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Duo advice...
Hello friends and foes, despite my resistance my gf seems like she wants to give Rift a go so I'm probably going to join her at least to start.
More than likely she will be some sort of a healer. Normally I'm a tank so we can run groups and just fill in random dps, but after playing beta I was woefully disappointed with the melee combat animations. I dunno maybe I played the wrong soul or maybe it gets better, but the melee combat seemed boring.
The hunter combat was a little better (hated guns tho, always hate guns), but would that even work? I didn't like the pet much, left me yearning for the wow pet system.
Should I focus on a sturdy dps that can aoe and such so we can solo rifts more? What kind of healer should she be?
Thanks in advance for your time.
Comments
Hi and welcome in Rift,
the Warrior class looks like the natural choice to pair with a healer (cleric). Unfortunately you disliked the animations. I felt the animations, while not exceptionnal, were ok with a Paragon (dual wield spec). You could maybe try that one. It has great dps, fine mechanics with a bit more levels, and could use a pocket healer. (Paragon/Champion/Riftblade if you don't want a pet is a good combo).
On the powerhouse side, a Reaver is a really great AoE tank, with some really nice self healing while necessary, and an healing partner could help him make even bigger pulls. But it's 1h+shield and I agree here the animations get a little bland. (Reaver/Paladin/Riftblade or Reaver/Riftblade/x are strong pairings). Still you can check this.
A Riftblade is a very fun warrior soul. You basically get an instant slow with 6 sec cd, and can destroy mobs from range by kiting them : more effective than a mage. It unfortunately doesnt need much of an healing partner (but it could if you pull some adds), anyway it's a lot of fun to play with. You can also melee and AoE with it if you want. (Riftblade/Reaver, Riftblade/Champion are strong pairings).
For a rogue, if you go range without a pet (Marksman), you'll end up wanting to kite alot (with some Ranger or Saboteur slows). In this case a healer can still be useful, but certainly less than with a melee character. Riftstalker/Bladedancer (more tankish) or Bladedancer/Riftstalker (more offensive) are good melee rogues to pair with a healer, they play a bit like warriors actually with some dual wielding (better animations than 1h+shield for my taste).
Concerning Cleric's souls I don't know them well, so I wouldn't want to give you any misinformation. Following the game's descriptions could help her to go toward something more offensive or defensive, range or melee. Anyway you can unlock new souls at lvl 13 once you join the capital city and respec alot almost freely from there if you don't like your first choices. If she's set on a cleric, there is really no undoable build mistake or soul choice she can make from that point.
Have fun in Rift
Check my blog on mmorpg.com.
Rgoue has a dedicated tanking soul - Riftstalker. It's fully accepted as a proper tanking choice, only the most ignorant of groups will demand a warrior tank. This lets you have one role for that and another role dps, maybe a third for AoE (I think the Blade Dancer rogue soul is quite respected for AoE.)
I say all this because many people seem to rate the Rogue (well, dual-wield basically) animations higher.
Thanks for the responses guys. That sounds interesting. I tend to favor dual wielding most of the time. However, most games where I can dual wield as a tank I have to hear about how I'm trying to stress her out by not wanting to pick someone with a shield lol.
I will look into some of your suggestions. Would love to hear someone with some healing experience for the other end still.
Thanks a lot for your time again.
Personally, I'd say that the cleric calling is the more versatile in terms of role selection. You have healing (obviously), melee dps, caster dps and tank souls in it.
I suppose that the only reason it'll be a bad idea for both of you to pick the same class will be the loot distribution (would be hilarious to watch though, epic fight between couple over loot).
Bottom line:
Warriors, clerics and rogues can tank
Clerics, mages and rogues (support) can heal. Rogue bard healing will be perfectly acceptable in a duo, plus you get all the buffs from the class.
All classes can dps
Warriors, rogues and mages can support (buffs, AoE heals, crowd control etc)
In terms of loot, for armor is obvious. weapon is a bit different. So for armor:
Warriors go with plate
Clerics go with chain (healing clerics going with cloth are ill adviced, they forgo wisdom, which values 4-5 higher than intelligence)
Rogues go with leather (bards going with cloth are again ill adviced. Dexterity is still their primary stat here)
Mages go with cloth (not that they have much of a choice)
In terms of weapons, you'll see some overlaping between mages and clerics over staves and warriors and rogues over single hand weapons of any kind. Cleric maces are obvious because they have wisdom and have generally less dps than the warrior/rogue equivalent (dps for clerics come from spellpower, not weapon dps. That's for both melee and casters).
Hey there just thought I would update and try to get some more advice.
We went kind of crazy this time around and she's doing a pyromancer with 'healing' mage secondary.
Right now I'm a Purifier with Warden secondary. Purifier called to me because I liked the shield descriptions it kind of reminded me of the Prot monk in GW1 which I absolutely loved. I also figured that the focus on saving a single target would be good since I'll mainly be focused on keeping her alive (esp since it's a PvP server).
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about casters though, at least the chain means I don't have to wear a dress/robe, I think. I'm worried about mana though. I usually don't do too well with mana management so how well do healers regen for something like rift/invasions and pvp?
I played around with the hunter again and I kind of liked it again. I don't particularly like the pet, that and the guns kill it for me, but the pet is damn useful for leveling and I could just toss him once I'm capped. A pyro/hunter duo seems like it's asking for it though no?
The idea of switching between 2 completely different playstyles in melee and range as a rogue seems pretty interesting. 2 dps like that seems like setting ourselves up for hard times though.
As a healing cleric you'll need to do mana management because you don't have any mana regeneration mechanic except from the build in regeneration provided by wisdom. That means that your two self solutions for mana recovery are mana potions and drinking water (when off combat).
You can benefit from your healing buddies by asking for mages to cast their mana regen or you or the bards to cast their group one.
(Talking level 50 expert 1 instances now)
The only healing clerir soul that has regeneration is the warden. I found the amount enough to keep the warden constant casing hots enough.
The sentinel and purifier will need to conserve mana and conserve heals. Basically what I'm doing is using my big heal in instances and keep on pre-casting and letting it get cast only when needed. For the regular healing and most of the team healing I rely on our chloromancer and bard friends.
Here's the thing. Mages run on infinite mana due to the synergy with their other souls. They also do damage (no matter how much) while healing at the same time. For them it makes sense to cast as many heals as they can as much as possible, simply because they can.
Bards do not have mana at all, so they can go indefinitely as well. They are better at group healing but can't deal as well as mages in damage spiky situations.
Where do the clerics fit in all this, if as I say they run on a resource that runs out and try to cast as little as possible, which is the opposite of the other two callings? Well, clerics have two advantages. One is that they can deal with spiky damage, which is what kills tanks most of the time. The other is that their heals are self reliant. If chloros and bards for any reason can't do damage, they can't heal. Clerics don't share this problem and they can keep on healing. So clerics play the role of the safety net in a team of 5, that usually has at minimum 1.5 healers.
As for looks, here's a screenshot of my priest in blues/tier 1 coin rewards + some pvp gear mix.
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/576665298512672994/1D45AC43E71CC3654FE7994070A07B972F43F1C5/