Welcome to “Making Platinum in Rift” where I look at ways to make platinum in RIFT. I’ve got guides from back in 2013 that have been updated here and there for general information on making platinum, even without the AH.
However, let’s take a look at a specific way of making platinum in RIFT: Old Instance Farming.
What’s Old Instance Farming? It’s just that – running through old instances that are now easy for max level players.
Old Instance Farming
It’s simple – solo farm old raid and dungeon instances such as Greenscale’s Blight and Master Mode Darkening Deeps. You can net 500+ plat per week from this with minimal effort. What’s more? It’s more interesting than clicking on mining nodes, and it’s a lot easier than Level 65 Intrepid Chronicles!
What you want to concentrate on are Level 50 Raids, Expert Dungeons and Master Mode Dungeons.
Instance Breakdown
Let’s see what you can receive in each instance and how long it takes to solo them:
Table: Level 50 Raids
| Instance | Boss Plat | Other Plat | TOTAL | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greenscale’s Blight | 140 | 45 | 185 | 22min |
| Gilded Prophecy | 64 | 20 | 84 | 6min 40sec |
| Drowned Halls | 67 | 19 | 86 | 7min 20sec |
| Rise of the Phoenix | 61 | 17 | 78 | 13min 40sec |
| TOTAL: | 433 | ~50min |
Note:
- “Other Plat” includes both plat from vendoring gear and mob drops, plus mob coin loot (excluding boss coin loot).
- “Time” is based on rushing through the instance with priority on boss kills. If you are a Rogue with stealth and skip adds, you’ll finish faster. If you choose to kill adds or are in a spec which doesn’t have crowd-control (‘CC’) protection and you get CCed a lot, you’ll end up taking longer to complete the instance. Same goes with gear.
- As an example of the variance in time – Leaderboards show (solo) runs of all 4 combined taking ~30min; mostly from Rogues stealthing through trash.
- Numbers rounded up to the nearest plat for easier viewing. Mileage may vary depending on your bonuses, how many adds you kill/loot, and just loot luck.
Table: Level 50 Dungeons
| Instance | Boss Plat | Other Plat | TOTAL | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Master Mode Darkening Deeps | 12 | 20 | 32 | 5min 20sec |
| Expert Darkening Deeps | 12 | 10 | 22 | 4min 20sec |
| Master Mode Caduceus Rise | 37 | 20 | 57 | 10min |
| TOTAL: | 111 | ~20min |
Note:
- Again, plat and time is variable based on loot luck, gear, spec and how much trash you choose to kill. As an example – Leaderboards show (solo) runs of all 3 combined taking ~15min; again from Rogues stealthing through trash.
Conclusion
Spend~1hr 20min (10min for getting to the instances) and you’ll have ~544 plat each week.
It’ll probably take longer than an hour and 20min on your first run through these instances, but as you familiarize yourself with the layout of each instance and know which adds you can skip or run into a boss to kill together; your runs should speed up significantly.
Even better:
- Master Modes reset twice weekly: on Wednesday and Sunday daily reset time (4am Server Time).
- Experts reset daily and the other Level 50 Experts probably give similar plat to Expert Darkening Deeps.
And what’s more, you can farm them for wardrobe pieces like the below:
Level 50 Raid Wardrobe Examples
The good weapon wardrobe pieces usually drop from last or second-last boss of each raid.
There’s also various pets and even specific costume drops available. For instance:
- General Silgen in Rise of the Phoenix can drop General Silgen’s Crown, a special headpiece costume shown above.
- High Priest Arakhurn in Rise of the Phoenix can drop Tinder, a flame griffon companion pet (looks like 2nd phase version of Arakhurn).
- Conqueror: Rise of the Phoenix rewards an Ashe companion pet (looks like 1st phase version of Arakhurn).
- Conqueror: Gilded Prophecy rewards Pet Ore companion pet. It’s an ore that stays in the same spot unless out of range of the player.
- Conqueror: Drowned Halls rewards “Helm of the Hydriss”, a special headpiece costume.
- Conqueror: Greenscale’s Blight gives you the Gweenscale companion pet – a Life-based dragon whelp companion pet.
- Master Mode Caduceus Rise chests have a chance of dropping two different cockatrice companion pets: Lil’ Smoulda and Lil’ Swagga.
- Cadeceus in Caduceus Rise has a chance of dropping his Caduceus headpiece costume.
Information on Instances
Not sure where each instance is located? No problem, here’s a breakdown of locations and some quick advice on each.
Level 50 Raids
Level 50 Raids are all located on the Mathosia map.
- Greenscale’s Blight. In Stillmoor. /setwaypoint 763 2699
- Drowned Halls*. In Scarwood Reach. /setwaypoint 3071 4129
- Gilded Prophecy*. In Shimmersand. /setwaypoint 7106 6911
- Rise of the Phoenix*. In Stonefield. /setwaypoint 4231 5228
*You’ll need to have Omen Sight or Quantum Sight buff up if you want to see the entrance portal for the 10-man raids. You can find these under your Abilities window (default key “p“) -> Ascended Powers -> Utility. Purchased with 12k Sourcestone from: Sanctum or Meridian.
Note: Any tips below are based on you soloing the content at Level 65.
Greenscale’s Blight
In Stillmoor. /setwaypoint 763 2699
- Trash Packs: Make sure to burst down all tree-based mobs if you are a Cleric. Also, put up crowd-control (‘CC’) immunity buffs if you have any. Why? The tree-based mobs will turn you into squirrels or into a tree – both last a long time and won’t allow you to use abilities. If you’re a Rogue, just stealth through all trash packs and if you’re a Mage or Warrior you can Feign Death with Necro or Tempest respectively. (Thanks to Type for the info on Feign Death)
- 1st Boss: Duke Letareus – Just dps the boss and ignore everything else. Once he is dead you’ll port out – go left for trash leading up to 2nd boss.
- 2nd Boss: Infiltrator Johlen – Every couple %s he goes immune and drops a bomb in the middle. DPS it down. Be sure to have CC immunity buffs up or use Break Free because he will CC you intermittently, making it so you can’t use abilities. If the bomb in the middle counts down, it’ll deal decent damage but shouldn’t kill you if you are Level 65. Once dead you’ll port out – go right for trash leading up to 3rd boss.
- 3rd Boss: Oracle Aleria – To start encounter, use an ability on the Oracle. DPS the twins, then dps down Oracle. You can ignore the wisps. Once dead, you’ll port out – go forward to Hylas.
- 4th Boss: Prince Hylas – At low hp he’ll turn you into a critter and you’ll be ported out of the maze. Just move right and hug the wall until you get back to him – dps his shield down to stop his heal.
- 5th Boss: Greenscale – Don’t ever touch the pools around the room. DPS him down. DPS Bogling adds (one will heal, some will silence you) when they spawn. You can ignore wisps and plants.
Drowned Halls
In Scarwood Reach. /setwaypoint 3071 4129
- 1st Boss: Assault Commander Jorb – Stay in melee range and put up any CC-immunity you have, or use break free because he’ll turn you into a seacap every now and then. Other than that just DPS down the boss.
- 2nd Boss: Joloral Ragetide – Just dps him down; ignore the other adds.
- 3rd Boss: Isskal – Interrupt his blue cast. It happens too often for a solo player to get them all down and will deal about 20-30% of your hp. Just heal yourself back up and interrupt as often as you can. He’ll also silence you every now and then. If you don’t dps him down before whirlpool, just follow the direction of the whirlpool. If rings form, get into the safe zone that doesn’t have the watery vfx.
- 4th Boss: Hydriss – Her encounter is located in the same place as Assault commander Jorb. Fight starts when you engage the add packs. DPS them down before Hydriss gets down the flight of stairs. You should have plenty of time. She knocks back so you might want to find a wall or rock to put your back against. She’ll turn you into a sea cap every now and then so use CC immunity buffs or Break Free. DPS the whelp after you kill Hydriss. You can also use a pet to circumvent CC as she will turn your pet into a sea cap instead of yourself – just make sure to get aggro of the whelp when it comes down the stairs so your pet doesn’t die. (Thanks to Type for the info!)
Gilded Prophecy
In Shimmersand. /setwaypoint 7106 6911
- 1st Boss: Anrak the Foul – Just dps him down, you don’t need to bother with any of his mechanics since they won’t hurt you as a Level 65 player.
- 2nd Boss: Guurloth – Simon Says boss. Just dps him down; ignore add. Failing his mechanics won’t deal much damage to you.
- Prior to 3rd Boss. Before you are able to get to the 3rd boss, you need to click on a pot inside the instance. It should be marked on the map.
- 3rd Boss: Thalguur – DPS boss. Every 10-20% hp he’ll become immune and channel an obelisk. Best to place your DoTs on him just before he becomes immune so that the dots tick him down a bit. Ghosts will spawn – you can’t do anything about them when you’re solo; so just heal through them.
- 4th Boss: Uruluuk – Two ways of dealing with this boss. He will crystal you if you don’t push him down to ~33% hp before the crystal cast. If he crystals you, you can’t do anything and just have to wait until he slowly kills you. The crystal will disappear after 2min (Thanks to Ashrytan for duration info!). If you have the dps you can push him down to 33% where he’ll skip the cast and teleport to his final phase. Otherwise, you’ll need to be in a spec with a combat pet so you can tell your pet to break you out of the crystal. (Cleric Inquisitors could also try using Shroud of Agony and hope it destroys the Crystal before you die). Other than that just DPS him down and ignore adds.
Rise of the Phoenix
In Stonefield. /setwaypoint 4231 5228
- 1st Boss: Ereandorn – He’ll occasionally summon a fire footdhold on top of him or you. DPS it down asap.
- 2nd Boss: Beruhast – Just dps him down; you don’t have to move out of the way of the AoEs.
- Prior to 3rd Boss – You’ll need to first free prisoners prior to General Silgen by killing adds, collecting their key and freeing them from their cages. You only get one key at a time, so make sure not to kill all the adds or loot them at once. CC can help with this. Depending on your dps you’ll want at least 3 prisoners freed.
- 3rd Boss: General Silgen – He’ll rotate between a blue and red AoE on you. Blue stuns you – make sure to have CC immunity buffs up and/or Break Free. When he casts Incinerate and puts a large blue AoE on a prisoner, run to that prisoner or take a large amount of damage.
- 4th Boss: High Priest Arakhurn – He has two phases. DPS him down in first phase, kill the adds that spawn and then dps him down in second phase. Throughout if the lava boils and you start taking ticks of damage, hide behind a rock (unless you can heal through it). You’ll probably turn into a fire elemental at some point – you won’t be able to do anything, just wait until the buff disappears (it’s for a group mechanic that is irrelevant when you’re soloing). DPS him down.
Level 50 Dungeons
Although I only show plat and time information for Darkening Deeps and Caduceus Rise, you can probably make around the same amounts from the other Level 50 Experts. As such, I’ve included locations to each below:
- Abyssal Precipice. In Iron Pine Peak. /setwaypoint 2883 1777
- Caduceus Rise. On Ember Isle. /setwaypoint 14113 3628
- Charmer’s Caldera. In Shimmersand. /setwaypoint 7151 7611
- Darkening Deeps. In Gloamwood. /setwaypoint 4894 2431
- Foul Cascade. In Scarlet Gorge. /setwaypoint 3706 2691
- King’s Breach. In Scarwood Reach. /setwaypoint 3294 4307
- Runic Descent. In Moonshade Highlands. /setwaypoint 6230 1355
- The Deepstrike Mines. In Stonefield. /setwaypoint 4809 5380
- The Fall of Lantern Hook. In Droughtlands (lowest level of Lantern Hook). /setwaypoint 7669 6293
- The Iron Tomb. /setwaypoint 6168 4810
- The Realm of the Fae. /setwaypoint 6701 2727
All these dungeons are located on the Mathosia map (incl. Ember Isle).
About Master Modes
You switch between Expert and Master Mode version of the dungeons by right-clicking your portrait and selecting Dungeon Difficulty. You’ll need to make sure not to be in any instances when you do this.
Only Darkening Deeps and Caduceus Rise have Master Mode versions. They reset every Wednesday and Sunday at daily reset time (4am Server Time). Expert dungeons reset at 4am ST daily.
Caduceus Rise
Only thing to note for the Level 50 dungeons would be Caduceus Rise’s Cinderstorm boss. This boss is summoned either by speaking to Comda who is freed from a cage after you defeat Captain Black Spit. Speaking to Comda will spawn him in front of Pyrestorm’s puzzle and he will autocomplete it for you.
Or, you can complete the puzzle yourself (and get an extra chest reward). A guide to the puzzle can be found here courtesy of Humpy from the Gaiscioch community.
Why Not?…
You might be thinking, “Why not…[raid]?” Simple, they’re too hard, annoying or don’t give enough plat for time spent:
- River of Souls:
- Herald Gaurath doesn’t seem to give plat. And you can die if you kill too many adds at once.
- Warmaster Galenir has a tank swap – hit 10 stacks and you die, even at Level 65. If you’re soloing you could try using a tank pet to draw his attention, but you’d have to have good control of your pet to properly tank swap.
Hammerknell Fortress:You need 3 people in the group to enter. You can use the alt trick where you go onto another account and join your main, adding alts into the group to reach 3. But that’s a pain.Several bosses are impossible to kill solo due to their mechanics.If you are still interested in trying to solo HK, Wu has posted a fantastic breakdown of each boss fight here.- Level 50 HK no longer exists.
- Primeval Feast:
- The starting ‘event’ is a huge pain – you can’t just dps down the adds but actually have to do the event by backstabbing each add, collecting keys and blowing up shamblers on each side of the instance, which can take 10min+ solo.
- Secondly, the Maze event before the last boss is also a huge pain.
- Other Raids are just a pain to get in/solo in general at this point.
Of course nobody is stopping you from doing these raids solo if you wish to and if you don’t mind less plat, you can run them in a group – perhaps for wardrobe items or Conqueror achieves!
Hope you found “Making Plat in Rift: Old Instance Farming” useful! With just one char you’ve almost got half a REX (NA-region)! What if you have 4 Level 65s?
RiftGrate 
About Uruluuk, I’ve been turned into a crystal around halfway into the fight and I just waited it out for him to kill me. After around two minutes though, you’ll get released from the crystal if you managed to survive that long. Take note that I didn’t have a pet then, though even if it did, it won’t follow commands while you’re in that state.
TLDR; If you wait long enough, you’ll get released from the crystal.
Thanks for the info Ashrytan! I’ll add that to the tips 😀
You may want to test this out for yourself in case this is an isolated scenario.
Hi, Even though you had the best intention, this will probably get heavily nerfed!!! now due to its publicity on this site, even though there were enough people who knew about this already. Anyways wanted to say you’re doing a good job with the website and look forward to seeing more guides and news.
GSB – “Trash Packs: Make sure to burst down all tree-based mobs. ”
This applies to only clerics who don’t have a way to drop aggro. Mage – necro can feign death, warrior – tempest can feign death and rogue can sneak and also had some sort of feign, I think? This also applies to all raids. It’s completely worth it to have a spec for skipping this trash. Just run all the way through, deal with CCs you get on the way and find a safe spot next to the boss to drop dead. Wait until all dots are off of you and any pet you might have and make sure you’re not targeting anything when standing back up.
Drowned Halls – 4th Boss: Hydriss – Use a pet spec, even if the pet is really lowlevel, she will always sheep the pet instead of you because it’s set to sheep targets other than the tank. Make sure you aggro the whelp so that it doesn’t kill your pet (throw an aoe or some st damage at it).
Also, inb4 they patch this so you can’t make money like this any more -.-
Thanks for the info Type!
i have rogue so i do trash in stealth but sometimes i think maybe trash give me a box or something good
this would be totally unfair if trion nerf those raids, i mean you cant change nothing about raids no mechanics, no loot
I have to agree with ThomasT, this will likely be nerfed soon due to this article. It doesn’t take much economic understanding to realize that this much influx of in game currency isn’t good for the economy as a whole.
There is some humor in the cycle of this though:
See a nice way to make money and want to share with others -> Spend time (and good work) into writing an article to share with others -> Makes Trion aware of an unintended economic efficiency -> Trion nerfs -> Article now antiquated, time wasted and can’t grind plat anymore between writing articles.
I’m keeping an eye on this and see how it plays out. If Trion does do something about this I’ll definitely be much less inclined to sharing useful information like this in the future, which is unfortunate.
The question of how to make plat in the game comes up a lot, and this particular method is a more enjoyable way of earning platinum compared to almost all other methods.
I think there’s a benefit to Trion keeping things the way they are – players get something more interesting than gathering nodes (which is boring); less gatherers also makes gathering mats go up in price (which makes gatherers happy) and players will feel there’s less of a grind in the game since they’ll probably replace doing NT dailies with doing solo instance runs once per week. Credit-only items also become a little more bearable and Rift’s F2P model looks a little better.
The main problem of Trion is they change stuff that already is ok, like crafting
And i heard that bans in forums are becoming more and more common, and not for insults or other nasty stuffs
I found an interesting page about job enviroment on Trion, and its seems not good at the best scenario
Marko, keep on keepin on…You are doing a great service to the RIFT community. All your info is much appreciated!
–I do not run these “plat runs” but soloing old content is quite fun..But who do, should be rewarded if they do.
Been doing these for a long time. First three raids are definitely the fastest way to get plat besides minion/crafting combo. Tried to finish Hammerknell out of curiosity on my cleric (raid dummy 55k dps). Took a couple of hours and ended up with three bosses left. Drops are the same as GSB in terms of value, but it takes a lot more time. Small breakdown for bosses if anyone’s willing to solo them:
1. Murdantix – dummy.
2. Soulrender Zilas – kill imps and adds with axes to remove debuff, otherwise dummy.
3. Vladmal Prime – Nuke him down, becomes harder to heal in the end.
4. Grugonim – Shields are a must have, for you will end up with 1% health at the end, and the only thing that can prevent death is a shield (sorry mages). Kill adds and idols when they spawn, run away when he’s burrowed.
5. Molinar – lots of damage, be sure to use at least healing crystal. Nothing special except keeping them at about same health percentage, avoiding aoes and killing shades.
6. Estrode – same healing as molinar, otherwise dummy.
7. Matron Zamira – impossible without tanking pet (sorry warriors). Let pet tank and resummon when he’s about to die. Kill adds fast. If there are some mechanics to remove debuff maybe someone can comment.
8. Sicaron – impossible. No way to avoid one-shot purge mechanic,
9. Inquisitor Garau – dummy. All you do is run in a little into the room and start nuking from range. Don’t move, and golems will ignore you.
10. Inwar Darktide – impossible. No way to avoid one-shot from killing idols,
11. Akylios – can be soloed, but I don’t know how to get to harbor and whether it’s possible to get there without killing darktide.
Overall the only reason to go there is to kill akylios for weapons for wardrobe. Everything else is not worth it. It’s possible to kill all bosses duo at an average expert gear level (~35k dps/per).
Thank you Wu for writing up this breakdown! I’ll include it in the article! 😀
You can easy kill second boss in River of Souls by kiting him in circles and you will receive max 1-4 stacks. Spongy Insoles should help you.
i meant warmaster Galenir
Remember as well to pickup the old weekly raid from your home city for the free xp and plat that goes with that
on gilded propecy last boss you can just stand near the cyrstal on the middle and he wont do anything to you except damage you turning him into a dummy boss…just go range
Been running these since this guide was put up, here is what I’ve learned as a t1 ready dps warrior:
For GSB you don’t have to worry about Infiltrator Johlen’s bomb he does every 25% it deals very little damage though you are cc`ed for about 10 seconds if you don’t kill it in time, enduring survival heals me for more than what it does so I just leave it be. And be careful about dpsing Prince Hylas, learned that if you get him to below 8% before the start of phase 2 the game auto kills you as a anti-hack measure.
As for RotP General Silgen’s Incinerate deals 80% of your hp if you don’t get to the blue circle in time, can be lowered with shields. The High Priest has a few things to note, first the lava around him does 20% damage every tick if you stand in it, second is he has a los that deals 60% damage if you don’t los him, and third is for the fire elemental he will turn you into it happens to be a buff you can just right click and it will remove itself, can’t do anything when it is active anyway.
High Priest Arakhurn ends up one shotting me everytime he gets low. Am I doing something wrong?
When the lava boils and you start taking ticks, that can hurt. It’s also the only time you are allowed to hide from him behind any rocks. Any other time he will deal extra damage to you if you try to hide from him.
The other possibility is that you aren’t killing him fast enough and he is enraging, which would cause a one-shot.
Hey, thanks for the answer. A friend told me to go without a pet. This time I didn’t get 1 shot and everything went good. Maybe the pet bugs the encounter?
What that is is standing in the red circle he throws out. If you get a bunch of stacks, you explode unless you grab the purple crystal that turns you into an elly.
I found a nice solution for Uruluuk and his crystal thing…I am not sure if I was just lucky or if this actually works but I used my blood raptor and kept switching aggro with him by using Divert Rage as a ranger which kinda shared the aggro between us and the boss never did a single crystal..and I didn’t have lots of dps and it took a while to get him to 33% so I’m just putting this out here in case it really works.
see missing waypoint for Darkening Deeps: /setwaypoint 4894 2431
Thanks for the info Darula! 😀
On Darkening Deeps I get to Emissary Villizar and he just one shots me with the debuff that usually the group has to stack for. I’ve tried it with a pet and no luck, no matter what I do I get to that part and I’m dead.
Has anyone else been able to get past him and what did you do to get through the debuff?
That’s indeed a problem. If you go into a full dps spec and can somehow take him down asap before the stack mechanic comes up, that would solve the issue. Not quite sure how you would circumvent the stack debuff though.
Drowned Halls:
If you pick up some “Red Scar Trackers Hunting” from the Hunting goods vendor. You can summon them on the bosses that turn you into a seacap, and they will be CC’ed instead of you. Makes these fights a lot easier if you are doing this instance with mid level gear.
Wow nice find! Thanks for the info Dinke! 😀
You just can use a Pet instead. It will allways turn/snare whatever the pet. Doesn´t matter what level your Pet have. Same for Uruluuk in GP. If your DPS isn´t that good and he will put u in this 2mins crystall, just summon a Pet before the fight and he never casts it. That´s why all my toons can at least summon a low level Pet 😉
Just found this guide, very nice work. Unfortunately, the predictions came true and Trion nerfed it. Soloing Darkening Deeps on expert now yields about 15p. Currently the best way I know of to farm plat is to gather Sarleaf. It’s entirely possible that there are better methods, but I haven’t been able to find them.
Other methods take a ridiculously long time to get anything close to this amount of platinum. Even being able to survive a 10+ mob group at the zeuxis district on the plane of water to kill them for cloth. Greys. Gold and other possible mats it still takes hours (good exp if your into long term storage of mats to auction off…. But your hands will get sore lol.
BUT! Don’t forget to do the weekly instant adventures and hand in the tokens to the guy in tempest bay or the water planes area for some gold and exp and some notoriety. (It isn’t much at first. But if your in a guild and have patron status all those extra tokens add up very quickly across each toon … Not to mention a decent weekly bonus !