Help me choosing specs

[Deleted]

Hi there!

I decided to give Rift a try after seeing the 1.8 trailer (which looks amazing) and I wonder if some of you could help me to choose my specs/talents.

I would like to play as a Tank. I don't know if there is more than one type of tank on this game so if you need any additional information (in terms of which game style I like/enjoy the most) please ask



Thanks!

[Tarien]

Roll a warrior, and have a look at this guide. It's old but mostly accurate.

[Puremallace]

Another guide is here for raid tank builds

Warrior tank:
http://bluedots.org/content.php?146-...-Tanking-Guide

Rogue Tank:
http://bluedots.org/content.php?219-...ue-Tank-Builds

Cleric tanks:
http://bluedots.org/content.php?173-...hrough-T1-Raid

[Primalthirst]

There are three tanking classes.

Warriors who use shields and specialise in spec flexibility due to 4 tanking talent trees
Clerics who use shields and bring the ability to offheal whilst tanking
Rogues who use two weapons and have many teleport abilities to assist with mobility.

All are completely viable in all content though, as with any game, balance is never perfect.

Warriors feel a lot like many traditional tank classes in other MMOs, across their specs they have charges, shield throws, cleaves and the like.
Clerics are a mana based tank who play fairly similar to a typical tanking class but can provide very powerful raid healing. This makes them great for tank swap fights or fights where the second tank is only needed for part of the fight.
Rogues play quite differently to typical tanking classes. They revolve around maintaining various damage shield and armor buffs in order to boost their mitigation to comparable levels. Rogues also have the most and the best defensive cooldowns.

My advice would be to try all 3 to about level 30 since by then you can get almost all of the toys and can get a really solid feel for each one.
Note that tanking is actually a lot more difficult at lower levels than at 30+ since both the tank and the healer are missing a lot of their useful tools before then.

[Fencers]

Low level tanking is pretty easy for Warriors. It's Rogue tanking that suffers the most due to limited skills but also because of limited points- which must be spent in non-tanking trees as well as Riftstalker. Where a Warrior can have 3 tank souls equipped and gain benefit from all 3 no matter the point spread before L30.

Just wanted to toss that out as low level tanking isn't too bad with some forethought.

Example: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0cAhg.xzaz.V0R.-5

A level 15 Warrior tank is significantly tougher than his Rogue and Cleric counter parts. Also brings most of the base tools for tanking from 15-30 to bear by just L15, the dungeon entry level.

[Primalthirst]

I recall being quite squishy pre level 25 on my Warrior and then chain pulling without a care in the world from low 30s onward.
Rogue I definitely was squishy pre level 30, Cleric was between the two.

Regardless you can pull with much more freedom and have a lot more 'oh sh!t' buttons by level 30 than initially.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the information!

I really like the "traditional" tanks but that Cleric tank sounds fun, do I have to be healing myself in order to stay alive while I take damage?

[Fencers]

I recall being quite squishy pre level 25 on my Warrior and then chain pulling without a care in the world from low 30s onward.
Rogue I definitely was squishy pre level 30, Cleric was between the two.

Regardless you can pull with much more freedom and have a lot more 'oh sh!t' buttons by level 30 than initially.

Well, it's fairly obvious at L30 one is better suited to tanking than at L15. One can say that of L40 and L50 as well. So whatever-city.

The point was Warriors get a lot of bang for buck compared to Clerics & Rogues of a similar level before Lcap. Mitigation and more importantly threat generation for Warrior tanks comes more easily and in greater amounts than for Clerics or Rogues.

Thus if one is planning on tanking primarily, starting off as a Warrior tank from L15-50 is not as disadvantageous as it would be for other classes.

I really like the "traditional" tanks but that Cleric tank sounds fun, do I have to be healing myself in order to stay alive while I take damage?

Yes and no. Healing for Cleric tanks is marginal, they are not Paladin-like in the old school sense of EQ for example. However, passive or small healing bursts are part of the Cleric tank's reactive mitigation with bigger heals & a few defensive CDs serving the same function at cap that Warrior or Rogue CDs serve. So it's not too big a deal- instead of hitting Last Stand as a Cleric you use Reprieve or something to that effect.

Cleric tanks have a lot of utility- arguably the best 'off-tanks', they also have soft CC, Vigilance, battle rez and of course the raid wide blanket healing.

All the tanks in Rift are super fun in all honesty. Rift PVE balance is superb. Rogue tanking is a blast and much more demanding of personal skill than either Warrior or Cleric.

[vindicatorx]

I leveled a cleric because they have a lot of versatility they can DPS, heal, or tank well. AOE damage with it was pretty impressive that and certain builds make you near impossible to kill.