Hardcore WoW Raider Looking at Rift

[anaxie]

Longtime WoW raider 13 straight tiers as world class melee dps. Interested in Rift in the next 6 months of downtime sure to follow while I one day farm.

So how exactly does this game work as FTP and for someone who has never played?

How do I gear up to current tier, do I have to ladder through storm legion?

How is power creep can I solo or clear last expansion raids and mount metas with relative ease?

What does rift Normals offer in the sense of challenge/ What kind of hardmodes are there and do they extend to all bosses or few?

What purpose do Factions serve in rift and estimation of how many.

How many total zones? How many relevant Storm legion zones.

List of raid content for Storm Legion. / Small dungeons.

What activities outside of raiding are there?

Website for guild rankings AKA the Wowprogress of Rift.

What is THE BEST melee dps raid spec / build.

What is needed to "max" your character in rift. I hear shit like Planar leveling or something along those words after max level wtf is this?

[zito]

So how exactly does this game work as FTP and for someone who has never played?

Everything is Free and you pay for convenience or cosmetics. However you only get 2 bag slots and 1 character slot so it might be in your best interest to buy a bag slot or 2, but they are pretty cheap and after that you don't really need to buy anything else except maybe the storm legion souls (new talent trees in WoW reference, 1 tree for each class total of 4). But Every class can do every thing so you don't really need more then one character slot unless you want more flavor.

How do I gear up to current tier, do I have to ladder through storm legion?

It works in the same way as WoW. Get to max level do dungeons/quests do hard modes, do raids, do master modes.

How is power creep can I solo or clear last expansion raids and mount metas with relative ease?

no

What does rift Normals offer in the sense of challenge/ What kind of hardmodes are there and do they extend to all bosses or few?

Every dungeon has a hard mode and raids have hard modes.

What purpose do Factions serve in rift and estimation of how many.

There are only 2 factions but its pretty stupid as you can do dungeons and join guilds with people of the opposite faction if you are on a PvE server. I wouldn't recommend a PvP server as PvP in this game is whack and world PvP is non existent.

How many total zones? How many relevant Storm legion zones.

28 total zones. 12 for Storm legion but there is a mentor system so everything is relevant.

What activities outside of raiding are there?

There is instant adventures, crafting, fishing, dungeons, Rifts, quests, chronicles and among other things.

What is THE BEST melee dps raid spec / build.

Warriors I believe (idk the spec)

What is needed to "max" your character in rift. I hear shit like Planar leveling or something along those words after max level wtf is this?

Planar leveling is an endless progressive system once you hit max level which give small bonuses once you level up. You get points to spend once you level up past 60 (but your level doesn't extend after 60).

20 man raids are called raids:

http://www.rifthead.com/zones/catg/8

And 10 mans are called slivers:

http://www.rifthead.com/zones/catg/3

[Fencers]

So how exactly does this game work as FTP and for someone who has never played?

The same as most F2P games, honestly. There are restrictions to things like character slots, AH posting, log-in queue priority on heavy days.

All content in Rift is 100%, no-bullshit, free.

How do I gear up to current tier, do I have to ladder through storm legion?

The same as many other linear progression, bimodal MMOs of the 2nd MMO era.

One levels to the cap, progresses through a series of lesser tiered instances gaining token for doing so. Eventually exchanging those tokens for gear that allows one to supercede the numerical threshold of higher tiered instances.

How is power creep can I solo or clear last expansion raids and mount metas with relative ease?

Power creep is relatively a non-factor. You won't be able to solo most of the older raid content. And that which you can would require trickery &/or massive overgaring.

It's not easy, worthwhile or logical.

What does rift Normals offer in the sense of challenge/ What kind of hardmodes are there and do they extend to all bosses or few?

Normal mode dungeons are quite easy. Subjectively speaking.

Hard mode dungeons vary in challenge. But are usually doable with a PUG via the LFG tool. These modes have additional wings, bosses &/or mechanics. Too many to list.

Raids are of one difficulty. Though some raids and bosses have optional or special functions that allow a group to try an encounter(s) at added difficulty.

What purpose do Factions serve in rift and estimation of how many.

2 playable factions. Of no relevance other than lore.

A bunch of NPC factions. They offer dailies, grant reputation and allow one to buy exclusive items. Often BiS stuff like capes or enchants.

How many total zones? How many relevant Storm legion zones.

The game is huge. Too many to list. Look at the website or wiki. Google.

List of raid content for Storm Legion. / Small dungeons.

Too many. Look at the website.

What activities outside of raiding are there?

Open world rifts, zone events, world bosses, strongholds, onslaughts, PVP battlegrounds, asymmetrical 3 faction PVP, holiday events, dailies, chronicles (solo dungeons), PA leveling, world PVP, achievements, personal housing, guild housing, crafting, artifact collections and trinket collecting.

Website for guild rankings AKA the Wowprogress of Rift.

None.

What is THE BEST melee dps raid spec / build.

None.

What is needed to "max" your character in rift. I hear shit like Planar leveling or something along those words after max level wtf is this?

Gear that crosses the numerical threshold for entry and completion of an encounter. The same as all other linear progression based bimodal 2nd era MMOs.

[Deleted]

Woop, another paladin interested in trying Rift, and its the Ret-god himself! I'll do my best to answer (can't believe this thread hasn't gotten more responses yet :O)

So how exactly does this game work as FTP and for someone who has never played?

Rift's F2P model is pretty decent, you can level up and experience all content without having to pay a penny. However, you need to spend around 20 euro worth of credits to buy Storm Legion souls (new character speccs that came with the expansion). That will be enough to also unlock Auction House, which is locked to F2P players until they get some loyalty (gained by spending cash).

How do I gear up to current tier, do I have to ladder through storm legion?

There is no catch-up system to quickly jump into the latest tier. Its just like in TBC, you to have progress through dungeons and all raid tiers. After you hit lvl 60, you gearing path is: doing world events + expert dungeons + gathering plat (ingame currency) for craftable epics -> T1 raids -> T2 raids

How is power creep can I solo or clear last expansion raids and mount metas with relative ease?

I am affraid not. Once again, power of characters in Storm Legion (SL) is about similar to lvl 70 toons in TBC in T4-T5 gear. I don't think they could solo many, if any, vanilla bosses.

What does rift Normals offer in the sense of challenge/ What kind of hardmodes are there and do they extend to all bosses or few?

I find difficulty of Rift raids to be just about perfect Not complete facerolls, not endless wipefest brickwalls. Even bosses in expert dungeons can one-shot you and quickly wipe the group if you don't pay attention to mechanics. I repeat myself, but they remind me TBC heroics and T4-T5 WoW raids in difficulty.

What purpose do Factions serve in rift and estimation of how many.

Factions are pretty important. They offer runes (aka enchants), and some BiS items (cloak and planar essences). If you want to raid and minmax, you will eventually want to max your rep with 8 factions. None of them is absolutely required to enter the first raids though. There are multiple ways to gain rep with factions, not just endless dailys-pandaland-grindfest.

How many total zones? How many relevant Storm legion zones.

The world of Telara is huge 16 pre-expansion zones, not counting capital cities, and 11 zones in the SL expansion

List of raid content for Storm Legion. / Small dungeons.

8 dungeons, each has normal and expert mode. T1 has 4 raids: Triumph of the Dragon Queen (10m), Intrepid: Drowned Halls (10 m), Frozen Tempest (20m) and Endless Eclipse (20m). T2 has 3 raids: Grim Awakening (10m), Infinity Gate (20m) and Planebreaker Bastion (20m)

What activities outside of raiding are there?

There is a LOT to do outside raiding. Expert dungeons, daily quests, rifts, hunt rifts, daily and weekly open world raids, zone events (with huge variety), pvp... The dynamic world events is where Rift really shines, they are like GW2 events, except they arent pointless, as you get gear from them.

Website for guild rankings AKA the Wowprogress of Rift.

This is what Rift sorely lacks and what I certainly miss from WoW - lack of good websites like Armory, World of Logs, Wowprogress etc. Rift's official forums are your best bet, raiding guilds post there their server/world first kills, and you can find good guides there too.

What is THE BEST melee dps raid spec / build.
I think cleric-shaman soul and mage-harbinger soul are top parsing dps. Not too sure about this question, I got so sick of being treated as second class-citizen due to being melee in WoW, so I play mostly ranged in Rift and loving it.

What is needed to "max" your character in rift. I hear shit like Planar leveling or something along those words after max level wtf is this?

its called Planar Attunement - even after you hit max. level (60), you will continue to gain planar experience, which opens new "talent trees". The bonuses from PA are rather minor though - we are talking like 1 spellpower/1 wisdom per PA level, while your character at 60 will have spellpower in thousands. Its a nice little thing, it lets you to progress your character even after you hit max level. I *think* its similar to Diablo's Paragon levels?