f13.net

http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?165691-New-Info-Updates-to-PvP-Souls-Crafting-and-more

The new patch that just hit the test server added a 5th role for 100 plat.

 :uhrr:

Seriously, I have a third role and have no clue wtf to do with it. A fifth? yeah... pass

Or, you know, free, because gold sinks are almost as tiring as inventory management.

Really?

Rogue: Tank, Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, Bard, Solo Farm, PVP those are all the specs I would like.

Guess I am not a serious player then. I stick with assassin and toy around with ranged in rift groups. Fuck bard and the rest. Once shit gets too complicated, I tend to leave. I get my money's worth without the spreadsheeting.

A fifth role is a great idea. Nice to see they're finally getting around to cleric dps.  :oh_i_see:

Cleric dps is pretty fantastic. 

Hmm it is, actually i'd say it needs a nerf.  At least their ability to put up top shelf dps while also healing.

A satyr based druid brings great buffs to a group and does some decent AOE and single target dps.

WARDROBE SLOTS
* Wardrobe slots are now available for you to customize your character's look!
* All characters have access to the first wardrobe set (all armor slots) at level 1.
* Additional purchaseable wardrobe sets will allow you to save and swap multiple outfits quickly.
* You can only equip armor of the appropriate type for your calling - Plate for Warriors, Leather for Rogues, etc.
* Additional clothing items will be available in the future, including from new Clothier vendors in Sanctum and Meridian.

PYROMANCER
* Ground of Strength: Now reduces damage received by 20% and reduces damage dealt by 10%.

ASSASSIN
* Serpent Strike: Damage increased. Cooldown reduced from 10 seconds to 8 seconds.
* Impale: Damage increased.
* Assassinate: Damage increased.
* Backstab: Additional damage bonus from Attack Power increased to 100% from 50%. Ability base damage increased. Now has a 6 second cooldown.
* Murderous Intent: Fixed a bug where this was not giving the correct percentage increase to physical damage.
* Poison Malice: No longer causes stealth to break when activated.
* Hidden Veil: Reworded ability description.

* Many bosses have had a pass done to bring them in line with their intended difficulty, and to make them more fun for melee damage characters in general. In a number of cases, some encounters were more challenging than intended. These changes should also help with forming appropriately matched groups through the upcoming Looking for Group system.

Hahaha.  Appearance tab and hide shoulders.  That's my last major complaint about the game gone.  (Still not too interested in a DIKU, unfortunately.)

Come and join us on Dimroot, damnit!

Man this appearance tab thing came out of fucking nowhere and is such a huge fuck you to WoW.  Trion continues to impress me.

Anyone know if LFG tool will be server-specific or what?

And I'm glad bards aren't getting nerfed. 

Heh... fuck you Blizzard:

* You may now hide your character’s shoulder armor in much the same way as the Hide Helmet option works.

Cadence wasn't nerfed, the patch note was a mistake.

Bards still suck though.

Edit to clarify:
A Bard's buffs don't suck, but playing a Bard is truly shit.  Essentially the more people you play with the worse off a Bard becomes.

I don't understand this - "the more people you play with the worse off a Bard becomes."

I don't see how another class having a worse version of one of your buffs removes that choice from you.

You can use all three fanfares at once.  Just group everyone who wants a specific fanfare away from each other.  Cast whatever fanfare you want and hit each group individually.  They don't stack, but you can get people to have whatever buff they want.

All you need to do is just play with line of sight.

They remind me of...bards. From EQ.   :oh_i_see:

The Motif business reminds me of vanilla WOW paladins. "Have fun keeping 5minute buffs up on the entire 40man raid... hope you have decursive / pallypower / action prioritizer mod X!"  :why_so_serious:

They remind me of...bards. From EQ.   :oh_i_see:

It's not even a rotation it's Cadence->Power Cord->Coda of Restoration (Maybe Wrath if you're feely saucy).  All the while healing for nothing and pumping out 150 dps when in a dps spec you're pushing 1200 dps with the same gear.

There's nothing wrong with solo play for bards being bard. Not every soul has to be able to soul well - that's part of the point of the system. Dominators and Archons don't solo well either. They just need fixing so that having one in a 5 player group is actually a benefit and not a drag.

(Draegon - hate to be picky but a rotation is *exactly* what you outline there... :) You're hitting those 3 abilities in that order repeatedly. It's not a very long rotation, but it's definitely a rotation rather than a proc based system or a priority based system like other classes have).

2nd Point:  Well no shit?  Thanks for informing me on that fact.  :oh_i_see:

It's not even a rotation

I would kill for Bard Motifs lasting 5 minutes.  Then I might be able to have fun in combat.  God forbid.

PTS 1.2 ADDITION 1

As a part of the Looking for Group release, there have been a number of updates to instances and item rewards – See below for details!

LOOKING FOR GROUP
* You can now use the new Looking for Group tool to queue for Dungeons, Rifts, or group quests with other players on your server!
* The Looking for Group icon has been added to the main menu tray in the lower left corner of the screen, and can also be opened with the default shortcut key 'I'.
* Select from the group roles available to you based on the roles you currently have saved on your character.
* Queue for specific dungeon or expert dungeon groups, or join the random dungeon queue. Once a group is formed, members will be teleported to the chosen dungeon zone.
* Rift and quest groups formed through the Looking for Group tool are not automatically teleported.
* Queue for group quests currently in your or your party members' quest journals from anywhere in the world and find others also looking to complete these quests!
* Additional rewards are granted for completing a random dungeon through the Looking For Group tool - these can be gained up to seven times per week but are not restricted in number per day, so you can do as many or as few as you like each day of the week up to the weekly cap. Save them all up for one day or spread them out; your choice!
* Additional restrictions based on gear also apply to forming groups for tier 1 and 2 Expert Dungeons through this tool.

GENERAL - INSTANCES
* Expert Dungeon Plaque of Achievement items have all received a power upgrade. If you already have these items, they will be boosted as well!
* Expert Dungeon final bosses are now guaranteed to drop an Epic item. No more finishing the dungeon and getting nothing but Rare items for the whole run. Epic items still have a chance to drop from the rest of the bosses in the zone.
* Some items have been weeded out of the Expert Dungeon drop tables that were very similar to others so you are more likely to see a wide variety of drops. Additionally, some items now drop from different bosses in order to spread out the range of drops available per fight.
* Your instance and raid lockouts are now displayed on a new Instances tab in the Character window.

BOSSES – INSTANCES
* These updates were released in a previous update to the Test Shard. Here is a recap of what has been adjusted and released to Test already. Please let us know your feedback on the Tier1 and Tier2 Expert bosses! We’re continuing to make adjustments to these.
* The health of general population mobs in Expert Dungeons has been reduced.

ABYSSAL PRECIPICE
* Kaler Andrenos: Kaler's Ice Geyser now deals Water damage.
* Expert: Calyx now resets if pulled off of his platform. A blocking wall is also activated at the start of the encounter.
* Expert: Renthar should be less likely to chain high damage abilities on a single target.

CHARMER'S CALDERA
* Gronik: Slightly reduced the amount of power Gronik gains over time.
* Cyclorax now uses mana.
* Expert: Adjusted the encounter space around Ryka Dharvos so the lasers can't be so easily avoided.

DARKENING DEEPS
* Expert: Glubmuk's Poison Bolt should not hit characters fewer than 6 meters from him.
* Expert: Scarn's Wind Buffet no longer ignites smoldering bones.
* Scarn's Smoldering Bones stay on fire longer.
* Incinerator Gerbik now uses mana.
* Non-boss NPCs in Darkening Deeps no longer count toward quests requiring dungeon boss kills.

DEEPSTRIKE MINES
* Kaleida: Reduced the radius of her crystals' AoEs substantially.

THE FALL OF LANTERN HOOK
* Oludare: Fixed the targeting method used by Oludare so he won't turn to face a new target while cleaving or rear-kicking (in the face).

FOUL CASCADE
* Expert: Sparkwing learns to use his ranged abilities. It's super-effective.

GREENSCALE'S BLIGHT [Raid]
* A number of new Relic quality weapons have been added to Greenscale.
* Prince Hylas: Slightly reduced the absorption amount of Spiritual Barrier.
* Prince Hylas: Modified the amount of damage increased by Avenging Wrath.

IRON TOMBS
* Expert: Players immune to knockback will no longer be immune to Totek's Ancient Fury.
* Expert: Bonelord Fetlorn's Boiling Marrow no longer affects pets.
* Guardians now respawn next to the Messenger of the Vigil.

KING'S BREACH
* Expert: General mob populations have been reduced by a few pulls.
* Expert: Immunity to knockback no longer prevents damage from Konstantin's spikes.
* Expert: Konstantin's Cleaving Strike now has a proper effect radius.
* Expert: Konstantin's Mathosian Fury displays an on-screen warning before use.
* Expert: Players within 3.5 meters of Konstantin receive a 20% damage bonus.

REALM OF THE FAE
* Expert: General mob populations have been reduced by a few pulls.
* Chillblains: Fixed the targeting on the Elemental spawn, which was not working reliably.
* Luddoghan: Made some adjustments to prevent his ground goo from targeting the tank.

RUNIC DESCENT
* Rictus: Adjusted how Rictus uses his abilities and reduced some of the associated stuns and stun durations.
* Expert: There is now a text warning when Eliam gains Dark Fury.


WARDROBE SLOTS
* A wardrobe set's icon can be dragged onto ability bars to create a shortcut for quickly changing your character's outfit (similar to Role icons on ability bars).


RIFTS AND INVASIONS
* Zone and Colossus Events are now easier to find. Zones that have active zone events now have a special icon next to the zone name on the main map. Mousing over the icon will display a tooltip showing the current progress of the event.
* Expert and Raid Rifts now have Achievements!


COMBAT
* Fixed pets losing effects that were on them when teleporting or entering/leaving an instance.
* Toggling auto-attack no longer triggers certain cases of reactive abilities.

CLERIC

DRUID
* Crag Hammer: Increased the damage of Rank 6.

PURIFIER
* PTS BUG FIX: Ward of the Ancestors: The blocker preventing recasting on the same target can no longer be removed by removing the buff.

SENTINEL
* Word of Hope: Fixed tooltip to match the new functionality.
* PTS BUG FIX: Healer's Covenant: The blocker preventing recasting on the same target can no longer be removed by removing the buff.

MAGE

ARCHMAGE [PvP]
* Steelweave: Now correctly reduces only Physical damage received from players instead of all damage.

CHLOROMANCER
* Nature's Touch: Updated ability description to clarify how this works with Lifegiving Veil.
* Lifegiving Veil: Fixed an issue with heals from Livegiving Veil receiving a bonus from Spell Power twice.
* Fixed an issue preventing Corrosion from triggering healing from Livegiving Veil.

PYROMANCER
* Ground of Strength: Now increases all magical resistances by 125, armor by 70%, makes the mage immune to crowd control abilities, and reduces damage dealt by the mage by 10%. This ability no longer has a chance to proc a stun.

STORMCALLER
* Static Discharge: Fixed an issue causing the damage portion to retain the effect of buffs that were active when the ability was cast but no longer active when the damage portion triggered. Damage is now attributed to the person triggering the damage instead of the caster of the buff. Static Discharge now triggers off of damaging spells and abilities and no longer triggers off of auto-attacks.

ROGUE

ASSASSIN
* Slip Away: Should now work more consistently against NPCs.

BARD
* Anthem of Fervor: Will no longer be overwritten by lesser buffs.

MARKSMAN
* ALPHA BUG FIX: Marksman's Pedestal, Sniper's Pedestal: Fixed a tooltip bug where the increased damage with ranged weapons was not displayed correctly.

RIFTSTALKER
* Flashback: Can no longer be used when carrying the Fang of Regulos in Black Garden.

SABOTEUR
* Spike Charge: The Bleed effect from Spike Charge should now trigger Blood Rage on your pet if you have soul points spent in Ranger's Blood Rage.

WARRIOR

PALADIN
* Tip the Balance: Slightly reduced the internal cooldown on Tip the Balance.

REAVER
* Shroud of Entropy: Now shares a stacking group with other damage reduction abilities to keep them from being stacked to unintended levels. It now stacks with Power from the Masses and Imbued Armor.

RIFTBLADE
* Avatar of the Rift: Fixed a bug causing this to increase the damage of Avatar of the Rift's damage shield, Burning Blood, and Elemental Touch by more than was intended.
* Fiery Burst: The damage-over-time component from Fiery Burst will no longer overwrite the same components applied by other Riftblades.
* Burst abilities in general: The debuff component on Burst abilities no longer overwrites debuff components applied by other Riftblades.

VINDICATOR [PvP]
* Stand Off: Now properly roots the Warrior in place.
* Phalanx: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, max range reduced to 10 meters. Now applies a debuff that prevents the target from being affected by Phalanx for 60 seconds.
* Forced Recon, Furious Blades: Now only trigger against players.

VOID KNIGHT
* Fusion of Flesh: Fixed a bug causing this to trigger off of the Void Knight's own abilities.
* Fixed a bug with Reckless Strike, Rift Tap, and Furious Rage, where they were not generating enough threat.

WARLORD
* Fixed a confusing error in the tooltip for Call to Entrench.


ZONES

DROUGHTLANDS
* Ancient Wardstone quests in Droughtlands now with 100% more actual rewards!

IRON PINE PEAKS
* Dabbling in the Forbidden: Fixed an issue that would sometimes cause the Ritual Altar to not be usable.

MERIDIAN
* Expert Dailies have been moved to Epoch Plaza and are now given out by Lord Olangdon.

SHIMMERSAND
* Whispering to the Winds: Fixed the second objective for this quest so it can be completed.

STILLMOOR
* Past is Prologue: Simplified how this quest is available - now offered by Donal Sumptor immediately after completing 'Rise and Fall'.



PVP/WARFRONTS
* Black Garden: Riftstalkers' Flashback can no longer be used while carrying the Fang of Regulos.
* The Battle for Port Scion: The stacking buff Sourcestone Empowerment, granted from turning in Sourcestone, no longer reduces damage taken.
* Reduced the favor cost of Cultist's Focus to 8550 Favor. It was previously priced as a 2-handed item.


CRAFTING
* A number of new recipes have been added to the Artisan Stores.
* Blazing Resistance Runes are now Epic quality. Sharp Runes and Accurate Runes are now Rare quality. These recipes have had their ingredient cost adjusted to reflect the updated rarities.
* Minor Catalysts now only drop from Elite or dungeon mobs.
* You can now click on the Loom in Lantern Hook to open the crafting window.


UI/SETTINGS
* The Artifact pane of the Character window now has a built-in search – search for the artifacts you’re missing, or search for the collections themselves!
* You can now click on an artifact or empty artifact slot in the Artifact pane while viewing the Auction House to search for that item.


CLIENT/SERVER
* Bandwidth optimizations.

I'd think that the smarter implementation would be for bard songs to result from actions much like chloromancer heals result from dps.  Having people passively buff/heal/debuff just isn't an engaging mechanic. 

Solo play for bards is fine, maybe even a bit overpowered.  Solo PvP for bards is a free kill. 

Solo play for bards is fine, maybe even a bit overpowered.  Solo PvP for bards is a free kill. 

PYROMANCER
* Ground of Strength: Now increases all magical resistances by 125, armor by 70%, makes the mage immune to crowd control abilities, and reduces damage dealt by the mage by 10%. This ability no longer has a chance to proc a stun.

 :why_so_serious:

They still don't get it.  10% damage reduction isn't going to fix things, particularly in pvp.

But the severe nerf to its effects will...

They're still immune to crowd control while standing in the thing.  That's the biggest issue I've encountered with it.  That and the crazy damage they dish out. 

They're still immune to crowd control while standing in the thing.  That's the biggest issue I've encountered with it.  That and the crazy damage they dish out. 

It was the ability to sit there and dish out massive amounts of damage while taking a lot less themselves and stunning you.  Most mages don't want to sit still while being beat on, the crown control immunity only helped because they were so hard to kill in the first place, most people would rather just kill them than while they are cc'd.

I think the nerf is about the right severity, but only time will tell.

It was the proc that wasn't on DR that was causing all sorts of problems.

My rogue should be fun with the assassin improvements, though I wonder how much the valor effect increase is going to widen the gap between the geared and ungeared. At this rate, warfronts may be unplayable for new 50s in a few months.

I'm not sure you can really praise trion for their speed at 2months into release.

It could probably also use a bit more of a marketing push though. I am not sure all that many people knew about it.

People know about it.  It just has some bugs.  For example, my 32 Chloro spec mage couldn't queue as anything but DPS, but at 33 Chloro I could queue as a healer. 

There was some weird bug where you couldn't queue for a role unless you had switched to it after the patch. This also apparently bounces you out of queue if you switch to a role that you haven't fully spec'd out.

I love the map changes, so that anyone can see invasions.

Doesn't it just show up anyhow?

It does.  Imagine if you want the look of your helm and pants but a different pair of gloves and BP.  The wardrobe slots require items in them.  That means you can't have both the visual and the stats of the desired pieces, just one or the other.  Either that or I'm doing something wrong.

If you put nothing in a wardrobe slot, your actual equipment shows. So above, leave everything empty except for gloves and BP.

The CC changes are awesome. The offensive dispels, I didn't know. Who got them?

Marskmen are the only one I knew of. And I think it's a good addition. Who else?

I agree, it needs at the very least a 10s cooldown.

I agree, it needs at the very least a 10s cooldown.

A possible solution is to make soul defining buffs such as Living Veil undispellable.

I switched to a riftblade/paragon spec just to be able to keep up or range kill marksmen.  It's working quite well.

There's a specific note that says you have to be 33 or higher chloro to flag as a healer, which is so utterly retarded I don't have words. Most chloro specs are 32 chloro/34 something else.

It's in the known issues post, but it's in the fixed section, as a subnote to another issue, and I think it's by design, which is mildly rage inducing.

Regarding the CC change: it went from a terrible CC system (mindless AOE cc, chain cc) to an awful one (Did you just charge someone? Good job, the 2-sec root and 3-sec stun just nerfed all useful cc against them or even made them immune to all kinds of CC, including snares!). CC done right is a good thing, it allows coordinated burst, kiting (!), peeling off damage dealers from healers, making use of chokepoints, etc. Now it's just "everyone goes immune to all CC including snares in 5 seconds, and just does their highest burst damage rotation on the other team until someone keels over". There are plenty of crucial utility / damage skills that have a 'minor cc side effect' like charge, dusk to dawn, a ton of voidknight stuff... if you use them now, you'll just make the enemy immune to CC for 30 sec.

Any recommendations on a fun pvp MMO? :P

The absolute worst part of Rift atm is premades vs Pugs.  I am at the point I am serioulsly debating on quitting just because of it.  There are people/groups/guilds that do premades ALL DAY and will literally win 100% of their games....all day.  That means the PUGS lose all day, or basically 1 faction loses all day.  It is to the point that PvP is almost useless unless you have a premade.  This weekend I spent the least time in game since launch, I logged in, qued, entered a warfront, saw the same premade I always see and logged off.  Any recommendations on a fun pvp MMO? :P

I could of swore WOW had a system that put pre-mades vs premades, but then again I havent played WOW in 4 years so maybe Im just on crack.  Scion does pop but its the least of all the WF's.  I was actually thinking of trying Global Agenda, gonna do some reading up on it today

WoW has it down to 5-man premades now.

The absolute worst part of Rift atm is premades vs Pugs.  I am at the point I am serioulsly debating on quitting just because of it.  There are people/groups/guilds that do premades ALL DAY and will literally win 100% of their games....all day.  That means the PUGS lose all day, or basically 1 faction loses all day.  It is to the point that PvP is almost useless unless you have a premade.  This weekend I spent the least time in game since launch, I logged in, qued, entered a warfront, saw the same premade I always see and logged off.  Any recommendations on a fun pvp MMO? :P

Ah yeah, I've been playing as a rogue (up to 47 now), and when I use my MM role (primarily in the Black Garden), it is Riftblade warriors and Nightblade rogues who give me the most trouble.

Other than that, MM is crazy powerful in warfronts - Rapid Fire Shot does a good amount of burst, and the spammable dispel is just silly.

Speaking from a WoW perspective, losing your 10th matchup for a night getting like 1/5 what a win could be just makes you want to stop playing all together.  So I did.

1.
No incentive for open world PVP and no real game mechanics

2.
No competitively ranked warfronts (by guild or team) per server cluster

It's not a fifth though, it's closer to half.

an issue for whoever isn't serious

In Rift? More than a half. At level 50 is 600 Prestige for a win and 350 Prestige for a loss. Favor is even closer, you can get up to 90% of what the winner gets if you lose with a close enough score.

I guess I'm old school, but I never saw a reason for the 'Warhammer' PvP system (which this has) over the DAoC PvP system (10 abilities per class, not 30. Interrupts. etc.)

Odd that you'd say this.  Playing DAoC, I had FAR more buttons to manage in pvp than I do in Rift.  I had my abilities, RR abilities, gear abilities, ML abilities, etc.  I had to hotkey a shitload of stuff in DAoC.  In Rift, I rarely use more than 8 keys in PvP without macros.  Granted, there are a few classes (shaman for example) that do benefit from macros to manage reactionaries. 

Quick pvp tips.

1) use target's target on someone that knows what they're doing. 

2) Learn the names of key spells and interrupt them

3) Purge HOTs off of targets

4) Catch people that overextend beyond the range of healing

5) Use LoS to your advantage

Any post that is nostalgic for DAOC's casting/interrupt system I pretty much dismiss out of hand.

Any post that is nostalgic for DAOC's casting/interrupt system I pretty much dismiss out of hand.

Weird, I spent most of my DAoC career playing mages and archers. I'd rather not kill a cleric because I got interrupted than not kill a cleric because the cleric is chainhealing all my damage while bunny hopping with full mana.

This is true. I don't know what they could have done differently, but the fact that so many souls/classes have no chance to outdamage so many healers, or even just have them run out of mana, is annoying as hell. Actually some clerics cannot be harassed by two players focusing on them, and start having issues only with three or more. Some more interrupting or mana management issues wouldn't hurt in my opinion...

The Cleric souls in Rift can do it all.  They can out tank the tank, they have ranged healing or DPS, and they have the strongest healing.  A cleric can go full healer, healer-dps hybrid, or straight out DPS. I've seen warfronts where clerics did obscene damage.

It's not just the valor, their pvp soul is incredibly good unlike warriors or rogues.  Same with mages actually.

Actually I decided today to start a cleric.  The versatility is huge and TBH until they fix pugs vs premades I dont feel like doing Warfronts anymore so I guess Ill spend a few weeks and level a new class.  Not sure what Ill do after that...

Let see,
My rogue had 1 macro that had:
Charge
Auto attack ability
Follow up to auto attack
Disarm
Evade reactionary
Parry reactionary
Some other shit

Then I had 5+ finishers to choose from between various classes
4 different kinds of blinks which I just macrod with some of the finishers
I had 5 different buffs I had to cast every time I died/60 minutes were up
An AOE ability
An AOE ability on a 2 minute cooldown
An AOE ability taunt
Single target mez
Ranged silience
4 different 2-minute buffs I could cast that shared a cooldown
Single target taunt
I had my different tracking abilities
I had buttons for my healing potions/life leech potion
I had buttons for my buff potions
Planar abilities
Stealth and its abilities
Countless passive buffs that would go off when I'd parry/evade/finisher/blink

Oh, I also had some other ones I didn't even bother putting on the hotbar.

So yeah, I had an excessive amount of motherfucking abilities. I macrod some, and usually in PvE I would literally spam my 1 key over, and over, and over. I'd spam it so much I'd have to use different fingers.

As for PVE clerics, the only thing lacking with their tanking is that they suck tanking magical damage.  They're pretty good with physical damage though. 

Nebu, I tried making a stormcaller/ele build, but I have a thousand buttons.  I don't even know where to begin.  How did you set up your bars and what don't you use, and what do you use?  In other words, will you please cliffnotes me a quickie guide to stormcaller/ele?

Also depends on what spec your cleric is.

You can go inq/cabalist/sentinel 31+/10/0 (or inq/justicar/sentinel, same point distrib), that build really picks up steam at 26 when you get fanaticism and 31 when you get CoO; it was definitely faster at murdering stuff than my dps warrior. Tag 4-5 mobs with vex (dot that heals you as well), fanaticism + soul drain, circle of oblivion to mop up stragglers. Use aggressive renewal when in danger of running low on mana. If you go justicar offspec, you'll never die while doing this; if you go cabalist, you'll take more damage, but deal more and will worry even less about mana. It's a very efficient and effective farming / general pve build at 50 too.

Rogues are amazing tanks.  Amazing.

For single target, I agree.  Seems some of their aggro management tools for multiple pulls aren't quite working right though.  I've been playing so much with cleric tanks that I had forgotten just how easy it is to heal rogue and warrior tanks.

Have you tried some of the new tear encounters?  The one in shimmersand was quite interesting.

For single target, I agree.  Seems some of their aggro management tools for multiple pulls aren't quite working right though.  I've been playing so much with cleric tanks that I had forgotten just how easy it is to heal rogue and warrior tanks.

Have you tried some of the new tear encounters?  The one in shimmersand was quite interesting.

PVP/WARFRONTS* Diminishing returns immunity timers now end 15 seconds after the initial application of movement-impairing effects, down from 24 seconds.*

This might be what makes me cancel my subscription and ragequit. Seriously. Just that stupid. I am back to not playing and watching my warrior permastanding still or running away in fear in the middle of a PvP battle.

Oh bullshit, the nerf to cc was extremely overdone.  If you are going to have cc at all you can't make it completely useless.  The way things are now every single low duration stun/root/snare is detrimental to use because of the inmune timer.  And honestly snares with DR are just retarded, that needs to be removed completely.  Right now warfronts boil down to clerics and rogues running around in circles kiting everyone, it is utterly retarded.

I actually play a warrior that does a lot of pvp and I promise you things are a lot worse than before.  The game was made with cc in mind, you can't just make it useless and expect it to work.  Pvp has been broken since 1.2 and the sooner they revert the changes the better.

The game was made with cc in mind, you can't just make it useless and expect it to work.

IF all CC from rift was removed completely, fights would become about which side has the bigger sword / can do the best dps / healing rotation and which side has more/better bunnyhopping healers.

I guess the perception would be different, in one case you literally can't do anything, and in the other you can do things but they won't have any effect.

PVP/WARFRONTS
* Diminishing returns immunity timers now end 15 seconds after the initial application of movement-impairing effects, down from 24 seconds.

I noticed a strange power on my cleric the other day.  I'd love to remember the soul tree that has it, but I don't work that way.  Anyway, it read like a vacuum spell you cast on your teammate.  Up to 5 enemies within a certain range of that teammate will be sucked in to that teammate.

PvP update

Hey all,

We wanted to post a quick follow-up to some of the feedback you have been sharing with us.

As you may have seen, we've recently expanded one "Wargroup", or a group of shards who can engage in Warfronts together, to include additional shards. This was done to directly address queue times for Warfronts and to allow for more players to engage in PvP faster.

We're closely monitoring this change for any issues or bugs that arise as well as to see if it leads to improved queue times. We will keep you updated on our decision to expand additional Wargroups in the future.

Furthermore, we're also looking at improving match-making between pre-made groups so that, whenever possible, a pre-made will face a pre-made and have less mixing with random pick up groups.

Lastly, starting tonight in Europe and tomorrow in North America (05/27) you'll see a number of improvements to Warfronts that will encourage more competitive gameplay and coordination, here's a first look at the notes:

PVP & WARFRONTS

* The following objects can no longer be interacted with while under the effect of Slip Away, Twilight Transcendence, Scatter the Shadows, Defer Death, or Phase Shift:
- Black Garden: The Fang of Regulos
- The Codex: All control points
- Whitefall Steppes: The Sourcestone
- Port Scion: Sourcestone and capture points
* Using Slip Away, Twilight Transcendence, Scatter the Shadows, Defer Death, or Phase Shift while carrying Sourcestone in Whitefall Steppes or The Battle for Port Scion will now cause the Sourcestone to drop.
* Respawning in a Warfront now regenerates energy and power more quickly for Rogues and Warriors.
* The Codex: Reduced the amount of time it takes to flip control of a control point.
* The Codex: Increased the maximum match duration to 20 minutes.
* The Battle for Port Scion: The Bridge respawn point now becomes unlocked after the match has been running for one minute. The amount of time it takes to gain control of the respawn point has been halved.
* The Battle for Port Scion: Returning Sourcestone no longer grants a buff to your team members.
* The Battle for Port Scion: Slightly updated the paths that the heroes take when spawned from defeating the Endless boss. They now more regularly assault the southern objective on each side.
* The Codex has been updated with alternate routes out of the spawn areas for both teams. Several sections of the terrain have also been smoothed out to avoid wonky movement.

Thanks for your continued input and suggestions, your feedback is important to us and helps us to shape the decisions we make every-day. We look forward to your discussion!

Good changes. Now some content please. More raids coming with 1.3, and if there is gonna be nothing for PvP...

Hammerknell.

I'm glad to see they are stopping the teleport/speed buffs in some of these maps when someone has a crystal.

I know that's the next big raid, but what makes you say 1.3 for sure?

They're taking guild applications to test it on the alpha server, aren't they?

Hammerknell testing is underway for sure.

They are indeed taking apps from guilds.

Ranged DPS is still King in PVP, and if you don't have it or the ability to mitigate it then you are toast. Single target snares need to have a longer duration, or a shorter immunity time.

Magic damage is too far out of whack, and any warrior can be nuked down in about 3 seconds. Valor doesn't seem to mitigate spell damage at all.

Godlike Clerics need toning down so it doesn't take 3-5 people to kill one.

I'm glad to see they are stopping the teleport/speed buffs in some of these maps when someone has a crystal.

Oh yeah....PVP gear is still not on par with PVE gear.  The stuff that drops in 20 man raids is way better.  A guildmate of mine got a single hand axe that does 34 DPS, and I don't recall seeing a single weapon on the P-6 vendor that got close to that.

Much like WoW gear is the biggest part of the equation, take a R0 mage and compare him to a R6 mage and they aren't even close.

(snip)

Why is it beyond mmo designers to create fun pvp for people?  I'm sure it's fun for the R6 players to have plenty of R0 players to dominate, but it's just grind for the R0s.  I can't recall how Guild Wars works in relation to this - do people become more powerful as they win more?

If warfronts are fun, then why must an element of grind be put into them before they are fun?  If they took out the grind, they would be more fun, although people might play less.  But they could grind for titles or pets or achievements (and they would) rather than superpowers and gear.

Ranged DPS is still King in PVP, and if you don't have it or the ability to mitigate it then you are toast. Single target snares need to have a longer duration, or a shorter immunity time.

DIKU PVP is terrible.

I just spent a couple of days in the warfronts, one on my rogue (mostly marksman) and one on my mage (warlock/chloro/archmage).

Marksman seems, hands down, the best rogue spec.  Using eradicate, I can quickly strip healing and other buffs off anyone, so that the rest of the group can kill them, and if they aren't buffed, the damage isn't bad given that I can pretty constantly kite them around with all the speed buffs marksman has.  I only wish my reflexes were as nimble as they were 20 years ago - but I do ok as a geriatric low-ranked mm.  I don't know why every marksman doesn't do this, frankly. 

Bard is good too, for the added speed buff, but the healing and buffs don't seem to add as much.  As a rank1, it didn't seem to matter what I did that much, since I was up against mostly higher levels and being carried by whatever high levels our side has, so I fooled around with bard.  I didn't get targeted nearly as fast as bard as I did as a mm.

I went from R1 to R2 on mage and the difference between 50ish valor and 425 valor is huge.  I was able to actually stay alive long enough to at least feel like I was helping, as opposed to being 2hit.  I had to remember to reapply my buffs (which wasn't hard since I was dying constantly anyway, and I know how powerful eradicate is).  I'm not at all sure that eradicate is OP, given that to me, warriors seem pretty damned OP.

Trion decided to merge some warfronts together, so now there is a pool of about 6 or 8, I'm not sure, clustered together.  My win ratio for pugs went from about 35% or 40% wins (Monday) down to 5% (yesterday) due to the merge.  I don't know why defiants seem to have more high ranked pvpers, but they certainly do.  Instant queues are ok but it's really not fun to lose almost every game, and suddenly our warfronts are flooded by trash-talking douchebags.  I might need a bigger ignore list.

Getting to 50 only to spend tens of hours being fodder so that one maybe has a shot at contributing does not seem like a winning strategy for keeping players around.   Warfronts were so fun pre50 when nobody had gear; while people might play warfronts less (due to only playing when they're having fun as opposed to grinding favor/prestige), they might have more fun in them - well, not the R6 jerks who get off on farming favor while holding stones or otherwise not doing much to advance the score but Trion shouldn't care about what they want anyway, as that sort of behavior can demoralize other players, which isn't good for business.

DIKU PvP implementation in games aiming for mainstream success (a la WoW, Rift, etc) is terrible.  I rather enjoyed DAoC and WAR pvp once they started to sort out balance issues.  The key is a progression path that rewards options/abilities rather than gear/power.  


Note: I don't mean to have all these debates with you Draegan.  It's nothing personal or anything.

Another idea...since Trion seems to be on a Warfront server-merging frenzy, just merge all of them.  Now divide your 6 PvP ranks into three groups, the 1-2, 3-4 and 5-6.  Generate Warzone battles among these groups only.

Far fetched for sure, but I'm more of a "throw whatever you got at the wall and see what sticks" kinda' guy.

Great great idea.  Premades would still do well, but not quite as well as a premade + rr6 gear against R1-2's.  If they did this, they could also justify making the rank progression a longer grind without the players minding so much.

I still think there should be better gear for ranking up, gaining points.  But I don't think the difference should be drastic.

I'm always surprised that apparently Mythic is the only company that realized stat caps = gud.

Am I the only one who loves getting better and better gear and then going back to old PVE content, whether it's solo, 5 man, or raids and stomping on it once in a while just because I can?

The idea of gear equalization in PVP is a good idea because gear disparity ruins other people's fun and offering those people zero alternative.  That kinda doesn't happen in PVE.

I'm about to hit rank 5.  As a mage, I can honestly say that pyros, Storm, and healers need significant pvp nerfs.  A competent R6 cleric healing a R6 pyro can dish out death after death with no counter short of about 10 players.  It's just stupid broken.

Am I the only one who loves getting better and better gear and then going back to old PVE content, whether it's solo, 5 man, or raids and stomping on it once in a while just because I can?

The idea of gear equalization in PVP is a good idea because gear disparity ruins other people's fun and offering those people zero alternative.  That kinda doesn't happen in PVE.

I've probably done about a half a dozen Warfronts in all my days /played in RIFT.  I can't stomach the grind to get Valor gear, and playing a Rogue in a Warfront just isn't fun, even if I have nearly BiS raid gear.

Yesterday I was in a 1000-994 Codex that was hugely fun - both sides lacked premades and high ranks.  We lost, but I didn't care.  It was the most fun warfront since hitting 50.

Trion needs to engineer a way for these situations to occur more often...

PvP gets much better when you start obtaining R5 gear. 

DIKU PVP is terrible.

I hate to say it, but those dudes at top tier DIKU PvP, like it this way. They don't want you to have a chance, they WANT to have a sword that does more damage than you have hit points.

Why do you think they Catassed?

Noob. "You didn't earn it".

Isn't the trick separating them from us chumps, or giving them a reason to only fight other top tier folk?

I know why PvPers want better gear, I'm not immune to it myself, but the trick to a halfway decent PvP system is to routinely keep those with 1000 damage swords away from the sheep with 1000 hit points, otherwise the problem tends to fix itself in a way the devs don't want. All the sheep quit, and only people with 1000 damage swords and 10000 hit points are left running around.

I like how League of Legends does it anyways, where gear resets at the start of every match, and is only aqquired in each match in isolation. I'm looking forward to see how GW2 does it, cause I missed out on the first one.

Guild Wars has pretty much the best balanced pvp game I've seen in a mmog. You can create a pvp-only char that starts at max level (not that getting level 20 takes more than a few hours), and can use all of the skills that your characters have unlocked (via quests, capturing from bosses, or buying unlock packs from the store). Granted, for some builds you need to get very specific skills to be competitive, but you can create a perfectly viable pvp build out of the gate. You gain Balthazar faction as you win games, which you can use to unlock skills and various equipment upgrades (admittedly the equipment upgrades make a difference, but not THAT big a difference). Due to GW's design, everyone has the same stats (hp/mana/armor) and the same number of skillpoints to distribute among the same class abilities. Of course if you want to use the latest theorycrafted uberbuild, you'll need to have unlocked the appropriate skills for it.

GW has other problems. The barrier-of-entry is finding people to play with, which causes schedule issues. The competitive formats all need 4/8 people... the only things you can pug are random arenas (basically team deathmatch and also insanely luck-dependant) and the two 'battleground-esque' competitive missions from Factions (which are decent to fun-to-play, but there's only 2 of them).

I know why PvPers want better gear, I'm not immune to it myself, but the trick to a halfway decent PvP system is to routinely keep those with 1000 damage swords away from the sheep with 1000 hit points

The way it currently is set up, a new 50 is actually discouraged from pvping in warfronts because it's not fun. 

I'm getting close to rerolling a char and lvl completely through BF's.  I'll take all this advice to heart.  Are you guys doing PvP on Dimroot or have you been on a PvP server?  I'm thinking a PvP server would be good for this.

I'm not sure I agree with this 100%.  A fresh 50 faces significant challenges, but you can easily adapt your playstyle to help. 

That only works for people who love PvP.

I'm getting close to rerolling a char and lvl completely through BF's.  I'll take all this advice to heart.  Are you guys doing PvP on Dimroot or have you been on a PvP server?  I'm thinking a PvP server would be good for this.