Rifts: Planes of Telara MMO from Trion

[Kyrios]

Rift/Reaver is such a weird spec to balance because it’s pretty stupidly powerful from about levels 16-39, and then slowly scales down to “balanced” or so around level 48, and then by the time you’re in expert dungeons and doing PvP prestige ranks people are wondering why the heck you aren’t playing a Champion build. I was really hoping there would be some level 50 buffs to go along with the (needed) lower level nerfs. Maybe next time around, because I really do like playing a ranged platewizard on the occasions I’m not tanking.

BM/Champion was the highest single target DPS spec of any class, to the point where some of the high level raid guilds were running with 4 or 6 or 8 of them in all the DPS slots in their raids. So that was probably deserved. The Paragon changes confuse me a bit, particularly Strike Like Iron - one of the criticisms I’ve heard was that it shouldn’t work so well as a Champion off spec ability, so… they make it more powerful and not incur GCD? That seems a bit off.

Overall I think this leaves my tanking spec alone, significantly buffs my group DPS spec of choice (Para/Champ), and nerfs the hell out of my preferred solo/PvP spec. Oh, well. Very glad to see the attention from the devs, and curious to see how much of this makes it through to Live. Plus, free respecs!

[mok]

So is this a serious challenge to WoW?

[DeepT]

Well that destroys my Rift / Reaver leveling build. Guess I am going to have downtime and will have to star drinking to heal up after fights now. I am not sure there is even a point to having a / reaver to my my Rift blade stuff with all the self-healing being nerfed / moved to where I need a lot more points to get it.

[flyinj]

How do you get your mage to use a wand? Do you have to unequip any daggers/staves/books for it to work? I’m able to hold it at the same time as a staff or dagger/book, but it never fires.

[triggercut]

Well that destroys my Rift / Reaver leveling build. Guess I am going to have downtime and will have to star drinking to heal up after fights now. I am not sure there is even a point to having a / reaver to my my Rift blade stuff with all the self-healing being nerfed / moved to where I need a lot more points to get it.

Hey Eeyore, those are alpha patch notes. Keep leveling with your current build.

[Anaxagoras]

How do you get your mage to use a wand? Do you have to unequip any daggers/staves/books for it to work? I’m able to hold it at the same time as a staff or dagger/book, but it never fires.

There’s a “toggle ranged attack” button on your general page that you can put on your action bar & click to fire. (Same thing for bows & guns)

[Falcon554]

So is this a serious challenge to WoW?

Is anything? they have 6 years of content. Rift if a very well made MMO, with issues like they all have, can you over look those issues? Some are a big deal to me and it looks like they will address most of my problems.

Now the sever pop is another issue all together

[Nephrinn]

But honestly the biggest mage problem I had was that in any prolonged encounter I quickly got to a “use an ability. Fire wand for 10-20+ seconds, use an ability” state due to mana shortage. And that’s with prioritizing wis over int at level 20 (but no fancy runes or anything).

Had the same problem until I found out about the Warlock ability that drains health for mana. You only have to spend 5-10 points in the tree and the talents are totally worth it.

[Harkonis]

several of the mage souls have ways to get mana back

[walTer]

Question on Corrupted Sourcestones…Did I read that you need to spend them in the zone in which you got them or can you save them up for a set of awesome gear when you hit 50?

[JM1]

Question on Corrupted Sourcestones…Did I read that you need to spend them in the zone in which you got them or can you save them up for a set of awesome gear when you hit 50?

Sourcestones are zone-specific, so spend away.

[walTer]

Thanks for that…I thought I read that somewhere but I had trouble confirming it-- time for shopping!

[rhinohelix]

In my limited pvp experience I’ve had Riftblades with a few levels on me just DESTROY me (rogue me; Marks/Ranger/Bard me) with Flaming Spear. It’s depressing. They’re much better at range than I am by a country mile. I’M RANGED DPS DAMMIT.

So are they, with a few levels on you. Does a MM/Ranger with a few levels on you do the same thing at times? I bet in a few places that happens as well. Plus, Riftblades couldn’t heal the whole raid. Or 5 people in the raid once the raid healing nerf goes in.

All in all I am severely disappointed with this upcoming nerf patch. When they nerf in beta, it sucks but its beta. When they do this in every MMO after the first month-ish, it really steals my jam for the game.

On balance, it seems like a different crew with a different set of priorities have taken over on the Live side, and this new crew seems like the same crew we/I have had to deal with on every MMO to come out in the last 10 years. You should be overnerfing in beta and make players more powerful in live, not vice-versa.

[inactive_user]

They nerfed like three souls, which were universally agreed to be pretty OP. They’re buffing a whole shitload more than that. You’re really going to bitch this much about the approach they’re taking?

[Dejin]

Sourcestones are zone-specific, so spend away.

Yes and no. On the Guardian side IIRC the Sourcestones go:

[ul]
[li] Corrupted Sourcestone – Silverwood only
[/li][li] Cursed Sourcestone – Gloamwood and Scarlet Gorge
[/li][li] Vile Sourcestone – Scarwood Reach, Droughtlands, and Moonshade Highlands
[/li][li] Ancient Sourcestone – Iron Pine Peaks and … (that’s as far as I’ve gotten)
[/li][/ul]

Generally they do seem to have done a good job making things not overlap. The Vile Sourceshards can buy Chest and Leg armor in Scarwood Reach, and maybe Helmets and Shoulders in Droughtlands, and Gauntlets and Belts in Moonshade Highlands (I might have Droughtlands and Moonshade Highlands backwards there). So for example if you’ve got Vile SourceShards you won’t be able to save it in Scarwood and then buy better Chest Armor in Droughtlands, but you could use it to buy a Helmet in Droughtlands.

I think there’s some overlap for Sourcestone vs. Sourceshards – IIRC for example you could buy a Helmet in Scarwood Reach using Sourcestones but you had to wait for Droughtlands (the next zone) to get a helmet with only Sourceshards. I’m not sure if the Scarwood Reach helmet is better than the Droughtlands one – alas I haven’t earned any Sourcestone since Silverwood :-(

[JM1]

Having underpowered classes instead of overpowered in a heavily PVE game at launch is a recipe for disaster. Those first impressions are crucial.

[Jafisob]

Having underpowered classes instead of overpowered in a heavily PVE game at launch is a recipe for disaster. Those first impressions are crucial.

Being able to spec out of or into a class(soul) easily makes a lot of the balance changes much less painful. There is no disaster here.

[Gryff]

Having underpowered classes instead of overpowered in a heavily PVE game at launch is a recipe for disaster. Those first impressions are crucial.

Have you actually found a non-dungeon pve challenge yet? I am running around as various Mage souls and only have problems with elites more than 2 lvls above. If anything, they need to buff the mobs a bit.

[JM1]

Yes, I’ve found some areas required me to play smart - usually because of mob density - and a few mobs that hurt a surprising amount.

[TheWombat]

Thanks for that…I thought I read that somewhere but I had trouble confirming it-- time for shopping!

And it’s a bit of an issue at times, because you can easily wind up with left-over shards with nothing useful to buy. I’d like an option to convert shards to Planarite maybe.