Here is my 5th Warrior PVP video, continuing as 1H Riftblade / Paladin:
TLDR: World PVP, how I have missed thee! It’s great to have you back :)
This HD video is narrated footage of my level 29 Warrior duoing in World PVP in the MMORPG Rift. My partner is my friend Cas, a 31 Druid/Shaman/Warden-spec’d Cleric.
Here is the 1H Riftblade/Paladin used in the video:
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0cLhg.xrs0dsMMkz.xro0o
As mentioned in the video, 11 points is a great initial investment in the Paladin tree. With 11 points you get:
- a block reactive (Retaliation) that is off the GCD and has a low Power cost
- a passive HP buff (Gift of the Paladin)
- an HP buff (Aegis of Vitality) that can be cast on you and allied players
- an interrupt (Face Slam) on a 6-sec cooldown
- a full self-heal on a 10-min cooldown (ToL)
- a ranged stun on a 1-min cooldown (Light’s Hammer)
While Paladin may not be as “sexy” as some of other trees that are often paired with Riftblade (e.g. Reaver, Champion, and Paragon), I find the Pally tree to be underrated and very functional.
There are a lot of great things that I didn’t get to touch on in the narration:
- Make sure to “pre-load” to 3 Attack Points (APts) prior to engaging in PVP combat whenever possible. Or open up from range with Flamespear to build APts as quickly as possible
- Touch of Life, the Paladin 8-pt full self-heal, should be bound to a key that allows quick and reliable access. As you saw in the video, I got dropped to 1 HP by that level 40 Warrior Jintro, and within a quarter-second I hit ToL, which is bound to “H” (for “heal”) for me. It’s also helpful to anticipate when you are going to need to use it – I was already thinking I would need it based on how fast my HP bar was dropping. And don’t wait too long to hit ToL – many classes have finishers that will drop you from hundreds of HP to zero
- It’s critical to strafe when trying to gap opponents, so that you maintain your facing and therefore are able to block and parry. As you can see the 2nd and 3rd times I faced Jintro, I never gave up my back. In a close fight, proper strafing is a huge factor in determining the outcome
- Stonespear (ranged root, 30-sec cooldown) and Freeze Armor (ranged snare, 15 sec duration and cooldown) are fantastic tools for disruptive the movement and timing of your opponent
On a side note, so far I’ve gotten the better of pretty much every Riftblade Warrior I’ve faced in PVP. I have some great footage, including my first Whitefall Steppes match @ 30 in the 30-39 bracket, so when I have time I’ll edit and narrate more videos.
Lastly, as I have written elsewhere, so far Rift has been a blast to play. While I enjoy battlegrounds (“warfronts” in Rift), World PVP has always been the PVP context I enjoy most – you never know what you’re going to get – and WoW was sadly lacking in meaningful World PVP.
Thankfully in Rift, it’s easy to find opponents of the other faction if you go looking ^^
If you have questions/comments/feedback, post ’em!
Taugrim's MMO Blog 
WORLD? PVP? Hold the phone!
Got a bit curious. The chestpiece you are wearing. I saw some other warrior the other day with it. Where do you get it? I know its bought with fav. But from what vendor? Havent found it yet!
Great video, as always :)
Just figured this out myself.. that its in meridan.. (daah)
I have to agree–so far RIFT is pretty fun. Once I settle on a character and get out of the newbie area, I think I’ll contact United Independent to get my world pvp on. :)
Please do!
We’re happy to invite readers of my blog to the guild. We have a growing pool of good talent and friendly people, which is the kind of guild I enjoy being a part of.
I have been really enjoying your Rift PvP blog. It has been really informative and helpful to myself and my guildmates in the warfronts. I have a couple questions for you:
1)Have you included Face Slam in your spammable macro or do you keep it on a seperate hotkey?
2) Do you utilize the VK pactmechanic at this point in your character progression, and do you plan on investing anything in the VK in the future?
3) Have you had any luck with Earth Burst in PvP. It doesnt seem to land with any effect for me, at least the snare effect doesnt. Also does this land using flamespear as well?
Keep up the good work!
1)Have you included Face Slam in your spammable macro or do you keep it on a seperate hotkey?
Separate hotkey, because it has a cooldown and needs to be timed in terms of when it is cast.
2) Do you utilize the VK pactmechanic at this point in your character progression, and do you plan on investing anything in the VK in the future?
No, VK is simply there as a 3rd tree with a great return for 0 pts invested.
3) Have you had any luck with Earth Burst in PvP. It doesnt seem to land with any effect for me, at least the snare effect doesnt. Also does this land using flamespear as well?
EB does apply an AOE snare as far as I can tell, and it will apply if you FS a target.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks! :)
Here is a nice trick using EB and Judgement (14 point paladin AoE dmg/taunt). Judgement is a true PBAoE that doesn’t require a target, so it couples nicely with EB for AoE snaring rogues out of stealth.
You need action points preloaded, of course. But, its always a good idea to use MoBs to preload three action points when traveling in the PVP areas (as you mentioned in your video). :)
The yellow haze around the feet is the animation for snares and roots, BTW.
It is nice to see some decent world pvp action happening in Rift. Coming from warhammer the lack of world pvp was my only concern. Love the videos, keep them coming :)
World PvP is excellent at the moment due to people levelling up and questing. I’m concerned at what happens when most are at 50 however. I hope they put in some objectives/zones specifically to motivate people to do world PvP.
Understood.
I hope so too!
Mechanics-wise, Rift is tops in the market right now. Let’s hope the zone(s) for PVP are also high caliber.
what keyboard/mouse are you using .. and your finger set up to be able to strafe and turn at the same time AND be able to pop off abilities .. thanks
I just wanted to share my experience as a new level 50 (green/blue gear from quests and AH) on Briarcliff. Tried a number of specs: Champ/Para/War, RB/VK/Pally, RB/Reav/Pally, Champ/VK/Para.
My results:
-VK was gutted pretty heavily from beta. It still does well against Mages and the self buff cleanser is invaluable (it clears Assassin stuns for example) but you need to drop a lot of points into it to make it decent.
-Champ/Para/Warlord is amazing. Huge burst and great survivability because of low cooldown pulls, stuns and disarms. The huge burst is likely the result of a bug with armor/pen (more on this at the end).
-RB/Reav/Pally is a great grinding spec and can have amazing survivability and AOE damage if you have all your DOTs ticking.
-Champ/VK/Para is nice but not as good as Champ/Para/Warlord.
I ended up settling on RB/VK/Pally since it has great damage, survivability and AOE. I found 31 pts in RB to get Enhanced Burst and Planar Blade a requirement. Without the extra elemental damage you just don’t do enough to kill much–even with Riftsurge (one of the single greatest abilities in the game!). Planar Blade with Elemental Flux and high crit is also needed to make sure you have sustained damage (the energy return). Without it you also can’t do enough to kill much.
Pally at higher levels has a good deal of Life damage which synergizes with the RB. Light’s Decree at 32 is outstanding. It does tremendous single target and AOE damage. Balance of Power, Tip the Balance and Palladin’s Devotion are also fantastic.
Even with mediocre gear I do quite well. I can take most classes 1v1 and contribute strongly to Warfronts (almost always top 5 in KB and dmg). The exception to the 1v1 are some Clerics (who have more healing than I can do damage), some mages (who have both good damage and great sustained healing), and some Assassins (they can stun lock me to low health, vanish and then stun luck me again to death). Finally, Champ builds that know how to close the gap (i.e., those that I can’t kite for at least half the fight) also have hideous amounts of damage and control. I’ve literally been killed in one Bull Rush/Titan strike.
A word of warning. I don’t run with potions and its unclear if my opponents are well geared so matchups may not be scientific!
Now some observations on mechanics. Attack power sucks. RBs do scale but AP in general adds very little damage. With my gear it adds about 20-40 damage total to attacks that do 400+ damage and doesn’t do anything for static damage like Elemental Touch (i.e., all of my strength contributes probably less than 5% to my damage). Crit is the way to go since it increases our burst and sustained. This means leather armor and not plan.
Also there is something wonky about armor. Some tests on the forum seem to indicate that armor adds nothing in PvP. Other tests on armor penetration show that it is either broken or additive instead of multiplicative. The Para armor pen, for example, seems to give close to 100% penetration. The sab armor pen for charges is additive which means it makes their attacks do more than 100% damage. This appears to be why Sabs and Champs are doing huge amounts of damage.
Whatever is happening with armor makes it more or less useless, which adds to the idea of wearing leather instead of plate. Hopefully Trion fixes this ASAP.
On a final note, getting to 50 was a mistake. There aren’t enough players to make world PvP fun or queues short (20-30 min queues suck). Currently leveling up a Defiant char (love instant queues!) so maybe I’ll see you in Warfronts.
Great post mate, thanks for the insight.
Hey Boston, are you The Boston who put together the WoW Boston leveling guides?
Thanks for sharing your experience so far, great stuff.
Boston, look me up. (Valkyriez – Defiant / Briarcliff). Only 36 but I’ll be 50 in a few days and happy to pvp with you.
Valkyriez
Nice write up, thanks for all the info. I’ve made a RB/Pally myself (currently level 20) and am really enjoying the build, however with all the skills it can be overwhelming. Would you mind posting a basic write-up on the basic rotations you use for PvP/PvE?
Would you mind posting a basic write-up on the basic rotations you use for PvP/PvE?
I’m working on a Guide.
In the meanwhile, you can deduce what I’m using from the videos by watching cooldowns on abilities and the text names for damaging skills.
Do you use Q and E to strafe, or do you just use A and D while moving the camera?
Neither.
I use W and R to strafe, and the rest of my movement is handled by my right hand on the mouse.
This allows me to keep my left hand in the typing-neutral ASDF position and reach a lot of keys (Q-Y, A-H, and Z-B) or abilities and macros.
[…] full post on rift pvp videos – Google Blog Search Posted in PVP | Tags: blog, Rift, Taugrim's, video, Volume, Warrior, […]
hey dude :) i had alot of fun watching your video, and im actually following your spec for rif/pala/void. and was wondering if your items are pure int wisdom? or str endurance?