So I just returned to RIFT..

[Deleted]

I got back to RIFT this past week, and I'm loving it so far!
Last time I played RIFT I got to 50 with a Cleric and healed and tanked all of the Experts + a couple of raid rifts (before Greenscale came out)

I reached level 50 on my Warrior this weekend and ran a couple of Experts, which went very smooth. I'm inclined to say too smooth.
I think there's three tiers of raids now, being Greenscale, Hammerknell and.. (what's the third tier called?)? - I think both Greenscale and Hammerknell look cool.
I'm playing on Bloodiron (EU) and the AH is very scarce on items. Some sections (like Plate Gloves) sometimes don't have *any* items at all. And this is supposed to be one of the bigger servers on EU.

My questions are as follows..

• I saw there's a third difficulty on dungeons - Master. Is this the new Expert of old? Does it give better gear? Do the bosses have additional tactics? Do all instances have this mode? I remember being very challenged doing the Experts so shortly after release. I miss this challenge.
• Have I missed Greenscale and Hammerknell? Do I have to raid the third tier now?
• Can I start a new guild and progress through content "easily"? I mean, in WoW you'd be incredibly hard-pressed for a guild to agree to do T11 and then progress to T13. Is it like this in RIFT?
• For EU players, is the AH like this everywhere? Is Bloodiron more dead than I thought?

Thankful for any answers!

[Tarien]

1) T1 and T2 experts got merged and are largely T2 difficulty. Master Modes are a step higher, you can do them twice per week (resets Wednesdays and Sundays). They offer first tier Raid level gear.
2) The raids are tiered and there is no real way to leap frog over them, so you'll have to spend a week or three in GSB, then a bit longer in HK, before you can move to Infernal Dawn. There are a lot of 10man raids too that you can do to help gear up.
3) In RIFT typically T1 raids (GSB, RoS and the 10mans GP and DH) are pugged, the HK and RotP T2 raids still have plenty of guilds farming them, and then of course the progressive guilds are all in ID now. You shouldn't have a hard time finding guilds to do content at all.
4) Crafted blue gear is rare tbh, the blue gear is pretty shit so don't expect to see much of it. There is more crafted epic gear than blue gear, but it may seem expensive to a fresh 50.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the response.

1. How hard are the Master modes? Is the difficulty on par with raids, as in they need proper tactics and coordination? Some Expert bosses are nuked and you completely ignore their tactics.
2. What 10-man raids are you referring to? Raid rifts?
3. I was thinking more about creating a new guild on my own, as I've got experience with being a GM and I love it. Would it be hard to recruit for a new progress guild?
4. I've seen a couple of epics, indeed. However, I was more considering the lack of lower level greens and blues.

[Tarien]

Thanks for the response.

1. How hard are the Master modes? Is the difficulty on par with raids, as in they need proper tactics and coordination? Some Expert bosses are nuked and you completely ignore their tactics.
2. What 10-man raids are you referring to? Raid rifts?
3. I was thinking more about creating a new guild on my own, as I've got experience with being a GM and I love it. Would it be hard to recruit for a new progress guild?
4. I've seen a couple of epics, indeed. However, I was more considering the lack of lower level greens and blues.

Master Modes are on about par with T1 Raids, probably a fair bit harder for those who are undergeared (I'm in HK or better gear). They are quite challenging, and will require good coordination and for an undergeared group a support player is a must. They can be nuked if you significantly out gear them.

10mans are their own raid instances, so far we have Drowned Halls (T1), Guilded Prophecy(T1), Rise of the Phoenix(T2), and Primeval Feast(T3). Each has four bosses, the latter two have minibosses. They tend to be instanced areas of a certain zone, ie Drowned Halls is a piece of Scarwood Reach, GP is set in Shimmersand, etc. They supplement the 20man raids quite nicely, and drop equivalent loot to the 20man they share a tier with.

It depends, first of all you'd have a rank 1 guild so the perks that a rank 20 guild has would be missing. Secondly I think that there are already quite a few guilds, certainly on Icewatch I see guild spam all the time. Nothing to stop you trying tho

And yeah there is a lack of lower level greens and blues, but given how easy it is to get Expert level loot from dungeons, I wouldn't worry too much. You can be geared in a day and pugging T1 raids in a week, T2 raids a month after that, if you are willing to put the effort in. RIFT has a lot of opportunities to advance your character.

[Deleted]

Thanks again for your responses, very informative.

Last question; are Master modes out for all dungeons? I remember someone saying only two dungeons had it, but I'm not sure if that was true, even then.

[Tarien]

Thanks again for your responses, very informative.

Last question; are Master modes out for all dungeons? I remember someone saying only two dungeons had it, but I'm not sure if that was true, even then.

Only two, Darkening Deeps and Caduceus Rise, the latter is actually two dungeons that are joined together, and gives double the rewards in Marks though it is quite lengthy to complete. Hopefully more in future, we shall see.