Rift: Random Question Thread

[arus2001]

Currently STR+45, DEX+10, END+83, Block +59, Dodge +30, Life/Death/Water/Earth Resist +16 on my lessers. Imagine there's better hiding amongst raids and expensive synths, but basically how I am for now. :/

[AidenCarby]

Farm your ass off for inscribed sourcestones, there's some bis tanking lesser sheets floating around. Make sure your machine is filled with npc bought lesser essences only. Actually at this point, you're better off farming up 900 inscribed for the 1.6 patch, new/better essences are coming out, they're a bit more expensive but worth the grind.

[arus2001]

Yeah, the lessers I have in now came from the plane vendors with sourcestone costs. Sitting on 83 IS at the moment, though. With no foreseeable expenses on that there, I imagine I'll be closer to 900 by the time 1.6 rolls around.

Edit: Found a decent greater from the Rare Planar vendor in Fortune's Shore. Basically a stoneskin when struck.

[Melena]

There still not very good. Overall you'll get more mitigation from the lessers then you will from a greater.

[arus2001]

Any rhyme or reason to rare spawns for various achievements (like placeholders) or all just stupidly timed luck fests?

[AidenCarby]

Luck fests

[Kuya]

Not sure if this was answered (i'll skim through the thread later), but i would like some suggestions in regards to rougue tanking. I finally got around to buying a fourth slot, so i am thinking of using that for a tanking spec, so i now have a few questions.

1. What combination of souls would you guys suggest? I commonly see riftstalker and bladedancer being paired, so if that's the best combo, what would you suggest as a third soul? Or alternatively, what would you suggest that is not rs/bd?

2. What general tips should i keep in mind while rogue tanking?

3. In relation to whatever soul combination suggested, what macros/routines/cycles should i use?

4. What stats would my equipment need and would that equipment be substantially different to a dps spec? And in relation to that, is there any way to quickly switch between gear sets without having to reequip piece by piece when you switch from a dps to a tank? Forgive me for not knowing about that yet.

[Raen Ryong]

1. 51Riftstalker/8Bladedancer/7Ranger or /7Bladedancer/8Ranger is the "old reliable" There are some new builds people are experimenting with involving 49 RS/17 BD and such though.

2. Get used to keeping up blinks and rationing cooldowns. Think creatively about how you can use your considerable kiting potential to great effect (preferably without cleaving your raid but optional :>)

3. You want a macro like

#show Phantom Blow
suppressmacrofailures
cast Planar Switch <= up to you whether you put this one there; I basically use the ability for an off-GCD free combo point
cast Phantom Blow
cast Planar Strike

and likewise for

#show Rift Disturbance
suppressmacrofailures
cast Rift Disturbance
cast Twin Strike

This is your AoE macro, the first is your singletarget.

Riftstalker was simplified greatly recently and now you basically just have to worry about keeping Guarded Steel up, which is easy. The main thing is remembering to keep Planar Vortex up for threat purposes (plus it sounds cool). For this purpose I recommend having a macro like

#show Shadow Blitz
suppressmacrofailures
cast Shadow Blitz
cast Shadow Assault
cast Shadow Stalk
cast Shadow Warp

this allows you to just get a teleport if you need one (if you space them perfectly, you should never see Shadow Warp. It'll be used (and remember, it requires you to target somewhere on the ground) if you mess up the timing slightly. Furthermore I recommend then putting each individual teleport on separate buttons and then using that one in the situations where you simply don't care which you use.

Flashback/Memory Capture are useful for LOS pulls and kiting. Not much more to say about them.

You will be squishy before you get up your Guarded Steel buff, so it is often worthwhile putting Splinter Shot from Ranger onto your action bar. This way, you can pull a mob with Splinter Shot, warp on top of them while they are still together, and start the fight with 4-5 combo points, allowing for a quick and easy 5 point Guarded Steel. This ability is overlooked a lot of the time.

4. /loadequip x and /saveequip x. x is a number between 1 and 9 (does 0 work? idk). People are still working out which stats are best defensively, simply because Deflect is a very good new defensive stat which thrives on Dexterity... and most tanking gear comes with End/Dodge/Parry. Ie, not dexterity. So people are finding even hybrids or full dex pieces can sometimes outperform... it's all situational. You want a baseline good level of HP for the encounters you're doing and from there you can dabble in Dexterity some (since it gives you Dodge/Deflect, both of which increase the effectiveness of your existing HP).

[Kuya]

2. What does blinking mean? Same as teleporting?

4. Are equipment slots numbered so that /loadequip 1 specifically refers to, for example, head piece? And /saveequip x means that a specific piece of equipment is saved so that when i switch out of that build, and then back, that same piece of equipment will be automatically equiped?

[arus2001]

Saveequip saves the entirety of what you're wearing at the time to that number. You can only change armor when out of battle, but weapons can be swapped. Just be cautious about inventory space if you're going from sword/board or dual-wield to a two-hander, though. Won't let you if your bag is full. You'll also get a warning if a piece of gear is missing from a saved set, which can be kind of annoying.

[Raen Ryong]

Yeah, blink = teleport; sorry.

You can perform individual gear swaps FFXI-style but it relies on them falling into the same position of your bag each time etc. Much simpler in practice just to make gear sets and /saveequip /loadequip to get between them.

[Kuya]

Thanks for the help, guys! Really appreciate the information.

[Alderaan]

Not really a question but, the weapons in RoTP have THE best skins in the game. I've been staring at the 2 hand sword and 1 hand sword skins for like an hour.

[Khalil]

1. 51Riftstalker/8Bladedancer/7Ranger or /7Bladedancer/8Ranger is the "old reliable" There are some new builds people are experimenting with involving 49 RS/17 BD and such though.

2. Get used to keeping up blinks and rationing cooldowns. Think creatively about how you can use your considerable kiting potential to great effect (preferably without cleaving your raid but optional :>)

3. You want a macro like

#show Phantom Blow
suppressmacrofailures
cast Planar Switch <= up to you whether you put this one there; I basically use the ability for an off-GCD free combo point
cast Phantom Blow
cast Planar Strike

and likewise for

#show Rift Disturbance
suppressmacrofailures
cast Rift Disturbance
cast Twin Strike

This is your AoE macro, the first is your singletarget.

Riftstalker was simplified greatly recently and now you basically just have to worry about keeping Guarded Steel up, which is easy. The main thing is remembering to keep Planar Vortex up for threat purposes (plus it sounds cool). For this purpose I recommend having a macro like

#show Shadow Blitz
suppressmacrofailures
cast Shadow Blitz
cast Shadow Assault
cast Shadow Stalk
cast Shadow Warp

this allows you to just get a teleport if you need one (if you space them perfectly, you should never see Shadow Warp. It'll be used (and remember, it requires you to target somewhere on the ground) if you mess up the timing slightly. Furthermore I recommend then putting each individual teleport on separate buttons and then using that one in the situations where you simply don't care which you use.

Flashback/Memory Capture are useful for LOS pulls and kiting. Not much more to say about them.

You will be squishy before you get up your Guarded Steel buff, so it is often worthwhile putting Splinter Shot from Ranger onto your action bar. This way, you can pull a mob with Splinter Shot, warp on top of them while they are still together, and start the fight with 4-5 combo points, allowing for a quick and easy 5 point Guarded Steel. This ability is overlooked a lot of the time.

4. /loadequip x and /saveequip x. x is a number between 1 and 9 (does 0 work? idk). People are still working out which stats are best defensively, simply because Deflect is a very good new defensive stat which thrives on Dexterity... and most tanking gear comes with End/Dodge/Parry. Ie, not dexterity. So people are finding even hybrids or full dex pieces can sometimes outperform... it's all situational. You want a baseline good level of HP for the encounters you're doing and from there you can dabble in Dexterity some (since it gives you Dodge/Deflect, both of which increase the effectiveness of your existing HP).

Actually, a lot of our (old) problems stems from not having Rift Guard and Guarded Steel up asap. This was remedied as of 1.6. The moment you blink in, you have Rift Guard. If you've used Shadow Blitz/Assault, you have 2 CPs, so use them for Guarded Steel. BAM! You have an additional 20% chance to deflect plus your armor is increased. Keep False Blade and Annihilate up and you're golden.

Also, offGCD abilities should be at the bottom of your macro list. You'll have to double-tap them if they're at the top. For example;

cast Reprisal
cast Planar Switch
cast Phantom Blow
cast Planar Strike

In order for Phantom Blow to proc, you'll have to tap your macro button twice if Reprisal is up. However, during the GCD, you can use both of those top abilities with no worries. The proper way of handling offGCD abilities is as follows;

cast Phantom Blow
cast Planar Strike
cast Reprisal
cast Planar Switch

[Raen Ryong]

What's wrong with tapping it twice? :O

And I understand from the Rift Guard/Guarded Steel thing but they're making Riftstalker almost braindead to play these days. You could always work around the initial start up too.

I also prefer 8Ranger to 7 Ranger but that's just me, for general situations. If I had more than one role dedicated to RS builds I'd use different ones I suppose.

[Insanecyclone]

How is the population since launch? Beta was fun, but had no real desire to play at launch. It's been on sale multiple times and...it's tempting.

[Crizto]

How is the population since launch? Beta was fun, but had no real desire to play at launch. It's been on sale multiple times and...it's tempting.

PvP Servers are ridiculously populated. I think the population of the game is pretty good although it will go down a bit once Star Wars comes out.

[Insanecyclone]

PvP Servers are ridiculously populated. I think the population of the game is pretty good although it will go down a bit once Star Wars comes out.

I'm not a PVP person, so the PVE ones are less populated? Also Standard on sale for $7.49 and Collector's $9.99 on steam for daily.

[Khalil]

What's wrong with tapping it twice? :O

And I understand from the Rift Guard/Guarded Steel thing but they're making Riftstalker almost braindead to play these days. You could always work around the initial start up too.

I also prefer 8Ranger to 7 Ranger but that's just me, for general situations. If I had more than one role dedicated to RS builds I'd use different ones I suppose.

Nothing's wrong with double tapping but efficiency is the name of the game, lol. If you could save yourself a single press of a macro, why not?

The 51RS/8BD/7RNG is the most average mitigation spec we have. The 41RS/17BD is good for adds and running T2 dungeons.

[Raen Ryong]

-damagetaken% has increasing returns though, such that combined with other Riftstalker damage reductions you are getting ~-3% damage taken from the last point of Bolster working against both physical and magical, whereas Parry is physical only and luck based (where reliable mitigation > luck-based mitigation). This is why I've always preferred the 8ranger.

I don't see the need to rearrange the off-GCDs still though; if I want to use Phantom Blow in the example above, I double tap. If I don't want to use Phantom Blow and just want to use my reactive (for whatever reason) I singletap. Similarly if you wanted to use Phantom Blow, you'd singletap and double tap for your reactive.

The question becomes when would you want to only use one without the other? In either case you have reactives and normals flying off around each other and in neither case do you waste GCDs (the only time this would happen is on the first button press of the fight ... but there are no reactives then). In either case you are, for want of a better term, mashing buttons. I don't think I'm articulating very well.