I am thinking about giving Rift a chance.  I ussually play healers or tanks. 

I have read that the game is not very balanced.  Is it balanced in PvE?  Can a person play a healer and level without to many problems?  Can a person play a tank and level without to many problems?

I am sure PvP is unbalanced.  It takes a long time to balance PvP.

I am more concerend about PvE though.

I was also wondering what NA servers seem to have devent communites.  Does anyone have a suggestion for a PvE NA server? 

I can only speak as a levelling tank I will say that for the longest time I played as a DPS warrior until I got an epic piece of block plate.  I then rolled a reaver/paladin and im really amazed at the amount of damage I can output and how many mobs I can take on at once. 

Its a totally viable tank spec, actually one of the prefered, but its an insane levelling spec and actually performs more efficiently with multiple mobs due to the way the reaver abilities work.

I have an alt who is a necro/warlock/chloro.  Chloromancer is really a healing soul but without even adding points into the tree you're given a heal that works off being placed on mobs and applies heals to your entire group.  Im sure you could balance yourself deeper into chloromancer and place your points in either necro or warlock for added dps and be an effective group healer with DPS.

and as a plug, Silkweb is an awesome server.  It doesnt suffer from the elitists that flooded the initial head start servers and is medium-high pop / never any queues

While I'm sure you can level as a tank role, I'd not recommend it. The damage is laughable as a tank. Even at level 50, killing a monster as a paladin is an all night affair. :P

For questing I'd recommend something like a Riftblade/Reaver/whatever setup. It will allow you to drain life to stay alive against multiple mobs and still do very decent damage. The third soul could be beastmaster until you hit 37 or so (when the pet stops leveling with you without any points spent) After that you could go Warlord for the free debuff aura thing.

You might still want to have a tanking role ready for instances and stuff though, and the current king of tanking is the paladin. No doubt about that at all.

Pala/Reaver/Warlord seems to be a very popular and effective tanking role. :)

No clue about NA servers. I'm EU. ;)

No thoughts on Healing yet? 

Oh sorry, I completely forgot about that part. :)

If you would like to play a cleric, that is certainly also possible. My first level 50 was my cleric (Sentinel/Purifier/Warden) and while he's not exactly a DPS machine, the Sentinel does offer some decent damage and you also get the instant cast (Water Jet iirc) spell from Warden.

Obviously a healer does best in a group setting though, so if you plan on soloing a lot, you should probably choose the Inquisitor soul as a cleric, if you like ranged dps. You can still pick up a couple of heals from a secondary soul, and you will be doing a lot more damage.

If melee dps is your thing, the shaman/druid/whatever role does quite well. They can still pick up a couple of heals and you'll get multiple damage shields with very few points spent. And if you spend 31 points in the Druid tree, you'll get the satyr pet. :)

I read that healers get crap XP when doing rifts and it made them very hard to level.

Wait a sec, you have a max level toon already?  How many max level toons do you have? 

How long does it take to get to max level?

Something does not seem right here.

I'm leveling a cleric at the moment, had the game for 2 weeks and got lvl25, am now a casual player which is why it's taken me soo long to level.  I have 2 roles, i have my Sentinel / Warden / Purifier build which i use for dungeon healing and a Shaman / Druid / Justicar build for leveling.  

I gave up on leveling as a Sentinel at around lvl18 mark when it took ages to kill stuff and was running out of mana real quick, switched to using my Shaman build and not had a problem leveling since.  If i were you as soon as you have 30gold, won't take very long at all, then buy another role in Meridian if you plan on playing as Defiant and have 2 builds if you plan on playing a cleric.

As for the server question then my only advice would be to avoid any realms listed as being low, stick to high or medium servers, even high pop servers don't have queues yet (i'm on Icewatch EU server and not had to queue for the past week and i log on at peak times due to when i get home from work).

Hope this helps you from a cleric point of view.

Oh, and as far as Rifts go, as long as you contribute ie. heal people you will get nearly as much planarite (Rift Planar Goods Currency) as everyone else in the raid, not really noticed lack of exp while doing them, if anything i've been quite impressed by the exp boost from doing them.  However, if you leech while doing Rifts then your share of the loot will decrease massively, so contribute and all is good.

Originally posted by MMOman101

I read that healers get crap XP when doing rifts and it made them very hard to level.

Wait a sec, you have a max level toon already?  How many max level toons do you have? 

How long does it take to get to max level?

Something does not seem right here.

The xp is equally divided as far as I know. If you're 5 people in the group and you're all the same level, you should get the same xp for killing stuff. 

In a Rift there's this contribution-meter or whatever you want to call it determining the Rift rewards (not xp). You can get all sort of consumables, essences, artifacts etc. It goes from Bronze to Gold color the more you contribute. Obviously that system doesn't really work though, as spamming the instant HoT from the Warden soul (as a healer) can get you "Gold" very fast while you're not actually contributing anything to the success or failure of the group. Bards can also just keep spamming their instant motiffs and get way more for that than by actually helping out.

I have a level 50 cleric, a level 50 warrior, a level 28 Rogue and a 23 mage. Leveling is insanely easy and fast in this game, which some people seem to like. It'll probably be the reason why I don't re-sub though. I like a challenge.. And I haven't found one in Rift so far tbh.

To be honest I think that the souls are pretty well balanced.  At least the ones I'm familar with.  There may be some souls that are considered weak for certain reasons, and I'm sure they'll be tweaked eventually.  But in looking through the Rogue message board, any thread that talks about a particular soul or build will have 5 other people join in saying that their build is better because of x and y.  Also in a thread I looked through requesting the highest dps build, there were plenty of options posted, and not just a cookie cutter one.  

In time this may change as more and more data is gathered and dispersed.  But on the whole I find the PvE classes/souls to be pretty well balanced.  There are variations on power scaling based upon level, but that's normal.

Originally posted by gavving

To be honest I think that the souls are pretty well balanced.  At least the ones I'm familar with.  There may be some souls that are considered weak for certain reasons, and I'm sure they'll be tweaked eventually.  But in looking through the Rogue message board, any thread that talks about a particular soul or build will have 5 other people join in saying that their build is better because of x and y.  Also in a thread I looked through requesting the highest dps build, there were plenty of options posted, and not just a cookie cutter one.  

In time this may change as more and more data is gathered and dispersed.  But on the whole I find the PvE classes/souls to be pretty well balanced.  There are variations on power scaling based upon level, but that's normal.

I am not really sure if I agree or disagree with you here. Sure, every soul (almost) has it's purpose and can do most normal PvE without huge problems. Classes don't perform equally well though. Not even close.

You can go all DPS (Champion, Assassin etc) and you'll be fine most of the time killing mobs very fast. However, if a pull goes bad, you stand to close to a spawn, you do a tougher quest, you can find yourself getting killed very fast, as those souls are all offense. And you should always remember to carry plenty of drinks.. ;)

Then you have the other end of the scale where you hardly ever get killed.. Paladin, certain healer roles etc. but it takes forever for them to actually achieve anything as killing is so insanely slow.

So far the Warrior has been the easiest/fastest one for me to level. That riftblade/reaver combo is just evil. You have AoE life drains, AoE dmg, ranged dmg, decent single target melee dmg. Things have to go really bad for you to ever need a heal during normal questing.. And you're moving along at a good pace because you don't sacrifice all offense for defense like some paladin builds do.

Bard/Ranger is also a good solo build as you'll be doing damage while healing yourself AND the pet. But again.. You lack dps if you really want fast progress.

Speaking as a healer I have really enjoyed the way they have done it so far.  With the ability to switch between souls you can have a good solo and group spec and switch between healing and DPS pretty well.  I currently do the Warden/Sent spec focusing on mostly warden, and I've loved it so far.  It's decently easy to find groups and I haven't had too much trouble leveling.  Only people who have absolutely nothing else going on in their lives are at max level as of yet.  I work full time and go to school full time so I squeeze Rift in when I can but I still generally get 15 hours of play time in a week and my warden is currently level 31, with also a couple of alts at levels 12 and 15.  I would definitely give the game a try and see for yourself.

Originally posted by dreamer05

Speaking as a healer I have really enjoyed the way they have done it so far.  With the ability to switch between souls you can have a good solo and group spec and switch between healing and DPS pretty well.  I currently do the Warden/Sent spec focusing on mostly warden, and I've loved it so far.  It's decently easy to find groups and I haven't had too much trouble leveling.  Only people who have absolutely nothing else going on in their lives are at max level as of yet.  I work full time and go to school full time so I squeeze Rift in when I can but I still generally get 15 hours of play time in a week and my warden is currently level 31, with also a couple of alts at levels 12 and 15.  I would definitely give the game a try and see for yourself.

Haha, so let's attack the people who are able to play more than you? Really? :)

My warrior hit level 24 the same night I created him. That was less than your 15 hours per week. So unless you started less than two weeks ago, even a casual player CAN level faster. It took me like 4-5 days to get my warrior to 50, so it's not like I spent hundreds of hours playing him.

Rift is an extremely casual game.. Even more so than WoW and other typical hater-magnets. It's the fastest leveling I've ever experienced in a mmo. And it's also even more linear than WoW, and you'll be doing the exact same steps all over again if you ever decide to create an alt. There's no "optional" quest zones etc. Sure, you could try leveling an alt in rifts alone.. Or by PvP'ing. But yeah.. You can't really count on there being enough rifts around to keep the xp flowing. And PvP? Sure, I guess you could do that.. That would be one long ass grind fest though.

Originally posted by Grand_LC

Originally posted by dreamer05

Speaking as a healer I have really enjoyed the way they have done it so far.  With the ability to switch between souls you can have a good solo and group spec and switch between healing and DPS pretty well.  I currently do the Warden/Sent spec focusing on mostly warden, and I've loved it so far.  It's decently easy to find groups and I haven't had too much trouble leveling.  Only people who have absolutely nothing else going on in their lives are at max level as of yet.  I work full time and go to school full time so I squeeze Rift in when I can but I still generally get 15 hours of play time in a week and my warden is currently level 31, with also a couple of alts at levels 12 and 15.  I would definitely give the game a try and see for yourself.

Haha, so let's attack the people who are able to play more than you? Really? :)

My warrior hit level 24 the same night I created him. That was less than your 15 hours per week. So unless you started less than two weeks ago, even a casual player CAN level faster. It took me like 4-5 days to get my warrior to 50, so it's not like I spent hundreds of hours playing him.

Rift is an extremely casual game.. Even more so than WoW and other typical hater-magnets. It's the fastest leveling I've ever experienced in a mmo. And it's also even more linear than WoW, and you'll be doing the exact same steps all over again if you ever decide to create an alt. There's no "optional" quest zones etc. Sure, you could try leveling an alt in rifts alone.. Or by PvP'ing. But yeah.. You can't really count on there being enough rifts around to keep the xp flowing. And PvP? Sure, I guess you could do that.. That would be one long ass grind fest though.

Yea casual to me means playing and having fun at a decent pace.  Racing straight to 50 isn't casual to me.  I only have one main and I do all quests and tons of PvP Warfronts on top of that and I've been playing since head start and my main is still just 31.  Rift is extremely casual but if you're 24 in one day that's racing and in my opinion pointless to play a game just for that purpose.

i did not read all the responses but i will answer anyway, apologies if im repeating.

PVE is simple for every single 'class'.

Rifts main problem IMO is its biggest asset, the class system.
you don't have to level/grind/quest with the same class you want to group with or be at end game.

You dont solo quest/grind with a tank spec. you use the cookie cutter AOE dps warrior spec, then switch to the tank when you are in a group.

You don't solo quest/grind as a healer. You use the coocie cutter AOE dps cleric spec, then switch to healer when you are in a group

You don't solo quest/grind as a dom/archon. You use the cookie cutter AOE dps mage spec, then switch to w/e support mage when you are in a group.

if you havn't played and don't know the system at all think of it this way. In WoW terms, you can make one mage and switch from bing a fire mage to a shadow priest to a warlock with the push of a button. You can go from a paladinn to a holy priest with the push of a button. You can go from a dual weilding damage dealer to a 100% heavy tank with the push of a button.

If you level up as a 'tank' then you are simply making it harder on yourself, and the warrior that leaves you in the dust because hes a pure dps spec will just switch to your 'tank' build when hes 50 and needs a group.

Originally posted by Grand_LC

Originally posted by dreamer05

Speaking as a healer I have really enjoyed the way they have done it so far.  With the ability to switch between souls you can have a good solo and group spec and switch between healing and DPS pretty well.  I currently do the Warden/Sent spec focusing on mostly warden, and I've loved it so far.  It's decently easy to find groups and I haven't had too much trouble leveling.  Only people who have absolutely nothing else going on in their lives are at max level as of yet.  I work full time and go to school full time so I squeeze Rift in when I can but I still generally get 15 hours of play time in a week and my warden is currently level 31, with also a couple of alts at levels 12 and 15.  I would definitely give the game a try and see for yourself.

Haha, so let's attack the people who are able to play more than you? Really? :)

My warrior hit level 24 the same night I created him. That was less than your 15 hours per week. So unless you started less than two weeks ago, even a casual player CAN level faster. It took me like 4-5 days to get my warrior to 50, so it's not like I spent hundreds of hours playing him.

Rift is an extremely casual game.. Even more so than WoW and other typical hater-magnets. It's the fastest leveling I've ever experienced in a mmo. And it's also even more linear than WoW, and you'll be doing the exact same steps all over again if you ever decide to create an alt. There's no "optional" quest zones etc. Sure, you could try leveling an alt in rifts alone.. Or by PvP'ing. But yeah.. You can't really count on there being enough rifts around to keep the xp flowing. And PvP? Sure, I guess you could do that.. That would be one long ass grind fest though.

i think the game is only  linear if you want it to be. ive been playing mmorpgs for a long while which means i can get along fine if i am just farming mats for crafting or searching for rifts to close. the quest lines, and all the theme-park flulff all you people are used to are just icing on the cake for me and i do them only if i feel like it since theres a lot of other ways to level (dungeon grinding to get more notoriety, pvping, plus the other two i said earlier). plus there are the random quests here and there that are found in random parts of the world that you cannot access unless you find that  certain npc.

Originally posted by NegativeJoe

i did not read all the responses but i will answer anyway, apologies if im repeating.

PVE is simple for every single 'class'.

Rifts main problem IMO is its biggest asset, the class system.
you don't have to level/grind/quest with the same class you want to group with or be at end game.

You dont solo quest/grind with a tank spec. you use the cookie cutter AOE dps warrior spec, then switch to the tank when you are in a group.

You don't solo quest/grind as a healer. You use the coocie cutter AOE dps cleric spec, then switch to healer when you are in a group

You don't solo quest/grind as a dom/archon. You use the cookie cutter AOE dps mage spec, then switch to w/e support mage when you are in a group.

 

if you havn't played and don't know the system at all think of it this way. In WoW terms, you can make one mage and switch from bing a fire mage to a shadow priest to a warlock with the push of a button. You can go from a paladinn to a holy priest with the push of a button. You can go from a dual weilding damage dealer to a 100% heavy tank with the push of a button.

If you level up as a 'tank' then you are simply making it harder on yourself, and the warrior that leaves you in the dust because hes a pure dps spec will just switch to your 'tank' build when hes 50 and needs a group.

 

Im convinced not many people even attempt to level as a tank or a healer and theyre stuck in this WoW mentality.  Tank builds are very effective levelers and while a DPS spec may down single mobs faster, I promise you that levelling as a tank will keep you up a lot longer and you wont be running when more than 2 mobs aggro you.

Even as a tank mobs of equal level or a level or two higher are downed extremely quickly even in a tank spec.  You'd be surprised how much you can kill especially spec'd high into reaver when killing multiple mobs where the soul really shines.

but keep telling people you cant level as a tank and I'll keep levelling as a tank watching the DPSrs die, run or run to me when they have 3 mobs one or two levels higher then them because theyre health pool is shot.  And really, when your soloing mobs have very low health ..white damage can take them out pretty easily.

---

Originally posted by VooDoo_Papa

 
Im convinced not many people even attempt to level as a tank or a healer and theyre stuck in this WoW mentality.  Tank builds are very effective levelers and while a DPS spec may down single mobs faster, I promise you that levelling as a tank will keep you up a lot longer and you wont be running when more than 2 mobs aggro you.
Even as a tank mobs of equal level or a level or two higher are downed extremely quickly even in a tank spec.  You'd be surprised how much you can kill especially spec'd high into reaver when killing multiple mobs where the soul really shines.
but keep telling people you cant level as a tank and I'll keep levelling as a tank watching the DPSrs die, run or run to me when they have 3 mobs one or two levels higher then them because theyre health pool is shot.  And really, when your soloing mobs have very low health ..white damage can take them out pretty easily.

---

and im convinced people will speak on things they don't have a clue about just to try to act smart.

more than 2 mobs making them run?
what part of aoe do you not understand?

a good warlock/necro/cholor MAGES pull 8 mobs and kill them faster than your pure tank spec can kill 1 mob, and ends the fight at 80%.

a good RB/reaver (warrior caster, far from the pure tank) pulls more than 2 mobs every pull and kills them all faster than your tank spec can kill 1 mob.

noones saying you 'can't' level as a tank spec. we are saying its much slower, much more boring, much less lucritive, and has zero point since you can just switch to one at will when there is an actual reason to be a tank.

you won't be watching the same people die for long, because they will be 10 lvl's ahead of you in a day or 2.

Originally posted by dreamer05

Originally posted by NegativeJoe

 

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Originally posted by VooDoo_Papa

 
Im convinced not many people even attempt to level as a tank or a healer and theyre stuck in this WoW mentality.  Tank builds are very effective levelers and while a DPS spec may down single mobs faster, I promise you that levelling as a tank will keep you up a lot longer and you wont be running when more than 2 mobs aggro you.
Even as a tank mobs of equal level or a level or two higher are downed extremely quickly even in a tank spec.  You'd be surprised how much you can kill especially spec'd high into reaver when killing multiple mobs where the soul really shines.
but keep telling people you cant level as a tank and I'll keep levelling as a tank watching the DPSrs die, run or run to me when they have 3 mobs one or two levels higher then them because theyre health pool is shot.  And really, when your soloing mobs have very low health ..white damage can take them out pretty easily.

---

 

and im convinced people will speak on things they don't have a clue about just to try to act smart.

more than 2 mobs making them run?
what part of aoe do you not understand?

a good warlock/necro/cholor MAGES pull 8 mobs and kill them faster than your pure tank spec can kill 1 mob, and ends the fight at 80%.

a good RB/reaver (warrior caster, far from the pure tank) pulls more than 2 mobs every pull and kills them all faster than your tank spec can kill 1 mob.

noones saying you 'can't' level as a tank spec. we are saying its much slower, much more boring, much less lucritive, and has zero point since you can just switch to one at will when there is an actual reason to be a tank.

you won't be watching the same people die for long, because they will be 10 lvl's ahead of you in a day or 2.

Exactly! Of course you CAN level as a tank and of course you'll be able to take more hits before going down. But the game is so easy, you don't need that. I leveled my Warrior as some sort of improvised RB/Reaver build, and while I'm sure a Paladin build would make me sturdier, I never needed that. Pull 5+ mobs, cast the AoE life drain, and AoE dps them to death. You'll be at 95-100% after every fight because you get x% hp healed when you kill a mob.

And the RB skills makes you do a hell of a lot more damage than any real tank build. It takes you about the same time to kill 5 mobs as it does killing a single mob. The tank builds are just overkill for questing and leveling tbh. There's nothing wrong with it.. But sacrificing all offense for defense which isn't needed just isn't worth it.

Thanks for all of the responses.  This thread has made me realise that Rift is not for me.  Pulling a bunch of mobs and AOE them to death seems a bit shallow to me.  I am glad others have found a game that they enjoy.  I do not think this is the one for me though. 

Originally posted by Grand_LC

Originally posted by dreamer05

Originally posted by Grand_LC

Originally posted by dreamer05

 

Yea casual to me means playing and having fun at a decent pace.  Racing straight to 50 isn't casual to me.  I only have one main and I do all quests and tons of PvP Warfronts on top of that and I've been playing since head start and my main is still just 31.  Rift is extremely casual but if you're 24 in one day that's racing and in my opinion pointless to play a game just for that purpose.

Why is "slow" a more decent or fun pace to play at? My warrior got to 250-275 weapon smithing while I was leveling him as well, so your theory about me having to sprint from one quest hub to the next simply isn't true. The game is just easy and fast. He also did all the puzzles and cairns (That I know of.. Think he still needs one cairn I haven't bothered looking up.)

I don't see what more I could have done tbh. It's not like there's a lot of RP elements to go have fun with (If that's your thing.), there's no real point in exploring either as you'll pretty much see everything in the world just by doing the quests. 

You're welcome to call it racing but my only other option would have been standing around doing nothing for a while..

Originally posted by NegativeJoe

 

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Originally posted by VooDoo_Papa

 
Im convinced not many people even attempt to level as a tank or a healer and theyre stuck in this WoW mentality.  Tank builds are very effective levelers and while a DPS spec may down single mobs faster, I promise you that levelling as a tank will keep you up a lot longer and you wont be running when more than 2 mobs aggro you.
Even as a tank mobs of equal level or a level or two higher are downed extremely quickly even in a tank spec.  You'd be surprised how much you can kill especially spec'd high into reaver when killing multiple mobs where the soul really shines.
but keep telling people you cant level as a tank and I'll keep levelling as a tank watching the DPSrs die, run or run to me when they have 3 mobs one or two levels higher then them because theyre health pool is shot.  And really, when your soloing mobs have very low health ..white damage can take them out pretty easily.

---

 

and im convinced people will speak on things they don't have a clue about just to try to act smart.

more than 2 mobs making them run?
what part of aoe do you not understand?

a good warlock/necro/cholor MAGES pull 8 mobs and kill them faster than your pure tank spec can kill 1 mob, and ends the fight at 80%.

a good RB/reaver (warrior caster, far from the pure tank) pulls more than 2 mobs every pull and kills them all faster than your tank spec can kill 1 mob.

noones saying you 'can't' level as a tank spec. we are saying its much slower, much more boring, much less lucritive, and has zero point since you can just switch to one at will when there is an actual reason to be a tank.

you won't be watching the same people die for long, because they will be 10 lvl's ahead of you in a day or 2.

Exactly! Of course you CAN level as a tank and of course you'll be able to take more hits before going down. But the game is so easy, you don't need that. I leveled my Warrior as some sort of improvised RB/Reaver build, and while I'm sure a Paladin build would make me sturdier, I never needed that. Pull 5+ mobs, cast the AoE life drain, and AoE dps them to death. You'll be at 95-100% after every fight because you get x% hp healed when you kill a mob.

And the RB skills makes you do a hell of a lot more damage than any real tank build. It takes you about the same time to kill 5 mobs as it does killing a single mob. The tank builds are just overkill for questing and leveling tbh. There's nothing wrong with it.. But sacrificing all offense for defense which isn't needed just isn't worth it.

I wouldn't say slow.  Like I said I haven't been just hanging out and doing nothing.  And I don't RP either, I've been playing and leveling and I'm not max and I told you I  am still just level 31.  Perhaps I don't have much time to play or what but I think people who get to 50 in a few days it's just pointless.