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A subtle but important difference in the rift class system
For those MMO vets who are just beginning (or about to) Rift here's something that wasn't readily apparent to me about the souls system that you should know.
Forget what you learned in other MMOs about choosing a class that is good at soloing but also has good group utility and can hold its own in PvP. Here you can have 3 radically different sets of abilities (4 really) that you can switch in and out of at will without the annoying WOW limitation of zeroing your mana when you switch... plus you can switch while in combat and it takes just 3 seconds: quite often my Necro/Warlock will approach a rift, see that the impromptu raid there is light on healing and I just switch to my Chloromancer spec and start healing.
So you don't have to worry about whether an "Elemental Summoner" is a good leveling spec in the early levels (it isn't for the first 20 or so levels by the way)just pick a combo that is efficient and works well and then switch to what you really want to be when it becomes viable...or have that elemental as your second "spec" and keep checking and tweaking it until you're satisfied that it's ready for prime time. And while we're talking mages, as I already mentioned, you can have a healer mage (Cholromancer) as your 3rd build... a healer who heals more the more damage it does, can be the main healer in a 5-man dungeon crawl and can be god-like in rift or PVP raids...
You like clerics? Fine. Here you have the choice to be a superb tank, several different types of healer (tank-healer, group, or a combo)or a melee DPS'er... think having the Paladin + Priest from WOW to mix and match...
A rogue that can be a main tank? Check. The rifstalker can do that easily. Instead of Plate he has avoidance up the yin-yang. When he isn't tanking you could be a stealthy assasin or a ranged DPSer... or even a Bard that excels at buffing and raid healing... one of those is a speed buff you can have active in combat... great for chasing down runners in PvP.
Warrior? You got your tank, various melee DPS combos and (surprise) a plate-armor-wearing ranged DPSer (riftblade) that is just as happy mixing it up close and personal.
All of this flexibility is dirt cheap: by the time you have access to all your souls (except the PvP soul you need to earn through PvPing) around level 15 you can easily purchase 3 "specs" to use as you wish.
Can you gimp yourself combining souls? Yup, sure can... there's no one holding your hand here telling you where to spend your points. The trade-off is the awesome flexibility and discovering your very own combinations that suit your play style.
As you can probably tell, I'm enjoying the soul system immensely.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Comments
Not really all that subtle. Assuming you can read at least. The first few NPCs you talk to in Rift about your classes and souls, as well as reading the descriptors for the souls when choosing them, kinda tells you most all of that all ready.
And I'm guessing the less literary inclined aren't going to be reading this any ways.
Plus to note, you're talking about flexibility in early levels.
I made a rogue with sharpshooter, bard, and saboteur. My character wasn't designed to tank, they were set up to range things and do large burst damage to wipe them out with a bit of support mixed in.
I didn't see the ngeative effects of my class choices until later, when the stats, powers, and effects finally started drifting towards their extreems due to specializations.
More or less, 'give it time'. The flexibility settls down the further you get, and it's not like you're suddenly gaining a vast amount of class options that other games haven't been able to offer in other ways.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
The subtle part has to do with the fact that there are obvious "best" combos for leveling--especially 1-30--that may not be the end game spec you want. A lot of people insist in banging their heads into a wall by trying to level with that Pyromancer or Stormcaller (to use mage examples) when the Necro/Lock combo is infinitely better at it.
That certainly was my mind-set when I started playing and it took me some trial and error before I went with the necro/lock flow.
Same for warriors: unless you're using Riftblade/Reaver for leveling and questing you're wasting a lot of time.
All I'm saying is if you want to be a Paladin, for example, be one later on... just don't lock your thinking on the Paladin abilities and struggle through the first 30 levels... of course, as always, your mileage may vary... you want to do it the harder way? Go for it.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED