Today’s the NA Rift launch. The Belmont server was iffy last night and is iffy this morning, though maybe it’s just me. I pre-ordered the game, and Amazon says it is in the mail, but perhaps Trion is just trying to prod me into entering the retail game key. They let me slide past with Amazon’s headstart key, but it’s no longer headstart. I have to either put up or shut up.
It was a choice between Rift and Fippy Darkpaw, and I chose Rift… I hope that key gets here today.
As I level and allocate more points to my various souls, my class and I grow into each other as I come to something that works best for what I want to do. The holy grail here, for now, is a spec I can use for everything — rifting, questing and dungeons. Each, though, has their own needs.
Questing is done largely solo, though I’ve grouped with guildies and random pickup players for elite quests, like the ever-popular Defending the Defiant quest in the Stonefields, where you have to kill six epic giants. Groups form for that organically all the time, but in the rogue-heavy world in which we find ourselves, healing and tanking are at a premium.
Rifting is entirely about the DPS. Gear bought with Rift rewards is better than quest gear and most crafted gear. If you want to get that gear, you need to do a lot of rifts, and you need to be a top contributor to them. You need quick, ranged damage abilities for those, since having to run to your next target kills your contribution.
Dungeons are the one place where you are required to find your role and stick to it; it’s the most formal of Rift’s three methods of advancement.
So clearly, to do everything, I’m going to need to be some bizarre chimera of tanker, healer and DPS. This is where the synergies come in to play.
As a bard main, I have two group heals — a 30 second lesser heal over time, and a larger group heal that is based off the combo points I leave on a monster. As a ranger secondary, I have a very fast combo point builder, Quick Strike, which I have enhanced to leave the target in a bleeding state (which can be used to trigger other effects). I then have my assassin tertiary to give me a permanent boost to attack, a poison attack and I believe eventually a talent to build off bleeding mobs.
My pet tanks when solo — With my bard heals plus the ranger pet heal, he can tank epic mobs. He is DPS in Rifts and I usually have him parked in dungeons lest he go running off where he isn’t supposed to go or attack things he shouldn’t.
I don’t even know if this is a good build; there’s probably better bard builds. I really appreciate, though, being able to construct exactly the sort of rogue I want to play. Hell, I even have bard run speed.
My guild has a surplus of rogues, a fair number of warriors, only a few clerics and just a couple mages. I expected clerics to be the number one class because of their versatility, and I know the guild leaders are worried about our cleric population when raiding. I’m surprised at so few mages, though. Back in EQ, a good wizard or enchanter was a real boon for a raiding guild. I can only guess they aren’t great soloers, though it would seem they’d be a natural for rifting.
That said, I have zero interest in starting over with a new character. I might be able to push bard healing to a point where it would be useful in a raid, though the lack of any direct heal so far means I could never replace a cleric. Since I don’t play a tank well, and I have never really clicked with casters, I imagine I’ll be starting a cleric as my first alt — AFTER I get to 50.
Because that’s the deal with WoW-likes, and for all its innovation, Rift is still a WoW-like. You get a character to max level so it can farm for your alt until eventually you have two or more characters available to fill guild needs.
Level 24 in the Stonefields; tonight, if I get out of work, hoping for 25 and maybe a run through Deepstrike Mines.
18 thoughts on “Rift: Synergies”
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No Clerics? Rogues abound? Few Mages?
Sounds odd to me!
Okay, I only played the first 3-4 Betas… even if the emphasis is on immediate burst DPS to score high in the Rift events, I can only wonder. Mages and Clerics have AoE abilities, instant DoTs, can’t see why they should not be able to compete with Rogues. Marksman with Pet and Bard seems to have become pretty popular though and the Marksman soul was even nerfed.
Why not start a Cleric right now? I really liked the Cleric souls more than the Warrior souls, and my smexy Ethian Cleric was hyper-efficient as Rifter and Healer in dungeons as well.
I would, but I don’t want to be in the launch day crush. I’ll just go with the plan.
TBH, I haven’t looked at my guild makeup, but I don’t get the sense that we’re out of balance. Th only guildie I’ve actually grouped with so far was another mage. I was in IT last night with a cleric tanking, another cleric dps’ing, a mage healing, and me and the rogue also dps’ing, so 2 clerics, 2 mages, and 1 rogue.
I actually have 1 of each — mage is 21, rogue is 14, cleric 13, and warrior 11. As a result, I’ll be able to “do it all” sooner or later. Looks to be very fun!
And for rifts I put my mage into healer mode and am generally at gold level contribution in spite of having piss-poor dps as a chloro. It’s not all about damage, it’s also about healing. . . but if you’re a dps only character then yeah, range is a HUGE help, as is AOE.
I’m playing a mage! I never meant to, it just kind of happened. And I am loving it. You’re absolutely right, though, we are pretty rare on Faeblight, which seems to be about 60% rogues. Plenty of clerics though.
The really surprising thing, though, is the incredibly robust soloing build I have stumbled upon. In beta I had two builds, one a Pyro/Elementalist/Warlock which was my DPS/Solo build and the other Necro/Chloro//Dominator which was my Healer build. I was going to replicate this in Headstart, but for my second role on a whim I turned it around a little and went with Chloro/Dominator/Stormcaller.This turned out be not only a good enough healing build to main heal in Realm of the Fae, but a much, MUCH better soloist than the Elementalist/Pyro. This is completely counter-intuitive and says to me just how much you have to be ready to think laterally when combing these souls.
I now have a cloth-wearing healer who solos without any form of pet or root to keep mobs off him. He straight up tanks any solo mob two or three levels above him and can handle not just adds but multiple adds. His record so far is five mobs his own level simultaneously. And to do this, he barely has to cast an actual direct heal. He plays much like a Vanguard disciple, with his healing coming directly from the damage he does and the damage mobs try to do to him. Very fun indeed.
I really wasn’t planning on making fiddling about with builds a big part of my Rift experience, but this has made me a lot more curious to see just how the various souls function and potentially adds a lot of replayability.
I noticed the in-balance between classes as well; most of the people running around are rogues; cleric and especially mages are much harder to find. Not that this is a really big problem, as all souls have some kind of healing/tanking/dps. I do find it a bit weird that mages aren’t popular: I played one till level 6, and it was a breeze (I know, only lv 6, but got me thinking about starting one myself)
For rifts: although I’m a cleric, I’m mostly running around in my aoe spec (cabalist), only using my 2nd (warden-healing) role for dungeons (and pvp yesterday). Almost no survivability, but that’s probably just me 😛 Very usefull during massive invasions 😀
“I can only guess they aren’t great soloers, though it would seem they’d be a natural for rifting.”
what?
The pet mages are very good soloers. And a good mage nuker can make a lot of damage at a rift. I normally am top damage, I just throw AoE to all sides against mobs at rifts and invasions.
I played a necromancer/warlock at beta. It was easy for me fight 3 mobs at same time and kill elite mobs. I am playing elementalist/stormcaller now, it is a diferent pet mage, it work diferently than a necromancer, but it is easy to fight 2-3 mobs and kill elite mobs, but it have the advantage to have more AoE nukes (mostly from stormcaller side…).
My guess is that the reason why there are so few mages is not soloably or damage output. It is player preferences.
With the soul system is possible to customise any class a player want to create. A rogue tank? Easy! A mage healer? Just stick to chloromancer as main soul!
If players in your guild prefer to play rogues, IMHO it is because they like to play rogues. It is not because other classes make less damage or are less capable of solo.
Hey Tipa I have a Ranger question for you. I have a skill (I believe its a ‘branch’ skill so you may not have it) that is reactive based on when my pet gets a crit. I find it really hard to track that. On other characters I’ve been able to put the reactive skill right up there in the middle of the battle, but unless I’m missing/forgetting something, I can’t seem to do that with a Ranger reactive that’s based on what the Pet does.
So I was wondering a) if you took this skill (I think it’s called Rend Flesh or something) and b) if you have any UI tips for using it effectively. Unless I stare at my hotbars I always miss the chance to use it.
On Faeblight, when the planets align and I’m able to get in, I’m playing a warrior specced for melee. He is awful in Rifts, particularly the low level, easy Rifts he’s seeing now (he’s only 13 or 14). He basically runs around the rift, constantly getting to a mob just as someone else kills it. My contribution is awful.
But he delights me when questing because he’s so darned fun to play. So I think I’ll use Role #2 for a dedicated Rifting role, but haven’t really decided how to create that yet.
Ranger is my secondary soul, so I have focused on pet health and healing more than pet DPS, though I am working toward dire wolf so may get some more.
I’d just make a macro with your combo builder skill that includes the pet reactive, so you’ll naturally hit it when it comes up.
There’s probably also the perception from the forums that mages kinda suck. I don’t know where it comes from — most likely just some bad players who haven’t learned how their spells work and/or been creative enough to make good use of them in various scenarios/situations. My mage is my main and I found last night that I absolutely love my SC’s AE’s in dungeons. They’re fun solo too, but especially fun in dungeons when I have less to worry about as far as peeling mobs 😉
In the betas I’d always gone Chloro in the dungeons, and I liked that a ton as well — so much so that I actually was staying chloro solo with a 0-point Ele tank pet. Kill speed might not have been super fast but the survivability was insane and I could easily solo 2 elite mobs simultaneously (so long as the pet kept aggro on them both, anyway).
Yup, loves me my mage!
sounds like you’re having fun 🙂
hoping to get the game today; keep us updated on the diverseness of the classes (whether it stays heavy in dps, or there becomes more mages); i love to pick a class that no one likes to use, so i’m going to go non-rogue (probably a tank/mage)
For my warrior I went with Riftblade as the primary so I’ve got range. My rifting with it so far has been standing back and spamming my flame spear. Usually manage gold level participation, though I have been silver a couple of times. Same with my ranger — just stand back and plink. Heck, before I got my AE’s on my mage I’d just spam my Neural Prod (instant cast lightning spell) and still usually manage gold participation too.
On my cleric, I’ve got warden as my 3rd soul so I have the option of spamming waterjet, but so far I’ve tried to melee it up since I’m a justicar/shaman as the main part. It works well enough and I’ve gotten blue shards a few times — really just a matter of anticipating where the mobs will spawn so you don’t have to run around too much, and if the next one’s too far away then spam waterjet as you run up to it so that you’re always contributing and not just running around doing nothing.
Sounds like I have to look at Macros, which I haven’t yet.
And I’ll check out the Riftblade soul… I haven’t paid much attention to that one. Thanks pkudude99.
I think part of the reason there are so many rogues is the misconception that DPS is everything for Rifts, and rogues in most games are good dpsers with more survivability than mages. However, it’s not true that dps is king when it comes to rift contribution. If you’re a rogue and all you can do is dps, then yes, dps is what you need to maximize. But I’ve mostly been playing a full Justicar (cleric tank) and if I can get and hold aggro from mobs for most of the fight I will get gold contribution pretty much every time.
The key to doing well is to try your hardest to be at the rift from the start, and watch for the spawn points. A pillar of energy shows where mobs are going to spawn, so if you don’t have range you go stand next to one. Tank the mob that appears and you’re golden. If you can get and hold aggro from the boss mobs you are pretty much guaranteed a blue shard, assuming the rift is strong enough to award them.
Healing also awards great contribution, especially group heals!
Tonight, based on a chat with a friend at work who also plays Rift (HOW COOL IS THAT?), I tried just healing in Rifts — worked great, got gold contrib and my first blue greater essence which I put to immediate use.
So thanks for the great suggestions!
Not much has changed in that players still think pew-pew is best. I always heal rifts unless it’s a small group and we need more bodies on mobs but I often find myself the only person healing even though multiple callings have healing souls. I get top contribution a lot and by day three already had all the planar gear for my without trying. Healing rifts is good!
@PASMITH
if you go into the interface options screen (it’s called layout maybe) you’ll see a box for the reactive skills.
You can move that up to sit next to your toon, so that when the skill is available, a button pops up right next to the mob you’re fighting.
I found this very helpful.
Thank you Buboe! Y’know I’m pretty sure I had that on in beta when I was playing a Paladin but had forgotten all about it. Because that’s exactly what happened for him…the reactive popped up right next to the mob I was fighting. I just needed someone to whack me on the head to remind me. 🙂 So thanks!