Callings/Specs for Head Start!

[Mosg2]

For me the most frustrating thing about Rifts so far has been narrowing down what Calling(s)/Souls I wanted to play once the game launched! I figured I would go ahead and post here with what I finally decided on and why:

I'm going with 4 Riftblade/Void Knights and one multi-soul healer--Specs as follows:

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0cLgk.EGozbsMGzz.VeooczVuz.x

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00Gej.Ex0V0z.xE0x00M.E0Vbbcz

The idea is that you're a ranged class that does insane damage and sits in plate plus wears a shield. All you do is Flamespear people and Discharge whenever you get to 10 pacts--Whenever you get to 3 AP you Rift Surge x4 on someone. They will basically be unable to do ANY ability for the full 15 second duration. With Rift Walk and Planar Blade you're basically immune to any form of crowd control. When you need to AE you just Fork before every Flamespear.

The best part? You can have a one-button spam for single target DPS, a one-button spam for AE DPS, one button for Discharge and one button to Rift Surge people. It's a pretty simple setup that only requires a handful of buttons to function properly.

The healer is specced into 3 different trees to maximize the number of instant heals and static stat bonuses. This way the healer can just be on autofollow and spam heals on whoever is getting focused. I set up buttons 1-5 to change his main action bar to whichever target is getting focused--Then that action bar has a prioritized spam for healing.

Thoughts?

~~~

I wanted to post quickly something I found with Rift + ISBoxer that should be of interest to everyone: If you tell a button to send say, 5 different buttons to Rift the game engine will ALWAYS execute them in the order that they appear in the ISBoxer button--Even if they're in the same step. So You can put cooldown-locked abilities on the first buttons and no-CD abilities that you'd like to spam when other things are on CD later on. This is ridiculously powerful for us as boxers--You can make a one-button DPS or healing spam key that works flawlessly--You'll know exactly what it's going to do at each keypress.

It's pretty amazing :)

[Lyonheart]

I am sticking with bards to start, but since I'm an alt-o-holic i will try your idea out for sure. I know that they will be buffing/nerfing a lot.

As far as bards, i know that they have disadvantages, like 20 meter limit on cadence, the fact that it is channeled etc. I found that i was able to do well anyway, and i just like the class all around, if I were soloing, i would play a bard for sure. One of the main things I like about boxing bards is the buffs/heals they provide for groups/raids. The range issue was less a problem once i realized i could spam quick shot to build combo points ( at max range ) and use coda of restoration to top people off. When people are trying to pick me off at range, i would zoom in and out of range( in combat 20% movement speed ) to build combo points and heal from afar using this method with CoR. Anytime people were brave enough to get close. 3xcadence+ wrath or fury made short work of them and kept me topped off. ( Ill be playing 5 bards for launch! )

It will take getting post 30s for me to see if i will stick with Bards ( thats when the ranger pet starts to get wimpy, due to not leveling past 30..err might be 35 ) It might take me making a few teams though, to find out what I stick with. Im in no hurry!

[Lokked]

My goal is to make a team of 5 of each calling, so each account can have 1 of each of the 4 callings at cap.

In this order:
1. MM/Bard/Sabo
2. Cabalist/Warden/Inquisitor
3. Pyro/Dominator/Archon
4. VK/RB/Champion (Maybe 4 of those and then 1 pure Champion, for buffs and AE Fear)

[Lyonheart]

My goal is to make a team of 5 of each calling, so each account can have 1 of each of the 4 callings at cap.

In this order:
1. MM/Bard/Sabo
2. Cabalist/Warden/Inquisitor
3. Pyro/Dominator/Archon
4. VK/RB/Champion (Maybe 4 of those and then 1 pure Champion, for buffs and AE Fear)

Thats the greatest thing about this game and alts. If you stick with one side, you will only need 4 teams max. 8 if you make teams on both sides. And when you get 4 teams maxed, you will never have to go back and make "mixed" teams, you will have everything you need to mix and match 8)

[Meeo]

I will most likely be running the follow out the gate:

1. Paladin/Reaver/VK(or Warlord)
2. Purifier/Warden/Sentinel
3. Marksman/Bard/Ranger
4. Bard/Ranger/Marksman (or some mix of)
5. Pyro/?/? (maybe Necro/Chloro)

Slot 4 is very questionable, while with slot 5 i didnt get a chance to test multiple mage builds to find a suitable setup.

[ZooljinX]

Mosg2 i hate you so much some times, that looks really nice, i really want to play plateclass you gave me some very nice ideas :)

[wyofiddler]

For me the most frustrating thing about Rifts so far has been narrowing down what Calling(s)/Souls I wanted to play once the game launched! I figured I would go ahead and post here with what I finally decided on and why:

I'm going with 4 Riftblade/Void Knights and one multi-soul healer--Specs as follows:

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0cLgk.EGozbsMGzz.VeooczVuz.x

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00Gej.Ex0V0z.xE0x00M.E0Vbbcz




I lol'd so hard, Mosg2 is bringing his 4DK + healer setup to rift :) Best of luck, I wish my comp (and budget) could handle 5 toons in RIFT!

Added: I want to play a warrior/cleric pair, but i'll be messing around to see if tank/healer or warrior dps + cleric dps/offhealer turns out to be more fun. But... that seems so close to just having a pair of identical dps/healing clerics.....

[ZooljinX]

just noticed some fun stuff about your setup mosg, if you make it so that everytime you throw a spear, each toon throws a different once, then they get dotted rooted and silenced haha.. so fun and you can do it 4 times each 15sec WITh Fork aswell so fun haha i need to test this

im so going this setup on Headstart day 1, looks so fun, thanks again Mosg for making new/fun builds :)

only problem i can see is the 20 meter range,but i think the fact that you are plate and has a deticaded healer can make up good for that


EDIT oh and about that IS boxer thing you mentioned, does it mean i can just simply set up, main dps button (on 1) then just add like 10 steps and it will execute it 1 then 2 then 3 then 4 etc?

[Redbeard]

I honestly dont know what im going to end up running, I didnt get a whole lot of chance to try things out in the open beta, only got to level 8.

I looked for the first time last night at the chloromancer tree, ive been ignoring looking at mages. Man I have no idea how that performs but that looks FUN. Might end up with those.

I also like the druid... ive been thinking maybe 2x 51 point druids for some beefy satyrs OR maybe go 26 in druid just to get the improved faerie which will heal and then try to scrape out some dps stuff on other souls with the remaining points.

[Nitro]

I'm gonna start with this setup for lots of instant cast dps and passive heals:

1 x Chloromancer
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zRsI.Abhu0Vc.b.b

3 x Justicar
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00rjd.VhRs0xfoRR.0M.M

[gunsun]

I'm thinking two mages to try out the game . . .

Haven't tried beta, only done some research, but I'm thinking 2 necro/chloro with mains being necro and secondary chloro.

You have 2 pets, dots, and free time to manage heals after openers, plus some passive hots.

Chloro has some fun skills that really buff a toon and cannot be self cast, so doubling up removes that problem :-)

I think this will give me maximum solo play, simplest interface, before I go crazy and buy tons of accounts.

[Herc130]

Getting tempted to box a full group now. $60x5 for 6 months of subscription is not bad. I guess I have till the 15th of March to decide for the founders rate. But till tomorrow (tonite?) to get the pre-order perks.


Anyway...

Some kinda heavy duty tank, not something that can also tank.

A devoted healer.

A back-up healer/ caster DPS with a pet

and if I 5-box

Caster DPS with pet x2

[Kfunk]

I pre-ordered 3 copies of the game with the high hopes that between the non-beta copy and Lax, ISBoxer starts working for me and doesn't give the 'complete white screen' after client launch =)

I'm planning on just going rogues (bard/ranger/something), trying to make friends with some tanks and pure healers for later on. I'm up in the air about PVP and PVE though.. not sure if my poor little computer will survive well multiboxing large pvp encounters =)

[Mosg2]

I really like Bards too but my gut says that they're going to nerf their healing somehow. The number one complaint you see regarding healing right now is how powerful Bard is compared to the other healing specs. I can definitely say that going 40MM/22Bard/5Nightblade is probably the safest thing you can do as a boxer right now--The damage is insane, the healing is insane, the mobility is insane... Everything is just plain GOOD about this spec. 20% in-combat movement speed plus tons of other buffs, max range damage and you can heal something fierce. Plus, the Rogue calling works great because you can setup any number of tanks/heals/dps for PvE purposes.

Knowing that 100% it's a guaranteed-to-work combo means that I feel safe in letting other people break ground with them :) The Riftblade/Void Knight nerfs have already hit and they do basically no damage to a person boxing the combo--A 10 second cooldown to Discharge is basically the only noticeable thing. Then again, since they fixed the bug with HoT's giving full Pacts in a second or two you won't have enough Pacts to Discharge more than once every 10 seconds anyways :)

@Chloromancer stuff:
The first thing I looked at in this game was 5x Chloromancers. The problem is that once you put up Lifegiving Veil you get ZERO heals from ANY Lifegiving Veil. This means that you absolutely HAVE to pair Chloro with Necromancer for the pet. I've been seriously looking at some 40Necro/26Chloro builds though. Imagine a world where you have 5 pets that do 80% of the DPS of a Rogue player apiece and each of them has the Synthesis buff? The amount of healing they would be getting is insane--Throw on the fact that Necromancers can put a DoT on themselves that heals another groupmate for about 4x the damage it does--You can keep that up 100% of the time since your total life gained is greater than what's lost. Then you've got a insta-cast no cost Necromancer spell that steals 10% of your HP from your pet--Of course, your pet is ALWAYS at full because of Chloro healing.

A Necro/Chloro build is going to be crazy methinks. Insane healing that's ALL instant plus insane damage on your primary target plus... You get awesome looking Revenants running around shiving people! What's cooler than that?

Eh. Anyways. Lol. I'm torn. I've got three solid teams that I think will be a blast to play. I wish I could easily make up my mind!

[Wadis]

Hey mosg2 would you be so kind as to put up an example necro/cholo build you would use. It sounds interesting.

Soooo tempted to box right from the get go the more i read on the forums... must... resist....

[Lyonheart]

The main reason I'm going with bards is they are just very safe to play. Easy as well! I actually tried going with a MM>Brad>Sab in beta for more DPS and healing when i needed it. But after lvl 21 or so, i found that i really enjoyed keeping bard maxed, have all my buffs up and just being a bad ass support unit for any raid lucky enough to be in the same place and time as my super buff trio! Also I felt powerful enough, offensively, to more than get by. With Coda of Fury in the mix, stuff died plenty fast enough! All the Codas,,versas..motifs..mezes you get deeper in the tree, just sound like they will make invasion raids and rift slayers fall in love with ya! Ill give up a tiny bit of DPS for more healing and buffing uberness!

I am also concerned that they might nerf bard healing in some way, we will see. But like many of you guys, i will level sets of the same archetypes anyway, until I have one full set of each, so bards are the easiest choice to start, for me anyway. I am also looking forward to seeing what crazy spec and combos others come up with, and cant wait to try them all out! As long as Rift keeps me long term 8)

[Mosg2]

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0z_wR..xtsxVtkhs.VdcuoVck

Everybody chains Blood Binding on one other person in the team for a rolling HoT. You have Bloom and Flourish as instant cast heals. You can insta-cast Reclaim Power to get 10% of your health from your pets with no cast time, no cost and no cooldown. If you need to heal badly you can stand still and spam Life Shift.

All the while your 5x Shadow Revenants are destroying people.

Jeesh. It sounds so damn attractive.

[Redbeard]

Again I apologize, I didnt get a lot of time in the beta so i dont know the game mechanics too well.
Can you cast buffs / spells that say "on an ally" on a pet?
Will AOE heals that say "heal 10 allies blah blah" affect pets too?

Im only playing 2, but i think the chloromancer has my name on it.

[Mosg2]

Yes and yes.

[ZooljinX]

Mosg, what did you mean with that ISboxer thing, is its as simple as this, just make a mapped key and add step 1, then 2 then 3 etc and it will execute them in the correct order?

[Alemi]

@Chloromancer stuff:
The first thing I looked at in this game was 5x Chloromancers. The problem is that once you put up Lifegiving Veil you get ZERO heals from ANY Lifegiving Veil. This means that you absolutely HAVE to pair Chloro with Necromancer for the pet. I've been seriously looking at some 40Necro/26Chloro builds though. Imagine a world where you have 5 pets that do 80% of the DPS of a Rogue player apiece and each of them has the Synthesis buff? The amount of healing they would be getting is insane--Throw on the fact that Necromancers can put a DoT on themselves that heals another groupmate for about 4x the damage it does--You can keep that up 100% of the time since your total life gained is greater than what's lost. Then you've got a insta-cast no cost Necromancer spell that steals 10% of your HP from your pet--Of course, your pet is ALWAYS at full because of Chloro healing.


Chloro's get heals from their own lifegiving veils, which is to say, a decent amount of healing. Plus with radiant spores anyway, you can always proc heals to yourself. Putting flourish on round-robin is pretty much an instant complete heal for the group as well.

At the lower levels, it's pretty retarded to play one even solo. Only voidknights and multiple melee were really giving me trouble. I did end up doing a few warfronts with 2 other chloros in the early 30s and the group, was pretty much unkillable. Especially with one being chloro/storm caller (with his channeled knockback), me being chloro/archon, and the third being chloro/warlock. And by group, I mean, the whole team of 10 in the black garden.

The trouble for mages in general is close combat... but let me tell you that when 3 chloromancers used corrosion, it was pretty effing deadly. I can only imagine that x5 and on a 15 second cd that lasts for 12 seconds. And keep in my you CAN generate charge while it's up... so you have pretty much 80% uptime and it heals you while you can continue nuking ranged targets?

Anyway, right now, I'm choosing to solo Rift for a bit and see where everything ends up.... once the solo game is done for me, I'll go back to boxing, I'm sure. But, with so many changes coming around the corner, servers are probably going to be full - and I don't want to deal with having queues to get in x5... I'll box it later.

I intend on running a cleric + 4 chloros with at least one being archon for all the insane buffs + bloodlust (the remainder will probably be elementalists for the pets + crit damage since archon auras don't stack, which make me a sad panda).

Oh, and watching people try to run out of range when multiple cholors channel on you (and the fact that once you channel, you CANT run out of line of sight or out of range of it?), led to many people dead, behind trees.

Edit: The one good/bad thing about Scott Hartsman at the wheel of Trion? It won't be 2+ years in between expansions.

[Mosg2]

Say you setup a new key that is activated by pressing Space Bar. It only has one step. That step is to send, say, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 to each window. Now you go into Rift and setup 5 different abilities in the 1-5 spots. Now, when you hit Space Bar Rift will ALWAYS try and do the 1 ability first. If it's not available or is on cooldown, it does 2. Then 3 etc. In this way you can place cooldown-locked abilities that you ALWAYS want to do first. It's basically a perfect priority system.

[Mosg2]

@Alemi:
The tooltip on Lifegiving Veil specifically states that you get zero heals from other people's Lifegiving Veil while yours is active. So, your own will heal you but you don't get the 4x from the others. Le sigh.

[Alemi]

@Alemi:
The tooltip on Lifegiving Veil specifically states that you get zero heals from other people's Lifegiving Veil while yours is active. So, your own will heal you but you don't get the 4x from the others. Le sigh.

Exactly. I was clarifying the quote " The problem is that once you put up Lifegiving Veil you get ZERO heals from ANY Lifegiving Veil." which implied you don't get ANY heals for ANY LIfegiving Veils, including your own.

Plus, it's all theorycrafting right now what it's going to be like at 50... since only alpha has seen that high, and there are still massive soul changes coming through just from Beta -> headstart from the leaked patch notes, I'm hesitant on getting committed to any calling/soul until we see where all the chips fall. Plus, the game is just ridiculously fun, even playing solo.

I won't lie and say I haven't almost put in my credit card to order 4 more copies, but - I'm resisting, for the moment. :)

[ZooljinX]

Thanks for clearing it up mosg

[wyofiddler]

I'll be boxing two chars to start with, would two bard/bow-types work or is that not enough buffs, healing, and dps?

I've been planning to go either warrior tank/ cleric heals, or double cleric dps/offheals, but I've also been thinking about trying the bards everyone is so excited about.

Not a big PvP'er, I'll focus mostly on PvE, so maybe that would swing the choice away from bards?

[psimoon]

in the last beta, I did a elementalist/pyro/chloro. Elementalist for pet, pyro main with 0 in chloro for the transmogrify...love that spell.

Was pretty fun, was able to take 2+ to 3+ lvl mobs, and if I got an add, then transmogrify to CC it.

I will solo for the first little bit.

P.

[Redbeard]

Woot 6 hours to go. Ill be at work til tonight but still, woot =P

Man I cant decide what im going to do, im just going to start some guys and have to do trial and error.

I do like that you can rebind your souls or whatever. I am not a big alt guy, so its nice you can try different stuff on the same character. To that end I am just thinking about each archetype and what interests me (on paper) for each.

Warrior: Paladin seems most interesting with all the shieldbashiness. Also, if im reading the 32 point talent correct, it basically turns every single target attack you do against a mob into an AOE, so thats pretty cool if im reading that right.

Cleric: Leaning towards druid, I want to see 2 satyrs tearing it up, or maybe 1 satyr and 1 greater faerie for healing.

Rogue: Havent done a lot of looking here, but the riftstalker looks pretty fun. I just dont know how the phase shifting would work with boxing so probably not an option.

Mage: Chloromancer looks fun... and if the mechanic feels awesome, id love to try the necro for corpse explosion. One thing I dont get for the necro is... why does the pet stop at level 32 or whatever? Im going to be level 50 with a level 32 pet?

[Alemi]

Mage: Chloromancer looks fun... and if the mechanic feels awesome, id love to try the necro for corpse explosion. One thing I dont get for the necro is... why does the pet stop at level 32 or whatever? Im going to be level 50 with a level 32 pet?

It doesn't. Most of the pet classes have a talent at 21 (or higher) that allows them to level past 30... the tooltips on zam aren't totally clear on this. Necros - Ancient Tomb, which parallels Elementals - Greater Elemental Affinity, Beastmaster - Summon Greater Companion etc. On zam it shows that first pet you get goes to level 4, that's incorrect. That's the highest level that RANK of the spell goes to. At level 4 you get Rank 2 which goes to 8 (I think). That particular spell stops being trainable at 30 - which is just a way to prevent people from using it as a 0 point third soul and getting a pet to use all the way to 50 I suppose.

Randomness - I was thinking last night, 5 dominators would be really fun cycling stuns and knockbacks. That and you can drain a cleric or mage's mana from 100-0 in less than 6 seconds.

[Void]

Sticking with my bard/marksman/ranger build i think it will be the fastest to level with!

[Malgor]

I still think I'm going Paladin and some kind of cleric build. I took a Paladin to 18 and a Purifier to level 20. I also took a Elementalist to 16.

So I think I'm probably going to go Paladin/Warlord/Champion (for Bull Rush) and Possibly Warden/Druid.

[Krago]

In beta I took a Paladin/Warlord/Reaver to 18 and a Purifier/Justicar/Shaman to 18.

They worked well as melee team, heals were lacking as expected.

This time I have added a third account and I am contemplating:

Warrior or Rogue x 2
Cleric or Rogue specc'd as Bard for buffs and heals on the above two.

I won't be able to play until the kiddies are in bed, so, hopefully the small amount of time I will have to play will be productive. At any rate I am happy I can now starting playing for real and be able to work though things.

[Lyonheart]

I'll be boxing two chars to start with, would two bard/bow-types work or is that not enough buffs, healing, and dps?

I've been planning to go either warrior tank/ cleric heals, or double cleric dps/offheals, but I've also been thinking about trying the bards everyone is so excited about.

Not a big PvP'er, I'll focus mostly on PvE, so maybe that would swing the choice away from bards?

Three were perfect, im sure two would be great as well.


Say you setup a new key that is activated by pressing Space Bar. It only has one step. That step is to send, say, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 to each window. Now you go into Rift and setup 5 different abilities in the 1-5 spots. Now, when you hit Space Bar Rift will ALWAYS try and do the 1 ability first. If it's not available or is on cooldown, it does 2. Then 3 etc. In this way you can place cooldown-locked abilities that you ALWAYS want to do first. It's basically a perfect priority system.

But i use my space bar to jump!!! Sounds like a mouse button spammer for me 8) Also since your using ISBoxer to spam them, i would make new hotkeys that are not in those spots on the hotbar, that way you can keep those for other stuff!




Sticking with my bard/marksman/ranger build i think it will be the fastest to level with!

DITTO!



I still think I'm going Paladin and some kind of cleric build. I took a Paladin to 18 and a Purifier to level 20. I also took a Elementalist to 16.

So I think I'm probably going to go Paladin/Warlord/Champion (for Bull Rush) and Possibly Warden/Druid.

I played a paly and Warden in beta 4-5. I loved them! Warden has hots, you can get one of the other souls for direct heals, druid for pet. And warden has an insta cast ranged dps that aids in killing stuff faster. You will be happy

[wyofiddler]

LOL - Wolfsbane que at 10:01 = 917, about 43 minutes remaining......... woot :P

[Meeo]

I ended up going with the following: (Souls are not in order)

1. Paladin/Reaver/Warlord
2. Warden/Purifier/Sentinel
3. Marksmen/Bard/Ranger
4. Pyro/Chloro/Dominator
5. Warlock/Chloro/Dominator


im killing things way to fast to know if its good setup or not at the moment, also the DPS averages around semi evenly right now, except the damage done over the period of the fight vary drastically.

Also i noticed that my Warrior and Healer, using instants, are topping the Rift contribution charts, over my actual DPS classes, im assuming due to instant speed spells they both use.

Is anyone else running a mixed 4-5 man group out there? and if so how are you liking it?

[Krago]

I ended up with:

Marksman/Ranger
Marksman/Ranger
Sentinel/Warden

I like it very much, kill things quickly and now that I have the two Ranger pets I have a small army.
I like how the pets charge the mob I attack without me explicitly having to tell them to do so ( I know I still do it though ).

I am going to spec my Cleric for light tanking once I get my third soul.

I was having so much fun and killing was going so well, that I still haven't spent my 6 soul points from leveling up. Anyone else forget to spend their Soul points?

[Meeo]

I have not spent my last several skills points on a 2nd/3rd soul yet on my mages, im just not quite sure what to use them on either the dominator or chloro side yet, im not even 100% sure ill stick with those souls on them.

[Redbeard]

Updated:

I rolled 2 druids up to 10 and then wanted to try something shooty so did two Marksmen / rangers up to 10.

I now think im going to combine the two lol.

Now Im thinking:

Druid / justicar for satyr dps
Ranger / bard for buffs and an additional pet.

Well see how it goes!

[Lyonheart]

I leveled 5 Bards to around level 13ish. I like the synergy of all bards! 5 ended up being a little too much for my PC atm. So I'm doing 4 for now, and 4 is very smooth on low settings. I have my main turned up a tad so it looks better. I have won 7 out of 8 WFs so far. Stacked bards are OP and i would not be surprised at all if they nerf them soon.

Not sure what i will try next.

[Mosg2]

I decided to go with my gut and do the Necro/Chloros. So far it's overpowering.

[Lyonheart]

I decided to go with my gut and do the Necro/Chloros. So far it's overpowering.

LIES!!!! ...jk..do tell!