GENERAL
* Raid assistants can now invite instead of recommend invite via the unit frame menu, and non-assistants can now recommend invite.
* Fixed an issue causing Hellbugs to do more damage than intended to other NPCs in the Invasive Species rift.
* The Hellbug Monarch from the Invasive Species rift is no longer immune to taunt.
* Fixed the Skywarped Talon mob spawning with no health in the Runecrafting crafting rift.

CALLINGS
WARRIOR
Beastmaster
* Calliope’s Beastmaster Crystal: The 4 piece bonus buff triggered by Messy Wounds now last 30s, up from 15s.
Tempest
* Discharged Defenses: The tooltop for Discharged Defenses has been corrected, it now correctly reads that its buff causes Warrior attacks to ignore some of the target’s armor and resistance.

In lieu of hearing a simple announcement regarding an arrival date for Patch 2.3, we received some other big news yesterday along with that patch date announcement. Yep, RIFT’s going free-to-play on June 12th, which is also when 2.3 will be opening its doors (and Dendrome). Most of us saw the hints of this move coming months ago in between the layoffs at Trion, the addition of the in-game shop, and Scott Hartsman’s departure. Yesterday’s news still came as a surprise to many of us, however, especially given the timing of the news.

Bill “Daglar” Fisher mentioned yesterday that the team had been planning this move for more than a year, but despite the fact that the team pushed one-year subscription plans during the launch of Storm Legion, veteran players were only given one month to absorb the F2P news. Many one-year subscribers are understandably feeling a little let down by this move, especially considering the fact that some are paid up with over 300 days remaining on their accounts.

In an announcement put out in a press release, Rift will go free to play starting June 12, 2013.

PLAY ALL YOU WANT AND PAY WHAT YOU WANT AS RIFT® GOES FREE-TO-PLAY!

Trion Responds to Community Demand;
Trion’s Proven MTX Engine to Power Free-to-Play RIFT

Redwood Shores, CA (May 14, 2013) - RIFT®, the award-winning online game from Trion Worlds, will adopt a free-to-play business model starting June 12, 2013. Players will be able to experience the entire game world; every dungeon, every zone, and every level and get full access to all current and future game updates.

“We have been listening to feedback from our players and watching the continuously developing MMO community, and are now ready to launch RIFT as a premium free-to-play experience,” said Bill Fisher, Creative Director of RIFT. “After taking our time and planning a careful transition; we are very excited to bring an enhanced game experience to everyone, without barriers.”

All players will be able to explore the entire world of Telara for free and will have access to the expanded in-game RIFT Store where a variety of services–mounts, boosts, wardrobe items, and more–will be available for purchase. An optional subscription will still be available that grants a slew of “Patron” benefits and bonuses to maximize the RIFT experience. Trion will celebrate its current and previous subscribers with loyalty and currency rewards for their time spent playing RIFT thus far.

“As a gamer’s game, a super fun and fair experience is of the utmost importance to us,” said Fisher. “Players will have the opportunity to buy customizations and boosts to heighten their play experience; however the best gear in the game will always have to be earned through playing RIFT.”

RIFT free-to-play kicks off with massive content update 2.3, Empyreal Assault, which will open up an unforgettable new zone, world event, chronicle and much more. Empyreal Assault launches on June 12th, 2013 for all Ascended of Telara.

For full details on RIFT F2P visit: www.riftgame.com/free

Does this change your opinion of RIFT? Will this make you stop playing or start again? What does the community think?

In Patch 2.3, one of the many things being added to RIFT is another new personal dimension. This one’s also based off the popularly-requested Moonshade Highlands map and is called Three Springs. Three Springs is a fairly large dimension based on the Three Springs area of the in-game zone, of course, and it comes with a gorgeous bit of interior space. The Assembly House in Three Springs is completely accessible, which will give dimensioneers some pretty cool options.

The key for Three Springs will set you back 300 Plat and can be purchased at the vendor with all the other dimension keys in Tempest Bay. The dimension itself comes with a 1000-item limit. And the best part? Three Springs is currently available on the Player Test Shard for us to check out. Keep reading for our screenshot preview.

RIFT’s Hellbugs– they come in pretty colors, look awesome when they jump, and are currently helping fire rifts see a lot of action. One problem, however. The drop rates on these little and not-so-little guys are very random and a little low for many players’ tastes. The combination of the two makes completing a Hellbug mount/pet collection fairly time consuming. Unless, of course, the RNG gods are on your side so to speak.

RNG, which stands for ‘random number generation’, is the acronym us gamers like to use when our odds of obtaining goodies are purely left to the virtual dice. By now, most of us are familiar with the concept of RNG mount drops in RIFT and remember it from past world events where players were either lucky or, well, weren’t. Trion took a hint from players after Waves of Madness and promptly started offering mount rewards during world events that didn’t require a whole lot of luck. The past few world events mounts have been really easy to nab, in fact.

GENERAL
* The Hellbug companion items Phero, Blurple, and Skitt are now Bind on Account.
* Fixed an issue causing some players to be unable to see Sliver entrances or Twisted Artifacts when using Quantum/Omen Sight after joining an instance on another shard.

CALLINGS
WARRIOR
Riftblade
* Rift Spear: Now an Area of Effect ability, due to this it will be affected by any damage bonuses and penalties to AoE attacks.

CRAFTING
* Grandmaster Artificer Supply Chest no longer drops Unerupted Teeth or Collagen Struts
* Flying fish in Silverwood have been put back underwater. They were not cleared for takeoff.
* Stuffed Mushrooms and Chilled Octopus can now be crafted at the same skill it takes to learn the recipes

USER INTERFACE
* NPC’s (usually raid encounters) killed by an offline player should now drop loot for the group upon their defeat. There may be a short delay before the loot appears if the player remains offline.
* Fixed a bug causing some players to hide the NPC’s in addition to players when enabling “Hide Players” – woops!
* Using /dumpguild command will now only export data visible to a player based on their rank in the guild.

In the past we’ve covered Star Wars theme parks and snow-covered Viking villages in our Dimension Spotlight. This time, we’re turning down the exotic locales a notch and taking a look at a perfect weekend getaway underneath a waterfall. As a bonus, our waterfall-enchanted nook just happens to be set in Moonshade Pools, RIFT‘s newest dimension.

Moonshade Cove, which is on the Faeblight shard, comes to us from Ebonrose. Thanks to a very cool contest held by The Artisan’s Guild on Faeblight, Ebonrose’s dimension was the first place winner of the “Hidden Gems of Faeblight” contest, which showcased some of the coolest underdog dimensions among Faeblight’s thriving dimension-making community.

Hellbugs are pouring out of fire rifts everywhere in RIFT, but Hellbug mounts, on the other hand, are proving a little more difficult to come across. RNG is RNG, as they say, but Trion is making one adjustment to help us out during our searches. In a future patch, all Hellbug rewards including pets and mounts will be made Bind on Account. The announcement was made first by MikeD then later confirmed by Elrar, who also reminded players that these rifts will stick around for a while, so there’s no need to feel pressured to farm all of the Hellbugs within this first week of release.

Originally posted by Elrar (Source)

---

Just wanted to mention again – the Invasive Species Fire Rift will remain in-game for the forseeable future, at this time there are no plans to remove it from the regular rotation of fire rifts.

As Mike mentioned – all of the Hellbug rewards will be made Bind on Account in an upcoming Hot Fix.

If ya feel a bit burned out (no pun intended) on killing Hellbugs trying to get the rarer rewards I encourage you to take a break and enjoy other parts of RIFT – they’ll be there for ya when you return

Thanks all, have fun, good luck and have a wonderful weekend!

Happy hunting!

RIFTS
* Hungry, hungry Helbugs have crash landed in RIFT from the DEFIANCE universe! A new fire rift named “Invasive Species” now has a chance to appear in all zones. Completing the unstable stages of this rift offers a chance at acquiring any of three different types of hellbug mounts and companions, including the extremely rare Toxic Hellbug.

ITEMS
* Fixed an issue where objects without a cooldown sometimes displayed cooldown time left.
* Fixed a crash that occurred when comparing an equipped item with another item that has a very large number of stats.

QUESTS
* Freemarch: Water Saga Quest – Solace Cabal: Fixed a case that breaks scripting when players immediately aggro mobs after starting event.
* Steppes of Infinity: Ice Heart: Fixed an issue that would cause Atos to become stuck in a cast loop

CONQUEST
* Fixed an issue with respawns which could sometimes cause players to fall through the geometry.

So you want to join the ranks of Mage healing.  I won’t kid you, it’s a tough job that’s made even more tough by only having a couple direct healing spells.  While you could be a good dungeon healer you will likely play a support healer in raids.  This isn’t a knock against Mage healers, we are very good at pumping out group heals, but keeping a tank up during massive pulse damage can be tricky with little to no margin for error.

So with all the challenges that a Mage has to overcome when healing what spec makes it easier and how can a Mage go from being a good healer to a great one?  Well, most of the time you will find that those Mages who are good at healing know all the fights like the back of their hand and, more importantly, they know how to manage their cooldowns and time their direct healing abilities properly.  While the timing and management of cooldowns are an art form that will take a fair bit of practice to master we can take a look at how you might want to spec out your Mage souls, what macros to have available, and a general rotation of some spells.