Rift - Out of Beta into Head Start and Beyond!

[Frag]

Ok, well, let's get whomever we want to run with to 23 then. Might as well see as many of them as we can. I'll get Licious there first, and then probably Noctus so I'l have a Tank / DPS and a DPS / Heal.

If either of you have someone still in 19 bracket, I'd still love to do some BG's with you on the Cleric.

[Yless]

Mongril and i have decided to leave EQ2 and come join the party.
On Silkweb i have Dhen (rogue) and will start a healer next. Mongril has Ryko (rogue).

What voice communication are we using if any? Mongril is renting a 10 user Teamspeak3 server if we need one.

Mongril was asking what Frag's warrior is named so we can get the Tiga/Tigo thing going again. Just kidding

[Treesh]

Mongril and i have decided to leave EQ2 and come join the party.
On Silkweb i have Dhen (rogue) and will start a healer next. Mongril has Ryko (rogue).

What voice communication are we using if any? Mongril is renting a 10 user Teamspeak3 server if we need one.

Mongril was asking what Frag's warrior is named so we can get the Tiga/Tigo thing going again. Just kidding

We've been stealing Mumble bandwidth for voice com. It'll be great to play with you guys again. =) I've got one of each calling, but I rolled an extra rogue so I can still have a rogue to play with Frag and still have a rogue that I can play whenever I want to since some of the folks are actually looking at just doing PuG raids on Sunday afternoons and I'd like to peek my head in on those here.

Edit: You could also just buy a second role and make your rogue a healer.

[Kevin]

Mongril and i have decided to leave EQ2 and come join the party.
On Silkweb i have Dhen (rogue) and will start a healer next. Mongril has Ryko (rogue).

What voice communication are we using if any? Mongril is renting a 10 user Teamspeak3 server if we need one.

Mongril was asking what Frag's warrior is named so we can get the Tiga/Tigo thing going again. Just kidding

Was cool to see you guys in game last night.

This means we have 5 players in guild, that means future instance runs can actually be full instead of just 3 manning. Not that 3 manning wasn't a blast to explore the places, but they should go a little faster now, which can be a plus since schedules can be odd.

As an FYI I poked my head in King's Breach the other day and saw that some of the trash was L35 so yeah Eleria blew past it.


For Dhen and Mongril if you are looking to hit some of the other instances my current toon levels.

Eleria - Cleric (Heal / Tank / Melee DPS / PvP Heal) is 37.
Delphinia - Rogue ( Support [Bard] / Melee DPS / undecided ) is 32
Marn - Warrior ( Tank / undecided DPS) is 21
MaraRunesong - Mage ( DPS / Heal ) is 33

So if I'm on and you guys want to see an instance I can very likely find something to help you out. I can whip up a tank spec for the rogue easily enough. I'm not sure that a bard can solo heal stuff at her level, but I'd be willing to try. In a 5 man with the better DPS it would likely work better than in 3 mans. Marn used to have a melee DPS spec I liked but I haven't set him back up since the last patch. The mage only has two developed specs but I'm looking at a 3rd. The clerics DPS spec also works as a support healer (I went 12 or so deep in Justicar).

The Defiant and shared dungeon levels and the abbreviations I see in chat should be as follows. You can run the guardian dungeons though I'm not sure how hard they are to get to.

(D - Defiant, S - Shared, G - Guardian), Min level, Avg level
G: Realm of the Fae (RF), Silverwood - 15, 17
D: Iron Tombs (IT), Freemarch - 17, 19
G: Darkening Deeps (DD), Gloamwood - 21, 23
D: Deepstrike Mines (DSM), Stonefield - 23, 26
S: Foul Cascade (FC), Scarlet Gorge - 28, 30
S: King's Breach (KB), Scarwood Reach - 33, 35
G: Runic Descent, Moonshade Highlands - 38, 40
D: Fall of Lantern Hook (LH), Droughtlands - 42, 44
D: Charmer's Caldera (CC), Shimmersand - 48, 50
S: Abyssal Precipice (AP), Iron Pine Peaks - 48, 50

There are two tiers of expert dungeons as well, they are all designed for L50's

Tier One
Realm of the Fae
Iron Tombs
Foul Cascade
King's Breach
Fall of Latern Hook

Tier Two
Darkening Deeps
Deepstrike Mines
Runic Descent
Abyssal Precipice
Charmer's Caldera


So our "big" toons for Frag, Treesh, and I are in the King's Breach range. We've only run IT, DSM, and FC so far. We've been trying to run them together before PuGing just to explore stuff and that has worked out alright.

I actually think having 5 us could be even more fun as it would allow more playing with specs which is one of the things I really like about this game. I also think if we want to plan leveling and 5 man groups that we should be looking at the min level side of things. We had been doing the 3 man stuff more at the average level.

[Kevin]

Heh I got a free pass weekend deal for 8th - 11th. I guess they just kinda randomly give them out. Holler at me if you want to check the game out and I'll get you the code and instructions.

[mspixieriot]

They just toss free pass weekends at current players? I definitely want to try this game, but I'm working full days on weekends for the next while, blah.

[Treesh]

They just toss free pass weekends at current players? I definitely want to try this game, but I'm working full days on weekends for the next while, blah.

I got a code for both last weekend and this weekend so, who knows what the deal is. =)

That being said, I have made a baby rogue to swap in when she's big enough. Word of warning though, she's just slightly aggressive and a teeny bit reckless. As long as she's the only one who ends up dead it's all good. *embarassed cough* Sorry Dhen. I didn't really like Sabo on Kinmi, but I LOVE it on Zhasi. It's just far too much fun for it to be legal. And there was only the one pull where I thought I might get two, possibly three and ended up with something over 6 mobs? Maybe a couple more. I wasn't really counting at that point. I just hit my AoEs and hoped they died before we did. Dhen lived on that one though! I -almost- did. It was so close. =) So yeah, it appears that no matter what spec I'm in, I lurvs my rogues.

[Frag]

You've always loved your rogues, and we've always loved you.

Quick QQ: Not sure what to play after the warrior changes. Fragalicious is dying on regular mobs in the same spec he was in pre-patching. Went from 420dps to 170dps.....

[Yless]

That being said, I have made a baby rogue to swap in when she's big enough. Word of warning though, she's just slightly aggressive and a teeny bit reckless. As long as she's the only one who ends up dead it's all good. *embarassed cough* Sorry Dhen. I didn't really like Sabo on Kinmi, but I LOVE it on Zhasi. It's just far too much fun for it to be legal. And there was only the one pull where I thought I might get two, possibly three and ended up with something over 6 mobs? Maybe a couple more. I wasn't really counting at that point. I just hit my AoEs and hoped they died before we did. Dhen lived on that one though! I -almost- did. It was so close. =) So yeah, it appears that no matter what spec I'm in, I lurvs my rogues.

Its always good to push the envelope and see what your class is capable of, besides it was a blast doing it! Literally!

[Yless]

You've always loved your rogues, and we've always loved you.

Quick QQ: Not sure what to play after the warrior changes. Fragalicious is dying on regular mobs in the same spec he was in pre-patching. Went from 420dps to 170dps.....

I don't know your play style other than no pets but i am really enjoying my mage. Chloromancer/Warlock/Necromancer. My record so far is 6 mobs at once. I hit each one with 4 dots, 2 of which (Life Leech and Withering Vine) heal me and if i get low a instant cast Bloom. Mana isn't a problem with the Warlock's Sacrifice Life and after the battle i channel Reconstruct to top off my hp. The Nerco pet is just bonus dps and a tap for more mana with Reclaim Power.

[Treesh]

You've always loved your rogues, and we've always loved you.

Quick QQ: Not sure what to play after the warrior changes. Fragalicious is dying on regular mobs in the same spec he was in pre-patching. Went from 420dps to 170dps.....

Whatever is going to be fun for you, go ahead and play. We can always make something work. =) It just may be difficult to figure out just what you want to play now, but we can make it work when you do figure it out.

I have found out that yes indeed I can rogue tank and it was fun. It was just the baby girl tanking in her little dress, but it was great. =D Dhen, Mongril, and Mongril's son put up with her tank teething quite well. After that little run, I can see some points possibly being reallocated on the big girl though. Eventually she'll get them all, but some should be higher priority after actually tanking rather than me just guessing how things should be prioritized. I have found the drawback to tanking though. I am no longer able to annoy my partymates by switching roles every other pull. >.> <.< ^.^

[Kevin]

Quick QQ: Not sure what to play after the warrior changes. Fragalicious is dying on regular mobs in the same spec he was in pre-patching. Went from 420dps to 170dps.....

I'm not sure on advice either. I know my little L22 warriors reaver (22) paladin (7) build still tanks just fine, but I've not really played him solo much since the patch. The warrior was the least fun to solo pre patch for me anyway. I've got a Riftblade (22) / Reaver (7) build that I'm testing for solo but haven't done much with.

I wondered since beta if they had made a mistake with warrior souls since they gave them so many tanking and DPS souls. They had some self heal options and the tanking souls certainly made how you tanked different which was nice, but they still felt less flexible than the other callings.

It sounds like the issues are with soloing and that you might not find anything satisfactory for you with that. That does kind of kill the calling, unless you want to PvP all the time (as you can level at a reasonable rate with just warfronts). I'm not sure group play is really gone as tanking seems to be fine and pure DPS specs still seem to be fine. I know that warriors still munch my mage in warfronts, well at least the champions do, sure I might not die while stunned like I did before, but they are still in line with the rest of the callings (and most callings other they pyro's got changed in PvP).

I've had to adjust playstyle on most of my toons after the patch in some facet of play (the cleric changed in warfronts, and that was actually to be easier to heal with since burst damage was cut across the board and I feel more useful, though I still think chloros and bards are more effective warfront healers, at least in the 20-29 and 30-39 brackets).

But yeah they did make some major changes to how warriors play.

[Frag]

Played my cleric for a bit, melee heal spec that's okish dps, can tank probably FC & below and is actually meant to be a healer. Also made a PvP heal spec after heaing some bitching about no enough healers going about. It was a ton of fun to play, and I was able to keep up our entire team with another healer my first 5 matches, but we lost them all because DPS didn't focus on Codex/Fang Carrier which was a bit frustrating. Also having people just charge out of range and then expect you to put yourself in danger to keep them up doesn't feel right either. All comes back to communication & team play as one match I simply was useless because there was a Void Knight who decided to make my mana bar disappear and no one peeled him. All in all, the cleric is good but I think I prefer my mage... only issues there are he doesn't have the option of tanking later (and well.... ) and Mages are likely next up on the chopping block.

Still, probably mage. Chloro is just too much fun... Though Cabalist on the Cleric is too, other than mana regen issues. Ahh, I dunno.

[Kevin]

I've got a Riftblade (22) / Reaver (7) build that I'm testing for solo but haven't done much with.

So I've been playing with the Riftblade / Reaver / Champion build. I was able to solo the elite giants in stonefield for the Defending the Defiants quest. I did drink 2 potions over the 5 of them and I ended up at 32 HP on one. But I was encouraged by that. I'm actually liking riftblade more now than pre patch. I know it's been changed a lot but the increased damage + cooldowns on some of the abilities just makes me feel like I have more control and there is some variety in the play style. I dinged 24 while killing the giants, so I started at +3. It wasn't as "safe" soloing them as it was on the cleric (just went tank spec), the rogue ( Bard / Ranger), or the mage (necro). But it was faster.

So I guess I'm an odd duck in that I actually have more fun with the nerfed version of riftblade. Just wanted to report back since I did do some soloing for a couple of levels with it now.

[Frag]

I was mostly Reaver before, with Riftblade there for support passives and ranged kiting. I have a main Riftblade spec now and it does well if a bit of an odd duck, Reaver on the other hand... there's no noticable heals left in it and the dmg is just blech.

[Kevin]

I was mostly Reaver before, with Riftblade there for support passives and ranged kiting. I have a main Riftblade spec now and it does well if a bit of an odd duck, Reaver on the other hand... there's no noticable heals left in it and the dmg is just blech.

Yeah, I can see. I'm still 7 or 8 deep in Reaver and it is for some extra AoE options, and while the self healing is weak, it can still help. The damage is OK at lower levels too, where I'm at, but the scaling is poor and it will tail off in the 30's it looks like. I'm considering changing it out for another DPS soul, but really I likely won't go more than 7 deep in anything else since it will end up being my 3rd soul and what it offers for shallow investment still has value for me, when I'm higher level I might find a combo that works better with the Riftblade primary, but for now this is working and I have less downtime than I did pre patch, though as mentioned the play style of Riftblade changed a lot.

I do still like the deep Reaver build for tanking, but the paladin for 2nd soul is a must right now.

I understand why they are cutting damage back on tanking souls (they hit them all), but I'm disappointed that they couldn't keep it higher as it just added to the flexibility. There is still much more than WoW ever had, but some of it is going away. The reasons are often the same, PvE is being affected by PvP and while it seems they are keeping all the souls viable for that like they stated it doesn't feel that way all the time because they got stuck doing across the board scale backs and as always that is harder to accept than across the board buffing.

[Crushar]

Jr here. Just updating game currently with the free trial weekend. Will most likely name my first toon glaur if available see you soon.

[Treesh]

Jr here. Just updating game currently with the free trial weekend. Will most likely name my first toon glaur if available see you soon.

Do a /who Heal Snipers (that's the name of the guild). =)

[Crushar]

I did but the trial account doesnt let me wisper anyone not on my friends list.

[Treesh]

I did but the trial account doesnt let me wisper anyone not on my friends list.

How strange. Anti-spam measures I guess. At least we finally got Glaur into the guild to make it a little easier. How are you liking the mage?