Firstly let me convince everyone that my Paladin/Void Knight tank build (the one I talked about in the other thread) is worth testing with a couple screen shots...
This is at O Pact buffs observe the armor, strength, parry, block and attack power stats.
Armor 3171
Strength 151
Parry 162
Block 171
Attack Power 147
Now look at those stats under buff
Armor 4612
Strength 226
Parry 237
Block 246
Attack Power 204
I do wonder what armor is not increasing though it should be 144.5 higher. Of course it's still amazing to increase and maintain most of my stats by 50% in battle. I cannot see another tanking build having better stats.
As I cannot continue in my Rift playing one thing continues to plague me would my PVE build have rocked more? See my block was just, just starting to rock and I just needed a couple more levels to get a heal on block. As such I would like to please put out a request for any warriors getting to level 34+ (whenever you do) to try it out my build if you have a spare role and a desire to tank. Certainly no need to level this way just give it a test at 34+ and tell me if it's as sweet as I think it is.
This was my build at 30. I actually did level with Pal/VK up to 30 while trying several different permutations of it. Warlord is just there for the free buff. I used this both solo and in raids. If one wanted to make it more party friendly Grace Under Pressure(Pal) could be swapped out for increased threat, reduced stun or whatever. I just like a little more reliability hitting my target that is all. Not many points to spare otherwise yet.
Technically I had Spell Sunder(VK) for Bosses and one less point in surge but I never used it much.
This is the build I'd like someone to try at 34+.
How you play it:
The big important thing here is once you've got your initial attack point/pacts you need to get into a rotation that keeps the strength and armor buffs up. The basic rotation is Reckless strike(VK) twice (because it's attack power is based on pacts you have), then Discharge(VK), then Pact Conversion(VK) then back to start. To get four in a rotation one must be an instant cast otherwise Pact Conversion(VK) must to be third if you don't have an instant in there. You'll also want to keep Pacifying Strike (Pal) and especially Aggressive block(Pal) up as much as possible. When you need to use those or any other attack point generating ability you substitute them for Reckless Strike(VK). There are however other attack point and pact generating abilities you'll have that will renew the buff and enable you to skip Pact Conversion if you watch the pact buff counter. Watching your Pact buff is hard though so many times I would just spam Pact conversion every fourth ability without watching. Also If the enemy you are striking has mana you can also use Devouring Blow(VK) instead of Pact Conversion(VK) for a little more dps and to recharge your pact buffs. Devouring Blow(VK) is a little slower and harder to work in without losing the buff though.
Also many of the soul trees have abilities that do identical things but one does it better. In that regard Paladin's Shield Throw and Spark's Void Knight abilities do basically the same thing and have a shared cool down however Shield throw does more attack power. This means spark is useless unless there is something that specifically needs air and not physical type damage. However I found out this is not quite the case with the AOE pull abilities Judgment (Pal) and Airburst (VK). While using one will make the other cool down the cool down on the one you didn't use will be less. This means having both will get your aoe ready to use quicker! On another note when both of those are on cool down I use Rage Storm (VK) it doesn't pull as well but it's better than nothing. I also use Shield Throw(Pal) as my regular pull but it is of course good for only one mob.
Reactive abilities Disarming Counter Blow(Pal) and Retaliation(Pal) should be hit when they come up of course, in that order of priority.
The point:
The entire point of the build is to continually have a 50% buff to your armor and str. When I was doing it I always picked str gear over endurance, between gear of similar quality. I still had a ton of things I needed to get get more str on. I didn't have huge Endurance but I seemed to have enough as both VK and Pal have a hp buff for every point spent in it up to 30, plus my gear had endurance I just prioritized str. Yes str doesn't improve Discharge(VK) but it improves attack power, critical attack power, parry and most importantly block which should benefit the Paladin's abilities more and more. The armor buff also counts for a ton more when you are using a 1000 point shield-centric soul.
After 34:
To those who end up liking this build this was was my projected future build after 34. First, at level 35, I was going to respec and swap out Shield of Hero(VK) for another point in Small Arms Specialization(Pal) and get Shield of Chosen(VK). Then I was going to spec like this working towards getting 32 points into VK to get the heal Fusion of Flesh(VK). I am however uncertain which VK abilities I would spend the last four points on, probably Blood From a Stone(VK) which is helpful but not required. There were other VK abilities I did not test yet though. Finally I change Warlord soul (which was just there for the buff) over to Champion for Titan's Strength(Champ) giving me 15% more strength and dropping the final point in Paladin's Devotion(Pal) resulting in this.
Things about heals consider:
I estimate you can get Tip the balance to heal you at least 100 hp at level 34 with every block. It was already counting for 78~ damage with only partial points in it at 30.
Then at 45 Fusion of the Flesh(VK) you could probably be getting at very least 120 hp, probably more like 200+ hitting it every cycle rotation. Of course you would not want to drop Discharge(VK) every rotation.
Then you'll also get a tiny heal off of Replenish(VK). Based on level 30 endurance it would be about 100 hp per ten pacts gained.
I also must say with Paladin you've also got the wonderful, saved me many times, emergency heal Touch of Life(Pal), a friendly group buff Aegis Of Salvation(Pal) and the res out of combat ability Life's Grace(Pal)
I had also figured to have a separate variation of that build for parties.
Thoughts about Keyboard Setup:
This section is just a suggestion it has nothing to do with the build so skip it if you don't care but I changed my keys massively. I honestly don't know how players can pvp jumping around and still be able to hit all their abilities with a stock setup. Having fiddled with different setups my entire play through basically I...
1. Removed all the redundant keys. I don't need two reply keys etc.
2. Moved any thing I would not need in battle from the keys around my hand to the right side of the keyboard.
3. Shifted the ability slot keys over to be ~12345 instead of 123456.
4. Replaced 67890- ability slot keys to be rtfgvb
5. Added one action bar and any ability that I would not have to hit often (Like my emergency heal so I would not bump it) I placed on it hitting them with my mouse.
This worked a ton better than stock. With 2 reactive abilities, a normal cycle of 4 keys, another two that have to be cycled in and alternate abilities I have to hit at any given time it's just not possible to play stock keys as well. This was just on this build too I also tried a Warrior/Beastmaster and it's got a bunch more buttons to you manage at any given time. The game also has a macro system which could help but I never got into it. Honestly why do all the mmorpg makers map non-essential keys to around a players hand it makes no sense.
In addition I made many changes to my UI but I won't cover those that is preference mainly. However I will note is it really necessary for every mmorpg to have a pointless portrait of your face taking up screen space?
Other Notes:
The ability Energy Retention(VK), having tested it with 2 points to be sure, is completely useless. It, like it's description says, increases the time you hold pacts it does not modify the pact buff hold time. Considering you hold Pacts for 30 seconds already I can see no reason for any VK build to need this for anything.
Final Thoughts:
Rift was really the first game I've played Tank in ever and I liked it. Often it let me save my party without having to be a healer. Also while I've soloed plenty of mmo's I haven't partied very much either. I don't think I was good at tanking yet but the build seemed to be. I hope I understood the purpose of Tanking grab all the aggro you can and stack damage mitigation to survive it.
Anyway cya Rift peoples and let me know if any of you try that build out at 34+!
This is at O Pact buffs observe the armor, strength, parry, block and attack power stats.
Armor 3171
Strength 151
Parry 162
Block 171
Attack Power 147
Now look at those stats under buff
Armor 4612
Strength 226
Parry 237
Block 246
Attack Power 204
I do wonder what armor is not increasing though it should be 144.5 higher. Of course it's still amazing to increase and maintain most of my stats by 50% in battle. I cannot see another tanking build having better stats.
As I cannot continue in my Rift playing one thing continues to plague me would my PVE build have rocked more? See my block was just, just starting to rock and I just needed a couple more levels to get a heal on block. As such I would like to please put out a request for any warriors getting to level 34+ (whenever you do) to try it out my build if you have a spare role and a desire to tank. Certainly no need to level this way just give it a test at 34+ and tell me if it's as sweet as I think it is.
This was my build at 30. I actually did level with Pal/VK up to 30 while trying several different permutations of it. Warlord is just there for the free buff. I used this both solo and in raids. If one wanted to make it more party friendly Grace Under Pressure(Pal) could be swapped out for increased threat, reduced stun or whatever. I just like a little more reliability hitting my target that is all. Not many points to spare otherwise yet.
Technically I had Spell Sunder(VK) for Bosses and one less point in surge but I never used it much.
This is the build I'd like someone to try at 34+.
How you play it:
The big important thing here is once you've got your initial attack point/pacts you need to get into a rotation that keeps the strength and armor buffs up. The basic rotation is Reckless strike(VK) twice (because it's attack power is based on pacts you have), then Discharge(VK), then Pact Conversion(VK) then back to start. To get four in a rotation one must be an instant cast otherwise Pact Conversion(VK) must to be third if you don't have an instant in there. You'll also want to keep Pacifying Strike (Pal) and especially Aggressive block(Pal) up as much as possible. When you need to use those or any other attack point generating ability you substitute them for Reckless Strike(VK). There are however other attack point and pact generating abilities you'll have that will renew the buff and enable you to skip Pact Conversion if you watch the pact buff counter. Watching your Pact buff is hard though so many times I would just spam Pact conversion every fourth ability without watching. Also If the enemy you are striking has mana you can also use Devouring Blow(VK) instead of Pact Conversion(VK) for a little more dps and to recharge your pact buffs. Devouring Blow(VK) is a little slower and harder to work in without losing the buff though.
Also many of the soul trees have abilities that do identical things but one does it better. In that regard Paladin's Shield Throw and Spark's Void Knight abilities do basically the same thing and have a shared cool down however Shield throw does more attack power. This means spark is useless unless there is something that specifically needs air and not physical type damage. However I found out this is not quite the case with the AOE pull abilities Judgment (Pal) and Airburst (VK). While using one will make the other cool down the cool down on the one you didn't use will be less. This means having both will get your aoe ready to use quicker! On another note when both of those are on cool down I use Rage Storm (VK) it doesn't pull as well but it's better than nothing. I also use Shield Throw(Pal) as my regular pull but it is of course good for only one mob.
Reactive abilities Disarming Counter Blow(Pal) and Retaliation(Pal) should be hit when they come up of course, in that order of priority.
The point:
The entire point of the build is to continually have a 50% buff to your armor and str. When I was doing it I always picked str gear over endurance, between gear of similar quality. I still had a ton of things I needed to get get more str on. I didn't have huge Endurance but I seemed to have enough as both VK and Pal have a hp buff for every point spent in it up to 30, plus my gear had endurance I just prioritized str. Yes str doesn't improve Discharge(VK) but it improves attack power, critical attack power, parry and most importantly block which should benefit the Paladin's abilities more and more. The armor buff also counts for a ton more when you are using a 1000 point shield-centric soul
.After 34:
To those who end up liking this build this was was my projected future build after 34. First, at level 35, I was going to respec and swap out Shield of Hero(VK) for another point in Small Arms Specialization(Pal) and get Shield of Chosen(VK). Then I was going to spec like this working towards getting 32 points into VK to get the heal Fusion of Flesh(VK). I am however uncertain which VK abilities I would spend the last four points on, probably Blood From a Stone(VK) which is helpful but not required. There were other VK abilities I did not test yet though. Finally I change Warlord soul (which was just there for the buff) over to Champion for Titan's Strength(Champ) giving me 15% more strength and dropping the final point in Paladin's Devotion(Pal) resulting in this.
Things about heals consider:
I estimate you can get Tip the balance to heal you at least 100 hp at level 34 with every block. It was already counting for 78~ damage with only partial points in it at 30.
Then at 45 Fusion of the Flesh(VK) you could probably be getting at very least 120 hp, probably more like 200+ hitting it every cycle rotation. Of course you would not want to drop Discharge(VK) every rotation.
Then you'll also get a tiny heal off of Replenish(VK). Based on level 30 endurance it would be about 100 hp per ten pacts gained.
I also must say with Paladin you've also got the wonderful, saved me many times, emergency heal Touch of Life(Pal), a friendly group buff Aegis Of Salvation(Pal) and the res out of combat ability Life's Grace(Pal)
I had also figured to have a separate variation of that build for parties.
Thoughts about Keyboard Setup:
This section is just a suggestion it has nothing to do with the build so skip it if you don't care but I changed my keys massively. I honestly don't know how players can pvp jumping around and still be able to hit all their abilities with a stock setup. Having fiddled with different setups my entire play through basically I...
1. Removed all the redundant keys. I don't need two reply keys etc.
2. Moved any thing I would not need in battle from the keys around my hand to the right side of the keyboard.
3. Shifted the ability slot keys over to be ~12345 instead of 123456.
4. Replaced 67890- ability slot keys to be rtfgvb
5. Added one action bar and any ability that I would not have to hit often (Like my emergency heal so I would not bump it) I placed on it hitting them with my mouse.
This worked a ton better than stock. With 2 reactive abilities, a normal cycle of 4 keys, another two that have to be cycled in and alternate abilities I have to hit at any given time it's just not possible to play stock keys as well. This was just on this build too I also tried a Warrior/Beastmaster and it's got a bunch more buttons to you manage at any given time. The game also has a macro system which could help but I never got into it. Honestly why do all the mmorpg makers map non-essential keys to around a players hand it makes no sense.
In addition I made many changes to my UI but I won't cover those that is preference mainly. However I will note is it really necessary for every mmorpg to have a pointless portrait of your face taking up screen space?
Other Notes:
The ability Energy Retention(VK), having tested it with 2 points to be sure, is completely useless. It, like it's description says, increases the time you hold pacts it does not modify the pact buff hold time. Considering you hold Pacts for 30 seconds already I can see no reason for any VK build to need this for anything.
Final Thoughts:
Rift was really the first game I've played Tank in ever and I liked it. Often it let me save my party without having to be a healer. Also while I've soloed plenty of mmo's I haven't partied very much either. I don't think I was good at tanking yet but the build seemed to be. I hope I understood the purpose of Tanking grab all the aggro you can and stack damage mitigation to survive it.
Anyway cya Rift peoples and let me know if any of you try that build out at 34+!
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