One Week After Storm Legion Release

It’s been a crazy and awesome week of Storm Legion so far. It started off very bumpy on Tuesday last week. I had decided I was going to stream my grind however… between the sheer amount of new players back and Faeblight being on the fritz, I just did not want to deal with the ability lag and awful FPS I was getting. It put me off from leveling so as a result, I decided to take my sweet ass time and go slower than I had originally anticipated. In fact I didn’t even hit 60 until the 18th! Despite this setback, I was able to bounce right back into the grove with getting together crafted gear (chain helmet, belt, 2H hammer, rings), finished a few expert dungeons and by Tuesday myself and the guild were in the 10 man for Triumph of the Dragon Queen.

Trion did an amazing job with this expansion and really renewed my enjoyment of this game. Things started to get monotonous just before this expansion. I had two characters that had full ID relics with Conqueror: Infernal Dawn. Two characters were p50 with max pvp gear and the week before Storm Legion, I grinded to p36 on my rogue and got her all P36 gear and weapons. I hadn’t done dailies or weeklies in a few months and I didn’t need to grind PA–I had been max on my main (a cleric) for months. With Storm Legion I have been insanely overwhelmed with everything that’s fresh in the game again. Storm Legion expert dungeons have been challenging and fun again. The Hunt Rifts aspect of the game has allowed our guild to farm them together to screw around with each other and relax–something we haven’t done since we started ID progression.

Even the huge overhauling of the souls and the ability to utilize 79 soul points have allowed me to make some insanely powerful specs. I’m officially a huge supporter of 61 Defiler–it’s amazing what a difference a Defiler in an expert can do with the links on your tank and plays to help mitigate the incoming damage to make it easier for a healer. I also LOVE 61 Sentinel for main tank healing in raids. The cooldowns that Sentinel have been an absolute lifesaver (seriously!) when healing in Triumph of the Dragon Queen.

There’s just so much that Storm Legion brought back that was stagnant for awhile. So here’s a HUGE thank you to everyone at Trion who worked hard to get Storm Legion to where it’s at. 10/10 would play again.

PS – I am eternally sorry for how quiet it’s been here at Rift Nerd. We’ve been so busy with Storm Legion at level 60 that we just have not had the time to write anything here at all. That should change later today as we’ll be releasing some crafting guides and other major updates that have occured. Rest assured, we really are still the only BEST fansite for Rift.

Storm Legion: A Grandmaster Runecrafting Guide

Below are all the new runecrafting materials and how they are acquired from breaking down gear. You will also find that we have listed every Runecrafting recipe with every single detail needed for them. Keep in mind that some of these ingredients might change as Storm Legion is fine tuned.

This guide will be further updated additional information and tips such as acquiring a large amount of runes by breaking down certain easy items to make with Outfitter as another profession.

You must be at least level 290 in Runecrafting to break down Level 50 to 60 items.

Runecrafting is one of the hardest crafts to level up in Storm Legion, and hopefully Trion will address the issues with it soon. You will find it somewhat hard especially compared to other professions and expensive to level up. There are a few ways to approach leveling it up to save you some platinum.

In my opinion, the cheapest and best way to level up to 375 and/or acquire a lot of materials afterwards is to make Dense Leather Belts, these require 4 Dense Leather, 2 Vitreous Oil and 2 Strong Thread. The Vitreous Oil and Strong Thread are bought from the vendor and cost 20 gold per each one, this will be quiet expensive but with the current price for Runecrafting Materials on each shards auction houses, it is actually cheaper in the long run.

Dense Hide is easy to acquire if you are a butcher; as it has always fit well with Outfitter and Runecrafting and since you can easily farm it at lower level mobs and it is not hard to acquire as say Truehide.

If you use the following advice above, the Runecrafting dailies might just be worth it for you otherwise, at this current time as of 2.0 Hotfix #2, I do not think it is.

Another approach to leveling to 375, would be to runebreak everything you do not need while leveling from 50 to 60. This will not fully level you to 375, even if you have a partner to level up with as well and them sending you bind on equip items too. However, if you are with 2 or more people, and they all send you them while leveling, you will likely hit 375 faster.

Runecraft Recipes

Streaming My Grind to Level 60 on My Cleric

Well, today is the big day.. Storm Legion is finally here! Well, almost here I guess. I’ll be grinding to level 60 as fast as I can muster in the next day (or two or three or however long it takes me) but for the first stretch of this, I’ll be livestream on Twitch.tv along with a bunch of other great Rift streamers that Intrinsc put together.

That being said: If you’re stuck at work and can’t play yet or you haven’t pre-ordered Storm Legion and want to watch someone else (me!) grind through leveling… look no further! twitch.tv/illcupcakes is where I’ll be streaming at until I pass out.

Storm Legion: A Grandmaster Fishing Guide

Below are all the new fish to catch and new recipes to buy to make the fish with for the new zones excluding the Weekly and Daily Quests Recipes (we will have them up later).

The 2 new zones, Dusken and Brevane, each have their own fish except they do both share Mottled Flatfish which are equivalent to Teal Groupers from Stillmoor, Shimmersand and Ember Isle.

You must be at least level 270 in Fishing to fish in either of these zones.

To level up all the way to 375, you will first need to make sure that you visit the trainer to train to Grandmaster. To finish leveling up to 375, you will very likely need to craft around 5-15 Enduring Magnetic Lure’s.

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RIFT 2.0 – Storm Legion – 11/13/12

Still need to pick up Storm Legion? Go to https://www.riftgame.com/en/products/buynow.php

With the launch of the expansion, the following giant list of features is now available!

== STORM LEGION ==

• The level cap is now level 60, with a total of 76 Soul Points to spend.
• Each Calling now has a new Soul available from level 1:

• Cleric: Defiler
• Mage: Harbinger
• Rogue: Tactician
• Warrior: Tempest

• The new continents of Brevane and Dusken are open for exploration – 10 new zones of excitement!
• These new zones include a new city center, new events, new artifacts, achievements, and puzzles – all the good stuff!
• Hunt Rifts and Great Hunt Rifts can be opened in the new areas for those looking to challenge the Planes.

• Seven new Dungeons, including Expert versions, from levels 50 through 60.
• New Raid, Frozen Tempest, and the new Sliver, Triumph of the Dragon Queen.

• A new Warfront, Karthan Ridge, available at level 50!
• Level 60 characters now have access to additional PvP Ranks!

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Track Rift On Raptr And Earn Rewards for Rift!

I have been actively using Raptr to track hours played and achievements earned since 2009 and I recommend it to all my nerdy gamer friends. This is awesome for anyone that’s been interested in seeing how much time they put into a specific game, see a graph breakdown of the game type you prefer the most or to just track any game you play compared to others. The latest awesome addition to Raptr has been a reward system for games you play.

You can be eligible to redeem various rewards based on their reputation system which essentially places you in a group based on the item of time you have logged with the game and achievements earned. It can unlock coupon codes for buying new hardware, ability to earn awesome in-game promotional items, or sometimes even earn a full-retail copy of the game.

Last week I had new notifications pop-up from the Ratpr desktop client that new Rift rewards have been added and that I was eligible for them all because I’m currently ranked as “Elite” (Top 10%) for the game. So it looks like the awesome people over at Trion have added four different rewards that can be redeemed through Raptr if you are ranked Amateur, Newbie, Experienced and Elite, you can redeem the following rewards tomorrow, November 13th.

• Amateur – Enter the RIFT for free!: Starting November 13th, gamers ranked Amateur or above in Rift can earn a free copy of the game with a bonus free 30 days!
• Newbie – Smithy Goggles for RIFT: Starting November 13th, gamers ranked Newbie or above in Rift can now earn a pair of Dwarven Smithy Goggles.
• Experienced – Welcome to the Storm Legion: Starting November 13th, gamers ranked Experienced or above in Rift can claim their very own Arbiter’s Helm in celebration of the new expansion!
• Elite – The Exotic Spider Mount Spindrel: Starting November 13th, Rift players ranked Elite can control Spindrel, the exotic spider mount.

I’ll definitely be redeeming the “Experienced” reward for the Arbiter’s Helm. The “Elite” reward is a little unfortunate because if you’ve put that much time into the game, it’s likely that you’ll have a lot of the existing mounts already added to your account. It would have been really awesome if they made one of the new Storm Legion mounts as a reward for Elite or even the Storm Legion Collector’s Edition mount. But I can’t be choosy since it’s all something that’s available for free!

To be eligible for the rewards, you will need to sign-up to Ratpr, download the desktop application and run it and start playing Rift to track your playtime! The rewards expire on January 13th, 2013 so you’ll have plenty of time to log your hours to bump your reputation up to earn the higher tier rewards.

Play For Free This Weekend and Earn Subscriber Bonuses!

For those of you that haven’t been an active subscriber of Rift for quite some time, you should come back this weekend! Starting yesterday and ending on November 11th, you’ll be able to play Rift for free. Explore Ember Isle if you left before that was released. Or try out Conquest a pvp instanced raid versus raid where you compete to control the most Extractors or end the match by decimating the three factions by going through the kill allotment. However, the biggest change is currently 1.11′s massive changes to the souls we have come to know over the year and a half. Check out what’s changed with each soul and play around to see what’s the best (or worst) for your class. Check out Return to Telera to see a brief overview of the awesome new features that Rift has to offer!

Already a subscriber? Good news for you. During this free weekend, all subscriber receive a 20% bonus for currencies/rewards! The following bonuses are in affect:

• 20% Guild XP Bonus
• 20% XP from Kills Bonus
• 20% Prestige from PVP Kills Bonus
• 20% Plaques/Marks Bonus Chance
• 20% Favor Bonus
• 20% Planarite Bonus
• 20% Planar Attunement Experience Bonus
• 20% Zone Event Currency Bonus

Take advantage of any of the aforementioned for your guild or character. I know I am! I’ve got my Rogue alt that has been in low-rank PVP gear for months now. I just picked it up again this week and have been farming Conquest (got my trinket last night!) and warfronts so much that I finally hit P36 on it. Hopefully I can hit P50 before the weekend bonus runs out and before Storm Legion on Tuesday!