Rifstalker's PvE Tanking 3rd Soul? Bladedancer or Ranger!

[Steelhawks]

First of all, i've been tanking with my Rifstalker and i must say i really love it. Damage mitigation is awesome, lots of mobility and i feel it's not a pain to heal me.

I've been playing with Riftstalker and Bard as my primary and secondary soul, and Bladedancer (5pts) for the 5% Dodge and Side Step.

Looking at the Ranger tree, i noticed that i would be able to get a passive 5% Increase Health and 6% Damage Reduction. Coupled with the Rifstalker 6% Damage Reduction and the Bard 10% Increase Health, we're looking at 12% Damage Reduction and 15% Increase Health!

What are you guys thought?

Blade or Ranger?

[Ishniana]

I went Riftstalker as primary, Bladedancer as secondary for the additional dodge%-riposte dmg, dodge abilities, aoe attacks. Then assassin for the third simply for poison buff.

I would definitely say use Bladedancer at least for the buff you get, can save your tanking butt.

[Thulium]

Previously in beta, and now in head start I play:

Bard (8) // Rift Stalker // Ranger (8)

You get:
-6% less damage taken
-15% more HP
-3% enemy miss, 3% less chance to be crit

Also have role with blade dancer sub, but I've actually never used it in head start.

Edit:
Also, I find that being able to build CP from range with the ranger shots or cadence is very handy for situations that plane shifting is not advisable (giant horde of invaders stacked on road and you want to peel one off, etc).

[Shatteredstar]

Rift/Blade/Bard is overall the best mix of avoidance and health IMO.

Rift main obviously, blade dancer up to the +6% parry from false blade (and combat culmination will make trash packs much easier) and bard with Street Smart will boost HP and give you a bit more avoidance and crit damage reduction can even slip in Anthem of Glory if you want for an armor buff.

[gammexane]

Rift/Blade/Bard is overall the best mix of avoidance and health IMO.

Rift main obviously, blade dancer up to the +6% parry from false blade (and combat culmination will make trash packs much easier) and bard with Street Smart will boost HP and give you a bit more avoidance and crit damage reduction can even slip in Anthem of Glory if you want for an armor buff.

I am using the same souls. Besides this, all the meless around me are buffed :P

[IanTheRed]

Ummm... Bladedancer should be your secondary soul period. Your Bard skills are useless if you have another bard in the group not to mention you should be spending GCDs on threat building abilities not buffs.

The only reason to get Bard in a RS build is the endurance talent and street smarts.

[Khroul]

I've probably tanked about 10-15 instances at this point, between now and the Beta,

between the levels 20-39 I've found that Riftstalker / Blade Dancer / Bard is a pretty good mix.

If was going to switch anything out, it would NEVER be Bladedancer. Sidesteps is a fairly invaluable ability, that combined with the counter attack move, Twin Strike, and the AOE Finisher, it helps significantly with those AOE pulls when you have a crazy mage in your group.

On massive AOE pulls I'll often Shadow Blitz in, hit Rift Disturbance, and Side Steps. This causes your screen to flood with counter attacks from all the dodges, gives you massive damage mitigation, long enough to kill most of the mobs, and makes you hold aggro like a boss.

So I've been thinking about different mechanics involving how damage mitigation works for the Riftstalker -----


Improved Rift Guard. Your Primary damage mitigation move in this game, is from this talent.
Every SINGLE point you put into the Riftstalker tree, causes this talent to grant you an additional .5% damage mitigation per attack, after 16 points in the tree.


With 51 points in the tree, this translates into an additional 17.5% damage mitigation, on top of the 17.5% you get from Improved Rift Guard.

This totals up to obviously 35% flat damage mitigation. I'm not sure if that is before or after armor, but regardless, It's incredibly valuable. Add in the 6% from Exceptional Resilience, and you have 41% Flat damage mitigation as long as you have Rift Guard up. Just from the Rift stalker tree.

Now, the debate between 'Avoidance and Max health' is timeless. Personally, I feel there is substantial damage mitigation in the Rift stalker tree to warrant maxing it out with 51 points, then backing it up with Bladedancer for the 5% dodge / Strike Back / Side Steps.

I think the real choice is between Bard and Ranger, and the 6% damage mitigation from the Ranger tree is more appealing, as nice and or humorous as it is to pull with Cadence.

I intend to use a spec like this -

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...ItIuqkRkkR.t0b

Personally, Maxing the Rift Stalker Tree seems more valuable than anything else. You also gain 1% endurance for every point in the tree after 26, which translates into ~25% additional endurance.

While Leveling I would focus on getting about 28-29 points in Riftstalker first. Then Back it up with the 5% dodge from Blade Dancer, and the 2 points in Strike Back. Then go for the extra points in Ranger. Once you have the 8 in ranger, and 8 in Blade Dancer, Finish out the Riftstalker tree.