Daglar shared a bit of good news for Warrior players who enjoy using Combat Veteran Warlord specs that also include abilities found in the Paladin soul. The Paladin soul still has a few clunky “flavor” ability requirements that require the use of a shield. This won’t be the case for much longer!

Originally posted by Daglar (Source)

---

The flavor is nice on the Paladin, but at the end of the day the game play and synergy suffers for it. I’ve asked Aillion to remove the shield requirement on a number of Paladin abilities – and to rename the ones that would be silly without it.

Hm, that means a change in name for Shield Charge. ‘Shiny Wings O’ Light Charge’, anyone? Nah, probably not.

One of the hottest debates within the RIFT community since the addition of Conquest has been whether or not it was a good idea to place perks that benefit both PvP and PvE inside a PvP-only system. Many high-end raiders were frustrated with the Conquest Power perks and the addition of the Conquest trinkets. There were also PvP players who disliked the requirement of Infinity Stones for PvP planar essences. These items and perks that blur the lines between PvP and PvE content were set up this way intentionally. Daglar clarified the team’s stance on cross-content perks and items on the forums yesterday:

Originally posted by Daglar (Source)

---

There are going to be portions of the game where content crosses over and it grants benefits. You are not absolutely required by the game to take part in this activity. You feel that you must as you are a high end raider. We absolutely give you an incentive to engage in this content – I will not argue that point.

I have seen these requests before – I will see them again. We will not be removing the PvE benefits from Conquest. We will not be removing the trinkets from working in PvE.

The same holds true of requiring infinity stones for essences from PvP. There are other aspects of the game that we want you to engage in. This is why we create a variety of reward paths.

He also clarified a few other things along the same lines, including whether or not Thunderous Leap will be making a return in instances and raids. The short answer: Nope. Keep reading to see the (slightly) longer answer as well as Daglar’s current thoughts on the development direction of Conquest.

With another recent hotfix behind our belts, there was a handful of interesting dev tracker posts on the forums yesterday. First off, let’s talk hotfix changes.

A pretty large chunk of the Warrior population was disappointed to find that Thunderous Leap, one of the Warrior PvP PA abilities, was disabled for use inside dungeons and raids. Ailion commented on the change:

Originally posted by Ailion (Source)

---

Thunderous Leap was disabled in instances because the use of this ability to bring the player to supposedly inaccessible locations resulted in some unintended game states within certain encounters. This causes the mechanics of the encounters to break. We have decided to disable this ability to maintain the integrity of the encounters.

There seem to be two schools of thought regarding the change among the vocal Warrior players of the community. Some players feel the change was too cutthroat and will hurt PvE Warriors who enjoyed having a baseline mobility move, and other players feel the change might have been necessary, but only if other PvP PA abilities are treated equally (Cleanse Soul, for example).

Keep reading to see the rest of the dev tracker posts.

Over the weekend, Trion posted a few updates on the forums for Clerics, Warriors, and Rogues. Among the updates, there were notes of current bugs impacting Fiery Spike and Expose Weakness for Rogues, Reckless Strike for Warriors, and Light of Redemption for Clerics. Light of Redemption, the Sentinel ability, has actually been temporarily disabled as of late Saturday. Here are the three dev tracker posts, starting with the Cleric update:

Originally posted by Pithos (Source)

---

Hello everyone,

We’ve had to disable the 61 point Sentinel ability, Light of Redemption, due to a bug.

Thank you to everyone who reported it, and we hope to have it active again soon.

Keep reading to see the others.

Yesterday both Atrius and Zinbik were hard at work on the official RIFT forums, communicating with the community about upcoming changes to Warrior and Justicar tank mitigation, as well as some changes being made to Riftblade. Here’s a roundup of their posts, starting with Zinbik’s thoughts on tank mitigation and the announcement of a change for Doctrine of Glory:

Originally posted by Zinbik (Source)

---

As of right now, internally, all tanks have nearly identical health and mitigation. This is already largely true on LIVE.

Nearly all of the changes currently being made to Warrior tanks involve allowing them to establish their mitigation more easily or passively against all monsters involved in the fight. Justicars already have the advantage there, because the only active mitigation factor we have to establish during the fight is Precept of Refuge. Everything else is passive or a lengthy buff, meaning we get the full benefits against all monsters right from the start of the fight.

The only real changes to the math behind Warrior mitigation are largely minor to help establish better internal Warrior equivalency. I’m not going to completely discount the possibility of some crazy new hybrid popping up that we haven’t considered that comes out ahead, because that happens sometimes in a system like this. However, that possibility has been at the forefront of our thoughts throughout the process.

As far as Soul Coalescence equivalents go, yes, Doctrine of Glory will soon reduce your damage taken by 2.86% per Conviction consumed for 4s. It will no longer heal at all, because it was unloved and no longer wishes to help anyone.

Continue reading to see the other dev tracker posts.

Atrius, RIFT’s Warrior Lead Developer, gave players an update yesterday regarding the buffs and fixes Warriors will see in the upcoming 2.1 patch. Some of these changes are a direct result from the data and feedback collected after a recent hotfix. Others are focused on tank balance, DPS balance, and bug fixes. Here’s that update:

Originally posted by Atrius (Source)

---

We have been working on a couple things over the last few days and wanted to let you all know some changes coming to the Warriors in 2.1, which is just around the corner.

There have been several bug fixes, these are just some of the ones I have seen talked about here.

• Electricity Blast – Only able to be used by one member of a raid. This will be fixed in 2.1
• Hardened Defenses – Giving too low of a bonus. This will be fixed in 2.1
• Accord of Power – Duration is not increased with Energy Retention. This will be fixed in 2.1
• Empowerment – Not giving the enhanced Endurance buff. This will be fixed in 2.1
• Unstable Reaction – Not generating Aggro properly. This will be fixed in 2.1.

We will also be adding in a few buffs.

• Void Knight – Will be getting another 5% bonus to Endurance.
• Tank Mitigation – Warrior tank mitigation currently seems to be about 10% behind the Cleric and the Rogue. We have been looking into this and will have it fixed for 2.1.
• Paragon Damage – This is currently behind by a significant amount, it will be buffed for 2.1.

We are also looking into other issues and these will not be the only changes. I just wanted to give you all a preview of some of what to expect.

A large number of Warriors were quite surprised yesterday when they read the latest RIFT hotfix patch notes. Yep, more Warrior changes! This time we saw some fairly major changes to both the Paragon and Tempest souls. The Warrior class has seen quite a few changes within these past weeks due to balance issues. And sure, some of those changes may have been necessary (especially those due to bugs), but the fact that these changes keep happening is starting to become a little frustrating for many Warrior fans.

Needless to say, there was quite the stir on the Warrior forums yesterday as a result of the hotfix. Players who are level 60 and have been playing the new Paragon and Tempest specs were upset about the heavy-handed changes. Atruis, the Warrior developer, stepped in and gave his reasons for the changes, which raised more questions than answers. He also asked for Warrior players to submit their parses to him for further study.

Storm Legion’s starting to look pretty electric, especially for fans of the Warrior calling. Storms abound, and tempests. Lots of tempests. Yesterday was Trion’s official Storm Legion Tempest live stream reveal, and Atrius, the Warrior Lead Developer, Gersh, Dahanese, and Elrar sat back and showed us the new Tempest soul firsthand. They also shared some of the new, exciting changes coming for Warrior players, including major changes to many existing souls and changes to weapon DPS mechanics.

The Trion team, as always, had quite a bit of fun during the live stream, and some of yesterday’s antics included a dancing dude in a turtle suit, Gersh serving up rum and cokes (to himself), a trolling white board, and Elrar showing off new bear mounts. Catch the live stream yourself at MMORPG.com’s TwitchTV page. It’s quite a fun watch. In the meantime, we’ve got your bases covered here– with all the highlights, and some nifty screenshots.

Update 9/11: Time has been changed to 2:30 PM PST.

Warrior players, get your Storm Legion questions ready– it’s time for the Tempest reveal this coming Friday, September 14th at 2:30 PM PST! Trion posted the announcement for the official RIFT live stream yesterday, and also posted a thread for questions players may have prepared ahead of time. Questions can also be submitted via Twitter or during the actual live stream.

I am excited to announce, once again, that the RIFT community team is gearing up for a Storm Legion new soul glimpse. If you’re a warrior it is time for you to learn about the Tempest!

Get your first glimpse and discover the name of the new soul and its role on Friday, September 14th at 3:30PM PDT.

During this preview you will have the opportunity to submit questions to James “Elrar” Nichols and Elizabeth “Dahanese” Tobey.

This particular thread is to give you an opportunity to submit some questions so that the Trion team can be ready to answer them. Please remember that this is just a sneak peak. Elrar and Dahanese won’t be able to answer everything just yet but they’ll be happy to show you some of the exciting things that you can expect in the future.

If there is something that you’d like to know please submit questions in this thread or via Twitter @RIFTgame #RIFTLS (please use the hashtag or we might miss your question). I’ll collect them all and pass them off to Trion before show time.

Please bear in mind that the Storm Legion souls are still a work in progress and this is a first look. Consider it just a small peak into the amazing things that will arrive with the expansion.

In the coming weeks you can look forward to a live stream unveiling the remaining Cleric, and Rogue souls when they’re ready for their debut!

Lastly, for Rogue and Cleric players, fear not– we won’t have to wait another month for the next reveal, which will the Rogue unveil. Last but not least, we’ll then get the Cleric reveal.

Yesterday, Gamespot released Trion’s Storm Legion Developer Diary video to the public. This video will probably be announced by Trion today at some point, along with our exciting Mage soul reveal during the official live stream, but until then, feast your eyes on this very awesome glimpse into Storm Legion.

Keep reading to watch the video and see our highlights and commentary.