Rift Tanking!
Ok, I know how tricky it can be to tank in rift, it takes a whole lot of practice which can be scary for a new person starting to tank, i know I personally sucked when i tried to start tanking back in Vanilla, but ended up being a main tank for the entire of SL and really loving Riftstalker. There are so many little tricks and tips on how to play riftstalker, and im going to try and make this as detailed as possible to help you.
- http://forums.riftgame.com/game-discussions/rift-guides-strategies/class-guides/rogue-guides/447222-61-riftstalker-rogue-tanking-nightmare-tide.html Credit for some of the info here goes to Muspel, for his amazing Riftstalker guide that started my love for Rogue Tanking
Legendaries for Riftstalker.
Legendaries are highlighted in Orange. This is here because there are multiple choices you can choose for Riftstalker so its good to know what they all do.
Shadow Shift (SS) - Teleports 15m forward. When used, applies a buff to you that causes your next SS to deal damage along the path you travel. This buff ramps up in effect over 60 seconds.
The range of Shadow Shift is very small - If you're passing by the side of the mob its a max 1m - but if you land directly 2m in front of the mob it will hit it. It ramps up to hit for a max of 640% of your Attack Power. This is quite difficult to implement properly, I wouldnt suggest picking this if you are new to tanking, and if there are melee characters I advise not using this. It doesn't have a limit on the amount of mobs it can hit.
Guarded Steel - Deals additional damage per Combo Point. Increases Amor by 10% for 30s. Deals x amount of damage to the original target when you teleport to a target or use power of the planes. This can happen 3 times. - This ability hits for the same as a 5 combo point Guarded Steel 3 times (even if you only do a 1 combo point finisher)
Shadow Blitz -Teleports to the enemy. Deals x damage up to 10 enemies. All affected enemies deal 15% less damage for 10 seconds - 45 second cd.
Planar Rejuvenation - Heals you for 10% of your Maximum Health over 5 seconds after Plane Shifting. Additionally, you receive 10% more healing from all sources.
Soul Coalescence - Each time Planar Strike or Phantom Blades is used, the rogue gains Soal Synthesis, increasing damage by 5%. This buff stacks up to 20 seconds. Soal Coalescence consumes up to 5 stacks of Soul Synthesis, causing the Rogue to take 4% less damage per stack for 4 seconds. Soul Synthesis cap is reduced by 5 for 30 seconds each time this ability is cast.
Soul Coalescence is a required Legendary to have when raiding, it gives you a passive buffs that lets you mitigate Legendary attacks.
I've seen a lot of people confused about Soul Coalescence and asking how it works, here is how;
Whenever you have stacks of Soul Synthesis, you can use Soul Coalescence (I dont recommend using it at less than 5 stacks, its not worth it), when you use Soul Coalescence, you will get a debuff that will reduce the cap of Soul Synthesis by 5. This debuff lasts 30 seconds, you can use it 4 times before you can't gain any more stacks. Every time you cast Soul Coalescence the debuff is refreshed at 30 seconds and another stack will be added.
Builds and Variants.
https://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#zg8/tkGlaGBiGB4/ThE|PdPw - Current the highest eHP spec.
There are plenty of sub-soul choices - But for a raid scenario this is the best build to go with.
Tactician is used over bard because yes, even though bard gives more flat endurance, the points into Tactician give more eHP (Effective Health Points), which is better than flat endurance.
EHP is a number that is used to explain the value of your hit points with all damage reduction added in. This number will be quite larger than your HP as it is the overall worth of all your defensive abilities in conjunction with your Health Pool. EHP takes your life, and divides it by your dmg reduction abilities to show how much your total HP pool is worth with the defensive modifiers taken into account.
Example:
These numbers will be very low/dumbed down just to show an example.
Let's say you have these total stats: 10,000HP, 10% Damage Reduction from Armor (this can be seen by hovering over your armor stat). You are hit for 10,000 damage, yet you do not die? Why is this? Due to eHP! Since incoming dmg is reduced by 10%(armor) coming in, that 10,000 dmg hit is now actually only a 9,000 HP hit on you. You will survive with 1,000HP. To actually kill you, you will need to be hit for 11,111.11 Damage.
Legendaries (for off-souls):
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Call: Razorbeast
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Curative Engine
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https://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#zg8/tkGlaGBiGB4/v8g|PdPw - F2P
Legendaries (for off-souls):
Call: Razorbeast
Cadence (relatively worthless)
Riftstalker Legendaries (for highest Damage Mitigation/Personal Healing Increase):
⦁ Soul Coalescence
⦁ Shadow Blitz
⦁ Planar Rejuvenation
Riftstalker Legendaries for personal dps:
⦁ Shadow Shift - Useful on 2 mobs or more - Be careful not to cleave any Melee players. (Difficult to implement)
⦁ Guarded Steel
⦁ Soul Coalescence
Buffs
Ill list them in order of importance.
1. Guardian Phase -
This is the most important buff that you will want to have up, without it i can guarantee you will lose aggro. This ability Enables your Block and Guard. Increases Armor by 100%. Increases all Resists by 20%. Increases Base Health by 5%. Increases Threat Generation by 200% and Reduces your damage done and healing done by non-RS abilities by 30%
Your level 61 mastery removes the damage reduction for RS abilities, but healing reduction on Non-RS abilities and dps on non-rs abilities still has the reduction - e.g. Having RS and Phys wont work too well for you.
2. Planebound Resilience - Standard Flat Endurance Buff by 520.
3. Depending on what spec you will use, you will have a 6th buff from both Bard and Tact variants. Tactician is Curative Engine - restores x amount of health when hit (once per second). Bard - Fanfare of Vigor - Increase Endurace of all raid members. Will be overwritten by the bard or oracle if one is present.
4. Planar Splash.
This is a self toggle, what it does is allows planar strike and phantom blow to hit up to 10 enemies but reduces damage of the two abilities by 20%. This means you can use it when there are more than 1 mob to help with aggro gain, but if its a single target fight you shouldn't have this buff toggled on.
5. Constant Deviation.
Increases the damage you deal by 25% and Increases the damage you take by 25%. If you're new to tanking, your gear is more than likely going to be awful, don't use this ability unless you know you can handle the increased damage, and let your healer know that you're gonna use it and make sure its ok with him/her. Communication is key to staying alive in dungeons and raids, if your healer doesn't think he/she can handle it, don't use it.
6. Stalker Phase.
This is the opposite of Guardian Phase, it increases your damage done and reduces your threat generation. You can use this on boss fights if there is a tank swap and you know you wont have anything else to do for a little while, but i don't recommend doing it until you're both comfortable with tanking, and with the spec, otherwise if you forget you put it on, taunt back - The healers and the raid aren't going to be too happy
Cooldowns and how to manage them
In no particular order, ill explain what each cooldown does, what i can't tell you is exactly when to use them, as that would mean going through every single fight in rift and even then a lot of stuff is rng based and extremely situational so its down to you to know when you're going to need a cd, if you see your health going down low, pop a cd, if you know the boss is about to do a big hit, pop a cooldown.
Tanks are the most important role to know the mechanics of a fight, whilst a dps could cheese a fight by running through and just dps'ing whatever he sees fit, you need to know whats about to happen next, a lot of the fights in rift are scripted and there are guides online that you can read, even videos, so look, watch, read, learn and then test it out for yourself, if you die, you die but thats the whole fun of progression, you get to learn.
1. - Scatter the Shadows - Probably the best defensive cool down in-game, reducing all incoming damage by 90% and removes all curses, diseases and poisons. If you know you're gonna get a ton of incoming damage in a short duration of time, Scatter the Shadows is your go-to ability for this. - 2 minute cooldown.
top tip - if you're going to use this in Whitefall Steppes to steal the sourcestone, don't. The Sourcestone counts as a debuff so using scatter the shadows will just drop the sourcestone because it counts as a curse/disease/whatever.
2. Planar Refuge - 30% Damage Reduction, very useful to use on big trash pulls, or if you know there is going to be steady increased tank damage, then use Planar Refuge.
3. Defer Death - If you receive a killing blow within the 30 seconds of the buff being up, you will gain a 50% shield for 15 seconds. The only issue with this cooldown is that it can be easily wasted, so you only want to use it if you know that the shield is going to proc.
4. Planebound Resilience - Absorbs 85% of incoming damage, up to 50% of the rogues HP, basically its a 50% hp shield, and if it doesn't consume the whole shield, whatever is remaining on the shield will be transferred into healing on yourself. The best thing about this ability is that it can never be wasted (unless you do something silly like use it pre-pull, don't do that)
5. Physical Wellness - Increases Maximum health by 4800 on all party and raid members - Lasts 20 seconds. It doesn't heal for the increased HP, so if you know there is going to be a large amount of aoe damage in the next few seconds, pop it, so the healers can heal the small amount it buffed for, and it will really help out with keeping the lower geared players alive, this isn't a personal cd, think of it more as utility.
6. Soul Coalescence - Every time Planar Strike or Phantom blow is used, you gain a stacking buff called Soul Synthesis increasing damage by 5% and stacks up to 20 times. For me it increases the damage of Planar Strike from 9k to around 20k. Then whenever you use it again, it will consume 5 stacks of Soul Synthesis to give you a 20% damage reduction for four seconds, and can be used every 30 seconds.
You are going to self maintain this buff, i recommend using it with other cd's, as its such a small cd anyway it will really make the difference and they do stack. Probably wont need to use it with Scatter as 90% damage reduction would be insane anyway.
With the new legendary, Soul Coalescence can be used 4 times in a 30 second period before you completely deplete your Soul Synthesis stacks. Read the top part about Legendaries to see more info on this.
7. Planar Variation - Can be used either as a Strong heal for either yourself or a party/raid member - Be aware it doesnt tick for the first GCD so don't use this if you're about to die in less than a GCD.
Aoe Taunts and Single Target Taunts
⦁ Mass Instigate - Forces up to 10 nearby enemies to attack you for 3 seconds, has a 20 second CD.
⦁ Instigate - Your Single Target taunt - 8 second CD.
⦁ Planar Attraction - 10m range - Teleports the closest 5 enemies in that range to your location and forces them to attack you for 3 seconds.
There isnt much to explain about how taunts work, other than they do.
Things you need to watch out for - Over taunting a mob - If a mob is taunted more than 3 times in a certain period of time (it's a short period) it will become taunt immune.
A taunt puts you at the current tanks threat + 30%, meaning it awards you 130% of the current tank's threat. This is one reason why it is especially impossible in tank swap fights to lose threat.
Macro's
#show Phantom blow
suppressmacrofailures
cast Phantom Blow
cast Planar strike
Rotation and Ability Priority.
For max mitigation/healing legendary variant;
St builders in this order.
1. Phantom Blow.
2. Shadow Assault - Use this to start the fight, this is just the priority for the ability during your general rotation, the reason its number 2 is because it deals more damage than a planar strike.
3. Shadow Blitz - Even though its an aoe ability, it does more damage than a planar strike by around 3k.
4. Rift Disturbance - Only use this to apply the de-buff it gives to the target - which lasts 15 seconds
5. Use ST builder macro
.
ST Finishers;
1. Guarded Steel - Only use to apply the 10% armor buff to yourself, irrelevant of how many combo points you have currently, even at 1 combo point it will still last 30 seconds.
2. Wrath of the Planes - Only use to apply the 5% reduced crit hit chance on the target, once every 15 seconds - no matter how many combo points you have.
3. Power of the Planes - If you don't have Planar Vortex up, use this at whatever amount of combo points you have to apply it.
4. If you have Planar Vortex up, then use Planar of the Planes at 5 combo points.
Aoe builders.
Make sure you turn on Planar Splash
1. Phantom Blow - as it now hits 10 targets
2. Either Shadow Assault or Shadow Blitz, Shadow Blitz takes priority if its off cd.
3. Rift Disturbance for debuff
4. Spam macro when nothing else.
Aoe Finishers.
1. Guarded steel for amour buff
2. Wrath of Planes for reduce hit chance buff, then use it at 5 combo points after that.
Planar Vortex
For Planar Vortex, you want to make sure it has a 100% up-time. This ability will generate 50% of your weapons damage every second up to 10 seconds, and generates an insane amount of threat - This ability is triggered by any plane shift abilities - e.g. Shadow Assault - Shadow Blitz - Shadow Stalk - Shadow Shift and Power of the Planes counts as a plane shift ability, so it should be easy to have Planar Vortex at a 100% up-time, whether its easier to make a kalert to track it, or however you track your buffs - just keep it up!
For max personal dps legendary variant;
St builders in this order.
1. Shadow Assault - Use this to start the fight, this is just the priority for the ability during your general rotation - If Guarded Steel is not up on the target start at 5. (unless you're pulling) - Use Call: Razorbeast when you're in melee range.
2. Shadow Blitz - Even though its an aoe ability, it does more damage than a planar strike by around 3k - If Guarded Steel is not up on the target start at 5.
3. Memory Capture/Flashback - If Guarded Steel is not up on the target start at 5.
4. Shadow Shift at max build-up - If Guarded Steel is not up on the target start at 5.
5. Phantom Blow
6. Rift Disturbance - Only use this to apply the de-buff it gives to the target - which lasts 15 seconds
7. Use ST builder macro.
ST Finishers;
1. Guarded Steel - Use at 1 combo point every time Guarded Steel legendary buff falls off (after every 3 plane shift abilities)
2. Wrath of the Planes - Only use to apply the 5% reduced crit hit chance on the target, once every 15 seconds - no matter how many combo points you have.
3. Power of the Planes - If you don't have Planar Vortex up, use this at whatever amount of combo points you have to apply it.
4. If you have Planar Vortex up, then use Planar of the Planes at 5 combo points.
Aoe builders;
Make sure you turn on Planar Splash
1. Shadow Blitz
2. Phantom Blow - as it now hits 10 targets
3. Either Shadow Assault
4. Rift Disturbance for debuff
5. Spam macro when nothing else.
Aoe Finishers.
1. Guarded steel for armor buff
2. Wrath of Planes for reduce hit chance buff, then use it at 5 combo points after that.
Stats and Gearing.
Tanking Stats you get as a rogue.
Endurance - Increases your health - Per point Endurance will give you 10 Health - So say you have 6160 Endurance it will increase your health by 61610. Point for point this stat is the best way to make sure you don't die.
Armor - Reduces physical damage taken based on attacker level. The lower the level of the enemy the less physical damage you take, the higher the more. Hover over your armor in your stat page to see.
Hit - hit is used to negate the caster’s innate chance to Miss for both Spell and Non-Spell attacks, and the defender’s chance to Parry and Dodge for non-spell attacks. It does not reduce the defender’s non-physical mitigation. So, you want to get to the hit cap for the level of content you're clearing - In our current case 2k hit is the required hit for any content.
Block - Blocked attacks deal 40% less damage, you gain block from gear. - Per point for Dexterity you will gain 1 point of dodge.
Guard - Guard reduces the damage taken by you and by allies within a small radius. This stat is only functional while Guardian Phase is active.
Dodge - Fairly straight forward to explain - The more dodge you have the more chance you have to (you guessed it!) dodge the enemies attack. This is the physcrit stat of tanking, its not loved, but if the overall stats on an item are better, then use it :D Dodge is worse than Block or Guard because its only a chance at dodging an attack (and a very low chance at that) which makes it un-reliable in a raid situation - Whereas Guard is a flat % mitigation on incoming damage on both you, and nearby raid members. And block has a higher % to block an attack, 40% mitigation on blocked attacks at a much higher rate than dodging. - Per point for Dexterity you will gain 1 point of dodge. - Has no effect on magical attacks.
Tips on how to help you tank!
1. When using ports, you will port in the direction you were facing, e.g. if you are facing forward you will port facing forward infront of the target. If you turn around, and port your character will port behind the target which is great for getting a boss pre-positioned before the melee get in, without cleaving them - as you will always have the boss faced away from the raid, unless told otherwise.
2. Block only works on mobs in-front of you, so any mob behind you will do full damage that cant be mitigated by block to you, try to keep mobs all in-front, your healers will love you, and you will take a lot less damage.
3. As a tank, you need to be weary of your melee, one false move could see to a slow melee characters demise, another thing you need to watch out for is moving the boss too much, as its hard for the melee to do consistent dps if you're moving the boss this way and that, so try to stick in one position unless absolutely necessary you need to move - There is nothing that a melee character hates more than a tank who keeps moving the boss out of melee range! Best way to figure out how to do this is just melee bosses and see for yourself!
4. You can excel at LoS pulls with Memory Capture and Flashback, as long as you let the group know what you're going to do, otherwise they will run out with you and possibly take aggro or get cleaved.
5. Use Planar Attraction for gathering up ranged mobs, this will always put them in-front of you which means you will be able to utilize block! Planar Attraction has a 10m range (360°)