I'm not sure what the higher levels will bring but after 14 levels Rift's talent system is starting to show it's flaw. Yeah cherry picking the best talents from each class is great but the result is just a culmination of blandness and most it doesn't make a lick of sense. For example you can be a Paladin Reaver Warlord...WTF?
How can one be both a Paladin, a high fantasy idol for a "good" fighter and a Reaver which is basically a death knight. The worst thing is how nobody looks the part. Pallies don't look like pallies and Reavers don't look like Reavers. Everyone is running around like a generic "fighter guy" pressing hotkeys from the pallie and reaver tree. LAME.
I have both paladin and reaver on my fighter-- in two separate roles (i.e. I can switch between my Reaver/Void Knight/Riftblade and my Paladin/Beastmaster builds), so I'd prefer not to be locked into a Paladin look when I am a Reaver 75% of the time... And the other 25% of the time, an evil look wouldn't fit.
I am already hating this sort of bias based on either concepts not rooted in gameplay or ideas that people have on paper that aren't based on how things go in the actual game. The OP is a fine example of the first. And for the latter, I got confronted about playing a blade dancer/ranger last night (and then the person logged off before I could reply) because they thought it would be hard to switch between ranged and melee attacks... but you don't actually have to switch weapons manually in the game, so that's a non-issue.
Also, there's the matter that the combination of souls tells you nothing about where the points are. Just to use the aforementioned blade dancer/ranger example, I'd put only a tiny amount of points into Ranger, and all those points were to strengthen my pet. For all real purposes, I was straight Blade Dancer with a pet and ranged attacks to pull things to me.
<Disclaimer: I don't know what the heck I'm talking about, this is just doom and gloom but it's food for thought and I'm hopeing I'm wrong.>
I'd also like to point out that multiclassing tends to waterdown the core class (soul). I understand that Trion is trying to focus on the player and not the class, but if any fighter archetype can be a paladin, or a riftblade, or a voidknight.. well it makes it hard to feel like my soul is in some way tied into my identity--at least for me.
I am a fan of a skill based classes system, but I also enjoy BEING a shadowknight, or BEING a paladin. These are iconic roles with iconic imagry associated with them that spark our imagination. While I can put 100% of my points into ranger to be a ranger, I am not a ranger in the guild. I am a rogue who at any given moment they might ask me to play a ranger role, or play a bard role.
Imagine being in your guild and asked to come to a dungeon or raid but told to go respec to bard. Well you want to be a ranger, identified to your friends as such, and recognized as such. And yet, you're a blank slate just waiting for a need to fill. You're not a ranger, you're a dps, tank, healer, nuker. I guess I find that concept a bit sad, but also understand the versitility it provides.
Ultimatly guilds will need 3 riftblades to use their core riftblade ability for a speciifc encounter, so all the bards will have to respec to riftblade... loot can't be soul specific.
Eventually Trion will have to utilize their experience from EQ2 and make interesting and complex boss's which require specific abilities to counter their attacks or abilities. This will force specific souls needed to take down the mob. Will it bother anyone that they can't come to that raid with their ranger and have to respec to a melee just to use a key ability at a specific moment?
I'd also like to point out that multiclassing tends to waterdown the core class (soul). I understand that Trion is trying to focus on the player and not the class, but if any fighter archetype can be a paladin, or a riftblade, or a voidknight.. well it makes it hard to feel like my soul is in some way tied into my identity--at least for me.
I am a fan of a skill based classes system, but I also enjoy BEING a shadowknight, or BEING a paladin. These are iconic roles with iconic imagry associated with them that spark our imagination. While I can put 100% of my points into ranger to be a ranger, I am not a ranger in the guild. I am a rogue who at any given moment they might ask me to play a ranger role, or play a bard role.
Imagine being in your guild and asked to come to a dungeon or raid but told to go respec to bard. Well you want to be a ranger, identified to your friends as such, and recognized as such. And yet, you're a blank slate just waiting for a need to fill. You're not a ranger, you're a dps, tank, healer, nuker. I guess I find that concept a bit sad, but also understand the versitility it provides.
Ultimatly guilds will need 3 riftblades to use their core riftblade ability for a speciifc encounter, so all the bards will have to respec to riftblade... loot can't be soul specific.
Eventually Trion will have to utilize their experience from EQ2 and make interesting and complex boss's which require specific abilities to counter their attacks or abilities. This will force specific souls needed to take down the mob. Will it bother anyone that they can't come to that raid with their ranger and have to respec to a melee just to use a key ability at a specific moment?
Well thats the point now isnt it though. In Rift you are not JUST a ranger, or just a paladin. You are a single body that has stolen (absorbed) more than one soul from other fallen adventurers. If you want to act the part of the paladin thats fine, role play it and stick to your choice of persona. You have multiple souls inside you, you simply have to chose which soul you favor and become it. The idea that you must act the part of good or evil simply because one of the souls you sucked up was that way in a previous life....well thats just your belief. You didnt live that life to start with, you just aquired it's soul. Sure having that soul may lend some guidance to your actions, but does it have to dictate them?
Oh and on the raid guild telling you what you have to be to go on a raid, well I have always, and still do believe that you should always tell that raid guild where to go if they do that. You are what you chose to play, and if they dont like that then tough shit. Really, do you pay to play your game so you can play the character someone else tells you to play? Or do you pay to play your game to play what you want to play in it? If you dont like being a bard, why are you even concidering playing a bard just because some jackwagon tells you that you have to or you can't come play with them? Are you really that desperate to belong that you have to give up who and what you are just to be a part of 'them'? If everyone stopped allowing this practice to happen then it would go away. As long as everyone is willing to give up what they want to please one or two, well then yeah Trion will start designing the game around that practice. Condoning it will only further it. This isn't WoW, and if you allow the few to impose merits and DKP on you then you deserve what you get.
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
My hope is to see more flavor in the class as one skill up in their choosen souls. Because there is no distinction in looks and animations from a Palladin Reaver vs a Rift Blade Paragon. For example a Zealot in WAR move in hunched creepy mannerism because he's a dark priest corrupted by his dark magic, and his casting animations prescripe to that notion. However in Rift there is nothing to set aside a heavy vested Cabalist/Sentinel from a Shammie/Warden other than the buffs and DPS that he's spamming. Shouldn't a dark priest like a cabalist have a dark energy aura or a skulls around his neck? You know, stuff that actually adds flavor to the game and character? I just think there is something incredibly bland about how the world is filled warriors and clerics running around spamming cherry picked talents that doesn't add up to the sum their parts.
You are locked into your choice of calling from the begining when you choose that. Everything else within your calling is optional as you go.
WIthin a calling you will find at least 2 souls on average that do almost the same thing, just in different ways. You do not want to have 2 souls mixxed on the same spec that do not compliment eachother.
This game really does a nice job of seperating and making the souls within a calling interesting and distinct.
I heard some people talking about the bard. Bard soul will be huge in groups and raids as support specialty. You can mix bard with several of the Rogue calling to get more out of it. You can have 3 or four different builds all incorpoating bard mixxed in different ways. You can then click a button and switch these 3 or 4 builds whenever you want at no dissadvantage. You can pretty much play the game the way you want having a a soul for all around build, a soul for groups, a soul for PvP, and a soul for soloing.
All this is on one character. There is nothing preventing you from making more than one character as well. You can literally over the course of time have several characters that are different callings each and you can switch between them whenever you want for completely different play styles. This game has replay value and there will never be issues with finding people to group with or something to do. It is a thinking person's game the way it is designed which is fantastic. I am very excited about the specs and souls. You will be to once you start playing with them and getting up into the higher levels after it is released. THere may even be more beta time before release in which we can dabble more.
It's also hard to ask for a DPS and get a rogue only to later find he's mostly a bard which is a support role. Without identifying a persons "souls", the group leader has to go by their base archetype which can be decieving. My marksman/ranger was doing crazy good dmg compared to my ranger/bard. I mean like 2:1 dmg, but both were 'rogues'. How could a group know?
I could see this being the biggest potential problem of this system, if there is one. Most of the arguments people have are pretty small compared to this.
What I actually think will happen is someone will have a group and say "We need a Warden".
So a Warden joins the group and they are all ready to go, get into the dungeon and things start going funny.
Then the tank says "Hey Warden, why aren't you doing Blossom of Life Essence, man? We need some more healing buffs/w/e"
The Warden replies, "Oh, that's too high up the tree. I went Warden/Pyro/Marksman so I didn't have enough points to get the Blossom because I got Teleportation."
It certainly could start a situation where unless you have this, this and this skill maxed as a this, this and this class, you don't get invites, which will make a lot of people who want to break cookie cutter molds angry being blacklisted for groups. ("Don't invite him... he doesn't have so and so skill")
If I can see that (and others) I'm sure the devs at Rift have thought of that long before though as something being problematic and having a solution ready. (not in beta so idk if they do now or not)
you have no idea how this game works do you?....
for one the warden is a cleric archtype, so he can only pick the CLERIC souls wich all have some sort of healing in them.
two you can have up to 4 different specs that you can switch on the fly (as in can be done anywhere in the world at any time), and from what i've seen all stats you need is based around your type, like wardens ,druids,shaman,cabalist,justicar ect ect are all the cleric types (wears mail) and they all use the same stats. wich is nice , no fighting over armor, no need for having a bunch of different armor sets fir dufferent specs.
i have 2 on my level 16 cleric had enough money for the 3rd but i don't feel i need it yet. his first "role" as its called i have druid,shaman and warden souls, mostly i'm specced druid/shaman don't think i had any points in the warden tree. building him as a melee healer/pet class, druid is a pet class wich is cool you don't see too many games with pets that heal players. i don't remember the other role set up i had just got it right before i went to bed hadn't got to try it out yet.
I think what I am finding is that each soul has a few abilities in it which are themed to the role of the soul. However those are far up the tree and force you to heavily invest in the soul if you want it's "class" abilities. otherwise you get a peppering of minor perks and generic attacks.
I tried a paragon/riftblade combo and found I either found my hotbar with a ton of generic "do dmg and earn an action point" moves with a few finishers which did the same dmg, or focused into one soul and got some flavor but had little to no use for the other souls.
You're either a bland multiclass without the key abilities of the soul (found near the upper branches of the souls tallent tree) or you focus on the soul and might as well not multispec at all.
Maybe by level 50 I have enough spill over points to get 100% into 1 soul and 25% into a 2nd soul, but I hardly see it viable to distribute points into the lower branches of 3 souls and never get the class defining abilities.
This is what I found as well. I realized after a couple of rolls (of characters) that the best (for me) way to play was to go up one tree and put a few points into a second/third. For example, I made a Champion and my 2nd and 3rd souls were the Beastmaster for the pet and the Reaver. Both the BM and the R had a couple of nice 'starter' tank options (I think one was a max of +15% to str and the other was +15% to con?) A few points into Reaver for the armor debuff was good as well. The BM I just got for the pet.
This gave me a tank who could 2Hand or S&B as required, some nice debuffs, and a pet. I was able to easily own groups of PvE mobs my Ranger build got spanked by. Still wiped on rift event mobs unless there was an NPC supporting.
Warden/Pyro/Marksman you cannot take those as Warden is the cleric archtype the Pyro is Mage and Marksman is Rogue. You cannot mix them . You can only take the 8 from one basic class . There are 4 basic classes Cleric,Mage,Rogue and Warrior. In each of those there are 8 souls but they all have some similarity to the basic class. Like take the cleric it has Shaman, Justicar, Warden,Druid and so on all have a healing flavour from either melee type healer or casting like the Inquisitor.
The least you can do is study the game before you make these types of posts about it and mislead others. Read up on the information before making sweeping and thoroughly misguided assumptions.
The least you can do is study the game before you make these types of posts about it and mislead others. Read up on the information before making sweeping and thoroughly misguided assumptions.
This would be nice. Regretfully, sometimes people trying to be helpful (versus trolling) do offer bad or wrong information. I try to go with the reporter's 3 source rule. If I can find 3 different references to something, it has merit to be considered. Info straight from a developers site obviously has more weight right from the get-go.
I'm not sure what the higher levels will bring but after 14 levels Rift's talent system is starting to show it's flaw. Yeah cherry picking the best talents from each class is great but the result is just a culmination of blandness and most it doesn't make a lick of sense. For example you can be a Paladin Reaver Warlord...WTF?
How can one be both a Paladin, a high fantasy idol for a "good" fighter and a Reaver which is basically a death knight. The worst thing is how nobody looks the part. Pallies don't look like pallies and Reavers don't look like Reavers. Everyone is running around like a generic "fighter guy" pressing hotkeys from the pallie and reaver tree. LAME.
You are not a paladin or a reaver. . you are imbued with the soul of one. Think outside of the box a bit more. Besides. . look at what other games have done to classes in the name of balance. . . bland boring etc.
I think what I am finding is that each soul has a few abilities in it which are themed to the role of the soul. However those are far up the tree and force you to heavily invest in the soul if you want it's "class" abilities. otherwise you get a peppering of minor perks and generic attacks.
I tried a paragon/riftblade combo and found I either found my hotbar with a ton of generic "do dmg and earn an action point" moves with a few finishers which did the same dmg, or focused into one soul and got some flavor but had little to no use for the other souls.
You're either a bland multiclass without the key abilities of the soul (found near the upper branches of the souls tallent tree) or you focus on the soul and might as well not multispec at all.
Maybe by level 50 I have enough spill over points to get 100% into 1 soul and 25% into a 2nd soul, but I hardly see it viable to distribute points into the lower branches of 3 souls and never get the class defining abilities.
This is what I found as well. I realized after a couple of rolls (of characters) that the best (for me) way to play was to go up one tree and put a few points into a second/third. For example, I made a Champion and my 2nd and 3rd souls were the Beastmaster for the pet and the Reaver. Both the BM and the R had a couple of nice 'starter' tank options (I think one was a max of +15% to str and the other was +15% to con?) A few points into Reaver for the armor debuff was good as well. The BM I just got for the pet.
This gave me a tank who could 2Hand or S&B as required, some nice debuffs, and a pet. I was able to easily own groups of PvE mobs my Ranger build got spanked by. Still wiped on rift event mobs unless there was an NPC supporting.
yeah with the new extra point every 3 levels I was able to slowly invest in a 2nd soul over time. So I focused on Marksman for the dps abilities (and if you linger too long in the low branches trying to spread your points among 3 souls you get a hotbar full of almost identical starter abilities which hurt your growth).
And every extra point I put into ranger for the ranger buff (the saboteur abilities seemed very specific to sab attacks so goingup that tree didn't really offer me much as a ranged dps).
So by level 20 with marksman I was doing alot of damage fast, and had the ranger buff and pet to help. It's a decent system, but makes the 3rd soul kinda fluff.
Now I know this might change into release, maybe some key abilities brought lower into the branches to make them more accessable.
I played many of the classes mixed up to 20 as well some pure souls too. I find it far from bland for classes, the ability to mix allows you to do even more. The lore allows for such mixes, fantasy is a general concept, there is no written in stone thta reaver and palli are not allowed to be together. You are simply taking a concept from another game and using that as an example. Why do reavers have to be evil? Just because they dable in death magic does not mean they can not use the forces against evil. Either way the system allows for so many combo's of classes and to top that there are even PVP classes that are yet not annoced but there has been some leaked info if you search.
Sounds pretty normal for a multi-classing system. Some builds are fantastic, others end up gimped.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
I'm not sure what the higher levels will bring but after 14 levels Rift's talent system is starting to show it's flaw. Yeah cherry picking the best talents from each class is great but the result is just a culmination of blandness and most it doesn't make a lick of sense. For example you can be a Paladin Reaver Warlord...WTF?
Nope, there is nothing generic or bland about Rifts class system as it currently stands. It allows individual creativity and flexibility to customize the toon around how I want to play the game rather than picking from some limited number of pre built classes like most other games out there do. If all you are capable of doing is following some internet cheat sheet build rather than spend the time and energy coming up with a creative personalized build that’s a personal issue not one with the game.
Comments
I have both paladin and reaver on my fighter-- in two separate roles (i.e. I can switch between my Reaver/Void Knight/Riftblade and my Paladin/Beastmaster builds), so I'd prefer not to be locked into a Paladin look when I am a Reaver 75% of the time... And the other 25% of the time, an evil look wouldn't fit.
I am already hating this sort of bias based on either concepts not rooted in gameplay or ideas that people have on paper that aren't based on how things go in the actual game. The OP is a fine example of the first. And for the latter, I got confronted about playing a blade dancer/ranger last night (and then the person logged off before I could reply) because they thought it would be hard to switch between ranged and melee attacks... but you don't actually have to switch weapons manually in the game, so that's a non-issue.
Also, there's the matter that the combination of souls tells you nothing about where the points are. Just to use the aforementioned blade dancer/ranger example, I'd put only a tiny amount of points into Ranger, and all those points were to strengthen my pet. For all real purposes, I was straight Blade Dancer with a pet and ranged attacks to pull things to me.
<Disclaimer: I don't know what the heck I'm talking about, this is just doom and gloom but it's food for thought and I'm hopeing I'm wrong.>
I'd also like to point out that multiclassing tends to waterdown the core class (soul). I understand that Trion is trying to focus on the player and not the class, but if any fighter archetype can be a paladin, or a riftblade, or a voidknight.. well it makes it hard to feel like my soul is in some way tied into my identity--at least for me.
I am a fan of a skill based classes system, but I also enjoy BEING a shadowknight, or BEING a paladin. These are iconic roles with iconic imagry associated with them that spark our imagination. While I can put 100% of my points into ranger to be a ranger, I am not a ranger in the guild. I am a rogue who at any given moment they might ask me to play a ranger role, or play a bard role.
Imagine being in your guild and asked to come to a dungeon or raid but told to go respec to bard. Well you want to be a ranger, identified to your friends as such, and recognized as such. And yet, you're a blank slate just waiting for a need to fill. You're not a ranger, you're a dps, tank, healer, nuker. I guess I find that concept a bit sad, but also understand the versitility it provides.
Ultimatly guilds will need 3 riftblades to use their core riftblade ability for a speciifc encounter, so all the bards will have to respec to riftblade... loot can't be soul specific.
Eventually Trion will have to utilize their experience from EQ2 and make interesting and complex boss's which require specific abilities to counter their attacks or abilities. This will force specific souls needed to take down the mob. Will it bother anyone that they can't come to that raid with their ranger and have to respec to a melee just to use a key ability at a specific moment?
Arioc Murkwood
Environment Artist
Sad but true.
Well thats the point now isnt it though. In Rift you are not JUST a ranger, or just a paladin. You are a single body that has stolen (absorbed) more than one soul from other fallen adventurers. If you want to act the part of the paladin thats fine, role play it and stick to your choice of persona. You have multiple souls inside you, you simply have to chose which soul you favor and become it. The idea that you must act the part of good or evil simply because one of the souls you sucked up was that way in a previous life....well thats just your belief. You didnt live that life to start with, you just aquired it's soul. Sure having that soul may lend some guidance to your actions, but does it have to dictate them?
Oh and on the raid guild telling you what you have to be to go on a raid, well I have always, and still do believe that you should always tell that raid guild where to go if they do that. You are what you chose to play, and if they dont like that then tough shit. Really, do you pay to play your game so you can play the character someone else tells you to play? Or do you pay to play your game to play what you want to play in it? If you dont like being a bard, why are you even concidering playing a bard just because some jackwagon tells you that you have to or you can't come play with them? Are you really that desperate to belong that you have to give up who and what you are just to be a part of 'them'? If everyone stopped allowing this practice to happen then it would go away. As long as everyone is willing to give up what they want to please one or two, well then yeah Trion will start designing the game around that practice. Condoning it will only further it. This isn't WoW, and if you allow the few to impose merits and DKP on you then you deserve what you get.
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
My hope is to see more flavor in the class as one skill up in their choosen souls. Because there is no distinction in looks and animations from a Palladin Reaver vs a Rift Blade Paragon. For example a Zealot in WAR move in hunched creepy mannerism because he's a dark priest corrupted by his dark magic, and his casting animations prescripe to that notion. However in Rift there is nothing to set aside a heavy vested Cabalist/Sentinel from a Shammie/Warden other than the buffs and DPS that he's spamming. Shouldn't a dark priest like a cabalist have a dark energy aura or a skulls around his neck? You know, stuff that actually adds flavor to the game and character? I just think there is something incredibly bland about how the world is filled warriors and clerics running around spamming cherry picked talents that doesn't add up to the sum their parts.
4 specs
1 calling
You are locked into your choice of calling from the begining when you choose that. Everything else within your calling is optional as you go.
WIthin a calling you will find at least 2 souls on average that do almost the same thing, just in different ways. You do not want to have 2 souls mixxed on the same spec that do not compliment eachother.
This game really does a nice job of seperating and making the souls within a calling interesting and distinct.
I heard some people talking about the bard. Bard soul will be huge in groups and raids as support specialty. You can mix bard with several of the Rogue calling to get more out of it. You can have 3 or four different builds all incorpoating bard mixxed in different ways. You can then click a button and switch these 3 or 4 builds whenever you want at no dissadvantage. You can pretty much play the game the way you want having a a soul for all around build, a soul for groups, a soul for PvP, and a soul for soloing.
All this is on one character. There is nothing preventing you from making more than one character as well. You can literally over the course of time have several characters that are different callings each and you can switch between them whenever you want for completely different play styles. This game has replay value and there will never be issues with finding people to group with or something to do. It is a thinking person's game the way it is designed which is fantastic. I am very excited about the specs and souls. You will be to once you start playing with them and getting up into the higher levels after it is released. THere may even be more beta time before release in which we can dabble more.
A very interesting thread. Has there been any aluding to when release date is?
you have no idea how this game works do you?....
for one the warden is a cleric archtype, so he can only pick the CLERIC souls wich all have some sort of healing in them.
two you can have up to 4 different specs that you can switch on the fly (as in can be done anywhere in the world at any time), and from what i've seen all stats you need is based around your type, like wardens ,druids,shaman,cabalist,justicar ect ect are all the cleric types (wears mail) and they all use the same stats. wich is nice , no fighting over armor, no need for having a bunch of different armor sets fir dufferent specs.
i have 2 on my level 16 cleric had enough money for the 3rd but i don't feel i need it yet. his first "role" as its called i have druid,shaman and warden souls, mostly i'm specced druid/shaman don't think i had any points in the warden tree. building him as a melee healer/pet class, druid is a pet class wich is cool you don't see too many games with pets that heal players. i don't remember the other role set up i had just got it right before i went to bed hadn't got to try it out yet.
This is what I found as well. I realized after a couple of rolls (of characters) that the best (for me) way to play was to go up one tree and put a few points into a second/third. For example, I made a Champion and my 2nd and 3rd souls were the Beastmaster for the pet and the Reaver. Both the BM and the R had a couple of nice 'starter' tank options (I think one was a max of +15% to str and the other was +15% to con?) A few points into Reaver for the armor debuff was good as well. The BM I just got for the pet.
This gave me a tank who could 2Hand or S&B as required, some nice debuffs, and a pet. I was able to easily own groups of PvE mobs my Ranger build got spanked by. Still wiped on rift event mobs unless there was an NPC supporting.
Warden/Pyro/Marksman you cannot take those as Warden is the cleric archtype the Pyro is Mage and Marksman is Rogue. You cannot mix them . You can only take the 8 from one basic class . There are 4 basic classes Cleric,Mage,Rogue and Warrior. In each of those there are 8 souls but they all have some similarity to the basic class. Like take the cleric it has Shaman, Justicar, Warden,Druid and so on all have a healing flavour from either melee type healer or casting like the Inquisitor.
The least you can do is study the game before you make these types of posts about it and mislead others. Read up on the information before making sweeping and thoroughly misguided assumptions.
This would be nice. Regretfully, sometimes people trying to be helpful (versus trolling) do offer bad or wrong information. I try to go with the reporter's 3 source rule. If I can find 3 different references to something, it has merit to be considered. Info straight from a developers site obviously has more weight right from the get-go.
You are not a paladin or a reaver. . you are imbued with the soul of one. Think outside of the box a bit more. Besides. . look at what other games have done to classes in the name of balance. . . bland boring etc.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
yeah with the new extra point every 3 levels I was able to slowly invest in a 2nd soul over time. So I focused on Marksman for the dps abilities (and if you linger too long in the low branches trying to spread your points among 3 souls you get a hotbar full of almost identical starter abilities which hurt your growth).
And every extra point I put into ranger for the ranger buff (the saboteur abilities seemed very specific to sab attacks so goingup that tree didn't really offer me much as a ranged dps).
So by level 20 with marksman I was doing alot of damage fast, and had the ranger buff and pet to help. It's a decent system, but makes the 3rd soul kinda fluff.
Now I know this might change into release, maybe some key abilities brought lower into the branches to make them more accessable.
Arioc Murkwood
Environment Artist
Sad but true.
Duelkore
Gamestop has Rift release date listed as 03/01/2011.
I played many of the classes mixed up to 20 as well some pure souls too. I find it far from bland for classes, the ability to mix allows you to do even more. The lore allows for such mixes, fantasy is a general concept, there is no written in stone thta reaver and palli are not allowed to be together. You are simply taking a concept from another game and using that as an example. Why do reavers have to be evil? Just because they dable in death magic does not mean they can not use the forces against evil. Either way the system allows for so many combo's of classes and to top that there are even PVP classes that are yet not annoced but there has been some leaked info if you search.
Sounds pretty normal for a multi-classing system. Some builds are fantastic, others end up gimped.
Nope, there is nothing generic or bland about Rifts class system as it currently stands. It allows individual creativity and flexibility to customize the toon around how I want to play the game rather than picking from some limited number of pre built classes like most other games out there do. If all you are capable of doing is following some internet cheat sheet build rather than spend the time and energy coming up with a creative personalized build that’s a personal issue not one with the game.