The Basics
A lot of UI issues you may have can be resolved within the main menu. Extra hotbars can be found under the “Settings” Action Bar tab. Also in the main menu you you can customize and scale your UI under “Edit Layout,” craft macros, redo your keybindings, and, once you have everything set, import those settings between your characters via “Import Settings.”
The top left button on your minimap brings down a tracking list where you can chose to track various NPC’s on it. These include venders, healers, trainers, and mailboxes, as well as many others.
Starting Your Character Out
There are no choices you can make about your characters soul choices (except for choosing the calling itself) that can’t be reversed by level 13, so don’t be afraid to try what you want and mess it up, because it isn’t that hard to fix. You can reset your soul point distribution at any class trainer, and at level 13 you can start unlocking the other five souls of a calling; allowing you to switch those out as well. When you do get a new soul, all you have to do to switch it out is click the soul’s icon at the center of it’s tree in the soul tree window (“N” by default). Remember, the soul your switching must have no points spent in it to switch it out.
There is no level limit on your first mount, only the money is needed. Your mounts, as well and vanity pets, different currencies, and many other important stats and abilities, can be found in in your Character window (“C” by default).
Early Levels
Clearing your map right off the back will make life a lot easier in the long run.
Explore a new zone you enter as soon as you can.
Once you leave the starter zone for your faction, and before you start questing, travel along the main roads and clear as much of the zones map as you reasonably can. This will help you when zone events and invasions hit, letting you see where invasion forces are moving, bosses spawn and key objectives are located. This will also let you get to your main city and set your soul recall, allowing you easier access to the banks and crafting center while leveling. You’ll want to explore like this each time you enter a new zone. It can be dangerous, but it is also very worthwhile.
Craft while you level. You can make gear for your character that is as nice or nicer than quest rewards via crafting, and with the salvage abilities that you get with the gear crafting skills, you will not need as many raw materials as you think to progress. And while you are leveling up your crafting skill, make sure you do the daily crafting quests, as these give you tokens to by new recipes unavailable at a trainer, as well as chances for rare crafting mats and crafting augments.
If you are going to sell crafting materials to make money, remember to PROCESS them. A stack of raw hide, lumber, or ore has no use to a person without the gathering skill, and will just sit in the AH gathering dust. Turn these items into leather, planks, or metal bars before you sell.
Rifts, Invasions and Zone events
You will get the same amount of experience and contribution in a rift or invasion force solo as you would in a group. So why group? Simple, because grouping will let you get other players buffs, auras, and heals, and give you a better idea of where the action is located.
/1 is the best channel to share invasion information on as it is zone specific. All other channels are game wide.
Learn to read the map and and its various icons. It will not only show where the attackers are, but where they are heading. Important locations (like drop off points, targets, etc.) will also show on your map as if the event was one of your quests.
Planar charges are the number of times you can use a special Ascended powers. The powers can be bought from the various planar merchants, and include wardstone augmentation and healing, self-buffs versus invader forces, and calling in NPC reinforcements and soul menders. You lose one charge every time you use one of these powers and gain a charge every time you close a rift.
Misc. Low Level Advice
Rift’s soul system allows for a single calling to do many things, but they all take different methods to master. Don’t let an inexperienced player using a soul poorly lead you to think that the soul itself is at fault. Just because the Chloromancer you had in your group was unable to keep the party alive doesn’t mean that Chloromancers are incapable of main healing.
Don’t be afraid to experiment. A lot of the basis for some “expert” opinions are grounded in other games, and have no real bearing in Rift. Try a soul combination out and see for yourself. If you are wrong, it is easily undone.
Look for the hidden treasures, secrets, and puzzles. The are all over the game and can reward you handsomely for going off the beaten track. Curiosity may kill the cat, spell and the thought of some epic drops for exploring makes the corpse run worth it.
The Low to Mid-levels
Once you hit 15, you should have had the opportunity to unlock your remaining five souls for your calling. With this done, you now should be looking to unlock your second role and considering an alternative build. You’ll want a solid idea of what you want to accomplish with it, and don’t be afraid to specialize. Possible concepts for the role can be PvP DPS or Heals, Tank, Instance DPS or Heals, etc. Once you have the new build, practice, learn the powers and of unfamiliar soul trees and get a general picture of where you want to go with it.
Don’t forget to visit your calling trainer, at least once every two to three levels to train up the abilities you have
Start spending the Planarite you’ve earned closing rifts and stopping invasions. The gear is the best you can get at this point and will carry you well into the next zone. Also look at upgrading your source core (the item you slot the stat boosting planar essences in), or buy a second one for your specialized role (e.g. one that focuses on endurance to use with a tank build). These source cores are going to be the major way you allow your stats to compliment your roles concept.
While you are at the Planar Vendor, get your first two Ascended powers. Augment Wardstone and Flare will serve you well in the invasions throughout the rest of the game.
Instances
Be flexible and willing to shift your role as needed. You will find cases in dungeons where a boss needs an extra tank to pick up the additional spawns or hits hard enough to warrant a back up healers, if you have the role available, make sure you let your party know it so they can factor that in.
Pay attention to the scripted dialog in the dungeon. If an NPC tells you to come to him so he can protect you, then its probably a good idea if you do. They will also hint at what targets to attack, and how to defeat them.
Make sure your Soul Vitality is at max before you go in. Having your stats suddenly halved in the middle of a run is an unpleasant experience to say the least.
On getting a group, until some sort of LFG system is implemented, you will find you will have an easier time getting a group together if you offer to be the one to form the party. When you say that you are LFG in chat, the only ones who will take notice are the ones who are forming parties. However, if you say you’re one of the ones forming a group, other players who are LFG, as well as other groups not yet full and players who are interested but haven’t actively expressed it will take notice. This doesn’t mean you have to lead the group inside, ask who has experience in the dungeon once the party is formed and have them head the group. If no one has been there before, have the tank call the pulls.
It’s just common sense, but make sure you have 90-120 minutes for the run. It won’t necessarily take that long, but bailing on a group is bad form, and if you do it too much, you may find word of your unreliability has spread where you will have trouble getting into parties. Also, don’t bail after a wipe without saying anything. It’s just tacky.
PvP
First and foremost: Accept that not every soul will be PvP oriented. Just because a soul can do major damage in a PvE environment does not mean its suited for open combat against other players. This doesn’t mean that the soul is broken, or not usable in PvP, just that it may take a new build from what you normally play to make it work.
Saboteurs are not unfair. It takes them 6-8 seconds to set up their own attack, and combat with any other DPS class usually only lasts that long before it is over. If you keep dying because of them look for the debuffs they are building on you to know the attack is coming. Use any damage mitigation ability or shield when they hit 4 charges to take the brunt of the blast. They are the single most unique soul in the entire game, and I have yet to see an analog of them in any other game. This means you are not used to fighting them. It doesn’t mean they are unbeatable though.
In Warfronts, learn the rules of the encounter. For example, in the Black Garden, you’ll get more points for a kill the closer its made to the center of the map. So, even if your team can get the Fang of Regulos, take it back to their side, and hold onto it the entire match; the other team can win by staying closer to the center and picking off members of your team.
Maximum damage isn’t always the best way to go. The Dominator mage soul, for example, is one of the few souls built with PvP foremost in mind, and properly played, can be a huge advantage for your side.
On PvP servers, hotkey your PvP spec. Delay the fight, hide, do what ever you can to get yourself in a position to fight back.
On PvE servers, don’t think PvP is only in the Warfronts. Some zones have invasion-like events that involve the two factions fighting each other, so world PvP can and will still happen. Either suit up or take cover.
First, the crafting skills, with the needed gathering skills to be self sufficient, what crafting stations they use, and what callings they work best with.
Apothecary – Foraging (for plants) and Butchering (for animal parts); Laboratory; any calling
Armorsmithing – Mining and Butchering (for leather); Forge; Clerics and Warriors
Artificer – Mining and Foraging (for lumber); Workshop; Mages and casting/healing oriented Clerics
Outfitter* – Butchering; Loom; Rogues and Mages
Runecrafter* – nothing other than quality (green) or better items to runebreak; Workshop; any calling
Weaponsmithing – Mining and Foraging (for lumber); Forge and Workshop; Warriors, Rogues, and melee oriented Clerics
*Note that Outfitter and Runecrafting are the only two crafting skills a single character can have at the same time and still be self-sufficient.
The four crafting stations: a Forge, a Loom, a Workshop, and a Laboratory
Tips On Basic Crafting
When you are grinding up a skill, don’t forget to salvage what you don’t need. Salvage lets you reclaim some of the mats from a crafted item, as well as creates recycled materials that can be used to create temporary item buffs. With salvaging, you can skill-up 50 points with an average of 50 of the primary material (e.g. metal bars for Armorsmithing) as opposed to the 100-130 you would need if you didn’t salvage.
In the main city there are quest givers that give a daily quest for you to craft and deliver materials to various places, depending on skill level. These quest reward XP and Artisan’s Marks, which can be used to learn recipes not available at the trainers.
Runecrafting is good if you are an outfitter, or if you already have another character who is a crafter and can make materials to runebreak. Improving it via unneeded quest rewards and drops only is slow going.
Augments let you make your gear tailored to your what souls you are using, they can be bought with planite (a random selection), earned via quest rewards, or are dropped in rift events either as a basic reward or from Puresources. However…
Augments can fail. Depending on your skill level, and the level of the augment, you will not always succeed at crafting an augmented item. If you do fail, the item is not made and the augment is lost, although all other materials are returned. When placing the augment in the crafting window it will give you a rough idea for the difficulty. A gray “trivial” is guaranteed, but a yellow “average” has some risk.
Making Money
Not all craft skills are just for the characters benefit, Apothecary and Runecrafting have a great potential for making extra cash. Since rune crafting is a type of enchantment where the crafter doesn’t need to be present want the enchant is applied, you can easily sell the leftovers from grinding the skill in AH or trade. Apothecaries have the advantage of their products being consumable and that they are produced in bulk, but where they really hold the advantage is they can make armor dyes, and players love to customize how they look, expect black dye alone (which can only be crafted) to go for 5-10 platinum each, depending on the server and demand.
Extra cash can also be made by selling materials irrelevant to your craft skill. As an apothecary, you have no need for any lumber you may gather, but it sells quite well, and selling it doesn’t impede the progress of your craft, as opposed to selling materials you used, or spent extra time farming for.
A Comparison
To illustrate the potential of crafting, I did a quick study using the the soft leather armor an outfitter can craft. I have Outfitter, Runecrafting, and butchering as my skills.
Everything here was crafted by me with materials earned on the character at level 11 during the course of normal game play, with no time taken for farming.
Now, to the left is a shot of a regular crafted set of soft leather armor, and to the right is the same set, crafted, augmented and runestoned. The second set gives you a total extra +7 Dex, +6 Strength, +4 Endurance,and +3 Physical crit rating. I didn’t find equal quest rewards until level 20.
It’s important to note that this is only what it’s like to craft at the lower levels (1-30) at release, as the game progresses and evolves, we’ll make sure to add any new and important information.
The Black Garden is the first Warfront, or scenario based, cross-server, PvP battle a player can access (at level 10). With 2 teams of 10 members each, the object is to reach 500 points or have the highest score after 20 minutes. Points are earned by killing members of the opposite team or by having one of your member carry the Fang of Regulos. The closer to the center of the map the carrier is or the kill is made, the more points are earned, with extra points awarded for kills made by the Fang carrier or by killing the opponents Fang carrier. Several power ups are located around the map, boosting character aspects (e.g damage) for a limited amount of time.
The Black Garden Map
The Black Garden Map
Basic Strategies when on Offense
Control the Center – Focusing on controlling where the Fang spawns and maintaining control is a key element to Black Garden. You’ll earn more points for kills and if the Fang resets, you’ll have an easier time recovering it.
Protect the Carrier – No matter what, the person who picks up the Fang WILL die eventually, but the longer your team can keep them alive, the more points you’ll earn both from them holding the Fang, and from their kills. This means you will also be right there to recover when the Fang does fall from their lifeless grip.
Basic Strategies on Defense
Kill the Carrier… – if possible, lay down some AoE to prevent their team from recovering the Fang right away, allowing your team to recover it or have it return to the reset point.
…But do so as a Unit – If you try to take on the carrier by yourself with no support, all you will be doing is feeding the other team points. The points they may earn while you get organized will be more than offset by the points they would have gotten if they had murdered your team piecemeal.
Advice for Warriors
Target the mages. Your calling is strongest against them, especially if you have some Void Knight in your build.
You should have a lot of health, so look to carry the Fang and make some kills for extra points, just don’t strike out on your own, or you’ll just succeed in giving the other team the Fang
Advice for Mages
For you, support is the name of the game. Whether its the slows and snares of Stormcaller or the crowd control of Dominators, focus on keeping the other team locked down rather than dealing damage will get the win for your side. In PvP, this is a mage’s strongest aspect and can turn the tide of any match.
If you are healing with a Chloromancer build and your side has the Fang, target through the Fang carrier, This will keep the focus somewhat away from you allowing you to stand and cast. Also,make sure Synergy is on them as soon as possible if you have it.
Never surrender!
Never give up...
Advice for Rogues
Focus on the healers, especially those on the opponents Fang carrier.
Advice for Clerics
As a healer, make sure you are where the carrier is, whether it’s yours or theirs. Your support will help keep it or take it from them. A macro to let you focus target the carrier quickly is helpful for this.
Macros are a vital part of MMO’s, especially in a game like RIFT where a player has so many abilities, that there’s a need to consolidate and prioritize them. There are limitations however and what a macro can’t do is the first thing a player should understand.
A macro can only activate one power per use of the macro. This doesn’t mean a macro can only have one ability in it, it just means that if it does, it must be pressed for each ability.
A macro can only say one thing in any of the various chat channels per activation.
Syntax
A macro is basically a list of slash commands strung together, however when writing the macro, a player should leave out the “/”. So instead of “/yell Get this thing off of me!” the player should instead type something along the lines of “yell Oh gods, it’s burns, IT BURNS!” Other than this the commands are use the same why as if you were to type them directly into the chat pane.
In addition to the basic commands, there are also targeting modifiers one can use. These are all preceded by the “@” symbol. These are placed after the command (e.g. cast @mark 1 Transmorgify) :
@mouseover – This only works for the party portraits, pet portraits, and raid frames. It doesn’t work on the target-of-target
@self – makes the target of the command line the player, regardless of who they have targeted
@mark <#> – makes the target of the command line the target marked by the party of raid leader with the matching number
@focus - makes the target of the command line your focus target
@lasttarget - makes the target of the command line the target you had previous to your current one.
There are also a few special macro commands that are only used for making macros
#show <ability name> – this defaults the macro’s icon to that of the named ability, and will also show the cool down of the ability if applicable.
suppressmacrofailures – this command will prevent error messages generated by the macro conflicts in the macro itself (e.g. having more than one ability in the macro) but not other error messages (e.g. trying to activate an ability on cool down). It needs to be placed at the top of the macro.
Modifier Keys: [ctrl], [alt], [shift] – these are placed immediately after a command and cause that command to activate only when the key listed is held down (e.g. cast [alt] @mark 1 Transmorgify)
Now for the commands themselves. There are many slash commands for the game, and many folks have taken the time to list them such as the ones over at Telarapedia. So instead I’m going to list only the most commonly used in macros.
cast – activates the ability that follows the command (e.g. cast Transmorgify)
stopcasting – interrupts any current ability being cast in order to allow commands in the macro to take place immediately
saveequip <#> – saves all the gear currently equipped as a numbered file.
loadequip <#> – equips the gear saved in the corresponding numbered file by the saveequip command
mark <#> – marks the target with the number given (1-8). can only be used if the player is the party or raid leader.
focus – sets the current target to be the focus target
Basic Framework Templates
Here are some templates so commonly needed macros. Replace anything in the “<ability>” with the ability’s name.
The Reactive Ability Macro – this macro is to help consolidate multiple abilities into one hot key slot. It will activate any reactive ability first, an ability with a cool down next if the reactive ability is unavailable, and the base attack if neither the reactive or the cool down abilities are up.
#show <base ability>
suppressmacrofailures
cast <reactive ability>
cast <cool down ability>
cast <base ability>
The Focus Target Crowd Control Macro – This macro will allow you to cast a crowd control spell on your focus target without switching from your current target. It will also set you current target as your focus target if you hold the alt key while activating it.
#show <CC ability>
suppressmacrofailures
stopcasting
cast @focus <CC ability>
focus [alt]
And while multiple abilities can’t be used in a singe macro press, with a little forethought, you can use multiple macros to achieve amazing results.
Ultimate Saboteur Pull – This is a set of 5 macros I use in my Saboteur build that allow me to detonate 4 sets of charges on four different targets and direct all the threat generated to the tank. First my saboteur has the annihilation bomb and the Demolitions Specialist that allows him to detonate the Blast or Spike Charges on a target as well as the Carpet Bomb ability.
Here are the macros
Incriminate Tank
#show Incriminate
cast @focus Incriminate
focus [alt]
Target 1
#show Annihilation Bomb
cast @mark 1 Annihilation Bomb
cast [alt] @mark 1 Spike Charge
Target 2
#show Annihilation Bomb
cast @mark 2 Annihilation Bomb
cast [alt] @mark 2 Blast Charge
Target 3
#show Annihilation Bomb
cast @mark 3 Annihilation Bomb
cast [alt] @mark 3 Blast Charge
Target 4
#show Detonate
cast @mark 4 Detonate
cast [alt] @mark 4 Shrapnel Charge
The tank marks the targets 1, 2, 3, & 4, and I first alt click the Incriminate Tank macro, then I alt click each of the Target macros 5 times in order, then I activate Carpet Bomb and hit Incriminate Tank, Target 1, Target 2, Target 3, Target 4. Because that macro auto targets for me, I am able to get all abilities off in the 6 seconds allowed to me by incriminate, directing a total of 4000-5000 points of damage and threat per target to the tank, in the initial pull at level 45.
While it takes almost a full minute to set up this pull, the effects are impressive enough to warrat it, especially in the right raid situation of the overwhelming need to show off.
All Roles
Switch Equipment with Role – This macro comes into player later on in the game when you start collect several sets of gear to compliment your various roles. When alt is held when it is activated, it will save your current equipment to the equip 1 save slot, otherwise it will change the gear to equip one and then switch to your first role, all you have to do once you set the equipment is update it every time you get new gear for that set. Tanking callings will use this one a lot, but so will cleric healers who will need +focus in their DPS roles that they don’t need healing.
saveequip 1 [alt]
loadequip 1
role 1
Healers
Battle Rez – I find the one problem with battle rezzes (in all games, not just Rift) is that when you die, your attention has a tendency to slip, and subtle change in the “You Are Dead” window easily goes unnoticed. This one may help:
#show <battle rez>
stopcasting
y Get up %t! The fight’s not done yet!
cast <battle rez>
Mouse-over Healing – this will heal either your current target or if there is none or if targeting an enemy (providing cast on target’s target isn’t enabled), will cast one the player who’s life bar your mouse is hovering over.
#show <Heal Spell>
cast @mouseover <Heal Spell>
cast <Heal Spell>
Damage Dealers
Assist – a helpful macro for single target DPS to ensure you are on the main tanks target in large pulls, this macro will set the main tank as your focus target when activated while alt is held and switch to the target of the focus target and attack it with your initial attack ability
#show <base attack>
focus [alt]
target @focus
assist
cast <base attack>
Tanks
5 Second Warning – This macro will announce that you are ready to pull and then with the pull ability after waiting for five seconds.
#show <pull ability>
s Pulling %t in five seconds!
wait 5
cast <pull ability>
Oh Crap! Button – Tanks usually get 2-3 emergency powers with long cool downs meant to pull the bacon out of the fire and warn your party that you are in trouble. This macro consolidates them into one icon, and moving to the next ability on the list if the one before it is one cool down. It’s best to list them in order of the least powerful to the most.
#show <ability with the longest cooldown>
y Oh Crap! I’m in trouble!
cast < OC ability 1>
cast < OC ability 2>
cast < OC ability 3>
Macros on the Fly
Macros are a great way to make game play easier, but they don’t have the flexibility to handle situations that may arise in harder end game content. The best way to get both is to know how to throw together a macro on the fly. There are several tools in the macro chest that once you learn them, will let you construct a macro quickly.
Targeting – Besides the targeting modifiers we discussed last week, there are also targeting commands as well
target <name> – Will target the nearest target who’s name starts with the same characters as those given. For example “target grim” can target a mob named Grim Champion or one named Grim Servitor.
targetexact <name> – Will target only a mob with the exact name in range. For example, if there are two mobs named Grim Champion and Grim Champion leader targetexact grim champion will only target the first.
targetlasttarget – will target the target you had last before the current one
Now, here’s a case study: I was tanking the Iron Tombs on expert mode, and we were up against Broodmother Venoxas. There are 3 eggsacs that have to be destroyed , and will spawn a mob called Venomous Defender that I have to pick up, but I also Must keep the boss turned away from the rest of the party, so after the first not so successful try, I write this macro:
#show Instigate
targetexact Venomous Defender
cast instigate
targetlasttarget
This will, if hit the moment the add is spawned, target it, taunt it, and return my attention to the boss, letting me put threat on the add when he gets to me with AoE attacks.
Things to Remember
If the macro you are making is meant to be triggered at a moments notice, you need to add the command “stopcasting” immediately after the #show line. This will interrupt any ability you are currently casting to in favor it the commands in the macro. It is important to remember not to spam a macro with the “stopcasting” line it it, as it will interrupt itself as well.
Death will clear your focus. If you or your focus target die, you will have to refocus on the target for any macros relying on a focus target to work.
Knowing not just route macros, but the method in which they are created will allow you to tailor make them for any boss or fight: rift, expert, or raid, and will definitely up your chances to survive in Telara.
So you finally hit 50… Now what?
we’ll cover what to do with yourself once you hit 50 and are done leveling. First though, let’s cover some terms you’ll want to be familiar with first:
Tier – This refers to the levels of expert dungeons and raids. Players need a certain level of gear to be able to handle the various tiers.
Tier 1 (T1) – This includes expert rifts, and expert dungeons. To run them a player wants a minimum of 50 Hit for Warriors and Rogues, 50 Focus for Mages and Clerics, and 50 Toughness for all Tanks.
Tier 2 (T2) – This includes the 10-man rifts, and expert dungeons. To run them a player wants a minimum of 100 Hit for Warriors and Rogues, 100 Focus for Mages and Clerics, and 100 Toughness for all Tanks. This level of gear is obtained by plaques earned by doing T1 dungeons and expert daily quests.
Dailies and more!
There are several dailies for the various high level factions of The Icewatch, Dragonslayers Covenant, and The Order of Mathos. These dailies range from the easily soloed to weekly quests that require a full 20 man raid to do. These are some of the best and fastest ways to to gain rep with these factions (300 rep for solo quests and up to 1000 rep for the raid quests). One of the nice things about these dailies is that they actually vary from day to day, and in some case will change every few hours, giving a little more variety to the regular daily grind.
PvP
Once you hit level 50, you are now able to advance in PvP ranks, earning titles, unlocking the upper levels of your PvP soul as well as gaining the ability to by more advance PvP gear. Your main Warfront is The Battle of Port Scion, which is large enough to have several quests large inside the warfront itself.
The PvP gear sets can be bought from the various PvP vendors of your faction, and besides costing Favor, can have PvP rank or warfront faction reputation requirements
Expert Dungeons
These are going to be the meat and potatoes of your post 50 life. Each dungeon has an expert version of itself, with harder mobs, more bosses, and more intricate boss battles. These dungeons are divided into 2 categories, Tiers 1 and 2. Tier 1 consists of Iron Tombs, Realm of the Fae, Foul Cascade, King’s Breach, and Fall of Lantern Hook, and Tier 2 consists of Deepstrike Mines, Darkening Depths, Abyssal Precipice, and Charmer’s Caldera. The Bosses in these dungeons drop better loot both blues and purples, Plaques of Achievement (for buying your tier set pieces), and souls that are need to form the expert and raid rift lures.
Everyday, you can get two daily quests for these dungeon. One is for one of the Tier 1 dungeons and the other for Tier 2. These quest reward even more Plaques, 10 and 20 respectively, and allow you toe get geared up even faster.
The Tier sets themselves can be bought from your factions relic vendors, and vary in cost. For Tier 1, it costs 20 Plaques for the belt, 30 for the boots and gloves, 40 for the helm and shoulders, and 50 for the chest and leg pieces. While Mages only have one set, Rogues, Warriors, and Clerics have two, one of which is focused on the tanking aspects of that calling.
In these dungeons one can also find recipes for various crafting skills that can not be found elsewhere, and special crafting materials that are needed for the best player made gear.
Rift Hunting
It’s the name of the game and it has plenty to offer the level-capped character. Besides invasions large and small, there are world events, expert rifts, and raid rifts, all of which have their own associated dailies.
Collecting
50 is is a great time to go back into the lower zones and finish the various achievements and artifact sets. Which some achievements offer nothing more than the satisfaction of a tricky job well done, others can reward you with titles, times, and even special abilities, for example completing the Agent of the Unseen on the Defiant side gives you a special item that functions as a second Soul Recall taking you straight to the Faceless Man, who gives the daily expert dungeon quest for the Defiant.
The artifact collections award loot bags coins for prestige items trinkets and even mounts, as well as books that uncover more of the lore of Telara. These artifacts and the trade in them are also rapidly becoming the mainstay of money making in the action houses, as their low deposit costs, profit margin, and rarity make them an ideal way to generate platinum.
Raiding
Considered by many to be the peak of an MMO character’s career, raiding is the final stop for players in the game for the long haul. As of now, Rift only offers one full 20-man raid, Greenscale’s Blight, but there’s a new one coming up at the end of April, the River of Souls. To be ready for raiding, a player is going to have to do most of the things we just covered. A good rule of thumb is a player will need between 150-200 Focus or Hit, and the same in Toughness for tanks. Raiders will also need a sense of patience, as due to the newness of the game, raiding will consist of plenty of wiping and trying again until viable strategies are found.
Raiding also requires a greater commitment to time then more casual play calls for. Light or causal raiding guilds can take 5-10 hours weekly, dedicated solely to raiding, where as more more “hard core” raiding guild can take 15, 20, or even 30 hours a week.
Expert Dungeons
General Tips
Make sure you have the gear – If you’re a Warrior or rogue, you need a minimum of 50 Hit for DPS as well as 50 toughness if you want to tank. Healing clerics, yes, we know you don’t need focus to cast healing spells on party members, but the focus you have is a good benchmark of the quality of your gear.
Be FLEXIBLE!!! – Have at least one other role that fills a different position than what you prefer. No one is going to force you to Heal when you want to DPS, but by the same token, no one is going to force a group to let you join them. That being said…
Know your role – unless you are really lucky (and lazy) and have a bunch of raid geared players carrying you though the dungeon, everyone in a group has to pull their full weight. This means knowing the best attack or healing rotations, the best ways to work with other callings, and what you should do when it eventually hits the fan and you need to make a split second call. If you have a new build or role, DON’T TEST IT IN AN EXPERT RUN. Run a regular Charmer’s Caldera or Abyssal Precipice to get a feel for it.
Don’t be a jerk – I know, this is something that shouldn’t need to be covered, but it does. You are going to be playing with the folks in your group for a sizable amount of time. Rubbing them the wrong way is not going to make it any easier. Right now, the folks running experts are still a relatively small group, and if you get a reputation for slacking, constantly going AFK, ninja looting (especially where gathering is concerned), telling others how to play their callings, constant boasting about how “leet” your “deeps” are, etc., you will find people will just stop inviting you, even if you never grouped with them before.
Have the time before your start – Look, expert dungeons are hard, especially when you first start out. Expect to be in a dungeon for 2-3 hours minimum, and up to 5 hours if the place is new to most of its members. As you get used to the place your run times will go down, to the point where you might actually get the achievements for it, but that will take practice. If you can’t commit to this size of a time frame, don’t run the dungeon, or at least make sure your group knows that you will only be there for so long, so they can have a replacement ready for when you do leave.
Accept when you fail – In the various expert dungeons, there are various “check” fights. Gear checks, tank checks, healing check, they all serve the purpose of setting the bar for your group, if you can pass the check in one dungeon, you should be fine as far as what it was checking in all dungeons of that tier. But sometimes, you won’t cut it. Maybe your gear is a shade off, maybe your group needs a player on a support soul, and no one in your group has one. Regardless, accept that, at that time, you can not do the fight. The purpose of the game is fun, and 10 wipes on the same fight or pull or boss, can kill that sense fun fast. Try a different expert run, or a regular run, or just try again the next day with a different mix of players. DO NOT try to place blame, whether on players in your group, or the game itself. Hard doesn’t mean broken, and just because you can’t do it, it doesn’t mean everyone can’t.
For Clerics
Healing – Your healing needs to be flexible enough to work with the various tank types, and if not, you should be open about any difficulties you might have. Heal rotations that work well on a warrior tank may not be as successful on a rogue tank, and may be wasteful on another cleric tank. Try to work with the various types, and learn what you need to do to keep each alive.
Support – While you don’t have a support soul per se, hybrid builds can allow you to either off-heal or DPS in a fight, just not at the same time like a true support soul would.
Ranged vs. Melee – On trash pulls, it’s a player has free choice as to what method they want to fight with without concern, but in a lot of boss fights, it will become apparent that the game hates melee DPS. Seriously though, try and have both types of damage types as roles, enabling you to back off when need be.
Tanking – Be willing to use CC (Crowd Control) on pulls. Just because you can tank 5-6 elites in a regular dungeon doesn’t mean you can do the same here.
For Mages
Support – A chloromancer hybrid or an archon spec can help the group make it through tight spots, learn this souls and learn what situations its best to used them in.
Healing – A full (51 point) or heavy (+44 point) chloromancer build can main heal an expert dungeon, but you will want to go above and beyond the focus you would normally need to insure that your attack doesn’t get resisted at the wrong point and fails to heal the tank.
DPS – make sure that your tank is built for holding multiple mob aggro before using a lot of AoE (area of effect) attacks… Yes, I’m looking at you Stormcallers. In some boss fights you will actually want to use your long cooldown abilities the moment the tank establishes a firm hold on the boss, because some fights will be long enough that the 2-3 minutes the cooldown will take will elapse and allow you to use them a second time.
For Rogues
Support – The Bard is probably the strongest of all the callings support souls. A full or heavy build is almost mandatory for a rogue doing experts, you don’t have to like it, but learn how to use it. If it helps, blare Europe’s Final Countdown when you bard, as that will make any fight where you play a lute at a boss seem epic.
Ranged vs. Melee – Same as clerics, have one of each to meet the demands of the situation at hand.
Tanking – Riftstalker tanks probably have it the toughest of the three types of tanks. It’s not that they can’t do it, but they do have they least margin for error, both for the tank as well as the rest of the party.
For Warriors
Support – Unfortunately, as it stands now, the warlord support soul is the weakest of the three. I hope that Trion see’s fit to elevate it to the level of the other two, but as a basis of a build, it really should only be used if you don’t have a bard or archon available in the group and still need support.
Stuck in Melee – You don’t have real ranged spec, and some fights will eat melee alive. You do however, unlike the rogue or cleric, have more armor and can take a beating longer then them (hopefully).
Tanking – Chances are this is what you will be doing in an expert dungeon, and it is where you’ll shine. Just remember that very few fights in experts are “tank and spanks.” Situational awareness is needed and you’ll want to avoid the narrow point focus a player tanking can sometimes fall into. This goes for all tanks, not just Warriors.
Making Money
It adds up, the 16 platinum to train a soul up to 50, 22 platinum for your 4th role, the 100 platinum for your upcoming 5th, 125 for your epic mount, not to mention repairs, equipment and so on. The question is, how do you make the platinum in the first place. Well you have several options, some are more profitable than others, but only experimentation will show which is the best course for you.
Adventuring, rifting, and dungeons – while fun, and the way you spend most of the time playing, the money actually earned from this will probably be just enough to cover expenses.
Crafting – Crafting can be hit or miss. You can work for tips for the standard and faction bought recipes, but the real money makers for crafting are the rare drop recipes from the expert dungeons. The only problem with this is that while at first, when few people have these recipes, you may be able to charge what the market will bear, but once more and more people get them, the value of the recipe will decline. Checking the auction house will give you the best idea of the relative market value of your recipes
Resource gathering and raw materials – this is a good way to make some money, but not all resources have the same demand. A good example is Carmintium vs. Orichamcum. While orichalcum is the rarer of the two resources, carmintium consistently sells better on the auction house. Why? Because several daily crafting quests need carmintium, but there is no repeated need for orichalcum. This is an important thing to remember, that it is demand that creates value, not scarcity.
Other crafting materials – From what I have found, here is the best way to earn platinum. There are several choke points in crafting that come from the scarcity of certain materials. Minor catalysts can be one of these things, but this depends of the level of advancement of your servers endgame. With the ability to buy these with 5 Plaques of Achievement, a server that has a large amount of players who are running expert dungeons will see the market flooded as these players gear up and look for a way to make use of their surplus plaques. The most valuable commodity I have found is the Eternal Planar Dust. These drop relatively frequently from high level (48-50) but can sell for 3-5 platinum each due to the fact that almost all high level recipes require several of these planar dusts, including consumables. This means that there will always be a demand for these. Augments also sell very well, with the blue augments selling for 1-5 platinum each. There’s also very little risk in selling these augments since no matter how long you put them up for auction, the deposit is always one silver.
Artifacts – Here is where you probably can make the most money. While not all artifacts sell well, they almost always sell consistently. You can earn up to a platinum for certain white artifacts, 2-5 platinum for some of the green artifacts, and 15+ platinum for the blues. Also, like the augments, there is risk in repeatedly posting the same item, adjusting the price until it sells, since the deposit is always only one silver.
Expert Rifts
What are expert rifts?
Expert rifts are rifts that are created from a tear using a special lure. They are formulated for 5 level 50′s in gear suitable for Tier 1 Dungeons, but due to the fact they are done outside, can be done with a full 20 man raid if so desire. There is one expert rift for each rift element and are created from special lures you acquire from the various rift faction vendors (e.g. Students of the Vale). You can either buy a husk at 250 planarite, which need 5 malformed souls to activate, or if you have a high enough notoriety with the faction, buy the lure fully formed for 1750 planarite.
The 6 rifts are:
Revenge of the Icewatch – This water rift has the group protecting an Icewatch hunter as she hunter down a demon from the plane of water. The rift comes from either the Order of Purity or the Mercurial Savants and has to be opened from a minor or major raid tear in Iron Pine Peak.
Storm Legion Elite – Stop an officer in Crucia’s army from using a device to summon powerful creatures from the plane of air. The rift comes from either the Storm Inquisition or the Zephyrian Collective and has to be opened from a minor or major raid tear in Iron Pine Peak.
Explosive Tendencies – The players go to Shimmersand to assassinate Raexanis, a power agent in Maelforge’s legion. The rift comes from either the Order of the Flame or the Ember Scholars and has to be opened from a minor or major raid tear in Shimmersand.
Auricore Forerunners – Save the hostages and halt the plans of an ogre chieftain in the employ of Laethys. The rift comes from either the Mendicant Order or the Shale Collegiate and has to be opened from a minor or major raid tear in Shimmersand.
Primal Evolution – Bring an end to the mad experiments of Aelfwar duke, Ellisar. The rift comes from either the Order Life Serene or the Students of the Vale and has to be opened from a minor or major raid tear in Stillmoor.
Redemption of Perdeen – Find the destroyed town of Perdeen in the plan of death, help the souls of the townspeople and destroy their captor. The rift comes from either the Order of the Death Serpent or the Grim Disciples and has to be opened from a minor or major raid tear in Stillmoor.
What do I get from doing Expert Rifts?
Like any rift, players will be rewarded planarite and other planar loot, but in addition to that, 2 treasure chests can drop, the first after the mini boss (usually the third stage) and the second after the final boss. These chest contain gear both rare and epic equal or better than what can drop in Tier 1 dungeon, and the second chest will always drop a corrupted soul. Also, these chest can drop level 50 lesser essences for your source core.
Also players can get a daily quest from there faction to complete one of the rifts, these reward crystal sourcestones that can be used to buy lesser essences from the various rift faction merchants.
What should I expect?
When doing any of these, you want to make sure you have a group built like you would for a dungeon (i.e. tank, healer, DPS). also, like regular rifts after the first few stages, everything becomes a timed battle in order to progress to the next stage. Unlike dungeons though, you can bring more than 5 people, making these an excellent way of helping gear up friend to get them in to Tier 2 dungeons and raid rifts.
One of the most frustrating things you may find in doing these rifts is starting them. Since you need a major or minor tear to open it from, you’ll have to get to the tear and open it before anyone else in the zone. If there is an invasion event in the zone you have to do the expert in, chances are you will have to help stop the invasion and clean up after before any tears will respawn.
Also, because they are open world, you will have players not in your group influencing events. Some will be there to genuinely help you, but others, may see it as an opportunity to cause trouble. Members of the opposite faction may especially view it as an opportunity to cause trouble so be careful.
