This article is part of a series in which we will discuss the different roles, as a warrior, that you might find yourself asked to complete in various raid instances. This will not be a rehash of entire boss strategies, only the parts that are relevant to warriors.

Today we’re going to begin with Greenscale’s Blight! This instance is what really begins to teach you the various things you have to become familiar with as a warrior. From tanking adds in a DPS spec, to announcing commands to your team, it really gets you comfortable with your place in the raid.

This is intended to be read after knowing basic strategies of the fights.

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About a week ago, Scott Hartsman posted a RIFT Summer Update where he discussed some big plans Trion has in store for us somewhere down the road. One of these plans is the future implementation of solo/small group instances. He called these instances Chronicles of Telara, and told us that the Chronicles would not only let players enjoy instanced content without the need for 5-man groups, but also enjoy bits of RIFT’s story, centralizing around certain key characters and plot points. The idea is very promising, but also raises some questions.

The big catchup of changes that went to test this week; additional combat notes from Tuesday’s build were already posted as Set#2.

* Note that this is caught up through the build intended to go to PTS at some point today but is not quite there yet.

GENERAL
* New transplanar Synergy Crystals have been added to the Rift faction vendors in Sanctum and Meridian. These work with the existing transplanar armor available from Rare Rift Goods vendors in Stillmoor, Shimmersand, and Iron Pine Peak.
* Bind on Pickup items can now be traded to other eligible characters within 30 minutes of looting the item.
* Aspect of the Ancients is no longer usable while you have full Planar Charges (which would end up just wasting it).
* The character window stat page now highlights stats that are important for your calling, with tooltip goodness.
* Characters can no longer use a Planar Focus that contains Planar Essences they cannot equip.
* Toned down the number of visual effects that display during large combat situations.

The videos and report in this article come from the German guild Result on the EU server Immerwacht. The new 10 man dungeon is on the PTS which is called “Drowned Halls” which is equivalent, gear wise, with the other 10 man dungeons and 20 man raids. The difficulty is reportedly easier that the Gilded Prophecy. The location of this new dungeon is in Scarwood Reach (loc 2950/4150).

One night on the PTS a GM pulled groups of players into the instance for testing. As we heard from Scott Hartsman last week, we are beginning to see RIFT’s push for more casual content. If Drownded Halls is easier than Gilded Prophecy, we are going to start seeing content more casual players will be able to complete in a PUG group.

After the break check out videos from each of the four new bosses.

On the PTS are currently new recipes for weaponsmithing, armorsmithing, apothecary, outfitting and artificer. Apothecaries get new recipes to create augments, all armor crafting professions get new armor recipes that include set bonuses. To check out all the new recipes and their details, keep reading.

Remember to click on each image to enlarge it.

SOULS

CLERIC

CABALIST
* The goal of the below Cabalist changes were to make this soul far less confusing in general, reduce the awkwardness of using Sigils, tone down the long and complex rotations, and combine the AE abilities in a way that can use a single, understandable rotation.
* PTS Only: Decay now displays in the Soul Mechanic UI.
* Decay: Renamed Lurking Decay. This is now a buff that automatically generates one stack of Decay every 2 seconds.
* Tyranny: Now consumes (and therefore triggers) all of your Decays at once. 30 second cooldown.
* Obliterate: Reduced cooldown to 45 seconds. Decays triggered from this now deal triple damage, but no longer cause an AE.
* Sigil of Power: Renamed Vile Power. Now available at 20 points. This now works like Tyranny, dealing damage and consuming/triggering all of your Lurking Decays. In addition, it restores a base amount of mana, plus an additional amount of mana for each enemy it hits. Reduced the cooldown to 90 seconds.

A huge thank you to everyone who participated in this giveaway!

The winner of an awesome Raptr prize pack including a Raptr branded snuggie, a Raptr branded wine glass, and some other random gaming swag goodness from the treasure trove is Zil-Rogue! PM coming to you soon!

We’d also like to point out that Raptr has a Summer of Raptr Promotion with over $25,000 worth of gaming prizes up for grabs. You can get more information on that by clicking here.

Something that initially interested me about RIFT is the artifact system. It’s a great addition to any MMOG, and does a lot for the depth of RIFT. While not the first game to include such a system, the idea that tangible things from the RIFT history and storyline can be discovered in-game is great, and adds another level of realism to the world. It also creates another “profession” open to anyone willing to put in the time or money.

The current rewards, however, don’t do the system justice in my opinion. Sure, the various wearable and non-combat items are fun, and the Shiny Tartagon is a status symbol for how many artifacts you’ve collected, but now that players have had over four months to collect these, it’s time to update not only the rewards for artifact collection, but the types of artifacts hidden throughout the world.

Here is the latest installment of The Sanctum from GameBreaker.tv.