Yesterday marked the magical day where the weekly crafting quests for lures re-set, and so myself and many others eagerly headed to Shimmersand to spawn crafting rifts and obtain hot crafter loot. On the far west coast of Shimmersand two rifts spawn every few minutes. On my server (I can’t speak for the others but I play on Deepwood) these are the dedicated crafting rifts unless someone triggers a combat one out of spite. It doesn’t matter if you’re guardian or defiant, or what time of day you show up, chances are there are raids here with crafting lures.
I really like the idea that players can spawn crafting raids but there are a few issues with it. Number one, I have two level 14 characters who happen to be 300 crafters. They can’t participate in these crafting rifts because they’re level 50 and the chances of me actually counting towards contribution (let alone getting to the area without a guild rally flag) is pretty much zilch. I’ve saved up my weekly lures in the hopes that one day I may actually level them and make use of these lures.
The next issue is the mass number of people who participate. The rewards are based on your contribution, and when you have 100+ people at one non epic rift things die pretty fast. In fact I’d be confident in saying that they die instantly. This means that a lot of people never get the chance to contribute at all, no one is taking damage so healers are forced into dps specs. If you have no instant attacks at your fingertips you may find yourself moving from rift to rift just hoping that someone neglects a mob for a second or two so that you can get a single hit. For myself personally I spam my instant attacks, it’s all I can do to try to hit something at least once. I’m better at it during some crafting rifts then others. My solution would be for the rift to take into consideration (some how) the amount of players in a given location, and spawn as epic (or major) rifts so that everyone in the area has a chance to participate. Yesterday there were many complaints from members of my raid when they were forced to leave a completed rift empty handed.
I’m finding plaques almost impossible to get, and with the new player crafted items available that rival pretty much any other gear I could possibly obtain even those seem daunting for a casual player. Things are expensive, each piece costing upwards of 100p and unless you’re playing rift on a fairly frequent non-casual basis, I don’t see how anyone can afford more then a piece or two without resorting to ‘other’ means.
I’m glad some focus was given to crafting, but personally, I just feel that it could use a little more tweaking, a bit more work in order to smooth out some bumps.
Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
I actually have characters on Faeblight, but my other half raids on Deepwood, and so that’s where I stay for now, hehe.
too bad you can’t transfer to Faeblight. I’d invite you to Gaiscioch in a heartbeat. :D
That’s great that you can go with your guild like that and not have to worry about 100+ people killing everything before you get a chance! I’m in a mostly inactive guild, and don’t really get that opportunity unless I were to switch. So in the mean time I’ll just keep stock piling my lures for the day I (eventually) level, teehee. I should have a good selection by then in any case!
I did a couple of crafting Rifts this morning. My guild apparently always does a Friday morning run (for 1 more week anyway, then it will be swapped to Saturday so people who have to work can participate). And we’re “light” on Artificers to make the new purple rings, so today was Artificer Lure day. I didn’t have a whole lot of time, but was still able to be in 3 crafting rifts, as well as 2 regular ones we cleared to enable tears to reopen so we could lure them as crafting. I did get an artificer plaque and a Minor catalyst, as well as various other items as well.
Not bad for a level 18 rogue in Shimmersand ;-)
FWIW, my guild specifically has a tank devoted to the lowbies that pulls a couple of mobs over to where the lowbies are that everyone else leaves alone so we can all get some contribution. It’s a nice system. Went very quickly too, since we had 1.5 raids there. . . . .
On Shadefallen the crafting rift “raids” I’ve been on don’t get to anything like this size. The biggest I’ve done had maybe 30 people but usually it’s less than one full raid. They also don’t seem to happen all that often. PvP rift raids, however, are pretty much non-stop. Bear in mind I never play in U.S. peak time. Generally Mrs Bhagpuss and I just go out and duo our own crafting rifts, which makes them quite challenging. We don’t always get to the final stage and I often die. Sometimes several times. I can’t say I’ve noticed any particular difference in the rewards based on how far the rift progresses.
I have several maxed crafters, all also level 50 adventurers. My armorsmith, however, is only a level 18 cleric. I’m holding him back at 240 skill at the moment because I have no current need for a 300 skill armorsmith, but it had occurred to me that it might be a drawback to be well below 50th when it came to crafting rifts. I was thinking of simply doing them at his actual level. Has anyone done crafting rifts in a level 20-30 or 30-40 zone? What drops if you do that?
Overall, I think that both PvP rifts and crafting rifts are great ideas and show a lot of promise, but both could do with a good deal more work.
So in crafting rifts you don’t craft things but actually kill? Fascinating. I’ve never actually gone along on one yet, though my guild is large enough with enough crafters that every night there’s usually a run that burns through a few. My crafters are only level 16 and 18 now (haven’t killed a thing in anger since level 7 either — it’s all crafting daily xp. . . ) but banners are always dropped, so I could get out to the location easily enough.
Now I wanna try it even more!
My outfitter is 300 and a level 25 warrior. What i do is I go with my guild. They take me along, and get me to a good spot usually shimmer sand around fortune shore, and we do crafting rifts…the rifts dont’ have to be 50 to get plaques, so far I’ve gotten them out of everything over 45.
I just take a group, and even though i can’t hit anything really, I use buffs, and temp buffs, and just attack normally, because contribution is based somewhat on how many abilities you use, not how many times you hit.
I’ve gotten two outfitter plaques doing it this way even though I’m only 25.
I have found taking a 5-10 man group to still moor for crafting rifts also results in alot of “tag alongs’ but not as many as shimmersand beach. You tend to have the rifts last longer that way and get more contribution. Ironically enough my level 25 is the only one who’s ever gotten plaques out of my crafters (300 apoth /50 rogue and 300 rune crafter/50 tank)