Rift

[Gryndyl]

The only complaint I have is output damage is so low that in PvP your role basically becomes to annoy the opposition than to actually kill them. After I finish out the Paladin line I have to look in to lines to raise my damage output.

Yeah, Paladin has been fun but now that I'm about to hit 20 I'm starting to realize he's not going to cut it for soloing/PvP. As soon as I get my souls I'm going to go with a damage dealer. It's still kind of hard for me to wrap my mind around a game *intended* for you to play multiple roles depending on the situation, which is why I still wind up logging on and stubbornly waltz around finishing quests with my Pally. 

Yeah, that's one of the things I'm starting to really like. Was in a dungeon group with my group AOE cleric. We needed a tank. *VOOP* switched to my tank build. Problem solved.

[Wargus]

The only complaint I have is output damage is so low that in PvP your role basically becomes to annoy the opposition than to actually kill them. After I finish out the Paladin line I have to look in to lines to raise my damage output.

Yeah, Paladin has been fun but now that I'm about to hit 20 I'm starting to realize he's not going to cut it for soloing/PvP. As soon as I get my souls I'm going to go with a damage dealer. It's still kind of hard for me to wrap my mind around a game *intended* for you to play multiple roles depending on the situation, which is why I still wind up logging on and stubbornly waltz around finishing quests with my Pally. 

Yeah, that's one of the things I'm starting to really like. Was in a dungeon group with my group AOE cleric. We needed a tank. *VOOP* switched to my tank build. Problem solved.

I loved that with my cleric, I had fun with almost every role.

In release I've been playing a mage, primarily chloromancer with a dash of warlock. Its a good thing i really like the build because every time I try a new soul combo on my second build I hate it.  I guess the one bright side of mages is their souls have nowhere to go but up once Trion gets round to fixing them. Unfortunately I could see them nerfing the chloro - I fought 4-5 trolls without stopping with 3 on me at once and maybe a trog or two in stonefield (no more than 4 mobs beating on me at one time). I not only won the fight, but had full health & mana at the end.  Gryndyl can attest to it, he saw the fight.  It was awesome!   

[Chordian]

Is it just me or it is annoying that mobs many levels below you will still attack and knock you off your mount easily?

They seemed to have copied the title color system for enemies from World of Warcraft: Yellow for non-aggressive, red for aggressive and enemies never turn gray. LOTRO and EQ2 uses the rainbow color system where enemies eventually turn gray and won't attack anymore. I always liked that better. The fact that Trion Worlds uses the former system screams to me that they really, really, really want to target the WoW audience for their game.

Other than that, I saw at the official forums that low level enemies can still throw you off a 110% speed mount in one hit, so apparently they won't get much sturdier. It really sounds extremely annoying. I sure hope they are going to mend that in a patch.

[hepcat]

Dang, it was Rift-o-mania near Sanctum last night.  I ran through about 4 different Rifts with the same raid party in the space of 20 minutes...and that included one huge mega-boss from an invasion that strolled by at one point.  many nice rewards to boot. 

[Fez]

Yeah, it was pretty crazy.  Fire rifts opening up everywhere it seemed like.  I ran out of bag space.

[Huw the Poo]

There's going to be a new porticulum in Freemarch.  I'm not very happy about that.  I don't like MMORPGs that allow you to pretty much teleport all over the place.  I mean jeez, it takes, what?  Three or four minutes to run from one side of Freemarch to the other?  Even less if you're mounted.  Is a new porticulum really necessary?

[Razgon]

There's going to be a new porticulum in Freemarch.  I'm not very happy about that.  I don't like MMORPGs that allow you to pretty much teleport all over the place.  I mean jeez, it takes, what?  Three or four minutes to run from one side of Freemarch to the other?  Even less if you're mounted.  Is a new porticulum really necessary?

well, I kinda like that -once you are on the other side, you have to run quite a ways back to get to kings retreat for instance, and really for no reason other than its a timesink.

[Huw the Poo]

I'd argue against it simply being a timesink Raz.  When you can teleport all over the place the server loses some sense of community.  At the moment you see people everywhere, you travel together, you're more likely to explore, etc.  When travelling is made as easy as it is in other games, you tend to get players clustered together around one or two hubs and that's it.

[Teggy]

There is a daily drop-off in Dengar's stand, so it will help a lot with that. Now that I don't have a lot of need to be in Freemarch, I welcome it. It's not like they are dropping them all over the place.

[Destructor]

In release I've been playing a mage, primarily chloromancer with a dash of warlock. Its a good thing i really like the build because every time I try a new soul combo on my second build I hate it.  I guess the one bright side of mages is their souls have nowhere to go but up once Trion gets round to fixing them. Unfortunately I could see them nerfing the chloro - I fought 4-5 trolls without stopping with 3 on me at once and maybe a trog or two in stonefield (no more than 4 mobs beating on me at one time). I not only won the fight, but had full health & mana at the end.  Gryndyl can attest to it, he saw the fight.  It was awesome!   

Do tell - how exactly do you do it? With my Chlor/Warlock, there's a point where I just can't outheal incoming damage. Or does it just get better as you level (as I'm only 20 at this point)?

[Gryndyl]

In release I've been playing a mage, primarily chloromancer with a dash of warlock. Its a good thing i really like the build because every time I try a new soul combo on my second build I hate it.  I guess the one bright side of mages is their souls have nowhere to go but up once Trion gets round to fixing them. Unfortunately I could see them nerfing the chloro - I fought 4-5 trolls without stopping with 3 on me at once and maybe a trog or two in stonefield (no more than 4 mobs beating on me at one time). I not only won the fight, but had full health & mana at the end.  Gryndyl can attest to it, he saw the fight.  It was awesome!  

Do tell - how exactly do you do it? With my Chlor/Warlock, there's a point where I just can't outheal incoming damage. Or does it just get better as you level (as I'm only 20 at this point)?

I also have a chloro/lock so I'll answer
With lock you have several life tap/dots and with chloro you have some instants and dots as well as radiant spores.

My cast sequence when dealing with multiple mobs is: life leech, radiant spores, strangling vines, ruin then dark touch. As soon as I finish that sequence I tab to the next mob and repeat it, then tab to the next and repeat it, etc.

You want to have lifegiving veil up, so all of that life damage you're doing is healing you. You also want 3 points in phytogenesis; this will cause your radiant spores to spread and up the likelihood of them healing you. With those dots, all of the mobs you're fighting are also feeding you a steady stream of health. Once you've tabbed through all of the targets and are back to mob 1, hit it with vile spores (which will also heal you). If there's a tough one in the bunch, pop entropic veil and then nail it with stream of reclamation. You may have to occasionally use bloom or flourish to top your health up, but not often. Note that this is pretty mana intensive. You want at least 6 points in lock for sacrifice life to top yourself up after fights.

In any case, here's a video someone made if you want to see it in action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EsBJ8-4vuw

Once you get synthesis, seed of life and soul tether you also become a viable main dungeon healer.

Here's a link to my build at 20. The third soul can be whatever you want, really. I use a dominator soul for the polymorph. http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zvRs.hc.qdIuo

[Alefroth]

Is it just me or it is annoying that mobs many levels below you will still attack and knock you off your mount easily?

I just complained about this yesterday lol!  Seriously, if they are grey con (presumably no xp) they should really just ignore you, especially mounted.  Isn't that how pretty much every other game handled it?

LotRO yes, WoW no. Forget how EQ2 is.

Ale

[Harkonis]

Is it just me or it is annoying that mobs many levels below you will still attack and knock you off your mount easily?

They seemed to have copied the title color system for enemies from World of Warcraft: Yellow for non-aggressive, red for aggressive and enemies never turn gray. LOTRO and EQ2 uses the rainbow color system where enemies eventually turn gray and won't attack anymore. I always liked that better. The fact that Trion Worlds uses the former system screams to me that they really, really, really want to target the WoW audience for their game.

Other than that, I saw at the official forums that low level enemies can still throw you off a 110% speed mount in one hit, so apparently they won't get much sturdier. It really sounds extremely annoying. I sure hope they are going to mend that in a patch.

I get hit all the time on my mount and stay mounted.  It's not a 100% chance to dismount by a long shot.

[Harkonis]

There's going to be a new porticulum in Freemarch.  I'm not very happy about that.  I don't like MMORPGs that allow you to pretty much teleport all over the place.  I mean jeez, it takes, what?  Three or four minutes to run from one side of Freemarch to the other?  Even less if you're mounted.  Is a new porticulum really necessary?

part of the reason is that the Guardians already have one on the opposite side of their starter area.  When you do daily delivery quests you just port over, port back and done.  As Defiant you run out, run back and done.  It takes considerably more time.

[Huw the Poo]

part of the reason is that the Guardians already have one on the opposite side of their starter area.  When you do daily delivery quests you just port over, port back and done.  As Defiant you run out, run back and done.  It takes considerably more time.

I haven't seen the Guardian area; fair enough I guess then.  I just hope Trion don't go crazy with them.

[Blackjack]

Ahem. Bought it tonight in hoary old disc form (nice manual as far as manuals these days go). Maybe see you guyz later...  

Boy, I'd forgotten how good a game manual smells. Sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiifffffffffff....

[TheAtomicKid]

Is it just me or it is annoying that mobs many levels below you will still attack and knock you off your mount easily?

I just complained about this yesterday lol!  Seriously, if they are grey con (presumably no xp) they should really just ignore you, especially mounted.  Isn't that how pretty much every other game handled it?

LotRO yes, WoW no. Forget how EQ2 is.

Ale

With WoW, as long as you didn't try to ride THROUGH the mob, once they were grey, you were ok.

Try to run them down and they'll go for you.

Atomic

[Wargus]

In release I've been playing a mage, primarily chloromancer with a dash of warlock. Its a good thing i really like the build because every time I try a new soul combo on my second build I hate it.  I guess the one bright side of mages is their souls have nowhere to go but up once Trion gets round to fixing them. Unfortunately I could see them nerfing the chloro - I fought 4-5 trolls without stopping with 3 on me at once and maybe a trog or two in stonefield (no more than 4 mobs beating on me at one time). I not only won the fight, but had full health & mana at the end.  Gryndyl can attest to it, he saw the fight.  It was awesome!  

Do tell - how exactly do you do it? With my Chlor/Warlock, there's a point where I just can't outheal incoming damage. Or does it just get better as you level (as I'm only 20 at this point)?

I also have a chloro/lock so I'll answer
With lock you have several life tap/dots and with chloro you have some instants and dots as well as radiant spores.

My cast sequence when dealing with multiple mobs is: life leech, radiant spores, strangling vines, ruin then dark touch. As soon as I finish that sequence I tab to the next mob and repeat it, then tab to the next and repeat it, etc.

You want to have lifegiving veil up, so all of that life damage you're doing is healing you. You also want 3 points in phytogenesis; this will cause your radiant spores to spread and up the likelihood of them healing you. With those dots, all of the mobs you're fighting are also feeding you a steady stream of health. Once you've tabbed through all of the targets and are back to mob 1, hit it with vile spores (which will also heal you). If there's a tough one in the bunch, pop entropic veil and then nail it with stream of reclamation. You may have to occasionally use bloom or flourish to top your health up, but not often. Note that this is pretty mana intensive. You want at least 6 points in lock for sacrifice life to top yourself up after fights.

In any case, here's a video someone made if you want to see it in action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EsBJ8-4vuw

Once you get synthesis, seed of life and soul tether you also become a viable main dungeon healer.

Here's a link to my build at 20. The third soul can be whatever you want, really. I use a dominator soul for the polymorph. http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zvRs.hc.qdIuo

I also had Living Shell, which is something around a 500 pt damage shield that returns 2% of my mana/sec (however reduces mana by the amount of damage it absorbs, so up to 500), it seems to return more than you lose. 

[Blackjack]

Quick Noob questions (which nobody will see because this thread scrolls to new pages so quickly )
* Is there some way to get more than the main hotkey tray visible on screen? I'm level 6 and already have like 14 skills or something, and the tray's completely overwhelmed. Usually in LOTRO I like to keep maybe a stack of 3 hotkey trays visible (3 rows, basically).

I've tried the "editing layout" feature but it doesn't appear to let me do the above, or else I'm not understanding how.

* There's a quest where you're supposed to drop off a horse in a little stable, but for the life of me, I don't see any stable in that place. Any ideas? I galloped right back to the quest give and where the quest map mark is, but it doesn't "turn in." Never mind... 

[CeeKay]

Quick Noob questions (which nobody will see because this thread scrolls to new pages so quickly )
* Is there some way to get more than the main hotkey tray visible on screen? I'm level 6 and already have like 14 skills or something, and the tray's completely overwhelmed. Usually in LOTRO I like to keep maybe a stack of 3 hotkey trays visible (3 rows, basically).

I've tried the "editing layout" feature but it doesn't appear to let me do the above, or else I'm not understanding how.

* There's a quest where you're supposed to drop off a horse in a little stable, but for the life of me, I don't see any stable in that place. Any ideas? I galloped right back to the quest give and where the quest map mark is, but it doesn't "turn in." 

for your first question:  go to settings, then interface.  there should be a tab for action bars there.

second question, click on the quest giver with the completed quest icon floating over their head.

[Chordian]

Other than that, I saw at the official forums that low level enemies can still throw you off a 110% speed mount in one hit, so apparently they won't get much sturdier. It really sounds extremely annoying. I sure hope they are going to mend that in a patch.

I get hit all the time on my mount and stay mounted.  It's not a 100% chance to dismount by a long shot.

And that's on a fast 110% mount? Sounds good in that case. Guess the rumors have been exaggerated.

One thing I noticed yesterday was that you can mount in-combat. It's useful when being gang-banged, dismounted, then running up to a nearby camp with guards. As the guards take over, you can immediately mount up and escape.

[Harkonis]

Other than that, I saw at the official forums that low level enemies can still throw you off a 110% speed mount in one hit, so apparently they won't get much sturdier. It really sounds extremely annoying. I sure hope they are going to mend that in a patch.

I get hit all the time on my mount and stay mounted.  It's not a 100% chance to dismount by a long shot.

And that's on a fast 110% mount? Sounds good in that case. Guess the rumors have been exaggerated.

One thing I noticed yesterday was that you can mount in-combat. It's useful when being gang-banged, dismounted, then running up to a nearby camp with guards. As the guards take over, you can immediately mount up and escape.

I only have the 90% mount right now. 

[Huw the Poo]

Who plays a mage here, and what do you think?  There's a lot of noise on the official forum about the class not being versatile enough, and generally underpowered.  It just occurred to me that in all the PUGs I've been in (apart from rifts) I haven't seen a single mage.  People seem to be playing mostly warriors and clerics, with the occasional rogue.

[Razgon]

I have a 22 mage, mainly as a chloromancer, and he's doing great. The thing is - they are not as fast to level and play with, as the other classes. you have to be a lot more careful it seems.

In that way, it may be a bit less worth than any of the classes.

[ericb]

Who plays a mage here, and what do you think?  There's a lot of noise on the official forum about the class not being versatile enough, and generally underpowered.  It just occurred to me that in all the PUGs I've been in (apart from rifts) I haven't seen a single mage.  People seem to be playing mostly warriors and clerics, with the occasional rogue.

I have one but it's not my main.  The necro and chloro souls are the only fully working and viable souls right now that could probably work with zero changes.  Many of the others are just missing "something".  The elementalist pet sucks, the stormcaller is way low on dps, the pyro is a glass cannon that really doesn't have the dps to justify the almost total lack of survivability.   Archon and Dominator are both zero point support classes for the majority of people at least while leveling.  Though honestly there's nothing wrong with any of them and all are playable...just frustrating compared to other souls.

[Blackjack]

fwiw, my early impressions (coming from a non-WoW player, mind you):
-It feels extremely polished and stable. i.e., it doesn't feel like an MMO that had a useless 2-week open beta to blackmail people into prematurely going lifetime on it. *ahem, Cryptic/Atari, sometimes NCSoft* (I play their stuff, but I'm not naive about it)
-I have a fairly mediocre ATI video card (5670 or something), and it looks nice and has a good frame rate even as I gradually turned back up some of the video settings.
-The quests so far seem no better or worse than most I've encountered in most fantasy MMOs. I appreciate the NPC "hubs," and quests generally all being bunched together, so at the least, I've been OK working my way through them.
-I've not done enough major Rifting yet to have any useful thoughts on that, other than, "wow, Rifts look cool." I logged off last night in an open clearing, and logged in as a corpse in the middle of a Rift. Oops.
-The "souls" system is intimidating, but I appreciate the flexibility and I guess I just need to figure out my role instead of spreading my points all over the place like Xmas tree lights. I appreciate we can reset it and keep trying different things pretty painlessly. I like bashing baddies with shields -- I hope this has a skill where you can charge a distance and then shield-bash, or am I being wishful?  
-I worry about having to "wait in line at a deli counter" to take on quest targets, but so far I only ran into that kind of situation once (a boss at the end of a broken bridge).

Cons?
-The L1-9 chat channel is spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam... did I mention the chat is nothing but wall to wall spam? The spammers also seem to have some magical ability to pop in for a millisecond, spam up the screen with an ad, and then disappear before I can click their name and get them Ignored or Reported as Spam. I'm used to that from LOTRO (even Tabula Rasa had major chat spammer problems). I hope they can find some way to weed those out or block them somehow.
-At least in the L1-9 levels people seem pretty much mute. I'd be hard pressed to tell I was in an MMO cause nobody said a word. Some would call that a "pro," I guess.   I did see plenty of other players, the world just doesn't seem terribly alive when everyone's so mute. Maybe it's different at upper levels, so I'll just keep my yap shut and see how things go later on.  

fwiw, I went for the 3-month payment plan so assuming impressions remain positive through the free month, I'll give it at least that much of a go.  

[Huw the Poo]

-I worry about having to "wait in line at a deli counter" to take on quest targets, but so far I only ran into that kind of situation once (a boss at the end of a broken bridge).

The public grouping system is there for precisely this reason.  Public grouping isn't just for rifts.  If you notice someone else is doing the same quest as you, click on him, then on his portrait he will probably have a little button with a + on it.  Click that and you will instantly be grouped.  This won't work if they're set to private grouping, but in my experience the vast majority of people use it.  I love the system, it's put to death one of the most frustrating things about many MMOs.

(Edited to add: It's probably obvious but if your group completes the quest, you all get credit, experience, and any unique rewards)

Also, Massively just posted an article on this very subject, and covering the defense of wardstones too.  Take a look!

[Teggy]

One of the things I like about the quests is that even though a bunch of them are kill x/collect x, you don't really get into the situation where you have to kill 10 mobs just to get 1 quest item. That drove me crazy in WoW. Here the worst it seems is the need to kill 2 mobs to get 1 item and usually all the appropriate mobs have it. There are also a fair amount of quests where you are doing something other than counting to x, so that's nice as well.

[Blackjack]

-I worry about having to "wait in line at a deli counter" to take on quest targets, but so far I only ran into that kind of situation once (a boss at the end of a broken bridge).

If you notice someone else is doing the same quest as you, click on him, then on his portrait he will probably have a little button with a + on it.  Click that and you will instantly be grouped.  This won't work if they're set to private grouping, but in my experience the vast majority of people use it.  I love the system, it's put to death one of the most frustrating things about many MMOs.

(Edited to add: It's probably obvious but if your group completes the quest, you all get credit, experience, and any unique rewards)

Thanks. I wish the tutorial explained that -- the popup screens are very helpful to noob me, but I don't think anything came up about that. I guess I figured that was maybe for later in the game.

Hmmm. Now that I think about it, I think another player "public grouped" me on that broken bridge, and that's probably why i got credit for it even though I hadn't even gotten a chance to attack the target.

[Huw the Poo]

Hmmm. Now that I think about it, I think another player "public grouped" me on that broken bridge, and that's probably why i got credit for it even though I hadn't even gotten a chance to attack the target.

Haha, the exact same thing happened to me and was also my first experience of public grouping outside of rifts.

Teggy, yeah, I just love what Trion have done with questing in Rift.  They've refined it to buggery.  Playing Rift is an absolute joy; at level 21 now and it hasn't once felt like a grind at all.

[PR_GMR]

-I worry about having to "wait in line at a deli counter" to take on quest targets, but so far I only ran into that kind of situation once (a boss at the end of a broken bridge).

You use the jewel thingie that they give you when you pick up the quest to teleport the bad guy across the bridge towards you. hehehe.

...

I've questions about the professions. I got to Argent Glade right now and saw all the profression trainers. What professions are worth it? Do you craft or get valuable items out of them? I was thinking Miner, Artificer, or Runecrafter. Upper level players, how are the professions working out for you?

[Teggy]

Weaponsmith will absolutely allow you to make good stuff for you to use for a while. What I don't know is how it will wind up from an economic standpoint. For example, I am happy that I can make myself a nimble ashwood bow, but it's not so much incredibly better than what you get questing that I would buy it off the auction house if I wasn't a weaponsmith. What I'm hoping is that once I get to 50 and can start crafting high level epic gear, people will be interested in buying. Of course, I haven't tried selling some of the lower level stuff, I'm just going on my gut. However, without the ability to see closed auctions, how will I know?

[Arclight]

Not a weaponsmith but I am leveling Outfitter(goes with my Rogue)
Anyway, put a few nice shoulders on the AH the other day. Reasonably priced too. Not one sold.
I just decided that after I make stuff for myself I'm going to level my trade and salvage what I make to help me with mats.

But like you I hope the end game crafting holds some nice things to use and sell.

Lovin the game though.

[ericb]

Mats sell like hotcakes...for example I'm selling iron bars for 20g each (yes, each) and they all sell usually in an hour or less.  I've already made around 8 platinum and there are almost no other bars listed when I've checked.  I know this will change soon but for now it's a huge cash cow...and the later bars sell for even more.  Same with the other mats especially things like canines and higher cloth.  Professions have been dead.  I make what I can use and salvage/sell the rest.  At least from 7-25 the quest items tend to be better than the crafted items.

Of course I think this is probably close to the same on all of the servers but your experience may vary

Also, got my first "shard first" the other night on a blue head cloth piece.  Random/rare spawning mob in Gloamwood dropped it.  Too bad my main is a warrior and I get close to no plate drops...ever.

[PR_GMR]

Thanks for the replies. Probably to early to gauge what professions will be the most profitable down the road, as endgame crafting hasn't quite taken off yet. I shall make a decision on one profession later tonight. 

[YellowKing]

The fact that Trion Worlds uses the former system screams to me that they really, really, really want to target the WoW audience for their game.

I'm not so sure targeting the WoW audience is a bad thing, because they're doing it the right way. Most developers just clone WoW then hope that they can live off WoW's leftovers. Trion seems to want to *improve* upon WoW, and pull gamers away from it. I mean, the "We're not in Azeroth anymore" commercials is pretty much a direct shot across WoW's bow. It takes some brass balls to take on the 900-pound gorilla directly, and I applaud them for it.

I don't think Rift is the WoW-killer, but maybe, just maybe, it's a step in breaking the cycle of developers just throwing up their hands and giving up on ever making an MMO that can compete. As much as Rift steals from other MMOs, it also adds some really daring features that in my mind prove they are at least as interested in innovation as they are in imitation.

[ydejin]

Not a weaponsmith but I am leveling Outfitter(goes with my Rogue)
Anyway, put a few nice shoulders on the AH the other day. Reasonably priced too. Not one sold.
I just decided that after I make stuff for myself I'm going to level my trade and salvage what I make to help me with mats.

But like you I hope the end game crafting holds some nice things to use and sell.

Lovin the game though.

Don't Outfitters make bags?  The high end bags seems to sell on Corthana for 1-2 plat each.  I know I've bought a good half-dozen or more myself.  I went on last Friday and there were a fair bunch available (including some with buyouts at 5 plat!), went back early the next day and the only items left were low end bags.

One thing about the bags is there's no level limit.  You can buy a 16-slot bag at level 7.  And for a long time the best bags you can get are 8-slot unless you happen to run into the traveling wizard who randomly sets up shop and sells 12-slot bags.

My armor doesn't seem to sell particularly well.  I have been placing augments on it to differentiate it from the other items on the market.  I've got a blue shield up right now, we'll see if it sells.

[ydejin]

Other than that, I saw at the official forums that low level enemies can still throw you off a 110% speed mount in one hit, so apparently they won't get much sturdier. It really sounds extremely annoying. I sure hope they are going to mend that in a patch.

I get hit all the time on my mount and stay mounted.  It's not a 100% chance to dismount by a long shot.

And that's on a fast 110% mount? Sounds good in that case. Guess the rumors have been exaggerated.

One thing I noticed yesterday was that you can mount in-combat. It's useful when being gang-banged, dismounted, then running up to a nearby camp with guards. As the guards take over, you can immediately mount up and escape.

I've got the standard mount and I can usually take one or two hits before I get knocked off.  I suspect it's dependent on how much damage you take, which means warriors and clerics can probably stay mounted longer.

[jersoc]

6 more to go! will most likely hit 45 tonight.

[Wargus]

Who plays a mage here, and what do you think?  There's a lot of noise on the official forum about the class not being versatile enough, and generally underpowered.  It just occurred to me that in all the PUGs I've been in (apart from rifts) I haven't seen a single mage.  People seem to be playing mostly warriors and clerics, with the occasional rogue.

I have a chloromancer/warlock as my main.  I don't kill as fast as some other classes, but I only die when I'm dumb.  Its versatile, I can group or raid heal, the DPS while not spectacular is just fine when you consider I can kill 2-3 in about the same time as 1 through dots and end the fight with full health & mana to just go do it all over again.  I never buy potions, I never need drinks.

That said, I've been working my way through the other mage classes and so far they all suck in comparison, with maybe necromancer as an exception (as far as mains go), Warlock is a must have as secondary (I haven't tried warlock as a main yet).  The other souls lack significantly in survivability compared to the chloro & don't seem to have the damage or crowd control to make up for it.