Rift: Sights Along The Way

Posted by Wolfen in Rift

I hit level 49 last night. It has been a fun climb to the top, with only a few “what the heck” moments. I blew through Iron Pine Peaks (more on that later), and spent lots of time in the Droughtlands and Shimmersand desert. The variety of creatures and uniqueness of quests greatly diminishes as you level up. That does not mean that things get boring, but the wow factor is not there as much.

In the Droughtlands, you battle centaurs, scorpions, lizards, ants, and giants. Shimmersand continues with more scorpions, giants, lizards, and cultists. Most quests use the tried and true method of go kill “X” amount something and get a reward at the end. Some quests, however, are fun and interesting. In the Droughtlands, you’ll find an arena where some giants want you to defeat a series of tough encounters in order to gain their respect. Most of these fights require a group, although I was able to defeat the first two fights by myself.

I wasn’t very impressed with Shimmersand until I discovered the city of Fortune’s End. This is a quest hub city that will send you out in all directions. There are three quests here that I consider highlights.

The first sends you go a large prison colony where you find that the inmates have rebelled and you need to find out what they are up to. You are given a disguise that makes you look just like one of the inmates. Once in the prison, as the new guy, you must prove yourself to the gang leaders before they trust you. This requires using a shiv to kill enemies of the gang leader. After running a bunch of quests, you eventually learn what the cultist’s plans are and attempt to stop them.

The second sent me off to find a treasure chest in a nearby cave. The quest is called “I Hope You Like Surprises,” so I was alert to the fact that something would happen. Well, when I tried to loot the chest, I was attacked by a stealthed enemy. I was surprised when I discovered that he had stolen my kidney! I was then on a timer to find certain items that would allow me to get my kidney back. I had to run fast because my health was constantly dropping. I barely got it done in time.

The third sent me to kill the main bad guy in the area. When I arrived at the spot, I saw that this final fight was going to be a rift encounter. I confronted the bad guy and that triggered the first round of the rift. The mobs in each round are level 50. I didn’t think I would be able to win the fight because I was only level 47 at the time. I can kill mobs two levels above me fairly easily, but my attacks miss a great deal with anything higher. Each mob took awhile, but I took my time and got through each stage. I was joined by another player when the final stage started, and I am glad that he did. I would not have been able to do it by myself. Even then it was a very close call.

As for Iron Pine Peaks, I discovered that I had missed a huge amount of quests in that zone. Other quests lead me on to other places, so I didn’t find the other quests until I went back. I didn’t keep count, but it sure seemed like it was another 40 or more quests to be done. So, my advice is to make sure you have turned in all of your Iron Pines quests. The one I didn’t turn in was the one that would have sent me in the right direction.

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Rift: Thoughts on Patch 1.1

Posted by Wolfen in Rift

Patch 1.1 has been live on the Rift servers for awhile now and it brought many changes to the game. I was most concerned with the sweeping changes to the Reaver soul, as I was having a great deal of fun playing it. The patch notes made it seem as though all the fun parts of the Reaver were removed, and to some extent, that is exactly what happened. I am not happy with the changes, but they are not as bad as they could have been.

The biggest change is to the ability called Grisly Works, which is also the ability that made playing a Reaver so much fun. Before the change, if you had three points in the skill, your character would get healed 9% of your maximum health. This made the Reaver an AOE king. In fact, you were wasting your time if you were not AOE’ing as a Reaver. Grisly Works made it damn near impossible to be killed in PVE questing. I would be full health at the end of every fight. That is exactly what Trion wanted to change.

The new description of Grisly Works is this: For 15 seconds after killing an enemy  you have Tagged, healing from Soul Feast is increased by 30/60/90%, depending on how many points you put into it. Soul Feast allows the damage over time spells of Soul Sickness and Creeping Death to heal you for 50% of the damage done. So, no big heals each time you killed an enemy. You do get healed a little while in combat, but you no longer finish fights at full health. It’s back to drinking lots of potions to heal up.

Trion also moved Grisly Works up two tiers on the soul tree. It now requires 25 points in Reaver just to get the ability, plus three more points to get the most out of it. I think the nerf to the ability was enough, and moving it up the tree was unnecessary.

Has the change to Reavers affected how I play the game? Not really. I can still survive an AOE battle with a bunch of mobs around me, I just have to heal up after its done. My survivability has gone down a little bit, and I no longer can run around without a care in the world, but the Reaver is still a viable soul. The changes slowed me down, which is what I believe Trion wanted to happen. The fun factor has definitely been lowered, but I won’t be giving it up.

The Reaver patch notes:

REAVER

* Due to the below changes, characters with soul points spent in Reaver will receive a free soul point respec.
* Soul Sickness, Flesh Rot, Necrotic Wounds, Blood Fever: The damage on additional targets when using Plague Bringer has been lowered. The Threat generation has been increased to keep overall threat gain of the abilities the same.
* Crippling Infestation: Moves down one tier to unlock at 21 points.
* Wasting Away: Moves down one tier to unlock at 16 points.
* Grisly Works: Moves up two tiers, now unlocked at 26 points. Now increases the healing of Soul Feast by 30-90% for 15 seconds after killing a target the Reaver has engaged.
* Soul Devour: Now increases the damage of Soul Feast by 50%, instead of 150%.
* Power from the Masses: Changed to give a stack per nearby party/raid member rather than per nearby enemy.
* Infestation: Cooldown increased to 1 minute, and damage increased based on the new cooldown.

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