There is absolutely nothing that you're doing wrong in playing Val the way you've been playing him. Val is simply more strikery than defendery, and that's perfectly OK. That is exactly why I have brought in Kortauhk. He'll be putting out about the same damage as Lan was (so we're not losing out on much), but he'll be able to keep the baddies off of the squishies (i.e. Pok, Sheeva, River, and Feall) so they can do their thing. This will also enable Val to move around more for more advantageous actions or we can split up the defender duties when the team gets separated on the battlefield.