Mage planar attunement and gearing post 50.

[KeithMe]

So basically ive just hit 50 and at the moment im more or less completely geared out in the lvl50 set provided by the story quests over at cape jule. Got a few questions though and would really appreciate it if someone could answer them for me.

1. Regarding planar attunement points, is it considered a loss if i want to go for a sword and tome build? Seeing as 1 point into staff mastery increases spell power by 2 while 1 point into either tome or dagger/sword mastery only increases 1 spell power i.e. if i go tome/sword build it will take me 8 points while staff only requires 4.

2. Im pretty confused about the end game currency, is there a specific currency i should be hoarding? Between marks of accession, greater marks, plague of achievement, etc. At the moment im just randomly choosing my rewards at the end of every expert dungeon. I have been checking out http://www.rift-hero.com/magegear/index.php#two for gear info, but beyond telling me the stats and "best" gear it doesnt really give me much of an idea of gear progression. Is this one of those games where gear (A) is required to farm the dungeons for gear (B) and so on? Because from what ive seen the lvl50 gear from cape jule, though a requirement to even enter the expert dungeons, far surpass the dungeon drops.

3 Also, where are the merchants for said gears?

[Phelim on the Moor]

1. Regarding planar attunement points, is it considered a loss if i want to go for a sword and tome build? Seeing as 1 point into staff mastery increases spell power by 2 while 1 point into either tome or dagger/sword mastery only increases 1 spell power i.e. if i go tome/sword build it will take me 8 points while staff only requires 4.

I'd never really thought of the beginning stages of planar attunement in such an economic fashion, but I suppose, yes, it take two PA points to do one-hand/totem vs. one point going via staff. However, you must keep in mind that drops very often dictate which combo that you're going to end up going with, so I try to keep the two even. In the end, there are not so many places to put your points that you won't end up putting your points in all the weapon options soon enough. However, if you know that, at 60, you're going to be using a particular item (be it crafted or as a reward from a certain vendor), then just start stacking your tree that way at first. It's not really a huge deal either way, it's a very light coating of gravy.

2. Im pretty confused about the end game currency, is there a specific currency i should be hoarding? Between marks of accession, greater marks, plague of achievement, etc. At the moment im just randomly choosing my rewards at the end of every expert dungeon. I have been checking out http://www.rift-hero.com/magegear/index.php#two for gear info, but beyond telling me the stats and "best" gear it doesnt really give me much of an idea of gear progression. Is this one of those games where gear (A) is required to farm the dungeons for gear (B) and so on? Because from what ive seen the lvl50 gear from cape jule, though a requirement to even enter the expert dungeons, far surpass the dungeon drops.

Aside from Planarite, the other currencies that you got pre-Storm Legion are basically of no value . Some people use them to buy items that look good so they can use them in their wardrobe, but the SL quest gear is better than almost all the stuff you got at pre-SL end-game. This is a progression raiding game at end game, so in essence you need to do basic dungeons to get the +HIT bonus to get into Expert Dungeons, which will get you the +HIT bonuses to get you into 10-man slivers, etc. You don't need particular items to do the next level, just have the appropriate +HIT/ +TOUGHNESS (for Tanks).

3 Also, where are the merchants for said gears?

In the Storm Legion expansion, they are in Tempest Bay. However, keep in mind, you can open up the Rift Store from anywhere and find it there.

Welcome to Rift and Telara, and good luck.

[KeithMe]

Ah, ok thanks. Reason i asked was cause im not too sure how much the max planar points were. If i have more than enough to cover all my weapon masteries then i'd happily just max them all, if not then im just going to put a point here and there just to unlock access to the other branches. Also, correct me if im wrong but are you saying that the gear purchased using the end game currency is inferior to the dungeon/raid ones? In other words there isnt really much point in doing IA's/ quests/ rifts that award said currency? I can just focus on getting the bare minimum hit required to enter the storm legion raids and grind the gear from there? And if so, is the gear dropped in SL these "relic gears" from the deep boxes or do they surpass them? Sorry for all the questions but im just finding it quite complicated to understand. Love the game but the sheer amount of currencies/gear/vendors is just confusing.

[Chantillary]

If I remember correctly from the PTS, the max number of planar points is on the order of 1100. You can get more, but that's the max number you can spend to get all honeycombs filled out.

[Phelim on the Moor]

Ah, ok thanks. Reason i asked was cause im not too sure how much the max planar points were. If i have more than enough to cover all my weapon masteries then i'd happily just max them all, if not then im just going to put a point here and there just to unlock access to the other branches. Also, correct me if im wrong but are you saying that the gear purchased using the end game currency is inferior to the dungeon/raid ones? In other words there isnt really much point in doing IA's/ quests/ rifts that award said currency? I can just focus on getting the bare minimum hit required to enter the storm legion raids and grind the gear from there? And if so, is the gear dropped in SL these "relic gears" from the deep boxes or do they surpass them? Sorry for all the questions but im just finding it quite complicated to understand. Love the game but the sheer amount of currencies/gear/vendors is just confusing.

Pre-Storm Legion, the currencies can only be used to purchase pre-SL level gear. Very few pieces of it compares to even Storm Legion level 50 quest rewards, with the best gear from pre-SL was obsolete by level 54 or 55 (and odds are you don't have that gear, as it was what the bleeding edge progression raiders had and took months/years to get doing 20-man raids pre-SL).

To get into an Expert Dungeon you need 300 Hit. To be quite honest, if you're in a good guild that has crafters, you can get enough level 60 crafted gear to surpass 300, maybe even 400 (10-man Sliver +HIT requirement) as soon as you ding 60. What's more, you purchase gear that adds up to (or very close) to 400 HIT from the Rift Store. You lose a lot of valuable experience you would have gotten had you gone the grind dungeons, then Experts route, however.

In terms of Storm Legion currency, you will be getting:

Planarite: Always a must have, though you might get to a point where you are buying stuff just to avoid hitting the Planarite cap (which is 200K Planarite).
Empyreal Sourcestones: The level 50-59 Storm Legion sourcestone acquired when doing "Open World" events (Zone events, carnage quests, many daily quests, Hunt Rifts, etc.) pre-level 60. It is used to purchase "Adventure Gear" and upgrades for said gear, as well as Notoriety-unlocked Lesser Essences. By level 60, there's nothing you can/want to purchase with it, at which point it too falls into the "why do I have this?" pile. It cannot be converted to Planarite either, like you could do with all the sourcestones before, and after.
Infinity Stones: The level 60 Sourcestone acquired when doing level 60 "Open World" events (Zone events, carnage quests, many daily quests, Hunt Rifts, Great Hunt Rifts, Stormholds, Open World Bosses, etc.) . Used to purchase level 60 "World Gear" (which is equivalent to level 60 Expert Dungeon gear) and upgrades for said gear, as well as level 60 Notoriety-unlocked Lesser Essences.
Empyreal Slayers' Mark: Currency reward from Dungeons/Expert Dungeons. This is used to purchase Expert Dungeon gear and upgrades for said gear. I confess I'm not sure if there's any Lessers that you can get with them.
Frozen Eclipse Stone: Currency reward from 10-man Slivers/20-man Raids. This is used to purchase Raid gear and upgrades for said gear. I confess I'm not sure if there's any Lessers that you can get with them.

You want ALL of these. Even the Empyreal Sourcestones are good at the time to fill out your gear with a select few pieces of Adventure Gear and upgrades.

[MithrilSoul]

Phelim, that last post is really very helpful. Thank you for taking the time to write all of that out!

[Usernamexists]

Thank you so much!! great guide!

[Guidinglite]

On the plus side, you can send your empyreal stones to alts and convert your infinity to planarite. Nice summary of the currencies.

[Alessar]

1. Regarding planar attunement points

I think the best thing you can do is immediately buy the lure for each element and the +1 planar charge power next to it. Then go into the PVP tree and drop points into reducing the cooldown of Break Free (hex is right next to the mandatory first hex). You should have that on your bar for PVE stun breaks all the time anyway.

Next, I usually focus on the Death tree (unless I'm playing a healer) because the vampiric weapon enchantment in the 2nd tier is fantastic for soloing. Then I work on whatever is useful for the character. In the third tiers there are powers that let you recover a planar charge at will once in a while, more +1 charge, and some additional charge capacity. It's worth looking very far ahead.

Eventually you can get EVERYTHING.

[Yvette]

besides this being an old thread...

planar attunement now is maxed at 1277.

the 3 combo attunements in the lower corner each have 41 points.
the tiers 1-3 for all planes together (nature, death, air, water, fire, earth) + WAR 1 & 2 together have 1079 points all together
the 3rd tier for war is 75 points.

check the icons in the lower row to see what the planes are focused on, to get an idea which tier to start on.
all 2nd tiers from the planes give access to a recall option.. stonefield, droughtlands, gloamwood, scarwood, moonshade and ember isle.
the purple boxes in the tiers often hold ability training, decrease soulwalk cd, up mountain speed, up swimming speed.. which can be useful at times.
also, planar charges.. maxing them is useful for onslaughts (nexus infusion, buffing damage/taking less damage from planar invasions) or summoning a healer.
3rd tier planes grant the rift summons, which can be useful when doing hunt rifts.

other than that.. the stats buff is a bonus, but not always the best thing to get from the tiers imho.. it all depends on how you play, what you want to do.. to consider what is worth most to you to spend your points on.

[Anasatsudo]

In regards to the planar attunement tree, I usually go by this:

Charges > Abilities > Resists > Major stat (dex, str, etc..) > Spell Power / Attack power with weapons I'm using at the time > Rift hunt specific stuff

If you like to pvp, you'll want the WAR tree filled out first, then the others. In the end, you should get to around 500'ish points before it starts to slow down a bit.