PTS just got a huge 700mb update with a ton of changes in preparation for Rift Patch 2.4.

Quick Summary:

• World Gear has gotten an additional upgrade rank called ‘Subjugator’s’.
• Dungeon Gear has gotten an additional upgrade rank called ‘Avenger’s’.
• Raid Gear has gotten a new Tier 2 Raid Gear set. These now have the ability to be both horizontally and vertically upgraded. I.e. Epic to Relic, as well as Epic SP to Epic CP to Epic Spell Crit/etc.
• New PvP Rank 90 “Myrmidon’s”. New PvP Gear called “Myrmidon’s” as well. They use new “Myrmidon’s Empowered Cells” to upgrade. Those at Rank 80 now have the option in warfront dailies of either 600 Warlord Marks or 300 Myrmidon Marks.
  There are new models for the new rank’s weapons and armor.
• PvP Gear has also been given multiple horizontal upgrade paths (i.e., you can side-grade an SP shoulder into a CP shoulder or a spell crit shoulder.)
• New 2-man Chronicle Infernal Dawn: Laethys is up on PTS and Achieves to go with it.
• New Seals. Main Stat+89. New crafting reagents.
• 2 new tiers of Capes and a new tier of Augments Recipes dropping in Expert Dungeons.
• New Synergy Crystals with the new Tier 2 Raid Gear. The new Myrmidon’s PvP Gear also uses the new Synergy Crystals.
• New Trophies category in the Cash Shop allowing you to purchase Bind on Account versions of achievement rewards that you have unlocked. Requires Credits.
• New Cosmetic sub-category in the Services Category in the Cash Shop. Purchase ‘Extended Hair Style Set’, ‘Hair Color Set Bundle’ and ‘Skin Color Set Bundle’.
• Added Cash Shop button to Dimensions toolbar.
• Additional Planebreaker Bastion Achieves. ‘Prisoner’ is ‘Marus’ and you must defeat Warden Thrax.
• Conquest Queue is now completely random. Cannot join specific.
• Optimisation changes.

More detailed information with screenshots below:

World Gear Upgrade

Level 60 World Gear (ones that cost Infinity Stones) has gotten an additional upgrade path called “Subjugator’s”. It provides slightly higher stats than the previous “Hero’s” set but still remains at a HIT + 53 level (i.e., still under Tier 1 Raid gear).

Thus far on PTS there has been no model change for this gear, and no horizontal side-grade paths available. It still uses the same Gilded Synergy Crystals (the Blue ones).

The upgrade requires both an Ephemeral Element and a Majestic Material crafting materials.

Dungeon Gear Upgrade

Level 60 Dungeon Gear (ones that cost Empyreal Slayer’s Marks) has also gotten an additional upgrade path called “Avenger’s”. It provides slightly higher stats than the previous “Marauder’s” set but still remains at a HIT + 53 level (i.e. still under Tier 1 Raid gear).

Thus far on PTS there has been no model change for this gear, and no horizontal side-grade paths available. It still uses the same Gilded Synergy Crystals (the Blue ones).

The upgrade requires its respectively sized Empyreal Marauder’s Cells. Unsure whether this will change though since it seems strange to use the exact same Cell as the previous set.

Raid Gear Upgrade

With the two Tier 2 20-man Raids coming to Rift in Patch 2.4, they are also introducing new Tier 2 Raid merchant gear. These are new HIT + 78 gear. Relic upgrades require Infinity Cells + Marauder Cells. Unsure whether this will change or not as the Cells are dropped in Tier 1 Raids which is rather odd for a Tier 2 Relic upgrade.

There are currently no model changes for this new tier of gear on the PTS although it is highly likely that model changes will be available once the patch hits Live.

Multiple Sidegrades and Upgrades
One of the major changes is the multiple sidegrades and upgrades you can now perform on your gear. Each Tier 2 Raid Gear now has the option of using Empyreal Marauder’s Cells (the Dungeon Currency Upgrade Pieces) to allow you to switch between an SP/AP-focused, CP-focused or Spell Crit/Phys Crit-focused piece of gear.

Below is an example of these new upgrade paths (click to enlarge). The top-right is the original Cleric Chest Piece. It has CP on it. You can side-grade this so that you get a slightly different version with Spell Crit in it, and also do so for one with SP in it. This allows you to customise the gear for your main spec/role (i.e., DPS generally likes CP, Heals generally likes SP). You can do these side-grades an infinite amount of time.

You can also upgrade to Relic. The Relic piece also has multiple side-grades.

PvP Gear Upgrade + New Rank

PvP has gotten a new Rank 90 called “Myrmidon”. Players at Rank 80 will start off with needing 292,484 Prestige to rank up to Rank 81.

With this new Rank comes a new set of gear! Those at Rank 80 are able to start buying the Armor pieces but the Weapons will be restricted to Rank 90. That said, they require new Myrmidon Marks and Myrmidon Upgrade Pieces so you won’t be getting them anytime soon.

Multiple Sidegrades
Like the new Raid Gear, there are also multiple sidegrades for your new Myrmidon gear. Thus for Clerics/Mages you can change an SP-based gear into CP or even Spell Crit. Similarly for Rogues/Warriors you can change an AP-based gear into CP or even Phys Crit.

Changes to Dailies/Weekly Rewards
With the new PvP gear you’ll also find that Rank 80 players will no longer be able to choose Freelancer Marks in their Dailies/Weeklies. Instead your Daily Warfronts now provide you with 600 Warlord’s Marks or 300 Myrmidon’s Marks. Your Weeklies now give you the option of either 1800 Warlord’s Marks or 900 Myrmidon’s Marks.

Given past history, these currencies may increase when you hit Rank 90.

Changes to Previous Tier Sets
Now you may be worried that this means that those of you who still have Mercenary Gear can’t get Freelancers Gear anymore (depending on your upgrade path). Not to fear! They’ve dropped Mercenary Gear and have made Freelancers gear cost favor-only!

i.e. Freelancer’s Boots/Belt/Grips = 39k Favor each.Freelancer’s Pauldrons/Coif = 53k Favor each.
Freelancer’s Chausses/Habergeon = 66k Favor each.
Freelancer’s Rings = 33k Favor each.
Freelancer’s Amulet = 46k Favor.
Freelancer’s Cape = 53k Favor.

New Models
Now for the goodies! Looks like thus far on PTS, only the new PvP gear has been given new models (compared to the PvE upgrade sets).

Click on the below thumbnails to check them out!

Cleric:

Mage:

Rogue:

Warrior:

2-man Chronicle – Infernal Dawn: Laethys

There’s a new 2-man Chronicle called “Infernal Dawn: Laethys” on the PTS with Achieves to go with it!

You will journey through the Earth-portion of Infernal Dawn in this chronicle, fighting Maklamos the Scryer, Rusila Dreadblade and finally, Laethys. Only 3 bosses, but the fights tend to have more mechanics than in previous Chronicles.

Each step of the way you’ll find a Communicator just before each boss which will hint at all the mechanics of each boss. This should help prevent frustrating wipes. That said, the fights are not 100% like the Raid versions of these bosses in order to make it more accessible to the general public, and to a one or two-man team.

Right now the bosses drop old Level 50 raid gear from the bosses so it seems they are using the old Pre-SL Tier 3 Infernal Dawn raid drops. This may change to something more useful and relevant for starter Level 60s when the chronicle hits live.

The fact that it is titled “Infernal Dawn: Laethys” leads me to hope that in the future we’ll get an “Infernal Dawn: Maelforge” chronicle as well!

New Seals and Synergy Crystals

New Seals
There are new seals available at the major crafters (except Runecrafter) recipes NPCs that provides Main Stat + 89. They cost an absolute ton of very expensive craft mats however. Right now on PTS they only cost 60 Master Marks so if you are trying to find them via Cost in Descending Order, you’ll have to look a ways down. The cost will probably be increased in line with the large costs of the other crafting recipes of this tier. However, right now they may be low on the PTS just to make it easier for people to test out.

New Synergy Crystals
There are also new Synergy Crystals that are a tier above the old Epic ones. These are useable by both the new Tier 2 Raid Gear sets as well as the new Myrmidon PvP Gear Sets.

Here is a side-by-side comparison for Clerics in terms of the old Qil’s Synergy Crystals and the new Qils’ Glowing Synergy Crystals.

Trophies Category

There’s a new Trophy Category on the Cash Shop. These ‘Trophies’ are basically achievement rewards that can be turned into Bind on Account versions. They cost 225 Credits and you must have already earned the achieve in order to buy them. So this includes stuff like Infernal Strider mount from ID Conqueror achievement and the Dungeon Conqueror achievement items such as Swarm of Spiders, CL0N3 Generator and Hand Cannon.

Cosmetic Sub-Category

Looks like the twitter post by Rift that showed a Kelari with a new hair color was spot on. Only this seems to be new Cash Shop-only sets.

So looks like a bunch of new hair styles, hair colors and skin colors; but they are Cash Shop items with Credits-purchase only.

Daglar has stated they are going to be one-time account-wide purchases. The Hair Style set for instance will have 4 new hairstyles per race.

Dimensions Cash Shop Button

They added a small quality-of-life improvement for Dimensioneers by adding a small Rift Store button that shortcuts directly to the Dimensions Category. This effectively saves people a single button press (instead of Cash Shop -> Dimensions, i.e. 2 clicks, it’s now 1 click).

Not really sure why they had to add this (probably to remind Dimensioneers to shop) but since the Cash Shop icon is already always on your screen…not much difference.

Additional Planebreaker Bastion Achieves

Additional Planebreaker Bastion achievements were added as follows:

Egg Drop
Something to do with the Eggtenders. No clue otherwise.

Jailbreak
“Marus” is clearly the ‘Prisoner’ from the old achievements datamine and “Warden Thrax” looks to be the boss.

Double Dutch
No clue what “Greater Tectonic Transference” means although it would be interesting if there was some sort of Prison mechanic given that he is a Warden.

Eggtimer
Destroy eggs within 20 seconds of their creation. Kind of straight forward and to be expected in a fight involved “Eggtenders”.

Conquest Queue: Random

Conquest queue is now Join-only; you cannot select an individual faction to join. Whether this has any effect on single premade groups is unknown at this stage. Will be interesting to see if it makes any difference given that the leading faction is often Full anyway.

Optimisation Changes

They’ve added a “Pixel Granularity” to Settings -> Video -> Advanced. Description: “Change the size of 3d pixels without affecting UI resolution”. Basically 100% = just as Rift currently is for you. The lower you slide it, the more blurry the game becomes although the UI will always remain crisp.

There is also a “Use Low Quality Terrain” option that can be accessed after checking “Low Quality Renderer” (requires a restart of your client to see the changes) that is supposed to help out low-end computers with their frame rate.

Current optimisation changes other than that are concentrated on low-end computers and for now high-end computer players will see little improvement. They will be gradually working their way towards optimising higher-end PCs (source: 6th Sept Livestream).

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Conclusion

Lots and lots of stuff added in this huge 700MB patch. There’s probably stuff I’ve missed. If so, give me a holler!

Can’t wait for 2.4!