Carl and Rob's Guide to Rift Classes
The Rift Game's Hero Callings and Souls
New Dungeon Guides Project While we haven't completed the Soul Guides yet, we crave some variety in our work. We want to cover every expert dungeon and provide cheat sheets for the bosses. One page with quick facts to help you through the fight. Here's our first effort:
Abyssal Precipice Boss Fight Guide
Darkening Deeps Boss Fight Guide
Latest Soul Articles
We're currently producing soul pages to fill up the guide in several stages. Here are our first articles:
Champion Soul
Bladedancer Soul
Marksman Soul
Pyromancer Soul
Necromancer Soul
Assassin Soul
Bard Soul
Chloromancer Soul
Four Callings
Rift features four Character Classes, or Callings. These are the traditional fantasy fare – Warrior, Rogue, Mage, and Cleric. Rift features something they like to call the "Ascended Class System" which enables players to pick three from a pool of eight souls. These three and the points distributed through them are the player's class. Naturally, this enables deep customization which surpasses that of other MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, because the selection is so much more broad.
Roles
Players may buy up to four roles. This allows you to take your healer and change him into a tank within a couple of seconds. As you level, more total points will be available for you to invest into your character, so all three of your roles can get stronger at once. While this isn't necessary early in a player's career, it is definitely helpful for higher level players.
One common use of roles is to have one for PVE and one for PVP. In PVP, you will make much better use of movement impairing, silencing, and damage mitigation abilities. In PVE you need more damage to fel monsters quickly and will want some utilities and buffs to help you along the way. You may want a third role for your typical job when you're in an instanced dungeon or raid. Roles allow you to avoid constantly resetting your talent trees, and make customization more readily accessible.
Level Cap and Talent Points
Each role for your ascended will gain talent points each time you level up. The game's level cap is 50, and you'll earn 66 points along the way. It takes 51 points to max out a soul tree and earn its highest ability. That is rarely necessary, however. Most players will want a better mix of abilities from combining multiple souls. In investing 51 points you are also getting some talents that you could care less about, and don't really help your character to fill out that role. Early in other soul trees you'll find boosts to armor, damage, etc. Those can further augment your primary soul's abilities.
Rift Warrior Classes
Warriors are about as you'd expect in Rift. The class uses heavy plate armor, can wield any melee weapon type, and use a bow or gun for pulling targets to them. Their star role is that of Tank, because they get the most options and do not need talents to have high armor. That is not to say they lack in damage, they just aren't as good at dishing it as Rogues or Mages. This is made up for in durability. Those beefy life points and high armor values are terrifying when the Warrior is bearing down on you with a massive two-handed sword.
| Beastmaster | Champion | Paladin | Paragon |
| Reaver | Riftblade | Void Knight | Warlord |
Rift Rogue Classes
Rogues are the primary damage dealers in rift, being able to deliver on this party responsibility in both ranged and melee combat. They have arguably the best and easiest support role to play in Rift with the Bard soul. They provide excellent raid heals and can deal a little damage while boosting the offense/defense of their entire raid. Surprisingly enough, Rogues can tank very well with the Riftstalker soul.
| Assassin | Bard | Bladedancer | Marksman |
| Nightblade | Ranger | Riftstalker | Saboteur |
Rift Mage Classes
The Rift mage gets to choose from eight spellcasting schools. Some combinations have obvious strengths, but strange combinations may yield great results. They work with traditional mana and a charge system. This lets them unleash devastating attacks and use special recovery and utility powers once they have built up some energy from combat. A full chloromancer build can function as a healer.
| Archon | Chloromancer | Dominator | Elementalist |
| Necromancer | Pyromancer | Stormcaller | Warlock |
Rift Cleric Classes
Clerics are the jack of all trades Calling in Rift, being able to fill any role respectably. Naturally, they have the best healing souls in the game. They get the option to go melee or ranged casting to DPS, and do both rather well. A lot of damage can be brought down in one blow from a staff in the right hands. They can also tank with the Justicar, wielding a caster melee weapon and special cleric shields. Melee Clerics get faith in action, which will increase their attack power, hit rating, and crit rating based on their spellcaster stat equivalents.
| Cabalist | Druid | Inquisitor | Justicar |
| Purifier | Sentinel | Shaman | Warden |
