Here’s my 3rd Rift video:
This HD video is narrated footage of my level 24 Warrior in a Codex warfront (queued with 2 other players) in the 20-29 bracket in the MMORPG Rift.
Here is my spec:
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0cLhg.xRs0dsMMz.xMo
As I alluded to in the video, Rift supports an amazing degree of customization per class. For example, if you play the Cleric class, you can spec that character to be a cast-time healer, a HoT-based healer, a melee-AOE healer (a la Warhammer Warrior Priest), a melee DPS, or some combination of the above.
This is far more flexible compared to most recent titles (e.g. Allods, Aion, Warhammer, LOTRO, World of Warcraft) where you roll a particular class and have limited flexibility in terms of a particular role. E.g. WoW Paladin has 1 healing tree. If you want to play a HoT-based healer you have to re-roll as a Druid. In Rift you get to customize to the mechanics and playstyle you prefer.
It is simply bloody amazing :)
If you have questions/comments/feedback, post ’em!
EDIT (2011/03/09): a few notes I wanted to make. First off, I haven’t played Cleric really so I don’t know the mechanics. That being said, Jodah posted an awesome comment with his take on Cleric mechanics.
Also a poster named Conwolv summarized the flexibility of the Rift spec system very elegantly in a comment below:
I just love the fact that not only can you build your own spec, but it’s really alright to do so (unlike wow where you’re severely punished for doing so by not being optimal). Really makes the game amazingly fun to play. It’s not just the illusion of choice, but actual choice in the way you play.
Taugrim's MMO Blog 
Spot on about the terrain in Codex. LoS paradise.
That was like the battle of Thermopylae really, come on.
Hi Nathan (Cas),
There are people asking questions about Clerics, and I haven’t played on single digits yet.
If you feel up to it, I’m sure people would appreciate your insight into Cleric specs and such. If you want to post something on your blog or here, let me know.
I started playing this yesterday and got up to 17 with a Cleric and I must say that the amount of options you have is almost overwhelming, I’ve been rearranging the limited amount of points I have at this level and still coming up with many many different combinations.
I feel like they got it right with the rifts, while they are very crowded at the lower levels, the number and randomness of them makes it a more forgiving system then the public groups from WAR where you could get stuck with the same 20 people trying to farm certain items out of them.
Loving Black Garden, I’d like to see another BG added to the lower levels, but I don’t have much longer before I’m in the next tier anyhow.
I started playing this yesterday and got up to 17 with a Cleric and I must say that the amount of options you have is almost overwhelming, I’ve been rearranging the limited amount of points I have at this level and still coming up with many many different combinations.
It is overwhelming – you just gotta pick a few trees and try them out :)
Yesterday, so that I could tank a PVE instance, I bought a 2nd spec and went Paladin/Riftblade. It was fun.
I feel like they got it right with the rifts, while they are very crowded at the lower levels, the number and randomness of them makes it a more forgiving system
I totally agree, and I’m not much of a PVE fan. Rifts are fun. Invasions are fun.
And the best part is *you* get to choose what to spend your rift-earned currency on, instead of waiting for a drop.
Loving Black Garden, I’d like to see another BG added to the lower levels
I agree.
In the 20-29 bracket you can also queue for The Codex, which is a much better version of Arathi Basin. The terrain allows for incredible tactical battles.
I have one qualm with RIFT so far. Where are the gear options? at 20, if it hasn’t come from a quest, I don’t have it, minus the gloves that dropped out of IT. I’d like to see favor rewards for the lower bracket implemented for those that enjoy leveling as PvPers, much like yourself. More planar rewards as well. Keep in mind, I’m not saying they should be easy to get, there should just be a bit more, I feel a little railroaded in my gear selection.
You can get gear from:
PvP favor vendors
Reputation vendors
Planar goods vendors
Dungeons
Tradeskills
You can’t get full sets at lower levels, so if you want to be decked out in blues and purples you will have to put time into all of it. Not sure how it is at 50.
I wasn’t referring to blues and purples. I’d just like to see a much more prevalent amount of greens in drops and the like. I’m not looking to be decked out in the best gear all the time, I’m looking for there to be some uniqueness to characters early on as opposed to looking like carbon copies of each other in quest greens up until 25+.
I seem to get a ton of green drops. I salvage most of it for trades materials. You might want to try the auction house to fill in gaps. I don’t think you are going to find a wide variety of models though. ;(
Well, like I said, so far that is my only problem with the game. Respecced to Justicar last night when I dinged 20, and I couldn’t be enjoying myself more. While it has nowhere near the burst that my Shaman build was sporting, it has amazing survivability. I can constantly move from mob to mob, and with the Purpose skill I don’t have mana problems. I prefer that over having to stop to heal but having a higher dmg output. The tanking mier has significantly increased my ability to stay in the thick of it in combat.
Respecced to Justicar last night when I dinged 20, and I couldn’t be enjoying myself more. While it has nowhere near the burst that my Shaman build was sporting, it has amazing survivability
If I roll a Cleric, I think I would go Justicar too. It seems like a more durable version of Warhammer’s Warrior Priest.
From what I’ve seen, Justicar can “tank” really well in PVP. It’s not a high-DPS spec, but it has decent melee capability and the damage-based healing is a fun mechanic.
Probably a good idea to avoid clerics for PvP until the mana drain issue is addressed.
3:15 – instasquirrel followed by manawrench, which drains way too much mana, way too fast
Avoid rolling a whole Calling just for that? And why Clerics and not Mages too?
Why bother with the game then?
Things that definitely need addressing:
Riftblade (riftsurge and fiery burst respectively)
Sab (takes 0% brain matter to play)
Wardens (there is good then, there is warden)
Dominator (insta poly thats lasts 12 seconds and hates to break on damage, also can mana drain ridiculous amounts)
That’s all that springs to mind at the moment, but the game is pretty balanced to say there is about 500 different combinations to choose from and it launched about a week ago…
Reply broken on post below, so…
Avoid cleric from a solo or world PvP point of view, yes I would until that mana drain issue is fixed. If it isn’t fixed every mage will be rolling with that build.
I was only talking about cleric because they were talking about cleric. Of course, it screws mages too… but when every serious pvping mage has that build it will become a matter of who drains who first.
The impact isn’t as bad for group pvp, since clerics would have support and dominators will likely get focused just for the mana drain danger alone.
I know Taugrim likes to solo, or did in Warhammer, which is what that warning was for. I’m pretty sure its not fun to be totally helpless 1v1 against such a simple and easy strategy to pull off.
You nailed it in the description where you stated that the Rift class set up was, “Bloody Amazing…”
A number of us posted on the Warhammer (official) forums that if they wanted to keep players as the new titles come out, they need to adapt a better style and design of game. Since they were unwilling to adapt to Dark Age of Camelot’s very high bar of class and race and 3 realm advanced pvp set up – then they in the least had to create a plethora of options for players – we like options! But, no, War was another game where developers made a game to fit their own little personal opinion as opposed to common sense (like dual wielding archers and pets that hold aggro for casters, and real rogues, etc). Ha look at them now. IN THE FACE.
Hey Taugrim, love the videos.
WoW has been getting pretty stagnant for me, and I’ve been thinking of picking up Rift. What combination would you recommend for someone who enjoyed Prot Warrior PvP?
Honestly, there are too many possible combo’s, and I only know the ones I’ve tried so far: RB/Pally for PVP, Pally/RB for PVE tanking.
Paladin/RB is incredibly strong versus physical melee and physical ranged builds. I will likely end up going very deep into Paladin and high enough into RB to get Rift Surge to help with ranged casters and healers.
IMO, the Paladin gives you more of that “in your face” style of play that you mentioned in your vid.
Nicely done mate!
One recommendation though about your spec. I pretty much encourage you to bring back the point to the improved fork talent. Well, still you don’t have the Silence Spear spell. But i think even at your level for 1 point to be able to aoe root 3 targets instead of 2 is better (compared to 2% parry).
Of course when you ll get 32 points in Riftblade, so you have both snare and silence spears, improved fork is no brainer for pvp ;)
Also for PvE, try Reaver(Main)/Paladin/Warlord(0 point filler). At low levels it is a blast.
Keep it up :D
I pretty much encourage you to bring back the point to the improved fork talent.
The main issue with Fork is it costs 20 Power, and right now Power efficiency is my #1 challenge. I’m often very low on Power and having to slow down ability uses to catch up.
The other question with Fork is how the mechanics work in terms of selecting a target.
E.g. if you have 2 Rogues, 2 Warriors, and 2 Clerics opponents all clumped together, you have a Cleric targeted, and you cast Improved Fork and Windspear for the silence, how does Fork choose the other 2 targets to silence? Is it based on proximity or mechanic (e.g. presence of mana bar)?
Aside from the silence, having an AOE root effect on 3 targets from Improved Fork + Stonespear would be nice.
Hey Taugrim,
I rolled on your shard but haven’t seen you online at the same time as me yet, but I was just curious what you thought of the Vindicator PVP soul and when/if you’d try it out?
Guard is a superb PVP mechanic for a 1H tank. I plan on getting Vindicator at a higher level for PVP for sure, and I’m going up the left-hand path to boost raid crit and increase Guard. TBD how many points in Vind I spend.
Fine, you win. Reading the PTR notes of WoW is confirming the worst fears.
I will be getting Rift in the next few days.. if anything just to pass the time until the Blizzard devs wake up and smell their own bullshit.
Maybe see you online sometime!
Morgan… what is the latest you have read of the PTR notes? What are they saying?
Just what was expected, i.e the paladin is now a broken class. Those rare few who said that change was kind of acceptable said that 20 seconds was too much and 15 was more reasonable.
I would not mind the change if it did not come along side stupid changes such as the rogues self heal which now can heal 90% of their health in 30 seconds whilst INVISIBLE and MOVING!
Also would not mind if mages were still not in need of some serious nerfage.
However, a moot point, Rift is now donwloading.. better be good :D (I took a leap of faith and bought the CE version)
Thanks Morgan… the Rogue buff is ridiculous. They already can survive 4 people pounding on them when they get down to 5 or 10% health. That buff is going to make them gods. Mages are crazy OP, always have been, but it is worse now.
If they are going to do it and want to make us a class that uses Holy Power for DPS… why not put it towards shortening the duration of Avenger’s Shield– a 5 second CD not 15. That would do the trick. ;)
In terms of Prot Pallies… the nerf is going to hurt. Bad. But it destroys Rets. Rets are an absolute joke now, so squishy and easy to kill. The only thing that is keeping them a tiny bit competitive is their ability to off heal…
My arena partner was a ret, and was finally enjoying being competative in PvP, he is now very despondent.. for the first time, he has only been playing for 6 months and LOVES PvP.. now he understands enough to realise he is gonna be another easy target in arena.
One of the top rets in the USA (3k rating I heard in previous years) has written quite a long piece on the folly of the changes.. will fall on deaf ears
Where can I find that piece Morgan? Can you link to it?
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140446758?page=1
Some guy called Vanguardy arena experiences include gladiator in season 7 and 8, 3005 rated 3s in season 8, and 2970+ Rated 3s in season 9 on the battlegroup of bloodlust.
Appreciate it Morgan.
Hey, thanks for the educational vid! I just started trying out warrior pvp last night (29 VK in black garden… grooooooosss), and I really like the look of your spec setup; it’s unique, clever, and a very unexpected yet awesome use of each soul’s mechanics. ^^
Keep up the good work!
I’m checking out your action bars and it’s a lot less cluttered than mine. Was wondering if you wrote up some macros and care to share? I’m still experimenting with mine but I alternate between three builds for the situation so that makes it fun.
I posted macros in my previous video:
I too have a question, I’ve made a macro to cast my buffs on me, similar to one of yours, it is as follows:
#show Salvation
cast Salvation
cast buff2
cast buff3
cast …
When pressing the button cast, I get a message saying that I can only use 1 ability per cast. So it buffs me with salvation. At this point, I’d expect it to rotate to the next buff and cast it when I hit the button again.
If this not something similar to what your macros are doing? or is yours set up to me a ranged attack and a melee attack and it picks according to usability?
Thanks,
A Rift macro will cast the first possible spell in a list, each time the macro is fired.
That is why you see people structure their macros like this:
cast Reactive 1
cast Reactive 2
cast Cooldown 1
cast Cooldown 2
cast Spammable
There is no “castsequence” concept as there is in WoW. I hope they add it, because I have to cast 5 self-buffs every time I rez and it’s tedious.
As do I, although the number is 7 if in a party (PvP). That was the event I was trying to avoid by using the format you were, but it looks now like I’ll have to put up with an entire action bar dedicated to buffs/pet. However, now that I understand that it will use the first possible spell, I can clean up my main action bar a little bit. Thanks. :D
Thanks for explainingthe macro system, what you just said isnt actually in the wiki etc. Now I can write macros i understand as opposed to indiivdual buttons on my action bars which were quite cluttered
Do you think that Jodah or one of your other buddies that have a cleric perspective could share some of their thoughts/experiences on leveling as cleric and pvp as cleric..i.e. different builds they’ve used for both and strategies. I’m thinking of starting to play and am interested in the cleric class but wanted some insights to help me make a decision. I assume there are others that may be interested as well. Thanks in advance.
Cheers
Hey,
I’ve been playing meleé cleric for nearly 30 levels now, I might release some narration videos from my perspective, would that be cool?
If you have videos, please post links to them here. If the footage is the kind of quality that you shared with me earlier (the fights with the Saboteur @ Vault in Codex WF), I will post the videos here.
Honestly Cas, that footage is as good as anything I put up here.
Need your e-mail
I have a gmail account.
Take a wild guess what my email address is :)
For leveling I’ve been doing Justicar. I’ve played a wow paladin for a long time and Rift seems to have split it into two classes. The cleric version is more heal intensive but very hard to kill. Easy to get groups but solo dps is poor, 2h while soloing (after 25 and parry boost) helps.
For PvP I’ve been winging it. Frozen noted a lack of healers and I thought I’d give my off-spec a whirl and fell in love. http://bit.ly/hyM3UD currently. Stacking wis/end and using a 2h for the end/sp as cleric usable shields provide too low of a percentage increase on block+absorb/armor. Basically, my pve leveling gear. Enjoying warden because it’s extremely mobile with instant casts (hots, nukes, 3s silence) and a root/snare remover. It’s also fairly subtle. Not much flash and the reliance on instants means few interrupt opportunities. It’s also got an instant cast 30 range knockback.
Lacking an innate bubble or instant-heal means either sentinel, purifier or druid. Purifier and druid bubbles are self only. Druid instant heal scales poorly with spellpower (bug?) and on a 15s cd. Sentinel’s 8s instant heal seems to play the best, especially with Tidal Surge (increase heal size) on a 45s cd.
Mostly I get on by making sure anyone with a hint of damage gets a healing spray, minor fire starts with a healing current. Not finding much use for Deluge’s massive heal (with tidal surge and 6 hots, 1600ish) as if anyone gets that low they’re probably gonna die during the cast time. I’m a nancy so am always sure to heal myself, too. Dead heals = no heals. I’m used to tanking so keeping my head together while getting beat on isn’t too hard. Taugrim suggested to wait on the PvP soul until 50 as you can’t get pvp ranks but, after playing WAR, I find having that 50% 10s detaunt to be invaluable. With hots I can shrug off the hardest hitters until rescue or I can get them to a ledge for a punt.
Awesome post Jodah, I learned a lot from it.
Taugrim suggested to wait on the PvP soul until 50 as you can’t get pvp ranks but, after playing WAR, I find having that 50% 10s detaunt to be invaluable
I’m actually not sure at what point each class should take the PVP soul. It may be viable to get it before 50. We should ask some of the folks in our guild who are in the high 30s and 40.
The main thing I’m noticing is that there are still abilities that I want to get in the Riftblade tree, let alone the Paladin tree and PVP tree (Vindicator).
I don’t want to bother with taking Vindicator unless I have 5 points to invest in it, because that is the required number of points to get Guard.
Like you, I’m also a WAR vet and also appreciate the PVP mechanics like things like Detaunt and Guard.
Thank you much for the insight. You and Taugrim should team up and dual contribute here to have multiple class vids and informative
posts I think it’d be a big hit.
Hi Vxx,
Check out Cas’s overview of Cleric:
Cheers,
Tau
Well started last night, so far seems ok. Not happy with the targeting, feels a bit rough. Didnt realise I could use my mount immediately which made me feel a bit of a muppet.
Not quite sure about your macros Taugrim, I thought only one action could be done against a macro,
I have Champion and Riftwarrior as my two main souls, with paladin as a third. Level 8 so far.
I get the impression that a lot of the (ap generating) attacks can be completely ignored as many of them share a cooldown, cost the same and do the same damage.
I think you will find that that isn’t the case. Generally the AP builders have a secondary effect, additional damage (death, fire, air etc) and some increase your armor or decrease the targets. You can’t ignore them, they are essential to your finishers or AP consumers. The choices come later when choosing what finisher to use, at 24 I have 4 finishers and it’s a hard choice to pick one sometimes, all though my fav ability at the moment is “Riftsurge”, it is simply awesome seeing 250 dmg ticks going off whilst using froststrike and searing strike, with improved frost armor and flamespear…… Even stonespear hits very hard and gets the root effect. Riftblade is such a fun spec, you can kite melée players to death if you want, and being rooted doesn’t stop your damage output at all. Deity burst can be very good aswell, I just forget to use it most times.
I really enjoyed your videos, thanks for sharing. I also like prot pvp but since I found rift, I’ve been playing with quite a few combos and you may want to give vindicator a try. Thats the pvp soul, if you use it as your third, you basically get a free pvp trinket in the first tier without any points. You can buy that soul with favor at the pvp vendors.
Right now I’m level 32 and I’m testing my 3rd spec as champ/para/rift and the crit I get from that combo is insane at this levels, for my pvp tank spec I have reaver/ paladin / Warlord and it tends to outdamage dps clases in Warfronts just thanks to the AOE tools reavers have.
Zee Ya at the Warfronts and keep up the good job!
I really am enjoying the PVP aspect of Rift far more than I do in WoW (still play both). I tried out your Riftblade/Paladin combo with some Vindicator tossed in for good measure (who can complain about +10% extra player damage?) but dont mesh well with that style.
Rather I’ve been doing the Champion/Vind/Paragon combo with macros for massive burst damage. It’s fun being able to charge from target to target, do massive AoE with Mighty Blow and Follow Through (5 target AoE hits for 200+ dmg @ lvl 22)
I just love the fact that not only can you build your own spec, but it’s really alright to do so (unlike wow where you’re severely punished for doing so by not being optimal). Really makes the game amazingly fun to play. It’s not just the illusion of choice, but actual choice in the way you play.
I just love the fact that not only can you build your own spec, but it’s really alright to do so (unlike wow where you’re severely punished for doing so by not being optimal). Really makes the game amazingly fun to play. It’s not just the illusion of choice, but actual choice in the way you play.
That’s one of the best-framed summation of the Rift’s spec customization that I’ve read.
I’m going to edit the article to quote you.
I love Rift so far. My only gripe is the framerate issues I’ve been having.
Hey, I’ve been having a look at RIFT recently after having a break from mmos since quitting WAR last september. The class customisation looks incredible! Just the possibility of creating what the a Shadow Warrior in WAR could have been is enough to make me want to buy this game!I have some questions though:
Firstly, Taugrim you say you’ve been having framerate issues, but your system specs look good (better than mine anyway!). Do you need a really good machine to run RIFT well? Is it a hardware issue or the engine that RIFT is built on? One of the biggest issues in WAR was its terrible engine, so even good rigs would get choppy framerates. It did improve with time, but I’d rather not have to go through that again.
Secondly, I’m aware this isn’t an RvR game like WAR, but is there any world PvP to be had? Do you bump into enemy factions just wandering around between war fronts? World PvP has a certain element of fun that instanced PvP just doesn’t provide imo.
Cheers
Taugrim you say you’ve been having framerate issues, but your system specs look good (better than mine anyway!). Do you need a really good machine to run RIFT well? Is it a hardware issue or the engine that RIFT is built on?
Not sure to be honest. The issue lies somewhere between the ATI video card driver (which I updated yesterday) and Rift.
Some players have zero issues and get better frame rates than me. My system is fine as of last night – I re-flashed the latest BIOS.
is there any world PvP to be had?
I’m only in the second zone at the moment (20-29), which is mostly still a friendly zone, although the other side does come over to gank.
I won’t really know til later in the game (level 27 out of 50).
World PvP has a certain element of fun that instanced PvP just doesn’t provide imo.
I completely agree, and this was the 2nd factor in my deciding to switch from WoW.
The third zone, Scarlet Gorge, has a fair amount of World PvP. Especially when there are zone-wide rifts and both sides are trying to do them.
Thanks for the quick responses :)
I love the idea of a rift opening and both sides clashing in the middle! :D
One quick question, how big are the groups in RIFT? I quite liked the 6 person groups in WAR, a bit more possibility for variation.
As the other replier said, World PvP really opens up once in the 3rd zone. These are contested zones where both sides have quest hubs that send you to the same areas fighting over the same mobs quite often.
Well i am level 43 now, and world pvp is just random. Well now it exists, but i am not sure if it will keep going when most will reach 50.
For example in WAR there was world PvP for sure, with the keeps, but in rift don’t know how they are going to keep it active.
Thanks for the link Taug.I was wanting to do some calculating before I came over,and as usual you answer alot of my questions in your blog.By the way,Necro and I recruited Thillin to run 3s on our team.18-3 so far.We are running unholy Dk,Ret,Disc Priest.
That’s awesome.
Let me know how high TR you are able to get.
I am a believer of this spec. I do extremely well with it at level 18 in warfronts. It’s silly. <3 Taugrim!
Do you have any high lvl pvp specc for warrior?
I have some I’m looking at, but I don’t want to post them until I’ve had a chance to test the mechanics out myself.
I have to say that this game does offer a little more excitement than other games. I have played Dark Ages of Camelot (4 yrs.), Warhammer (4 months), and World of Warcraft (5yrs). I love a game that offers amazing PvP without the worry of being ganked repeatedly by someone 20+ levels in season (insert number here) gear. I recently started playing Rift from WoW based off what my wife had seen. We closed our 4 WoW accounts down and started playing Rift. The specs allowed me to mix and match my Warrior how I want want to play in PvP and PvE. PvE I went Riftblade (MS) and Reaver/Warlord (OS). PvP is Champion (MS) and Void Knight/Palidan (OS). No more queue waiting for me, AFK healers, AFK tanks, or 6 hour raids to get a piece of gear.
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Hey man quick question. I’ve been watching the progression of your video’s as i go following you spec. From the lvl 15 vid till the lvl 21 vid you rolled with champ as your third class. Then at 24 you dropped for voidknight. Now was that to build up your range dps by collecting pacts and using discharge or just because the champion bull rush wasnt as effective or didnt out weigh the dps range gained from discharge?
VK is a good choice for 0-point talent tree because of the 5% Spell mitigation. I would recommend going with that instead of CH.