Thread: Rift Warrior Souls

The purpose of this guide is to assist new players of Rift with making the decision as to what souls you should take in the first twenty levels and potentially beyond. Originally, in the first two Beta Events, you were only able to select from three of the eight souls initially. After you progressed through the newbie sequence you were able to select one out of the full eight, and then finally in the culmination of the first world zone, you picked your third soul. This is no longer the case according to Scott Hartsman.

Now we will have access to all the souls initially and more of them. Not only that we will have access to more soul points. Because of this, you will not see any point allocation advice in this guide as we do not know when and how many points we are getting. As many know, not all souls are created equal, and not all of them are balanced yet! So hopefully reading this guide will help players select which souls are the best for soloing content right from the onset so people will not become frustrated by picking unfriendly souls and forced to reroll.

Please remember that all the following information is based off of Beta 2 and may not be 100% accurate for Beta 3. A special thanks to Pyros for helping with this guide.

The Souls The Warrior calling is most likely the most traditional of all callings as it only has two rolls, one of tanking and one of damage-doing. Of the eight souls the Paladin, Reaver and Void Knight are the tanking souls. The Beastmaster, Paragon, Riftblade and Champion are the melee dps souls and the last soul, the Warlord, is more of a tanking soul but also augments other players in a group. The one oddity out of all of them is the Beastmaster soul which is a pet class. Each soul gets what we call "Zero Point Abilities" (0pt abilities). These abilities are given to the player just by equipping the soul and not putting any points into it. Since points are a premium early on, this is the building block of many builds. This guide will now break down the Warrior Calling into two categories for solo and group play.

Solo Builds

There are several builds that you can use to solo efficiently. These builds are a combination of Reaver, Champion and Beastmaster all using a Two-Handed Weapon. The Reaver has a few self healing abilities that make for keeping downtime to a minimum, with one talent that heals you when you kill a mob. For AOE grinding a combination of Reaver and Paladin offers some early success but unless you want to grind Rifts and Invasions other combinations offer better efficiency. See below for 0pt abilities that work well with any build.

The two other souls, the Champion and Beastmaster also work by putting all your points in a single soul but these combinations also increase downtime when compared to the Reaver. For any extra soul points both the Champion's and Beastmaster's first tier talents offer decent bonuses to any build.

There are three very good 0pt abilities in the Warrior Calling when it comes to solo builds. The 0pt ability of a Beastmaster is really great as it gives you a pet. The Champion's 0pt ability is a charge, which helps speed up killing. Most importantly is the Riftblade which grants you a buff to your weapon to proc extra damage.

In the end the best builds probably are a combination of a Reaver/Beastmaster/Riftblade.

Group Builds

If you followed the suggestions above you already have the Reaver, Beastmaster and Riftblade souls which can both tank and dps in a group setting configured correctly. However if you have the option of a fourth soul prior to level 20 then it must be the Paladin. The Paladin has a resurrection ability. Every warrior should fill out a role with full points in the Paladin tree to unlock this spell. That being said, lets take a look at damage and tanking builds.

Damage, Damage, Damage: You really can't go wrong with any configuration but lets utilize the most of what we have. The best damage build for a group will have to be the Champion/Beastmaster/Riftblade. This build allows great single target dps along with AOE utility for trash packs via the Champion. For group utility that might edge out this build would be a full Beastmaster where the pet increases the groups damage by a significant amount.

The Tank: If you have the Reaver and the Paladin souls you're all set. Sticking all your points in either soul will get the job done. The most efficient use of your points should be spread out so you gain the Crests of the Reaver while buffing your blocking ability with the Paladin. The zero point ability of a Riftblade add increased damage while the 0pt ability of the Warlord (if enough souls are available early on) offers decent debuffs.

NOTICE: Warriors have a resurrection spell. Every Warrior should have at least one of their roles with a Paladin so that they can Soul Walk after a wipe and resurrect the group and saving time. The only calling without a resurrection spell is the Rogue.

by Draegan