RIFT Primer, Faction, Race & Class

[Lasarian]

For those members unfamiliar with RIFT and would like a brief description of the factions, races and classes.

The Players are called "Ascended" - we are mortal heroes that have perished, but have been returned to the world of Telara with greater powers.

Factions
There are two factions. The vast majority of members in NOR are Guardians, due to the strict division between the two at the beginning of the game. Since then the lines have been blurred and you may now join NOR regardless of faction. You may group together, run dungeons, even PvP is no longer divided between the two. Unlike other MMOs, neither of these can be easily classified as the "good guys" or the "bad guys" - both sides have their values which they adhere to and put them into conflict.

Guardian
A religious group that believes in the divinity of the Ascended, or the god-given state of Ascendancy to those heroes. In simple language, this faction is the more familiar, fantasy role-playing group, with humans, elves and dwarves - straight up swords and sorcery stuff.

Defiant
A secular group, they have developed a kind of technology that mixes science and magic. I've heard them described as the "steam-punk" faction, and while not what I would call Gibsonian, it's a fair description. There's definitely a non-traditional, science fiction flair to this faction.

Races
There are ostensibly six races, three per faction. There are two groups of Humans, the Mathosians (G) and the Eth (D). Two groups of Elves, the High Elves (G) and the Kelari (D). Finally, there are the Dwarves (G) and the Bahmi (D).

I don't know that the racial abilities bear much on gameplay, I think this is an aesthetic decision. You have a wide variety of customization options for the appearance of your character upon creation.

More about each race is available here: http://www.riftgame.com/en/characters/races/

Class
There are four primary, very recognizable, archetypes: Warrior, Cleric, Mage and Rogue.

Each archetype has a total of nine (9) souls which you may acquire to customize your class. A soul is essentially a set of specialized abilities that advance as you rise in level. In other games, this is referred to as a "build" or a talent tree. You may have three active souls at any one time. It is the combination of which three souls, and how you allocate your points, that determines your abilities.

This provides for a rather large array of differing "builds" per player.

Also, each archetype has the capability to fulfill any of the traditional three roles required, Tanking, Healing or DPS. This allows for some pretty non-traditional game play, like Rogue tanking or mage healing, dependent upon which souls they select and how the points are allocated. In the last expansion, Storm Legion, they added one new soul per archetype, which allows for "ranged warrior DPS" and "melee mages", just to name a few.

It also bears mentioning that at least one or two combinations of Souls allows for each archetype of have a combat pet of some type.

Each set of three souls is called a Role. You may have multiple sets of Roles, which you may freely move between at virtually any time (not in combat). On Lasarian, for example, I have three Roles: Tank, DPS and PvP.

You may fully customize your roles however you wish, or you may follow the ingame guidance provided by specialization - which will give you a description the Role, its purpose, which souls they recommend and how best to allocate your points. You are never "locked" into that guidance though, you may deviate from their recommendations at any time - this was implemented merely as a convenience to the players.

More on the Classes is available here: http://www.riftgame.com/en/characters/

[Lakasha]

So with the having 3 different souls thing. During character creation is this the part where you chose for example Rogue --- Bard?

I only had the ability to chose one, or is this something that happens later?

[Talolan]

When you create your character, you'll pick your class, and then they'll present you with a list of pre-made builds (Presets) for the class that use 3 of the souls. When you log in for the first time before you've assigned any points, you can actually swap to a different Preset, or just pick three of your own.

I'll snag some screenshots of the process for you after lunch.

[Talolan]

Rift Character Creation
Start by choosing your faction, Guardian or Defiants. Both are working toward the same goal, they just go about it differently.

Choose your Faction

Then choose your race and sex.

Choose your Race/Sex.

Then choose your class. Just the four: Warrior, Mage, Cleric, Rogue

Choose your Class.

Then choose your purpose. These are pre-made builds of 3 different souls to fill a role. In the character creator you'll only see 5 of them.

Choose your Purpose.

Make yourself pretty/ugly.

Make yourself ugly.

When you get into the game, none of the points for the purpose you selected will be assigned. So you can view your soul tree.

Open your soul tree.

If you want, you can select a new Preset purpose from an expanded list. Upon creation of this rogue I only saw 5 options, now when I'm logged in I have 10. (You may only have 8 or 9, anything with the Storm Legion expansion soul "Tactician" probably won't be there).

Find more presets.

You can see from this, that the Battle Bard preset uses the Bard, Marksman and Nightblade souls. At level 60, it'll have 48 points in the Bard soul, 16 in Marksman and 12 in Nightblade. You can see screenshot what abilities to use, what your state preferences should be on gear, and some tips for playing the present.

As you level up, you can auto-assign your points based on the preset, or you can assign them how you want for your own custom build.

[Imaultis]

Also, each archetype has the capability to fulfill any of the traditional three roles required, Tanking, Healing or DPS.

Note: Although the Beastmaster, Bard, and Tactician souls have healing abilities and Mage pets hold single target agro fairly well, Warriors and Rogues are not permitted to queue instances as healers and Mages are not permitted to queue as Tanks.

For those that don't know, you can que for specific or random instance runs once you reach level 15. Each que requires a Tank, Healer, 2 DPS, and a Support character. Most of the time the support character will DPS unless you run against a particularly nasty Boss, or the group is fairly under geared.

[Lasarian]

Thanks for clarifying that Imault. I figured there was some subtlety to the Roles I was missing, but rather than look it up (I was just being lazy), I was relying on you to save the day

[Roxanne]

Nice job guys! Tomorrow is the beginning of the unity event, I can't wait to see everyone!!

[Imaultis]

Thanks for clarifying that Imault. I figured there was some subtlety to the Roles I was missing, but rather than look it up (I was just being lazy), I was relying on you to save the day

lol.

It was a pretty good post. I've just heard a few people in the chat channels (not guild channel) who thought harbinger was a tank spec.

[Roxanne]

Thanks for clarifying that Imault. I figured there was some subtlety to the Roles I was missing, but rather than look it up (I was just being lazy), I was relying on you to save the day

lol.

It was a pretty good post. I've just heard a few people in the chat channels (not guild channel) who thought harbinger was a tank spec.

It's not??

[Ojike]

I almost reached 20 when I did RIFT Lite, but never did a dungeon... I was aiming for Support on my build, is there actually a "spot" saved for a Support character when queu'ing for a Dungeon, they don't just fill a DPS spot?