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An in depth Guide: 51 Riftblade/15 Paragon
Hello there warrior forum peeps. Here's a simple guide for the dual wield 51 point riftblade.
Before I get into this, I want to give credit to Delolith for bringing this build to my attention. I've been testing it for what feels like a while now, and since people are interested I decided to write up a guide.
The Build
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=1cLut.EGstdsrGdsR.Vxx
Before we get into the guts of this build, let me start off by saying i swap between vindicator and void knight souls for HK as my zero point soul. Fights that are magic heavy on melee such as Matron Zamira? Void Knight. Trash pulls with all the annoying CC? Vindicator. Very simple.
Now that we're beyond that, let me discuss why we go dual wield, and only dual wield, for PVE with the 51 riftblade. Empowered Strikes greatly improves the damage of your auto attacks, and in this build, by going dual wield, your auto attacks actually become quite a nice asset and are a main reason why this build is so viable. So although you have plenty of range with this build (no downtime on ranged attacks, which we'll discuss later), there is plenty reason to stick on the boss as much as possible due to how hard your auto attacks hit. Due to the recent elemental touch nerf, your auto attacks actually contribute more to your overall DPS than ET.
The Rotation
Next we'll simply discuss the rotation with this build, without getting into macros and all that jazz. We will however go over macros for this build, but it's pretty blunt to be honest. The rotation is really where people make or break this build. If you cannot do it correctly, you're better off sticking to just spamming fiery burst because it will result in a dps loss.
You'll notice in our paragon tree we took 5/5 in Weapon Master. This skill should be nothing new for most DPS warriors currently raiding HK, or anyone who played rift during 1.3, as every para spec comes equipped with it. What we are doing in our rotation types out simple, but actually applying it can be difficult if you have trouble multi-tasking during a boss fight.
Basically here is what we're looking at:
ap3= attack point macro til 3 attack points
fb = fiery burst
ebsb = earthburst/stormburst
* = potential weapon master proc
AP3 *
FB
AP3 (weapon master proc goes off)
ebsb
AP3 *
FB
AP3 (weapon master proc goes off)
ebsb
AP3 *
FB
AP3 *
FB
repeat
The star indicates that you could have a potential weapon master proc anywhere in those attack point builder abilities. Your main focus here is to weave earth and storm burst into your rotation while maintaining fiery burst as much as you possibly can. This only becomes easy with practice, much like any other rotation. I'm not talking about dummy practice though. It definitely helps to learn it a bit on the dummy, but really, your best opportunity to learn it is in HK/GSB/RoS so that you do it with movement and learn to really multitask. This is not that difficult, but it definitely can be for some people who are used to SLI/Fieryx2/SLI. You'll never run the same rotation twice with this build, but if you do it correctly and only weave EBSB during WM procs you will always parse quite high.
Stats
We've always statted towards crit. This build definitely has a crit reliance (around 25% without buffs is the least you want to go), but it is more reliant on your base Attack power being over 800 for best results. Currently, the only way to do this without completely wrecking your crit is to grind out for pvp gear. If you are rank 6 or higher, I recommend this build to you. If not, I would stick with the 38 21 7 if you choose to dual wield. I cannot at this time recommend any 2H builds, as I do not like playing falsely inflated builds, and since all 2H builds are currently affected by the Deadly Strikes Bug (as this will be called until someone from Trion steps out and says otherwise), my sylvan will remain banked.
The macros
AP Builder:
#show rift strike
suppressmacrofailures
cast rift strike
cast frost strike
cast searing strike
cast flinching strike (on fights that don't need interrupt)
cast path of the raptor
cast stonespear
cast flamespear
cast path of the wind
This build has 100% ranged uptime, which is great for fights like Soulrender zilas.
SB/EB finisher:
#show storm burst
suppressmacrofailures
cast storm burst
cast earth burst
That's it. I keep fiery burst off any macro and it has it's own key. Although I macro storm and earth burst together, I also keep a seperate button for earth burst so I can always see where it's cooldown is. I also don't use an aoe macro, I just spam thunderstrike and alternate my finshers.
Buffs
Avatar of the Rift
Planar Blade (i dislike tablets, even though I have a plethora from pvp. also helps with mobility in fights)
Way of the River
Focus of Strength (is overwritten in a raid environment)
That's it, enjoy. I hope this guide helps people interested in the 51 riftblade build.
Parse/Gear quoted from another thread of mine:
my dummy parse:
self buffs (avatar of the rift, paragon str buff, planar blade, way of the river, and fervor from a bard)
http://i.imgur.com/wjShc.png
my stats/gear:
http://i.imgur.com/6G1Hx.jpg
Originally Posted by bear_on_the_job 
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