General Quick Questions Thread

[dd0029]

Handy l2bard.

Thank you very much.

Should I be using Coda of Cowardice and Distress?

I caught an off hand mumble asking someone else about that last night, but was not sure. And the debuffs seemed to disappear occasionally but not reliably enough to make me think someone else was overwriting them with something better.

[Segoris]

Should I be using Coda of Cowardice and Distress?

I caught an off hand mumble asking someone else about that last night, but was not sure. And the debuffs seemed to disappear occasionally but not reliably enough to make me think someone else was overwriting them with something better.

Other classes will handle the debuffs for cowardice/distress.

Well, that's something to know. I'm not sure they are shit. But I will say they are uncompelling. Once you are good about keeping the motifs up every 30 seconds, there's not much more to do other than pick good times to use verse of Joy. I can't really refresh harder.

I didn't even get to use LoS shennanigans on Greenscale for using both fanfares. They wanted vigor for the more HP.  Is there another HP buff that's even close to vigor? All of the others I know are 40 compared to the 52 for it.

Speaking of Greenscale, something happened on the third add wave everytime. We were always really strong through the first two phases, no deaths and Regeneration hardly ticked. Then comes the 25% transition and things fall apart. Does something happen there we should be watching out for that we missed? The first wipe was the pollen, but we were good on that following.

You should be using clerics/pallies for 40end buffs while the bard gives melee and caster buffs to everyone. The couple hp vigor gives compared to the benefit of str/dex/int/wis isn't worth it.

For your last phase problems: If things are falling apart slowly and you're not being one shot when he's landing then I'd guess it's due to missed pollen (they continue in phase 4, keep them as your priority) or missed bracken/plants and people aren't moving or killing what they need to and have bad situational awareness. I've found the best way for phase 4 is having all ranged dps cover pollen and melee will help with ones close to GS and under him, while all ranged dps are on bracken (when needed, not every bracken needs to die, just the ones in your way as you should have enough dps to drop GS before they become much of an issue, especially since some could even be pulled away by the secondary tank).

DPS GS when able and then the last couple percent ignore ever spawn besides GS. When you ignore all but GS will vary on your raid, you can ignore them earlier as your gear and raid get better, but at first I'd say wait until about ~4% or so if 18- 20 people are alive still while you still aren't very geared just to be safe with it

I was talking more of a future point of view.

If talking more of a future point of view, I'd still say they are worth having in raid but they are not as valuable as they were when first getting a raid group started in the gearing process due to awful scaling.

The bottom line, imo though, is they are worth having in raid as long as it's not someone dying to mechanics

[Draegan]

Handy l2bard.

Thank you very much.

Should I be using Coda of Cowardice and Distress?

I caught an off hand mumble asking someone else about that last night, but was not sure. And the debuffs seemed to disappear occasionally but not reliably enough to make me think someone else was overwriting them with something better.

Not in a raid.  Archon's have the same debuff and their's lasts 5 minutes.  They also need the effect on the boss for their other spells I think.

[Draegan]

If talking more of a future point of view, I'd still say they are worth having in raid but they are not as valuable as they were when first getting a raid group started in the gearing process due to awful scaling.

The bottom line, imo though, is they are worth having in raid as long as it's not someone dying to mechanics

Bards will always be worth having because of VoJ and Fervor or Runspeed.  The Crit and AP buff will scale into uselessness if other ranks aren't created.

My main beef of the class is that it's NOT FUN.  They don't scale with gear, they don't show up in parses.  You can take a naked Bard or a BiS Bard and you'll never know the difference in your raid.  HK raids do about 22k DPS or so.  Bard dps is typically 300-500 of that.  That's the issue here.  Bards do not have an incentive to gear up.  Bards don't require any "skill" to play.  There is no rotation or theorycrafting.  Keep your motifs up and VoJ when it's off CD and you're pretty much a pro.

Every Bard in a raid must be 51 pts.  It doesn't leave you with any options to mess around with cool builds.  Easiest "fix" to bards is to increase Motif time from 30 seconds to 5 minutes.  Swap Virtuoso (31pt ability) with Verse of Joy (51pts).  At least you'll give them the ability to use other souls to do fun things.

Bard mechanics are shit though, same with their tree.  The bard today is a bastard of what it used to be.  You can tell the Devs have no idea what to do with the class.  Just look at the Greater Essence you can purchase and the Synergy Crystals.

The best thing about a bard is you can play one in your sleep.

[Segoris]

If talking more of a future point of view, I'd still say they are worth having in raid but they are not as valuable as they were when first getting a raid group started in the gearing process due to awful scaling.

The bottom line, imo though, is they are worth having in raid as long as it's not someone dying to mechanics

Bards will always be worth having because of VoJ and Fervor or Runspeed.  The Crit and AP buff will scale into uselessness if other ranks aren't created.

Bard mechanics are shit though, same with their tree.  The bard today is a bastard of what it used to be.  You can tell the Devs have no idea what to do with the class.  Just look at the Greater Essence you can purchase and the Synergy Crystals.

Well yeah that's obvious. If we're turning the discussion that way, then be ready for 1.4 when the mechanics get even worse when they give reason to NOT use any finisher at all. It seems the lack of direction from Trion on Bards has led them to believe a bard should only spam cadence and motifs and their idea of variance is supporting a 20% reduction in verse abilities as the alternative...

Edit: removed something not needed

[Sky]

Forgive my non-raiding ignorance, but if a bard sucks on a raid, can't you just switch to a dps spec or something and happily plink away and show up on parses, etc? Isn't that one of the great strengths of Rift, that no matter how much they nerf a soul, you've got something else you can switch to?

[Segoris]

They are still improving 19 other people enough to make them worthwhile over another dps though. Even in pure dps races, having a bard is still improving those other dps enough where it's worthwhile keeping the bard.

[Nebu]

Forgive my non-raiding ignorance, but if a bard sucks on a raid, can't you just switch to a dps spec or something and happily plink away and show up on parses, etc? Isn't that one of the great strengths of Rift, that no matter how much they nerf a soul, you've got something else you can switch to?

I don't know why rogues complain.  They have great ranged dps, great melee dps, and can main tank many raid bosses.  Mages get to play chloro and archon... yipee.

[Draegan]

Forgive my non-raiding ignorance, but if a bard sucks on a raid, can't you just switch to a dps spec or something and happily plink away and show up on parses, etc? Isn't that one of the great strengths of Rift, that no matter how much they nerf a soul, you've got something else you can switch to?

You need a bard on a raid though.  They are beneficial.  My main complaint is that their mechanics are terrible.  Someone has to play one, no one usually wants to.  They are boring.

I don't know why rogues complain.  They have great ranged dps, great melee dps, and can main tank many raid bosses.  Mages get to play chloro and archon... yipee.

From a raid POV:
Rogues are 2nd best in single target melee DPS behind DW Warriors.
Rogues are the best at AOE DPS.
Rogues are the best boss tank in ROS/GSB.  They are subpar in some of the fights in HK.  Though usable.  Rogues are terrible multi target tanks.
Rogues ranged DPS is not even competitive if you are a min/maxer.  They are about 300-500 dps behind their melee counter parts.

Mages can compete single target and AOE.  They are just behind rogues and they can achieve 2300 dps on Plutonous with the Zoomancer (Necro/Dom) specs.

Edit:
I won't complain at all about the results of Rogue PVE dps.  My only complain is that they are pigeon holed into having a base of 13 Blade Dancer and 17 Assassin.  That's where any DPS build starts; it's mandatory.   I consider that really shit design.

[dd0029]

We got Greenscale down. I took the suggestion for the Autohotkey. That was really useful, but someone else took the bard spot so I did the sabdancer thing. Turns out that our problem was the transition into the last ground phase. The entire raid was moving as one group to spread out and the first plant spawn was slaughtering us. So, we broke that clump up and the tank started moving Greenscale faster to better space plants and we got him down with just two dead at the end.

Not sure Bard is something I can do. I can DPS/tank/heal and maintain situational awareness. I can't remember to buff, DPS and maintain awareness. As I found out in Gilded Prophecy last night, even with autohotkey, the simple act of paying attention and reclicking the hotkey is beyond me at the moment. It was more than a little humbling. I kept dying to stupid stuff, which reminds me that Trion really likes their gib mechanics.

[dd0029]

Question time for the brain trust still playing.

Murdantix. Wtf?

We are doing a square kite thing around the outside and turning at the fenced doors. We kite with the melee on his back left leg to bounce the melee into the wall on the knockback and have the seven ranged in the middle. We are having problems with controlling the Blast. We keep getting it in the melee instead of our seven ranged people. The most common occurrence is a blast right after a knockback. We generally get two ticks of the blast and then the knockback drops us in a puddle killing four or five people. None of the videos seem to have this problem.

Outside of apparent blind luck, we have seen 8% three times in 40 attempts over three weeks.

Those little fucking adds are no help either. And someone needs to bitch slap Scotty and tell him to quit helping.

Are we doing something wrong?

[Draegan]

You have it right, you just need to position yourself better.  You seem to have some unlucky moments though.

[Ralence]

I've got a "quick question", I'm levelling my first character, and just about to hit 46, should I stop at 49 to grind PVP valor or favor or honor, or whatever the point mechanic is?  I know this was the norm in WoW, stay one level below cap, grind points and not get facestomped repeatedly at the top level bracket.  Does this work as well?  Or is there a different currency for every single level in PvP? (That's only /half/ sarcastic)

Thanks for the input
Ralence

[Threash]

Not worth it, you can only get prestige to raise your pvp rank at 50 and that is the main thing you need to not get roflstomped.

[dd0029]

Now that I have done it a couple of times, I preferred it when I had the rank 2 stuff bagged so I could just put it on. So, I might recommend grinding out some favor while you are still in the best bracket. At 46, you are a god on the battlefield.

Anyway, the HK nerf  and some re-positioning (melee switched to ass end charlie instead of staying wall side) helped. We downed Murdantix last night.

[Nebu]

Keep in mind that you can do PvE quests for favor and prestige at 50.  Between those and doing a few wf's a night, you'll hit rank 3 pretty quickly.

Advice: 40-49 bracket is very balanced.  If you enjoy the wf's, this is as much fun as you'll have until you hit rank 6. 

[caladein]

So, Rift's on sale on Steam again.  I assume I get a CD key I'd be able to apply whenever I want to my Trion account (so I don't have to start now) like with other games?

[Pagz]

So I got an email about candy canes? Never actually played, but if someone wants more candy: GTG9-ZMR9-JEZ2-Y7E2-9FMF

[dd0029]

Interesting new hotfix note today.

Dropped Raid gear can now be upgraded using Empyreal Marauder's Cells. Upgraded pieces gain the raid set bonus.

This was a long time peeve of mine once games started adding point gear. The point gear always had the set bonuses, making them markedly superior to the regular dropped stuff. I always wanted a way to upgrade or attune stuff to the set. Now, Trion did it. The interesting thing is that you upgrade things using dungeon exper currency. With more of the population maxed out on PA xp, I was noticing that the dungeon queues were getting long again. Now with raiders "needing" dungeon marks, hopefully the times will come down.

[Rokal]

That's pretty neat. I general I like the new upgrade system in Rift. Other games like WoW give you the ability to upgrade loot with dungeon/quest currency, but the upgrade system in Storm Legion manages to feel like less of a grind. I suppose I may feel differently once I hit 60.

[dd0029]

It's kind of grindy, but the currencies can come in at a fair clip if you want to work at it. You can get a piece of dungeon mark gear with your first 7 dungeon dailies. It's a bit better if you have a guild to get the occasional bonus mark from the perk. The first tier of Infinity stone gear is reasonably priced as well. Upgrading things is kind of annoying. It's essentially double the price each level.

[DevilsAdvocate25]

Has anyone figured out how to claim loyalty rewards in the new store thing? I see the icons and they say Claim! under them, but clicking on them does nothing and if I find the item in the store itself, it is a different cost/currency for it.

[dd0029]

There should be a little arrow button near the claim thing to move on to the next one. I had one I couldn't claim, arrowed past it continued picking up stuff I had no use for and when the thing I couldn't get came back around it worked.

[Zetor]

Speaking of loyalty, how much do vets get, and is there a list of the rewards anywhere other than that one pic on the official site? I think I have about a year's worth of past sub time along with the expansion... I know I should log in to check, but I'm on vacation for 1.5 more weeks without a pc. 

[dd0029]

I've not seen a good listing of the rewards and the "mini dings".

This has a crappy picture of the tiers. I've been subscribed since the beginning and I am half way through the orange tier. The other half is very long.

While breakfast heats up:
Green tier:
Mini dings - 40% experience vial, currency cap removal (1 month worth of loyalty), Veteran vendor (dupe of Cadbury/Jarvis), more stuff on the veteran vendor
Complete tier - Title, Mount, Costume hat (Bowler hat), Weapon Wardrobe thingee (single use), 1 Dimension, 1 dimension pack of items
Blue tier:
Mini dings - More veteran vendor items x2, 40% currency drop token, 40% noteriety vial, a dimension tree
Complete tier - Title, Owl companion pet, Tp to Tempest Bay, 1hr cd, Box of greater vials, Another box of dimension items, 2 role slots
Purple tier:
Mini Dings - 4 veteran vendor items (has mounts and a companion pet in the last two), summonable mailbox, a dimension item.
Complete tier: Title, another dimension, a murdantix mount, a 32 slot bag, another pack of dimension items, player portrait now looks like an elite mob.

Breakfast is ready.

[Zetor]

That was a productive breakfast, thanks. 

Lots of good info on that link too... if I had just subbed for 1 more month, I could've received even more shiny things. Oh well!

[Paelos]

I signed up to play this and I picked a "purpose" when I made my character. Now it won't let me spec my points anywhere than what is supposed to be my purpose? I'm confused. Is this a F2P thing or a handholding thing?

[luckton]

You can't customize your talents until your character is generated and in the world.  They put in the templates and "hand holding" because too many people weren't "getting" the free-range class thing.

[Fabricated]

I logged into my character and I completely have forgotten how to play, and have no idea how to spec really. I should probably just delete the toon and make another but mehhh.

[Paelos]

You can't customize your talents until your character is generated and in the world.  They put in the templates and "hand holding" because too many people weren't "getting" the free-range class thing.

So what happens if I want to do other talents?

[Rokal]

I signed up to play this and I picked a "purpose" when I made my character. Now it won't let me spec my points anywhere than what is supposed to be my purpose? I'm confused. Is this a F2P thing or a handholding thing?

Once you're in the game you can put talents wherever you want or switch out souls, doing so will just disable the 'purpose' effectively giving you a custom class and making you slot talents/abilities manually. They added it because it confused new players and because of...

I logged into my character and I completely have forgotten how to play, and have no idea how to spec really. I should probably just delete the toon and make another but mehhh.

Trying to jump back into a mid/high level character when you don't remember abilities is a pain in Rift. Fabricated, reset your talents at a class trainer and then pick a purpose. The Purpose screen will tell (briefly) what the purpose is, how to play it, the main abilities, and it will even slot the abilities on your hotbar in a logical way. No need to reroll. Once you are used to playing with the training wheels of a Purpose you can customize from there. This is the method I used to jump back into my character at 50 when Storm Legion came out and all the trees were revamped/reset, and it worked fine. Hell, it's still the method I use to test out a new Soul Tree I'm not familiar with, if a Purpose is available for it.

[Threash]

Is 127 platinum a lot?

[Pennilenko]

Is 127 platinum a lot?

Yes and no. Early yes, later no.

[March]

I just came back to this to check out the changes... used the "Purpose" selection to see what the new projected synergies are supposed to be.

Then, just close the purpose, select your souls and build a'la carte - some of the synergies are good recommendations, but not necessarily the most fun or very best way to spec.

If you are just returning, the Macro system you used needs revising.  It is both better and worse.

The bad is that many abilities no longer have a cool-down... this is also the good in that it requires you to make more decisions during combat rather than having a single priority macro.  The "mixed" feeling is that a couple of abilities where I'd like there to be a cool-down for insertion in a macro do not have one.  In all, I like it better, though would like to see it tweaked.

Also, they have greatly consolidated the skills so that later abilities (50+) generally are straight-up replacements to their lower tiers rather than more situational clones - my hotbar is as clean as GW2.

Finally, there is a gear reset... so if you are returning with crappy gear (like me), resist the temptation to buy upgrades as New Zone greens are better than basic lvl 50 blues (and some purples).

Oh, and this might be obvious, but the new zone starts at 50... if you skipped the last expansion like I did, you might think you need to work through it... nope.  Proceed directly to the new zone at 50.

[dd0029]

If you are just returning, the Macro system you used needs revising.  It is both better and worse.

The bad is that many abilities no longer have a cool-down... this is also the good in that it requires you to make more decisions during combat rather than having a single priority macro.  The "mixed" feeling is that a couple of abilities where I'd like there to be a cool-down for insertion in a macro do not have one.  In all, I like it better, though would like to see it tweaked.

Also, they have greatly consolidated the skills so that later abilities (50+) generally are straight-up replacements to their lower tiers rather than more situational clones - my hotbar is as clean as GW2.

I don't know about that. You still want to use everything just like always. With the new no CD regime, you now need to track all the dots and whatnot effects from those abilities and keep them up and running.

I can only think of three souls that replace abilities as you progress past 50. Inquisitor in Cleric gets a new main nuke and buff that makes their old main nuke instant cast. In Rogue, Bladedancer gets a new main builder and an additional spam finisher, but you still want to use it's old finisher. Ranger also gets a new finisher, but everything is the same.