Rift: Random Question Thread

[Aristio]

I'm leaning on the edge of quitting. With Cleric class so bad right now, and the lack of anything close to a balanced PVP, it's just not in me to bring myself to grind another reputation just for +X stats. The game just isn't fun anymore for me. The last straw for me was learning that I couldn't get the runes I want because the materials are from breaking Raid-quality gear. I never had to break Raid quality gear pre-SL and I hate that I have to now.

With how much of end game gear is bought with Infiinity Stones (Need around 800 stones just to fully upgrade a body piece), it's just a ridiculous grind for another grind that I don't find fun.

[Shiyo]

Curious about how "End game" works in this game. What is the best way to get PVP Gear? Is it 100% random bgs? Is there lots of incentive to world pvp, lots of world pvp happening, gear from world pvp, or any world pvp at all? Are there rated bgs, arenas?

Is raiding the only way to progress your character at end game to the fullest, can you do 5 mans and get equal gear to raiders, are 5 mans equally as hard as raids, is there more content than just "instant adventure -> 5 mans - > heroics - > raids"? What is the point of normal rifts, craft rifts, PVp rifts, raid rifts, 5 man rifts and instant adventure? Can you pug all the different types of rifts? Will you be forced to join a raiding guild and do raids to do all the end game content this game has to offer?

Are all classes/specs equally as strong now? Does every calling have 9 actual different, strong, unique classes, or still 2-3?

[Crizto]

You get PvP gear by playing in BG's or the game's take on large-scale PvP, Conquest. There are no rated BG's or Arenas and I don't believe their are plans to implement it.

Raiding is the best and really only way to progress your character to the fullest. The sequence of "instant adventure -> 5 mans - > heroics - > raids" is pretty much the game in a nutshell. Right now if you are not raiding on a day you are doing other content for the purpose of gaining Reputation for various factions. Craft/PvP Rifts do not happen much anymore, mostly Hunt/Raid Rifts which people farm for hours to gain Reputation for two important factions. Instant Adventures are once again farmed for Reputation for certain runes.

Everything right now is can be done in a PUG, however they have not been able to clear current raids but rather the first few bosses and the 10-man. I'd consider the only entertaining part of this game is the raiding scene. I only raid 2 days a week, so for the other 5 days I simply log in to participate in Conquest to keep my Conquest Power from dipping too low (takes about 10min of my day at most). Since I have all relevant reputation maxed out I raid-log or slowly play an alt.

The class balance right now is the only positive thing in my opinion. Everyone has very equal melee and ranged DPS capabilities with all 4 callings have a few specs to play around with. I wouldn't say people have 9 specs worth playing, perhaps more around 5-6. Certain souls have been designed towards solo play so they are not acceptable in raids most of the time (every calling has 1 or 2 of those). So if you're considering restarting the game or starting fresh I would advise against it. I have already cancelled my sub but still have 8 months left to play with so I'm just logging in to play for raids. The game became very grindy with reputation with little to no fun content outside of raids. Dungeons are still fun if they are relevant and you don't out gear them though.

[Shiyo]

What is conquest?

That's also a shame about raids being the only real focus, that's exactly what I thought ;_; I was hoping they veered away from the instant adventure -> 5 mans - > heroics - > raids model after ~2 years, but I guess not. That's the same model WOW followed and was incredibly unfun, oh well. Thanks for your honest answer!

[arus2001]

Some Rift people hate me simply because I grumble about the game being too raid-centric on their board. Alternative progression paths are a bad thing, yo!

But judging by what you're looking for with PvP from things I've seen you say in GW2 and Tera threads, Rift won't satisfy you. Open world PvP is largely dead and it's all warfront/battleground for majority progression. Conquest is basically taking one of the game's zones to an instance with no mobs, putting a bunch of points on it, and telling 3 teams to capture X amount to start a final countdown to determine who wins with the most when it's over. This usually just means zerg vs. zerg, and the game engine is very meh for high player count encounters... which can easily mean being killed by things you simply can't see. Rogues/Stealthing can also be stupid cheesy, and last I heard, that calling is pretty much FotM in PvP for either that or ease of ranged play.

Non-raid endgame is just grind, grind, grind for gear effectively 2 tiers inferior to raid stuff. Given how some souls/abilities scale, this can mean anywhere between a 50-400% increase in potential if you have said stuff and someone else doesn't. Granted, PvP is a bit of a different animal for balancing with stats like Valor/Vengeance and some moves being deliberately nerfed, but I'll also say it's no fun being curb stomped by R80's when you're a low rank just trying to build currency/rank.

[Shiyo]

Wait, TWO tiers inferior? The fuck? Why would it be that far behind?

Sigh, I was really hoping Rift wouldn't still be following an archaic MMO model 2 years later, but I guess that was too much to hope for.

[arus2001]

Yeah, right now it's get Dungeon gear, Update that, then Raid gear, then update that. The open world counterpart stops at updated dungeon gear, and it's a significant grind reliant on a mix of zone event frequency and dailies. Should also note Dungeon/Raid stuff has in-betweenish drops within until you get currencies built up, too.

[Raen Ryong]

Non-raid endgame is just grind, grind, grind for gear effectively 2 tiers inferior to raid stuff. Given how some souls/abilities scale, this can mean anywhere between a 50-400% increase in potential if you have said stuff and someone else doesn't. Granted, PvP is a bit of a different animal for balancing with stats like Valor/Vengeance and some moves being deliberately nerfed, but I'll also say it's no fun being curb stomped by R80's when you're a low rank just trying to build currency/rank.

There aren't many r80s around! The gear differential between r80 and full Merc also isn't very large. I have no problem dominating and my PvP gear is awful.

[Prothescar]

Didn't they normalize all PvP gear stats like a year ago? Or did R80 add a new tier of PvP stats?

[arus2001]

They added bolstering, which I think just gives you the lowest possible PvP equipment stats in a slot that's not PvP gear so newbies aren't totally facerolled. Only in the level 60 brackets, too. But there's still noticeable differences between those who play a lot and those who don't, and not just in skill. Still say warrior has it worst with weak/minimal self-healing options, defense not really meaning thing against elemental attacks most other range classes use, only 1 snare in the Paragon tree, and limited gap closing measures. They were a lot better off in 1.7/pre-soul revamps with RB/Champ/VK builds at least in keeping up with people, especially if people bothered to cure you, but without support.. yeah, splat. Now you almost have to play Tempest if you're not being cured.

[Senji]

Rift is pretty dead, it was always a wow clone with rifts and Trion tanked it. Open world pvp is completely dead, regular warfronts are dead, essentially only the abomination of conquest remains. That's why you don't see any R80's, everyone left. Good luck even finding an on the ball raiding guild.

You could dink around casually, but I couldn't imagine doing that for more than a couple hours between a day or two each week.

[Raen Ryong]

They added bolstering, which I think just gives you the lowest possible PvP equipment stats in a slot that's not PvP gear so newbies aren't totally facerolled. Only in the level 60 brackets, too. But there's still noticeable differences between those who play a lot and those who don't, and not just in skill. Still say warrior has it worst with weak/minimal self-healing options, defense not really meaning thing against elemental attacks most other range classes use, only 1 snare in the Paragon tree, and limited gap closing measures. They were a lot better off in 1.7/pre-soul revamps with RB/Champ/VK builds at least in keeping up with people, especially if people bothered to cure you, but without support.. yeah, splat. Now you almost have to play Tempest if you're not being cured.

Warrior is in my opinion the best calling at PvP right now.

Tempest provides exceptional damage output for the first 16 points (even the first 15 make it a wonderful complement to 61 point builds). 61 RB is highest DPS in the game, and RB/Tempest is absolutely insane.

As far as closers go, you have Riftwalk/Rift Teleport/Rift Summon/Sergeant's Order/General's Order/Thunderous Leap/Fleet of Foot/Bull Rush, all of which do it nicely for you (as well as the Warlord ones and whatever else I'm forgetting). Riftblade has two stuns, Tempest has one. VK is very strong for a tank and has really nasty healer (and other caster) pressure tools. Warlord is a fantastic soul and creates many strong hybrids.

The only problem with Warrior at the moment is lack of Snare except in Paragon imo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc2uz7v07tY - she's only 59 at the moment but will give you a nice idea of how devastating Warrior is.

I'd say Mage is the weakest in PvP at the moment.

Rift is pretty dead, it was always a wow clone with rifts and Trion tanked it. Open world pvp is completely dead, regular warfronts are dead, essentially only the abomination of conquest remains. That's why you don't see any R80's, everyone left. Good luck even finding an on the ball raiding guild.

I don't think this is true! Open world may be more or less dead due to lack of incentives, but warfronts are very much alive at all levels and waiting for a pop very uncommon. There are plenty of r80s, though not many compared to how many PvPers in total, and a good number of raiding guilds.

[arus2001]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc2uz7v07tY - she's only 59 at the moment but will give you a nice idea of how devastating Warrior is.

Trion doesn't balance the game around sub-60s, as well as PvP stats being absent from sub-60 gear. So, while I don't doubt you're doing okay there, it is a different ballgame at cap. And the main problem with the listed closers is their recast times. Other classes are more abundant in their snares and escapes, so if you don't kill someone who can kite you quickly, you're either dead or wasting time. The 50 cap build I mentioned was good because Riftwalk used to refresh on crits and you could have a 25%+ crit rate or more. Now, crit rates are about half that while the refresh rate also has a cooldown. You're easy prey for anyone who knows wtf they're doing, which I also wouldn't expect in sub-60 caps.

[Raen Ryong]

Trion doesn't balance the game around sub-60s, as well as PvP stats being absent from sub-60 gear. So, while I don't doubt you're doing okay there, it is a different ballgame at cap. And the main problem with the listed closers is their recast times. Other classes are more abundant in their snares and escapes, so if you don't kill someone who can kite you quickly, you're either dead or wasting time. The 50 cap build I mentioned was good because Riftwalk used to refresh on crits and you could have a 25%+ crit rate or more. Now, crit rates are about half that while the refresh rate also has a cooldown. You're easy prey for anyone who knows wtf they're doing, which I also wouldn't expect in sub-60 caps.

I play at cap a lot too! I've been whatever the max PvP rank has been since late 2011, except no r80 at the moment because I haven't been super happy with the state of PvP (plus leveling alts!).

Riftwalk now refreshes whenever Planar Blade procs, and the procrate is actually about 30%. It's no longer based on critrate!

All you need to do with RB/Tempest is Rift Strike in melee very 20s, and after that you can fight entirely at range. You're not kiteable. If you want to melee for the extra DPS, you certainly have enough options to do so (though a Snare would be nice).

As for people knowing what to do, I find that about 50+ the amount of people who know how to PvP is about the same (read: next to nobody). 60 cap is just as easy as 50-59, just that there is a slight gear gap. There are only a small handful of players I consider a threat.

[arus2001]

It's kind of sad that the ability to do cross-shard events is probably the best thing that's happened to the game in a while, and it wasn't even intended. Just hope they expand and streamline it a bit more.

[Hellfury]

On tactician (Rogue) is there any way to increase Energy outside of the soultrees (and gear?)

[Raen Ryong]

Energy is always /100 unless influenced by Soul Trees.

[Hellfury]

aw ah well, thanks for answering

[Hellfury]

I can't seem to find any planarite gear merchants in the Storm Legion areas for 50+ gear. Am I missing something here or did they make planarite "irrelevant" outside of traps post-50?

[arus2001]

Yes and no. The new vendor gear for 50+ is acquired via Empyreal Sourcestones, with I think the first stuff being wearable at 50-51 with everything being upgradable at 54. Some pieces, depending on class, will have a level 57 upgrade, but they'll also require a dungeon drop. Otherwise, the NPCs that sell these are sub-titled with Adventure Dealer. Should be one in TB and the two "big camps" in the starter SL zones. From here, you can buy essences with Lycini and Torvan rep, which require a mix of planarite and stones as well as the appropriate rank. These are sold in TB with all the other gear/lure merchants. Level 60 equipment jumps over to Infinity Stones, with the first pieces having planarite reqs. Essences will continue to have mixed reqs, too.

Come the 12th, you'll be able to buy any of this stuff out in the field via the new vendor window/F2P shop. Note that anything bought with currency now can still be bought with currency then, instead of throwing RL money at it. So it's a bit of a time saver, too.