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Target audience: New to Rift or never played a Warrior.
Though i expect you to know how movement, combat, camera etc works. AS WELL as the dlc situation.
Core mechanics to consider:
Warrior is a martial Class. Your mainhand weapon DPS damage per second is used alongside Attack power for abilities.
-> Weapon speed and single hit damage does not matter- only the DPS value
-> If you have ANY weapon in your offhand- and be it a butterknife, your MAIN HAND DPS is scaled x1.3 - this makes it match 2h weapons of the same quality.
-> 2h Weapons have no true benefits over 2x 1h weapons but being easier to upgrade without doing math first. There also is no hit penalty for dual wielding.
You will never use your ranged weapon for anything.
Stats:
Spoiler:
https://www.cadrift.net/gameplay/charac ... er-guides/
Sidekick and Mentoring (temporarily adjust your level for free stats)
viewtopic.php?p=134#p134
Character creation
Pick The preset Righteous Defender to start with a shield. Just having ANY shield in your bag may come useful even though you will get new weapons quickly.
Deciding to tank with 0 shields around happens way too often and any level 1 shield ''activates block''.
We can change our specialization right after entering the game.
Race and Faction have no impact on a level 70 Warrior. High Elves and Bahmi have a leap which can be useful in open world exploration, Warrior may also get a shorter leap as class feature.
-> Don't get too caught up in the creator's sliders. All its settings + a credit race swap are available in the in game barber shop.
Rather make sure you like the animations and overall feel and don't hesitate to try some races/ genders before settling.
You 100% will change something on the appearance in the barber shop later on anyway.
Level 1 - A legend in the making - and a long finding process
The approach presented below has the goal to be interesting, have frequent new tools and mechanics unlocked and have you learn game fundamentals with great performance results.
Speed level hacks may do a thing or two 'faster' but nothing of it has any value or reason. Too many people have been bottomlessly frustrated on 66 Champion-tank-frankensteins. So that's what we are doing here;
Giving you something that presents the whole class with mechanics that are actually used in the current game.
Warrior needs to accept a lot of magical fluff and look outside the box for strong combinations of seemingly un combinable themes.
We will start with a mobile Wind Rager and transition into Warlord.
Press N (default) to open your Soultree.
Click any of the middle icons marked in red to get a drop down menu. Select Paragon, Reaver and Riftblade.
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Write /exportui and look for a confirming message in the chat- to create a backup in case you delete this character for another race etc.
Level 1-8 - The thirst period
The idea is that all builders deal the same damage. While Reaver allows you to attack from range. Just by not running to every mob separately can effectively double your progression speed. We will slowly transition into melee- but only on later levels when there are more dedicated melee mechanics to excuse the drawbacks.
Points wise, we want 8 into Paragon for Turn the Blade as fast as possible.
For that we go 5/5 Teaching of the Five Rings and 3/5 Weapon Familiarity
You can only have as many points spent in a soul as your level number. Every 3 levels you get a bonus skill point which naturally goes into an off soul.
Head for 4/5 into Riftblade Elemental Flux. Even Though the direct benefit from those points isn't great, we do it for Icy Burst and Avatar of Wind, going for a hyper aggressive wind & water style.
Level 4 - Macro up!
Rising Waterfall is a followup attack- which means it can be used as every second attack. Macroing your builder like this will have it automatically alternate the two when in melee range.
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#show Rising Waterfall
suppressmacrofailures
cast Rising Waterfall
cast Ravaging Strike
This may now be your main attack button.
Level 6 - Icy Burst
2 points into Riftblade unlocks Icy Burst, replacing Reaping Harvest.
Icy Burst is a finisher which you don't directly use but rather buff on yourself and have it's damage applied through the next attack.
Reason being that 1) It usually does more damage than a default finisher 2) We get more value from Rising Waterfall that way later 3) Icy Burst is super present on level 70 everywhere. If you absolutely hate it now, it won't go away.
Simply tap your Icy Burst once whenever you have 3 combo points and not interrupt any other attacks.
Does Warrior feel sluggish and slow? Yeah probably- it definitely is the most uninspired class to run through the starter zone. Just wait for level 8, it makes things better.
If you already dislike Ravaging Strike and Icy Burst or at least the overall feel of the gameplay, re-consider if Warrior is something for you. Not that it is your fault but Rift Warrior runs A LOT of elemental and ranged attacks as well as heals. Riftblade with its odd finishers is hands down your best dps so you better not hate it.
Lvl 8 - Finally fresh air
Turn the Blade reduces your global cooldown by 33% (1.5 sec down to 1 sec) but only reduces all damage by 20%(if even). So 'spammable' attacks gain direct value from this buff, spiking your performance as much as +50% just between lvl 7 to 8.
You may appreciate the Rising Waterfall macro now, not having to manually track this ability at 1 sec gcd + Icy Bursts.
Your soul tree should look like this:
https://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#2q/6/38s
Purchase a soul reset to get Turn the Blade asap. Get Avatar of Wind again later.
-----------
I leave it up to you to head into (intrepid) Instant adventures on level 10 or continue questing. Our Wind Rager and later Warlord are considered for quests + adventures and will do great in both.
You may notice Rising Waterfall giving you 2 combo points while in Instant Adventures. This is due to Rift giving you free unlocks for your main soul used while mentored up in Adventures
-----------
Lvl 8-15 - Doubling down on the wind magic
From level 8 to 15 you may fill up like this:
https://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#2u/6f/38hE
Your buffs now are:
Paragon- Turn the Blade, Body Focus
Reaver- Binding of Affliction
Rift Blade- Avatar of Wind
..to get 10% run speed, 14% non physical damage (for Ravaging Strike, Icy Burst)
Low level Warrior aoe for occasional aoe situations is tricky to come by without sacrificing a lot of single target performance. Reaver Rancid Cleave is good enough.
In game, the abilities and effects may give a strong ''Wind Warrior'' vibe,- even Rancid Cleave summoning a tornado!. That was the goal.
But we will not go deep into Reaver. Nobody has time to watch dots tick and grass grow.
We rather collect universal buff% like crit rating as well as utility like sprints from Paragon.
This allows us to transition into a hard shredding melee Paragon with RB run speed and Reaver range as cherries on top.
Lvl 20 - quick update, still having fun ?
Yes, this really is Warrior- ranged attacks, elemental damage - at least a big portion of it.
Remember ''universal % and utility buffs'' ? Let's check if we had the same things in mind.
https://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#2u/6f/38hqR0
2/3 Flowing Strikes is enough, it only increases the procrate while the 15% crit bonus doesn't change.
Fleet on Foot is a lot of fun- especially with ranged attacks.
Way of the Sun may only procc off Rising Waterfall but self healing on a Warrior is a pretty big deal even though your ranged combat reduces your general damage taken by A LOT already.
-> Q: Why 4 Riftblade instead of Beastmaster for run speed+Pet?
A: With all the run speed and ranged attacks, the pet barely gets to do anything and is also not really a tanking pet anyway. Please go for Beastmaster if you like the immersion. Then just use Reaver's Dire Blow as a finisher.
The idea is to really get Riftblade mechanics down since they are so prominent everywhere - if you really hate this, do not suffer through! try Cleric - Also, Ravaging Strike+ Icy Burst does more damage than Dire Blow.
-> When you own the Tempest dlc, replace Reaver with Tempest, head for 8 Tempest and the Empower buff- only then continue with filling Paragon.
Lvl 28 - Flurry of blows
We just unlocked a couple interesting mechanics:
https://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#2u/6f/38hjq8k
Weapon Master gives two combo points for Rising Waterfall (free from Instant adventures but that free unlock doesn't last forever)
If the more frequent Icy Burst use starts to drain your power, get some power back while channeling Flurry.
Your new finisher.
Shifting Blades duplicates the damage of the next attack- ideally Tranquility -which is a ranged hard hitter. Both are 15 seconds cd so make sure Shifting Blades gets it's Tranquility.
#Tranq
#show Shifting Blades
suppressmacrofailures
cast Shifting Blades
cast Tranquility
cast Rising Waterfall
cast Ravaging Strike
While in melee, can you weave this in so you use it perfectly on 3 points but not delay Rising Waterwall?
Lvl 32 - Final Blessing
https://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#2u/6f/38hiEzaA
Update your #Main macro
#show Final Blessing
suppressmacrofailures
cast [notactive] Turn the Blade
cast Final Blessing
cast Rising Waterfall
cast Death Touch
//cast Setting Moon
cast Swift Strike
cast Ravaging Strike
cast Shield of Will
Level 36-42 - A Lot of interesting changes coming up!
2/2 Analyze Weakness reduces the damage penalty from Turn the Blade for Paragon abilities by 10%
Grasping the Horizon allows your Paragon abilities to be used from range for half of the time- this starts to render Reaver obsolete.
Unleashed gives you significant boni for not dropping combat for too long.
Purchase a soul reset. (cheap) And let's update some things!
Note: The Ravaging Strike spam is now gone. I want you to be more precise with cooldown timings such as Grasping the Horizon.
https://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#2gE/9f/38hiEyEFl8
New #Main button:
#show Final Blessing
suppressmacrofailures
cast [notactive] Turn the Blade
cast Final Blessing
cast Rising Waterfall
cast Death Touch
//cast Setting Moon
cast Swift Strike
cast Flamespear
cast Retaliation
cast Shield of Will
-> Remove the // on level 44 when you unlocked Setting Moon!
Lvl 48 - Way of the Wind
Current Buffs:
Paragon- Turn the Blade, Body Focus, Way of the Sun, Way of the Wind
Riftblade- Avatar of Wind
Lvl 48 New world who dis - New continent with a lot better quest rewards is available!
Level 40- 48 is the longest stretch in the game. Instead of grinding level 48-50, you can already jump into brand new zones.
You can enter the Storm Legion continent from level 48 onward. You will get at least 10x the exp from quests and Gear as good as lvl 50 raiding Tiers. This means lvl 50 within minutes. Storm legion even offers two separate lvl 48-60 continents and journeys!
Your capital city (Meridian/ Sanctum) will have an ambassador next to the portal with talk options.
- Business in your city teleports to Tempest bay
- Brevane sends you to cape yule (Best early quests)
- Dusken sends you to Kingdom Pelladane (More core story but more running around)
The early quests are meant to be done with ungeared characters and will deck you out with most gear slots in no time.
Note: You can already switch to Warlord (below) for your first quests in the new zones!
Lvl 50 - Planar Attunement - Fundamental story mission
A little sidetrack from questing: Level 50 allows for Planar attunements.
For that, you need to get attuned in the solo- Chronicle 'Ceremony of Attunement'.
You should receive mail as you hit level 50. This solo instance unlocks Planar attunements for you.
Planar attunements are some minor unlocks with separate exp systems.
Get into DEATH first, the Unlock Vampiric Essence in the second Death panel is amazing for anything solo.
After that you may enter War for mount speed and then Water for the water rift group summon.
More info on Attunement levels (PAXP) and tricks with quests and zones:
https://www.cadrift.net/gameplay/character/levelling/
Lvl 50 - WAR (fucking) LORD
Could have switched a little bit earlier already but at level 50, being in the new zone with planar Attunements and all is a nice moment for the switch!
Reaver ranged spam is for dogs
Paragon melee spam is for kids
Warlord is for adults. It's pretty much a jedi!
(Block without shield, mobility resets, force pulls, oneshots)
Feel free to just use a new role for this without needing to delete your Paragon.
Level 50-70 on Warlord
https://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#2gw ... GGkBkw/38s
Basics: Warlord finisher (not any finisher) gives you a wide range of battle surges and buffs for your builder attacks.
The beauty of this is that the number of combo points used is irrelevant. You can open with a 1 point Breaking Blow and get all the boni.
-> The Riftblade points are in preparation for lvl 58+, we are taking a break from Icy Burst for now.
This means you kind of want to open with a finisher and have your Builder be the hard hits. Priorities turned 180°
Special notice on Piercing Thrust and Wave of Steel. You may only use those two after a warlord Finisher each. It does not have to be directly after one but one Finisher may only buff one Pt/ Wos.
Instead of the ranged spam we now charge stuff or drag it to us with Sergeant's order.
Some 'real' warrior gameplay now! You earned it. Warlord is your goat for leveling up to 70 and gearing at 70. So best we get cozy with it quickly.
Buffs:
Warlord- Deadly Posture, Recovery Posture
Paragon- Turn the Blade
NOTE: While either Recovery Posture or Defensive Posture is active, Sergeant's order will taunt the target!
New buttons replacing all previous ones!
#Main - Arterial Strike may generate additional combo points
#show King of the Hill
suppressmacrofailures
cast [notactive] Turn the Blade
cast King of the Hill
//cast Decisive Strike //removed when unlocked
cast A quick Death
cast Arterial Strike
cast Rising Waterfall
cast Empowering Strike
cast Backhand
cast @self Battlefield Medic
#Finisher - only use it for Breaking Blow
#show Breaking Blow
suppressmacrofailures
cast Breaking Blow
cast [notactive] Turn the Blade
cast Backhand
cast King of the Hill
cast A quick Death
cast Arterial Strike
cast Rising Waterfall
cast Empowering Strike
#PT - Important hit with some requirements for the best possible damage
#show Piercing Thrust
suppressmacrofailures
cast Piercing Thrust
cast Arterial Strike
cast @self Battlefield Medic
#Charge
#show Into the Breach
suppressmacrofailures
cast Into the Breach
cast Clear the Breach
cast @self Battlefield Medic
cast A Quick Death
cast Arterial Strike
cast Backhand
Consider getting the addon Karuulalert!
It allows for custom alerts on your screen.
https://www.curseforge.com/rift/addons/karuulalert
You can install add-ons without restarting the game.
Just /reloadui when done.
Extract the zip folder in your Rift Addons. You can find the addon folder by:
1) Ingame- esc- popp up menu - click Add Ons - click 'open addon directory'
2) Or search for 'addons' in windows
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DueccraRoDtGbtm5nJAGkJlslDtKElvmqfgByiJMpw2kWp7SEFCGCYg8dgbGvqm8dKYUT94v354V
Y9qp3B96v9GAXe2GUNg03IyHfHgknTWMJACkmEGKSJeOBnpA80teaVmMHQvk1o57TONySsJR9zrT
rrimf9cM60m3kOhk99UqRnBV5jtIUIQopzVBGAP6j+I3n5LrlnpN3npOLowOYJr87iEMFzfV5jC8
dzF9avdrZaybmx8V3NmIBMuhBklsjX0pjpdk8fKeM4PSfKRf+3Ub3hdL7C6ETJ8xaupPempxhUcD
loIxpDjIEQcZQwfDt38Uq8YEu0r1FeX1N+ReX7d49
Tracked buffs are King of the Hill uptime, Breaking Blow debuff uptime, Piercing Thrust/ Wave of Steel availability, Ready Posture(for level 66+)
Try yourself out by making a Kalert for ability cooldowns etc!
Killing things with Warlord:
One Warlord Finisher (Breaking Blow, Killing Field) gives one use of Piercing Thrust or Wave of Steel.
One use of King of the Hill buffs both abilities for 15 seconds (and makes the next use 100% critical!).
-> If you start on 3 combo points, General's Order + Killing field + Wave of steel may oneshot 5 mobs in 2 abilities.
It's absolute wreckingball mode.
-> AVOID using Piercing Thrust or Wave of Steel WITHOUT said bonus called Warlord's Focus - which is tracked by your Kalert addon as an angry face.
-> King of the Hill makes your next Piercing thrust 100% critical. On level 50 you may popp Battlefield Experience which removes all cooldowns for 15 seconds and go:
#Main -> #Breaking Blow -> #Piercing thrust -> Battlefield Experience -> #Main -> Killing Field -> #Piercing thrust -> repeat
Breaking Blow on 2 combo points is okay to farm 100% critical Piercing Thrusts(Wave of Steel) in return.
Extreme mobility!
Using one of your two charges Into the Breach and Clear the Breach resets the cooldown of Defensive Maneuver (leap backwards).
You can use Defensive Maneuver to propel yourself forward by running, jumping, turning 180° in the air and leap.
With the reset mechanic, you can: Leap 'forward' charge something, leap again immediately, charge something else, leap forward AGAIN.
Your charges also reset your Battlefield Medic self heal! So finishing any charge guarantees a use of Battlefield Medic!
It ALSO resets Sergeant's order which lets you pull things to you off global cooldown. Warlord is as tough and disruptive in pvp as it looks.
Instead of a healy chunk of plate armor who gets kited around all day, Warlord acts alot more like a Jedi and brings a ton of boni for being hyper aggressive.
Additional bonus: Battlefield Experience also resets & removes the cooldown of your Clean the Breach Charge which brings all the reset- boni of Defensive Maneuver, BAttlefield Medic and Sergeant's Order. With Turn the Blade you can Charge & selfheal 16 times in a row!
You may never die again! BUT if you find yourself taking a lot of damage, you can deliberately let mobs hit you to zero and heal half your hp with No Permission to Die. (Activate BEFORE dying, it will heal you for 50% if reaching 0 hp within 10 seconds) .. at only 1 minute cooldown!
You can look forward to level 58 boy oh boy. Just fill out Warlord and see you on 58!
Level 58 - Absolute dominance.
So you are now in possession of Decisive Strike. This funny little hit deals MORE damage than Piercing Thrust, without requiring a Warlord finisher first and also grants 2 combo points.
Check your #Main macro and remove the // from Decisive Strike
#BE
#show Battlefield Experience
suppressmacrofailures
cast Decisive Strike
cast Battlefield Experience
cast Arterial Strike
cast Backhand
Do yourself a Favor, enter some intrepid adventure, not for the exp but just wait for a boss phase.
-> #Breaking Blow -> #Main macro two times for King of the hill and Decisive Strike -> Icy Burst -> #BE macro
Keep hitting the Be macro and use an Icy Burst on 3 combo points.
In a 65 Instant Adventure you may now hit 100% critical 190k+ Decisive Strike bombs back to back, easily propelling you above 200k dps.
When Battlefield Experience runs out, you may fall back to: #Breaking Blow (or King of the Hill) -> #Piercing thrust -> #Main -> repeat.
What the fuck heppened here? King of the Hill buffs PT and Wave of steel by 25% for 15 seconds. It also makes the next Piercing Thrust or Decisive Strike critical.
However, Decisive Strike does not consume the crit bonus. Together with Battlefield Experience removing all cooldowns, you can bomb your hardest hitting attack 100% critical for 15 seconds
Icy Burst is only there because any gcd finisher is a loss and only IcyBurst can make use of all those Combo Points for +10% dmg without interfering with Decisive Strike. You may only use Icy Burst during that damage cooldown.
Q: Why wasn't that used during Nmt?
A: Though Ttb had a 30% penalty, this would still have been bis. I didn't raid on warr during nmt (Thanks Reaver) and Warlord reworks were fresh during 65 T3 (3.5 i think).
You can see pov videos with people going for complicated patterns to stroke PT with low dmg BB&Koth even though clearly DS>PT. This unfavorable pattern already wrecked hard as a top dps contender in nmt T3, yet is some 30% behind Icy DS
Ttb only on 20% now only ads more salt.
With the brain rot from op nmt T2 Reaver, none of the Warriors noticed this which only means it didn't get nerfed.
I always forget to take screenshots unfortunately.
TLDR: During Battlefield Experience, nothing beats back to back Decisive Strike spam made critical by one King of the Hill. Icy Burst adds free damage by making use of combo points without costing a gcd.
Only when it runs out, we are back to 1x(WL finisher Breaking Blow/ Killing Field) - 1x Piercing Thrust - 2x filler (Decisive, Rising Waterfall, Arterial, Empowering Strike, A quick death).
Try to end fights with combo points loaded up for the next fight so you can easily open up with a Killing field - Sergeant's/General's Order
But- we are just getting started! See you on 66.
Lvl 60-70 - Ready
https://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#2gw ... g/38s|XsPM
Buffs:
Warlord. Ready Posture, Deadly Posture
Paragon. Turn the Blade, Way of the River
Riftblade. Avatar of Wind
Nothing changes gameplay wise. You get more passive % for a lot of things from Ready Posture and double down on Piercing Thrust (Decisive Strike may still do more)
On level 61 you will notice the Mastery section of your soul tree opening up.
Masteries from Level 61-65:
61 Dying Breath. Best healing value for oneshots.
62 Steadfast Soul. High chance to affect the Battlefield Medic heals when it really matters.
63 Runner's Training. Just some additional runspeed.
64 Ethereal Strikes. Best pick for hard hitting crits.
65 Power Variation. Emergency selfheal once a minute. Even in combat- or powerful aoe damage.
Level 66 will have you get one LEGENDARY POINT per level. Those are used to socket special framed abilities in your soul tree. Each soul has 5 legendary abilities.
Number of legendaries to select is determined by your level and also-
points spent into a soul:
0-14 points = max 1 leggy
15-43 points= max 2 leggies
44-61 points= max 3 leggies
With a 61 spec you can choose 3/5 on the main soul and 1 each on the offsouls.
Or 2 in a 61 soul, 2 in a 15 point of soul and 1 in the 0 point offsoul.
Legendary Distribution for a Leveling Warlord:
With each level giving a new legendary point to spend, when to unlock what has significant impact:
66 - L.A Quick Death now counts as a finisher and can be used at all times. This removes most of the restrictions bt WL.
In theory, AQD spam is all you need. You can quite literally alternate AQD and Piercing Thrust/ AQD and Wave of Steel now. This has you bank up combo points. Just like during the Battlefield Experience cooldown, Icy Bursts at 3 combo points is the norm now. Killing Field and Breaking Blow become obsolete and you may only use Breaking Blow for it's 30s debuff .
67 - L. Ready Posture. Damage can now procc Ready Posture at all times, which allows you to use A Quick Death with astronomical bonus damage, making it your strongest attack when proced. Karuul alert becomes very important here to not waste time. (blue alert)
Use Battlefield Experience with Decisive Strike as we know it and alternate AQD with PT outside of BE.
But now, you interrupt everything for an AQD bomb, whenever Ready Posture proced. The Karuul alerts from above already cover Ready Posture.
68 - L. Icy Burst (PNLY WHEN USING 1HANDED WEAPONS - otherwise 41Watlord everything is a weapon)The auto attack procs of L.Icy Burst can proc Ready Posture. Try to use two 1h weapons for more swings which can easily double your RP procrates! You may now get up to 3 Ready posture Procs in 6 seconds.
-> You can switch up your build for a couple levels if you want. Goal here is to combine the ranged- auto attacks from Reaver (Better Tempest) and L. Icy Burst to proc Ready Posture from range already and have an AQD oneshot bomb in the pipe as first(and last) attack when you enter melee range. Simply remove Turn the Blade (and it's dmg penalty)and Rising Waterfall from your macros and you are g2g.
You get 1.5s gcd but ranged auto attacks with this. Ranged autos+L Icy Burst = Way more empowered AQD
https://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#2hk ... iGg/6|XsPM
-> Consider some pvp while on lvl 68-69. You will get extreme stat bolstering for 70pvp.
69 - Everything is a Weapon. Flat high damage for 2 builder attacks after a finisher. This also lets Icy Burst affect any non-finisher attacks, basically doubling the damage of everything but AQD and Icy Burst.
A buffed Wave of Steel now does more damage in one swing than a 3 point Killing Field over 6 seconds.
(Go L. Icy Burst now when you went eiaw before)
70 - L. Swift Strike? Doesn't matter really.
Warlord is a great tool while doing 70 quests and gearing up. But at last when you obtain your 1 handed Eternal weapon (first turquoise stage), it's time to look at Rift Blade.
Note that this all is a solo approach with the goal to be as simple as possible.
When you hit level 70, here is your next halt:
https://www.cadrift.net/gameplay/charac ... l-70-gear/
If things are too convoluted, unclear or anything feeling off please do just toss in a response here i am happily going over it.
. I've also talked my daughter into downloading the game so looking forward to playing RIFT with her.
Again, thank you .... and having a site like this, plus CADRIFT, may help to keep the game going.