“People always ask me how long it takes to do my hair. I don’t know, I’m never there.”
– Dolly Parton
I thought I’d show off today a couple of my sets of cosmetic clothing on my mage in Rift. These are all made up of a mixture of drops which I thought looked cool, crafted gear, and PvP gear.
One thing you will also notice is how big a difference it makes to have access to dye because (da-da-DAH) you can make things match.
I like how the set with the red dress makes her look quite sweet and innocent, and the green set with the Loki-esque helm (yes that’s why it is all green) is rather more demonic. What a difference a hat makes!
I’m glad I decided to stick around with Rift after hitting 50. I know I’m not straight into expert dungeons like a more hardcore player would be, but I have hit rank 2 in PvP which gave access to some nicer gear, and been working on reps and the crafting (the horned hat is an epic one which I made myself.
PvP in this game is rather hit and miss, and there is a widespread belief that clerics are overpowered. I’ve been in warfronts where people explicitly said, “They have 5 clerics, we’re going to lose.” Valor, the PvP stat (think resiliance in WoW) seems to make a big difference to survivability as does going up in ranks which gives you access to more abilities from your PvP soul.
I find with my mage that I’m tending to pure CC in PvP because the healing just isn’t snappy enough, plus mages don’t have the inbuilt defences that clerics do. Although now I’m rank 2, I have better defences against being interrupted (interrupts are probably the most effective CC for mages because you can’t really do anything if you can’t cast, other classes have some melee soul options.)
But the main thing is that as long as I don’t try to run end to end warfronts, I quite enjoy them. I also like the general level 50 channel which is very civilised and on which people do actively make groups for world content like rift raids as well as expert dungeons (of which I did one, since I somehow seem to have gathered enough focus on my gear from somewhere, but we didn’t finish it.)
My main reservation on raids and T2 instances is that I have no intention of switching my souls around, now that I have found a combination that I like. I actually don’t care if it’s way off the max dps, I don’t even know if it is anyway, and I don’t intend to run any content where that would ever be an issue. I’d experiment with better rotations on what I have but I’m not ditching the build completely.
And this in a nutshell is one place where hard tuned raids fail. If there is really only a small numbers of acceptable ways to play a character in them, what happens when a player says, “OK, I don’t fancy that, can I have some endgame content for MY build please?”
Welcome to Spinksville! 
That’s not a fault of raiding per se, but due to a lack of proper balancing. A lot of the souls in Rift feel more like fillers than genuine attempts to bring a class to life, and, whilst the choice is nice, a lot of them end up playing very similarly.
Which is sad, because despite the similarities there are wild variations in dps/usability. I do think Trion should have launched with less souls (5 per calling, perhaps?) but made each soul more unique, made them interact better (rather than just cherry-picking talents, how about something like ROM where you get different skills and different skill effects depending on what other classes you chose?) and balanced them better.
Rift suffers from having the worst of two worlds: it has the huge choice with none of the balance, and the multiple souls with none of the zing that sets each soul apart from its comrades.
If all souls were equally viable in most situations it would be more of a choice about how you want play, not how you *have* to play for any given encounter.
You;’re right. But I still really love that if I like DoTs, I can build a DoT specialist. If I like CC, I can build a CC specialist from multiple souls too, etc.
Eugh, DoTs, really? 😛
I agree that it is great to be able to build whatever you want…I just wish that whatever you want was actually something special, something unique, not just “dot specialist” composed of stuff from a plethora of souls.
The last two paragraphs really make me wonder what happened to you.
Oh, nothing traumatic. Just have been reading other bloggers and listening to a few conversations on the level 50 channel about the ‘right’ way to play a mage, which seems to assume specific souls and macros. And my reaction was just, “OK, I don’t want to do that content then.” I guess for me it’s the realisation that I no longer care enough about raiding to build my entire play style around it.
I still have plenty of stuff to do. My PvP spec is fine since I like CC anyway, and I don’t imagine T1 instances or expert/ raid rifts will care much about my dps as long as I don’t do anything obviously dumb.
Ah! I’m relieved that it was a conscious choice and not someone bashing your build in the most uncourteous way.
I don’t know how much old school Rift is and if DPS checks are really THAT harsh and unforgiving that people are looking to save the raid by squeezing out 0.5% more DPS from mages. It has become so much more about memorizing the pattern and – still usually – just don’t do anything terribly wrong. Rather punishing mistakes than rewarding someone for doing his/her part very well or giving others an option to compensate would be nice.
I assume you are not *that* strictly against adapting your “build”/”souls”. Because you sounded so bitter that I was concerned! 🙂 It’s also part of the core gameplay of Guild Wars to adapt, though people found shrewd builds that work more or less in all areas by now. Rift might face a similar issue with that, as people are usually not happy to change their build at all. It often paid off to let people do it their way than giving them a build they did not have the skills (GW term! One of the 8 on the bar, not skill as a player) for and how should they have practice with said build if they just went to the trainer to unlock and buy said skills anyways.
Rift allows you to have many different roles (? I think they were called this way, the different soul builds) and while I preferred the Inquisitor spec with some Sentinel healing, I also had a Sentinel/Warden/Purifier dungeon healer specialist spec and was experimenting with Shaman/Justicar/druids melee builds when the beta ended.
I am kind of against adapting too much. I don’t want to bother with a pet and I like how my warlock main build plays. So although most war/necro/something builds will go with the necro as main I don’t want to do that. I do have a healing build as a backup and a different PvP spec with dominator/ archmage/ warlock.
I know GW is all about adapting your build, and I wonder whether I’ll feel the same if I find a class I really like but it just isn’t as good for soloing/ PvP/ whatever else I’m doing as a different one. There’s adapting and then there’s feeling forced into a specific optimal build.
accesability, games have become too easy, so there is not point to min maxing anymore, Unless your in the run for world / server firstkills you can get away with sub optimal choices. Besides, if the content is to hard at the moment they will nerf it at the “next” content release and you can do it then.
Rift went the way wow has years ago recently aswell. Massive nerf making world event a laughingstock, the instance groups silly, and taking a huge chunk out of the enjoyement of the game play. If you came from another MMO rift was allready on the “easy” side, since you know more of what was expected. Someone new to the genre is going to have a lot more trouble obviousely.
Then there were so many options and only a few viable top end combinations. Wich was not the designers intent, so rather then keeping the content harsh enough to effectively lock out certain combinations because they are simply putting out numbers too inferior, they’ve lowered the treshold where all combinatinos will get you through it. And there are just a few overpowered combinations around,
Why bother doing anything optimal if you can’t pick the fruits of your labor, If you spend hours min maxing playing in a style you do’t like only to see the content nerfed, and your combination is slammed by the nerf bat aswell. It kind of feels like wasted time.
P.S. like both outfits. But recommend earth colours for pvp. :)))
One of my big issues with Rift, though not the one that made me give up on it, was the illusion of choice in regards to builds.
I can mix and max whatever I want, but I discovered that generally what I wanted to mix, like my pyromancer/necromancer/dominator evil mage style guy, was kinda awful because the synergies between certain souls are so strong (You want to be a pyromancer DPS? Well, why not pick Archon and Elementalist even though they are boring and have no access to dead people or curses because they have all these talents that boost fire DPS!) that what you functionally have are the WoW 3 tree options pretending to be a wide variety of choices.
And the thing being, they’re spelt out so blatantly that you have to go against the grain to actually choose non-standard combinations.
“My main reservation on raids and T2 instances is that I have no intention of switching my souls around, now that I have found a combination that I like. I actually don’t care if it’s way off the max dps, I don’t even know if it is anyway, and I don’t intend to run any content where that would ever be an issue.”
That’s a damn good way fer ta play, is me thinking. Rock on.
One thing you will also notice is how big a difference it makes to have access to dye because (da-da-DAH) you can make things match.
Hello, Ultima Online. /fond memories, mostly.
I do think PvP works better for your playstyle (and mine) than hardcore end-game content. Not just in Rift specifically, but in most current MMOs.
For PvE content, which is predictable and you’re working as part of a team following a script, it makes sense to be specialised on one function – and players will quickly identify how to maximise that one function and shun anything else.
PvP is more chaotic and unpredictability is a virtue there. Having the cookie-cutter glass cannon DPS spec just makes you easy for an experienced PvPer to counter. Having a screwball build that suddenly switches damage type, or pulls out a crowd control ability they weren’t expecting, nore than makes up for not maxing out performance against a target dummy.
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I love the dye options, I’ve got a wardrobe set and some of my current gear dyed for RP and once I replace that gear it’ll be going right to the wardrobe set until I find other stuff I like. I’m really enjoying how I can tailor my look to my character rather than just gearing myself and looking the way I do. Also means I’m not carrying bags full of clothing.