I know, I know. Riftstalker is anything but a “support” class. Except, it kind of is. Or at least, for reasons of allowing me to stuff 3 souls into this post it is 🙂 One thing these three classes have in common is some significant durability in exchange for lower traditional dps, so that’s something. Maybe I should just call this one “other”. Maybe I will next time. But I ramble. On to our investigation of the first tier of abilities for the final set of rogue souls.

Bard

Each point spent in Bard increases damage by 0.75%, endurance by 0.5%, and healing by 0.5%.

Rift’s bard class is the classic mmo bard. They can maintain a wide array of raid buffs, provide a constant low level of group healing, and occasionally remember that they’re a rogue and shoot an arrow or something in between everything else that they’re doing. They are generally very fun to play in a group and very slow to play solo compared to other rogue souls.

For zero points, bard gives you the first of their songs, Motif of Bravery. This song buffs the attack power, spell power, and crit chance of all nearby raid members for 20 seconds. There is no cooldown and it doesn’t cost much. There are a variety of motifs that you can eventually maintain the whole set of them with minimal twisting. Even soloing as another build, Motif of Bravery is a great self buff to pop right before starting a fight.

At zero points, bards also get Cadence, which is perhaps the strangest attack ability in the game. It is a channeled ranged attack that deals life damage over time and awards multiple combo points. Upgrades allow the ability to heal nearby raid members at the same time.
Continue reading rift soul breakdown – rogue – tier 1, support →

Call me old fashioned, but when I play a rogue in an mmo, I have a hard time taking ranged damage seriously. Sure, I love a good archer build. There is significant documented evidence of this. But the word rogue (we used to call them “thieves” but apparently political correctness happened or something) really implies backstab and poisons and dodge tanking and all the rest.

Rift has two stealth spec choices and one toe-to-toe melee dps soul to choose from. I’ve spent a lot of time playing an assassin and hope to get a chance to look at the other options more seriously now.

Assassin

Each point spent in Assassin increases damage dealt by 1%.

Ssasswots are the classic stealth rogue. They get all of the iconic abilities and are an absolute joy to play. One thing that Rift does with stealth that you don’t see very often is limit its duration by default. So even though Assassins and Nightblades both get stealth at level 4, it only lasts for 30 seconds. This eliminates a lot of the classic mmorpg stealth gameplay… unless you’re a level 21+ assassin, then your stealth lasts forever, which thing is awesome 🙂
Continue reading rift soul breakdown – rogue – tier 1, melee →

I’ll be doing rogues in 3 groups of 3 souls each – ranged dps, melee dps, and other (ie tank/support). Since I started off with the ranged cleric souls, it is only appropriate that I start rogues off the same way.

I will admit to only medium experience with these souls – my rogue primary builds have always been riftstalker and assassin, but my wife’s main is a ranger so I’ve at least seen the abilities in action frequently 😉

Marksman

Each point spent in Marksman increases damage by 1%.

Marksman is your typical high damage archer. They specialize in kiting and just absolutely burning down their targets. A lot of how they maintain range is with snares and speed buffs.

For zero points, you get a sprint button. It’s on a 30 second cooldown and increases your speed by 50% for 5 seconds, but it is also usable in combat. You also get a combo point builder that procs a 15% speed buff for 10 seconds every time you use it.
Continue reading rift soul breakdown – rogue – tier 1, ranged →