I didn’t intend on playing beta 3 of Rift that much because I’ve already determined that I want to purchase the game. Playing it a lot now means I have less surprises to look forward to when it goes live, and I don’t want to experience burn out before I’ve even started. On that same note there was really nothing I wanted to play this weekend except Rift, so I did find myself in game more often than not.
I started beta 1 with a sentinel warden combination. Basically a pure healer combined with a druid who used elemental attacks and heals over time. I had a lot of fun, the warden has a few attacks that push mobs away from you, and the casting of the sentinel was quite fast. With a few buffs under my belt I actually never died while playing. I created on the defiant side since it was beta 1. Beta 2 I did not participate in, being caught up in WoW and – I forget what else. Looking back I wish I had of played more, but I don’t feel like it was that bad of a thing that I missed it.
Beta 3 I decided I would create a different class, and I would play the Guardian faction instead of Defiant. I instantly fell in love with the dwarf race, enough so that I think it’s what I’ll be playing at release, on the PvE-RP server. I really miss role playing. I created a Beastmaster, which is one of the tank classes. Much like the Beastlord of EQ they come with a pet, and you have the ability to wield a number of weapons right from the start including dual wielding, sword and board, and 2 handed. Unlike beastlords (from what I saw in any case) the pets are mostly for dps and not for tanking purposes since you are a tank class and you generate a lot of threat. It was nice to have the added dps. Once I had quested along enough I added a second soul to the combination, and I picked a paladin. It wasn’t one of the suggested soul pairings, but I figured being able to use heals and magic attacks along with my pet attacks could only lead to more awesomeness. Having such a gigantic amount of choice when it comes to character customization (via souls) is really what is sucking me in to Rift.
The tank was fun. I mean, really fun. Considering I rarely play tanks and they’re always my 4th (or 10th) choice in a game I was pretty happy that the idea appealed to me at all.
Before I go too far I decided to try another character combination. This time I went dwarf (guardian) rogue, and picked bard to start. Things were a little slow until I got my second skill which allowed me to use my points (much like a rogue has points in WoW or a paladin has holy points) and expel them all at once in a big attack. For my second soul I decided to try a ranger and was given a pet. This pet (unlike the beastmaster) tanks, has a charge, and holds agro very well – at least from what I saw. I never had it lose agro once, although I did find that it tended to pull mobs that had not agro’d me, as though it’s on it’s own agro leash. Fine but I’ll have to keep that in mind as I go running around. The ranger and bard combination was working fantastic. I could heal a little, buff a little, had a pet to tank while I pelted the mob with arrows. Things were good. I did die once because some how my pet gained agro on .. well. A lot of creatures that bee-lined for me but aside from that it was pretty smooth sailing.
I was going to log back in and play my healer some more, but alas, all good things must come to an end and beta 3 was one of those things. I’m pretty excited about this game (as you can probably tell) even if it doesn’t stick, I’m looking forward to beta 4 and whatever it brings.
Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
stargrace 
