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.