Contents:

1. Solo Play Builds
2. Group Play Builds
3. Leveling & DPS Builds

Solo Play Builds

First lets look at Rift Warrior Builds for Solo game play and then group. As you may have guessed the Warrior class is one that will be used for either tanking or DPS and is not a viable healing class.

From the eight available warrior souls there are 3 tanking souls, 4 DPS, and another soul that would be considered a tank soul but is also used to sort of buff other players in a party instead of focusing mainly on tanking. Of the three tanking souls we have Paladin, Reaver, and Void Knight, all with different abilities used for tanking. As for DPS we have Beastmaster (which allows for you to have a pet) Paragon, Riftblade, and Champion. The tank/buff soul I referred to earlier is called the Warlord soul.

In rift you’re able to purchase up to 4 different roles, so it’s easy to have multiple Rift Warrior builds for multiple types of gameplay. If you’re going to be doing a lot of solo tasks like questing you’re going to want to select the souls Reaver, Beastmaster, and Riftblade. All of these focus on two-handed weapon abilities. The reason Reaver is so important for soloing is because it has several self-heal abilities. One of these being a talent that will heal you every time you kill a mob, which makes it great for kill quests.

You also may want to consider using the Paladin soul in combination with Reaver if you want to try doing a lot of AOE leveling as you would have a lot of healing as well as AOE damage. In any case, for soloing you will want to put as many points into Reaver as you can, but if you choose Beastmaster and Champion as your off-souls they have some fantastic first tier abilities you can put to use whenever you have points that you can’t spend in your main soul. Also there are 0pt abilities such as the ability to have a pet with Beastmaster and the Charge ability with Champion that make this such a great combination early on.

Group Play Builds

Now let’s look at Rift Warrior Builds guide for group or team play. As for playing in groups as damage you’re going to want to use the souls: Riftblade, Champion, and Beastmaster. You will want to make a choice between Beastmaster and Champion as for which soul you want to put the most of your points into, Champion offers great single target damage as well as good AOE for trash pulls, whereas Beastmaster offers some nice group buffs.

One thing to keep in mind as a warrior is that you should always have at least one of your roles using the Paladin soul, there is always going to be a time where you’re the only one alive and you need to use that resurrection spell and as long as you’re able to switch over to a role with Paladin it won’t be a problem.

Now for tanking in groups you’re going to want to use Reaver and Paladin and it doesn’t matter which soul you put your points into, both of them are going to be fine and it all matters on how you want to play your character. As for your third soul you’ll want to choose between Warlord for the 0pt debuffs, and Riftblade for the increased damage. I think this covers different kinds of Rift Warrior Builds for all the scenario.

Leveling & DPS Builds

After experimenting with all the builds, I have found that without a doubt you will want to go with either Paragon or Riftblade as your primary soul. I recommend you read Rift Warrior leveling guide for a more comprehensive list of builds and info on this calling.

Paragon

In particular, I think that Paragon is the best soul for leveling up. They deal excellent damage and have a variety of powerful ranged attacks.

Personally, I have always been a fan of big two-handed weapons, but the truth is once I switched over from Champion to Paragon, my damage increased exponentially.

Not only that, but my character was a lot more durable (due to the extra Parry) and had significantly improved ranged abilities.

The Paragon itself excels though in melee damage, and none of the other souls do nearly as much damage as the Paragon when it is meleeing.

For support souls, you want to get Champion and Riftblade. Just by having Riftblade equipped as one of your souls, you get access to the Air Blade ability, which is a passive buff that significantly improves your damage.

Additionally, with Champion you get access to Raging Bull, which makes getting from monster to monster a lot easier. Slayer’s Bearing is a passive buff that increases damage by 5% and only requires 4 points in the Champion tree.

As a result of these passive buffs which are easy to get, you can significantly improve your Paragon’s damage with little investment. Both of these buffs are well worth it.

As you level up further, I recommend climbing the Paragon tree as much as you can and putting any leftover points in Riftblade. The passive abilities Elemental Touch and Elemental Blade massively increase your damage, so they are well worth getting.

Riftblade

Riftblade is a very unusual class that involves using casted abilities to deal primarily elemental damage. This class actually does a surprising amount of damage without any caster-oriented gear.

While you do not deal quite as much damage as a normal caster, the damage is very comparable. Additionally, you have a lot more HP and can wear plate, making this class very durable. Furthermore, you do not have to use mana, which means you can cast basically forever. You have an instant ranged snare and this class can actually kite melee monsters very easily.

While this class does not deal as much damage as a Paragon, it can deal a lot of damage from range. This has one particular benefit: Rifts and PvP. If you are dealing melee damage, you are much more susceptible to getting attacked when dealing with Rifts, Invasions, or in group PvP.

The Riftblade can sit back and safely pick off monsters with the casters. It can also snare and kite elite monsters, making it very powerful for Rift encounters.

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My recommendation is that for typical players, go for the Paragon build with Riftblade and Champion as your sub-souls. However, if you primarily want to participate in invasion and rift events, try out Riftblade for a safe and effective leveling build that will allow you to participate in rifts.

Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Solo Play Builds
3. Group Play Builds
4. Leveling Builds
5. DPS Builds
6. Healing Builds
7. Other Builds

Introduction

In Rift you will be selecting three souls which will be the basis for all of your character’s abilities, generally you will have one main soul and two other souls which will mainly be used for the starter abilities they give. In this guide I will be discussing the Mage souls, what they do, and which ones I suggest that you should use.

Mage is definitely a DPS based class, but you do have the option of getting some healing in there as well with the Chloromancer soul, which can be used to effectively heal lower level instances. Another cool thing about the mage is that it has two different souls that have pets, the Elementalist and the Necromancer. The souls that are going to dish out the most mage-based damage are the Pyromancer, Warlock, and Stormcaller. There is also a crowd control based soul which is the Dominator, and the Archon is the buff/debuff soul.

As with any other class you’ll want to decide before you pick your souls whether or not you’ll be doing a lot of solo gameplay or grouping. These can be changed later on of course or even whenever you decide to switch it up as you’re able to purchase up to four roles which allow you to use different souls in each.

Solo Play Builds

With soloing you’ll want to go with Necromancer as your main soul, the Skeletal Horror makes for a great tanking pet and you’re also able to heal it which makes this a really fast and easy way to level.

As for your off-souls you’ll want to pick up Chloromancer which has a debuff that gives you a chance to heal on hit right away, as well as a 2 second cast heal later on which can be specced for instant cast.

The best option for your third soul with this combination is Dominator which you can use to CC targets for situations where you pull too many or are trying to get out of a tough spot without dying.

It should be noted that every mage should have a role with Chloromancer for the resurrection in case you’re the only one able to Soul Walk and then you’ll be able to resurrect dead group members.

Group Play Builds

Now for the grouping Rift Mage builds, there two routes you can go with here at a lower level. First of all is obviously the DPS, they are all highly effective for doing damage in groups excluding chloromancer of course, however, the top would be using Pyromancer as your main soul with Warlock and Necromancer as your off-souls. The 0pt ability to get a pet with Necromancer is a great help to your damage as your pet is always there constantly doing it’s own thing.

The other way you could go with a mage is healing as mentioned earlier, for this you will need to use chloromancer as your main soul. It’s takes a bit of research and getting used to to be an effective Chloromancer healer, you’ll want to keep Radiant Spores up on preferably the tank’s target as it gives them a chance to heal on hit. Bloom is the main healing spell you’ll be using, when spec’d it is instant cast and heals for quite a generous amount, but does have a few second cooldown, but it hardly uses any mana which is very nice. You also have an AoE heal which hogs up a lot of mana and shouldn’t be used if only one or two people are getting low unless everything else is on cooldown.

Leveling Builds

Out of all the Mage builds available in Rift Planes of Telara, I think the most effective Rift Mage leveling build is the Necromancer / Warlock / Dominator combo. I discussed this at length in the Rift Mage leveling guide, so you should check out that article and the guide for more information on that soul combination.

However, if you do not want to use that build, I also consider the Elementalist (main), Chloromancer or Warlock (second soul), and Dominator (third soul) to be a good combo as well.

Basically your Elementalist spec will give you a solid pet and a lot of spell damage. However, how you work your second soul is up to you.

Chloromancer would give you a lot of self-healing power without much extra damage whereas Warlock would give you some self-heals but also increase your damage significantly. If you feel like you are dying a lot, consider Chloromancer. If you are doing great but want more damage go with Warlock.

Your third soul as a Mage should almost always be Dominator. Transmogrify and Neural Prod are powerful spells which require no skill points investment; it only is natural to pick these abilities up by choosing Dominator as your third soul.

DPS Builds

If you want to max out your damage (and have a lot of burst damage), you will want to spec Pyromancer and Elementalist. You will want to put at least 32 points in each tree, maxing out these key talents:

Pyromancer: Ignition, Improved Fireball, Fiery Concentration, Combust, Flicker, Improved Flame Bolt, Burning Bright, Fire Storm, Wildfire, Pyromancer’s Armor, Backdraft, Improved Ground of Power, and Heat Wave.

Elementalist: Biting Cold, Ice Shield, Exposure, Improved Exposure, Tempest, Force of Nature, Greater Elemental Affinity, Fiery Assault, Synergize, Intensify Elements.

Theoretically, you could get Archon as a third soul and add 5 points into Soul Fire, but if the game allows it, I think grabbing both Elementalist and Pyromancer 31 point talents is ideal.

What you get with this build is all the powerful fire damage talents of Pyromancer. Your main method of dealing damage will be with the Pyromancer’s Fire spells.

However, with Elementalist you also get a lot of great +damage talents like Exposure and Improved Exposure (combine for +10% elemental spell damage for the whole group), Tempest (which stacks wonderfully with the Pyromancer’s naturally high crit-rate), and Intensify Elements, which is a massive damage booster.

You also get mana regen abilities with Elementalist. You also get the benefits of having a high-powered pet that can dish out a lot of damage. Your damage will increase more noticeably by adding the Elementalist’s powerful pet rather than going 51 points in Pyromancer (which is a waste of points).

For your third soul, remember that Dominator is nearly always the best for any of the Rift Mage builds; you pick up a few good abilities without any skill point investment.

Healing Builds

While healing may not be your reason for selecting a Mage, every Mage should have one good healing Rift Mage Build as one of their off-specs in case they ever have to heal.

Thanks to the “role” system, once you unlock alternate roles (purchase from trainer), you can swap freely between up  to 4 roles. Properly talented (and played) the Chloromancer dishes out great damage and healing.

Chloromancer truly is an incredibly strong soul. A Chloromancer with good skills should be able to heal an entire small-group dungeon (perhaps not until higher levels) and still dish out nearly as much damage as a normal caster.

They also can dish out plenty of healing to help keep up the melee group in raids, all while dealing damage like a normal caster. You actually have few direct heals but rather your spells deal damage. Definitely get this as an off-spec and your allies will thank you for it.

Chloromancer is one of the few souls where nearly every skill really shines. I recommend maxing out Chloromancer for those who want to heal, grabbing every talent in full.

For your second soul, I recommend getting Elementalist, and placing your remaining 15 points in it: 5/5 Biting Cold, 1/1 Ice Shield, 4/5 Elemental Link, and 5/5 Tempest.

Note: If you do not find yourself using the 51 point Chloromancer ability, you can always pull 6 points out of Raised in Nature and Unleashed Abandon. You can then put them into Exposure and Improved Exposure. This would be useful to have for groups with other Mages.

Other Builds

While not previously mentioned, I suspect many raid groups will have an Archon (or at least an Archon/Chloromancer hybrid). Additionally, a well-played Dominator will go far in PvP.

The only soul that does not have a well-defined role in my opinion is Stormcaller. It definitely is outright weaker than Elementalist or Pyromancer when it comes to damage output and soloing power.

Stormcaller does have a lot of escapes and snares however; it is possible that a Dominator/Stormcaller hybrid will be quite effective at group PvP or kiting large amounts of enemies (such as during Invasion events). Time will tell.

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As you can see here, Mages have different options based on whether they are looking for the best Rift Mage leveling builds, best Rift Mage damage builds, or best Rift Mage healing builds. You can also find several example mage builds with recommendations here, as well as discuss them or add your own. Additionally you can get tens of different builds and recommendations in this guide.

It seems that the Elementalist finds its way into a lot of builds (as it is a great spec), whereas the Necromancer and Warlock are great for solo play and leveling. The Chloromancer is also very strong and should not be overlooked.

By using the powerful soul combinations recommended in this article, you will be able to level up quickly, deal a lot of damage, dominate in PvP, and even tank!

Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Solo Play Builds
3. Group Play Builds
4. Leveling Builds
5. DPS Builds
6. PvP And Dungeon Builds
7. Tanking Builds

Introduction

In Rift you will be selecting three souls which will be the basis for all of your character’s abilities, generally you will have one main soul and two other souls which will mainly be used for the starter abilities they give. In this guide I will be discussing the Rogue souls, what they do, and which ones I suggest that you should use.

The Rogue is a pretty versatile class, but should mainly be focusing on DPS. However you can actually go for tanking with the Riftstalker soul. You also have an option between ranged and melee dps, the ranged being the Ranger and Marksman and the melee being the Saboteur, Assassin, Night Blade, and Blade Dancer. There is also a support type soul that offers healing and buffs which is the Bard, but doesn’t quite give you enough to be the main healer.

Solo Play Builds

When playing Rift you’re able to purchase up to four roles so it is good to have a grouping role and soloing role at the very least. First we’ll look into the best soloing option for the Rogue class. You’re going to want to use Blade Dancer as your main soul and the Ranger and Bard souls for your off-souls. When these three souls are combined it gives you a ton of survivability along with damage. The ranger will give you a pet for a good source of extra DPS, and the bard gives you a 30 second heal over time which is great as it’s long enough to where you can just keep refreshing it every 30 seconds of combat.

Group Play Builds

For grouping it gets a little more complicated, you can go the route of the tank if you want to, this is using the Riftstalker soul as your main as mentioned earlier. You will be wanting Blade Dancer for the dodge buff as well as Assassin for the poison buff. When you have extra points you can’t put into Riftstalker put them into Blade Dancer for the increased dodge.

Second is the DPS, you’re able to go with the same build mentioned above for soloing with Blade Dancer as your main soul but you’ll want to switch out Assassin for the Bard off-soul, unless you want to hang on to it for some extra group healing. You’ll also want to tweak it a little bit from your soloing build to get rid of some of the damage reduction and such and replace it with more DPS oriented talents.

Another option to keep in mind is that Assassin is actually a pretty viable main soul build for DPSing in groups if you don’t like the Blade Dancer or just want to try switching it up from your soloing build if you’re getting bored of it.

Finally you’ve got the possible role of the off-healer. You’re going to need to use Bard as your main soul and pick up all of the talents that help with your buffing and healing. For your off-souls you’ll want to take Ranger and Saboteur, though they aren’t going to make too huge of a difference. Now it should be noted that you simply won’t have enough healing to be a main healer for groups in this build, so I would suggest not even going for it unless you really like healing and happened to pick the Rogue class instead of the Cleric class for some reason.

Leveling Builds

For leveling up, there is no better combination than the Bard, Marskmen, and Ranger. This class has self-healing, a pet, and some of the best damage in the game – it just does not get any better than this!

The first thing you want to is get 10 points in Bard as you can pick up Invigorated soul. This lets you use Cadence any time you want to heal you and your pet.

Additionally, with two points in Bard, you can get Anthem of Competence, which significantly improves movement speed. This makes leveling faster than any damage boost could as it makes you move faster.

Next, grab Ranger. You do not have to put any points in this role; just get it so you can have a pet.

Finally, for your third soul, get Marksman. The Swift Shot and Hasted Shot allow you to move very quickly between monsters, significantly improving leveling speed. Deadeye Shot also becomes the best use of combo points in the game once you get to rank 3.

You can use Cadence to heal and generate combo points, use two Swift Shots, then finish the enemy with Deadeye Shot. This will kill most enemies outright and leave you with a full health pool.

For more details on this Rift Rogue leveling build and how to progress it so a higher level, see the Rift Rogue leveling guide.

DPS Builds

If maximal damage is your game, then you will want to go straight for Marksman and put all ancillary points into Ranger. Ignore all the movement speed talents in the Marksman tier and only focus on ones that help you do damage.

For example, Repelling Shot and Improved Swift Shot are soloing and PvP abilities; there is no need for them in a dungeon. Instead, Increased Fire Power and Sharpshooter are much better talent points.

Your pet, when controlled well, can actually be a nice extra source of damage. In dungeons I recommend keeping it dismissed as sometimes the pathing can draw aggro; it is much easier to only use it on boss fights.

As a third soul, you can consider the Bladedancer; six points will get you some nice passive stats and the Combat Pose dexterity buff. More time and testing will be needed to see just how effective each 31 point talent is to know whether this is ideal or not. For now, just know that Marksman and Ranger deals the most damage.

PvP And Dungeon Builds

Strangely enough, out of the Rift Rogue Builds, I consider the best PvP and Dungeon build to be one and the same: Bard and Marksman.

Cadence is incredibly powerful in PvP; the group healing is massive since your team is clumped up and multiple players may be taking damage at once. To make things even better, Cadence generates quick combo points which you can then dump on Deadeye Shot or Hasted Shot.

The movement speed upgrades in Marksman allow you to chase down dying players very easily and allow you to escape as well. When you are in trouble, fire off Repelling Shot then a Hasted Shot and run for it. If that does not work, you have On the Double and Crossfire to get distance on an opponent.

Tanking Builds

There are two builds I would recommend for Rogue tanking: Riftstalker and Bard (low-level) and Riftstalker and Blade Dancer (high level).

At a low level, many healers do not have high-powered spells yet, so you will benefit immensely from 9 points in Bard for Anthem of Glory and Invigorated Soul. Put the rest of your points in Riftstalker. This way, after you have hate established, you can use Cadence to help heal yourself and the group.

At a higher level, you will want to put points into Riftstalker and Blade Dancer. I recommend putting a lot of points (31) into Blade Dancer. Pick up all the important mitigation talents and be sure to grab Improved False Blade and Disengage.

Improved False Blade means that every time you use False Blade (a Blade Dancer skill), you gain 5% dodge and 6% parry. This is a massive amount for a tank.

Additionally, given your dodge and parry rate with this Rift Rogue build, you will be able to use Disengage practically every 20 seconds. Keeping your enemy stunned 20% of the time is great for tanking!

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While the level cap has prevented us from exploring this possibility just yet, I think that the Rogue will be one of the best classes for soloing tough monsters. I am under the impression that a 26 Blade Dancer, 25 Bard, 14 Riftstalker (or 22 Blade Dancer, 26 Bard, 18 Riftstalker) build will be very effective at soloing tough enemies.

You get a lot of great mitigation talents from Blade Dancer and Riftstalker yet you get a lot of good self-healing abilities from Bard. More details on this spec to come! You can also visit this lens to view some example rogue builds, or add your own for discussion as well.

No matter what you like to do in Rift, the Rogue is a highly versatile calling. By using these Rift Rogue builds, you can experience the best of what the Rogue class has to offer!

Don’t forget to contribute to this guide by posting a comment below.

Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Solo Play Builds
3. Group Play Builds
4. Healing Builds
5. Tanking Builds
6. Leveling Builds
7. DPS Builds
8. PvP Builds

Introduction

In Rift you will be selecting three souls which will be the basis for all of your character’s abilities, generally you will have one main soul and two other souls which will mainly be used for the starter abilities they give. In this Rift Cleric builds guide I will be discussing the Cleric souls, what they do, and which ones I suggest that you should use.

If you’re looking to be a healer in Rift you’re going to want to choose the Cleric class. However, there is also the route of melee DPS, ranged DPS, and also the ability to tank which makes this the most versatile class of them all. Of the eight souls the Cleric has one possible tanking spec which is the Justicar, however it is not recommended to attempt using this for tanking right now. The Cleric also has the Shaman and Druid souls for melee DPSing, the Inquisitor and Cabalist for ranged DPS, and finally the Warden, Sentinal, and Purifier for the three healing souls.

In Rift you’re able to purchase up to four separate roles for your character, and when setting up these roles you’ll want to make at least one for soloing and one for grouping. When playing a cleric it is wise to have a group healing role, a solo dpsing role, as well as a group dpsing role.

Solo Play Builds

When soloing as a cleric you’ll want to choose between ranged or melee DPS. If you choose ranged you are going to want Inquisitor as your main soul with Warden and Purifier as your off-souls as these provide 0pt abilities that give you a heal over time as well as a damage absorption shield. Inquisitor has great nuke spells which when coupled with the DoTs make it a very efficient damage soul.

Now you don’t want to forget all about the melee option, you’ll want to go with Druid as your main soul and have Warden and Shaman as your off souls. Druid’s are given a Faerie pet that will heal you whenever you take damage which makes this a great soul for soloing. You’ll want to disable your pets auto ranged attack that does not do a whole lot of damage and eats away at your pets mana which you’ll want to reserve for the healing it will do for you. One thing to note is you will want to use the Shaman’s base ability instead of the Druid’s. Overall this build makes for a lot of damage along with a great amount of self healing making it the best soloing build hands down.

Group Play Builds

Now if you’re going to be playing in a group and you want to stay as damage, you can simply use the same souls I mentioned early and tweak them to give less healing and more damage. As for healing however you’ll want to choose what kind of healer you want to be before picking your souls. Purifier has a lot of really big heals and shields, the Warden is a heal over time healer, and the Sentinel has some instant healing and a lot of aoe group healing. You will want to use all of these together for healing as they all come with great 0pt abilities for healing.

Healing Builds

The Cleric is by far the best healer in the entire game. With that said, there are two primary souls you will want to invest in: Sentinel and Warden.

In particular, you will want to put 32 points into Cleric and 26 points into Warden. This allows you to pick up Life’s Return, Cascade, and Refreshing Communion. Life’s Return is a combat-enabled resurrection spell (highly useful) while Cascade and Refreshing Communion ensure you never have mana problems.

You have a few options for this Rift Cleric healing build: you can continue to put points into Wardento pick up Healing Showers (powerful AoE heal), or you can put some points into Purifier to get extra crit, reduced spell push-back, and an endurance buff. It depends on the encounter.

With that said, here are key talents to get:

• Sentinel: Benediction, Light Concentration, Light Efficiency, Embolden, Protect the Flock, Healing Invocation, Refreshing Communion
• Warden: Aquatic Affinity, Surging Rapids, Fluidity, Ebb and Flow, Orbs of the Stream, Cascade

After that, it is up to personal preference and gear. For example, when leveling up your critical hit rate with spells will be very low. As a result, a talent like Serendipity is not very useful. However, once you get better gear and start critting more, you may find that it gets a lot better.

Tanking Builds

When it comes to Cleric tanks, no soul is better than the Justicar with a Shaman back-up. There are a few viable Rift Cleric Builds:

• Rift Cleric Build #1: 51 points in Justicar, 15 points in Shaman, Purifier equipped (but no points). This gives all of the Justicar talents and abilities while giving you the +15% healing, -5% damage reduction and elemental resistance from Shaman. Equipping Purifier gives you access to self-shield.
• Rift Cleric Build #2: 51 points in Justicar, 13 in Shaman, 2 in Druid. In this build, you pull out points of the “Heart” buffs in exchange for Oak Shield from Druid. Useful for enemies which deal in physical damage, as Oak Shield absorbs a lot more damage than the Purifier’s Shield of the Ancestors.
• Rift Cleric Build #3: 45 Justicar, 21 Shaman, 0 Purifier. Pull 6 points out of Justicar (3 from Healer’s Creed, 2 from Forced to Kneel, and 1 from Commitment). In Shaman, pick up Heart of the Twilight Forest and Shared Purpose. This allows you to get resistance for you and your raid for all schools of magic damage.

With that said, all builds require these Thick Skinned and Favor of the Valnir in Shaman. Reducing damage taken by an extra 5% and increasing healing received by 15% is necessary for making a good tanking Rift Cleric build.

Leveling Builds

For leveling, I prefer a combination of Shaman, Justicar, and Druid. There is a lot to this build; more details can be found in the Rift Cleric leveling guide.

DPS Builds

While Clerics are not meant built for damage, there is one interesting spec you can go that makes Clerics an exceedingly effective area of effect class. In other words, for any encounter that requires you to deal damage to multiple enemies at once, Clerics might even outshine Mages with this spec.

The recommend Cleric DPS build is actually 33 Cabalist and 33 Inquisitor. You will want to pick up the following key talents:

• Cabalist: Death’s Grasp, Explosive Energies, Broad Strokes, Deep Water, Maelstrom, Death’s Dominion, , Negation of Life, Undertow, Surge, Sigil of Ravaging
• Inquisitor: Inner Focus, Armor of Devotion, Fanatics Faith, Aggressive Renewal, Clinging Spirit, Fanaticism, Corporal Punishment, Circle of Oblivion

The applications of the AoE of these classes is significant. Between talented Maelstrom, Grasping Waters, and Binding Waters, large numbers of enemies will be stuck in place.

Combine that with powerful AoE and healing abilities like Sigil of Decay (with Broad Strokes), Devouring Mist, Engulfing Shadows, and Circle of Oblivion, this class becomes an AoE damage-dealing machine.

This spec also does good single-target damage, but not quite on par with the other damage-dealing callings (Cleric is the primary healer, after all).

PvP Builds

There are a variety of viable PvP builds. With that said, PvP souls are still under development so I do not currently have a list of the best Rift Cleric builds for PvP. With that said, amongst the 8 souls that are available:

• Purifier is the best PvP healing tree
• Inquisitor is the best PvP damage-dealer for 1v1 and small scale battles due to the large number of self-heals
• Cabalist is the best damage-dealer for AoE
• Melee Clerics are not effective in PvP

Odds are the some hybrid of the PvP Cleric soul will combine with the one of the three souls above. For example, it is extremely likely that the Priest PvP Soul plus Inquisitor will make the best 1v1 class, whereas Purifier plus the PvP soul will make the best PvP healer. We will see as PvP souls are released!

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You can also find example cleric soul builds here. When all is said and done, you now have a lot of great Rift Cleric builds that you can test and try out to your heart’s content. There are a lot of great talents for the Cleric, so be sure to test them all out and see what works best for you.

In many ways, Rift is similar to World of Warcraft, as well as other games. For example, many of the mechanics are similar to WoW, but with the addition of something which is similar to Warhammer Online’s public quests system, and more. Basically, another MMORPG game, but this one will not be released unfinished and with hundreds of annoying bugs. The developers are making sure of it, and while it’s still early to tell, Rift might very well be a worthy competition to WoW.

Leveling in Rift works pretty much as in other MMORPG games. It’s nothing innovative and groundbreaking: the same old process of doing quests, killing X amount of monsters and grinding. You can however speed up the process a great deal by following a quality leveling guide, which is exactly what this page is about. I’ll be reviewing ALL Rift leveling and strategy guides and help you figure out which one is the best.

Currently, there’s quite a lot of different leveling guides available for Rift, some of them good and some even bad. Make sure to read the reviews below carefully before you purchase one.

1. Killerguides Rift Strategy Guide (review) – rated 5/5
2. Xerxes Rift Mastery Guide (review)  – rated 4/5
3. KFGuides Rift Leveling Guide (review) – rated 3/5
4. Rift Blueprint Guide (review) – rated 2/5
5. Rift Domination Guide (review) – rated 2/5
6. Fero’s Rift Strategy Guide (review) – rated 2/5
7. MMO Guide Mart’s Leveling Guide (review) – rated 2/5
8. Kalmar’s Rift Guardian Leveling Guide (review) – rated 1/5
9. Catari’s Rift Defiant Leveling Guide (review) – rated 1/5

1. Killerguides Rift Strategy Guide

Rating: ★★★★★ 

A very, very frequent mention on this site, Killerguides was once again the first to publish a guide for Rift. It received several updates since then and overall is extremely detailed and helpful and definitely my top recommendation.

It includes battle strategies, equipment breakdown, solo and group tactics, raiding techniques and guide, as well as a leveling guide. However, most of the stuff in Killerguides Rift Strategy Guide is just beginner information, unless you get all 5 Rift guides by Killerguides. The guides specific to callings, namely Rogue, Cleric, Mage and Warrior have more advanced and useful information, however they do come at a higher price than most other guides (although you do get a large discount if you purchase them all).

Overall Killerguides deserves a 5/5 rating, however it would be much nicer to have all the info packed in one single guide rather than have five different ones. Nevertheless it’s chock full of great contents that will help both new and veteran players get a better grasp of the game and I highly suggest you check it out.

2. Xerxes Rift Mastery Guide

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Xerxes guide is my second favorite guide for a number of reasons. First of all the leveling guide is the most detailed one and includes an impressive amount of screenshots and maps to guide you through quests. Some other guides (although not all) have maps and screenshots but it’s not nearly as much as in Xerxes.

Xerxes Mastery Guide also has really insider stuff about callings and souls. Some guides just post the beginner stuff inside with a few additions, but Xerxes clearly has a lot of experience playing all classes and his recommendations on equipment, stats, soul builds, soul pairings etc. are invaluable. This really is the professional, expert advice you will want to read.

This guide also includes a ton of additional bonuses, all of which are really useful: dungeons, professions, PvP, puzzles, platinum making, the list goes on. Overall Xerxes guide no doubt stands out from the competition and you won’t regret if you get it.

Note: Xerxes guide is no longer available!

3. KFGuides Rift Leveling Guide

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

KFGuides is in fact a very decent leveling guide. It includes maps and screenshots and the quest info is nicely outlined and easy to follow. The only issue is that it’s only for the Defiant faction.

Another bad thing is that KFGuides Rift Leveling Guide doesn’t have any additional bonuses to make it a worthwhile purchase. The few guides they do have can be viewed for free anyway, and aren’t really that useful (mostly dungeons and puzzles).

4. Rift Blueprint

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

Rift Blueprint has enough content to make it a decent guide but not enough for me to recommend it over any of the guides above. Simply put the content and guides aren’t as detailed and useful. It does have a ton of beginner guides but it simply doesn’t cut it: these tips won’t help you stand out from other players too much.

The leveling guide inside is not even a leveling guide but rather a few notes about quests and doing rifts. The most useful part is the comprehensive dungeons guide giving you boss strategies and locations, but the same can be found in Xerxes guide, therefore there’s no reason why you would want to download Rift Blueprint.

5. Rift Domination Guide

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

Similar to Blueprint and Fero’s guide, Rift Domination doesn’t really have anything useful which would make me recommend it to anyone. Beginner guides won’t do much good to anyone, and the lack of any other useful content makes me not want to even write a more detailed review.

I do have to give at least some credit to Rift Domination guide though, as there are far worse guides (see below), but unfortunately I can’t recommend it. It won’t help you dominate.

6. Fero’s Rift Strategy Guide

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

Fero’s guide is almost identical in quality as Rift Bluprint. It doesn’t have any secrets or all that many useful tips and strategies. Again, beginner guides, the same dungeons guide as you can find elsewhere, and a few tips and notes that won’t really do you much good.

I recommend you skip Fero’s guide.

7. MMO Guide Mart’s Rift Leveling Guide

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

MMO Guide Mart is a new website which will apparently publish guides for MMORPGs. However, their very first guide is the one for Rift, and it’s extremely lacking.

MMOGuideMart’s Rift Leveling Guide is an incomplete leveling guide, with only a few beginner guides as bonuses. The only good thing about it is that it’s cheap and has a nicely designed cover, but that’s really no reason to download it.

8. Kalmar’s Rift Guardian Leveling Guide

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ 

Kalmar’s guide does have step-by-step quest guides which I can’t say for all other guides, but the guide is currently incomplete despite being advertised that it is. The only thing Kalmar provides is a 1-19 leveling guide for the Guardian faction, and even that isn’t that well done.

Personally I much prefer to have Xerxes guide which has a ton of really useful bonuses, and a more detailed and complete leveling guide — for both factions.

9. Catari’s Rift Defiant Leveling Guide

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ 

Other than KFGuides this is the only Defiant faction specific leveling guide, and it ain’t a good one either. Incomplete, with absolutely no bonuses whatsoever.

If you didn’t notice yet, Catari’s guide comes from the same author as Kalmar’s guide, and as such suffers from the same issues. Skip it.

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Summary

Xerxes guide is hands down the winner here. Massive amounts of useful content, and the most detailed leveling guide. Best buy, highest rating, top recommendation, etc. Download Xerxes, you will love it.