RIFT PVP Video: Pre-Kiting and Strafe-Kiting FTW

Posted on 2011 October 8 by Ed Park

There has been a lot of controversy since Patch 1.5 launched. One of the common arguments I’ve read on the RIFT PVP & Warfronts forum is that “RDPS are squishy and need(ed) survivability buffs.”

Yesterday I decided to record the first full Codex warfront I got into, then break down the footage to see how opposing players and I managed our survivability.

In particular, I was looking for the following:
1. proper pre-kiting: anticipating situations, finding a good spot to DPS/heal from that offers excellent field-of-fire with some defensibility (e.g. standing near a pillar or on a cliff, flanking opponents, etc)
2. proper strafe-kiting: running sideways under fire to escape to create a gap and using terrain to your advantage – as opposed to facetanking, backpedaling, or turning and running away
3. proper use of emergency cooldowns to get out of bad situations

Here’s the video with commentary:

This HD video is the 4th video of my “M*A*S*H” Justicar/Shaman/Warden Cleric melee healing spec at level 50. I queued solo for this warfront.

For more information on M*A*S*H, check out my in-depth M*A*S*H PVP Guide.

Check out the discussion threads for this video on the GAMEBREAKER forum and on the RIFT official PVP & Warfronts forum.

Posted in Cleric, Mage, PVP, RIFT, Rogue, Video, Warrior

RIFT Cleric PVP Video: Volume 7: Stayin’ Alive in Patch 1.5

Posted on 2011 October 5 by Ed Park

This HD video is narrated PVP footage of my “M*A*S*H” Justicar/Shaman/Warden Cleric melee healing spec in Patch 1.5, from a Codex warfront.

This is my 3rd video for M*A*S*H at level 50, and I talk about how I’ve dealt with the conditions in Patch 1.5 as a Healer.

I’m curious to hear how other healers are dealing with 1.5, so please share your experience and thoughts.

If you are looking for information on how to kite / strafe, check out my Guide on Strafing / Kiting and let me know if you have any questions.

I have written a Guide about the M*A*S*H spec, so check that out if you want to see the spec link, strengths and weaknesses, GCD rotations, macros, and other information. I have also posted a thread about my spec on the RIFT forum, and players who’ve tried it have raved about it.

Posted in Cleric, PVP, RIFT, Rogue, Video

Trion Dropped the Ball With RIFT Patch 1.5 PVP

Posted on 2011 September 28 by Ed Park

I have been a huge advocate of Trion’s MMORPG RIFT on my blog (including two in-depth class guides), on the official forums, in social media, and as a host on GAMEBREAKERTV’s weekly RIFT show The Sanctum.

I have supported the game through the many pendulum balance swings from Patch 1.0 to 1.4, because I thought the degree of balance changes were reasonable for a new game, and I was willing to be patient.

That being said, Patch 1.5 has been a huge turnoff. Trion wanted to buff Rogues in Patch 1.5 to make them stronger. I totally agree with that sentiment. But what Trion delivered was over-the-top and they’ve created a new OP class.

Trion not only buffed Rogue damage and Energy regeneration (both good changes IMO), they also implemented the following huge changes:

Not only moving Fell Blades (FB) from 32 to 16 points in the root but also making FB siphon a portion of the heal from the debuffed target. Let’s say you heal a FB-debuffed target and the normal heal would be 1200. The debuffed heal amount is 600, and the Rogue is healed 300. Rogues who are beating on a debuffed target who is receiving healing are essentially healing themselves. Vampiric Munitions was introduced as an 18-pt ability in the Marksman tree and it has the same mechanics as FB. So any Rogue can easily reach either FB or VM in a PVP DPS spec
Providing Rogues with multiple effective healing abilities: Leeching Poison (ticks for 240+ at R8), Enduring Brew (2k heal at R8 on 1-min cooldown). And there is at least one other big-heal cooldown ability available

What’s the big issue with FB and VM? They’re passive procs. Yes, they can be cleansed, but that requires a GCD on the part of the healer, and within a few GCDs the FB or VM debuff will be back on the target again. Competent Rogues have already figured this out, and they’ve been using enemy healers as an HP-battery while burning them down. Most Rogues know that the changes are OP but are trying to keep quiet about it.

Passive procs that both debuff healing received and siphon healing from the debuffed target is as bad an idea as what we saw in 1.1 with Ground of Power providing 100% CC immunity coupled with high burst damage + range for Pyros. That is, this is skill-less PVP all over again.

I was talking to a highly-skilled PVP player that I’ve known since WAR named Telena, and he summed it up perfectly:

Trion has a habit of implementing passive-based procs that have a very powerful effect (e.g. Lingering Wounds, Fell Blades, and Vampiric Munitions), instead of having the procs replaced by abilities with cooldowns that require thought and timing on the part of the player.

Speaking of healing received debuffs, Trion failed to learn what Blizzard finally learned after 4.5 years of PVP and Arena: -50% healing debuffs are bad PVP design. IMO healing debuffs should be no more than -25%, and healing should also be reduced accordingly. The problem with -50% healing debuffs is they force players to spec in particular ways, and when you have DPS with those debuffs healing is hard but when you have DPS without those debuffs then healing is easy.

Remember when WoW Warriors had to spec Arms for PVP or be considered useless? That finally was addressed by Blizzard in Cataclysm when Mortal Strike was reduced from 50% to a fraction of that, healing was balanced accordingly, and for the first time ever, there was a much wider array of viable specs for classes in battlegrounds and Arena. I know, I was there for 2k Arena in Cataclysm in 2v2 and 3v3.

I don’t say all these things because I play a main healer in RIFT PVP. In most games, I’ve either played a DPS (e.g. RIFT Warrior, WAR Bright Wizard, LOTRO Orc Reaver), tank (e.g. WAR Swordmaster, WoW Prot Pally), or off-healer (e.g. LOTRO Captain, Allods Melee Cleric, Aion Chanter). RIFT is the first game where I’ve played a main healer class at endgame. So my perspective is based on what is good for PVP, not based on what is good for my RIFT Cleric.

Here’s a trip down memory lane for RIFT PVP:

Patch 1.0: Champion-spec’d Warriors were overpowered with Titan’s Strike, Riftblade Warriors did too much ranged damage, Saboteurs did way too much AOE damage. I could tolerate this, the game just launched.
Patch 1.1: the Dawn of the Pyromancer. Pyros had high ranged burst damage coupled with complete CC immunity. I could tolerate this, the game just launched.
Patch 1.2: CC DR system was introduced, with a 24-second window for CC immunity for control effects and for movement effects. This proved to be too long, making it very difficult to CC-burst healers and for MDPS to stay within melee range of targets. I could tolerate this, CC immunity was needed and was sure to be tweaked.
Patch 1.3: CC DR window was reduced to 15 seconds, which made sense. Warrior trees were changed so that the damage-increasing talents were more flexible and stacked. Healing was still too powerful. With the buffs to Warriors, Rogues fell behind. It seemed to me like RIFT was turning the corner with PVP balance and playability.
Patch 1.4: instant-cast healing was nerfed, which was a great change IMO. Previously it was too easy for healers to bail-out heal. The Warrior damage-increasing talents were capped, which made sense given the magnitude of Warrior burst. And Trion implemented a hugely positive change: Valor Normalization, which removed the unnecessary mitigation advantage that R8 players enjoyed on top of having superior stats and weapons. Finally, PVP was getting to a reasonable state in terms of balance. Rogues still needed work but PVP overall was competitive across classes.
Patch 1.5: Rogues were buffed to the point of enabling skill-less play. Egad.

It’s such a shame, RIFT had started to turn the corner in terms of PVP balance and playability with Patch 1.4. The new patch has taken PVP in the wrong direction, at a time IMO when Trion call ill-afford to have missteps given the impending launch of multiple big-name games over the next quarter.

Link to official forum discussion thread on this article.

Posted in PVP, RIFT, Rogue

Planar Attunement for Cleric PVP

Posted on 2011 September 28 by Ed Park

RIFT Patch 1.5 is live!

One key piece of new functionality is the Planar Attunement system, which allows players to earn currency to spend on buffs. Here are the basics of the system:

There is a separate tree for each Rift type: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Life, and Death
Each tree has multiple tiers that must be unlocked in order
The first tier in each tree buffs Spell Power for 2 weapon types: Mace and Dagger Mastery, Staff Mastery, Totem Mastery, Wand Mastery
The first tier in each tree buffs one particular stat: Endurance, Intelligence, or Wisdom

Here’s the breakdown of the first tier bonuses for each Planar Attunement tree:

Earth: Staff Mastery, Wand Mastery, and Endurance
Air: Totem Mastery, Wand Mastery, and Wisdom
Fire: Mace and Dagger Mastery, Staff Mastery, and Intelligence
Water: Totem Mastery, Staff Mastery, and Wisdom
Life: Mace and Dagger Mastery, Totem Mastery, and Endurance
Death: Mace and Dagger Mastery, Wand Mastery, and Intelligence

The question is, which tree(s) should a Cleric fill in first for PVP?

As I wrote in my M*A*S*H Cleric PVP Guide, in my opinion here is the priority of stats for M*A*S*H and any Cleric PVP spec pre-1.5:

Valor > Focus (under the Hit Cap of 5%) > Endurance > Intelligence = Spell Crit > Wisdom = Spell Power

In 1.5, four key Cleric talents (Inquisitor’s Corporeal Punishment, Sentinel’s Serendity, Shaman’s Lust for Blood, Warden’s Overflow) that used to proc based on Spell Crit now proc at a fixed %. Therefore, for non-M*A*S*H specs, Intelligence and Spell Crit aren’t as valuable as they were pre-1.5.

All that said, I do believe for any Cleric in PVP that Valor and Endurance are more important than Intelligence, Spell Crit, Wisdom, and Spell Power. As the old adage goes: you can’t heal/DPS when you’re dead. And this is especially true with the accessibility of heal debuffs for Rogue specs and their increased damage in this patch.

As a M*A*S*H Cleric, I use a 2H PVP Mace, because the R6/R8 2H Mace have more Spell Crit and Endurance than the equivalent-rank Staff.

Therefore, at this time I am leaning towards initially investing in the Life tree, as it boosts my effectiveness with 2H Mace and my Endurance. I need to research to find out what the 2nd and 3rd tiers of each Attunement tree provides.

For healing or caster specs that use a Staff, the Earth tree may make the most sense as a starting point for PVP. If you run with a 1H + totem for PVP, Life tree.

If you have information on the other tiers of the attunement trees, please post it.

Posted in Cleric, PVP, RIFT

SWTOR is Copying WAR’s PVP Tanking Mechanics

Posted on 2011 September 12 by Ed Park

While skimming through SWTOR PVP links on Google, I noticed that:

One writer described SWTOR’s approach for making tanks relevant in PVP as novel
Another writer recognized that SWTOR’s PVP design for tanks is a copy of what Warhammer Online implemented

The second guy got it right base on what I read.

I am glad that SWTOR is borrowing the tanking mechanics from WAR – these mechanics made tanks in WAR valuable in PVP and mad fun to play.

I often read complaints from players, bloggers, and media folks that games don’t innovate enough, but in my opinion, what game developers don’t do enough is copy the great features from other games while delivering true innovation.

RIFT is a good example of blending innovation with parity. In my opinion, RIFT clearly innovated in several areas…

Flexible class spec customization: each of RIFT’s 4 classes has 9 talent trees, and for a given spec you can mix-and-match 3 trees however you like. By comparison, WoW’s 10-class system with 3 fixed trees per class feels incredibly rigid and limiting. In RIFT, you can spec your Mage, Cleric, or Rogue to be a MDPS, RDPS, or healer. And Clerics, Rogues, and Warriors can all tank in PVE
Rich, elegant warfront map design: RIFT’s maps have similar mechanics to maps from other games. E.g. Codex = WoW’s Arathi Basin, Whitefall Steppes = WoW’s Warsong Gulch, etc. However, the maps in RIFT have terrain features that encourage and create opportunities for tactical play, as exhibited in my most recent RIFT Cleric PVP video
Integration with social media: you can record game footage in RIFT with the press of a button and then upload to YouTube, and RIFT integrates with Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr

…while copying other practical, sensible features from other games, such as:

Distinct PVE gear vs PVP gear systems (e.g. Valor is WoW’s Resilience, etc)
Achievements, which originated in WAR and were copied by WoW

It will be interesting to see how/where SWTOR and GW2 innovate and where they choose to copy from other games.

I have been a huge advocate and supporter for RIFT – it was the first AAA-quality launch of an MMORPG in the past several years, which in itself was a big deal. I am concerned with some of the proposed changes in Patch 1.5, such as how key talents work (for Clerics) and how the stats work. I also believe that now is not the right time to be introducing disruptive changes to the playerbase, given the impending launch of SWTOR and GW2. By changing stat mechanics, RIFT players may have to re-gear, which usually means re-grinding, and some players may simply write a game off and jump ship for perceived greener pastures.

RIFT can’t create meaningful differentiation in terms of lore-based IP – the buzz around known properties such as Warhammer Online (3 years ago) and Star Wars (now) has already proven that – but RIFT can differentiate itself from much of the MMORPG market by iterating thoughtfully and carefully with each Patch.

If any of you have tried SWTOR, let us know what you think of the game. I have heard that it feels more like a single-player game than most MMORPGs and that the PVP was not so good. But I have not tried it myself.