Isolation Years (Day 190)

I'm sort of atttempting to fix my sleep schedule now. It's almost 10 PM and I've been up since around 2 AM. In an hour or two I'll probably go to sleep and hopefully not sleep for 20 hours because that won't be good for anyone. I'll be groggy and my sleep schedule will still be messed up--although admittedly it won't be as bad as it has been. Even the river of coffee I've poured down my throat is doing little to stave off my sleepiness at this point, but I think I'm going to stay up for at least a little longer. I"m trying out yet another build on my rogue in Rift. 

The specialization I've gotten the most mileage out of it and still probably enjoy the most overall has been Bladedancer. Riftstalker is also great for groups, but not so great while soloing due to its low damage output. Bard can be fun, but it also seems a little monotonous--I think it would also be a lot more fun in a group. Saboteur is really intriguing, as previously discussed on this blog, but the playstyle is really schizophrenic. It involves a lot of running around tossing charges until the inevitably payoff--at which point your opponent probably still has about half of its health left. It's satisfying when you get multiple crits and oneshot opponents, but otherwise is inconsistent.

What I'm trying now is Nightblade, one of two melee stealth souls available to the rogue calling. While Assassin is more or less a direct analogue to WoW's Subtlety Rogue, Nightblade is significantly more unique. Almost all of its damage is fire- or death-elemental, whereas Assassin focuses primarily on physical damage and poisons. Nightblades imbue their weapons with various different fire and death enchantments and hurl several different attacks from middling range. In fact, all of their from stealth openers can be used from 20 meters away. The only staple Nightblade skill that requires you to be in melee range is Dusk Strike, which ramps up in damage (and energy cost) every time you use it. Oftentimes your burst will allow you to dispatch a foe before it has a chance to get close enough to attack you, however.

The soul has a lot of different things going on. It prioritizes burst damage but also possess a lot of damage over time effects. One of its primary abilities is Fiery Spike, ranged burn that stacks up to 5 times. Eventually you'll have access to abilities that apply Fiery Spike for you so you never have to cast it manually. Similarly, Flare Blitz has the potential to apply Fiery Spike to multiple targets in an area if your primary target has at least one stack of it. Nightblade's AoE damage, although not approaching the godlike level of Bladedancer, far eclipses Assassin, whose only form of AoE control is the non-damaging Poison Cloud. Fiery Chains works a lot like a WoW shaman's Chain Lightning, except in this case each target hit has a 50% chance of adding a combo point. If you're lucky, you'll get five points right off the bat at which point you can transition into a full damage Flame Blitz. 

I've only been playing the new soul for an hour or two now and I'm definitely still not used to it. I've become very comfortable with Bladedancer's straightforward rotation so this complexity of these new skills is taking me by surprise. I like the soul a lot, though, and I'm going to continue playing with it for a long while.