overworld should not meaningfully exhaust it. The system is chiefly a consideration for long boss attempts, extended farming sessions, and consecutive difficult encounters.[1]
Combat in PvP areas does not consume Vigor.[1] The similarly named Vigor power-up found in the Obsidian Trials and team Castle Arena is a separate arena buff that improves health and focus regeneration; it is not the endurance bar described on this page.[5]
Recovering Vigor
Towns and logging out
Vigor recovers in towns. In the published launch tuning, moving from one fifth of the bar to fully rested took about twenty minutes without Bard help. Logged-out recovery proceeds at one quarter of the ordinary town rate.[6]
Bard performances
A Bard performing in a town accelerates recovery for nearby players. At launch, the same one-fifth-to-full recovery took about ten minutes near a performance and about five minutes while the Bard continued to use Flourish, Dance, or Group Dance.[6] A later usability change made proximity sufficient for the faster recovery: an audience member no longer has to select Watch Performance and remain facing the performer solely to recover Vigor.[7]
The audience's own Vigor bars appear over their heads while they remain within performance range, making the recovery visible without opening the character sheet.[6] Watch Performance still belongs to the separate Inspiration and Inspired system; the passive nearby Vigor recovery does not by itself perform that conversion.
During combat
Melody of Mending can restore party Vigor in combat. The launch summary states that at song level 100 its recovery keeps pace with ordinary combat drain.[1] The song is part of the rebuilt Bard party-support kit: it does not support the performer, pets, summons, or tamed creatures in the same way it supports party members.
Specialization effects
Two specializations soften particular consequences of an empty bar:
- Focus Specialization protects half of the focus-regeneration contribution at specialization level 100 and all of it at 200.
- Tactics Specialization protects half of the health-regeneration contribution at specialization level 100 and all of it at 200.
These protections concern the relevant regeneration value. The launch source does not describe them as preventing Vigor drain itself or protecting critical chance.[1] A specialization's benefit applies only while that school occupies one of the character's two active specialization slots; merely retaining a high inactive specialization level is not enough.[8]
Seeing other players' Vigor
Vigor is normally personal information shown on the player's own frame and character sheet. A Bard can read party Vigor on party rows and on the target frame when either of these conditions is met:
- the Bard has active Bard Specialization at level 80 or above; or
- the Bard's own Melody of Mending is playing.
Overhead Vigor bars follow a different rule. They appear for audience members near a town performance so that the crowd can see its recovery, rather than appearing over every nearby player simply because a specialized Bard is present.[1][9]
The player's own health, focus, and Vigor bars can be hidden together with Show Health and Focus Bars on Player Frame under Options, Interface, Character & Progress. A separate size option scales the bars on the player and target frames.[10]
Add-ons
Lua add-ons can read the current player's Vigor percentage and the regeneration and critical contributions quoted by its tooltip, and can receive a callback when those values change. The API exposes only the player's own Vigor through this interface, not the private meters of arbitrary nearby characters.[11]
History
Vigor was introduced as part of Release 154's wider advancement and combat changes. Its purpose was to give extended combat a recovery rhythm without burdening early characters or ordinary short encounters. The late-September launch pass established the Adventure Level 80 threshold, town and Bard recovery, specialization protection, combat visibility for Bards, and the PvP exception.[1][2]
Early interface text could make a full bar look like a bonus above normal stats. September corrections aligned the bar tooltip and character sheet around the intended baseline, and an October clarification stated it directly: full Vigor is normal performance; the displayed Vigor figure is what an empty bar can remove.[4][3]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Catnip Games, “Vigor: long fights wear you down, and towns and bards restore you”, September 20, 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Catnip Games Work Log, week of September 14, 2026, Vigor level threshold entry dated September 20.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Catnip Games current Work Log, Vigor tooltip and critical-chance clarification reviewed October 4, 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Catnip Games Work Log, week of September 14, 2026, Vigor display corrections dated September 15.
- ↑ Catnip Games, “Powerups in the special PvP arenas”, September 22, 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Catnip Games Work Log, week of September 14, 2026, Vigor recovery entry dated September 19.
- ↑ Catnip Games current Work Log, Bard and Vigor recovery entry reviewed October 4, 2026.
- ↑ Catnip Games Work Log, week of September 14, 2026, specialization-slot correction.
- ↑ Catnip Games current Work Log, Bard Vigor-visibility correction reviewed October 4, 2026.
- ↑ Catnip Games current Work Log, player-frame and health-bar-size entries reviewed October 4, 2026.
- ↑ Catnip Games Work Log, week of September 21, 2026, Add-on API 20 entry.