RIFT Guides | World of Rift

Rift Bonuses through January 1 [RIFT]

2012-12-29T08:06:00.001-08:00

As if Fae Yule wasn't enough, Trion's sweetening the holiday season with bonuses! Log in and play Rift from December 24 through January 1 and get a 20% bonus on:

Guild XP
Planar Attunement XP
XP from kills
Prestige from PvP kills
Favor
Chance for plaques/marks
Planarite
Zone Event currencies

If you haven't played lately, check out our Fae Yule guide before you log in!

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RIFT Warrior Tank builds for patch 2.1

2012-12-27T09:22:00.003-08:00

2.1 Tanking has not changed too drastically in terms of playstyle, but the specs are different and I will post them here.

I'm not going to say exactly how to play the most efficient way (rotation, when to use what...etc), you can figure that out for yourself, this is to just get you started on the basics. I take some of these abilities a lot further than mentioned on here.

If you have any ideas on how to make them better or any questions/discussion, feel free to PM me, message me in-game or ask here.

For a final message, just wanted to give a shout out to Atrius to say thanks for the work he has done to fix us, and the time he has personally spent with me and a couple others going over logs and ideas to change warrior tanks for the better.

61 VK/15 Paladin/0 Tempest (same as 2.0)

This spec is my personal favorite, it's not the #1 mitigation, but it's still alright, just be sure you outgear the content.

Cooldown:
Fusion of Flesh: Use when needed (almost dead or expecting a big hit) A shield for 75% of your max hp (OGCD)
Power Shield: Use when expecting a big hit. A 20% mitigation boost for 4s, 30s CD.

Taunts:
Airburst: AOE taunt
Spark: ST taunt
Void Summon: AOE taunt/pull/root, amazing ability for dungeons
Rift Summon: ST taunt/pull/root, again, amazing for dungeons

Builders:
Aggressive block: Maintain 100% uptime on this.
Reckless Strike: This hits HARD with 10 pacts, main builder
Shock Pulse: Ranged builder, use when running in so you don't need discharge and waste 3 pacts of precious mitigation
Discharge: Ranged builder (uses pacts)
Void Storm: AOE semi-ranged builder (uses pacts)
Tempest: AOE builder
Ragestorm: AOE builder

OGCD:
Retaliation: Use after block

Finishers:
Devouring Blow: Main finisher, great damage at 10 pacts
Unstable Reaction: High damage 6 second channel, very nice to gain pacts extremely quick
Rift Reversal: Reflects 3 spells...I personally have no idea how this works, or even if it works. Don't bother with it as I've never had it work before. (OGCD)
Devouring Shield: Absorb shield, good if you don't need damage and want an extra ~2k shield every 3 AP

Utility:
Shock Burst: AOE silence
Shock: ST ranged silence
Spellbreaker: Self cleanse of a curse, gain 1 pact, 15% magic mitigation for 2 seconds (use on cooldown when available)
Spell Sunder: Purge the enemy, gain 1 pact. You can also purge nothing and gain 1 pact, but with 61vk this isn't really necessary at the rate of which you gain pacts.
Rift Shield: Good for wasting pacts and absorbing some big hits (OGCD)
Protective Shield: Good for wasting pacts and absorbing some big hits (OGCD)
Spell Destruction: AOE purge/cleanse 1 min CD

Buffs:
Shield of the Hero
Accord of the Rift
Accord of Power
Accord of Resilience
Accord of Shifting
Unstable Void
Void
Enhanced Conductivity

What to do:
Get to 10 pacts ASAP and spam reckless strike to get AP (or Tempest/Ragestorm/Void Storm if AOE). It's up to you what to do when you get 3 AP, either use shields, or devouring blow. Discharge/Shock Pulse at range, oh SIDENOTE OF AWESOMENESS: You autoattack at range due to 0 Tempest.

When pulling large groups, use Void Summon as it's incredibly efficient as a root/taunt/pull.

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58 Paladin/18 VK/0 Tempest/0 Warlord (10% non-phys damage vs pull)
This is the #1 physical mitigation spec, although very boring to play. This spec is a bit below Reaver, but can be a tad more useful due to Life's Rapture. It's really up to you what you want to play unless it's a super heavy spell fight.

Cooldowns:
Touch of Life: Instant OGCD full heal
Life's Rapture: Instant OGCD raid full heal over 6 seconds and 10% mitigation. Currently it heals 100% of your health instant and heals your raid over time (bug) 1:30 CD.
Light's Protection: Increased heals for 12 seconds, 1m CD (OGCD)
Shield Defense: 30% less damage for 10 seconds, 1m CD (OGCD)
Aegis of the Light: Use when expecting a big hit. A 20% mitigation boost for 4s, 30s CD.

Taunts:
Shield Throw: ST taunt
Judgement: AOE taunt

Builders:
Aggressive Block: Keep it up 100% of the time
Pacification: Your main builder, spam it for mitigation
Light's degree: AOE threat and great ST damage
Sweeping Strikes: AOE threat

OGCD:
Retaliation/Light's Reprisal/Light's Vengeance: Use after block

Finishers:
Light's Benediction: Your main finisher, it's what makes this spec great
Reverent Protection: Pretty terrible aoe shield, use it if you want it

Utility:
Light's Balm/Light's Blessing: Heal target for an amount, good for spot heals and is surprisingly very very useful. I find myself using these quite a bit to help with raid heals.
Shield Charge: Charge, awesome damage as well

Buffs:
Shield of the Hero
Shield of the Chosen
Void
Accord of Resilience

What to do:
Keep up Aggressive Block, Pacifying Strike, and Light's Benediction 100%. Use cooldowns as needed. That's...about it. Super boring.

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58 Reaver/18 Paladin/0 VK
This is the #1 mitigation spec for spell damage, slightly behind Paladin in terms of physical.

Cooldowns:
Crest of Entropy: 30% less damage for 10 seconds (OGCD)
Crest of Consumption: Use when expecting a big hit. A 20% mitigation boost for 4s, 30s CD.

Taunts:
Grim Lure: ST taunt
Incite: AOE taunt
Concussion: AOE taunt

Builders:
Aggressive Block: Keep it up 100% of the time
Pacification: Your main builder, spam it for mitigation
Flesh Rot: AOE dot
Necrotic Wounds: AOE dot
Soul Sickness: AOE dot
Cyclone Strike: AOE builder with a large range
BLOOD FEVER: AOE dot, sadly..does not hit as hard as pacification :-(

OGCD:
Retaliation: Use after block

Finishers:
Creeping Corruption: AOE aura for 38 seconds
Dire Corruption: Ground target AOE for 38 seconds

Utility:
Light's Balm: Heal target for an amount, good for spot heals and is surprisingly very very useful. I find myself using these quite a bit to help with raid heals.
Crest of the Shadow: Shield for ~2k, it's just...meh. Use it if you want. I like to use it before pulling something

Buffs:
Shield of the Hero
Void
Crest of the Abyss
Binding of Death

Other:
Explosive Infestation/Infestation: Use them at the beginning of a DOT rotation for some extra damage
Plague Bringer: Keep it up to make your dots AOE

What to do:
Keep up Aggressive Block and Pacifying Strike 100% of the time. Keep up all your dots and use Explosive Infestation and Infestation when available at the beginning of a new DOT rotation for some extra damage (if you want). Finish with Creeping Corruption and Dire Corruption if you are on a boss or will be standing still for a while. For ST, spam your dots and pacifying strike, as it's your hardest hitting single ability. When AOEing...you know what to do (BLOOD FEVER).

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Finally for those interested and too lazy to do any basic sort of math, here are the benefits gained by the individual specs, not including gifts. I initially had a breakdown of all of the specs in comparison and then deleted it...too lazy to redo it :-D.

VK

6% block
10% non-physical damage
10% healing effectiveness
40% attack power
40% weapon contribution
24% resist
25% end
11% armor
10% non-spell mit
26% spell mit

-----------------

Reaver

6% block
5% hit debuff
15% resist
20% end
11% armor
12% non-spell mit
36% spell-mit

-----------------

Pally

11% block
3% damage reduction while blocking
10% non-physical damage
30% resist
25% end
14% armor
11% non-spell mit
26% spell mit

Things I wish Rift would adopt.

2012-12-27T09:09:00.000-08:00

Long story short and I really do hope a Rift dev catch's this. Currently I am the raid lead for my guild and upon starting this whole excursion I've noticed/missed two things. First, I wish Trion would implement some type of In-game calendar for use by a guild to post individual events/accept signups, not only would this be extremely helpful from an individual stance it would also help us trying to run things. Secondly, I wish Trion would adopt a toggle to allow 20 man content to scale to 10 man forms, granted with reduced gear, I understand that some would absolutely refuse this idea but logically placed it would allow for smaller guilds to see said content.

RIFT Weekly News Roundup

2012-12-14T09:11:00.000-08:00

Today we're going to be covering all sorts of exciting stuff such as patch 2.1, the run speed increase, World first Crucia, the new gear ranking site 'RIFT Hero' created by the one and only Tarien, the return of conquest and much more!

RIFT 2.1: Endless Eclipse - The Return of Regulos
Only 4 weeks after the launch of Storm Legion trion are already throwing at us a massive bundle of goodies, to keep us well occupied till at least 2014, Later today for north america and tommorow for europe, patch 2.1 should be hitting the live servers, suprisingly the full list of patch notes has yet to be released, even on the PTS, but from what we have already seen it looks like we have a LOT of goodies coming our way!

For the raiders, we see endless eclipse being launched, just 4 days after a couple of the very top end guilds managed to slay crucia who was the final boss in the first raid on storm legion known as Frozen tempest, this raid I believe contains either 5 or 6 bosses (Not to sure) and a mini boss or two, Which should definitely keep us occupied for the next month at minimum!, I expect with the raid being released so close to the festive period, there may be a bit of drama and controversy about who puts the most hours in over the holiday period, but I will be closely following it all and bringing you the latest, also if the first boss happens to be quite easy there may be a bit of dispute on World First entitlements as the patch is released a day earlier in NA, but we will have to see, Trion have previously stated that this is meant to be a step up from Frozen tempest in terms of difficulty, but on the same raiding tier. So the Storm Legion equivlent to Greenscales Blight and River of Souls

Here is the somewhat awesome trailer for 2.1:

Also for the non-raiders 2.1 brings an absolutely awesome solo chronicle known as 'A Hero Rising' where you must defend tempest bay from the forces of the Storm Legion and Crucia attacking and for all you lore junkies this chronicle is action packed with an awesome story, which I won't go into to much details about and let you guys find out for yourselves in the upcoming days! As well as that there is the Fae Yule world event, which introduces tons of fun winter Activities and Vanity games, including sleding, snowball fights and also for the PVP'ers a alternate Christmas themed version of Whitefall Steepes! for more info about 2.1 click here!

Finally with the launch of 2.1 we will hopefully see conquest introduced back into the game re-implemented with different currencies and rewards for Level 60 players, unfortunately the conquest still takes place in stillmoor and has pretty much the same gameplay, just revamped for level 60, but there are some very interesting upgradeable trinkets which Slipmat has more information about in this post here. Personally I would like to see a few changes to the way conquest is played, but I'm sure with all the new abilities that level 60 has bought to players, they will hopefully help to shake things up a bit in conquest.

If you're having dragon problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but Crucia ain't one

So yes... If you haven't already heard the guild you love to hate... or just plain hate, also known as the guild I currently recide in claimed the World First kill on the queen of storms herself known as Crucia, after getting a two percent wipe, we extended the raid into the early hours of friday morning, making the next day at work for the raiders of special of olympics 'oh so enjoyable'. but yes, I will try not to over-inflate my ego to much on this one and simply leave you with the kill video from my perspective.

WARNING: The following video contains somewhat cleverly timed and also in some places music that self-proclaimed hipsters may find slightly irritating, but otherwise, It is awesome. Enjoy!

Quality of Life Changes
Over the last week we have seen 3 absolutely major quality of life changes to the game, personally I love them all and I think they are a leap in a very positive direction for making the game more accessible to new players and also all around improvement to the feel of the game, the 3 major changes that have happend throughout this week are~

Not only has the item limit that dimensions can hold has been increased by roughly 25%-65%, Dimension prices and furnishing prices has been slashed by an absolute truckload, making it easier for people to play about with dimensions to really create the home on their dreams!
The run speed both in and out of combat has been increased by 25%, from a personal perspective I LOVE this change, everything feels a lot more fast paced and heroic, espically playing a melee mage most of the time in my scenario it feels like I'm whizzing around causing absolute carnage
There is no longer any need to train skills or abilities, they automatically level with you, this change I thought was a brilliant move, going to the class trainer everytime you level and throwing a bit of plat away to get higher ranked skills, was just something that needed to go and I'm glad it did, not only does it mean we save a bit of plat, but it also means we don't have to dash to a trainer everytime we level!

There have been very mixed views about these changes, the only people that appear to dislike them are people who maybe 'splashed out' on a dimension, shortly before the changes became public knowledge and wanted a refund, which is somewhat understandable, but people have argue'd that it is similar to what shops do with sales and prices for stuff in 'reality' fluctuate all the time, with often very little notice, however I'd be very interested to hear your opinion of the changes above in the comments below!

Back To The Future IV
For those of you who are unaware of the lore or maybe have never played a defiant, the initial story in the defiant starting zone is that you are several years in the future at the point where Regulos and his armies have been set free and are just moments away from destroying Telera, your job in the starting area is to battle your way through Terminus and make it to the 'Time Portal' to get sent back in time and then change the future of Telera to prevent the destruction of Telera therefore saving the world.

So on a recent Q and A on Raptr, somebody asked since in Telera's time line we are swiftly moving onto that point what is going to happen? to which a unknown developer responded

"By teleporting into the past, you have irrevocably changed the future - but will we ever have a Terminus sliver that allows you to take part in the end of the world? I can't say yes or no, but there's plenty of road ahead, so who knows!? Certainly fun to think about "

Upon reading this the following image came to mind along with the theme tune of back to the future...

The concept of this and time travel and the impacts is has on future events has always been an area of great interest and excitment to myself and also if you have not already figured out back to the future is probably one of my favourite all time movies, Imagine coming through some sort of time portal and intercepting the destruction of the world moments after your earlier self has just been sent back in time to change the future of telera, set in a raiding enviroment with possibly some amazing raid encounters is just mind blowingly awesome and I for one am really hoping this becomes a reality!

Fae Yule Promotions!
If you haven't already stumbled across it, Trion are doing several Fae Yule promotions to get a handful of christmas themed goodies, including a stack of presents which can be obtained via facebook, a candy cane which can be obtained by signing up to recieve the free newsletter and also an awesome looking winter cape with can be obtained by ascending a friend and them purchasing Storm Legion, more information about how to obtain these goodies can be found by clicking this link!

Okay so I think I will round off my weekly news roundup here, so it is not 'to' long, Hope you all enjoyed it and learnt something... possibly? I probably missed out a few things which I will either later add or cover next week, so not to fear, but anyways as always Enjoy!

Runecrafting "helper"+clicker

2012-10-10T11:52:00.003-07:00

I am doing runecrafting things since release and I want to share with you my experience.

First of all, the main problem is where to get material for our crafting. Usually I buy "Soulhides" and "Soulbind Leathers" to craft "Soulbind Leather Belts".

1 Soulhide> 1 Soulbind Leather> 1 Soulbind Leather Belt = Top materials mostly. It's very good to craft this item because if you craft other items like "Soulbind leather boots" it's costs 2 soulbind leathers which gives you same mats.

Second is how to runebreak tons of mats. For now, you don't need to have all your mats in your bags, you just can put all your mats in your personal bank and do crafty things.

For example if you got more then 1000 soulbind leather which ones you need to craft and runebreak (if you got Outfitter and Runecrafter on same character). It's can be done more easily with any "clicker" like this one: Uopilot FREE clicker it's official site so it's safe.

Basically you need to split stacks of your materials like this:

And make one free slot for your craft item on first slot of your first bag.

When you ready just configure your uopilot by clicking on "Add" > "Edit Hotkeys" > And put some keybind here like I do:

Then record your macro by pressing "record macro" bind, like this: Craft your item, runebreak your item > click stop macro. If you want to make this macro work all of time until you stop the macro, just click on "Macros" > "Repeat" and click "infinitely".

Now you can play your macro until you stop it. Here is in-game macro which one I use for now after I done my crafting or out of space: use Perpetual Glow use Kinetic Charge use Flickering Shard use Sentience Surge This is combines all your lowest mats into top mats. After that you can split stacks again and go on.

Diablo 3 Hero Guide - - Hell Better Get Ready For YOU

2012-05-10T02:41:00.002-07:00

If you're like me, you're probably dying from anticapation waiting for Diablo III to be released on Tuesday. Even though it's only days until the game comes out, it seems the closer we get the worse the wait seems. I've been searching for anything Diablo related to tide me over and that's when I stumbled across Zygor's Diablo III Guide.

I already know of these guys from their kick ass Star Wars: The old republic guides which were a lifesaver and totally changed the way I played that game. These new Diablo III guides look to be just as awesome. You get a complete walkthrough of the whole game from Act I to Act IV, guides for all five classes which tell you how to set your spells and make your characters as powerful as can be, how to optimize your followers to maximize damage and healing, and loads more - including a guide for obtaining all the achievements in the game.

You can check out Diablo 3 Hero Guide on the official website HERE

See you in Hell! Talk soon.

Rift Callings and the Soul System

2012-04-30T03:58:00.002-07:00

If you haven't been reading up on Rift: Planes of Telara, then you might not know about the interesting twist on the class system the have in store for us. First things first, classes are called callings and they are divided into four categories; Warrior, Rogue, Cleric and Mage. Each calling can have up to, speculatively, eight different souls. The are the souls of past heroes being reborn into Telara and as you travel through the world you gain access to more diverse and focused souls. Two souls are officially known for the Warrior (Reaver and Champion), two for the Cleric (Inquisitor and Purifier), two for the Mage (Warlock and Elementalist) and three for the Rogue (Ranger, Nightblade and Blade Dancer.

There have been other details that have been spied out from demonstrations at E3. Three more souls for the Rogue calling have been spotted; those being the Bard, the Assassin and the Riftstalker. Though not seen on a game screen, Scott Hartsman did let the word Pyromancer slip from his lips in one video.

So what's so special? You can access multiple souls at the same time.

As you gain higher levels you open up the abilities to access more than one soul at the same time (pictured above). However it's not as simple as having three classes in one, accessing everything at the same time. As you gain levels you gain Soul Points that can be put into each soul tree. These points are finite though and have to be spread across each tree.

Each soul tree has two parts, the tree and it's roots. As you apply points into the soul tree gaining bonuses for that soul, you also unlock root abilities. Presumably, you don't gain abilities as you level, but as you put soul points into each soul tree.

This is what makes Rift so unique and gives the impression of an amazing system that is incredibly flexible and customizable. If you have, for example, fifty points and have access to three trees you now have to choose how far to go into one soul and gain the more powerful abilities while balancing out the other trees to gain abilities there. Perhaps you can put a few points into a Ranger for some bow attacks but put the rest into a heavy dps melee soul.

As heard in this video the possibilities are really endless. Check out 06:08 of the video below. Russ Brown, VP of Development, gives the impression of Rogues that can tank, Mages that can toss out healing and Tanks that can drop some nukes. The balancing of abilities and tree is going to excite every min/max player out there. Do you use one tree fully? Two? Or go with all three?

by Draegan

Rift Black Garden and Pyro PvP spec (Lvl 19)

2012-04-24T04:52:00.000-07:00

Basic PvP Knowledge
I'm going to quickly skim over the basics just to refresh the concepts for everyone and to remind everyone that now is the very best time to set up your keybinds and begin to train your muscle memory. I will presume that everyone knows how to configure their Rift UI and setup appropriate keybinds.

Below I will show and explain my keybinding setup. I urge everyone to bind to what works for them and to put their keybinds in early, even while you only have a few abilities, so that you learn your bindings while leveling.

UI
I have a generic action bar layout that I use across all of my WoW characters, and now Rift characters, as shown in the image below. At this stage I only have a few moves, but I'm expecting my bars to be filled with abilities by the endgame.

Keybinds
For now I have my bindings as follows:
1 : Flame bolt
2 : Fireball
3 : Countdown
4 : Inferno
` : Fire Storm
Z : Thunder Blast
X : Ground of Power
C : Transmogrify
V : Break Free
F : Flame Jet
Shift 1 : Flicker
Shift W : Fire Armor
T : Burning Bonds
G : Cinder Burst
Shift A : Internalize Charge
Shift S : Smouldering Power
Shift D : Detaunt
Shift B : Burning Intellect
F1 : Set Focus
F2 : Soul Recall
Shift E : Heroic Resolve (Racial Ability)

Build
The concept of the soul and class system has amazed me in rift. The sheer amount of possibilities are amazing and after taking just a quick gander over all the trees I’m expecting endgame PvP to be incredibly fast paced and brutal. In the Pyromancer tree alone you have an AOE 2 second Stun, an 8 second snare that can be talented to NOT BREAK ON DAMAGE, not to mention a 20 second cooldown to remove ALL CC on yourself aswell as a talent to reduce CC on yourself by 30%! Each of the other trees also have similar PvP abilities that can make you unstoppable so I spent a lot of platinum on respecs to find this build that works well for me:

7/18/0 Archmage/Pyromancer/Dominator Build

Archmage
Tier 1
Planar Attunement
- For the archmage tree you have two different paths that can be followed. Each of them have game breaking abilities at the end of the trees that can be very rewarding if used correctly. The problem is that by allocating too many points into Archmage you loose any 'functionality' that is provided by any other tree and therefore loose any advantage you otherwise may have gained. In then end i will be looking to take 'Improved Break Free' to give myself a 2 minute 'trinket', but at this stage in time the 15% passive damage bonus was just too good to pass up. If you fell you are dyeing too often or being targeted too much then it may be an idea to go into the other side of the tree with 'Resilient' and take some damage protection

Pyromancer
Tier 1
Ignition
-I feel like this is a no brainer for the initial points. A 20% decreased cast time on your main nuke is extremely helpful for this early stage of PvP. I felt that fiery concentration and improved fireball were not worth the points at such a stage in the game

Tier 2

Improved Smouldering Power
- Another no brainer. Anyone who has tried Pyromancer (or arcane mage) before will no that you can burst through your mana faster than you can say 'LOLDPS' and this talent will offset that. It's essentially the 'evocation' of the Pyromancer tree. The idea is to keep this up at all times (refresh once the 8 stacks wear off) and you will have next to no mana issues, and if used along-side ground of power you're mana should never be an issue for you.

Burning Bonds
- An EIGHT second snare, nuff said

Improved Burning Bonds
- Makes your snare instant cast, nuff said. (The plan is to eventually spec into unbreakable bonds so that it stops breaking on damage. But for now people will just need to learn to stop breaking CC) Once again I didn’t feel that the points spent in combust were warranted for this early stage of PvP.

Tier 3

Flicker
- WoW's mage Blink has had a facial. The importance of this talent cannot be stressed enough! Besides from propelling you forwards 15 meters to escape melee play styles, this move will break ALL FORMS OF CC ON YOURSELF WHEN USED! And it only has a 20 second cooldown! Anyone who has tried arena in WoW will know the importance of their trinket (Removes all CC on yourself on use, with a 2 minute CD), and Flicker is essentially a trinket on a 20 SECONDS COOLDOWN that helps evade melee at the same time!

Improved Grounding
- Some may question my choice in this talent but i feel that ground of power is a vital part to the lvl 19 play style I am using. The ground gives you a 10% damage buff while standing on it, this in itself is very substantial, and if you’re playing correctly it's a rare time when you are attacked. And when you are attacked you need to merely step off of the ground of power to avoid the increased damage on yourself. With a cast time of just over 1 second and next to no mana, this fellow should be plonked on the ground whenever you set up to annihilate some poor enemy.

Although Fiery Resolve may sound like a great talent (and it is), i decided not to take it at this point as very few players appeared to be using their full CC capabilities, and of the few who did I only needed to cast flicker and escape.

Tier 4

Fire Storm
- An AOE in the Black Garden is an absolute must have if you want your team to win, but i will discuss that later.

With only 18 points available to allocate in this tree at level 19 i felt that the AOE provided by fire storm was much more important than any of the other options.

Dominator

For the final tree I was really tossing up between this and the Chloromancer tree. With Chloromancer the base root move is a debuff that can be applied to the enemy that gives anyone attacking the target with the debuff to receive 100% of the damage they deal back as health. Compared with the base 'Transmogrify' offered by the dominator tree I felt that 15% proc chance was too low for PvP and would train you to rely on RNG, which is not good.

2 Points must be allocated into this tree to unlock the 'Thunderblast', a knockback ability, that when combined with the rest of the CC makes the mage a power house of control.

Tier 1

Mental Discipline
- Both of the choices are not too great at only lvl 19, but using my play style, mana efficiency is not an issue for me and hence I chose this talent.

Playstyle

At level 19 the amount of abilities are limited, but you still have a small variety of control abilities that you can use to turn the tide of the battle.

Typical Rotation
In a perfect world where you could stand still and cast at the enemy without taking any damage yourself your PvP rotation would look something like this:
Plant down a ground of Power - Stand on it
If you expect the target to survive for longer than 8 seconds then cast Countdown on them. Refresh if the target looses the debuff (usually because it has exploded) and you expect the target to last a further 8 or more seconds
Flame Bolt when off cooldown
Fireball until the target's health is beneath 30%
Finish up with InfernoIf you weren't being attacked you could probably chuck in a cinder burst or two against some tough targets - I don’t think there has ever been an occasion where I have been able to cast Cinder Burst, 6 seconds is just a mammoth cast time, and only an idiot player is going to sit there and take it.

Ability Breakdown

Flame Bolt
-Deals a medium amount of damage, instant cast, on an 8 second CD. Very usefull move to get some burst damage on a target. Because it's instant cast it can be cast on the move, this is generally the ability that I use in most situations

Fireball
- This is your primary player nuke. A 2 second cast time is quite hefty in fast paced PvP so before you begin casting this ensure that its going to hit your desired target. So make sure that your target will not run around a corner and LOS you, or interrupt your cast or else you will be wasting valuable GCD cast time. But if you can cast your fireball, then expect some big damage to be taken by your opponent.

Countdown
- This ability is similar to 'Living Bomb' from WoW but without the dot effect. Generally this move doesn’t see much usage from me as my targets usually die within 8 seconds, rendering the ability useless. But there are a few occasions when the heals are just so great that it warrants casting this ability. It's also useful as a fire and forget type move. 2 Opponents? No worries, cast this on one, use some CC, and deal with the other. By the time you swap back this bad boy will be due to tick for a significant amount leaving your now single opponent at a disadvantage.

Inferno
- This is your most powerful move. If it can be cast then you can expect your target to die. Personally I have never seen anyone survive a cast of this (being at the top end of the PvP bracket) so use this whenever you can.

Fire Storm
- This is your primary AOE. It is channeled, and it absolutely smashes through your mana so its extremely important to be standing on your talented ground of power and maintaining your smoldering power stacks or you will OOM within 2-3 casts.

When picking up the flag (fang) in the Black Garden you get a castbar for about 1 or so seconds. This is interruptible, and it just so happens that the ticks from this AOE are about every 1 or so seconds, so when the flag is dropped and both teams swarm to pick it up stick this baby down on the flag and it will prevent the enemy from picking it up (Unless they spec into pushback or whatever - But i have rarely seen anyone pick up the fang while in the AOE at this bracket), this will give your team plenty of time to stroll in and casual collect the flag.

In my experience this is a game winning move. If the opponents do not copy you and your team can grab the flag in time, it sways the fight big time.

Thunder Blast
- This move doesn’t hit for much but it's knockback is invaluable. There are many situational uses for this ability but the main ones that I have noted are: knocking back a single player going for the fang, and knocking back pesky melee or pets that try to hamper your stationary PvP domination. Use it wisely though, I’ve seen a few stupid mages knockback a fang carrier that they have been chasing and putting them out of their own range, or knocking the enemies into the allied fang carrier.

Ground of Power
he ground gives you a 10% damage buff while standing on it, this in itself is very substantial, and if you'r playing correctly it's a rare time when you are attacked. And when you are attacked you need to merely step off of the ground of power to avoid the increased damage on yourself. With a cast time of just over 1 second and next to no mana, this fellow should be plonked on the ground whenever you set up to annihilate some poor enemy.

Generally if you don’t have a ground of power beneath you then you should be: Kiteing a melee, moving into a position to plonk down ground of power, or be under the effects of some form of CC.

Transmogrify
- The Polymorph of Rift. Now I’m not sure if RIft PvP is subject to DR and the 10 second CC cap, but even if it is then this move is still powerful. You can effectively completely lockdown an enemy with this move for up to 10 seconds (30 seconds?). Have two enemies on your hands at once? No worries, lock down one with this and then kill the other. By the time the Trans target is free the other will be dead leaving you to kill this person without extra pressure.

Break Free
- The PvP trinket of Rift. Removes all CC from yourself on a 5 minute CD. If your using flicker correctly then you will rarely need to call upon this ability, but its a useful reserve for when you get CCd multiple times within 20 seconds. This can later be talented to a 2 minute Cooldown similar to WoWs trinkets.

Flame Jet
- A frontal cone AOE. While the damage is limited, the uses are not. The primary use of this ability is to interrupt a group of enemies attempting to pick up the fang in a similar way to 'Fire Storm'.

Flicker
- The cornerstone of the Pyro PvP tree, and the One main reason I ended up choosing Pyro for PvP. As explained earlier: Besides from propelling you forwards 15 meters to escape melee play styles, this move will break ALL FORMS OF CC ON YOURSELF WHEN USED! And it only has a 20 second cooldown! Anyone who has tried arena in WoW will know the importance of their trinket (Removes all CC on yourself on use, with a 2 minute CD), and Flicker is essentially a trinket on a 20 SECONDS COOLDOWN that helps evade melee at the same time!

Fire Armor
-This is your only armor choice at this stage, so re-apply at spawn or when it is removed from you and you should be good. FYI: 5% fire damage increase, 'nuff said

Burning Bonds
- This is an 8 second snare. Anyone familiar with WoW's entangling roots should be a master with this move, just bear in mind that it's on an 8 second cooldown, and before reaching the next tier of the Pyro tree it will break on damage. But its still an extremely useful move. The main purpose is for keeping those pesky melee off you, and preventing fleeing targets from escaping your wrath. "But how do they not escape your wrath if the damage breaks the snare?" I hear you say. Well, 8 seconds is long enough for you to charge up a fireball and put them out of their misery. Or felling really evil? then try out a cinderburst. Just dont try snaring another ranged to keep them away from you, they can still shoot you from where they stand

Cinder Burst
- As explained above Cinder Burst is a heavy hitting move with a 6 second cast. While it wont see much use in the Black Garden due to its incredibly long cast time, it is still useful to keep binded for those rare occasions where you get a perfect 6 second casting window on a target

Internalize Charge
- A 20% damage bonus is extremely powerful in PvP, but because this ability uses charge and not mana it will conflict with your smouldering power usage. There are cases where this will be handy to use, but its up to you to determine when. Getting the perfect mix between maintaining mana yet maintaining this ability is the mark of a true gladiator.

Smouldering Power
- As explained above this move is the main mana regeneration source for the Pyromancer and should be maintained at all times to conservere mana.

Detaunt
- A 50% damage reduction buff for a targeted enemy (breaks on damage dont forget) is incredible. Used in conjunction with Transmogrify, Burning Bonds, Thunder Blast and Flicker, a skilled mage could keep up to 3 enemies controlled (or even 4 for the budding gladiator) and kited on their own.

The Black Garden

Opening

The Black Garden is a small Warfront (Rifts Battlegrounds) with 10 players a side. Both Guardians and Defiants fight each other for control of the flag, ironicaly called the Fang of Regulos.
For those who are unaware, Regulos appears to be the main bad guy of the game, and so holding his fang is like holding a part of the main bad guy. Turns out that Regulos dosnt like people holding his tooth, and so it gives off an increasing amount of damage to the holder until they eventually dieBecause of this mechanic the player holding the fang generally needs an amount of healing to prevent them from dyeing. Eventually the damage will become so high that they die in a single tick and healers become useless. When this happens another player must be nearby ready to pick it up

When attempting to pick up the flag you will be set back by a castbar of about 1 second that will be interrupted upon receiving any damage. It is therefore important to keep enemies going for the flag under pressure and constant damage so that they can not pick up the flag. The AOE tactic detailed above (under Fire Storm) is the generic opener beginning to be implemented by both the Defiants and Guardians in my battlegroup and once it has further developed it will become important to quickly neutralize enemy AOE'ers and at the same time learn how to avoid being killed in the opener while still keeping up the flag AOE protection

The opening strategy detailed above is very successful when used in conjunction with a competent team and I believe that until some nerfs are handed around or the Warfront is altered, this will become the generic Strategy employed by most PUG groups.

Getting your Burst on!
While following my playstyle works for me, it only gets me so far. After a few runs of this Warfront I realized that both the Northern and Southern shrines house a damage Buff.

This buff gives you a 100% damage increase! This buff lasts for 2 Minutes and appears to be on a 2:30 respawn timer. I highly advise to make the most of these before word gets out about just how overpowered they are. Collect these often and make good use of them and it will be a rare time indeed when you are not on the top of the charts. Each of the shrines has two ways of getting in. The first is a boulder on the ground that allows you to jump the wall. The southern shrines boulder is towards the west, allowing Guardians to access the shrine faster than defiants. The opposite is true for the north shrine. Each of the shrines can also be accessed by running along the pillar-bridge things. It a smart idea to use the pillar bridge to return to the middle of the map so that you are out of melee range initially.

Once under the power of this buff you can generally cast Flame Bolt, Fireball and then follow up with Inferno for a burst of around 1100 Damage in 3 seconds. In the lvl 19 bracket of the Black garden, that's usually someones entire health. Anyone with more health or heals, just chuck in an extra fireball or two.

PvP Pyromancer Black Garden Strategy
My Strategy for the Black Garden is divided into 2 Phases. To begin with I am faced with two choices, head into the middle and use the opener described above to ensure your team begins with the fang. Or head off to a shrine to immediately enter the game with intense burst damage.

Usually I will open with the AOE phase, and then collect the buff after we have the fang. But when the team seems competent or it's a guild run or premade then I will open by heading to the southern shrine.

Once I have collected the buff I will head to the center and help out our fang carrier by destroying anyone who attempts to kill him in ~3 seconds flat. Once the buff wears off and we have a firm grasp on the fang i will head to the northern shrine and repeat like this until we finally win. In the case where the enemies obtain the fang, i devote my efforts to hunting down the enemy fang carrier and killing them. The 3 second Buff Burst combined with the fang damage makes killing the enemy Fang carrier extremely easy, and makes attacking healers first something of the past. For now at least healers do not need to be your primary targets. Once the enemy fang carrier is dead, you can proceed to cast Fire Storm while your allies collect the fang

Author: Jorotyn

Rift Iron Tomb Walkthrough (Gameplay and Commentary)

2012-04-24T04:48:00.000-07:00

The first entry level dungeon in RIFT, Iron tombs is a 3 boss instance and the entrance is north-east of Meridian inside the Freemarch zone. I played as a level 20 Chloromancer Mage, the group consisted of Lvl 30 Cleric, Lvl 18 Rogue, lvl19 Rogue and 21 Warrior.

part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Rift Deepstrike Mines Dungeon Walkthrough (Full Run)

2012-04-23T08:30:00.000-07:00

This is Deepstrike Mines the second dungeon found in the Defiant zone of Stonefield, a level 24-26 Dungeon. The instance is a little challenging at the minimum entry level which is good to see, a nice challenge for a group at the minimum level. Hope you all enjoy.

Part 1

part 2

Part 3

Part 4
This is the last of the 4 part series on Deepstrike mines, it will focus on the last boss the Gatekeeper. Basic strategies on what to lookout for, how to react to the mechanics and what we did to defeat this boss. Hope you all enjoy!

Full Run
Note: FYI - The final boss was a wipe due to my mis-managing of mana, so I stepped down for the higher lvl player can heal and I dps'd. Very mana intensive fight if people other than the tank takes lots of damage

Rift Foul Cascade Dungeon Walkthrough

2012-04-23T08:25:00.000-07:00

Foul Cascade (lvl 30) is the third dungeon in Rift and is a shared dungeon with both Defiants and Guardians, Located in the northern reaches of Scarlet Gorge. Group composition was a lvl 32 Warrior, lvl 35 Rogue, lvl 32 Mage, lvl 30 Cleric and myself a lvl 30 Mage.

part 1

part 2

Rift Warrior Tanking

2012-04-21T01:50:00.000-07:00

If your reading this guide you are of a warrior calling and have at least scrolled through the skill trees to read what abilities do. This guide is the basics of individual spec and individual play. This may not work for everyone. Also this is a work in progress as things change and progress so will the spec change and progress.

My definition of a Tank is a character who holds the attention of all mobs on him, and also takes the least amount of damage than anyone else while doing this.

My definition involves two separate issues; 1 being threat and; 2 being damage mitigation.

My spec is as following

As you can see it involves Paladin//Reaver//Warlord. This provide a good balance between threat and mitigation. It also provides a fairly good amount of AOE threat so as you get geared you can pull larger groups without worrying about threat on all the mobs. It also baselines around 10% to dodge, and 25% to block.

Single target threat is very easy in this build. Aggressive Block(+10% to your block), Empowering Strike(+ armor buff to yourself), and Leader’s Mark(Armor debuff on target). All of these moves buff or debuff your target, add to your threat, and also add attack points. During combat when you block you will also have 3 non global cool down moves you can use. Each has a cool down timer.

Retaliation- 6 second cool down I use this the most and start off with it. By the time you use the other 2 this should be off cool down so you can follow 4 blocks with threat generating instant attacks.
Disarming Counterblow- 30 second cool down with a disarming effect
Paladin’s Reprisal- 60 second cool down with an AOE 5 second stun(this can be very useful if used correctly).

AOE threat is slightly harder but should not be a back breaker. For pulls where CC is not needed simply popPlague Bringer. Use Soul Sickness, Necrotic wounds, Soul Fever, Light’s Decree and then go into your single target rotation until you need to refresh your DOT’s and Light’s Decree.

Let me explain how Light’s Decree works. Basically it puts a debuff on your target that will do damage to anything within 5 yards of that target when you hit it with a single target strike. Although the damage is low this damage does generate a high amount of threat. Light’s Decree has a 12 second cool down so the target you use it on should not be the target everyone is going to kill first. If you know your group is going to kill target X first, place the debuff on target Y and use the AOE threat rotation.

A normal AOE pull looks like this for me, Plague Bringer, Soul Sickness, Necrotic Wounds, Soul Fever, Light’s Decree, Aggressive Block, Empowering Strike, and Leader’s Mark.

The only threat problems I have encountered are Bards using Motif of Regeneration as a constant buff, and when a HOT from the last pull is still on me. So let your Bards know that Motif of Regeneration should be cast after a pull not before it and wait for all old HOT effects to wear off before pulling the next group.

Mitigation is also very important to a tank. You need to be hit for less and to be hit less often. This build has an 23% Magic Damage Mitigation, Physical Damage should be reduced by armor value(55%+ is where you should be on this, remember to add in the 5% Imbued Armor). You parry is a bit low with this build. Depending on gear it should be around 5%, until you really start getting geared out. Dodge will float around 10% depending on gear and if you have used a call ability(this will make sense in the next section). Block will easily be your highest defense stat. You should probably float around a 30-35% block 40%-45%with Aggressive Block Active. More research needs to be done on these values//when do diminishing returns kick in//and what are max values for raid encounters. Also Toughness is a stat that I have yet to play around with, but as I obtain gear with toughness on it; I shall test it.

Last but not least are special skills and abilities that use attack points. As you noticed I do not have anything in a normal rotation that uses attack points. The reason is simple because none of them generate threat and most are situational. I like to keep Spotter’s Order on the target as much as possible, this increases your dodge chance by 3% for 15 seconds and gives a damage boost to your allies on this target.

Reverent Protection is a neat little damage shield that covers your entire party. Although as a tank it does not help you that much. It does give your healer a decent buffer when the party takes a bit of AOE damage. Timing this with a bosses AOE ability will make your healer love you!

Righteous Blow and Scales of Justice are pretty useless, they don’t add threat and they don’t really give you any buffs or debuffs they simply just do damage. This does help out but it puts them low on the priority list. If you have time to use them do it, it wont hurt you if you don’t have time.

Judgment and Concussion and both AOE taunts basically use them when you get a big group and you see a mob pull off you and go for someone else. These both have 1 minute cool downs and they share a 15 second global cool down. So even though its 2 different moves you can only use them every so often.

Intercept is a great skill. It allows you to convert the agro from 1 player to yourself. This will last 6 seconds and it is on a 30 second cool down. For trash I use this on the healer and at the start of my second rotation. For a boss I will use this on either the healer or the person who is putting out the must DPS. I try to use it every 30 seconds during a boss fight. Tostiganator's macro will work wonders here, allowing you to cast this on a raid//party member without switching to them.

#show Intercept
cast @mouseover Intercept

Imposing is also a great skill. The 1 minute cool down makes it not as useable but using it when you can during a boss fight ensures no one will pull threat. During trash I tend to only use it if I know the pull is going to take some time to kill.

Remember this is a work in progress and will be updated as we learn more, the game changes, etc.

by Caziz

Rift Complete Realm of the Fae Dungeon

2012-04-21T01:46:00.000-07:00

Deep in the hedge mazes in northern Silverwood, the realm of Fae Lord Twyl is situated. This dungeon is full of satyrs, treants and faeries. Work your way through this dungeon by fighting your way through the four seasons and meet up with their avatars at the very end. See if you have what it takes to hold court with Lord Twyl.

This dungeon is meant for levels 17-19 and is located in the northern part of Silverwood, the first zone for new Guardian characters. There are three quests associated with this dungeon and two are given inside the zone. As with all dungeons, the first quest is the automatic dungeon quest, the second is given to you by an NPC at the entrance and third is given from an NPC in Sanctum.

Quest Information

Lords of the Fae Realm
Quest Giver: Automatic
Location: Dungeon Entrance
Objective: Defeat all the boss mobs in Realm of the Fae; Trickseter Maelow, Luggodhan, Battlemaster Atrophinius, Fae Lord Twyl

The lords of the Realm of the Fae keep this stolen land locked in their seasonal grip, preventing Telara from achieving the harmony it once had. Destroy the lords of spring, summer, autumn and winter so that Telara can be made whole.

The Land of Seasons
Quest giver: Nuna Hawkwing
Location: Dungeon Entrance
Objective: Bless the five altars located throughout the dungeon.

This relam is not another dimension, but a part of the land of Telara that has drifted away from the harmony of the Vigil. The godless faeries seek to make their own realm beyond the sight of the gods and dragons. Their freedom is our destruction.

Find the ancient shrines of the gods that the High Elves erected in an earlier age. A the gods have joined together to form the power of the Vigil, so should your blessing energize the ancient shrines and bring the Realm of the Fae back into harmony.

The Crown of Twyl

Quest Giver: Shyla Starhearth
Location: Throne Dais in Sanctum (Guardian Only)
Objective: Burn the Crown of Seasons in the Brazier of Winter’s End

I believe my Prince kneels to the faerie lord only as a means of seizing the Crown of Seasons and the power it gives. If we destroy this artifact we can deal a blow to Greenscale’s minions and prevent Hylas from further succumbing to the sinful pull of the green beast.

There is an old ritual, of life and death and mirrored thrones. We may save Silverwood, Telara and the fae realms. Won’t you enter Twyl’s domain?

Realm of the Fae: Travel through the Four Seasons

Realm of the Fae is a medium size instance that is heavy on the trash mobs however many are avoidable if you are careful. Being a low level dungeon you can bring pretty much any group configuration you can get. Rogue or Cleric tanks are just as good as Warriors much like Mages are just as good as Clerics for healing. Each roll has been successfully completed by many classes.

As soon as you enter you’ll see the quest NPC Nuna Hawking just on the shores of the pond. She will give you the quest “The Land of Seasons“, which is the quest that asks you to bless five different altars. Checking your map you’ll be able to see where all five locations are. You’ll be able to find the first shrine just behind Nuna if you are facing her. Don’t forget to bless it now so you don’t have to come back at the end.

One finished you can head into the dungeon to the first pull. All the mobs are quite easy and don’t require any strategies. Many trash group contain a ranged caster, so either charge the caster, CC it, or pull it with LOS. Make your way through the spring section of the map and you’ll reach your first boss soon.

Trickster Maelow

Trickster Maelow is a simple fight, essentially tank and spank. He comes with two guardians, Lifewards Brae and Celoah, that have to die before you focus on Trickster Maelow. Each guardian has a special buff that they give to the boss, Brae’s is called “Fae Shielding” which gives a 90% damage reduction and Celoah’s is called Spirited Strikes which increases the damage of Maelow by 30. The order really doesn’t matter as the fight is not that difficult, but if you do run into trouble, killing Celoah first might make it easier on the tank.

Trickster Maelow himself has two special attacks that you have to watch out for. The first is Wild Kick which is a stun and the second is Cottontail, which polymorphs the target (randomly chosen, though usually higher on the threat table) into a Rabbit. Casters will have to pay attention to dispel this effect if it happens to be cast on the healer.

After defeating Trickster Maelow, you can continue. As you leave the area the boss the second altar is to your right. Make sure you pick it up. Continue up the hill and into the second section of the dungeon, the summer. This is where the trash gets troublesome. You can potentially skip a lot of the trash if you’re careful, but if you want to play it safe, and gain more experience, clear everything. There are many places, especially around the curves in the road, where there are many wandering groups that will creating very large pulls.

When you’re about two thirds of your way through this section you’ll come across a group of three huts as you are facing south. The hut on your right will contain the third altar you will need for your quest. Pick it up now.

At the end of this section you will reach the second boss.

Luggodham

This boss is extremely easy, just don’t stand in the fire or in this case the slime. Keep an eye out for “Luggodhan’s Slime” as it s a ground based AOE attack that slows you down as well. He targets random people throughout the fight, including the tank, so keep your eye out for it. Just move out of the way, stay within the healer’s radius and you should come out of this fight easily.

After defeating Luggodham you will move on through autumn. This is where the trash is really tricky. It is a densely packed area full of Satyr’s. There are spellcasters who like to nuke you with fireballs so kill these guys first. There are packs of non-elite bug mobs, and there are wandering mobs that will certainly add on to different pulls. Usually staying to the right and hugging the boundary will give you the best route through with the least amount of trash.

When you are nearly through to the end, you will see a small hedgerow section (see map above) to your right which contains the fourth altar. Grab it and head on towards the next boss.

Battlemaster Atrophinius

Battlemaster Atrophinius is another short fight that doesn’t have many tricks to it. Atrophinius has two adds that will harass you, but don’t really affect the battle too much. He also has two abilities, a frontal cleave called “Mighty Cleave” and a charge and knockback called “Drunken Rage“. The Battlemaster will charge random people throughout the fight and knock them back a good distance. The tank should position himself against a rock so that he can keep aggro if he happens to get charged.

Keep everyone healed, and control the boss and you should win easily. The two adds will disappear once the boss is defeated so you can ignore them through the fight.

After the boss is down, you’ll continue onward through winter. This section has one of the better graphical effects in the game so far. If you have an older computer you might turn down your effects because they can slow down your performance. This area contains two types of mobs, swirling vortexes and large treants. You can run around some, but you’ll have to kill a few.

As soon as you enter the snowy area, make sure you head up the slope on your right for the fifth and final altar (see map above).

Work your way through quickly and you’ll see a narrow bridge to the final boss encounter.

Fae Lord Twyl

This boss encounter contains three events before facing Twyl. You will first have to defeat the Avatar of Autumn, then Summer and finally Spring. After each Avatar you will drop out of combat for a small period of time allowing you to drink if you need to.

Each of the avatars of their own mechanics. The first Avatar you will face is the Avatar of Autumn. He has one ability that dazes a random player. This ability is called “Haze of Wine” and it can be interrupted. The effect is short lived so don’t worry if you can’t time it properly. Focus on your healing and you’ll be able to get through it.

After you defeat the Avatar of Autumn you will face the Avatar of Summer. This fight benefits from AOE abilities. When you damage the avatar enough he splits into two, who each split into two again, and those splits split again. Each iteration has less hitpoints that the one before and they don’t his as hard. Kill your way through and don’t worry if you aggro as non-tanks will not get one shot.

The third Avatar you will face is the Avatar of Spring. It is a large treant that has the ability to summon adds. It will summon a swarm of Nectar Seakers. These are non Elite mobs that you can down quickly. Most of the time you can get the Avatar down before he spawns his third group.

Once all the Avatars are defeated you will face off against Fae Lord Twyl. He has only one ability which roots and freezes you in place. Other than that he just attacks the tank. What you will have to watch out for is a little green light, called Fae Tempest, that moves around in random patterns on the ground. It will cause damage if it runs into you. So keep your eyes on the ground and those that are frozen might get hit as well.

The fight contain a little chaos and is the longest by far in the dungeon, but if you don’t screw-up by falling off the cliff, you should easily be able to complete the event.

Once you are finished a portal will open up at the tip of the platform allowing you to exit the zone but before you leave, make sue you burn the crown for the objective of “The Crown of Seasons” on the altar right before the portal.

by Draegan

Rift Complete Deepstrike Mines Dungeon

2012-04-20T02:04:00.000-07:00

As it corrupts the mines, the Endless Court fouls the very land of Stonefield, and it must be scourged from Deepstrike Mines if the honest folk of Granite Falls are to survive. The sourcestone in Deepstrike could provide endless fuel for technomagical machines, so any loyal Defiant should fight to reclaim the mines. For all their hideous magic, the Endless Court had best hope they never breach the buried gates. The titans within epitomize the power of earth, waiting in the deeps to shatter the works of living and undead alike.

Deepstrike Mines is made for players of levels 24 through 26 and is located in the western half of Stonefield near Granite Falls. There are many quests associated with this dungeon; except for the automatic quest, all quests are for Defiant players only.

Quest Information

Deep Threats
Quest Giver: Automatic
Location: Dungeon Entrance
Objective: Defeat all four bosses of Deepstrike Mines; Overseer Markus, Gregori Krezlav, Bonehew the Thunderer, Gatekeeper Kaleida

Subvert the attempts of the Endless Court to mine sourcestone from Deepstrike by eliminating all of their lieutenants.

Gregori’s Revelation
Quest giver: Torin Fergal
Location: Granite Falls
Objective: Read Gregori’s Log in Deepstrike Mines

Word around town is that miners found a titan-sized door in Deepstrike Mines, and that fiddling with it caused the dead to rise. Well, Gregori Krezlav was the manager on duty at the time. He never made it out, but his journal may shed some light on what happened.

Slaughtering The Butchers
Quest giver: Emily Fergal
Location: Granite Falls
Objective: Kill Baneful Decapitators 0/4

Though treacherous, Deepstrike Mines still draws the bold and the desperate. Hulking skeletons guard the mines, cutting down anyone prospecting for rich sourcestone veins. If you have the courage, venture there and slay the Baneful Decapitators.

The Foreman’s Disgrace
Quest giver: Torin Fergal
Location: Granite Falls
Objective: Kill Overseer Markus

Overseer Markus leads the undead miners of Deepstrike in their perpetual toil. The few who have braved the mines tell stories of a ghastly Markus flailing his risen laborers as they delve without end. Putting his soul to rest may release the other dead as well.

The Saga of the Endless: Endless Digging
Quest giver: Emily Fergal
Location: Granite Falls
Objective: Find Kaspar inside of the Deepstrike Mines. Kaspar is at in the immediate entrance of Deepstrike Mines

The Endless Court have control of the Deepstrike Mines. Whatever Alsbeth’s great plot is, she needs a lot of sourcestone to do it. The longer they hold it, the closer she gets to her goal.

We must stop her. Kaspar and I will accompany you.

Stolen Source
Quest giver: Kaspar
Location: Dungeon Entrance
Objective: Collect unrefined Source Fragments. These items drop from miners throughout Deepstrike Mines.

We need to get back the sourcestone that the Endless Court has stolen from this mine! Well, all right, they didn’t exactly steal it, since it was their miners that did the work. But they sort of ‘stole’ the mine in the first place, and therefore anything they take from it is also stolen.

What do I know? I’m the good guy, no the logician. All I know is we need to take it back.

Reclaiming What’s Ours
Quest giver: Asha Catari
Location: Dungeon Entrance
Objective: Disable the Eth Device. This device is located on the bottom floor of the dungeon.

Alsbeth used me to place an Eth Device here that opened a death rift, unleashing all the death energy on this place. She fooled us, all of us, into coming here so that she could take Port Scion. I want to get that device disabled, and one day, I will hopefully be able to smash it against her face.

Deepstrike Mines: Don’t Look Down

Deepstrike Mines is a compact dungeon that offers an amazing ratio of trash to bosses. There are four bosses in this dungeon all offering unique and sometimes difficult fights. All calling rolls have been used in this dungeon, rogue tanks, mage healers etc, so you don’t have to be extremely picky with who you bring to this dungeon.

If you’re a Guardian you won’t have any preparation to do; just enter the dungeon and you will get the automatic quest. If you’re a Defiant, there are a quite a selection of quests for you to gain. If you’ve done the prerequisites there are a few to gain in Granite Falls, and a few inside the Dungeon Entrance. Slaughtering the Butchers asks you to kill four Baneful Decapitators, the first one is right in front of you as you enter the dungeon. Another quest, Stolen Source, asks you to collect ten Source Fragments which you can gain from killing miner trash mobs. The rest of the quests will be explained during the guide, two ask you to interact with items found throughout the dungeon, and the last asks you to kill a boss mob.

When you’re ready you can begin pulling trash. After heading over a rope bridge and to your right and a long a ledge, you will see the first boss, Overseer Markus.

Overseer Markus

Markus splits into three parts.

You will see Overseer Markus on a platform ahead of you. There are two trash mobs to your right so if you haven’t aggro’d them yet, do so. On the platform you will see four other mobs with the boss. They will all come in a single pull. Take out the adds first, they don’t have many hit points, then concentrate on the boss.

Markus the Overseer is a pretty easy boss fight with simple mechanics. The only ability you have to watch out for is “Elemental Cleave” which, as you can guess, is a frontal cone AOE. When Markus gets down to 50% he then splits into three mobs that you have to kill. Once they are taken out the original Markus comes back at 50% and you get to finish him up.

Once the Markus is down you will continue straight onto the rope bridge. Once over to the next platform, turn left and continue over the next bridge. On the next platform you will want to head up to the top and once there you will then reach Gregori Krezlav, the second boss.

Gregori Krezlav

Baneful Delver

Gregori Krezlav will cause some groups problems if they are not properly prepared for the fight’s mechanics. Gregori himself casts two spells, Life Rend and another that summons a Baneful Delver. The fight is almost all magical damage, so if you have buffs that give resistances use them.

The fight will start off with Gregori standing there by himself. Once you engage him he will begin is sequence. After a short time he will then summon three risen channelers. Gregori will gain a buff that makes him immune to all damage. To remove this buff you will have to kill the three channelers while Gregori is still attacking you. Once they are down you will then have to focus back on Gregori. The tank does not have to taunt at all during these phases. Usually, Gregori will summon a Baneful Delver shortly after the channelers go down so the tank can focus on that add while the rest of the group takes down the channelers. Both mobs are not very difficult so there really isn’t anything to worry about. This fight is more about mechanics than dps and tanking. As long as the healers are doing their job, the fight should go smoothly.

Once you have finished with the boss there is a small cave behind him. In the cave you will find several bats and one Baneful Decapitator. Be careful, there are hidden mobs inside that will crawl out of the ground, so clear slowly. At the back of the cave you will find the logbook for Gregori’s Revelation.

After, it’s just a quick jump across two bridges to the next boss mob.

Bonehew the Thunderer

Bonehew the Thunderer is a movement type of fight. He has three abilities that either cause disorientation or knockbacks. The first attack is called Earth Shaker where Bonehew will smash the ground and those in range around him will become disoriented and not be able to use abilities for a few seconds, because of this, healers should always stay at range. The second ability is called Crust Crusher which is a frontal cone AOE knockback and because of this and melee fighters should stay behind Bonehew and the tank should stay with his back against the sides of the platform.

At certain intervals, Bonehew will run to the far side of the platform to cast Seismic Smash. This ability will cause a large rupture across the length of the platform and hit and knockback anyone that gets caught. The only way to avoid this is to clear out to the sides. There is plenty of time to get set, so don’t panic; just be aware of the fight. The damage is not heavy so if a healer does get hit, it will not cause a wipe.

If you can maintain your tank’s health through all of that, the boss should be down without any issues.

Once Bonehew is down you will have to make your way to the bottom of the dungeon. The easiest and fastest way is to go back the way you came. Once you get to the previous platform, across the bridge, you will notice that the spiral ledge to your right is broken off. You can jump across this and work your way down. Once you get to what you judge is a safe distance you can jump all the way down without dieing from fall damage.

Eth Device
On the bottom of the mine you will notice that there are bats scattered about as well as other miner mobs. These miners drop extra source fragments for Stolen Source if you still need them. Be careful however, there are hidden mobs that will spring out of the ground and attack you.

Once you are safely down and your immediate area is secured you will want to head to the western edge of the bottom section where the final boss is. However before you head that way, keep an eye out for the Eth Device.

Once finished you are now ready for the final boss.

Gatekeeper Kaleida

When you walk into the final room you will see a few miners stationed around the doors. You will see one on either ramp to the left and right, you will also see four directly in front of you leading up to the “titan sized” doorway. The immediate two can be pulled without pulling the two in the back. Once all the mobs are cleared and you approach the last two miners, the Gatekeeper will appear.

The Gatekeeper appears.
This fight is quite difficult as there is quite a bit of AOE damage. The boss himself has four different attacks. The first attack is a direct damage spell called Death Tremor. The second one is a disorient called Clobber Rock which prevents you from using any of your abilities. There is another instant cast ability called Fire Cleave which is a frontal fire base cleave, so tanks position yourself appropriately. Kaleida also casts a ranged AOE damage spell called Fir***ast. This has a long cast time, so for those with interrupt abilities keep your eyes peeled since this spell causes a lot of damage.

Here is the tricky part, Kaleida also summons two types of crystals, fire and earth. Each crystal does something different. The fire crystal pulses aoe damage and also explodes causing AOE damage after a short period of time. The earth crystal heals the Gatekeeper. There are several different ways you can go about this fight. You can tank the boss and the crystals all in the same place and dps down the boss and only retargeting the Earth Crystals as they appear and ignore the Fire Crystals if you think you can out heal the fight. Else you will have to have the tank move the boss away from the Earth Crystal to prevent healing while the DPS destroy it and also do the same thing for the Fire Crystals as well.

Make sure you realize that when you move the boss around he does a lot of AOE damage. Everyone must be aware and not stand in front of the boss and avoid the cleaves and stay away from whomever he targets for the Fir***ast AOE spell if he gets it off without being interrupted.

This can turn into a long fight if you can not coordinate taking down the crystals, especially the Earth Crystal allowing the boss to heal himself. However, once you manage the sequence it will take no time at all. Once Gatekeeper Kaleida goes down you will have beaten the fourth boss and Deepstrike Mines will be complete.

Rift Planar Focus and Essences

2012-04-20T02:01:00.000-07:00

What is a Planar Focus?

Around level 8 to 10 you get your first basic Planar Focus (orSigil) as a quest reward. A Planar Focus is a kind of jewelry that once you have it equipped gives you a number of slots on your character sheath to put Essences into. Basically you can make your own custom jewelry.

Later on you can buy better Sigils with more slots from special vendors.

What are Essences and where do I get them?

Used in a Sigil essences give you a number of stat boosts. There are two kinds of essences: lesser and greater essences.
Lesser essences usually have a number of primary and secondary stat boosts whereas greater essences can have either more stats or some kind of proc.

Usually you get essences as a random reward for closing rifts or defeating invasions or footholds. You can also buy them from planar merchants but they are rather expensive.

Once put into a sigil the essence can not be removed. If you put a new essence into an already used slot the old essence will be destroyed.

Essences are most of the time not soulbound so you can and should trade them with your guildmates to get the essences that are most beneficial for your class.

Rift Assist Macro

2012-04-18T01:59:00.000-07:00

Very important, as in every game we play, you must have a macro like this ready and working!

Below you can find how to make the assist macro. This macro is instant, no delay or switching back and forth. It directly assists your main assist. The only downside is that you will have to change name every now and then. But since you can make multiple macro's and we work alot with the same main assisters, this shouldnt be much of a problem.

Step 1.
Press Escape or hit the Options button to bring up the menu.

Step 2.
Hit the Macro button to bring up the macro menu.

Step 3.
Click the question mark to bring up the Icon window.

Step 4.
Select an Icon, I picked a crown because I was going to assist my King Ernesto! But pick something that stands out so you the assist button will be easy to find, preferably bind it to your mouse!

Step 5
Name your macro, so it will be easy to find. If you work with multiple Assistmacro's dont forget to include the name of the person.

Step 6
Creating the macro! its very simple, just type "Assist NAME". As you can see I thought you needed a '/' before, but that isnt really needed. (the game will remove it anyway after you hit save)

Step 7
Hit Save!

Step 8
The macro will pop up here in the list

Step 9
Drag the macro to your hotbar. Preferably bind it to your mouse or dump it somewhere where it's easy to use for you.

Rift Puzzles, Treasures and Solutions

2012-04-18T01:27:00.000-07:00

Each zone has a puzzle to solve with a nice reward at the end. They only give the item reward once, and they seem to scale with your own level but only up to a certain max level:

Freemarch/Silverwood/Lake of Solace: Max Level 30
Stonefield/Gloamwood/Scarlet Gorge: Max Level 35
Scarwood Reach: Max Level 40
Droughtlands/Moonshade Highlands: Max Level 45
Iron Pine Peaks/Shimmersand/Stillmoor: Max Level 50

Treasure/puzzle locations.
Some are listed on maps below, some are not
Stonefield (Granite Falls behind waterfall) -- max 35
Stonefield 5330 , 5370 -- max 35
Stonefield 5890 , 5030 -- max 30
Gloamwood 5655 , 3225 -- max 35
Droughtlands 9160 , 6920 -- max 45
Moonshade Highlands (hill behind Timberevil porticulum) -- max 45
Moonshade Highlands 6336 , 2330 -- max 45
Scarlet Gorge 4656 , 3101 -- max 35
Scarwood 4075 , 4444 -- max 40
Iron Pine Peak 4980 , 1860 -- max 50
Stillmoor 1585 , 1857 -- max 50
Shimmersand 7530 , 7165 - max 50
Lake of Solace (Seeking solace achievement):
5624,5682 (shallows by shore) -- Freemarch
5448,6008 (forgotten casket)
5552,6235 (safe - trench)
5871,6221 (skeleton - trench)
6314,6234 (forgotten barrel)
6700,5980 (sunken cargo)
6030,6510 (weed covered vase - base of kelp) -- Shimmersand
6430, 6427 (old chest) -- Shimmersand
Puzzles:
Silverwood: 6414, 3153
Freemarch: 5998, 6141
Stonefield: 4577, 4974
Gloamwood: 4540, 2382
Scarlet Gorge: 3630, 2755
Scarwood: 3123, 4426
Droughtlands: 8338, 6202 Note: Move the chest from cage to cage. Match front and back to move from the cage
Moonshade: Pretty much on top of the Hammerknell Fortress symbol. Hint: take group and kill up the ramp, will need them to keep the power flowing.
Shimmersand: 6412, 7720
Iron Pine: 3770, 2270 Hint: lead the rabbit out of the maze
Stillmoor: 1705, 2310. Hint: climb to the top of the tower, use the plaque to get to the belfry then ring the bell and catch the bats in the cages

Silverwood - Puzzled at the Top of the World

In Overwatch Keep, near the quest givers inside at 6515, 3080.

Click the Mysterious Plaque on the side of the wall behind the quest givers, and it will teleport you to the top of the tower. Once up there, you will find 3 plaques that face 3 different directions, as well as one on the outside of the tower that will teleport you back down.

Each time you click a plaque it will teleport you to the next tower, if you do it in the correct order, you will end up next to a chest with a nice reward and an achievement. (I got an epic leather helm from here, you can also get blue stuff, non soulbound).

Stand in front of the plaque and check the direction it faces. The correct order is: NW NW SW S NW

Gloamwood - Shield Wall

In Shadefallen Keep, run up to the left tower and click the plaque. This will teleport you on top of the tower, enter it via the stairs and continue to the ground floor.

You will find an arrangement of shields and buttons on the wall. Your goal is to match them with the pattern found on the floor, so to get the big shield into the middle slot and each small shield into a corner slot.

If you click one of the red buttons, that particular row or column will move 1 position in that direction and the other two rows will move 1 position in the opposite direction.

Try to get 2 small shield into the top row, the big shield into the center row, and the other 2 small shield into the bottom row, first. Afterwards you can get them into the final positions more easily.

Scarlet Gorge - A Barrel of Laughs

When entering Scarlet Gorge from the Gloamwood side, cross the stone bridge and at the end of it follow the path on the right, then jump down on the ledges. You will find the puzzle at 3619,2775.

The goal here is to arrange the barrels and boxes on the left side so that they form the same pattern as the example on the right side.

Simply right-click one of the items to move it to an adjacent free slot and continue to do this until all of them are in position.

Freemarch/Lake Solace:

Go to 5998, 6141 in Lake Solace and activate all the lamps in the water in any order. Use an underwater breathing potion if you have one.

Stonefield - Spinning Plates

You will find this puzzle on top of the hill to the right side when approaching the zone exit to Scarlet Gorge.

The puzzle itself is pretty easy: Click the telescopes in the correct order so they light up, then pull the lever. The only problem is that you have to do it quickly or you will have to start over again.

The correct order is shown in this picture:

Scarwood Reach - Scarwood by Torchlight

You can reach this puzzle in the south west of Scarwood Reach by climbing the mountains to the left of the King's Breach instance portal.

The goal here is to light all torches in the three rings. This can easily be done by clicking the buttons in the order indicated in this picture:

Top left
Middle right
Bottom left
Top rightAlternative Solution:
Bottom left
middle right

Droughtlands - Don't be Cagey

Another easy puzzle, located at 8335,6200 in the Droughtlands.

One of the cages contains a chest. Inspecting the cages reveals two colored gems, one on the front and one on the back of the cage. The gem on the front will change its color every second.

You can solve this puzzle by clicking the gem on the cage with the chest once the front gem color matches the back. This will move the chest to the next cage where you will quickly have to repeat the process until one of the cages will open and grant access to the chest.

Moonshade Highlands

This one can be accessed via a teleporter at the top of the stairs in Hammerknell Fortress, however you will either have to stealth your way up there or go with a group, because the mobs here are group mobs.

As far as I can tell right now, this puzzle requires at least two people or perfect execution.

The goal is to light all the blue gems at the machinery by clicking the red gems on the floor to create a flow of energy. However the red gems will only stay lit for a few seconds, and the blue gems will loose their charge again if they don't receive a steady flow of energy.

You can stand in the middle of the puzzle and click all the red gems without having to move, but another person might be required to keep up the flow.

Iron Pine Peaks - Tracks in the Snow

This puzzle can be reached by climbing the mountain behind the hut at 3800,2088 as shown in the picture. The actual puzzle is located at 3760,2266:

Enter the maze and continue inside until you find the rabbit, then chase it out of the maze.

Shimmersand

Some mountain climbing required to get to 6414,7714 in the south of Shimmersand:

Blast from the past, at least for me. If you need help solving this puzzle, the following youtube clip should do the trick.

Stillmoor

In Thalin Tor, go up the stairs at the side of the building then proceed to climb to the top of the tower.

Easily the most frustrating one. You have to catch all the bats by jumping up to ring the bells, praying they fly into the cages, then lock them up.

Rift Complete Titles List

2012-04-10T04:52:00.000-07:00

Titles are a sign of achievement to make your name above your character more unique. You can gain these in many ways. Most of them are achievements.

Where to find your Titles
Press C to get to your Character screen, then press the tab for "Titles". You can then choose from your current list of titles. Choose one and then click "use title".

Achievement Titles

These titles are gained when you complete a specific achievement.

Defiant Only Achievements
title / source
Adept - Adept : Reach Prestige Rank 5 [points5]
Aspirant - Aspirant : Reach Prestige Rank 3 [points5]
Cadet - Cadet: Reach Prestige Rank 2 [points5]
Centurion - Centurion: Reach Prestige Rank 6 [points5]
Champion of Freemarch - Champion of Freemarch: Reach Honored with the Freemarch Wardens (Gain notoriety with the Freemarch Wardens) [points10]
Colossal - Colossal Victory : Banish all colossal invaders from Telara [points25]
Granite Falls Citizen - Granite Falls Citizen : Reach Honored with the Granite Falls Citizens [points10]
Legionnaire - Legionnaire : Reach Prestige Rank 4 [points5]
March Warden - Freemarch Conqueror : Explore all of Meridian. [points30]
of Meridian - All Things Defiant : Explore all of Meridian. [points5]
Prey Stalker - Red Scar Stalker : Gain notoriety with the Red Scar Trackers. [points15]
The Giant Killer - Giant Slayer : Banish all colossal invaders from Stonefield [points10]
the Gladiator - Champion of the Droughtlands : Become champion of the cyclops arena in Sliptoad Ponds. [points10]
the Warden - Freemarch Warden : Earn the respect of the Freemarch Wardens. [points5]
The Warden's Hand - March Savior : Banish all colossal invaders from Freemarch [points10]
Titan Foe - Stonefield Savior : Complete achievements in Stonefield. [points30]
Unseen Agent - Agent of the Unseen: Follow the story of Kira and Uriel's friendship from Stonefield to Stillmoor. [points15]
Guardian Only Achievements
title / source
Champion of Silverwood - Champion of Silverwood
Captain - Captain
Colossal - Colossal Victory
Corporal - Corporal
Friend of Scotty - From Outcast to Hero
High Constable - High Constable
Honorary Waykeeper - Honorary Waykeeper
Hunter of Kain - Iron Claw Hunter
Lieutenant - Lieutenant
of Sanctum - Meditating in Sanctum
Sergeant - Sergeant
Student Hazing Committee - Bookworm
Tavril's Champion - Silverwood Campaigner
The Light Bringer - Light the Way
The Sterling Savant - Polished Silver
Wolfbane - The Glory of Gloamwood
Neutral Achievements
title / source
Goblin Bane - Conqueror: Darkening Deeps
Lord of the Fae Court - Conqueror: Realm of the Fae
Tomb Raider - Conqueror: Iron Tomb
Titanbane - Conqueror: Deepstrike Mines
Gaucho of the Gorge - Glory of the Gorge
Merchant of Death - Merchant of Death
The Sandwalker - Walking on the Sun
the Volcanic - Flamebound Achiever
Wastelord - Ruler of Scarwood
the Shroomer - Mushroom Soup
the Shadebringer - Shadebound Achiever
The Moonshadow - Moon Shadow
Telara's Defender - Nightmare of the Cultists
Storm Chaser - Frozen to the Core
Knight of Mathos - Knight of Mathos
Hand of the Arcane - Arcane Devotee
Truth Seeker - Achievement: Impossible!
Treasure Hunter - A Classic Treasure
the Trailblazer - Every Nook and Cranny
The Scarlet Knight - Crimson Gladiator
the Rift Walker - Telaran Defender
the Reclaimer - Runeguard Reclaimer
the Mountain - Stonebound Achiever
the Lucky - Living on the Edge
the Heartless - Cry me a River
the Glorified - Best Friends Forever
Desert Lord - Windswept
Base Jumper - So Much Fun, I Did it Twice
The Desert Sun - Desert Daisies
Explorer of the Depths - Seeking Solace
Bounty Hunter - Bountiful
Vampire Hunter - Just Call Me Van Helsing
the Tsunami - Tidebound Achiever
the Shady - Shield Wall
the Seeker - Apprentice Antiquarian
The Scarwood Hunter - Reach for the Scars
the Red Handed - Red Handed
the Primal - Faebound Achiever
The Iron Willed - Iron Snowman
the Hurricane - Stormbound Achiever
the Exterminator - Ultimate Hunter
the Drifter - Droughtlands Triumphant
The Colossus Crusher - Death Becomes Them
Dances With Squirrels - Dancing With Squirrels
the Vigilant - Ice Watcher
the Undertaker - Graveyard Shift
the Mountaineer - Cairn Do
Endless Annihilator - It's Finally Still
Zoo Keeper - Zoo Keeper
the Puzzle Master - Solution Finder
the Magpie - Master Antiquarian
the Light in the Dark - Scarwood by Torchlight
the Humorless - Knock Them Off Their Perch
the Highlander - Moonshaded
the Executioner - Executioner
the Engineer - Go With The Flow
the Daredevil - Plop!
the Compulsive - Expert Antiquarian
the Batty - Herding Bats
the Antiquarian - Journeyman Antiquarian
Sheriff of Rock Ridge - Lawman
High Diver - High Diver
Drake Slayer - Drake Slayer
Boulder Buster - Kicking Rocks
Barrel Rider - A Barrel of Laughs
the Pit Fighter - Pit Fighter
the Hare Brained - Tracks in the Snow
Stable Master - Stable Master
Profession Titles

These are titles gained when you reach a new level in a profession. They do not disappear from your title list if you unlearn a skill
title / source
Novice Butcher - Novice skill in Butchery
Novice Forager - Novice skill in Foraging
Novice Miner - Novice skill in Mining
Novice Apothecary - Novice skill in Apothecary
Novice Armorsmith - Novice skill in Armorsmithing
Novice Artificer - Novice skill in Artificing
Novice Outfitter - Novice skill in Outfitting
Novice Runecrafter - Novice skill in Runecrafting
Novice Weaponsmith - Novice skill in Weaponsmithing
Skilled Butcher - Skilled skill in Butchery
Skilled Forager - Skilled skill in Foraging
Skilled Miner - Skilled skill in Mining
Skilled Apothecary - Skilled skill in Apothecary
Skilled Armorsmith - Skilled skill in Armorsmithing
Skilled Artificer - Skilled skill in Artificing
Skilled Outfitter - Skilled skill in Outfitting
Skilled Runecrafter - Skilled skill in Runecrafting
Skilled Weaponsmith - Skilled skill in Weaponsmithing
Expert Butcher - Expert skill in Butchery
Expert Forager - Expert skill in Foraging
Expert Miner - Expert skill in Mining
Expert Apothecary - Expert skill in Apothecary
Expert Armorsmith - Expert skill in Armorsmithing
Expert Artificer - Expert skill in Artificing
Expert Outfitter - Expert skill in Outfitting
Expert Runecrafter - Expert skill in Runecrafting
Expert Weaponsmith - Expert skill in Weaponsmithing
Master Butcher - Master skill in Butchery
Master Forager - Master skill in Foraging
Master Miner - Master skill in Mining
Master Apothecary - Master skill in Apothecary
Master Armorsmith - Master skill in Armorsmithing
Master Artificer - Master skill in Artificing
Master Outfitter - Master skill in Outfitting
Master Runecrafter - Master skill in Runecrafting
Master Weaponsmith - Master skill in Weaponsmithing

Artifacts farming in Scarwood Reach daily quest

2012-04-10T04:50:00.002-07:00

Just east of Perspice in Scarwood Reach you can do a daily quest which involves defeating an easy opponent, you can do this 3 times a day, following a low XP and cash reward.

Location:

(pretty sure Guardians have the equivalent quest somewhere, and it would probably work just the same way there.

Each mob also drops an artifact which is part of a set, 16 in total.

You can farm these artifacts quite easily, for selling or using yourself to complete your set.

What you do:

Take quest
(mob spawns) Tag mob
Abandon quest
Kill mob and loot artifact
Take quest again.
Do as many times as you want.

Might be a good idea to do it when no one else is around, I have found that if you take it the same time as someone else, it might not work.

Rift Bard leveling

2012-04-10T04:49:00.000-07:00

Bard has been my favorite class since being hooked on it in EQ. This is going to a brief overview of how I play my Bard. There are so many variations of souls, but this will give you a feel of what the class can do.

Hopefully this little guide will give some insight on the class, how I play and what a Bard can bring to a group even if you do not play one. After level 30 I must say it is the single best class I have played in any MMO. The versatility is just insane.

1-30 Key Abilities

Cadence
Coda of Wrath
Coda of Fury
Coda of Restoration

30-60 Key Abilities

Cadence - 3cp AoE healing, your bread and butter ability
Coda of Wrath - Single target finisher
Coda of Fury - AoE Finisher
Coda of Restoration - AoE larger heal
Concussive Blast - Multi Target spell interrupt + good damage
Head Shot - Single target Finisher
Shadow Fire - 2cp damage+attack speed increase
Splinter Shot - 2cp bleed damage
Quick Shot - 1cp filler

1-30 Leveling

Your Cadence/Coda damage is based off your main hand weapon, just use whatever has the highest DPS - speed does not matter as weapons are normalized.

Motifs - I honestly don't even use my motifs unless I am bored running to the next mob or it's a semi tough fight. They won't increase damage/healing enough on single mobs to even notice it, and later on it's 5 GCD's to get them all up.

Create a macro that has just has "petattack" in it without the quotes, or re-bind your pet attack button to something easier to press. I use a mouse-over pet attack macro so I can keep building combo points on my main target while moving my pet around to other mobs to gain aggro so I can aoe.

Your primary fight is going to be a single target. When running up to the mob send your pet and fire off two quick shots(27 meter range), or get in range so you can use Cadence(20 meter range). After that just use Cadence to 5 combo points and then Coda of Wrath, over and over and over until it's dead. Your Cadence will heal your pet and yourself.

If you find yourself with too many mobs on your pet just shoot one or two off so they are hitting you, let your pet tank the others and kill your pet targets first. Split the damage received with healing done so you both stay at good health. The nice thing about Cadence/Coda of Resto is they cause zero aggro.

I could go further into this, but really, it's very simple and pretty lackluster to level to 30 as a Bard.

30-60 Leveling

Let the fun begin! Redo your spec and make sure to put 24 points in Ranger first - your pet cannot go beyond level 30 without it.

Single Target Solo Rotation:

Send Pet
Shadow Fire (2cp)
Splinter Shot (2cp)
Quick Shot (1cp)
Head Shot or Concussive Blast
Cadence (3cp + 1cp from Opportunity)
Quick Shot (1cp)
Head Shot
Repeat 6-8

I don't like to "waste" combo points, so that is why I throw in a Quick Shot after the Cadence. You can let another whole Cadence go through if you like, especially if your pet needs the heals. You may also need to use your 5cp on Coda of Restoration if you need more healing, or Coda of Fury if you want AoE damage.

Single Target Boss Rotation:

Send Pet (Using Dire Wolf, not Boar)
Shadow Fire (2cp)
Splinter Shot (2cp)
Quick Shot (1cp)
Head Shot or Concussive Blast
Cadence (3cp + 1cp from Opportunity)
Quick Shot (1cp)
Head Shot or Coda of Restoration if the tank needs more healing

Coda of Fury if adds need to be taken down
Concussive Blast if a spell can be interrupted

Repeat 6-8

I use Head Shot because it does more damage than Coda of Wrath for me, my bow is a lot better than my main hand am I do not have 5/5 Resonance yet. Check to see which does more damage and use that as your single target finisher.

Prior to the fight put all of your Motifs up, these should be kept up 100%. When you go to refresh make sure you have 5 combo points on the boss, you may need to do two of your motifs, use Coda of Restoration for a bigger heal on the tank, put the rest up and then Cadence back into your rotation.

Dungeon Trash Rotation:

Send Pet
Shadow Fire (2cp)
Cadence (3cp)
Coda of Fury

Coda of Restoration if need more healing
Concussive Blast if caster mobs and it's off CD

Cadence (3cp)
Trick Shot (1cp)
Trick Shot (1cp)
Coda of Fury

Coda of Restoration if need more healing
Concussive Blast if caster mobs and it's off CD

Repeat 5-8

Put up Motifs while running to the next pack or prior to pull - most of the time they are not "needed", but in a party they really do shine. Do not worry about refreshing unless you get patrol aggro or are chain pulling.

If you are pulling aggro because the tank is not very good at holding AoE threat just move over to the single target boss rotation. Switch off targets with low health after using your CP as your AoE will take them out shortly.

If you use Concussive Blast instead of a Coda for your finisher you only need to do 1 Trick Shot instead of two thanks for Opportunity.

Sit back and watch big healing/dps numbers fly across your screen.

Rift Cleric Powered Healer Build

2012-04-02T07:11:00.002-07:00

The creator of this build claimed that he was able to level in 4 days to level 50. This build is overpowered in healing only. In combat situations, it is an extremely underpowered build. This is only meant as a group healer, not as a solo leveler.

Supposedly, it’s like being “hit with a pillow” in combat. Obviously this isn’t the ultimate solo leveling build like the rest of my builds. This is a build meant strictly for repeated over and over leveling within dungeons. It’s this way, that he was able to achieve level 50 in 4 days playing time.

Overpowered Cleric Healing Build

Now, if this build isn’t for you, or you want to be able to occasionally do other things, such as run around zones, then you are going to need a new build. This could be your secondary build.

Iquisitor Cabalist DPS Cleric Build

It uses the Cabalist tree, for the AOE DPS. The Inquistor has a lot of good DPS spells as well, but they are aimed at one mob, not crowd control like the Cabalist. The Sentinel Spells, will help keep you healed as well.

Rift Guild guide

2012-04-02T07:10:00.002-07:00

So you and your friends have worked your way through the starting areas, have tossed around the occasional tell/whisper, and you then decide that now would be a good time to form a guild. How much does it cost? Where do you go? What do you do? How are guilds different in Rift than other games? Fret not my fellow Rifters, all of these questions will be answered on this very page. So let’s get going shall we?

How much does it cost?

Well, it seems that the developers either didn’t want you to form a guild very early on or they expected you to pass the collection plate around to your pals to put together the necessary amount of 1 Platinum piece. Yep, you read that right. To purchase a guild charter will set you back 1 Platinum piece.

After you have a platinum piece burning a hole in your pocket, it is time to seek out the Guild Charter Magistrate for your faction. You can find him in your capital city at the locations indicated on the maps below:

Their names are: Gilbert Hilberto (seriously?) for the Guardians and Dochin Bayardash for the Defiants. Remember where these guys are because they will sell all the guild related consumables that you will need later (Rally Banners, Combat Banners, Rally Scrolls, and Silver Artifacts (for using certain guild perks… more on that later)).
Once you’ve placed that shiny platinum piece into the Guild Magistrate’s grubby little hand, you will receive your Guild Charter. And after you have entered a name for your future guild, you should see a window that looks something like this:

Now that you have your guild charter you simply need to find 4 more people to sign it. The good folks at Trion have done a couple of nice things for you at this point.
For example, if you send a tell to someone to ask them to join your guild, the interface on the guild charter will update to show their name next to the ‘Invite’ button. So if they respond to your tell with a yeah or sure, you can just click the invite button and they will be added to the list. You can also use the /ginvite command followed by your future guildies name to send them a charter invite as well.
Unlike some other MMOs, if you have someone accept your charter and they logoff for some reason before your charter is complete, it’s ok, their signature still counts! How awesome is that?
Once you have your five signatures, your charter will vanish and your guild will be formed. You can now access your shiny new guild’s interface by pressing the ‘g’ key (unless you’ve changed that bind to something else of course). You can also access your guild page with the little shield button in the lower left corner of your screen.
Opening your guild window should give you a window like this one:

The guild interface has navigation down the left side allowing you to move between the different parts of the interface. The Info page has your Guild Message of the Day, which is displayed whenever a guild member logs in. It also shows your current guild level and the guild’s current quest along with its status.

Guild Quests

What? You think that I must have mistyped something? Lemme check… nope. Guilds in Rift have guild based quests. In fact, that is the only way that the guild can level. Guild quests come in three types:
PvE (Dungeons) – These require that someone from your guild complete a specified dungeon a certain number of times. It can be any member. Each completion for a player counts as 1 toward your total. So if a 5 person group comprised of only guildies completes the specified dungeon, that counts as 5 completions.
PvP (Kill Players) – These require that you either kill a certain number of the opposing faction or that your guildies win in a certain Warfront. Same rules as before. One point for each guildie involved in a winning Warfront.
PvE (Rifts) – These are kill creatures from a rift or close a certain number of rifts.
When these guild quests are completed they give the guild XP and the members that helped to make it happen get to split the reward (at least I think so since there is an 8plat reward for my guild’s current quest and we are less than 200 rift creatures away).
When your guild levels you get points to put into your guild’s Perks. I guess that is as good of a reason as any to move on to discuss perks.

Guild Perks

When you formed your guild, you received two points to put into two separate panels filled with perks of differing purposes. The Guild Perks window looks like this:

The perks you see in the left panel are your combat banner and combat ability perks. These can help your guild in PvP or in Raids as the banners provide stat bolsters that stack with the auras/scrolls/potions that your group/raid may have going. Please keep in mind that guild members can only be bolstered by two banners at a time. That doesn’t mean that more than two banners couldn’t be out at a time, but if you had mana and spell focus banners out for your casters you would need to keep them out of range of your banners that you have put out to help your melee.
Guild Perk abilities can be used by purchasing Silver Artifacts from the Guild Magistrate. Banners are placed by using the Combat and Rally Banner consumables you buy from him.
The perks in the right panel are your “membership has its privileges” perks. These include things like cheaper training, more gold looted from mobs, reduced prices from all vendors (except for mount vendors of course . There are also temporary buff abilities here as well such as: crafting skills increased by 5pts for 5mins, skills have a 10% chance to give you 2pts per skill up when crafting, etc.
Once your guild has spent its perk points, guild members can make use of the abilities or banners that you’ve chosen (Note: the rally banner is special in that you can limit its use to certain guild ranks). These banners and abilities will show up under the abilities window (p) as shown below:

The Roster
The Guild Info page gives you a small look into who is currently online with its tiny roster at the bottom of the window. If you want the full enchilada then you need to go to the Roster tab, which looks like this:

You have the ability to show the offline members of your guild along with their player and guild status. Player status is whether your members are AFK or active, what zone they are in and if you are showing offline members as well, you can see the last time members were logged in.
If you click on the button to view Guild Status, you will see the user’s note (they set this), the officer’s notes (officers set this) along with their rank/title within the guild. Click on a guild member in the roster will give you a text box where you can change that members rank, set the officer notes, and if it is your entry in the roster, you can edit your member notes.

The Log

There is also a log tab which currently shows when people join/leave the guild or change ranks. Pretty spartan right now but I am sure that it will see more love in the future.
If you were wondering what it looks like, here you go:

Guild Member Ranks

With a guild, you normally have a hierarchy with some members at varying levels based on their role within the guild. Rift provides you with 10 ranks by default as shown below:

You can set the name for each rank along with all of the permissions that can be granted to the guild’s members by bestowing that rank upon them. I touched on one of these permissions earlier in the article and that is the ‘Set Rally Point’ authority.
When allowed, a guild member can place the Rally Banner and at that point, if your guild members have Rally Scrolls (and they should considering how cheap they are), they can teleport directly to the Rally Banner. That could be super useful for PvE and PvP alike.

What is missing?

You may have noticed that I didn’t mention a guild bank as of yet and that was on purpose. Guild Bank functionality is not yet in the game but is something that Trion is working to have implemented some time after release. Other than that, I personally feel as though Rift has a very functional guild system filled with lots of great reasons for people to bind together under a single Guild Tag.
If you feel as though I’ve left something out, please let me know by leaving a comment and I will add it in.

by HighPlanesRifter

Rift Cleric Builds Collection

2012-03-29T07:05:00.000-07:00

A Collection Of Rift Talent Builds For Clerics

Rift Cleric Builds is a talent build site for Clerics of Rift. This site has talent build listings for Druids, Inquisitors, Justicars, Purifiers, Sentinals, Shaman and Warden Clerics of Rift.

Clerics classes have many diverse strengths. Below I will talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each class and I will list builds for each. As the game is currently in the beta phase now much of the builds and information may change.

In general the cleric class hybrid is a healing / damage / support class. Depending on the soul trees you focus on will determine your strengths and weaknesses.

Cabalist Builds
The Cabalist is very good at AOE damage and does good single target dps, the draw backs of this class is they do not have any survivability talents so they we have to depend on other trees to give them what they are lacking in this tree.

Inquisitor (14) / Cabalist (32) / Sentinel (0) - Cabalist AOE Leveling Build

Druid Builds

Druids are a melee dps Cleric class that focuses on pets. The pets are the largest strength and weakness of the Druid. Druid pets strongly bond to their masters and give Druids different abilities.
Druid Talent Builds:

Shaman (29) / Druid (36) / Warden (0)

Shaman (11) / Druid (35) / Sentinel (0) - Pet Druid leveling build(to level 35).

Satyr is the pet of choice, shaman is for glacial shield, sentinel is for healing breath. Rotation priority: Rage of the Fae > Combined Effort > Eruption of Life > Trickster Spirit > Fervent Strike

Inquisitor Builds
The Inquisitor focuses on single target dps, has some some aoe and buff abilities. This soul tree does not much else going for it besides being strong for single target dps, not much in the way of protection or buffs.
Inquisitor Talent Builds:

Sentinel (10) / Inquisitor (34) / Cabalist (22)

Cabalist (11) / Inquisitor (35) / Sentinel (0) - Direct damage leveling build.

Rotation priority: Fanaticism > Dark Water (if mob is not coming at me yet) > Vex > Impede > Spiritual Deficiency > Sanction Heretic > Bolt of Depravity (on Life and Death Concord proc only) > Decay (if I don't have a full stack of Lurking Decay and only if Obliterate is not on cd) > Harsh Discipline (if I'm under 70% health) > Aggressive Renewal (if I'm under 65% mana) > Obliterate (only if I have a full stack of Lurking Decay) > Bolt of Judgement (filler)

Cabalist (12) / Inquisitor (43) / Sentinel (11) - PVE caster build

Justicar Builds
This is the tanking soul tree for clerics. Putting a few points into this tree can give you some nice party heals and some damage and good armor buffs.
Justicar Talent Builds:

Druid (10) / Justicar (39) / Shaman (17) - PVP build

Shaman (19) / Justicar (29) / Warden (18)

Shaman (14) / Justicar (34) / Warden (18)

Warden (17) / Justicar (31) / Sentinel (18) - Multipurpose build

Shaman (11) / Justicar (35) / Sentinel (0) - Tank leveling build.

Rotation priority:
Doctrine of Valiance (try to hold 'til you have 5 convictions) > Bolt of Radiance > Censure > Sovereignty > Strike of Judgement (filler)

Shaman (12) / Justicar (44) / Druid (10) - Justicar Tanking Build.

Justicar (51) / Purifier (7) / Shaman (8) - Tanking build.

Shaman (11) / Justicar (51) / Sentinel (4) - PVE tanking build.

Purifier Builds
This is a ranged healing class for clerics. This class also has some good buffs it can cast and works well in combination with other ranged classes. Purifiers also can res after spending 10 points in this soul tree. This class is weak on HoTs, CC, mana and AEH is limited unless you go deep into the tree.

Purifier Talent Builds:

Sentinel (3) / Purifier (51) / Warden (12) - PVE healing build.

Sentinel Builds
The Sentinel is another healing cleric class, it has a lot of heals that effect more than one target and many that are instant cast. They are better suited paired with melee soul trees. They can also res with 10 points in this soul tree.
Sentinel Talent Builds:

Purifier (2) / Sentinel (32) / Warden (12) - PVE heal leveling build.

Purifier (12) / Sentinel (34) / Templar (20) - PVP healing build

Purifier (11) / Sentinel (39) / Warden (16) - PVE healing build

Purifier (3) / Sentinel (51) / Warden (12) - PVE healing build

Shaman Builds
The Shaman Cleric class is strong melee damage class. Shaman use buffs called Vengeance, only one Vengeance can be active at a time and can be used for increasing damage, mana, or snaring targets.
Rift Shaman Talent Builds:

Shaman (35) / Druid (26) / Warden (5)

Druid (20) / Shaman (46) / Warden (0)

Justicar (11) / Shaman (35) - A Shaman leveling build, it goes to level 35.

This is mainly a solo leveling melee build, it has high melee dps and good self heals. Third soul can really be anything but initially you want a healer class for it, start with Warden and later on switch to Druid.
Rotation Priority: Battle Charge > Rage of the North > Jolt > Fated Blow > Massive Blow > Lightning Hammer > Crushing Blow/Strike of Judgement

Druid (11) / Shaman (35) / Sentinel (0) - Solo melee leveling build with higher dps.

Rotation priority: Battle Charge > Rage of the North > Jolt > Fated Blow > Massive Blow > Trickster Spirit > Lightning Hammer (if DoT is not up) > Crushing Blow

Druid (10) / Shaman (51) / Justicar (5) - PVE melee builds

Warden Builds
Healing cleric soul tree that mainly use health over time spells(HoTs). The Warden is good tree to spend some points in for melee clerics as the HOTs can you at max health.

Warden Talent Builds:

Warden (51) / Sentinel (15) / Druid (0) - This build grabs everything in warden in order to gain AoE Utility.

The downsides to this set up is that you take points in talents that you should never get any use in a PvE Environment (Such as Restorative Tide), the biggest advantage to having 51 points is caused by the root talent Ocean's Blessing; this talent increases HoT through-put by 6% and then an additional 3.6% per point after 36 (With 51 points this is a 60% increase). This build has strong AoE and talents that support warden playstyle. In addition the third soul is up for d****e however druids provide a pet that is capable of auto-cast healing.

Warden (44) / Purifier (21) / Sentinel (0) - This build makes the Warden play high proactive, able to get HoT effects and Shields into place.

While also being able to deal with AoE Damage. The Sentinel Soul can be swapped out if the cleric would find that a Faerie is going to be of more use then Healing Breath. (Comes down to how many binds you would like to run)

Warden (38) / Sentinel (18) / Purifier (10) - This spec is for PvE.

It should give some of the most powerful talents possible. the deciding factor between this and 51/15/0 is the effect of Oceans Blessing which provides ~47% more powerful HoT spells but losses utility. (47% is quite a large number, but remember to take into account that this does not affect deluge which IS the go to spell for tank healing)

Purifier (5) / Sentinel (10) / Warden (51) - PVR healing build

Rift Scarwood Reach Puzzle Solution

2012-03-29T07:01:00.001-07:00

Located at 3140,4420 the Scarwood Reach puzzle can seem extremely confusing at first, and in truth I do actually understand how it works, I just know the correct order to do it. You will see two rows of three pillars. On the front two pillars there will be crystals you can click on. You simply have to click on them in a specific order to complete this puzzle.

The order is:

Left Pillar, Top Crystal
Right Pillar, Middle Crystal
Left Pillar, Bottom Crystal
Right Pillar, Top Crystal.

After clicking on these crystals in this order you will complete the puzzle and receive your reward.

Making Your way to the Scarwood Reach Puzzle

Rift Junkies - Scarwood Reach Puzzle Solution

List of all Puzzles and Solutions are here: Rift Puzzles, Treasures and Solutions

Rift Complete Mounts Instruction

2012-03-29T06:58:00.000-07:00

Basic mount information.
Mounts! Mounts! and more Mounts! Everyone wants to run faster, get to quests and back, get from rift to rift as soon as you can, but where can you get them? when? for how much? and how fast?

The first mounts you can get used to be level 20, but with the recent beta they removed the level requirement and you can now get a mount at any level as long as you have enough money. How much money do the mounts cost? (This is a picture of the mount vendor in the main city Meridian for the defiant side. The mount cost the same for both defiants and guardians though.)

The mounts cost 2 plat, 50 gold for the one that requires no level and is 60% speed, 35 plat for the 90% speed one and 125 plat for the 110% speed one.

What do the %'s mean? The cheaper, slower mounts are 60% faster running speed while on the mount, at level 40 you can get 90% speed mounts in your main cities and at level 50 you can get mounts that are 110% faster running speed.

Lastly, where can you get them? Well, they aren't far from the starting zone, they are just a few quest hubs away. The guardian's mount vendor is here, just south of the Argent Glade

The Defiant's mount vendor is here

There is also mount vendors in each main city.

Also as a side note, when pre-ordering the collectors edition, on the website it says that it comes with a mount that can be used at level 20, ever since the change towards mounts you can now use that at any level even though on the website it still says that it can be used at level 20.

Miku

An explanation of mount speed, mount types

Mounts are animals or creations used by players to move faster. Mounts have to be purchased from mount vendors and added into the player's collection (like books and companions). Mounting has a 1.5 sec cast time, and players can be dismounted when taking damage. Players will also dismount when using any ability.

The mounted speed increase depends on the level of the mount.
basic mounts give 60% faster movement speed and can be obtained at any player level
mounts for level 40 players give 90% speed increase, and
mounts for level 50 players give 110% to 110% speed increase.
This does not stack with other movement speed buffs, with the exception of some outfitter enhancement consumables that can be applied to leg items.

Apart from running (mounted or unmounted), players can instantly travel to other zones by using a Porticulum or the Ascended Power Soul Recall.

Mount types

Various vendors across Telara sell different types of mounts, most of them require a certain notoriety with the local ally faction. Each mount type is additionally available in a variety of color designs.

Mount Gallery

Here is a list of the available mounts and where to find their vendors.

Players may purchase a mount once they reach level 20. You will need to visit a vendor to purchase your mount.

After you purchase a mount, right click on the mount's icon in your backpack to have it move to your Mount Collections tab. Once the mount icon shows up on your Mount collections tab, you will be able to drag the icon to any of your action bars.

Guardia
Nell Hara is the vendor in Sanctum.

Reynora Skye is the vendor in Argent Glade.

Templar Arsbret is the vendor in Sanctum.

Defiant
Shria Terke is the vendor in Meridian.

Orobus Vend is the vendor in Kelari Refuge.

Jensen Farnsworth is the vendor in Meridian.

by Ign Wiki

How to buy and summon your mount

Mounts