How I hit 50 (And what I've been up to since then!)

The night the 1.3 updated dropped for Rift I managed to ding max level, 50. Interestingly enough I did it while trying out the new open world PvP quests. That night the quests directed everyone to Stillmoor for some random objectives along with a requirement to kill 25 Defiant players. While I recorded much more of this fight, it is available on my Youtube channel, I took this small snippet because I managed to reach max level after about one hour of fighting.






Good times that, the music coming through the background is from my Grooveshark stream, at the time I had no idea Rifts built in video recorder would also include it. Got my first copyright violation from Youtube over it ;)

After I leveled you can see my happy happy joy joy reaction with my guild mates over it. Even though I was not able to get to 50 before 1.3 I am still happy because I got to ding while being one of the first to enjoy the new open world PvP.

Since then I have done A LOT of rifts, Daily Raid Rifts, Daily Expert Rifts, Crafting Rifts and just running around closing Rifts. I know I should be grinding out Teir 2 gear so I can get raid ready but I am just having to much darn fun ^_^

I think once I max my reputation with the last two orders I will buckle down and just concentrate on grinding out some good Tier 2 gear. My guild, Virus is going to want to start raiding soon I can feel it. We've managed to pick up quite a few level 50's the last few days, some of whom are already geared out after running Tier 2 dungeons for awhile.

On the menu for tonight? The Daily Raid Rift is a water one in IPP so I am hoping I can convince my guildmates to take a small break from dungeon grinding and come with me :)

End Game - Where the real playing starts.

What a blur of a couple weeks it has been! I managed to hit 50 of course, though I did it the night 1.3 dropped. Just could not get it done before hand. Speaking of 1.3 the world event has been a blast so far. Lot's of new daily quests to do, at this point Phase 2 is going on and the second set of dailies are in full swing. Judging from the length of time between Phase 1 and Phase 2 the next Phase (3) should be here any day now.

Now, end game... What a complete change in tempo once you hit 50! I went from mindlessly grinding quests alone to constantly bouncing from one group activity to another with my Guild Mates. Between doing the daily Expert Rift or running down defiant with the new PvP dailies it's been none stop group fun. I have even managed to get my gear to a point where I can get into T2 dungeons. I can't tank them yet though, only run DPS as a MM/Ranger or Support as a Bard. But I must say I like how Trion did the dungeons.

Each dungeon is available in "normal" mode while you are leveling up, and each one has a set level range you can play in. Once you hit 50 and can enter Tier 1 or Tier 2 dungeons you are basically repeating the first ones, however they are extended with more boss encounters, in some cases extending the story lines as well.

There are only two things I have not had a chance to do yet, Raid Rifts and Raid Instances. Both require a few more geared out level 50's than my guild can field right now and getting into a PUG for either one can be very hard.

I have a video of me hitting level 50 however I have not had a chance to upload it to Youtube yet, once I do though you can expect to see it here :) Until then enjoy this nice image of Sanctum castle post 1.3

Sanctum Castle after 1.3 changes

Invading the Enemy

It finally happened, I went on a mad killing spree in Stonewood the other night. Many Defiant lost their lives (or at the very least had to respawn). My favored tactic was to come up from behind and send my Wolf at them while I flung arrows from a safe distance. The astute reader would know of course that I was in the low level Defiant zone killing "lowbies" a most dishonorable act.

The PvP die hards know though, you roll on a PvP server and this is what you need to expect. Some wild crazy higher level player just running up and stomping on you from out of nowhere. Well, this weekend, that wild player was me!

The festivities of that night culminated when a massive invasion started in Stonewood. I sat quietly and waited while the Defiant players fought back invasion forces and closed Rifts, then once the boss appeared I decided it was time to reveal myself. Of course being the ONLY Guardian there I focused on attacking the boss instead of trying to get any more kills. I figured even if I was double their level they would dominate me through sheer numbers at that point. I even managed to capture the boss fight ^_^







While I did participate in the fight I was not awarded an achievment for beating him :( Oh well, I still enjoyed myself and managed to get away without getting mobbed by the horde.


Another interesting video I took over the weekend was during an invasion in Moonshade, once the boss spawned everyone raced to him and began taking him down. The best part was a rather large army of Defiant players came as well, you can see everyone kind of popping shots at one another through out the fight. And look for the moment when I realized I could use my AoE skills and damage the Defiant tanks as well. Afterwards of course a rather fun fight broke out between both factions, good times all around I'd say!






End of Weekend Level - 42

Ding! Level 40!

As anticipated I managed to hit level 40 last night! YAY ME! Of course the first point of order was to purchase a new (faster) mount. I opted to purchase one using the Favor I accumulated playing PVP, 13k Favor vs 35 platinum. My choice was limited to one "style" however I cared more about moving faster than I did about looking pretty.  One of the draws to an MMO is earning new gear and I must say I grabbed that carrot pretty hard last night.

After purchasing my new mount I made an expedition trip into lands held pretty tightly by the defiant. While I did gank some poor lower level player (mid 20's) for the most part I just rode by people opting not to fight and just enjoy the thrill of being in enemy lands. I managed to make it just inside of Freemarch before I had my first rude awakening. NPC Guards inside Freemarch auto crit for over 5,000 damage. Up until that point I rode past them without incident, however once inside Freemarch that all changed. The first one I rode by one shot me and that was that.

I am planning another foray into Defiant lands tonight, this time I believe I will record some parts of it. There will also be more blood split of course ^_^  Last night was about how far I could get, tonight will be a full on one man invasion! While part of me feels slightly bad for the lower level's that I will walk on, the other part is giddy with the anticipation of open world PvP at it's purest. I will just have to remind myself that THEY picked a PvP server for a reason. And while I have no doubt that some of them will start to call for reinforcements my tactic's will be from Sun Tzu himself. I will attack without warning and from an unexpected direction. Quickly with drawl and attack another location at random.


Actively invading the Defiant controlled lands will probably set me back a day in my goal to hit 40 before the 1.3 patch lands on the 22nd however I am confident that I will still have plenty of time to make that goal while having a little fun on the side.

To those Defiants who will die tonight, I salute you!

Trip to Meridian Postponed

In my last entry I was thinking about going to the Defiant capitol of Meridian. Mostly for the fun of it of course, not looking to "grief" any low level players. Unfortunately I found out some rather disheartening facts, even though it would be in the Defiant starter zones I would still get flagged for PvP and the NPC guards would automatically attack me. Considering I am only level 32 at the moment I figured I should probably postpone my little trip until I get to a higher level and have a chance at surviving. :)

In the mean time I have been playing a lot more PvP while trying to finish up quests in Silverwood. I know the XP gain in Silverwood is little for me now, most of the mobs are grey to me, but it lets me enter and exit PvP with little chance for zoning back on top of some beasty with my pet dead and me not long behind them. I also believe there is an achievement for finishing all the quests in Silverwood so there is that to look forward to.

As for PvP I have finally decided that Ranger is probably the most fun, and rewarding, soul setup available to Rogues. Others might argue that Assassin's would be, but there is something extremeley satisfiying about KIT'ing a real person, unlike simply sneaking up behind them and bursting them down. Playing as a Ranger also affords me the chance to send my pet after someone while running away ^_^ Nothing worse than having some random razorbeast attacking you from behind is there?

Trion recently added an incentive to use the random dungeon finder, a chest at the end of the dungeon that awards you an item for your class. I must say this has reinvigorated my interest in the instanced dungeons. Even though I normally only do one dungeon a night I find myself looking forward to them more often.

I have taken some more videos of encounters with boss level monsters however I have not had a chance to upload them to Youtube yet. Hopefully my next post will be filled with some great videos of Telara.

End of day level - 32

Onward and Upward!

After a marthon 5 hour session last night I finally managed to make it out of the GloamWood area and into Scarlet Gorge. And may I say the Gorge area just looks fantastic! While I spent only enough time there to find the Porticulum so I did not have to walk/ride back what I have scene of it so far impressed me.

During my time in GloamWood though a very cool thing happened, as I was doing my quests a couple of random players came up behind me and invited me to their party. Turns out they were doing the exact same quest line I was so we were able to stay together for the better part of 3 hours. After pushing our way through many quests and an Invasion though they needed to go just as we accepted what would turn out to be the last leg of quests in Gloamwood. Devastated I tried to continue on by myself knowing that the area ahead would be very tricky to do alone.

Just then I noticed two OTHER players ahead of me, as luck would have it they were questing along the same set of quests I was, only one set behind! After getting invited to the party I helped them through those and then went with them while they back tracked to pickup the quests I was on. After a few more battles and some cool banter with the NPC's we had killed the Old Hag and made it out of Gloam Wood!!!

At this point my self and my new companions were tired and decided to call it a night. I rode ahead to Scarlet Gorge picked up the Porticulum point and zoned back to Sanctum to sell off / auction off nearly 4 hours worth of loot.

While it may sound like I had a grand time last night, it was smeared a bit with the foul stench of "griefing". Before joining up with anyone I was questing alone in Gloam Wood, a contested area and PvP enabled. (I play on Briarcliff a PvP server) I wont name drop the individual but there was a level 50 Defiant Rogue camping out side the main city in Gloam Wood stalking low level players. While I understand that rolling on a PvP server comes with things like this I never expected to get ganked two times in a row by someone "lowbie hunting". It was all in good fun though and eventually he did die to a couple level 50 Guardians who came to our rescue!

On a side note, I really do need to remember to record more videos and snap more pictures. Blog posts without any media are a little... boring :(

Rift Raid Event, Planar Boss and more PvP Noobishness [Weekend Roundup]

Yesterday saw many firsts for me in the world of Telara,  my first large scale raid event, the first "Boss" fight, my first attempts at using the in game video recorder and the in game Facebook screen shot publisher. I learned more about PvP, including the fact that there are "PvP" souls you can get that give you specific bonuses for fighting other players.

On the low end of the scale, publishing screenshots to Facebook through imageshack seems fairly flawless. After allowing the Riftconnect application the appropriate rights I snapped a few scenic shots during my session and they were instantly added to my Facebook stream. Here are a couple of the better ones;

A nice shot of a Death Rift opening

Me relaxing in Sanctum while the war rages on

Nothing to spectacular just a couple things I thought looked nice enough to snap shot and share ^_^

While wondering around looking for photo-ops I stumbled across something I never experienced in a MMO (mostly because I would lose interest in other MMO's after an hour or so) a large scale raid event was happening right under my feet. You see, I had the map zoomed in to far and did not notice the swath of reddish orange swirls indicating a massive assault on the land. However once I did, I mounted my trusty steed and galloped as fast as I could to the closest Rift Tear and instantly joined the group.

It was a swirling of daggers and raw hide as we battled tear after tear but in the end we found ourselves very far from the starting point and in need to return quickly, for the commander was spawning.

All of us riding to the commanders spawn

I was in a bit of shock when we go there, so much so you can see me attacking the wrong thing completely. (Notice the words "Immune" scrolling up, yeah I admit it, I am a noob!) Afterwards we gathered up our lewt, smiled and said how much fun it was then returned to solo questing for levels.

It was around this time I realized my backpack and bags were getting full, so I headed to Argent Glade (one of the Guardians starter cities) to unload my spoils and start some new quests. After spending some time deciding on my 2nd "skill" (Apothecary, this way I can Forge for items then turn them into potions!) the next "big" thing occured.

For some strange reason everyone was rushing past me heading North, towards the higher level area. "What's going on?" I thought as I opened the map. There staring me in the face was my next big moment for the night, a boss had come to town!

Apparently this mytical fire creature "Mar'Kul" had finally had enough of sending his plebs against us, here he was walking into the city and trying to pick a fight. Well we were having none of it! As Lemmings we poured over him until the whole area resembled that scene from Gulliver's Travels.

Mar'Kul invades Argent Glade

After this mighty defeat I was feeling pumped so I decided to hit up some more PvP. It was around this time I had my next noob moment, Rift has PvP specific Souls! After buying the "Infiltrator" soul and spending a good 15 minutes trying to figure out how to equip it (You need to buy a 2nd role from your trainer!) I set about trying to beat the Defiant's in contests of strength. (Thankfully my side was fielding some good healers and we were able to win a few, through no fault of mine. I basically ran around like a spaz and tried to attack whatever was in front of me!)

All in all it was a great day in Telara.


End of day level ~ 18

Delving into PvP - The Tale of Noobishness

Day (Or Night?) two starts out relatively normally. I start by finishing up a couple quests and just generally work on continuing to level up my character while exploring the world and the interface. A couple Rift events started and finished. Then, my first "Death" rift event!

Finding that purple swirl on the map was an amazing feeling, through Facebook I had been told "Death" rift events were something special, something to look forward to! Hurriedly I mount my trusty Chocolate Horse and rush to the area. Join Public Group, YES! OMG the enemies are HUUUUGE! SMACK SMACK I die...

While the first Death Rift certainly made me giddy getting killed so quickly then not being able to get back in time certainly did end the occasion abruptly. I look forward to my next one, hopefully I will be able to stay alive long enough to actually be of some help.

After riding my horse to Sanctum I was pleasently surprised to find I could PvP starting at level 10! Eagerly I accepted the quests from the NPC's and clicked to join the Warfront. As a side note, now would probably be a great time to tell you my  character build. I am playing as a Human Male, Rogue with Assassin, BladeDancer and RiftStalker souls. this will make me bursty enough to kill someone while still having enough defense to get away.

Knowing how poorly I did during the Death rift it should come as no surprise that my first moments of PvP were filled with confusion and constant respawning. Apparently going into stealth mode in front of the enemy is a bad idea? Who knew! But considering my competitive nature I pressed on confident I would be able to figure this whole MMORPG PvP thing out!

While I eventually fumbled my way through enough Warfronts to get the gist of goals, strategies and most importantly not stealthin directly in front of your target. I feel I have a lot to learn before I get good enough to consider my self deadly.

End of the day level ~ 13