Starfall Prophecy Preview: Legendary Powers of the Rogue and Primalist

Legendary Powers provide brand new choices to help you build your perfect character. Read on to see just some of the options available to Rogues and Primalists in Starfall Prophecy!

Rogue Legendary Powers

Rogues receive an incredible diversity of options in Legendary Powers, appealing to a wide variety of play styles. Each Soul affords choices for entirely new paths, or opt to simply make existing powers even more useful in fights. Here are a few examples:

Assassin
Legendary Thread of Death – Step out of the shadows and use stealth based damaging abilities any time you like! Fair enough – abilities used in this manner deal 25% less damage, but oh, the freedom! You’ll never go back!

Bladedancer
Legendary Fated Blades – Your Bladedancer can maintain a second Rythmic Action while Fated Blades is active. No one can match the speed and grace of your deadly footwork!

Bard
Legendary Harmonic Distortion – Bards will love the ability to stack Harmonic Energy up to 10 times, and better yet, critical finishers always grant an additional stack, for even more power. Legendary Harmonic Distortion will consume 2 stacks of Harmonic Energy if they are available, and heal for more than twice as much!

Marksman
Legendary Free Recoil – Arrows fly faster for Marksmen who select Free Recoil! With this pick, Empowered Shot no longer has a cooldown (or triggers a global cooldown) and grants 1 CP on use. Each subsequent cast of it in a limited time frame increases its energy cost and reduces its cast time.

Physician
Legendary Emergency Response – This ability certainly lives up to its name, giving Physicians an extraordinarily strong tool to keep their patients alive! Emergency Response no longer has a cooldown, but consumes all of the Rogue’s energy while healing the target for a percent of the Rogue’s life, based on the amount of energy consumed.
Primalist Legendary Powers

With more streamlined Soul trees, Primalist Powers tend to be a bit broader in effect than with other Callings. Legendary Powers for Primalist tend towards making the abilities more focused, and providing all new means of specialization for the Primalist! Here are some examples:

Typhoon
Legendary Tsunami – The more Turmoil a Typhoon has built up, the longer Legendary Tsunami Lasts! For every stack of Turmoil consumed, the duration of Tsunami is extended by 1 second, damaging enemies longer.

Maelstrom
Legendary Flamewalker – Maelstroms with the patience to channel Legendary Flamewalker for a full 3 seconds will do 30% more fire damage for the next 20 seconds!

Dervish
Legendary Primal Avatar: Wind Serpent – With Legendary Primal Avatar: Wind Serpent, Dervishes can channel the power of the Wind Serpent for even longer! Instead of its normal duration, Primal Avatar: Wind Serpent lasts a full 60 seconds, with the damage bonuses provided gradually reducing over time.

Vulcanist
Legendary Ethereal Beam – The fury of fire and the crushing strength of earth are at the heart of a Vulcanist’s power, and Legendary Ethereal Beam transforms this ability to count as both! This means that Legendary Ethereal Beam benefits from all buffs to both Fire and Earth elements, making it more deadly than ever before!

Titan
Legendary Primal Avatar: Ram – Titans are the shield wall among Primalists, able to shrug off even the heaviest of blows when their Primal Avatar: Ram is enabled. With Legendary Primal Avatar: Ram, the cooldown of this ability is reduced every time you are attacked (up to once per 3 seconds), giving you the ability to channel the ram’s totemic gifts more often!

These aren’t the only options available in the Rogue and Primalist Souls, and keep in mind these abilities are still a work in progress! Keep an eye out for upcoming blogs for examples of Cleric, Mage, and Warrior Legendary Powers, or wait for the Starfall Propecy Beta to check them all out!

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Starfall Prophecy Preview: Planar Fragments

Do you fill multiple roles in group content? Are you tired of carrying around all that extra gear that clutters up your inventory? Are you frustrated with needing twice as many item drops of everyone else? Well look no further, because RIFT has the answer for you! Starfall Prophecy will take your gear from ordinary to extraordinary… with Planar Fragments!


Collect Planar Fragments throughout your adventures in The Celestial Lands, through questing, PVP, dungeons, Planar Assaults, crafting, and Planar Fortress Sieges. With these fragments, you’ll be able to customize your stats for the role that you wish to play. For example, if you want to bolster your tanking ability, seek out fragments that have Dodge, Block, Guard, and Endurance as their primary attributes. If you want focus on damage or healing, collect fragments with Attack Power/Spell Power, Crit Chance, Crit Power, and the main stat of your calling (such as Wisdom for Clerics).

With Planar Fragments being the only source of tertiary stats, RIFT reduces the burden of obtaining multiple sets of gear and hoarding pieces of gear that might be required at some point in the future if you need to swap roles. Now you can do everything with just ONE set of gear and a few sets of Planar Fragments!

Over the past few updates, we’ve been working hard to reduce/remove the need for different sets of gear based on your role. For instance, in Mind of Madness, we removed the chance for gear to drop as tank specific, and instead provided side-grade paths for all DPS drops to change into tank gear. This certainly helped with dealing with the challenge of players who Tank and DPS in obtaining their desired role gear, but it still wasn’t the complete solution that we were looking for. Planar Fragments are a much bigger step in that direction, and we think you’ll like them!

Whether a Planar Fragment is desirable for your character or not depends on the sum of its parts:

The first is the primary attribute. This is the stat that you will focus on when judging if you want to equip a fragment and invest in it for the long term. For instance, if you’re going for a more PVP focused build, you’d probably value Endurance and base HP forat survivability higher than you would offensive stats such as Attack Power or Crit Rate – those may be preferred by someone aiming for PVE group content.

A fragment can also carry up to four secondary attributes. These can never be the same as the primary attribute, nor can they be the same as each other. Therefore, an Aggressive Fire Planar Fragment with Attack Power as the primary attribute cannot have Attack Power among its secondary attributes. Depending upon the rarity of the fragment, these secondary attributes will either be hidden or revealed. For now, rarity levels start at Common and go up to Relic. For each rarity starting with Uncommon, a secondary attribute is revealed on the fragment. As such, a Rare quality fragment will have two of the possible four revealed, three for Epic quality, and so on.

Once you have some good Fragments to work with, they can be improved through Infusion. By default, Fragments drop at Infusion level 0 and can increase to level 15. Each time an infusion level is completed, the primary attribute is increased, with a extra large increase at level 15! The secondary attributes also have a chance to improve and be revealed as the Infusion level is increased.

The final aspect affecting a fragment is planar affinity. The combination of the affinity and the primary attribute denote how much the fragment gains between infusion levels as well as what the maximum attribute value will be at level 15. For instance, Fire is an offensive-oriented affinity, so stats like Attack Power and Spell Power will more potent on a Fire fragment than on one with a planar affinity of Earth, which is more defensive oriented. However, Guard would be very potent for Earth.

This combination of aspects creates a compelling reward system that will help even the most die-hard of Rift players invest further in their character and advancement. Additionally, fragments are account bound by default, so your main character can find fragments for your alt characters and help gear them up, something that we’ve heard you asking for quite frequently of late.

We are excited about the introduction of Planar Fragments to Telara and can’t wait to see the imaginative ways you’ll put them to use!

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Starfall Prophecy Preview: Planar Assault Adventures

For five long years the Ascended have battled against an endless stream of invaders from the planes, invaders who can be driven off for a time but inexorably regroup and return later. At last, Ascended are given the means to turn the tables on these unwanted guests, and battle them in their own Plane!


Planar Assault Adventures are a new type of Instant Adventure available to those who have access to Starfall Prophecy. Once you queue up for these trials, you’ll travel from Telara to the very planes themselves!

You’ll first travel to the cosmic splinters of Fire and Life, staging grounds for Planar Invaders from the larger planes of Fire and Life, and disrupt Rifts before they ever reach Telara. Battle your way through waves of planar enemies, and prevent them from launching their murderous attacks on our world!

If you are successful in accomplishing these goals, you’ll be rewarded with the heartfelt loyalty of those whose lands would have been invaded, as well as the gratitude and respect of the Planar Defense Force itself. Planar fragments and essences are frequently offered as rewards for the victors, as well as strange new Dimension items and Minions found nowhere else in Telara.

The Planar Defense Force also has a collected stockpile of these items, available to the most dedicated Ascended guardians.

Prepare yourself for the next step and stop our vicious enemies from from ever reaching Telara’s beautiful lands!

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Starfall Prophecy Preview: Temple of Ananke

When the beast descended from the heavens, the dragon, that ancient and glorious serpent, Maelforge, granted it his power, and his seat, and great authority.
And the Alaviax worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and thus they worshiped the beast also, saying,
“When the star that falls upon Telara, who is able to make war with the newborn beast?”
Revelations of Ananke 56:13


When Mount Pyre was sundered, and the Tartaric fissure released the imprisoned, this revelation of the Oracle of Aia was first heard. The pit fiend Ananke may have been cast by the gods into the Plane of Fire, but she retained all her ability to scry the vast tapestry of fate. Her revelations have allowed the Alaviax devils to seize control of the plane from the powerful Wantons of Maelforge, and now their apocalyptic prophecies indicate that the great beast is fated to return, in soul if not in body. Is this the Starfall Prophecy that spells doom for Telara?

Tasuil the dragon will accompany you as you wind your way through mountain passes of the condemned lands, to the gates of Ananke’s Temple. It is a massive burning edifice, providing all who approach ample warning of the elemental challenges within. You have been charged with stopping the devil prophet from releasing the power of Maelforge and empowering this Beast of the Apocalypse. But beware, to encounter such powerful evil, and leave with your own soul intact will truly defy fate itself.

A Simple Problem
Guarding the entrance is Gristlespit, a hulking, horned monstrosity. Not the cleverest of creatures, Gristlespit has been chained to the first gate in the path to Ananke’s temple, both to guard the access and to punish him for his gluttonous love of the rotted wine of mortal blood. Proceed with caution! Only a fool would mistake his failing for weakness. Gristlespit is a powerful and vicious combatant who grows stronger with his drunken rage. Yet, it is that very rage that a clever Ascended could use against him.

Taking Refuge
Killthraxus the imp is a student of the revelations of Ananke, a fiery preacher of the Apocalyptic vision of the end of days. And it is certain that the passages he quotes from his high pulpit do soon come to pass. Brimstone rains downs and fiery corruption pours forth from the mouths of long dead seers. The congregation of the condemned land of Ashenfell immediately set upon any apostates that dare journey so far into this flaming temple. Perhaps you are strong enough to resist the plagues and misfortunes that Killthraxus calls forth from his unholy book, but if so, he will descend from his pulpit and deal with such mortal unbelievers as you in person.

Her Right Hand
If you survive the rabid sermon of the imp Killthraxus, you will soon find yourself before the dreaded Lord Draveneaux, named The Scalebreaker. He leads the Alaviax of Ashenfell, once under the vicious rule of Maelforge. While they had to respect the serpent’s power, hate and fire, they will not allow themselves to be ruled by dragons again. Lord Draveneaux will see to that.

You have entered his sanctum of pain and torture, where he breaks the will of any dragon that is foolish enough to fall into his trap. Perhaps your scaled companion should have been less hasty to join you. Perhaps this fiery land has made him overconfident in his own power. If Lord Draveneaux and his dragon thralls have their way, Tasuil will become the latest addition to the loyal flight of dragons under the sway of the Alaviax devils.

The Soul of a Dragon
When the Ascended defeated the great fire dragon Maelforge in the heart of Mount Carcera, they had no idea that his soul would return to its home plane. Condemned for his sins against the cosmos, the dragon’s burning soul has already caused a rebellion in flame. Now it has been collected and prepared, ready to be bestowed upon the Beast that will lead the Apocalypse. Once released, the soul takes form as the essence of burning flame, Maelfernus, a being fated to corrupt all souls that dare face it with the searing essence of the Plane of Fire itself. Are you capable of halting the eruption of the Wanton souls, unbound by flesh, empowered by fate, or will the revelation of Ananke come to pass?

The Final Countdown
The pit fiend Ananke is one of the most powerful devils of Ashenfell. Cast into the Plane of Fire for her defiance of the gods, she bears a deep hatred of mortals such as you, and has long manipulated fate to ensure that the prophecy of Telara’s apocalyptic doom shall come to pass, even if she must take a direct hand in its destruction.

If you are powerful enough to avert the end of times, to best all these devils and dragons of the condemned lands of the Plane of Fire, then you will have broken the prophecy, and destroyed the revelations of Ananke. However, this is not the end for you. The Oracle will never allow a mortal apostate to leave her temple after committing so great an insult.

It is said that only mortal heroes such as yourselves have the power to defy fate. If this is true, then you are our only hope against this prophecy that dooms us all!

We lay our lives at your feet, Ascended, and await your victory, or our doom.

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Summer of Souls: Defiler

The Defiler soul has long been a mainstay for Clerics, offering a mixed bag of abilities that were useful but not necessarily… exciting. With today’s Hotfix, Defiler has changed from merely useful to wickedly dangerous!


The newly honed Defiler is all about damage over time, dealing it out across up to three foes at a time. Defilers have learned to use their own life force to drive their opponent’s Greed to unhealthy levels, and steal their energy by fostering a blinding Rage.

Here are the key abilities Defilers will want to bring to their next battle:

• Aggressive Avarice – The Defiler’s premier Greed based DoT effect, damaging foes with Aggressive Avarice. The ability also builds stacks of the Greed effect. The more stacks of Greed a Defiler has, the quicker their enemies succumb to the Defiler’s signature damaging abilities!
• Explosive Rage – Explosive Rage causes your enemy’s anger to boil over, bursting blood vessels and synapses as it exceeds their physical limitations. Not only does Explosive Rage work to destroy your foes, it also funnels their stolen life force back to you!
• Unholy Nexus – What’s better than a full stack of curses on your target? A full stack of curses that spreads to two additional nearby enemies! Unholy Nexus really makes the Defiler a force to be reckoned with against multiple targets.
• Unstable Transformation –Defilers become the personification of Corruption! Grey gangly arms ending in wickedly sharp claws enhance the effect of all the Defiler’s curses!

Log in to RIFT, summon forth your Defiler soul and tear your foes apart with Rage and Greed!

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Starfall Prophecy Preview: Xarth Mire

Ancestral home of the Tuath’de, and therefore all Telaran elves, the Xarth Mire was inhabited in primeval times, long before the war between the Gods and the Akvan.


During the great battles between Akvan and the Gods, the fell beast Xarth suffered a grievous wound and was driven to ground. Broken and helpless, Xarth’s power was slowly bled by the increasingly bold Tuath’de, who employed dark magics to drain the creature, strengthening their own arcane potential, albeit at terrible cost. This corrupting influence has inexorably transformed the most ancient race of elves from their original role as beneficent keepers of the land to something far more sinister.

The region itself is now known as Xarth Mire. Its stagnant pools of murky water lay in wait, draped between fell hills formed from the bodies of countless sacrificial victims of the Tuath’de. The verdant plants of the Mire have themselves absorbed some of Xarth’s taint, and must be approached with caution, lest an unwary adventurer becomes trapped in their tendrils.

Dauntless visitors to Xarth Mire might be advised to stop first at the Shadow Market. This trading post for the Tuath’de is located on hallowed ground, something that even the corrupt Tuath’de respect. This decrepit slave market is not a place one might want to spend much time in, but valuable information can be gleaned by those seeking to venture deeper into the marsh’s depths.

On the very border of Xarth Mire is Alicorn Isle, so named for the groteque foundation of severed unicorn horns that the island was built upon. Unicorns, and the purity that they represent, have long been the focus for Tuath’de’s special hatred and frequently become victims of their ritual sacrifices.
Explore the isle if you will, then venture over the cascading falls nearby to find deep caverns that extend well beyond the reach of light, and deep into the mountains nearby. Perhaps forgotten treasures can be found within, or perhaps an ignoble end to your adventure. Fate reveals little.

The Tuath’de are not the only residents of Xarth Mire. The fetid swamp is also home to a great number of Boglings, especially at their capital Bailghol. The Boglings of the Mire, trapped from birth in this corrupted land, have assumed a fatalistic attitude, hoping for death as a release from their suffering. An empathetic individual with inspiring words might be able to revitalize these drudges from their torpor, but who knows what the result might be.

The true center of the Mire is Xarth’s Skull. This massive shell of bone has been built into a fortress for the Tuath’de, and from there, Queen Una rules. Decorated with grisly tokens of their victims, this fortress is the center of the corrupted elven domain and is be dangerous to siege if the Tuath’de gather in sufficient number.

Be warned: even the most innocuous details in this capital are more dangerous than they initially appear. The rose gardens, for example, are not a haven for peace but instead the home of carnivorous vegetation capable of snapping an unwary adventurer in two!

Prepare yourself Ascended, Xarth Mire awaits! Will you survive challenge, or will your bones join those already in the innumerable piles within the marsh?

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Rift's Recipe of Longevity and Success - Part 4

PvP, as contentious an issue as it usually is, is at the core of the RPG experience for some players and it is definitely one of the main components of any successful MMO. That is certainly the case with Rift as well, and the way the developers approached it in the beginnings of the game had obviously a great deal to do with its currently successful state. The bottom line in this regard was that they simply had no idea in what direction PvP would go in Rift, so they opened up several avenues: shared world PvP and instanced PvP in the form of Warfronts provided the bulwark, but dynamic content PvP was explored as well. Over time, the preferences of the Rift public became clear.

Shared-world and dynamic content PvP fell by the side later, as they turned out to be not particularly popular with the majority. The two PvP systems gave rise to two basic player categories: stalkers and victims, and for the latter, the experience was obviously not a particularly stellar one. What the team came up to solve the conundrum was a system they called Conquest, which simulated shared-world PvP, while expanding Warfronts quite significantly. While in the beginning, there were but three such Warfronts, that number has gone up to ten and it is being expanded all the time. The bottom line: taking the gradual approach to PvP turned out the be the winning formula for Rift, and it's quite obvious why that's indeed the case.

The streaming community - while not particularly significant in Rift's case - has also chipped in over the years and it continues to contribute to the success of the title to this day. While Rift was indeed the first game to feature built-in, one-click YouTube integration, streaming never really reached the level of what Rift devs call "highly streamable games", simply because the game itself was not designed for that. To make a long story short: while easy to record and publish, Rift game-play videos aren't really highly watchable.

Over the years, the game has churned out an elaborate canon, complete with memorable characters and NPCs, and indeed, looking back, some of these NPCs were quite instrumental in the success and popularity of Rift. The most outstanding character in this respect is without a doubt Volan, a massive event colossus. While Volan's story only takes up a few lines in the event script, his scale isn't just massive. It is one never replicated in any other game since. He's become a true landmark character for Rift, one that can be seen by an unparalleled number of players, when his event is on.

Currently tasked with the maintenance of the Overwatch ranking section, Philip Thalberg has been with GGnet since 2004. 

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Rift's Recipe of Longevity and Success - Part 3

As we discussed in our previous two articles, many factors contributed to the longevity and success of Rift online, and obviously, the continuous rolling out of new features and systems was one of these factors. Not all of these new systems were well received by the public though, however, that did not stop the developer from continuously looking to improve and to innovate. Indeed, from this point of view, Rift online has been the birthplace and proving ground of many a MMO innovation.

The Instant Adventure system was one of the features pioneered by the game. Instant Adventure is just what it says on the package: it is meant to make it as easy as possible for players to team up and to jump into an adventure. For some MMO players, searching out the adventure is half the fun, but according to the devs, that was not the case among Rift players. Instant Adventure mode is all about jumping into action at the press of a button and heading out to complete goals shared by a motley selection of teammates. Bailing out is just as easy and more importantly: guilt free. Instant Adventure takes place in the shared world (and that's where Rift turned out to be a trail-blazer), as well as in some of the in-game raids.

Another feature which turned out to be very popular with the Rift player-base, and which goes hand-in-hand with the above described Instant Adventure feature, is the mentoring/sidekicking system. Mentoring is about allowing the game to auto-balance one's higher-level character down to another player's lower level, so the two can play together and actually enjoy the action as peers. Sidekicking is the opposite of this system: it auto-balances a lower-level character up to another player's higher level, for the above described purposes.

Allowing people from both game-factions to play together through the Faction as Fiction system was another master-stroke by the devs.

Generally speaking, the game is all about erasing all boundaries. Indeed, the borders between the in-game worlds are largely illusory at this point. People can move freely among these worlds, and from one server to another. This is indeed the right solution for one of the most nagging MMO problems, so its popularity is quite self-explanatory really.

As said above though, not all the new features turned out to be popular with the player base. Moving away from the subscription-based monetization model was fraught with disappointment and frenzied solution-seeking for the team. Balancing out the continued creation of long-form expansions with the actual profits wasn't a small feat either. Along this path, there were - as the team puts it - some misalignments of expectations, but in the end, everything was smoothed over. The interesting thing is, that when it comes to the monetization of digital content, there are some very un-intuitive factors involved, as the team found out over the years. Furthermore, the optimal monetization-model is an ever-moving target, so keeping on top of it all the time is definitely no easy feat.


Online casinos have the opposite issue, monetisation of content is relatively simple, but in an increasingly competitive environment, keeping players happy and loyal to a specific brand is a challenge. Players are always looking for reputable online casinos with large games offerings, generous bonuses and loyalty programs, and because there are so many out there, switching from one casino to the next is not difficult to do. This makes player retention a priority.

Philip Thalberg has developed an interest in the esport world back in 2003, and he's been working for the world's top eSports destination since 2004. 

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Going to PAX West? We’ll see you there!

Hanging out at PAX West? Stop by our Trion booth and say hi! We’re at Booth #117 on the Fourth Floor of the Convention Center.

Atlas Reactor, Trove, and ArcheAge will all be there, being shown off by many of your favorite staff and community team members!
Get your hands on Atlas Reactor with Kytsu, Muzzy, Hawk and Willibuster! If you have the good fortune to play Atlas Reactor, or share our #LostPuP photo op on social media, you may earn an exclusive, gorgeous enameled PuP pin! Supplies on these items are VERY limited, so find us early!
Find out more about RIFT’s Starfall Prophecy with Darkmoon and Ocho!
Hear the latest dark secrets on ArcheAge from Khrolan and Amary!
#JoinTheParty with our Trove masters of mayhem: Avarem, Twixler and Dopesheet! If you’re really lucky, you may soon sport a pair of Trove pixel-stylin’ sunglasses.
You can tell we’re excited by the number of exclamation marks we use here!!! EXCITEMENT!!!

If you stop by the booth for even a moment, ask for our TRION CODE card: a single code that grants you a terrific item for every Trion game. Whether if you’re ArcheAge, Atlas Reactor, Devilian, Defiance, Rift, or Trove, this card has something for YOU. Come by and find out what secrets are in store!



ONE code to claim an item in every Trion game!

We’re also offering gorgeous new posters for RIFT, ArcheAge, Trove, and Atlas Reactor!They’re so hot off the press that we don’t even have pics of them to share here – come see (and claim) them in person!





Find our #LostPuP, share to social media and get a gorgeous pin! (Quantities limited!)

Attention Trion Creators, streamers, bloggers, videographers and fan site folks: We extend a special invitation for you to get some official one-on-one interview time at PAX with your favorite Devs and Scott Hartsman. Just let Brasse know and she’ll set up a time for you with your Dev of choice: brasse@trionworlds.com (we happily accept walk-up interviews as well, and will do our best to accommodate). Scapes will be on-site all day, every day, to talk about the Trion Creator Program and answer any questions you may have!

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Starfall Prophecy: Eternal Items, New Powers & More

RIFT’s Lead Systems Designer, Andy “Vladd” Kirton, lets fly with information on all the ways you can become more powerful in our upcoming expansion, Starfall Prophecy!


Greetings Ascended,

With Starfall Prophecy on the horizon, I thought I would take a bit of time for a high level overview of some of the new features the RIFT Systems Team is working on. We’ll go into each one more as we get closer to the expansion, but this introduction will hopefully give you a good idea of what each feature is and how it will impact your experience in Telara.

Active Upgrades:
If you boil down upgrades to their core concept, Item Upgrades are quests to make your gear more powerful. In order to upgrade your gear to its maximum potential, you’ll need to procure the required ingredients one way or another. Our goal with Active Upgrades is to embrace that they are quests, while providing exciting thematic experiences and flavor. As an example, and this is by no means going to be an item, if we wanted you to upgrade your mace from Tenebrian Maul to say, “Drathgar, Maul of Undead Slaying” you would need to kill a certain amount of undead with it along with meeting other requirements.

There are a ton of ways that we can use this new system to make your items more a part of your character’s personal story. I’m pretty excited about the possibilities it gives us.

Eternal Items:
With Starfall Prophecy, we are adding a new item rarity: Eternal. Forged by god-like beings from the cosmos, these are artifact tier items in both rarity and power. While some of these artifacts will be found with their Eternal rarity already unlocked, others might need to be upgraded through active upgrades to unleash their full potential.

It’s important to note here no one should expect to wear full suits of Eternal quality items – Eternal Items are much more rare than that! You might have one piece, maybe two if you’re exceptionally diligent and fortuitous. Slots covered will be based on the calling, but because of the powers that each Eternal Item embodies, they will be calling restricted. This allows for more custom tailoring of passive or active effects. Another important note: we are throwing our normal concepts of item balance out the window – that’s how powerful Eternal items are!

Planar Fragments:
One of the things that we’ve been trying to address over the past few major updates is reducing/removing the need for different sets of gear based on your role. For instance, with Mind of Madness, we removed the option for any gear to drop as tank specific, and instead provided sidegrade paths for all DPS drops to change into tank gear. This certainly helped with dealing with the challenge of players who Tank and DPS in obtaining their desired role gear, but it still wasn’t the complete solution that we were looking for. Planar Fragments are a much bigger step towards that solution.

Generally, gear being for a Tank or DPS is determined by the amount of endurance on it along with tertiary stats such as Dodge and Crit Power. With Starfall, gear will no longer drop with tertiary stats attached to them – Planar Fragments give you the ability to customize your stats the way you like! The fragments will have their own tab in the Character UI where you slot in the fragments with the stats of your choice. Similar to the wardrobe system, there will also be saved sets that you can swap on command. In other words, you can keep the same set of gear equipped but change between Tank and DPS stats by swapping out your Planar Fragment equipped set. This can be done via the UI or through a command in the chat window. This will make an amazing difference for folks that have been maintaining multiple armor sets. We also have some changes coming for runes and dream orbs to help out with this, but I’ll save that information for later.

You’ll gain Planar Fragments from throughout Telara; you might find them in dungeons, get them through crafting, see rare examples as world loot, or obtain them in PVP, LFR and raids. By default, Planar Fragments are bound to your account, so that if you get an awesome fragment for your Warrior alt, you can mail it to yourself. Each character will maintain their own individual inventory, though. Speaking of inventory, Fragments will have their own separate inventory similar to Quest Items so that we don’t take up your normal bag space. If your Fragment inventory fills up, it will overflow to your regular inventory.

Legendary Powers:
Legendary Powers are how your character increases in power and flexibility, in addition to just gaining more stats per level as you work toward the new level cap of 70. Each level past 65 will award a Legendary point which can be spent to unlock a Legendary Power. You’ll be limited to a maximum of 3 Legendary points spent per soul and only if you have more than 44 Talent points invested in said soul. With 0 to 14 Talent points invested, you can spend 1 Legendary point and 15 – 43 Talent points invested allows you to spend 2. As for which abilities will be targeted for Legendary upgrades, we can say for sure that each soul will have the 61 point, the 41 point, and one of the 0 point abilities will have options as well. There also will be a sub-15 option, but that wildly varies from soul to soul.

Our goal with Legendary Powers is to change up how your character plays, based upon the powers purchased. For instance, an ability that is normally a 6 second channel that doesn’t allow movement might become a 3 second channel with double the ticks, allowing movement, and also applies all of a certain type of buff to you instead of needing to individually cast each one.

Another interesting twist to Legendary Powers is that the 0 point Legendary is not designed to be taken by anyone that will invest more than 15 talent points in a given soul, but to appeal to more off-soul choices than what is supplied by just the talent point investments. An example is Legendary Flame Bolt, where it increases the damage of your next non-fire damaging ability by 20%. Clearly this is of no benefit to the Pyromancer as all of their damage is fire-based, but for an Elementalist or even Warlock, that’s awfully tempting!

So, as you can see, we have a lot coming down the pipe for Starfall Prophecy and I still haven’t talked about Looking for Raid or Personal Loot yet! I’m super excited about all of these systems and how they will change Telara. I can’t wait to see the imaginative ways you’ll put them to use!



-Vladd

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