Answering ALL Questions about RIFT:Storm Legion that new/ex Rift players have

[Antipathy]

SNIP.

We should get this post above, the one that fencers put together on how soul combinations work and a few other quick guides put together by some of our regulars into a dedicated sticky to be very honest - something like "New To Rift, here's what to expect" or "the quickstart guide to Rift"

It really is a shame to have all these insights buried in threads.

[Azuri]

We should get this post above, the one that fencers put together on how soul combinations work and a few other quick guides put together by some of our regulars into a dedicated sticky to be very honest - something like "New To Rift, here's what to expect" or "the quickstart guide to Rift"

It really is a shame to have all these insights buried in threads.

Put something together (or whoever is up for the challenge) and we can sticky it. Easier to link to that then writing a novel each time and update as game changes. We have the what to do at 60 thread now we need the getting started thread.

[Fencers]

A great forum resource is: "Ask a question / get an answer" sticky threads. Works really well due to the nature of posting on a message board- someone can leave a question, get an answer yet that answer effectively "sticks" around.

Q. How are rogues?
A. Terribad.

Done. 4ever.

[Azuri]

Q. How are rogues?
A. Terribad.

Done. 4ever.

I see what you did there.... Lolz

[Edge-]

A great forum resource is: "Ask a question / get an answer" sticky threads. Works really well due to the nature of posting on a message board- someone can leave a question, get an answer yet that answer effectively "sticks" around.

Q. How are rogues?
A. Terribad.

Done. 4ever.

Q. Should I play a warrior?
A. Only if you're a crybaby.

>.>

[Antipathy]

Lol, Moderator food fight.

Fencers is a Mage/Rogue Racist IMHO. Excluding them as classes, berating them, calling them names, its like.. your a classophobe.

[Lathais]

In Storm Legion they changed the way many skills work so that it is no longer effective to have 1-2 macros with like 9+ skills linked to just a couple of macros. It's just like Warcraft basically- procs, buffs, skill priorities.

Some of them won't even work because Rift's macro system is... well, it's not a macro system at all. It's a fail through system. Meaning that skills fire sequentially as long as they are off cool down.

An old Rift macro would have looked like this:

cast Rift Strike (15/s CD)
cast Frost Strike (15/s CD)
cast Searing Strike (no CD)
cast Charged Pulse (15/s CD)
cast Flamespear (15/s CD)
cast Shock Pulse (no CDs)

Bound to hotkey #1, each press of the 1 key would advance the macro one step. Nothing executes all at once in Rift. An old macro would work like so:

1st press: cast Rift Strike <- use if not on CD
2nd press: cast Frost Strike <- use if above skill is on CD
3rd press: cast Searing Strike <- use if above skill is on CD
4th press: cast Charged Pule <- use if above skill is on CD
5th press: cast Flamespear <- use if above skill is on CD
6th press: cast Shock Pulse <- use if above skill is on CD

In SL many of those type of macros have different timings which break a lot of old macros. Forcing some skills to have a more situational aspect now.

Above macro would partially no longer function in Storm Legion. Would be a MAJOR DPS loss too. Simply due to the fact you are not prioritizing or controlling buffs/debuffs with such macros any longer.

In SL it would just break, like so;

1st press: cast Rift Strike (no CD) <- use this skill immediately
2nd press: cast Frost Strike (no CD) <- if above skill in on CD
3rd press: cast Searing Strike (no CD) <- if above skill in on CD
4th press: cast Charged Pule (15/s CD) <- if above skill in on CD
5th press: cast Flamespear (4/s CD) <- if above skill in on CD
6th pres: cast Shock Pulse (no CD) <- if above skill in on CD

As you can see, it would simply not work. Since the first skill will never be off CD. If you moved skills such as Rift Strike and Frost Strike lower in the macro sequence you would lose the buffs they provide. Benefiting from neither buff in any situation. Players have to control Frost Strike, Rift Strike, Charged Pulse and Flamespear individually to optimize damage.

Naturally, there are some soul combinations that have more easily macro'd abilities than others. My above example was merely theoretical. Nonetheless, SL went a long way to breaking a lot of the heavy macro-ing of Rift for serious play.

Emphasis on serious play because unless progression raiding in Rift one can play the game with any braindead skill/macro rotation and any class combination. Only a small sliver of players really need to worry about it to be quite honest.

Now, I could be wrong here, because there is something I don't know about warrior abilities, but this looks wrong to me.

cast Rift Strike (15/s CD)
cast Frost Strike (15/s CD)
cast Searing Strike (no CD)
cast Charged Pulse (15/s CD)
cast Flamespear (15/s CD)
cast Shock Pulse (no CDs)

Under the old and new system, charged pulse, flamespear and shock pulse would NEVER fire. Since Searing Stike has no CD it is always available when you press the macro, and only 1 ability fires per macro press. So that particular macro would never work well in old or new system.

I really like the new system. You have to pay attention to buffs on yourself and debuffs on the target and have to press more buttons. 1-2 button macro builds topping DPS is ridiculous. If you like that style of play, well, I would love to say go back to WoW, but there are specs that can work and you will do ok with in Rift. Especially if you are in a more casual guild and not a progresion raiding guild that stays on/near the bleeding edge.

Basically, the new macro system took a lot of abilties that either applies a buff to you or a debuff to a boss and removed the CD. An ability that provided a 15s buff to you had a 15s CD, so could be macroed for 100% uptime. Now, it doesn't have a CD, resulting in it being able to be spammed. Spamming it is a DPS loss however, because it is only useful for the buff, if the buff is up you are better off casting another ability.

AFAIK, nothing in the way macros work has really changed. They just changed all the abilities to match this format to make the abilities themselves less macro friendly.

[Fencers]

Under the old and new system, charged pulse, flamespear and shock pulse would NEVER fire. Since Searing Stike has no CD it is always available when you press the macro, and only 1 ability fires per macro press. So that particular macro would never work well in old or new system.

Searing Strike never had a CD, nor were all those CDs 15/s. It was merely for demonstration of how Rift's macro system works but step and CD. Which holds true regardless. Actual skill name isn't important.

[Arkamenitas]

Now, I could be wrong here, because there is something I don't know about warrior abilities, but this looks wrong to me.



Under the old and new system, charged pulse, flamespear and shock pulse would NEVER fire. Since Searing Stike has no CD it is always available when you press the macro, and only 1 ability fires per macro press. So that particular macro would never work well in old or new system.

for the sake of accuracy, your statement here regarding this macro:

cast Rift Strike (15/s CD)
cast Frost Strike (15/s CD)
cast Searing Strike (no CD)
cast Charged Pulse (15/s CD)
cast Flamespear (15/s CD)
cast Shock Pulse (no CDs)

is not quite true, flamespear and everything below it WOULD fire, provided you were not in melee range. (which would instantly invalidate all of the "strikes" above them as being unusable much the same as if they had been on cooldown. for this reason, you could macro ekkehard's grasp for shaman (cd-less ranged spam spell for when you are out of melee range, if applicable), beneath icy blow/crushing blow (the other cd-less fillers).


Interestingly, i currently have a macro i was using for a bit

cast tyranny of death (no cd, but will not recast on a target that already has it until it disappears ala marrow harvest)
cast bound fate (no cd, chain spell that talented will spread tyranny to all targets hit if tyranny is active on the primary).

Many a time i have found that pressing the macro midrotation would actually cast bound fate on the first press with no tyranny on the target. My theory whereby the spell "que time" window is the cause, as it would try to cast both spells, but if you hit it in that window (but before the gcd finished), it would remember only the last press, in this case, bound fate.

the general rules havent changed, however. as others have stated, a macro like that will attempt every spell on the list in order until one of them works. It's just that many "15 second buff/debuff/etc" which previously had a cd and duration equal no longer have a cooldown, which would cause a sequence macro to hang on that spell (whereby before the spell would always get refreshed as soon as reasonably possible, and then would not recast til it fell off due to the cooldown).

hopefully that helps.

[Deleted]

Factions are really only there for lore now. Guardian and Defiant can party up, trade, speak and even be in the same guilds. There is a huge new city that is shared by Guards and Defiant. Even the auction house & mail are cross faction.

There is still world PVP on PVP servers. Normal fashion. On PVE servers you have to flag up first and then the game accounts for faction difference.

Thanks. I bought the expansion last night and it looks great, also good that they added some more voice acting to the questing and open world pve stuff.
It just feels really easy so far, I remember having to pay a lot more attention when I played before (haven't played since 1.2 I think), even when just doing quests. I'm about half way through Cape Jule now I think, is all the open world pve stuff going to be this easy?

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

I want to play this.

But I was also disappointed with this game early on. I was an early adopter and really saw little that just kept me drawn in.

So I 'unno, as pretty as the new Xpac sounds--really dig the housing and I'm always a sucker for dark, brooding zones. WoW visually lost a lot of appeal for me when it moved past the undead and plaguelands as your primary areas of conflict. I'm probably secretly a goth at heart.

I might, MIGHT give it another try. Let it download while I am at work tomorrow. I do miss being a bonified healer. As cool as the lack of a trinity is in GW2, it does have the drawback of not giving you those moments where you really feel like a boss whilst you mad-dog heal everyone through a serious fight. I like specialization to some degree, my issue is being pigeon-holed more than the trinity itself.

[Fencers]

It just feels really easy so far, I remember having to pay a lot more attention when I played before (haven't played since 1.2 I think), even when just doing quests. I'm about half way through Cape Jule now I think, is all the open world pve stuff going to be this easy?

Yes, it will all be that easy. People complained vanilla Rift was too easy. Trion heard the QQs. Easier game than it was at launch.

But I was also disappointed with this game early on. I was an early adopter and really saw little that just kept me drawn in.

Rift launched with an extremely impressive feature set out of box. And the updates to the game were already major additions within the first 2 months.

It really hasn't changed from the basic gameplay though. So if what put you off was just that Rift was a standard MMO at it's heart- I doubt there is any reason to go back ever.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

Yes, it will all be that easy. People complained vanilla Rift was too easy. Trion heard the QQs. Easier game than it was at launch.

Rift launched with an extremely impressive feature set out of box. And the updates to the game were already major additions within the first 2 months.

It really hasn't changed from the basic gameplay though. So if what put you off was just that Rift was a standard MMO at it's heart- I doubt there is any reason to go back ever.

Nah, boring factions, boring characters, nothing drew me in.

Then again I think I am one of the few people that appreciate a strong universe for their game these days. Tired of the generic caca, it's like everyone has become mentally retarded over night and can't find anything interesting besides the same and tired tripe.

Granted I can be a harsh critic. I didn't get that far in and wasn't entirely done with WoW at the time.

[Fencers]

Nah, boring factions, boring characters, nothing drew me in.

Yeah that really hasn't changed.

[Tidezen]

• Mob tagging is a thing of the past!, Anyone who hits a mob gets credit for the kill
  
• Any Class can wear any type of armour in the wardrobe! (For example I'm rolling about on my mage with full plate armour... looking like a bawse)

Wow, I'd read about a lot of new Rift stuff, but I had never known about these two. That is sooo cool, this has completely sold me on getting the expansion! Actually dimensions was enough for me, but this is toe-curlingly sweet icing on the cake.

[Lathais]

for the sake of accuracy, your statement here regarding this macro:

cast Rift Strike (15/s CD)
cast Frost Strike (15/s CD)
cast Searing Strike (no CD)
cast Charged Pulse (15/s CD)
cast Flamespear (15/s CD)
cast Shock Pulse (no CDs)

is not quite true, flamespear and everything below it WOULD fire, provided you were not in melee range. (which would instantly invalidate all of the "strikes" above them as being unusable much the same as if they had been on cooldown. for this reason, you could macro ekkehard's grasp for shaman (cd-less ranged spam spell for when you are out of melee range, if applicable), beneath icy blow/crushing blow (the other cd-less fillers).


Interestingly, i currently have a macro i was using for a bit

cast tyranny of death (no cd, but will not recast on a target that already has it until it disappears ala marrow harvest)
cast bound fate (no cd, chain spell that talented will spread tyranny to all targets hit if tyranny is active on the primary).

Many a time i have found that pressing the macro midrotation would actually cast bound fate on the first press with no tyranny on the target. My theory whereby the spell "que time" window is the cause, as it would try to cast both spells, but if you hit it in that window (but before the gcd finished), it would remember only the last press, in this case, bound fate.

the general rules havent changed, however. as others have stated, a macro like that will attempt every spell on the list in order until one of them works. It's just that many "15 second buff/debuff/etc" which previously had a cd and duration equal no longer have a cooldown, which would cause a sequence macro to hang on that spell (whereby before the spell would always get refreshed as soon as reasonably possible, and then would not recast til it fell off due to the cooldown).

hopefully that helps.

Ah, ok, did not realize those were ranged abilities, so yes, that's very vailid under both the old system. Turns out it's just that I don't know about warrior abilities.

[Deleted]

Hmm Well i am bying a new comp so i would probly buy this and play for a month 2 see whats up=) Did enjoy the beta aswell so Might be fun!
Question, Tab target..it was like..CRAP when i playd have they done anything 2 it?

[WarpedAcorn]

Hmm Well i am bying a new comp so i would probly buy this and play for a month 2 see whats up=) Did enjoy the beta aswell so Might be fun!
Question, Tab target..it was like..CRAP when i playd have they done anything 2 it?

I've noticed the tab target does indeed suck. Its like if I'm looking dead at an enemy and hit tab, then for some reason half the time it targets the enemy behind the one I am staring out (or an enemy way out in left field).

[Fencers]

There are a couple of options that adjust the tab targeting in game. FYI.

Tab targeting seems to work almost identical to other games once set up. I don't notice any difference really.

[Tidezen]

Question on dimensions...

I saw in some videos that people could put a bartender NPC to serve drinks; are there other NPCs available to put in? Is the bartender guy a vendor that I could sell trash to?

Also, it would be really awesome if you could put a crafting station in there, have the devs talked about any plans to do something like that? What I would REALLY love is my own private training dummy.

Thanks