New to Rift. Some advice needed please.

[Greyarea]

Hello all.

I have just gone out and on an impulse bought Rift (basic game, not SL) for $20. Now I don't care if I don't end up liking it, for me it was cheap. Now I'm a WoW player and am looking for something similar but different. Due to the fact I can't do any raids in WoW (work...meh) I'm thinking this may be something that interests me.

Now after getting the game installed and now waiting on a 9 gig download patch I'm looking at the character screen and cannot decide which character or faction to pick. I always love dark magics and all that jazz so I'll more than likely go Mage > Necromancer.

Anyways how similar is Rift to WoW and how different is it? Is the crafting system better than WoW's one or pretty much the same? I see there is playter housing kind of thing with the Dimension (expensive so not going to get into it for some time I think).

Is there any advice you could give me, as a community, as to what to go about doing in the first few hours of game play? What sort of professions should I go with starting out etc.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Acquiesce of Telara]

Difference between Rift and Wow: The mechanics are essentially the same, but there's a hell of a lot more options, be it gameplay options or character builds.

During your first few hours, just go ahead and run through the quests. They're hardly amazing, but they're useful for figuring out your character's abilities. At level 14, queue up for Instant Adventures. They're an awesome and time-saving method of leveling up: zergable objectives with a raid of up to 20 players. It'll keep you moving.

Don't hesitate to try other specs. It's cool that you know what you're looking for, but you'd be amazed how your tastes can change as you try out different combinations of souls.

Any specific questions, don't hesitate to ask.

[theWocky]

Take ALL gathering professions at the moment - some good gold still to be made.

An easy class to level with a lot of CC is the Rogue and I am really enjoying it compared to my cleric.

Mages seem to be quite scarce compared to other dps - probably just anecdotal evidence, but they are also quite fun - I have a lvl 30. Both Rogues and Mages play support classes with them being quite a "tide changer" in a tough PvP match.

Warriors apparently now have an elemental shaman type dps spec - so I may just level my warrior too.

I personally just followed each "story" quest in each zone and mixed it up with the odd Rift, Warfront, Instant Adventure, Zone Event, Dungeon, Carnage Quest. Note that you don't "have" to finish carnage quests (not sure if they're in low level zones yet) - they're just there for bonus XP. Stick to the story quests and mix it up a bit and you will level quick.

Everything contributes XP to leveling. I'm a bit of a "Lore" completion OCD guy, so generally do all the story quests.

[Greyarea]

Thank you very much for the insight. I'm looking forward to testing this out and seeing how I feel about it once I hit level 20. If it's what I'm looking for I'll activate my key for the free month with the game, otherwise I'll just leave it and move on.

Thanks again.

[akaTheDude]

This is where I am at too. I am level 6 atm? and the game has a good feel to it so far. Nice to see a change of pace

[Deleted]

Take ALL gathering professions at the moment - some good gold still to be made.

An easy class to level with a lot of CC is the Rogue and I am really enjoying it compared to my cleric.

Mages seem to be quite scarce compared to other dps - probably just anecdotal evidence, but they are also quite fun - I have a lvl 30. Both Rogues and Mages play support classes with them being quite a "tide changer" in a tough PvP match.

Warriors apparently now have an elemental shaman type dps spec - so I may just level my warrior too.

I personally just followed each "story" quest in each zone and mixed it up with the odd Rift, Warfront, Instant Adventure, Zone Event, Dungeon, Carnage Quest. Note that you don't "have" to finish carnage quests (not sure if they're in low level zones yet) - they're just there for bonus XP. Stick to the story quests and mix it up a bit and you will level quick.

Everything contributes XP to leveling. I'm a bit of a "Lore" completion OCD guy, so generally do all the story quests.

I have always played a mage, and i feel like its takes a hell of a lot more skill to master then the other 3 callings. Plus chloromancer is badass! i agree with almost everything thewocky says, but if you are the type of person who does not like story, and just wants to blast to 50, at level 14 just spam que for instant adventures

[WarpedAcorn]

I have always played a mage, and i feel like its takes a hell of a lot more skill to master then the other 3 callings. Plus chloromancer is badass! i agree with almost everything thewocky says, but if you are the type of person who does not like story, and just wants to blast to 50, at level 14 just spam que for instant adventures

I'm currently leveling as a Mage Soul. For the first 40 levels I played a Pyromancer, and honestly that made things fairly easy as Pyromancer seems to be a typical Proc-Based Whack-A-Mole Fire-Mage caster. Chloromancer is very interesting and honestly I can't say I've played any other class like it. The only other Souls I've messed with are Harbinger (new class in the xpac) which is awesome, and Stormbringer which I was less than impressed with. I've seen a few Nercomancer/Warlock Mages out and about, and they seem to have no problem killing and surviving, so the OP's choice is probably a good one.

On a note about the story, I'm trying to do all the zones since I'm new as well. If you like lore and story, then I would highly recommend this approach as I feel it gives you a good feel for the set up of the game pre-expansion. I'm not sure if any of it will be relevant once you get to the Storm Legion zones, but for now it appears to give backstory on future (technically past) dungeon/raid bosses.

[theWocky]

WarpedAcorn, the stories are all relevant for new players and gives you quite an insight into things -even in the expansion - also, doing things this way will give you dungeon quests which reward gear as well as good xp for doing the first time.

Not only that, you will get to see areas of the game that you otherwise may have missed.

[WarpedAcorn]

You hear it here, stories are tactical and practical. =)