Rift Yo Hair Back-n-Forth

I’m still feeling rifteriffic about Rift: Planes of Telara.  I’m no longer as excited by running around the level 1 to 25 zones but how can you be after the umpteenth time through trying out different callings and soul combinations.  I know that I haven’t explored every area or quest hub within these zones and that is by design so that even the low levels will still contain some surprises.  And instanced content is an absolute no-no for me in beta.

Mount up Ladies and Gent

On Friday evening I purchased my first mount.  The fact that I was still running long distances on foot faded to the background after a while.  Once I officially stopped taking new quests there was no need for me to be anywhere in particular, unless I felt like going.  I travelled to different zones depending on what I wanted to test in the various soul mash-ups and builds I tried.  The closer I got to builds that felt right for me, the more my gold stayed in my pocket.  Once I had 3 plat, I raced to spend the 2.5-something needed to purchase the level 20 mount.  I was a bit disappointed when I realized there wasn’t a mechanical looking mount at the low levels.  *Sad face*

Soul Choices

If the vast majority of the game mechanics and soul talents stay as they are now, I’ll be doing a melee build for AOE style questing, farming or grinding and ranged DPS w/healing for rifts or questing where I need to pick mobs off one at a time.  

I weighed so many options, scenarios and situations running around levels 1 to 25 zones, it felt like a mini science project except that I had fun doing my theory crafting exercise.  I even downloaded and used a combat parser to help understand the differences in talent choices, like seeing how frequently something proc’d to determine if the points spent were worth it.

Shaman + Warden + Justicar

This combination felt the most like what I enjoy when playing a melee healer.  I tried swapping the Warden and/or Justicar for Purifier and Sentinel, trying to achieve a style similar to a WOW Shockadin but it never felt quite like what I was after.  

As for the Druid, it flat out didn't work for me.  Even having a pocket healer for 0 points and an instant self heal for 6 points, it couldn't sway my meh impression of having this soul in my line-up for questing.  It could be my imagination but I don’t see nearly as many fairy pets anymore either.  Perhaps I'm not alone.

No can Discuss Builds

I can’t discuss builds because I’m not sure what class changes hit Beta 5.  I didn’t bother going back to beta servers and I don’t know if sites are just late updating calculators or what.  I can say that the Shaman + Warden + Justicar plays very similar to the WAR Warrior Priest with the exception that gaining conviction so you can heal in Rift requires more micro-management than what I remember of WAR.  This feels like what the ROM Warrior Priest that released DOA should have been.  

In the end, this melee combination and final talent build yielded 27% critical hits from talented skills, 13% critical hit from Auto Attack and 68 Hit Points per Second.  I have no clue how that compares to other melee Calling/Soul combinations.  As a healer, I would expect it to be lower because of our survivability.  However, of the Cleric melee combinations I tried, it yielded the best output.  While I won’t roll a class based purely on output, I do try to optimize the class I have selected to avoid feeling that killing mobs is a chore.

Inquisitor + Warden + Purifier

For doing rifts, when it’s safer for me to maintain distance or kite around some while trying to take down mobs one at a time, I’ll be going with the Inquisitor for damage, Warden for most of my healing and Purifier for buffs and shields.  I would prefer to have this as pure ranged DPS with Inquisitor, Cabalist and Warden but the whooping almost 6 plat for a third sole means I won’t have the ability to have dedicated ranged DPS and a separately stored one for healing until later levels.

I went far enough into the Inquisitor tree that the ranged DPS play style feels like a WOW Warlock. DOTs are my core damage output and two of those will provide a percentage of healing back to me. Inquisitors also have their own version of drain/return health and mana spells.  I wish there was pronounced leech healer presence in the Inquisitor similar to the Allods Arisen Summoner but I doubt that was Trion’s intention – creating a leech healer.  The addition of a Vampiric Embrace or Touch like talent would be sweet and add to the leech vibe.  But I can imagine there’d tears about it being OP.

I didn’t bother measuring output for this combination.  I knew when constructing it that I was going to sacrifice burst and max damage to pick up sufficient Warden healing as early as possible, since I plan to heal rifts with this spec.  Unfortunately, as a second role trying to do two things, it won't be best at either.  Luckily, I can manually respec to specialize at anytime and make dedicated versions as soon as I have enough plat, cuz I wouldn’t walk into an instance as a healer with my current build.

Other Stuff

I was all set to do a post on macros and had a dozen or so examples ready to go.  That was until patch notes crit me for 500K damage.  Now I’ll have to wait and see how this all turns out.  With my initial soul choices feeling firm and macro information on hold, I have time to harvest and try out more crafting.

Comments

[Suni]

Which parser did you use? I know there is more than one floating around out there...

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

From RiftJunkies.com

[Suni]

Thanks, checking it out now... :)

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

It's a bit confusing at first. You have to manually turn on logging in Rift. Create a macro with /combatlog to toggle it on and off.

[R.W. Harper]

I am a big fan of the Shaman/Warden/Justicar myself. I haven't parsed any logs yet but was thinking of trying it this time around.

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

The spell queue option is critical to melee builds, especially when combined with instant cast heavy souls. It took some haranguing in what is now global chat (1 - 9; will we never learn you can't suppress global???) to figure out what the casting felt so awkward and I couldn't use any instant spell after executing a melee skill until the GCD. So if you haven't, set your skill/spell queue to at least short.