Rift Guide for WOW Players

The Two Playable Factions
The Guardians could be thought of as similar to Alliance. They are associated with the color blue and their main city is Sanctum.

The Defiant could be thought of as similar the Horde. They are associated with the color red and their main city is Meridian.

Much like WoW, neither faction is good or evil. Each has it's own story, motivations, points of view, and goals. All souls and callings are available to both factions.

Souls and Callings
A calling can be thought of as a template. They are broken down like this:


 * Warrior - Wears plate armor, can tank and DPS, but has limited healing abilities.
 * Rogue - Wears leather armor and are usually DPS or sometimes support.
 * Cleric - Wears chain (mail) armor and can heal, tank, or DPS.
 * Mage - Wears cloth armor and can heal or DPS.

Souls are similar to a Talent Tree. In WoW terms, imagine if you could take a Warlock's Affliction tree, add a Mage's Fire tree, add a Priest's Holy tree, and then use all skills & spells from all 3 at once! Each character can "equip" up to 3 souls and change them later. As you level up you will gain talent points that can be spent in any equipped soul's Soul Tree. Depending on how you spend your talent points, you will unlock spells and abilities. You receive 3 souls via quests in the starting zone, and the remaining souls are unlocked by one time quests. Each calling also has a PVP soul that is purchased with PVP currency (Favor).

A soul is associated with a single calling. This means if you have your heart set on playing a Riftstalker you must choose the Rogue calling. A character with a Warrior calling cannot use a Pyromancer soul, a character with a Cleric calling cannot use a Void Knight soul, and so on. A character's calling is set forever and cannot be changed, but souls can be changed.

In Rift a "spec" (eg: dual-spec) is called a Role. When you re-spec all of your souls for the current Role will be "unequipped" and all talent points will be refunded. Each character can purchase up to 4 Roles.

Similar to old WoW, Rift has spell ranks. As you level up, you must visit your Calling's trainer to learn new spells and new ranks of spells.

Initiation - first experience
In contrast to WOW, where the game starts pretty slow (kill wolves / chickens / deliver messages) in a safe and peaceful zone - the first experience in Rift is more similar to being dropped into a 40-men Alterac Valley session: a mass fight that is next to "the end of the world". Further to that you will have to make several important choices (such as your first soul) and be exposed to new concept quite intensively.

No worries - all choices are reversible after few hours of game play, and the massive fight is between friendly NPCs and non-aggroing mobs (yellow on selection).

In general, Azeroth is a peaceful place in compare to Telara - but this is part of the fun.

Professions
Each character can have up to 3 professions.

Gathering professions do not require an item such as a Pickaxe or Skinning Knife and you can track multiple types of nodes at the same time. Butchery is similar to Skinning however it also includes items such as bones that are used in Apothecary (Alchemy). Mining is essentially the same, however mobs do not aggro the "sound" of mining like they can in WoW. Foraging is similar to Herbalism but also includes wood.

Apothecary is similar to Alchemy, and Armorsmithing is used to create both plate and chain armors. Outfitting is used to created both leather and cloth armors so it is essentially Tailoring and Leatherworking rolled into one. Runecrafting is similar to Enchanting. Weaponsmithing can create both melee and ranged weapons, but not caster weapons. Artificing is used to create rings, necks, and caster related items (staves, totems, off-hands, etc).

You must max out your current skill level in order to train for the next level. There is no character level requirement to advance through profession ranks. Professions are dropped or unlearned from a trainer rather than through the UI. There are no profession bonuses (special gems for Jewelcrafters, cloak enchants for Tailors, etc). Similar to how you need an Anvil to create armor in WoW, you use a Workbench for professions such as Armorsmithing and Outfitting or a Laboratory if you are an Apothecary.

You can gather collections of Artifacts for experience points and other unique rewards such as mounts and non-combat pets.

Fishing, Cooking, Engineering, Jewelcrafting, First Aid, and Inscription do not have Rift equivalents.

PVP (Player vs Player)
Battlegrounds (BGs) are called Warfronts come in 10v10, 15v15 or 20v20. Rift does not have an equivalent to WoW's arena system. Rift also supports non-PVP flagged 1 on 1 duels.

Resilience is called Valor. The PVP currency is called Favor and there are not separate currencies for each tier of gear (Arena Points, Honor Points, Conquest Points).

Initiating combat with invading NPCs of the opposite faction does not flag you for PVP. An AoE heal cast by you that heals a player who is flagged for PVP will flag you for PVP. Attacking enemy NPCs (such as quest givers) will not flag you for PVP. Your faction's guards do not seem to "help" you as they do in WoW.

Raids and Dungeons
Starting at level 17 players have access to 5 player dungeons.

Once players reach max level (50) they can access what are called Expert Dungeons. These are similar to a Heroic Dungeon in WoW - same as a normal dungeon but harder. Expert Dungeons are divided into Tier 1 (Realm of the Fae, Iron Tomb, The Foul Cascade, King's Breach, and Fall of Lantern Hook) and Tier 2 (all others). Both tiers drop currency called Plaque of Achievement that can be used to purchase Tier 1 Dungeon and Tier 2 Dungeon equipment.

Raids are currently 20 players and 10 player raids may be added in the future. Raid bosses drop "glyphs" which are used together with Plaques of Achievement to purchase Raid Tier 1 equipment.

There is no LFG tool to automatically create groups and there are no Meeting Stones. When one player in a group enters a dungeon the other players will be given the opportunity to be teleported to the instance.

Addons (Add-ons)
Rift does not support add-ons. However, Rift does have many built-in features that veteran WoW players are used to such as flexible button bars (Bartender, Dominos), casting bars (Quartz), and QuestHelper.

In-game threat and DPS meters (Omen, Recount) will be added in the future.

There is no add-on to record the position of gathering nodes (Gatherer, GatherMate).

Third party log parsing programs such as Advanced Combat Tracker can be used to parse combat logs, similar to WoW Meter Online, WoW Web Statistics, and WoW Web Stats.

Rift also supports X,Y coordinates similar to WoW, but I'm not sure how to enable or view them.

If a person (tank) has aggro their player portrait displays a solid red border. If a person is high on threat but below the tank, their player portrait's border flashes red.

Servers
A Rift server is called a shard. They come in PVP, PVE, and RP (role play) versions of both.

All servers are physically located in Dallas, Texas.

The game does not currently support paid server transfers.

Account Security
When someone logs into an account from an abnormal IP address the account becomes Coin Locked and a six digit code is send to the e-mail address associated with your account. You enter this code in-game and the Coin Lock is instantly removed. While the character is Coin Locked it cannot do things such as sell items to vendors, send mail, use the auction house or delete characters. Note that Coin Lock can be activated often if a person uses services such as VPN tunnels, proxies and ping lowering services.

As with all MMOs, your password should be different than the ones you use on web sites (especially Rift related fan sites and your e-mail).

Both a physical token and smartphone app authenticator are planned for the future.

Transportation and Traveling
Rift does not support flying mounts and the fastest ground mounts move at 110% speed. Players can purchase a 40% mount at level 1 for about 2 platinum.

Instead of Flight Masters, Rift uses Porticulums. In order to be able to go to and from a porticulum, you must first speak with the Porticulum Master who stands near it (similar to talking to a Flight Master). By talking to a Porticulum Master you have the option to instantly travel to any other porticulum that you have already unlocked for a small fee (1-2 gold).

Porticulum Masters also offer the option to "Bind your soul...". This is the same as setting your Home Point in WoW. Most players bind their soul in their faction's capitol and then use the porticulum to travel from there.

Instead of a Hearthstone you receive the ability Soul Recall after you find your first porticulum (1 hour cooldown).

There are no Meeting Stones. Instead, when one player in a group enters an instance the other players will receive a popup message asking if they want to be transported to the instance.

Reputation and non-Playable Factions
Reputation is called Notoriety in Rift.

Rift's non-playable factions are similar to Knights of the Ebon Blade, Netherwing, Therazane, and so on. Notoriety is increased by completing quests, participating in events, and killing mobs in dungeons.

Also note that each type of rift has its own faction (one for earth, one for fire, one for life, etc).

Currencies
Rift uses platinum, gold, and silver instead of gold, silver, and copper.

Plaque of Achievement come from Expert Dungeons & raids and are used to purchase Dungeon Tier 1 and Tier 2 equipment. Think of these as Valor Points or Justice Points.

Raid bosses drop "glyphs" that are used together with Plaque of Achievements to purchase Raid Tier 1 equipment. Think of these as the class tokens dropped by WoW raid bosses, but without the class restriction.

Planar Currency are obtained by participating in rift events, invasions and destroying footholds. These are spent at Planar Goods Vendors to purchase weapons, armor, items, Planar Focuses, and so-on.

Artisan's Mark are obtained via daily quests for each profession (similar to WoW's Jewelcrafting daily). Generally, you have to create X number of items and then deliver them to the requested zone. Artisan's Marks are used to purchase recipes and items.

Lucky Coins are obtained by completing artifacts and can be used to purchase non-combat pets and vanity mounts.

Gear, Statistics, and Planar Focus
Statistics are pretty much what you would expect: Strength, Dexterity, and Attack Power for melee, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Spell Power for casters, and Endurance (Stamina), parry, dodge, and Toughness for tanks.

The stat called Toughness is a tank stat used to reduce critical hit damage from enemies. Unlike old WoW, there is no need for a tank to become "uncritable".

Hit Rating is used for melee and ranged weapons, while Focus is the hit statistic used for offensive casters. The exact numbers to reach hit cap, and if it's important or not, are currently unknown.

Some souls are a mix of magic and melee, so some statistics are automatically converted as appropriate. For example a Shaman soul is melee DPS and comes with the talent Faith in Action that converts spell power to attack power. This means hybrid classes do not have to carry as much separate equipment or roll on more items.

Death and Resurrection
When a player dies they are given the option to Soul Walk. This can be thought of as an automatic Soul Stone with a 1 hour cooldown. If a player chooses this option they have 15 seconds to move out of harm's way before being rez'ed.

Rift uses a statistic called Soul Vitality. Each time a player dies, returns to the graveyard, and runs back to their body, Soul Vitality is reduced by 10%. Instead of running back to their body, they can choose to rez at the graveyard for the cost of 25% Soul Vitality. Once Soul Vitality reaches 0% the player receives a debuff that reduces all stats by 50% for 4 minutes (similar to WoW's Weakened debuff).

Soul Vitality may be restored by paying gold to a Healer.

Questing and Leveling
Imagine post-Cata WoW with QuestHelper. Quests are usually in hubs and and breadcrumbs take you from hub to hub, zone to zone.

One thing to note is that some quests can have multiple objectives that are not listed when you accept the quest. For example, a quest tells you to talk to a NPC a short distance away. When you talk to the NPC, you do not complete the quest, but a 2nd objective appears. Once you complete the 2nd objective, a 3rd may appear, and so-on until you actually complete the quest and receive your reward.

At some points in the game you will be underleveled if you only do quests (eg: a level 30 character being given quests to kill level 34 monsters). Be sure to participate in rifts, invasions, PVP, and dungeons to stay with the curve.

Some quests may automatically appear in your log once you come within a certain radius of a NPC, or during an invasion.

Rifts, Zone Invasions, and Footholds
If you are near a rift, invasion or foothold and other players are near, the "Join Public Group" button will appear at the top of your screen. This is used to quickly and automatically created groups and raids to fight invaders.

Rifts spawn a group of monsters under the rift. Once you kill all of the monsters, you move on the to next stage where another group of monsters or a boss type monster appears. Once all stages are complete, the rift closes and you get bonus experience points and rewards. The location, spawn time, number of stages, and difficulty of rifts varies. Major rifts tend to be harder than minor rifts. In general you will want to team up with other players due to mobs linking and the sheer difficulty of the mobs (a rift mob's level can be deceiving, and Rift has Elite mobs too).

Zone Invasions are triggered when an appropriate number of people are in a zone (and other, unknown conditions). A zone-wide message will appear and about 5 minutes later the invasion will begin. Many major rifts and invasions will spawn. Zone Invasions have an objective, usually something like "close 10 rifts". Actions (such as closing a rift) by any player in the zone will count towards the objective. Once the objectives are complete a mega-boss will spawn. Once the boss is defeated the event ends.

Groups of monsters will create Footholds, sometimes right on top of quest hubs. In order to defeat it, you must kill all of the monsters as well as the wardstone. If you do not kill the wardstone, or allow a Foothold to go untouched for too long, it will spawn more monsters that will attempt to create more Footholds in other areas of the map. Note that groups of NPCs from the opposing faction will also create Footholds and killing these mobs will not flag you for PVP.

The rewards gained from rifts and zone invasions are proportionate to how much your participate. If you join the group and do nothing, you get nothing - do a lot, you get a lot.