Realm of the Fae

I recently did a run of RotF and I have to say I was impressed. There were a few fight mechanics, such as not standing in fire, but it was relatively simple. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying instances should be simple, but being the first instance in the game it does a good job of introducing players to their roles and basic fight mechanics.

The design of the instances is four sections representing each of the seasons with a boss at the end of each section. The first boss was relatively straight forward you kill his two adds then kill him. He does occasionaly stun and sheep. The second boss was don't stand in fire. The end. The third boss has two weak adds with him. He also does a frontal cleave and random charges. The last boss summons adds before you actually fight him. The first add has a daze ability, very easy. The second add splits each time his health gets low getting weaker each split, after the third split he dies completely. The last add summons waves of chumps, spam your aoe and you got this. Next you fight the boss the he only ability he has is a root ability which wouldn't matter except that there's a light moving around on the ground that causes damage if it touches you. Basically don't stand in the moving fire. That's it, super easy for anyone who's played an mmo before, but not dull.

Latency Issues

I played in the open beta for RIFT without much trouble, and found it quite enjoyable. Now, however, as the head start servers fill up, I've found that in-game lag and disconnection can be a problem, especially for characters that play mainly long-range stationary characters such as mages and rangers.

Officially, the RIFT servers have had similar issues for players overseas in Britain and China, but this is atypical for me, being in the US. The problem is as follows: after about 1.5 seconds unattended, my character is booted unceremoniously. Being a elementalist/pyromancer/stormcaller, this causes problems as my elemental gets beaten to a pulp as I sit helplessly.

Follow-up posts as this is addressed.

Marksman Impressions

I've recently been playing the marksman build I linked to in my rogue specs build and so far it seems extremely good. I've been between first and third on my team in damage in every Black Garden I've done. Not only that I've had two games with zero deaths due to the superior maneuverability, and all this was done at level 12 while most of my opponents out-leveled and out-geared me. I'm still unsure on whether or not this will hold through to the endgame but it's worth a shot.

The main idea of the spec in pvp is that you use your skills to increase your movement speed and attack speed then you can dance around your opponent while doing damage, an advantage that most ranged builds don't have. You can also support you team by using your speed and knockbacks to position enemies or run the fang.The most important thing at low levels seems to be keeping your 30% attack speed buff up at all times. More info is on the way as soon as I get to play more.

Early PvP Impressions

I've done a little PvP on my shiny new chloromancer and it actually is pretty fun and well balanced. I didn't notice any particular spec doing obscenely good the exception being that two healers that buddy up aren't easy to kill. The mechanics in Black Garden were also balanced giving neither side an obvious advantage and allowing for games to be turned around quickly if your team gets it's act together.

The basic idea for Black Garden is a single flag mechanic where you hold the flag to gain points. The flag carrier will gradually take increased damage the longer he holds the flag. if the flag remains uncontrolled outside of the center for a certain amount of time it teleports back to the center making one of the more common strategies be to hold the flag near the center.

Head start launch

I've seen several complaints floating around about the head start launch, but from what I've seen it's actually been relatively smooth. I had no queue to log in and although it is a bit crowded I've had no problems with lag or disconnects with the exception of a very small amount of lag in extremely crowded rifts. I ask that anyone who's having trouble to just stick with it, if we support Trion they will support Rift. Good luck and happy leveling.

Rogue Builds

Melee Dps
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0MMiV.0VMcxco.VhxM0VxMso.VV0V Decent auto attack heavy build with a nice emphasis on crits.

Tank
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0MVpc.g0dVh0MMz.xItIuqzRkoR Theres a decent amount of debate on non warrior tanks so I'll need some more testing, but this seems like the safest bet.

Ranged Dps
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0MNfV.VM.tht0qbAuzR.VV0VhM Attack speed and crit, 'nuff said.

Bard
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0MTcV.V.EIdqiqskqz.E This one I'm unsure because it tends to be difficult to determine the effectiveness of buff classes until you actually play with them, but if bard is what you want then this is worth a shot.

Mage Specs

Ranged Dps
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zvyq.xx.EGttrtssdR.V This is the spec I will be using on one of my two starting toons, may need some more tweaking. http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zvys.xx.AhttrtcsdR.G0V is a possible alternative

Heals
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zqRv.V.EdIuqAckRR.xx0h Not too sure on this one gonna test it out when the servers come up.

Pet
Well I had an idea for a Necro/Archon/Warlock build but Zam apparently doesn't like warlock and necromancer being in the same build. Also have not played a pet class as the main spec yet so unsure how well it will work.