Interested in Rift but still on the fence...

[Deleted]

Watching those videos Slipmat linked makes me want a new class again.

[Pachycrocuta]

I didn't know they are already available, i thought they are coming with 1.9 patch.

Cheers Tarien!

They snuck those in with a hotfix, instead of keeping them from us until they release a patch (which is awesome).

I personally enjoy the mage the most, though I am getting to enjoy the rogue (ranger/sabo), but unfortunately I can't continue my rogue as she is level 26 /sigh, and I have no active sub. But the mage, I thoroughly enjoyed playing. I had a really good solo combo going that saved my squishy cloth-wearing elf butt (elementalist/chloromancer/stormcaller) many a time. But I am some kind of freak that prefers survival over killing power. Just wish they would buff up the mage tanking pets, as it is rather annoying to always cast vile spores (chloro) to stay alive, and that spell can't do damage worth a crap.

[Drakoes]

Give Rift lite a go. Sure, it isn't everything and lets you play in all the end-game content, but it's definitely a good place to start.

[Acquiesce of Telara]

Edit:
Forgot to add that they 're fixing the issue with nameplates with next patch.
Also i forgot to add another thing i don't like. Many times, especially inside rifts, adds do not make a vivid contrast to the background and near environment, that combined with the fact that many are tiny, and there are no nameplates, makes them intistinguishable. I often found myself thinking that i killed all mobs, and a tiny little ...(you know what ) is still hitting me (when i play without headset)!

Fire mobs/rifts can be annoying, Earth, a little less so. I've found it's best to rotate the camera a bit to pick up the contrast. Angling at 45 degrees down for a mob, then maybe, while moving, pan left or right a bit.

Might sound complicated, but it becomes second nature in no time.

[Rooflesstoofless]

I'm looking for the right class to play but I don't want to be pigeonholed into one roll.

I love tanking in WoW and I've always have a fascination since my EQ days with DPSing with a sword/shield ie....Is that possible in Rift? Or better yet, viable? What IS viable in the game? Everything? Most of the stuff I've read here on MMO-C only refers to Warriors, Clerics and Rogues.

.. if not I'll just buy the game again.. $15 bucks isn't too bad.

EDIT: Went back and realized that the only reason Clerics, Warriors and Rogues are mentioned is b/c they are 3 of the 4 classes. (I get the idea of souls, etc) So my next question would be what is viable within each class. Why aren't mages talked about very much?

Snipped a few pieces to answer what I could. I'm quasi-new to the game and still leveling.

So far I've had a lot of fun with sword and board DPS while leveling as a warrior (which are dps/tank) class. I picked up the Paladin/Reaver/Riftblade(?) trees and focused on putting my talents into +block, +damage, and +Reaver DoT/HoT abilities instead of the typical +block and +threat for traditional tanking with the same callings.

Single target DPS is decent if not slightly slower than a pure DPS warrior build so far...but I don't have to drink as often (or at all in most cases) so leveling overall has been faster by far. The real treat is when you get 2+ mobs on you and DoT them all up and start kicking the shit each of them and finishing them off with a decent amount of health left and can just keep wading through mobs without having to worry too much about your health. You also get a full health heal every 5m although I've only had to use this twice so far. Also, the Aggressive Block ability has a pretty sweet animation and sound to it...I wish it was on a shorter CD as I never grow tired of that "BINK!" sound of smashing someone with a shield.

The only gripe I have about Rift and the character classes is melee clerics. I absolutely loved the play style (conking mobs over the head with a huge 2h hammer ftw) but they are pretty much a joke when it comes to end game as I think my sword and board dps build will be as well. With the cleric you are expected to go caster or healer for PvE in most cases as your dps is well below melee rogues and warriors. In PvP you are expected to go healer (unless you want to deal with nerdrage). A lot of builds in Rift are viable...some end up having you stop to drink/recover a lot more than others while leveling...but there are far fewer 'optimal' builds once you hit level cap.

[Crimsonfiend76]

grrr...im so torn. i was subbed briefly before dropping it for swtor, but as i am slowly getting to the level cap there, and looking at nothing to do once my story is done, i am considering coming back, but since i still have the annual pass for blizz., i'm locked into that for another 4 months and outside of guildies & nostalgia, i have no real desire to go back to wow.

that being said, how is the support - healing roles in endgame content? ive been a die-hard rdps style player but was considering experimenting with healing and was hesitant about going straight healing as i have done that in the past and felt mostly periods of boredom mixed in with occasional bouts of being overwhelmed in dungeons when the shit hits the fan.

[Pachycrocuta]

Well, if you would like to go for something a little more unconventional, you can try healing as a mage (chloromancer, with most going into warlock for second soul). Dealing damage to heal is pretty fun (though never healed on my mage, just speaking of how it was leveling). As for cleric healing, dunno. Never done it. And then Bards can heal in their support role.

[Against the Modern World]

PVE is perhaps the most balanced of any MMO on the market right now.

I think you are misusing the term "viable build": here w/r/t Rift. Simply now how classes/souls work.

A question about tank "viability". Right now I'm on trial trying different class/soul combinations to understand what to play when I'll buy the full version. Mostly interested in tank+melee character. Cleared both starting dungeons (Realm of the Fae and Iron Tomb), my impressions so far:
Justicar - I like it's flavor, but I'm going out of mana fast. Does the talent that regens mana after block solve this problem? Does justicar suffer from having less "options" compared to warrior, who has tanking souls for different situations?

Riftstalker combined with Bladedancer - Seems to have great AoE aggro, very easy to tank, but feels squishy at the start of the pull until Guarded Steel is applied.

Warrior - are there any reasons why Paladin's Sweeping Strike has a cooldown, while Reaver's Vicious Cleave can be spammed. Looks like starting warriors are forced into Reaver for comfortable tanking. Warlord and Void Knight seem to be builds for special encounters, not universally usuable.

Are my impressions true, or it's totally different at higher and max level?

[Fencers]

A question about tank "viability". Right now I'm on trial trying different class/soul combinations to understand what to play when I'll buy the full version. Mostly interested in tank+melee character. Cleared both starting dungeons (Realm of the Fae and Iron Tomb), my impressions so far:
Justicar - I like it's flavor, but I'm going out of mana fast. Does the talent that regens mana after block solve this problem? Does justicar suffer from having less "options" compared to warrior, who has tanking souls for different situations?

Riftstalker combined with Bladedancer - Seems to have great AoE aggro, very easy to tank, but feels squishy at the start of the pull until Guarded Steel is applied.

Warrior - are there any reasons why Paladin's Sweeping Strike has a cooldown, while Reaver's Vicious Cleave can be spammed. Looks like starting warriors are forced into Reaver for comfortable tanking. Warlord and Void Knight seem to be builds for special encounters, not universally usuable.

Are my impressions true, or it's totally different at higher and max level?

Your first impressions are accurate to that level, yes.

Clerics and Rogues are viable raid tanks the same as Warriors for the most part. However, Cleric and Rogues only have 1 tanking tree a piece; meaning they become more tanky the deeper they go in those trees. Whereas a Warrior can easily take 3 out of 4 tanking trees that are all front loaded in skills/abilities.

Eventually a Cleric doesn't really worry about mana too much and a Rogue is quite hardy when deflect & their ridiculous # of passives kick in.

I don't agree on Reaver being a "forced choice". Reaver is just the most, forgive me, noob friendly tank soul for Warriors. A concept that was true since launch actually. Only after popular raid tanks in the community proved the more technical and demanding Warlord and Void Knight were superior to Paladin and Reaver did Warrior tanks begin to move away from Reaver/Paladin builds.

Not surprising either as a tank coming form a game such as WOW would probably see a lot of comfort in the skills & kit of Rift's Paladin & Reaver souls. Tank balance has changed since the last tanking revamp. However, the "can't screw it up" nature of Reaver remains mostly intact and we still see many "newbie tanks" running around with 51 points Paladin out of mostly preconception.

That said, all the Warrior tanking souls work well at endgame. Having 4 tank souls makes Warrior tank builds more situational than Rogue or Cleric, which again only have 1 Swiss army knife for tanking.

Also there are huge differences in the Warrior tank AOEs. Damage type, resource cost and target number are all different. For example, Sweeping Strike hits 10 targets and generates a large amount of threat disproportional to the damage + modifiers to threat. Vicious Strike hits 3 targets affected by the Reaver passives and bindings then the general passive threat boosters. Ragestorm works based on pacts, the Void Knight passives, bindings and the general threat boosters, etc, etc.

The way the souls work in Rift is that the more generic abilities early in the soul trees typically become more distinctive as you advance in that soul tree. A quality best demonstrated by any number of Rogue or Mage souls.

[Arbs]

In the end its all your choice on what you want to play and your play style will help you enjoy any game you play. Good Luck!

[Deleted]

Last night as i was leveling i saw a guy killing animals, i skinned one and then i saw him "foraging" next to another, as a noob that i am (lol) in this game, i though foraging is for skinning, so i apologized and went to give back that leather i got.
The guy reminded me the obvious, and we talked briefly and then each went their own way, an hour after, he linked me a blue quality plate leggings asking if i have use of them.
Ofc i did, i went to give him a platinum for those and he refused, just wanted to give them away for free
Few minutes later he asked me if i would like to join their guild, and judging of the person, i said that it would be a pleasure.

I met other nice people so far, while doing those rifts, but this one stood out, and it is refreshing for me to experience once more this form of communication out of a game's capital.
Really glad i subbed to this game

[Chireru93]

Mages are a secret society of illuminati, and the first rule of Mage Club is...

Heh, I don't know why you can't find any comments about mages in RIFT, they're great fun to play. My main is a mage, so is Primalthirst's and Slipmat's and Atreayu's (all posters in this forum).

Anyway, sounds like you want a warrior. AFAIK there are no PvE specs that use a sword and shield, though there are some PvP specs that do. I think. Within warrior there are various specs, including at least three tanking specs, dual wield specs and two handed specs.

The alternative is Cleric, they can tank and carry a sword and shield. Clerics make superb healers too (duh) and their DPS ain't too shabby either, though of the four classes I believe it is lowest atm.

Honestly from what you have said go warrior. Just be warned, you won't see a great deal that separates RIFT from WoW at the lowbie levels, other than the soul system. All the good stuff is at 50

except -mostly- balanced levelling pvp! ;D

it does sound like you want a warrior (I'm not pro at the game my highest is a 27, 20, and then a 17 ), but coming from someone who is currently levelling, it isn't that bad actually. Honestly I get the feeling it's going to be a lot faster than on WoW by a longshot, because I just made my 17 levelled mage 2 nights ago and I haven't even been playing him 24/7 (I've even only done pvp levelling since level 10). I'd say if you like PvP, do it! It really is fun to level with, slower maybe, but fun. Everyone gets a buff that puts their stats even in the levelling bg's (well idk exactly what happens, but that's essentially it), so you won't be 1-shot by a level 19, and you may even be able to kill one! So levelling via pvp is much more viable than in WoW.

[Sleepysnik]

except -mostly- balanced levelling pvp! ;D

it does sound like you want a warrior (I'm not pro at the game my highest is a 27, 20, and then a 17 ), but coming from someone who is currently levelling, it isn't that bad actually. Honestly I get the feeling it's going to be a lot faster than on WoW by a longshot, because I just made my 17 levelled mage 2 nights ago and I haven't even been playing him 24/7 (I've even only done pvp levelling since level 10). I'd say if you like PvP, do it! It really is fun to level with, slower maybe, but fun. Everyone gets a buff that puts their stats even in the levelling bg's (well idk exactly what happens, but that's essentially it), so you won't be 1-shot by a level 19, and you may even be able to kill one! So levelling via pvp is much more viable than in WoW.

Leveling is indeed quite a bit faster than WoW. Come patch 1.9 (some time in june) it will be even faster, as you can do instant adventures (get sent straight into a deathball of players just zerging through quests, events and bosses) in all the zones. (Currently just 3 high level zones)

What you refer to within pvp is called bolstering. If you are a few levels short of 19/29/39 etc they will buff you up a bit, to make it POSSIBLE to compete with the higher levels. (You will still need to be good tho ) The same thing works within the brackets at level 50.