If you’re new to RIFT or your guild is just getting ready to make a push into Hammerknell, then you might be wondering what might be the best strategy for you and your guild to execute. Hammerknell is a very large raid zone that has gone through many iterations and tweaks since it went live many months ago, so there can be a lot of mixed information out there. One common question we see quite often is, “What order should we tackle the bosses?” It’s a great question and may vary depending on your guild’s strengths. Let’s take a look at each of Hammerknell’s wings and see what might be the best path for you and your guild.

Welcome back to the Ember Isle. Part 1 of this quest guide can be found here. For your convenience, I have added map coordinates for many key locations in this installment. Let’s begin right where Part 1 left off– heading toward Forlorn Fen.

Friends, Telarans, Rogues: You’re going to get us nerfed. More.

Some readers have already figured out that  I’m talking about Fan Out. Don’t get me wrong, Fan Out is great. It’s very useful is PvE (with some very specific exceptions). But, judging by the Rogues I see in warfronts, most of you using it in PvP are using it wrong.

One doesn’t need to spend much time in the official forums to see why VM just got tuned down. The change from 100% proc to a percentage chance based on the number of targets was actually fairly minimal. The odds are it’s still going to proc on most of our shots, just not on everyone you’re spamming.

Ember Isle is a pretty amazing place to quest. The island’s got it all– dailies, story quests, reputation to grind, resources to gather, and plenty of zone events, rifts, and invasions to distract you along the way. To help you out, here’s an introductory guide to the Guardian-side quests (see, it isn’t just about you, Defiants!), and a suggested walkthrough. You don’t have to follow my suggestions, of course. Half the fun in exploring new content is blazing your own trail through it. Speaking of blazing, let’s get started.

Overall, rogues are still in a decent spot. As far as competitive dps, that remains to be seen, and we’ll find out over the next couple weeks how the Mage changes pan out, as well as some changes to our previous top-dps build, 51 Marksman. We recently had a hotfixed change to add deflect to Rogue tanks, which helps close the gap a bit as far as physical mitigation is concerned. There will still need to be some evaluation however concerning the viability of Riftstalker across all fight types, and our melee dps may be falling by the wayside without some more tweaks.

The leader of the Defiants, Orphiel Farwind is one of the most enigmatic public figures in current Telaran Lore. For someone in such a prominent position he is rarely seen or heard from, avoiding leadership in favour of sitting in his observatory in Meridian watching the movement of the planes. In fact during the Defiant starting zone, twenty years in the future he is not even present at all having disappeared mysteriously many years ago. So who is this man, where did he come from and what does the future possibly hold for him?

Has anyone been involved in any of the new Ember Isles zone events? Holy cow! Last night I jumped into a large event and the last boss had 58 Million hps. I think Trion needs to rethink their scaling formula. They are currently funneling all of their end game player onto Ember Isles and they seeming taking in the population of the whole zone when scaling the event.

Unfortunately 58,000,000 hit points takes quite a long time to whittle down. In the case of these event bosses, the fights are incredibly dull as they are just tank and spank. Though I have to admit, the one area with the healing spells that spew forth green glowing healing balls is a great way to keep people alive in the disorganized zone events.

I think Trion needs to come up with different mechanics or goals for players other than pummeling a large NPC model for twenty minutes while standing still. I think we need some kind of assault event where we charge the volcano in the middle and the majority of the time is taking down defenses and getting to the last boss, rather than Close X Rifts, Kill Y Invasions, Kill Big Bad Guy #1.

Hopefully they clear up the lag soon as well!

One of the best things, if not the best thing RIFT has going for it, is its immense soul system. Most of us, myself included, were pretty damn amazed when we heard about the system and how much we could actually experiment with it. It allows freedom like no other MMORPG, especially when you consider the fact that we’re given five roles to play around with.

This immense freedom, of course, comes with challenges. We knew this from the start. Trion knew this from the start. The biggest challenge is that giant beast hulking in the room before, during, and after every single RIFT patch– the beast known as balance. Balance is a beast to control because of the huge variety of souls and class roles that can be placed together, but also because of the different angles balance has to come from. Dozens of questions pop up every time we consider balance, because balance in itself is an extremely broad term.

With the release of “Ashes of History” we have been introduced to Telara’s newest threat, the Wanton Maw, an alliance formed by the union of the Golden Maw and the Wanton. Today we will have a look at the main players behind this alliance and speculate about their possible goals and motivations.

For those new to the lore, the Golden Maw is the cult associated with the dragon Laethys. It is a cult based on greed, its members lust for wealth and power at any cost. This includes making regular sacrifices to their fickle, golden goddess in an attempt to win her favor. They are a highly structured organisation of the wealthy and influential.

Just in case you aren’t able to catch enough pre-Thanksgiving holiday cheer from your local department store, RIFT’s here to help. The next world event to hit Telara is hot on the PTS this week– the Fae Yule world event. The event comes complete with an old boggling in a hat named Grandfather Frost, tentacle Christmas trees, blinking lights, a goofy outfit to acquire, and you guessed it– another currency to collect and more rifts to close.

The first thing I’ll say about Fae Yule is that it’s obviously a holiday event, meant to happen every year around Christmastime. This is the first holiday event RIFT has done, and it’s nice to see one in the makings. In-game holidays are a fun way to add some festive cheer to an MMO’s community, and give players something to look forward to as the years progress. Holiday quests can be pretty amusing the first year they’re around, if done well, and it’s always interesting to see what developers come up with as far as explaining the lore behind the holidays.