I’m planning to purchase Rift on Steam tonight and roll up a character. I don’t know much about the game aside from what I’ve read in a few threads and what one of my co-workers has told me.
So…Rift 'dopers, give me some advice here. What I want is a bow shooting character with a pet…sort of like a WoW hunter. If that’s not feasible, then I want a bow character like a DaoC scout, if the class is viable for solo and fun to play. So…what do I need to do to roll up either one? How should I start the game and what will I see and do for the first few levels? Go out and kill 10 bunnies, collect 15 wolves teeth and find 20 sparkly baubles? Is there anything specific I should focus on? Any advice you can give me for a first time player both in the initial roll up of my character, how I should spec, what I should do?
Either way, you’re going to want to go with a Rogue. Rogues have the Ranger soul, which are pretty much exactly what you want, and it also has the Marksman soul, which is ranged DPS. There’s plenty of options as a Rogue, and you have quite a bit of freedom in how you spec out. (It does happen to be the one calling I haven’t played yet, so I can’t give detailed info on it.)
You get 3 souls at the beginning of your character’s career, with the option to collect the other 5 once you hit level 13. I would recommend taking Ranger, Marksman, and the third is up to you. I’d recommend Riftstalker (tank soul), Bard (healing soul, good for aiding in solo), or Saboteur (more DPS). My recommendation would be Bard, but like I said you’re only locked into those 3 for the first 13 levels. Respeccing is relatively cheap, and the cost of buying a second role (spec) is very affordable. You can eventually buy up to 5 roles, and respeccing any of them is pretty painless.
The starting zones are very linear – at least, I assume the Guardian side is too, as I’ve only played Defiant – and while it has the typical kill/collect quests, there are some other varied quests as well, and the starting zone will end with a rift which is simply unique to the game. I suggest taking your time, since you’re new to the game, but if you start on a high pop server there will almost certainly be someone else running through the newbie quests too, and it’s not uncommon to group up until you get out of the starter zone.
If I start off as a rogue/ranger/marksman do I get a bow and a pet right off the bat? Do I have to tame the pet or do I just get one? Does the bard need instruments like in DaoC (that sounds really cool…I always loved my DaoC minstrel)? Do you have to spec strength, dex, con and all the rest as well?
I’m pretty psyked to give this a try tonight as I’ve heard a lot about this game and it sounds really cool.
Sadly, the pet system in Rift is pretty basic compared to most games, especially WoW. You get one pet, a boar. Later one, if you spend enough talent points, he’ll get upgraded, but you’re still stuck with just one. You’ll get the ability to summon him, though, right from the beginning.
Bards don’t need instruments- they just kind of pull them out of nowhere, which seems a little silly. Bards are a lot of fun to play despite that, though. They can be one of the top healing classes.
Just a boar? That’s kind of limiting, though I guess it still might be fun. Is it a decent tank to keep agro off of a marksman? I assume you get some ability to heal the boar?
Rangers can also have a dire wolf fairly early on, and a raptor at higher levels. The boar makes a great tank, and yes you can heal him. Class flexibility is the greatest thing about rift, as a rogue you have access to 9 total souls, each the equivalent of a wow talent tree and each with different base abilities and talents and you can mix and match any three of them in your build. Ranger covers the whole “ranged dps with a pet” side of things, you can add riftstalker for teleports and survivability and night blade for stealth and elemental damage and now you have a “teleporting range dps with a pet that can do elemental damage and stealth”, Etc.
Oh, when you pick your second and third souls (fairly early on) you can ctrl click on the reward window to preview them before you make a choice. Your first one too but i assume you are pretty much decided on ranger.
Ah…dire wolf sounds more like the thing! Can this class stealth for perhaps PvP type action, or to stealth around mobs that you don’t want to bull through?
If you put 10 points in there, your boar gets upgraded to a wolf, as others mentioned. I like my wolf. I don’t think I’ll go all the way to Raptor. I’m Bard/Ranger/Nightblade, though I’m considering changing the Ranger to either Marksman or Riftstalker, as the pet sometimes annoys the hell out of me. He pulls like a tab-targeting hunter in Scarlet Monastery.
Yeah, there’s no taming in Rift. The boar is your basic tanky pet, then you get a Dire Wolf at level 10 which is your DPSy pet, plus the ability to get a Blood Raptor at level 31.
As for healing the pet, you do get Rejuvenate at level 4, and you’ll be at level 6 by the end of the starter zone.
Regarding stats, right now there’s not much diversity in gear. If you’re a Rogue, you want Leather armor, and there’s usually only one choice in quests. You get some variability in weaponry, but it’s usually choosing between Str-based weapons and Dex-based. (You want Dex.) Luckily, the souls are set up so all of them rely on your prime stats, so it’s not like you have to try to gear for Wisdom or Intelligence if you go Bard.
Only nightblades and assassins get stealth. You can unlock all souls you did not choose at level 13, and you have four different specs to play with so stealth is always an option. BTW i hear stealthers tend to run out of quests faster than other classes, one thing Rift has is very heavy mob density and not killing all those mobs tends to make some players run out of quests.
Ohhh yeah. You have to fight a lot, and enemies make up a not-insignificant chunk of your XP income. It’s a good thing fighting in Rift is a helluva lotta fun.
Yes, the pet commands are identical to WoW’s, so you have Attack/Move Here/Stay and Aggressive/Defensive/Passive. As in WoW, Defensive works 90% of the time.
And every calling can solo. Depending on how you spec, you may be weaker or stronger at it, but speccing within your calling is extremely fluid. And pet souls are very solo-friendly; my Elementalist mage has proven to be hardier than my Warrior or Cleric!
It sounds seriously cool. I’m looking forward to giving it a try tonight and seeing how it goes. I’ve always been pretty fond of pet classes…my main toons in WoW were Hunter and Warlock. The soul thing is a bit confusing though…the pets get souls too? So, like in WoW with specing the hunter pet?
No, pets are very basic. When I say “pet souls,” I’m referring to the player souls that employ pets. For Warriors it’s Beastmaster, for Clerics it’s Druid, for Rogues it’s Ranger, and for Mages it’s Elementalist and Necromancer.
Ah, cool. Necromancer, ehe? That sounds promising as well. So, it depends on points you put into a specific ‘soul’ as to the abilities you get? Do you get a certain number of points per level or something?
Exactly. You get 4 points every 3 levels (So at level 1 you get 1, level 2 you get 1, level 3 you get 2, and so forth). You are only allowed to put as many points into a soul as you have character levels. That means every 3 levels you have to put a point into one of your secondary souls, although you’re free to distribute points any way you please so long as you don’t have more points in one soul than your levels (so a level 3 might have 2 points in one soul and 2 points in another).
The points are placed into the “branch” part of the soul, which grants buffs and abilities exactly like WoW talents. The number of points you put into the “branches” determines which “root” abilities you get. While you have some freedom in how your branches develop, your roots are linear. Here’s the soul calculator so you can see how it works.
That’s kind of limiting, though I guess it still might be fun. Is it a decent tank to keep agro off of a marksman? I assume you get some ability to heal the boar?
So, it depends on points you put into a specific ‘soul’ as to the abilities you get? Do you get a certain number of points per level or something?