To be a tank is to be a leader, to walk into the jaws of the beast and know precisely when and where to thrust the sword. But for those newer to the tanking role, how does one go about learning these things? No, there aren’t any flow-charts, diagrams, or PowerPoint presentations posted outside dragon caves – no large signs with headers proclaiming, “How to Kill Me.” So, before the dragon’s tail knocks you off your feet and sends you, your sword and shield clattering back down the cliff you just crawled up from – join me after the break for the top 5 tips for PVE tanking.

For every dungeon you encounter during your journey to the level cap, there is a second, more difficult, version for players at level 50. These dungeons are called “Expert” Dungeons. Ten in all, they are divided into two tiers; the first tier is aimed at players who have just recently hit level 50 and the second tier is geared towards those who have spent time in Tier 1 Expert Dungeons.

For every dungeon you encounter during your journey to the level cap, there is a second, more difficult, version for players at level 50. These dungeons are called “Expert” Dungeons. Ten in all, they are divided into two tiers; the first tier is aimed at players who have just recently hit level 50 and the second tier is geared towards those who have spent time in Tier 1 Expert Dungeons.

Rift Junkies is currently looking for some volunteer writers for the following positions:

• Community Beat Writer – This position requires someone who is on the pulse of the RIFT community. Someone who knows the latest trends, memes, jokes and great stories circulating in the Community at large. Think Entertainment Weekly or the Gossip Column in your local newspaper. We would like to start a weekly column around this idea.
• Expert Rogue Calling Writer – We’re looking for someone who is an expert with the Rogue Calling that can write guides, columns and editorials on everything Rogue. For some examples see our other calling writers in our Guide section. We would like to start a weekly column around this idea.

If you are interested or require more information please send all questions and inquiries to Draegan@RiftJunkies.com.

Warlocks are offensive specialists who embrace the darker forces of entropy and death. From within a cloak of protective shadow, these mages direct deathly energies inexorably consuming their enemies’ lives, and feeding the Warlock on their stolen breath.

Along with the Necromancer, Warlocks are also an easy soul to learn; and with a moderate amount of time and experience with this Soul, you’ll be able to master it. Warlocks benefit from having an arsenal of abilities which focus on damage over time and buffs that increase their damage overall by increasing the Warlock’s spell power, spell crit and damage dealt by spells. Even though Warlock’s don’t carry that punch in burst damage that other Souls in the Mage calling have, they make up for it in survivability via various spells and the ability to put a variety of spells that deal damage over time to as many enemies as you can.

So I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night…

With most souls in RIFT within a calling, they usually have counterparts or at the very least souls that go well together. For example; Druids and Shaman, Necromancers and Warlocks, Champions and Beast Masters, Assassins and Night Blades and the list can go on. You can list many other combinations where the mechanics and game play are very similar and the passives help each other while abilities often go together. One example is the Assassin and Nightblade; both have abilities that increase damage and abilities like Backstab, Hellfire Blades, Poisons, Scourge of Darkness, Dusk Strike and Puncture are both blended in to make a high damaging build. If you read our article on Bards last weak, you know we have some issues with the Bard soul. The main point of this article is that the Bard does not have another soul that can share both in passive talents and active abilities.

And we have a solution.

Massively has recently gotten a chance to talk with Scott Hartsman on patch 1.2 and beyond. Here are few choice quotes that we think showcase which direction Trion is taking RIFT.

First we find that 1.2 is coming, potentially, May 4th.

On Looking for Group Tools

One of the biggest improvements with the update is the addition of a Looking for Group tool. This was something everyone wanted, Hartsman said, but the team refused to rush it out the door in poor shape. It does what you would probably expect: Players can queue up for an instance by role (the system recognizes which builds you have and offers options for tank, healer, support and DPS) and then wait as the tool assembles the group for a cooperative adventure. Once a group is formed, the system thenn throws them into the maelstrom automatically. The LFG tool isn’t just for dungeons, either; it’s designed to help players get together for world quest content like epic or arena quests.

The LFG tool will come in handy in conjunction with 1.2′s improved daily dungeon system. Trion’s tweaking the daily dungeon quests so that you can either do one per day or let them pile up so you can knock out a bunch at once. Hartsman said that this caters to the “weekend warriors” who want all of the special rewards of daily dungeons but can only make time for them once a week. The game will store up to seven daily dungeon quests for you at a time.

Emphasis is Rift Junkies above. Great news for those that can’t get on every day to do a dungoen. This aids casual and hardcore players alike.

PTS 1.2 Patch Notes – 4/22/11 – In Progress

PLEASE NOTE: Patch notes for the PTS represent work in progress and are subject to change prior to any patches reaching live shards.

PTS 1.2 4/22/11

GENERAL GAMEPLAY
* Those who managed to sneak behind enemy lines and complete the introductory artifact collections inside Meridian or Sanctum now have a special reward coming their way!
* To make Artifact set collecting more fun for more Artifact hunters, rarity rates have been tuned to be less extreme between common and rare Artifacts. We’ll be keeping an eye on this through future updates to see if the rates need another boost.
* Artifacts for the Guardian version of the introduction quest for artifact hunting no longer have a sell value.
* Markers for completed quests will now always appear on the main map regardless of whether they are currently being tracked in quest stickies.
* ‘Discover’ quest objectives will no longer increment while a character is dead.
* Characters can no longer accumulate multiple daily quests from the same ‘group’ in their quest journals.
* For quests requiring you to kill level-appropriate targets, tooltips for mobs of too low level will no longer indicate that they will count for the quest.
* Reduced Auction House deposit prices by about 25%.
* You now receive an alert message when reaching a currency cap on your character (ex: Planarite).
* New clothier NPCs have appeared in Meridian and Sanctum following the rise in numbers of fashionable Ascended.
* You may now purchase a 5th role at your Calling trainer!

Hotfix #20

RIVER OF SOULS
* River of Souls quests that have been completed may be turned in to Bourlana in Meridian and Brendnall in Sanctum.
* Quest items for Tools of Destruction and Exorcising Evil will continue to drop for any players with the active quests.
* Players are no longer offered the quest “Bolstering the Defense” by faction invaders.
* Otherworldly Sourcestone will no longer drop from death invaders or colossi.

GENERAL
* Major zone events should fire off more often and the mythical purple zone event currencies should rain from the sky! Okay, maybe not rain – but they’ll be more common than they have been recently.
* Scarwood Reach: Sealing the Portal: The portal at the back of the Sagespire should be much more active now.
* Reporting spam for an offline character will no longer fail.
* Fixed a cosmetic issue causing the UI to report negative damage when damage preventing effects “attempted” to prevent more than 100% of incoming damage.* In those situations, true damage taken was (and still is) 0.

Now, Premium Junkies have the advertisements removed on the ENTIRE RIFT Junkies website! What better way to show your support for RIFT Junkies and get all of the advertisements removed at the same time?

In total a Premium Junkie subscription includes all advertisements turned off, access to a private forum, and you’ll get a colored username.