Torn between mage and cleric because of vast soul trees.

[Nelvardik]

So I spoke with Antipathy through PMs earlier and they were extremely helpful in answering some of my questions although I'm still unable to pull the trigger on spending the time leveling either a mage or cleric. Because I'll only be able to raid on weekends, I imagine that I'll be forced to fill a role that is typically difficult to recruit for. Usually this means picking a healing class, but Rift is great in that they also have support roles. However, while I love the sound of an Archon, it looks like only one is ever needed per raid group and I'm sure that most steady guilds already have their support roles filled with people on wait lists and such. (If this isn't necessarily the case please let me know because I'd love to fill that spot with an Archon since I loved my EQ1 enchanter.)

So I'm looking at mage or cleric because of their healing and DPS abilities. I wasn't a fan of cleric at launch because everyone basically got pidgeonholed into Warden while the Chloros and Bards did all the heavy lifting. I want to avoid that again as I'm not a huge fan of HoTs. However, Purifier and Sentinel were both interesting, as was Chloro.

Rift is great because you can now wear any armor you'd like provided you meet the level restrictions and it isn't class restricted, so aesthetics aren't any longer in play.

It seems that a cleric might be the harder-to-replace class in terms of finding a raid spot in a guild, however I'm not sure its classes has the toys/tricks/tools that the mage souls seem to have.

Any advice?

[Puremallace]

They are both pretty badass because their class devs have been interactive since day 1. So on my list of non broken classes it goes 1. Mage 2. Cleric 3. Rogue 4. Warrior. Mages cannot satisfy the tank roll and never will according to the class dev and higher ups in Trion.

Cleric has badass AoE, can tank, and semi ok single target. Also healing of course. I prefer mage due to the sheer badass game play of Harbinger.

[Lathais]

I wouldn't focus too much on what your going to to at end game, or even what one spec you are going to play as. Big difference compared to other games is that you can have up to 6 specs. The mages I know usually have a chloro spec, an archon spec, a Harb spec and a ranged spec. Sometimes, in one raid, they switch multiple times. In Rift, unless of course you really only want to Archon and not do anything else, you should plan on being as adaptable as possible. I think mages have it easiest in this regard as you can use the same gear you use for healing to DPS or support. The only time you need to have a different set of gear is if you tank. No yes, Clerics have moe haling options than a Mage. Most Clerics I know have 2-4 different healing specs available, that they sometimes switch between on a per boss basis, even in 5-mans, whereas Mages don't have as many healing options.

In short, what I would base the decision on is if you ever even want to have the tanking option available to you. Mage and Cleric both have Melee and Ranged DPS options, healing options and support options. Many times, a second healer can take the place of support, so Cleric can fill that role, or use Defiler. Main difference is in playstyle and that Cleric can tank and mage cannot.

[theWocky]

I would say "mage" as it's the one class I haven't had time to level and it seems damn fun!

[zito]

So I'm looking at mage or cleric because of their healing and DPS abilities. I wasn't a fan of cleric at launch because everyone basically got pidgeonholed into Warden while the Chloros and Bards did all the heavy lifting. I want to avoid that again as I'm not a huge fan of HoTs. However, Purifier and Sentinel were both interesting, as was Chloro.

Mages have one healing spec so that one spec can do it all, aoe heal, tank heal, support heal.

Because clerics have more healing options their ST heals and aoe heals are spread thin. Sent being the ST healer with more CD, Purifier being the ST healer with shields and Defiler being the ST healer (with horrible aoe) with delayed burst heals.

Regardless of what you pick, if you need aoe healing you will be going into warden, which are HoT's, for aoe healing.

Defiler is basically currently the unlabeled tank support soul of clerics. You can spec into defiler for some little aoe but if were talking healing support, chlormancers and tactitions return better aoe healing support and better ST damage.

You will probably want to go mage OP because you dislike warden.

[Onorvele]

I'm going to start with this premise:

• If you're starting to level now, it's low likelihood that you're going to be in a progression group until 2.4 or 2.5 (probably 5-6 months).

This means that we'll likely be seeing Tier 2 raiding in play, with most of Tier 1 (the 2.0 and 2.1 raids) being available to PUGs or farm.

Given that, do you think that you'll be able to level 2 toons over the next 6 months?

• If so, I highly recommend leveling the Cleric first, and here's why:
  
  • A cleric can tank, heal, and DPS both as range and as melee. Making a point of filling all of these roles during leveling (especially during the SL dungeons) will give you complete insight into the mechanics that will also show up in the raids, and hands-on experience dealing with all aspects. With that experience as a player, you'll be more valuable to a progression group.
• If you don't think you can level 2 toons over the next 6 months, I still make the above recommendation, with the caveat that you may need to get a second toon power-leveled by the same progression group that considers you an awesome, experienced player.

I mean, plus Clerics are awesome.

[LonestarHero]

I was going to say go mage, but after a little thought my suggestion is flip a coin. They are both awesome.

Mage
Remember with a mage you only have to worry about hauling around one gear set to fulfill all roles. When I raided as a cleric in vanilla I had three.

Cleric
The nice part about clerics is their lack of a secondary resource to manage. It's simply mana, with no charge, combo points, or rage drama to worry about.

You can't go wrong not rolling a rogue or warrior.

[Nelvardik]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm taking it to heart and thinking about what I want to do.

I'm going to start with this premise:

• If you're starting to level now, it's low likelihood that you're going to be in a progression group until 2.4 or 2.5 (probably 5-6 months).

This means that we'll likely be seeing Tier 2 raiding in play, with most of Tier 1 (the 2.0 and 2.1 raids) being available to PUGs or farm.

Given that, do you think that you'll be able to level 2 toons over the next 6 months?

• If so, I highly recommend leveling the Cleric first, and here's why:
  
  • A cleric can tank, heal, and DPS both as range and as melee. Making a point of filling all of these roles during leveling (especially during the SL dungeons) will give you complete insight into the mechanics that will also show up in the raids, and hands-on experience dealing with all aspects. With that experience as a player, you'll be more valuable to a progression group.
• If you don't think you can level 2 toons over the next 6 months, I still make the above recommendation, with the caveat that you may need to get a second toon power-leveled by the same progression group that considers you an awesome, experienced player.

I mean, plus Clerics are awesome.

Would past raiding experience count for anything in Rift?

[Edge-]

It would definitely make getting into Rift raiding easier, as there are a lot of the same/similar mechanics you see in other games. The kind of situational awareness and ability to execute you build in other raiding games translates well in Rift. Not going to be identical, but it's going to give you a big advantage over someone who has never raided before.

[Nelvardik]

It would definitely make getting into Rift raiding easier, as there are a lot of the same/similar mechanics you see in other games. The kind of situational awareness and ability to execute you build in other raiding games translates well in Rift. Not going to be identical, but it's going to give you a big advantage over someone who has never raided before.

Okay I should be okay there then. I really like the sound of Archon and I'd definitely like to be able to fill that support role if possible so I'm currently leaning mage, although still curious to see how many heavy support mage spots are actually available.

[LonestarHero]

I've been out of the serious raiding end of Rift for a while, but I have doubts you would get much Archoning prior to your first ten or twenty-man raid.

For example, the "support" role you see in the dungeonfinder is essentially a DPS with an offheal spec. The buffs from a real "support" spec aren't really worthwhile until 10-20 man content.

[Lathais]

I've been out of the serious raiding end of Rift for a while, but I have doubts you would get much Archoning prior to your first ten or twenty-man raid.

For example, the "support" role you see in the dungeonfinder is essentially a DPS with an offheal spec. The buffs from a real "support" spec aren't really worthwhile until 10-20 man content.

Maybe from an Archon point of view and maybe now that people know the fights and are geared a little better. I still run 61-pt Bard in a lot of places though, the buffs are really really nice and because I buff everyone's damage and Bards now do decent-ish damage themselves, the groups DPS does not drop by much.

I'll admit, 10-20 man is where it really really shines, but it is not completely worthless in 5-mans either.

[LonestarHero]

Maybe from an Archon point of view and maybe now that people know the fights and are geared a little better. I still run 61-pt Bard in a lot of places though, the buffs are really really nice and because I buff everyone's damage and Bards now do decent-ish damage themselves, the groups DPS does not drop by much.

I'll admit, 10-20 man is where it really really shines, but it is not completely worthless in 5-mans either.

I got a rogue to level 50 just prior to SL and had the opportunity to bard on some expert/master dungeons, GSB, and ROS. Unless SL changed everything, I categorize the bard as an offhealer support.

I don't think other support souls such as dominators, archons, warlords, and beastmasters (I may be wrong on the beastmaster) qualify as offhealers.

[Primalthirst]

Play Mage, we're awesome.

If you started leveling now you could be doing endgame progression raiding by New Year, depending on playtime of course.
Playing Archon is really good fun, it requires a lot more awareness and strategy than most DPS specs. Getting a full time spot as one is a mixed bag, most guilds already have a dedicated Archon, but many are also forced into playing Archon even if they don't want to.

Previous raiding experience is always relevant in MMOs, the ability to interact and work with a team is usually more important than personal performance.

@Puremallace
They never said Mage wasn't getting a tanking soul, they just said it wasn't coming 'at this stage'. Believe me I'll continue to push hard for it going forward

[Antipathy]

@Puremallace
They never said Mage wasn't getting a tanking soul, they just said it wasn't coming 'at this stage'. Believe me I'll continue to push hard for it going forward

I think that introducing Harbringer at this stage allows for a tank build in the future that would synergize with it, with either chloro and/or archon being the third sub-spec. It certainly makes sense to introduce this change gradually and to top it off, I would love for all souls to be fully competent in every aspect of the game, with the difference between them being purely the nuances of gameplay.

[Deleted]

I personally love mage a lot more, the mage combat in comparison to a cleric is a tad more fast paced, due to most viable endgame raiding specs and rotations have lots of instant casts spells and slashes with 0.5/1s GCD, also it appears the at the moment the ability to solo is quite high on a mage compared to a cleric. I'd definitely suggest trying them both out and playing around with specs until you find out which one you enjoy the most, at the end of the day it is down to personal preference ^^