The Rift

[Frothy]

Hello Kinmates,

Recently I have been asked to begin leading the Legion of Lion Rift raids by my fellow officers, which I have agreed to do. However I want to present these questions and an appeal for feedback from all the officers and players who are ready or are currently participating in our Rift raids. This I hope will help me get a better feel for when we should hold our raids, who is not able to participate and who needs the Rift gear.

What days and times are you available?
How much time are you willing to committ to the raid per session?
What Rift gear do you currently have?
Leadership style? Do you have a preference?As a friendly reminder, raiders should come as prepared as possible so that the raid can proceed on time and the players are fully prepared. The following items should be on your character when we embark:

Undamaged gear (please repair before we start)
Heal and Power Potions
Hope Tokens (Preferrably Brilliants & Glorious for Thrang)
Battle Lore and Warding Scrolls
Wound, Poison and Fear Potions
Food
Optional: Additional Weapons (certain damage types are more effective against certain bosses).Also it is imperative that those participating in the Rift raids try and work on their traits. Trust me I know it is a tiresome and boring grind but in the end it will benefit your character and the raid as a whole. Your traits are one of ways you can maximize your character's effectiveness after reaching level 50. Ideally your equipped traits should be at least 6 or higher. If need be we can try and organize trait grinding fellowships for Trolls in the Misty Mountains and Sarnur.

If yoiu are new to the Rift you should come with a willingness to learn and listen. Every character and class has an essential role in the raid so no one will ever feel like they are a bystander. Also be able to accept defeat; even the veterans of the Rift suffer defeat in the Rift. Please keep on mind raiding in the Rift is nothing like questing in Middle Earth. There are known tactics and strategies for combat in the Rift. Any deviation from these tactics or any breakdown of teamwork will most likely result in a party wipe.

For new raiders if you are ever unsure how to play your character in the Rift talk to a raid veteran. I learned a great deal from Wodenn, and of course Kitty, Nanuq and Professorchaos. You can learn so much from the experienced players and veterans in your class. Also take the time to inspect other players and see what traits and gear they have equipped; much can be learned just from inspecting other players, especially those who are the same class.

Thanks,
Frothy Ironmug

[Achilleus]

What days and times are you available? Any day. Just need to know ahead of time what day we are doing the raid.
How much time are you willing to committ to the raid per session? On a night before work, if we start at 8pm est., I can raid for 4 hours until about 12pm est. Friday and Saturday, my time is unlimited usually.
What Rift gear do you currently have? Minstrel: Boots, leggings and Robe. Guardian: None and Burglar: None.
Leadership style? Do you have a preference? Only preference is that everyone know specifically what they are to do before a fight.I always repair beforehand and bring required items. I have been working alot lately on my traits for my guard and burglar. All of my characters have the highest end crafted armour, weapons, jewelry and much higher than normal stats. I would like to start getting my rift armour for my guard and burglar. However, I do realize the necessity of my minstrel for the Thrang fight. Up to Thrang, our kin seems to have a fairly easy time with. Problems only seem to come up when we have alot of pugs and an unbalanced group.

[kitty]

yay! good for you froth, nice and clear, ill come when i can come, my work sched is not set, so some weeks ill be there, some i wont..my mini and lm have boots, kitty doesnt need anything but the quest drops (thrangs neck, balrog chain) but mika and att need more pieces :) on work nites, i really MUST be in bed by 2 am pst..if we raid that long, we are way to hard core

[professorchaos]

Woot! nicely done froth :) looking forward to the raids!

[Caerylwyn]

Ok... Clueless has to ask...

What is a "pug"?:stupid:

Thanks for leading Frothy! I can't join Rift yet but I am counting the levels til I can.

[Noveah]

Okay, as your wife you should know what I got in the rift....hee hee

Noveah has the boots,chest,legs, and gloves.....only thing left is the Helmet and whatever cimes next....

Trying to Get Ellasari to 50 so i can hopefully atlernate in the rift....

Noveah......

[Bearabald]

Ok... Clueless has to ask...

What is a "pug"?:stupid:

Thanks for leading Frothy! I can't join Rift yet but I am counting the levels til I can.


A PUG stand for Pick-Up Group. Basically, a nonregular group... usually used for easy group quests and whatnot. Raids that are PUGs (or partial PUGs) usually dont turn out well because you dont have the experience of working with the people in your raid (ie. knowing what to expect from each person and whatnot). Experience is the key to end game encounters, that is experience with your teammates and experience with the actual encounter.

[Frothy]

Alright Lions I still need input from those of you who are registered aon legionoflions.com and are Rifters or soon-to-be Rifters. I want to come up with a schedule that will include as many members as possible. Please give me your feedback and ideas.

[Aradel]

My best availability is on the weekend starting Friday. Raiding during the week is very iffy. I like to be able to get off when I need to get off, so I hate making commitments then. =)

Nimawey

Boots
Gloves
ChestAnnwyl

Boots

[kitty]

same as it ever was, if im home and available im there :) tho this next weekend im taking the boy to seattle for spring break..but lots of lions to take my place <3

[Bohdan]

1. Friday and Saturday nights. Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Sunday through Thurdsay I have to be in bed by 11:00 PM Eastern.

2. I start to fade pretty fast after 4 hours.

3. Boots, leggings, breastplate.

4. I like a goose-stepper who tells me exactly what is needed of me in each fight, and what I should avoid doing.

[bokonon]

I'm still pretty much of a raid noob (been in the rift 4 times with Bokowing) so lots of direction is good. Fri and Sat evenings and Sun afternoons are when i can do longer sessions, but not all the time as i do a lot of other activities too. I have the leggings and that's all so far.

[bokonon]

Good run last night, even if Bokowing didn't win any teals hehe! Was sad to see the fubared chestpiece fiasco, tho seeing the Balrog finally was great, in a creepy o-crap-we-gonna-die kind of way :flame:

[Bearabald]

I would like to suggest some minor tweaking of the loot rules or maybe a little clearifing.

1. I dont think alts should be winning loot over mains unless that alt was specifically asked to come to the raid because of a class need.

2. I know we have been doing free rolls on thrang loot to motivate people in to coming, but that needs to go to the wayside soon as well.

Again, I would also like to remind people of the greed factor that is always a struggle to keep in check. Keep in mind that when raid, roughly 1/2 the raid walks away without any drops... so if you win something, keep that in mind when rolling on additions loot. Not saying you can't roll, but just be sure you dont cross the line of being greedy (ie gear that isnt really best suited for your class).

Honestly, I think we shoudl consider a dkp type of system when the expansion is released. We have enough kin members that we dont need to pug very much anymore.

[Dangar]

I am not for the DKP system. I will not attempt to participate in Rift if DKP goes into effect.

[Caerylwyn]

Only 30K to lvl 49!

But aside from that... what is DKP?

And please clarify the loot rules for me!

I don't want to be too much of a noob when I make that first Rift run!

[Achilleus]

I am not for DKP either. Last kin I was with that did dkp I never got one thing after ten Hele raids. We were like sheep and only the top few people in the kin ever got anything. They always had more dkp than everyone else so they got everything. I'm not saying that would happen here, they were just bad people.

[professorchaos]

I am not for the DKP system. I will not attempt to participate in Rift if DKP goes into effect.
lol, u don't rift with us anyways....:ooer:

[professorchaos]

You know i'll back u up on anything nanu, but i am going to have to disagree with the dkp system :(
I think dkp would only be a benefit to kin mates if we were running pug runs. I can see where ur coming from (mostly cause i've seen your rolls) along with pure's rolls. However i do think we need to clarify a few things that I have noticed atleast....
I don't think its fair to say to someone that they can't roll due to their toon not being their main, personally i'm tired of taking proff into the rift, there is honestly not one thing i want in the rift anymore on that toon, except for what the balrog drops. so i'd like to start taking cainman in there (albeit i'm going to be gone for the next 6 months, but meh).
Another thing, which is very important is addressing people's greed, how can someone complain about ANYTHING if they won something? it took 11 other people to help u get that item, and your going to throw a fit? ie: matthis with dream, that was ridiculous....
we should look out for one another and not get distracted over something that is teal, like why would a ranged toon roll on block/parry item? or a tank rolling on tactical crit %? so pls think of what item is suited best for what class.
Another thing which will be posted/reposted will be the new rift loot rules for dream/lions, and that is something that the officers will discuss and re-post here on the forums.

[kitty]

dang...we've been doing dkp for 4 months now..where have you been o.O j/k dkp ftl..but i agree on thrang, hes auto farm now, tho still fun for those who havent done it :) as for alts, ive been taking kitty since the start..and the best (and only thing) ive won and used is the war capt boots, im with pc, id like some things for my alts ( i have passed a winning gem on to pure for leggings so i dont wanna hear the greed argument)

[Dangar]

lol, u don't rift with us anyways....:ooer:


reason being time reasons fridays is no longer a good day for me :hump: i go in on saturdays now. so not to worried.

just merely saying that if DKP goes into effect i will no longer ATTEMPT to run with crew.

[Dangar]

CAER...in response to your Question.....

DKP *not sure of actual wording* is where IF you roll and you win, and someone else has "POINTS", they can override your roll and win using his or her points.

which is completely UNFAIR!!

[professorchaos]

yeah, dkp sucks :( it really screws over the people who can't raid everytime.

[Bearabald]

DKP stands for dragon kill points, it is an old term that has managed to stick.

DKP can be used a ton of different ways. The way that I like is a type of 'zero sum' system. Basically you start everyone with something like 20 points and then set an amount as the minimum cost for any item (for the rift it would work something like 5 points for random blue drops and 10 points for gems). In a zero sum system, it is possible to be negative if an item is defaulted to you and only ties are broken with /random. There is a billion ways of doing dkp, but most are severally broken imo, but not all.

The basic principle of the system is easiest understood in an example. Say an item dropped that Proff and I both wanted. At the time, both of us have 50 points of dkp. I submit a bid to the master looter in the amount of 45 and Proff submits a bid of 23. A bid is the max amount you would be willing to spend on that item. In this case, I would have won the item for 24 points (2nd highest bid plus 1). That 24 points would then be divided by the number of people in the raid (in the case of the rift... 12). So everyone that was there for the kill now has an additional 2 points added to there bank of dkp.

Yes, it does favor those that raid more often, but why shouldnt it? If you miss a lot of raid, it isnt going to make that big of a difference... you still get items (usually cheaper since no one is willign to bid really high after the first couple times an item drops). It also helps motivate people in to coming for 1st attempts at new content since if an item drop for the first time (like the shoulders) it will go for more dkp than the usual item, which means more dkp for everyone that was there.

There is no real way to get THAT far ahead of people in this type of system. It also motivates people to be patient and kills greediness. No one in their right mind is going to spend a chunk of dkp on an item that is not really suited for their class. It also elimates the concern about alts since dkp is account based and that player can chose how he/she spends their points.

DKP can also help motivate people to attend what is surely going to be a wipe. For example, if we were planning a Balrog attemp, we could offer everyone 2dkp if they stick it out. Yea, this breaks from the zero sum idea, but it usually works itself out since if people leave or stop raiding dkp will leave the system anyways.

I am not saying we need this system right now, but it is something that I would like to think about when the expansion is released. I dont think it is fair that someone ends up with getting no gear after 5 rift raids just because the /random gods are not on their side while someone that has never been to any other raid walks in and wins that same piece of gear that someone else has been hoping for for months.

[Caerylwyn]

OI! :eek:

As if trying to figure out which traits to slot for what run and what armour or weapon quality to use for what beastie weren't enough!

Correct me if I am wrong but I read your post as (paraphrased) "If your main is running the rift don't collect equipment for your alts... run the rift with your alts to get their equipment". In other words, If I am running Caer I don't collect stuff for Willow and vise versa. I can work with that.

When I ran Uru and CD this last week I still got things that did not suit Caer simply because I did not know what I was doing and that is why I would like some clarafication on loot rules.

But to let you know, if I get something and someone else wants or needs it I will gladly give it to them as long as it isn't bound... can't then... there is really nothing in this game so important that I HAVE to have it right then! I can always run again and have twice the fun!!

The only thing I really want is a pot of tenticles but I had fun with Vele playing with the ones she got yesterday! :laugh: And I get to look at the ones in the kin house so no hurry.:rolly: BTW... where did the flaming swords come from? Those are really cool too!

And I will be running the Rift soon! Dinged 49 yesterday!

[Bearabald]

OI! :eek:

As if trying to figure out which traits to slot for what run and what armour or weapon quality to use for what beastie weren't enough!

The wound removal trait and the improved power drain are great for the raiding. Besides that, anything that increases your power or morale (or regeneration) are great.


Correct me if I am wrong but I read your post as (paraphrased) "If your main is running the rift don't collect equipment for your alts... run the rift with your alts to get their equipment". In other words, If I am running Caer I don't collect stuff for Willow and vise versa. I can work with that.

Nah.. everything blue in the rift is pretty much Bind of Aquire. What we were talking about is people coming to the rift on thier alts and winning gear that mains really need. I wouldnt worry about this at all, it isnt a big problem at the moment at all.