new to rift, got healer questions

[Tietoso]

hi, i want to play rift since it went F2P and i got a couple of questions if u guys dont mind answering.

1. i don't intent to go full hardcore on rift, i only plan to have my one healer character and try to get the gold to get the gear, is that posible?and if its not
which class should i play with to get gold?(huntard?)
2.how different is healing in rift than in wow? is it like wrath of the lich king were mana wasnt an issue? is it like now with the whole trinity crap of heals?
3.i heard all classes can tank heal and dps, is it true? i would like to tank as a healer, that would be funny.
4.in terms of end game raiding. what is gearing like? like MoP, cataclysm or wrath? (i started playing wow in wrath if its not obvious by now)

i got more questions, but i rather wait for someone to answer the first 4 xD

forgot to say, i dont really plan on doing pvp seriously in rift.

[Edge-]

1. Get gold to get what gear? >.>

2. While leveling mana is basically meaningless, same at max level. The only time you'll find yourself in potential mana problems is with bad gear at level 60 in an expert (heroic) with terrible, undergeared players taking too much damage. That or if you're pointlessly using your high mana heals. Other than that, it should feel familiar if you've healed in almost any other game (unless you play a Chloromancer)

3. Not yet, that's next expansion. Currently only Clerics (Purifier, Warden, Sentinel and Defiler) and Mages (Chloromancer) have healing souls. However, no class will "Tank as a healer". You're either a tank, dps, support or healer, not multiple roles at once.

4. Gearing in terms of earning the gear? Because it's similar to the WoW model where you can get some raid gear tokens from doing daily experts (heroics) and you can buy a few pieces of crafted raid gear (though they're expensive).

And it's probably a good idea that you're not planning on doing PvP. It's not the most balanced PvP around...and by that I mean it's horribly unbalanced : /

[Fencers]

1. Gold for what gear- leveling gear? Also what is huntard?

2. I don't know what mana is like in WoW. Though it's a non-factor in Rift for most situations. Mana pressure only comes into play during long fights or when under geared for the encounter.

3. Warriors can not heal, Mages can not tank. Rogues and Clerics can DPS, heal and tank. They are all viable.

4. Specific comparisons to World of Warcraft are unknown to me. However, Rift is a bimodal 2nd era MMO that has players earning dungeon and raid tokens to gear up. Endgame in Rift is tiered as in Everquest.

[Lathais]

hi, i want to play rift since it went F2P and i got a couple of questions if u guys dont mind answering.

1. i don't intent to go full hardcore on rift, i only plan to have my one healer character and try to get the gold to get the gear, is that posible?and if its not
which class should i play with to get gold?(huntard?)
2.how different is healing in rift than in wow? is it like wrath of the lich king were mana wasnt an issue? is it like now with the whole trinity crap of heals?
3.i heard all classes can tank heal and dps, is it true? i would like to tank as a healer, that would be funny.
4.in terms of end game raiding. what is gearing like? like MoP, cataclysm or wrath? (i started playing wow in wrath if its not obvious by now)

i got more questions, but i rather wait for someone to answer the first 4 xD

forgot to say, i dont really plan on doing pvp seriously in rift.

You have to understand classes in Rift a little. They are quite different than in other game.

There are 4 main Classes:
Warrior
Rogue
Cleric
Mage

Each class can fill certain roles. The 4 different Roles are:
Tank
Heal
Support
DPS

Seeing as you said you want to heal, I will focus on Cleric and Mage

Clerics can fill any of the roles.
They have 3 Healing Souls, Purifier(Shielding), Sentinel(Tank Healing) and Warden(AoE Healing).
1 Support Soul, Defiler. A very different "class" from anything
1 Tank Soul, Justicar, kinda like a WoW Pally Tank but not really.
The rest are a mix of melee and ranged DPS

Mages can be DPS, Support or Heals.
They Have 1 Support, Archon. Buffs the raid, debuffs enemies, does some damage too, but nowhere near a DPS role.
1 healer, Chloromancer which can either tank or AoE heal depending on which buff you apply to yourself. Mostly heals by targeting enemies with low damage abilities which then trigger your buff to heal others. Very different and interesting healing than anything in WoW.
1 Melee DPS Soul, Harbinger.
The rest are ranged DPS, 2 are pet "classes"

Each class has 9 different souls to choose from. You can have 3 souls active at any time and mix and match them as you see fit. You can store up to 20 Soul Combinations and switch between them at will.

As for all classes filling all roles, that will be in 3.0 which is likely still a year away. At that point they will be adding a Tank Soul to Mages, a Healing Soul to Rogues and Warriors and likely a Support more like Rogues Bard or Mages Archon for Clerics. As edge said though, you will never tank as a healer. You will either be in your Tank role or your healing role. Similar to Pallies in WoW. You are either in Tank spec or Heal Spec, not tanking as a healer.


Hope this helps some.

[Onorvele]

Bonus thoughts:

• 1 character can be most roles - Trion did go down the rabbit hole of "dual spec? why not triple, quadruple, or however many you want?" Provided you're willing to pony up the cash, you can have a tank spec, raid heal spec, ST spec, range DPS spec with AoE focus, range DPS spec with ST focus, melee DPS spec, and so on (examples pulled from Cleric).
• Most max level gear is split into "tanking gear" and "not tanking gear", but some slots will have "not tanking gear" split into "DPS gear" and "healing gear". A single slot governs raid gear bonus, and is available in a different flavor for every soul - this should make sense by the time you get to max level.
• Also, there are 4 classes, 4 types of armor, and 4 primary stats. This makes gearing nice and discrete - if you're a cleric, wear mail and stack wisdom, the dagger with more Intelligence and less Wisdom is meant for the mage.
• Finally, in Rift there are actually 4 roles - Tank, Heals, DPS, and Support. The Support role does party and raid damage mitigation and amplification, while also putting out some of their own damage and heals. Theoretically big boost to rDPS and effective rHPS, but smaller pDPS and pHPS.

[Clymene]

3. Warriors can not heal, Mages can not tank. Rogues and Clerics can DPS, heal and tank. They are all viable.

I believe you mean support. Rogues can't really be the main healer.

[Onorvele]

I believe you mean support. Rogues can't really be the main healer.

Tactician + Bard gives decent raid heals.



But absolutely, would not depend on rogue as ST healer.

[Fencers]

I believe you mean support. Rogues can't really be the main healer.

Nah, rogues can heal pretty alright. Tact & Bard. Useful in raid healing, good enough for 5 mans.

[Tietoso]

thanks for your answers guys, i should have specified that what i meant was stuff like raid gear like u do in wow and also simple stuff like flask, gems and enchants.
and i guess my next question is: do clerics do more or the same dps as mages? because if i'm asked to dps, i kinda like to put in top dmg.

[Fencers]

Depends. On the fight, cleric spec, mage spec, gear, etc. All things being equal, the classes are pretty close to each other in DPS output. Like maybe 3% or so under ideal conditions.

Classes are less singular than in WoW. Which seems to be the MMO you are drawing reference from here.

[Lathais]

thanks for your answers guys, i should have specified that what i meant was stuff like raid gear like u do in wow and also simple stuff like flask, gems and enchants.
and i guess my next question is: do clerics do more or the same dps as mages? because if i'm asked to dps, i kinda like to put in top dmg.

All DPS classes are roughly equal. They are also almost constantly balancing classes and souls. Look at this weeks changes, Marksman Rogues got a little boost. If they were 3% behind others, they would be a little ahead now. It changes all the time, so never pick your class based on who can currently do the most damage. Likely, by the time you are 60 and geared for raids, it will have changed.

Also, yes, you need Flasks, called Vials in Rift and Enchants, called runes in rift. There are no gems though, instead you have another inventory slot for you sigil/soul machine that you put essences into that cannot be taken back out(without a cash shop item) and need to be upgraded as you get better ones.

[Nikkaszal]

All of the overarching classes have access to a DPS spec (a "soul") that performs competitively. However, some perform better in certain situations than others.

For example, take Warriors. They can tank, DPS and support. With regards to DPS, they have several niche specs. Tempest is a spec based around ranged abilities, and is top pick for fights which suck as melee. Paragon is all about bringing the single-target pain train. Champion is built around heavy, HEAVY AoE damage. Riftblades are pure elemental damage, with handy range capabilities for when you can't always stick to targets.

The long and short of it is, regardless of whether you pick Mage or Cleric to heal with, both of these will have access to competitive DPS specs as well.

[gaymer77]

thanks for your answers guys, i should have specified that what i meant was stuff like raid gear like u do in wow and also simple stuff like flask, gems and enchants.
and i guess my next question is: do clerics do more or the same dps as mages? because if i'm asked to dps, i kinda like to put in top dmg.

First welcome to Rift. I think you'll enjoy it. I play WoW and Rift with more time put in to Rift lately because I'm enjoying a "new" game over old content in WoW. They are very similar in some ways and totally different in others.

There are raid gear pieces and "tier" gear but your set bonuses are dictated by one slot. You spend different in-game currency for that slot too. The nice thing is you can switch out that piece for another for different fights if you so wish to get different set bonuses. As Lathais said, there are flasks known as vials in the game. There are also elixirs that can be used if you can't afford vials. There are welfed foods and potions that grant temporary benefits too. Runes which are Rift's way of enchanting your gear depend on the level of your gear not the level of your character so as you're leveling, you should watch out for that.

I would strongly suggest forking out some money to get Rift cash so you can buy a leveling bundle of gear. The nice thing about Rift is that the gear you want as a healer, support, or dps is the exact same thing no matter what class you pick. The only thing about tanks is that they want extra stats like dodge/parry/block instead of crit. Everyone needs hit on their gear including healers for some reason. Unlike WOW, Rift's hit cap depends on the level of content you are doing not the level of your character. If you get leveling bundles of gear (I did just this all the way to 60 with my mage) you'll have all the hit you need from the bundled gear. Also this game has a better (and free) character armor customization. Its built into the standard UI under the WARDROBE tab of your character sheet. You can do everything for your character there including deciding which pieces of armor you want to show and what you don't want showing (yes you can have a "naked" character that runs around in his underwear while still having full armor on).

- - - Updated - - -

OH yeah, there are some souls (aka specs) that are only available if you purchase them from the Rift Store. The melee mage is one of such souls. Each class has 1 soul not available for free and only 1 soul not available. Luckily if you purchase the package you get all 4 of them at once.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh yeah and if you're ever running low on funds and can afford $10 real cash, buy yourself a REX and sell it for 1000 platinum.

[Lathais]

First welcome to Rift. I think you'll enjoy it. I play WoW and Rift with more time put in to Rift lately because I'm enjoying a "new" game over old content in WoW. They are very similar in some ways and totally different in others.

There are raid gear pieces and "tier" gear but your set bonuses are dictated by one slot. You spend different in-game currency for that slot too. The nice thing is you can switch out that piece for another for different fights if you so wish to get different set bonuses. As Lathais said, there are flasks known as vials in the game. There are also elixirs that can be used if you can't afford vials. There are welfed foods and potions that grant temporary benefits too. Runes which are Rift's way of enchanting your gear depend on the level of your gear not the level of your character so as you're leveling, you should watch out for that.

I would strongly suggest forking out some money to get Rift cash so you can buy a leveling bundle of gear. The nice thing about Rift is that the gear you want as a healer, support, or dps is the exact same thing no matter what class you pick. The only thing about tanks is that they want extra stats like dodge/parry/block instead of crit. Everyone needs hit on their gear including healers for some reason. Unlike WOW, Rift's hit cap depends on the level of content you are doing not the level of your character. If you get leveling bundles of gear (I did just this all the way to 60 with my mage) you'll have all the hit you need from the bundled gear. Also this game has a better (and free) character armor customization. Its built into the standard UI under the WARDROBE tab of your character sheet. You can do everything for your character there including deciding which pieces of armor you want to show and what you don't want showing (yes you can have a "naked" character that runs around in his underwear while still having full armor on).

- - - Updated - - -

OH yeah, there are some souls (aka specs) that are only available if you purchase them from the Rift Store. The melee mage is one of such souls. Each class has 1 soul not available for free and only 1 soul not available. Luckily if you purchase the package you get all 4 of them at once.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh yeah and if you're ever running low on funds and can afford $10 real cash, buy yourself a REX and sell it for 1000 platinum.

I wouldn't recommend buing gear from the Rift store to level. Sure, it's a shortcut and probably works, but crafted gear is pretty much the best gear for leveling and it's free. Take 3 gatherin professions and find a leveling guild. There will be a crafter there that will make things with your mats for free. Just gather as you see stuff out in the world and you'll have plenty. Sell your excess and you'll never run into the problem at the end of being low on funds. If you are, just go gather a bit.

[gaymer77]

The Rift Store gear is the same type of gear you get 10-15 levels later. I bought leveling bundles the entire time I leveled my mage and didn't run into my first upgrade or anything close to being on par with leveling gear until I was 57. For a better view on the matter, my lvl 50 package was higher stats than T2 raid gear.

[Lathais]

The Rift Store gear is the same type of gear you get 10-15 levels later. I bought leveling bundles the entire time I leveled my mage and didn't run into my first upgrade or anything close to being on par with leveling gear until I was 57. For a better view on the matter, my lvl 50 package was higher stats than T2 raid gear.

and I recently leveled my mage from 20ish to 60 without spending a dime. You have spent money on something entirely unnecessary and now no longer useful to you. I collected mats as I leveled, mailed them to main, crafted gear with augments and runed it, sent it back. Never had an issue or a need to spend money on gear. Oh, and when I hit level 50 and crafted the new level 50 stuff, my stats were higher than the L50 T2 raid gear as well. The crafted gear in this game is really great for leveling. Fairly recently, I even saw a dev on dev tracker mention how useful it is. I will try to dig up that post, but really, spending money on gear in this game is pointless. You will outgrow it fairly quickly and can easily easily get by without it.

[loki504]

and I recently leveled my mage from 20ish to 60 without spending a dime. You have spent money on something entirely unnecessary and now no longer useful to you. I collected mats as I leveled, mailed them to main, crafted gear with augments and runed it, sent it back. Never had an issue or a need to spend money on gear. Oh, and when I hit level 50 and crafted the new level 50 stuff, my stats were higher than the L50 T2 raid gear as well. The crafted gear in this game is really great for leveling. Fairly recently, I even saw a dev on dev tracker mention how useful it is. I will try to dig up that post, but really, spending money on gear in this game is pointless. You will outgrow it fairly quickly and can easily easily get by without it.

it all depend on your irl wealth. if you earn 3/4k a month you can easly spend 100/200 euro/dollar on gear for your alt.
but if you earn only 1200/1300 then you probebly won't have that money. and he is willing to support the devs. some people play 1xxx hours and yet don't want to spend a single dimme to support the devs.