Tanking in Rift.

[Fencers]

Quick question:
How viable is Rogue tanking atm?
Forgot the soul name, but it was basicly a rogue with 2 1h weapons for tanking.
Can I tank dungeons/raids? I remember them being "unliked" a while ago.

In PVE Rift is very well balanced right now. All tanking souls are equally viable. But not for all encounters. Which is by design.

Riftstalker underwent huge changes. They are the most aggro heavy tank in the game now. You won't lose mobs and 90%of their attacks are aoes.

[Aydinx2]

In PVE Rift is very well balanced right now. All tanking souls are equally viable. But not for all encounters. Which is by design.

Riftstalker underwent huge changes. They are the most aggro heavy tank in the game now. You won't lose mobs and 90%of their attacks are aoes.

YEAH BABY.
Also: you just made waiting for F2P alot harder.....must not subscribe ;_;

[Fencers]

The thing to remember in Rift is despite the illusion of flexibility of the soul trees, there is still the "one spec to rule them all".

You understand choice and optimal choice are two concepts that can coexist, yes?

[Nobleshield]

You understand choice and optimal choice are two concepts that can coexist, yes?

Not for endgame content they can't.

[Fencers]

Not for endgame content they can't.

They can.

Neither one invalidates the other. It's not possible regardless of game mode unless a game mode is exclusively accessed by a single player choice.

[Deleted]

They can.

Neither one invalidates the other. It's not possible regardless of game mode unless a game mode is exclusively accessed by a single player choice.

2h Void Knight tanking go! (It's truly an awesome spec by the looks of it, too bad you need a really good weapon to do it).

[Primalthirst]

Tanking in Rift right now is probably the most balanced I've seen in my MMO career. I personally spent months of my life testing and providing feedback to the devs to get them that way in perparation for Storm Legion :P

Any of the tanking souls (Reaver/Paladin/Void Knight for Warrior, Justicar for Cleric or Riftstalker for Rogue) are very evenly matched in most areas. There are certain fights where one or more type is slightly inferior (especially Void Knights when they get Mind Controlled, it gets messy) but there isn't really any time you can stand up and say 'This tank is the only one you use on this encounter.'

Personally I quite enjoy tanking in Rift, most of the time it's suitably engaging and gives me that ego boost I sorely need as the 'most important' person in the raid.

[celinamuna]

Was messing around in rift and trying to play Riftstalker and it seemed fun but i haven't really noticed much of active gameplay that makes me currently enjoy tanking in WoW.

Was wondering if any of the rift tanks play similarly to Mists prot paladins : Active mitigation, decent dps + self heal.
Plus was wondering if leveling through quests as prot is remotely viable, currently ran into odd situation when my demolition spec can 1shot most groups of mobs my level, while riftstalker takes forever to kill even 1.

[Fencers]

The Cleric soul of Justicar is similar to a World of Warcraft Paladin.

[celinamuna]

The Cleric soul of Justicar is similar to a World of Warcraft Paladin.

As in holy, and healing or active mitigation (akin current prot paladin / monk tanking, not faceroll avoidance / block)

[Fencers]

As in holy, and healing or active mitigation (akin current prot paladin / monk tanking, not faceroll avoidance / block)

Erm. I don't know what you are saying. Half your sentence reads like gibberish to me.

I only actually played World of Warcraft seriously from classic to TBC and was a Prot Warrior main. Forgive my ignorance of current World of Warcraft.

Here is what I mean in more detail: Justicar is a tanking spec with active mitigation and self healing. Alternatively, one can mix in minor Justicar with healing souls to provide support/healing to varying effectiveness [depending on spec/encounter].

In Rift the Warrior soul Paladin is more akin to a Knight than a Paladin in the Everquest style [where WoW stole it's Paladin from]. Whereas the Cleric Justicar soul is more in line with the classical Paladin archetype of self sufficient, magic based tank w/ off role utility via sustained healing or buffs/debuffs.

[Deleted]

Serious? 20? or... "you make joke?" ~ did Borat come through with that comment?

---------- Post added 2013-05-16 at 02:26 AM ----------



Warrior, probably - it can play a class similar to WoW DK and Warrior as well as WoW elemental shaman.

Oh, a cleric tank was different to wow paladin - I had a paladin.

Rift is more raid "awareness" orientated than rotation orientated for tanks from my experience.

seriously guys 20 no lie.

[korgan.nailo]

In Rift the Warrior soul Paladin is more akin to a Knight than a Paladin in the Everquest style [where WoW stole it's Paladin from]. Whereas the Cleric Justicar soul is more in line with the classical Paladin archetype of self sufficient, magic based tank w/ off role utility via sustained healing or buffs/debuffs.

Did you know that even before games the Paladin was always the "tank / healer" class in RPG? AD&D and others always had it like that. One could say Everquest actually used that idea, or WoW too even.


Now, first of all, excuse me for necroing this thread, but perhaps one of the many people that wrote here could help me out.

First some background: I've played for years in WoW always as a tank. Had all four (didn't play MoP), ended up ditching the DK in the end but simply and absolutely loved tanking in that game, specially as a paladin.

It comes as no surprise that the lack of heals or per say support in a Warrior,Paladin build in Rift is bothering me a bit, thus why I'm considering trying a Cleric,Justicar.

But the question I would like to ask is this: does anyone else find tanking a bit "disconnected" from the game?

Allow me to explain. When I'm tanking in WoW, you have clear visual or auditive references to let you know how far an ability would hit and if it was used for example. There is always a "clue". In Rift, it seems like I'm just pressing buttons and the only clue I have is basically if the button has a cooldown animation going on. Those things give me a very degraded sensation about tanking. Is it just me? Is there anything I can do to improve that?

[Fencers]

Did you know that even before games the Paladin was always the "tank / healer" class in RPG? AD&D and others always had it like that. One could say Everquest actually used that idea, or WoW too even.

I played D&D back in the 70s. Up to present actually. There is no concept of a "tank" or class trinity in D&D or AD&D core.

It wasn't until video games came along and popularized the idea of a role trinity and tanking role that D&D incorporated those elements into their core rulesets.

The often heard complaints of, "3.x/4.x is too much like a video game!" among the D&D player base exists for a reason. There was no such concept to the core rules previous. Tanking and role trinity are recent conventions.

[korgan.nailo]

I played D&D back in the 70s. Up to present actually. There is no concept of a "tank" or class trinity in D&D or AD&D core.

It wasn't until video games came along and popularized the idea of a role trinity and tanking role that D&D incorporated those elements into their core rulesets.

The often heard complaints of, "3.x/4.x is too much like a video game!" among the D&D player base exists for a reason. There was no such concept to the core rules previous. Tanking and role trinity are recent conventions.

Interesting, I didn't know that for the newer versions of D&D. I just remember having a paladin in our group using a shield and usually positioning himself between then group and the big bad breath weapon of the lovely dragon, and going crazy with lay on hands and things like that trying to save folks around when everything else was going bad, thus my Tank / Healer comment.

I was hoping you would have said something about everything else in my post. =p

[Pachycrocuta]

Interesting, I didn't know that for the newer versions of D&D. I just remember having a paladin in our group using a shield and usually positioning himself between then group and the big bad breath weapon of the lovely dragon, and going crazy with lay on hands and things like that trying to save folks around when everything else was going bad, thus my Tank / Healer comment.

I was hoping you would have said something about everything else in my post. =p

Everquest took the idea of the Paladin from D&D, or at least it seems that way, and Blizzard took it from EQ, though Rift's Paladin isn't much like the others, except it deals life (holy) damage and is tanky.

As for Fencers, I never heard anyone complain that 3rd edition was like a video game, though 4th edition was compared to WoW, with it's encounter and daily and at-will powers and the roles (both for players and monsters). 4th edition was when the "trinity" was incorporated, defenders being the tanks, strikers the dps, controllers the CC role, and leaders being healers (though also buffers, I believe, since the healing surge helped make everyone able to heal). Never played it, as 4th edition didn't appeal to me (went to Pathfinder instead). D&D has always had the "healer" role, which was usually relegated to the cleric. Having tanks is rather new, though I am sure there have been a lot of people who have played fighters and paladins and possibly even some barbarians as tanks, but there really was no way to gain "aggro" as that all depended on the DM, but from what I have heard, 4th edition added in something like that. Not to mention the monsters having roles, like minions, elites, solos, brutes, and a few others.

[Fencers]

I was hoping you would have said something about everything else in my post. =p

I don't play World of Warcraft.

What you described is not my experience in Rift. I feel it is the best tanking experience short of Vindictus.

I felt nothing but indifference to World of Warcraft's gameplay. It was not an MMO I felt was respectable.

As for Fencers, I never heard anyone complain that 3rd edition was like a video game

I was fairly active on the Wizards boards from 3.0 to 3.5 in the D&D, CO and D&D Modern forums. 3.x being "video gamey" was a common complaint.

[Deleted]

I've tanked in WoW for years and a bit on Rift. The main difference is threat. I don't know how WoW is nowadays but back in the day you couldn't really slack if your dpsers were good. In Rift its far far easier to build and maintain threat which is interesting because it allows you to fully focus on mechanics, avoiding shit, proper cooldown usage, etc etc.

Each class its strengths and weaknesses, Rogue tanking is very involving, highest mobility by far, highest health pool (really good for progression) and a very big arsenal of oh shit buttons. Oh, and no, rogue tanking is not really evasion-based (thats what I first assumed coming from WoW).

Warrior tanking is a bit more straightforward wow-warrior-like (like people said warrior paladin tanking is NOT like wow paladin tanking).
Warrior tanks easily do the most DPS while tanking and have the most tanking souls. Overall very solid and unlike rogues/clerics which essentially only have 1 spec, warriors can have multiple tanking specs for different encounters.

Cleric tanks are like WoW paladin tanks, only tanks that can provide stuff like aoe-cleanses and other usefull supportive spells, only tank that has a combat res, they can do decent group healing while tanking and their ranged aoe-threat can be insane.

In general all 3 classes are 100% viable for endgame raiding and currently really nicely balanced. In general clever guilds try to have tanks from all classes and you'll rarely, if ever, see pugs raids or guilds recruiting looking for a specific class/role. And if so it'll be to diversify, not because of strengths/weaknesses.

[DerRot]

I've tanked in WoW for years and a bit on Rift. The main difference is threat. I don't know how WoW is nowadays but back in the day you couldn't really slack if your dpsers were good. In Rift its far far easier to build and maintain threat which is interesting because it allows you to fully focus on mechanics, avoiding shit, proper cooldown usage, etc etc.

WoW increased the tanks threat from a 3x factor of their damage to a 5x factor of their damage. This was done in conjunction with the move of all the tanks from a passive mitigation model to one more like the DK active mitigation model... this systems change went into effect just before MoP's release.

Threat is no longer that much of an issue especially since active mitigation also has brought in the fact that tanks now do want some hit and expertise to ensure they build resources for their active mitigation.

This lead to some interesting stat choices for some tanks. Paladins for example to increase the uptime of their active physical mitigation found it advantageous to actually cap hit to 7.5% and expertise to 15% to ensure that they reliably were able to generate the resource that fueled their active mitigation ability. Also they went to haste afterwards to increase their Holy Power (active mitigation resource) even faster.

This of course led to weird instances of some dps gear also being quite ideal for the Paladin tank too.

As for how tanks play in Rift compared to WoW. As another person said Rift tanking feels like tanks did in WoW prior to the introduction of the DK class. get as much mitigation stats and health as possible. Whereas after WoW 5.0 tanking became a whole different and more interesting ballgame. In fact if it weren't for the lackluster content I'd prefer to tank in WoW still because the overhaul they did for tanking was a huge improvement imo for that aspect of WoW

[Drunkenfinn]

Take my opinion with a grain of salt as I only played Rift when it was first released (played it for a good 4 months or so) and I ended up tanking on my Warrior.

In my opinion it was really fun and engaging and with the Soul-system you can really experiment and come up with fun niches for different encounters... I remember there being some 5-man boss that would pretty much one-shot you unless you overgeared it or specced into this 100% parry-chance for X seconds every X seconds and kited in-between the cooldowns. Some goat-guy with a 2h axe or something. And you had to do the kiting/LoSing perfectly or you'd get charged and oneshot :P

It was fun.