Build a Better Warrior in Rift

June 8, 2013

I've been playing Rift a lot lately, and the more I play, the better I understand the ins and outs of being a Warrior. This post has a few of my thoughts on the subject of tuning warrior builds. The class is really versatile, but focuses heavily on two aspects - tanking and dealing damage. That much is obvious. What is less obvious is that there are several ways to do each of these. My personal preference is for dealing respectable amounts of damage to multiple enemies while being able to take a lot of punishment before going down. My favorite ability for staying in the fight is No Permission to Die. It's in the fifth tier of the Warlord soul, and it can be a godsend. If you die within ten seconds of triggering it, you are resurrected at 50% of your maximum health. Properly timed, it can really save your bacon. Also, it's not on global cooldown, so it's really hard to NOT time it right if you have a good sense of your combat situation. My next favorite ability is Cornered Beast, which is the 32 point unlock for the Champion soul. It hits up to 6 enemies for a ton of damage over time AND generates Attack Points over time, making it a powerful threat-building ability. Awesome for tanks, and for area effect damage. Along with Warlord and Champion, picking the Reaver soul allows for a ridiculous amount of survivability. It has a number of abilities that boost armor, endurance, and resistances. A balanced mix of the three souls, like the build linked here (Champion (32) / Warlord (23) / Reaver (21)), will give you a decent AoE tanking playstyle. You won't win any DPS races, but it will keep you in the fight for a good long time.