RIFT Beta post #6

Dated February 6th (resumed my rogue-y experience)

Finishing up the starting area (I was on the boss when I accidentally clicked out), I soon found that a defensive soul - and using an offensive soul defensively - masquerading as a DPS was at best fallacious.  Sure, I could kill the enemies without any problem, but the speed that I was killing them was no longer on par with what I had found in the starting zone.  Enemies, even being attacked simultaneously by my boar and I, simply didn't go down very fast.  In areas with rapidly spawning enemies, this proved to be quite difficult to pull off, causing my death on several occasions.  I haven't found my auto range attack, but even if I do, it would be a temporary measure, as there would be few positions with which to pull using ranged, and then closing in with melee, far enough away from the rest of the mob that I don't aggro them.  Changing the soul to an offensive one might help, though it's likely I am unused to this kind of playstyle.  I'm used to either being flimsy and killing before they get to me, or nigh indestructible, and wading into the thick of battle.

The other problem actually reveals itself during rift attacks.  Because they rate participation, and reward accordingly, the low DPS (since most people will kill things before you get there, being melee) and near non-existent tanking (Blades don't get very many 'tanking' skills early on, there is only one that increases dodge and parry by 50%, but the cooldown is at least a minute, probably closer to 5) means you won't get much in the way of loot.  In three rift invasions, all of which I was present for the majority, I received three Planarite, one per rift.  Planarite is the emblem-like currency I was telling you about. 

On the contrary, Boboji, who can deal decent damage, and has several tanking abilities, can achieve approximately 12 or so Planarite in the same number of rifts (more if I get there first, or if it's a big one.  I got 20 Planarite from one once).  That being said, the Bladedancer/Bard/Ranger isn't BAD (though I'd probably use something other than Bard, I'm using literally nothing from that soul), but the damage is low, so killing things won't be really fast.  It would be more suitable for solo questing, rather than group questing, dungeons, or rifts.