Hi mates

[DStrukt]

One thing that annoyed me with RIFT wasssssss the souls! I dont mean the dynamic classes, thats awesome! I mean, the abilities from the souls!

Hopefully you know what I mean, when you choose 3 souls.... you get like identical abilities that all do the same damage from each soul, so then you have dozens of different abilities and mannn, it just gets way too confusing when it comes to setting up your action bars with all these hundreds of abilities

That is possibly one of my main hates with Rift, other than the combat animations but nevermind about that

Im asking for help, advice and tips on setting up action bars. How do you know which ones you need n stuff? Surely you dont need every single abilitiy you have because like I said if you read tooltip some are identical, damage wise... just a different source of damage or whatever. Like having 20 builders on your action bars is just stupid if 5 of them dont have cooldowns. You cant spam all 5 at once, so yeah

How do you go about it, how do you learn how to naturally just KNOW? Please, teach me

[Deleted]

One thing that annoyed me with RIFT wasssssss the souls! I dont mean the dynamic classes, thats awesome! I mean, the abilities from the souls!

Hopefully you know what I mean, when you choose 3 souls.... you get like identical abilities that all do the same damage from each soul, so then you have dozens of different abilities and mannn, it just gets way too confusing when it comes to setting up your action bars with all these hundreds of abilities

That is possibly one of my main hates with Rift, other than the combat animations but nevermind about that

Im asking for help, advice and tips on setting up action bars. How do you know which ones you need n stuff? Surely you dont need every single abilitiy you have because like I said if you read tooltip some are identical, damage wise... just a different source of damage or whatever. Like having 20 builders on your action bars is just stupid if 5 of them dont have cooldowns. You cant spam all 5 at once, so yeah

How do you go about it, how do you learn how to naturally just KNOW? Please, teach me

What class do you play? Pve/pvp focus or both? How many specs have you bought and what soul combos do you prefer to play and/or what role?

[Deleted]

Yea you've sort of really asked a extremley broad question without giving any examples at all....

Firstly What Class do you play?
What souls are you using?
What level are you?

[DStrukt]

Well right now I dont, I dont have RIFT atm gave account away but bought it again and I am starting to play soon with new character

You see you guys are about to tell me which abilities to put on my action bars, I was hoping you could actually teach me to know for myself, I dont want to have to ask every single soul change or character change I make. How do you know, teach me that :P The basics at least

[Fencers]

Only low point skills are that similar. The purpose of soul trees building up & down is they begin to differ the more points are invested.

For example, builders.

Let's look at the basic builder attacks for Beast Master, Paragon, Champion and Rift Blade Warrior.

Beast Master: level 1, Fierce Strike. 0 CD, Flat physical damage + weapon damage and grants the pet a buff. Builds 1 combo point.
Rift Blade: level1, Searing Strike. 0CD, Flat fire damage + 50% weapon damage. Builds 1 combo point.
Champion: Power Stike. 0CD, Flat physical damage + weapon damage. Builds 1 combo point.
Paragon: Dual Strike. 0 CD, Flat physical damage + 60% of combined weapon damage. Builds 1 combo point.

There is a fair bit of depth in those most basic abilities alone. Without even spending a single soul point.

5 points into Beast Master and Fierce Strike grants a larger pet bonus. 10 points into Beast Master, pet crit goes up, second bleed option opens up. By 26 points in Beast Master, Fierce Strike is quite an important and differentiating skill from Paragon's Dual Strike.

8 points into Paragon, Dual Strike increases crit & allows for unique to the Paragon follow-up attacks such as Rising Waterfall [or later, Path of the Raptor, Death Touch, Path of the Hurricane, etc]. 15 points in Paragon, follow-ups attacks to Dual Strike are granting extra combo points. 23 points in, one is gaining extra off hand attacks, etc, etc.

The soul system is designed to be experimented with, theory crafted and so on. The system is relatively simple. One can not make a mistake- resets are trivial.

[Soul trees are not talent trees. Don't think of them as such.]

[DStrukt]

Right so in general, the soul you spend most points in are the abilities you want to be using yeah?

[Fencers]

No.

It depends on the skill. The point is to think about your spec. Not fill out the singular "Tank Tree", for example. Again, these are not talent trees. One is not a Fury Warrior or Sub Rogue only.

Each of the soul trees have a certain identity but the idea is find synergy.

Paragon Warrior is a soul that emphasizes dual wielding. But also makes an excellent soul for a 2handed Warrior, Champion. Which may be with or without a pet. Paragon can also be used to supplement Rift Blade, a hybrid range/melee magical damage based Warrior-- also, with or without a pet.

I can spend 32 points in Paladin [tank tree] and use maybe 4-5 skills out of a possible 21 or so. Yet that wouldn't necessarily mean I was a tank.

I may have those 32 points in Paladin [tank tree], but actually center my purpose on Rift Blade abilities and damage-- which is not a tank spec but great soloing. Alternatively, I can spend those same 32 points in Paladin, have almost a whole bar full of Pally skills and be a tank if I wanted.

Or 8 points in Paladin and be a tank... or not.

Synergy and purpose. That's how you know what to put on your bars.

Edit: Also worth noting Rift now breaks skills into categories:



So you can easily see what is a builder, finisher, buff, heal, etc.

Aaannnd, they now have "pre built" souls that fill out all the souls for you based on a template, if you find the system too complex naturally.

[Primalthirst]

In general using abilities from your main tree are the best, but not always.
You need to read the tooltips on your passives and work out which other trees have abilities that synchronise well, it's all about experimentation.

For instance as a Mage the soul Stormcaller gets a passive ability that increases the critical hit chance of Air spells, Elementalist has a powerful Air spell called Lightning Strike which only requires a few points to get. So it might be worth going using Elementalist as a secondary soul to incorporate that spell into your rotation.

It is definitely very possible to be overwhelmed when trying to make ability usage decisions early in the game, in fact that's when it is hardest. Once you have a decent number of levels you have a lot of the passives that boost certain abilities and it is much more obvious which ones you should use.