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.
We will start off with the specs you can use. For Rift Tanking there are only 2 specs that you should be using.
61 RS/7Ranger/8Tactician This will be your go to spec if you have the tactician soul.
61RS/8Ranger/7Bard This would be used if you dont have tactician but the difference between the specs is minimal it wont make too much of a difference.
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.
Macros that you can use.
#show Phantom blow
suppressmacrofailures
Cast Phantom Blow
Cast Planar strike
Thanks to your Level 62 Mastery - Revitalize, Planar Strike now has a 20m range that you can use for ranged aggro.
This is your blink/port macro.
#show shadow Assault
suppressmacrofailures
cast Shadow Assault
cast Shadow Blitz
cast Shadow Stalk
Why is it in this order? Shadow Assault is your ST port, making it the optimal port to use for boss fights for gaining initial aggro.
Shadow Blitz is your aoe port, making it the optimal port to use for trash fights.
Shadow Stalk is only a port, not doing any damage at all which is why it is last on the list, if you were to use this as a starter, you would gain no aggro from using it and quite possibly lose aggro because of it.
I highly recommend having these on a seperate button so you can pick and choose what one you want to use for a certain situation, it really does help.
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 200.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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
6. 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.
Cooldowns and how to manage them
In no particular order, ill explain what each cool down does, what i cant 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 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.
top tip - if you're going to use this in Whitefall Steppes to steal the sourcestone, dont. The Sourcestone counts as a debuff so using scatter the shadows will just drop the sourcestone. (i dont know why, ask Trion)
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 15seconds. 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 doesnt 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 Phantom blow from 3.5k to around 7.5k. 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.
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 (its 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.
Rotation and Ability Priority.
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;
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.
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.
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.
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!
Stats and Gearing for Riftstalker
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.
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 -
​
800 hit for NTE's
1000 hit for T1 Raids
1200 hit for T2 Raids
1400 hit for T3 Raids
Block - Blocked attacks deal 40% less damage, you gain block from gear.
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.
Guard Caps for T3;
​
4500 will get you to 10%. This is the soft cap. Points invested beyond this point have diminishing returns (e.g. it will be worth less, similar to that of stacking crit power over the soft cap)
5700 will get you to 12%. This is the hard cap.
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°)
Kalert Set!
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