Rift, A few questions.

[Deleted]

Hello, I have a few questions about Rift.

For a while, I have been curious how well this game was, because I had thoughts of trying it out.
So I would like to know a few things - Especially in terms of raiding.

How is the progression path? (You can compare it to WoW if you like it, Vanilla, WoTK etc)

How hard is it? (The raiding), and whats the general raiding size? (Ive heard 20 man).

In WoW I always despited the phenomen of class stacking/having the perfect setup - How is that in Rift (Are you being forced to play certain cookiecutters?)

For example I am thinking something similar to a rogue in 10 mans V&T HC going Sub, to "Cheese" the adds.

How rewarding does it feel like? (This might seem like a nerd-q, but for instance, getting our 10 man ICC drakes, or Ulduar drakes felt way more epic than anything I've done in Cata - Even tho I succed more) (I am doing strict 10 man Irl raiding btw)

[Azuri]

Avid raider here for starters to get you familer with mechanics/encounters visit the following site. Starts and videos for each encounter can be found there. Current tier is Hammerknell. www.riftstrats.com

Depending what class you roll you maybe swapping specs often depending on the fights many classes can support various roles. Sifting through some of these other threads should also answer most of the questions you've asked. Based on my subjective review I enjoy the endgame raiding a ton, I've raided all content in wow up until 4.2 since I've been playing rift for the last 7 months so I've tried both sides of the fence. Wow raids are great and I'm not knocking them by any means but I just get tired of looking at the same raid tiers for 6 month chunks.

With that said 10s and 20s are on completely different so each raid is unique. At this time there is no heroic/regular modes of raids so each raid you run has only one difficulty level. Difficulty levels are on par with wow in the current tier. The current raid tier has been compared to Rag heroic difficulty level or possibly harder, I can't confirm our guild hasn't downed it yet only are only at p3 of the fight. At this time only 7 guilds in EU/NA have killed the last boss to give you and indication of it's difficulty level which released in July I think off hand someone will correct me if I'm wrong. So first clear takes 2 months by the top guilds and moderately more for less focused guilds. Current tier also has 11 bosses with a detailing and mechanics compared to Ulduar.

[PriestRela]

I just asked a bunch of these type questions in the Legit chance thread..... i ws really looking for a on the ground player perspective, not strat videos.

[Primalthirst]

Admittedly the top guilds in Rift are much less intense than the top WoW guilds.
Having said that Hammerknell is still an incredibly challenging and rewarding raid. I'm really enjoying it and the fact that there is no easy mode of the bosses it means that when you've downed a new one you know it's an achievement that not any random casual can do.

Depending on guild makeup some classes will change specs more often than others. As a Mage I use up to 6 different specs a week in raids whereas our Rogue dps only use 2 different ones.

[PriestRela]

I'm a healer, always have been. And i really like the look of clerics... and one thing im wondering, in terms of class equivs. I like both priest and durid in wow. Priest because the skill required, and the sheer amount of tools in your toolbox (takes alot to know what to use and when), and durid because of the insane amount i can drop. So from a players pov, is how's the healing... thats what i want to do.

[Primalthirst]

When healing in Rift you have 2/3 class choices. Mages with their healing soul, Chloromancer, Clerics with their plethora of healing souls and Rogues as Bards.
Technically Bards are support and provide lots of Buffs but they also put out pretty good healing when in good hands.
Chloromancer doesn't really have a WoW equivalent, basically a % of their damage done gets converted into healing, and depending on which Veil they use it either focuses on a single target or on the raid. Functionally they are like playing a dps caster that passively heals with a couple of short cooldowns for spike damage.

Clerics have a lot of healing flexibility and are probably what you'd be interested in. They can heal with HoTs, Direct heals, Shielding or perform as a Dps/Healing hybrid. It's also a running joke that only Cleric loot drops in Hammerknell, especially Cleric tanking loot.