[MMO] Rift - Discussion

[Punter]

Any of you tried a "sword&shield" tank leveling toon?
I love the Warrior calling and found that 2H for leveling was really quicker and to some point awesomer!

But I really like the Tanking side of some souls but...how are the DPS when you find yourself simply leveling your toon? How long it takes to kill a mob with only a 1H weapon and your shield?

With Rift, I want to try something new, something I did not tried in earlier MMOs and single player RPGs in the past...

So, how's the Warriors defensive souls faring?

Yes, I played a Reaver til lvl 18 or so and it was a lot of fun. Once you get the ability to have your Reaver DOTs tick on multiple mobs (Lvl 6 Plague Bringer) you become an AOE killing machine. Quite a lot of fun while soloing; round up 3-4 mobs and aoe them down. Match it with Riftblade and you have a good PvP build with plenty of ranged ability. You are still a tank though, so don't expect to out DPS other classes.

Reaver is an AOE tank; Paladin is a more standard tank that seems to be more defensive. I had fun with both but the AOE possibilities of Reaver I enjoyed most.

If I was not so attached to healing I would probably be Reaver build as it can be adapted to any facet of the game and remain fun.

 

[KaOTiK]

I can't wait for headstart to well, start. I really liked bard and bladedancer (was it?) a lot, but I enjoy a lot of the cleric trees. I didn't put much into try out casters but it just didn't click with me and I like mage type classes the most usually. Only warrior soul I really tried was the paladin and I liked it but just didn't grab me like the cleric and rogue souls did.

 

[pontifex]

The collector's edition has a bonus, probably the largest one, of a 24 slot bag as the starting bag. Other bonuses are a pet, a resist buff and a mount but IMHO the biggest is a larger starting bag since bag space can be limited. Direct2drive is running a 20% off sale which will drop it to the same price of the regular retail box. Mine came out to about $53 with tax.



I can see how the first 15-20 levels can be a bit bland. You're still getting into the game. However, I hope there will be long and winding quests later on. These are only wishes but I hope we something similar to the Coldain Ring War in EQ1 where there is an invasion on the Coldain dwarf city. Or perhaps like an EQ epic quest minus tedious camping. Some of the scripted fights should be like those found in later parts of EQ such as during the Planes of Power expansion. Keep in mind I was not into WoW and largely quit playing after WoW was released so I'm not sure what type of scripted boss fights they have. I want hard fights. I want fights where you need to use skill.

so you still want fetch and kill quests, you just want them to last longer?

 

[Peppered]

The only thing I am worried about is that the Roguee's souls seem to be the most versatile, You can take the major soul of a bard then what ever you want and if dump most of you points in to the bard you will be like a lot in groups for the buffs you give. you could then have a soul with ranger and marksman and solo and do some good dps if you went more into the marksman, or go mostly with a sabator mainly for PVP or lastly Riftstalker for Tanking.

So if I want to play a more traditional tank like a Paladin or a mage class I wont be abel to fill in as many roles as the Rogue class.

This will make the Rogue class very popular I believe.

 

[CurseTheSky]

The only thing I am worried about is that the Roguee's souls seem to be the most versatile, You can take the major soul of a bard then what ever you want and if dump most of you points in to the bard you will be like a lot in groups for the buffs you give. you could then have a soul with ranger and marksman and solo and do some good dps if you went more into the marksman, or go mostly with a sabator mainly for PVP or lastly Riftstalker for Tanking.

So if I want to play a more traditional tank like a Paladin or a mage class I wont be abel to fill in as many roles as the Rogue class.

This will make the Rogue class very popular I believe.

This is true, but also keep in mind that the Mage class has the Cloromancer, which does a lot of group and off-healing. I haven't tried anything other than Rogue and Mage, but I have head that clerics can do melee DPS and Warriors can do some form of support. I agree that Rogues currently seem to be the most versatile (melee DPS, ranged DPS, off-tank, or off-healer / support), but I would imaging that the other classes will be far better at doing their direct jobs, save for perhaps DPS.

And again, that seems to be the beauty of this game - you can tailor your character to do the job you want them to do. Mix in Bard, Riftstalker, and Blade Dancer and you should be able to heal / support / off-tank / DPS all in one. You may not excel at any one area, but you can sure round-out a group if the need arises. If you combine those three together and end up hating it in the late game, no problem! You have three more roles that you can purchase to try other combinations.

I really, REALLY hope the end game is more than just grinding for gear (dungeons, raids, PvP, rep, or rifts). The class system in this game is a huge improvement over WoW, but if that's the only saving grace, it won't be enough to keep me hooked. Time will tell.

 

[Naeeldar]

Going to cancel my 4 accounts for EQ finally and move on to this game. I want to pre-order but was wondering if anybody knew cheapest place to buy? Could care less about the items just want the early start. Otherwise I'll just purchase through Trion's site.

 

[Rhezuss]

Ok finally pre-ordered the CE from D2D with the 20% off promocode...the only thing is that they seem to be "out of keys"...

Out of a digital thing, weird but anyways, hope i'm gonna receive it before headstart...

 

[Rhezuss]

Going to cancel my 4 accounts for EQ finally and move on to this game. I want to pre-order but was wondering if anybody knew cheapest place to buy? Could care less about the items just want the early start. Otherwise I'll just purchase through Trion's site.

If you're quick enough, go to direct2drive and use the promo code hailtothechief for a 20% off. Can be used on every games you buy.

I got the CE for 48 bucks.

Warning: D2D seem to be out of axctivation keys since yesterday and they're waiting to get resupplied from Trion. Not a big deal and i'm sure they'll reayd for headstart.

 

[JoshGuru7]

But I really like the Tanking side of some souls but...how are the DPS when you find yourself simply leveling your toon? How long it takes to kill a mob with only a 1H weapon and your shield? With Rift, I want to try something new, something I did not tried in earlier MMOs and single player RPGs in the past...

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking. Because you can switch souls on the fly, a lot of people have a tank build for their warrior while grouping/rifting and then a solo build while questing. If you are looking for one build that handles both, that seems to miss part of the point of being able to switch roles.

If you are just looking for a good sword and board build to level with, here's what my warrior will be using:
Riftblade/Reaver/Beastmaster (until level 30): http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0cLAt.E000z.xuo
Start with plague bringer, then fork, then flamespear.

Riftblade/Reaver/Paladin (after level 30):
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=1cALh.xuoxzuz.eMozdsMGtzz.xxo
Beastmaster pet stops leveling with you unless you go heavy into the tree, so switch over to Paladin for defense.

For WFs it will almost always be in a VK/Riftblade spec (sorta OP atm).

 

[JoshGuru7]

This is true, but also keep in mind that the Mage class has the Cloromancer, which does a lot of group and off-healing. I haven't tried anything other than Rogue and Mage, but I have head that clerics can do melee DPS and Warriors can do some form of support.

Rogues are a very good class because they can provide top end rDPS (Marksman and Sab), top end mDPS (Nightblade), top end support (Bard), and their tank (Riftstalker) is suprisingly capable as well. I've actually hit higher healing numbers on a 25 bard in beta then I did on a 35 Sent/Warden cleric and the survivability of the bard is much higher. You'll still want a sent/purifier/warden or a chloromancer to main heal in a dungeon, but you can have an extremely effective dungeon group with 4 rogues and one chloro mage.

By comparison, while Clerics can do various roles as well, the mDPS souls(shammy/druid/justi) and rDPS souls (inq/cab) both put out less damage than the comparable rogue souls. The Druid/Justi mDPS build is a bit unique as it provides support healing in addition to good DPS, but as much fun as it is for soloing I think it would be easily replaced for grouping by a bard or a chloro.

 

[Rhezuss]

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking. Because you can switch souls on the fly, a lot of people have a tank build for their warrior while grouping/rifting and then a solo build while questing. If you are looking for one build that handles both, that seems to miss part of the point of being able to switch roles.

If you are just looking for a good sword and board build to level with, here's what my warrior will be using:
Riftblade/Reaver/Beastmaster (until level 30): http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0cLAt.E000z.xuo
Start with plague bringer, then fork, then flamespear.

Riftblade/Reaver/Paladin (after level 30):
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=1cALh.xuoxzuz.eMozdsMGtzz.xxo
Beastmaster pet stops leveling with you unless you go heavy into the tree, so switch over to Paladin for defense.

For WFs it will almost always be in a VK/Riftblade spec (sorta OP atm).

I didn't played long enough to test how every mechanics worked but what do you mean by "switch souls on the fly"? Seems like a dumb question but i'm asking cause I remember picking skills in a soul and they were automatically placed on my toolbar so that you had skills from all 3 souls in the same clutter...do you use 1 tool bar per soul?

 

[akugami]

Yup, same for me - looking for an EST casual Guardian guild.

And, thanks to akugami, I grabbed the collectors addition from D2D for just under $48 (mostly for the pack).

Have the server names been announced yet? I thought I heard that the names would change from Beta.

Glad it helped someone. If you were thinking of trying the game anyways it's good to get the collector's edition for the same price as the regular.

Me and my bro are going Defiant and on EST. Mostly casual stuff or small group stuff is what we're looking at. I don't have the time or inclination to do hardcore raiding. Been there done that. While it was fun being ranked in the top 3 or 4 guilds, it can be taxing with the large scale raids that take multiple hours and especially when you're doing this at least 4 days out of the week.

so you still want fetch and kill quests, you just want them to last longer?

No. Think of one of the best epic quests in an MMO. The first enchanter epic. That was largely a solo or one group operation. It leveraged the enchanter's skills such as increasing faction spells like Alliance or Collaboration as well as using illusions to raise faction in order to get quest items. So there is a stealth component there leveraging our unique spells. Then there were times when we had to charm a quest mob to get our quest turn in. This uses a major component of the enchanter spell arsenal in the charm spells. There was obviously the fights which are somewhat generic. But overall it did leverage the EQ enchanter's spell set and abilities.

Obviously, this isn't going to be possible in a game like Rift where classes are largely irrelevant. You can be whatever class you want within an archetype. While this allows a huge amount of customization it also necessitates a certain overlap in abilities between classes and even archetypes. But I'm hoping they do something creative or even if it's of the fetch or kill mob X variety hopefully the scripted fights are interesting and challenging.

 

[Punter]

I didn't played long enough to test how every mechanics worked but what do you mean by "switch souls on the fly"? Seems like a dumb question but i'm asking cause I remember picking skills in a soul and they were automatically placed on my toolbar so that you had skills from all 3 souls in the same clutter...do you use 1 tool bar per soul?

You have 3 souls per Role. You can get up to 4 separate Roles (purchase from class trainer). You will have to set up your action bars for each Role. You can switch between Roles at any time out-of-combat.

 

[Merad]

Is there any word on a client download yet? Or will we be able to upgrade the beta client?

 

[JoshGuru7]

I didn't played long enough to test how every mechanics worked but what do you mean by "switch souls on the fly"? Seems like a dumb question but i'm asking cause I remember picking skills in a soul and they were automatically placed on my toolbar so that you had skills from all 3 souls in the same clutter...do you use 1 tool bar per soul?

For starters, turn on at least two toolbars at the bottom and one toolbar on the right (setup->interface). As you train your skills put the ones you use a lot on the first toolbar (1-6), and the ones you don't use very much on the others.

There are three labels you should know here: Class, Role, and Soul. That combination of three Souls you are referring to is known as a Role, and once you get a bit higher level you can have up to four different roles that you can switch back and forth with a 2 second cast time out of combat.

For example, let's say you are playing a cleric with three different roles.

Your first role could be a solo leveling build comprised of the Druid, Justicar and Warden souls. This is a great build for doing quests on your own and doing rifting on your own.

Your second role could be a dungeon healing build comprised of the Sentinel, Purifier and Warden. You would switch to this one when you need to do a lot of group healing in a dungeon.

Your third role could be a tank build comprised of Justicar, Shaman and Sentinel. You would switch to this one when you needed to be the tank in a dungeon setting.

In this game there is no point to picking one build that is good at everything, you are better off specializing for a certain task and then switching between specialities as needed.

 

[coloumb]

Is there any word on a client download yet? Or will we be able to upgrade the beta client?

You have to uninstall the beta client from add/remove programs AND delete the beta client folder. Then download the live game client and data [which could be another 7gb+]:

Link to download the client/patcher:

http://www.riftgame.com/en/headstart/index.php

There is an issue with the patcher not downloading the game content which they are working on fixing. Once that's fixed, expect the download servers to be hammered

 

[Rhezuss]

You have to uninstall the beta client from add/remove programs AND delete the beta client folder. Then download the live game client and data [which could be another 7gb+]:

Link to download the client/patcher:

http://www.riftgame.com/en/headstart/index.php

There is an issue with the patcher not downloading the game content which they are working on fixing. Once that's fixed, expect the download servers to be hammered

Ok thanks coloumb and punter!

I guess that those roles don't switch your item sets so when you use a tank role you have to equip the proper equipment for that role?

More bag slots and more farming for items?!? More playing then!

 

[Punter]

Actually my experience has been that you only need one set of gear. For instance melee Shaman Clerics get a passive ability that: Increases the Cleric's Attack Power by their Spell Power, their Physical Crit by their Spell Crit, and their Melee Hit by their Spell Focus. So casters and melee can wear the same items.

You may want a one-hander/shield and 2hander to carry around.

 

[Peppered]

I keep looking at my email for the head start too but I havn't seen a thing yet, I wil have seven days off after I get off work thursday and was realy looking forward to stating the game but looks like I will have to wait. Seems that at least I would get a email that they shiped it.
I was also looking to go with a Warrior type but it seems that they have the least souls to use you are either build a Tank for a group or a DPS then I guess you have your solo Soul too. with the other eclass's being abel to Tank as good it seems a Rouge looks better all the time.

 

[Peppered]

But then again like all MMO games the always have a patch that changes things some times for the good and some time for the bad.
Good thing is though at least 3 of the Souls you can have will keep good even if the nerf one tye of Soul.

 

[Rhezuss]

Actually my experience has been that you only need one set of gear. For instance melee Shaman Clerics get a passive ability that: Increases the Cleric's Attack Power by their Spell Power, their Physical Crit by their Spell Crit, and their Melee Hit by their Spell Focus. So casters and melee can wear the same items.

You may want a one-hander/shield and 2hander to carry around.

Ok thanks for that.

Depends on the gear I guess...maybe in endgame we'll see more diversity in gear so a Warrior would choose X piece over Y piece for tanking or DPS.

Damn I can't wait to play this!

 

[pwilson316]

I was able to run the patch last night. Should be all set to go for the Head Start.

 

[Phobic9]

Yep, got mine all downloaded and patched up before I went to work this morning. My only problem is finding time to play. :hmm:

 

[Rhezuss]

Yep, got mine all downloaded and patched up before I went to work this morning. My only problem is finding time to play. :hmm:

Me too, can't start playing "seriously" until monday the 28th pm...
Better than nothing but my fear is how hard it'll be to find groups for low level dungeons...

 

[coloumb]

Wow - didn't take long for ALL of the servers to become "FULL" - glad I got in to "reserve" 6 character names before the mad rush.