RIFT: Meet my team. MPD Addition.

Seeing as how the ascended all have multiple souls residing inside them it only seems fitting that my alto-holism has followed me into the RIFT.  Without question in every game I must have options and multiple play styles and paths to where ever I want to go open to me. I generally make one character of every “class” and take it through the starter area of a game, or in the case of EvE have three accounts so i can train for multiple things on each character. Because of the repetitive nature of thses games I do sometimes (often) get tired of the same skills in the same rotation and liek to change oftern. Its not only that i can have different skill sand abilities open although that is a big part.  I just like making characters. When I was bored as a teen before I our family had a computer or my first console I used to make D&D characters to pass the time. Those were a bit more fun because I got to make more detail. I tended to go over things with a fine tooth comb and imagine backstories and reasons why things where all the way down to starting inventory items. ANyhow I think with MMOs its something similar but much less detailed. I think its just a very “fastfood” way of having fun making something pretty. I will sit and Its fun to play with the color combinations and facial structures etc . Maybe less so in games like rist as options can be somewhat limited but its fun all the same.  But I digress.

So without Further ados let me commence in the introductions:

Phentara is my warrior. The charge in headlong into a swarm of enemies with a big sword type of play has always appealed me. Winning a battle of attrition against a horde of evil is always a good way to go as long as things don’t go too slowly. She was my first character in RIFT and thus far I do enjoy her very much. However I find that the souls for a warrior are more limited than most other callings in that warriors can only tank, mele dps, and buff and lets face it buffing is not really very exciting.

Machui is my mage. Casters have never been my favorite in any game. I tend to need the more visceral experience of close combat to hear and feel my cold steel ripping into my foes flesh tearing away their layers. However I have enjoyed the speed at which I can dispatch peoples souls from Telara and the pets have been very good to have tank for me offering more survivability than Phentara in most cases. Although ranged DPS is a mages bread and butter I have found that the variety of spells is engaging and the fact that a mage can also heal has been a boon for the class as the act of filling up the green bar instead of making is drop is actually a good change of pace for me sometimes. RIFT is the first game where i feel I have truly enjoyed a mage.

Samehdi is my cleric. In most games I tend to prefer hybrid classes and this is the most hybrid of all the callings in RIFT. I like the ranged DPS with her but its not as fun as my mage. I like the tanking she offers though and she stays up and alive far far longer than Phentara but even with the build i have that has tanking ability but with some of it traded for what should be really good DPS... I am finding it painfully boring to kill mobs. The healing is great though; well its great when i heal. When i felt like I was really starting to love this character it was on a night I was doing tons of rifts and most people were my level. I had been using an Inquisitor build with some extra healing and was getting good amounts of damage and was also being useful healing for a lot .. now that there are so many higher levels doing rifts I can neither heal or DPS before everything is dead. So for grouping she is great and terribly fun but not so much solo... I think im going to have to spend some time yet playing with builds before i say my interest in Samehdi is over. In fact sometimes the struggle to experiment and find what I like will drive me to level a character even more than ones I have fallen into a routine with.

Thactari is my rogue. Honestly as you can tell by the starter gear in this picture I just made her before I started typing this post. I have high hopes for her. Almost as often as I find myself playing a hybrid class i find myself playing a rogue. In this case thactari could be the golden ticket because rogues in RIFT have more roles than both Warriors and Mages and just as many as the cleric but with added swirling daggers glinting in the sun. Rogues are great and everyone loves them and thats why I left her for last. Its always my fear in an MMO that if i play a rogue I will be forever alone because of the shear numbers of other rogues out there. Being a unique and precious snowflake that gets group invites is always very appealing. Oddly enough some of the few times I have even gotten random invites were on rogues… go figure! At any rate I’ll have to come back and give my thoughts on this character later when shes at least 16/17 like everyone else.

Looking over Freemarch starting area.

So all in all I’m having a blast in RIFT and now that my last Alt is rolled i look forward to progressing out of Freemarch where I have been the last few weeks. Burnout on a game from repeating zones is always and issues but with all the options to explore its not an issue. I’m still not sold on the crafting on this game too but thats not too bad.

I hope i have given a good reference to my in game friends on who they are talking to when seemingly random folks send them /tells. Not that I expect anyone to keep track of this crap. But I always feel guilty because i feel like people do and its not fair to think people have that good of a memory or need to keep a cheat sheet of all their guildies names LOL

Ok thats enough for not I need to go play RIFT!   XD