[Magus] How to rift effectively - guide

[peterthepan3]

Hello all,

With the implementation of Tier 3, we have seen the arrival of the long-anticipated Chaotic Rift. This skill is the defining ability - the AK47 - of the Magus; the one useful ability that would warrant taking a Magus out of the house for a walk with your friends, and not being ashamed to be seen in public with the Magus; the one useful ability out of plethora of...well - not-so-good-abilities.

Chaotic Rift- what does it do?
First and foremost - what is the skill? As per 'waronlinebuilder''s description:

Costs 20 AP
1.0 second cast
65FT range
30 second cooldown

A rift in the warp is opened briefly, pulling up to six enemy players within 75 feet of the vortex toward it's center and then snaring everyone within 30 feet a second later by 40% for 4 seconds. Monsters will be knocked down after the initial pull

It's basically an AOE pull ability that will suck in the closest 6 people to your location, at the time of casting.

Why is it useful?
It allows you to pull squishies, such as unguarded AMs/RPs/BWs who would otherwise be happy and content spamming their heals away from all the action. It allows you to go to town with PBAOE DPS (something that few classes rival the Magus at, when played well). It allows you to assist off other classes - the best being sorc/choppa - and kill the enemies that you have trapped in your web before the opposition can react in time.

It is also good in solo situations if you are against a RDPS. On live, you could pop Agonizing Torrent, pull the enemy, knockdown, and then go to town on them.

It has another use in so far that many people simply forget that the Magus exists! - and so gives you an element of surprise. Compared to, say, sorcs and choppas, you may see one magus for every 15. When people do see you rift, at LEAST one of them will comment 'wow! magus rift!'.

It's good if you are in a group and up against a kiting opposition, such as DPS AMs and SWs.

All in all it is just a very effective tool to have, and has its uses both on the field individually and as a collective with a fleshed-out group.

Conditions for being a good Rifter?
YES! This is imperative: if you wish to be effective with the Rift, there are a few conditions you must meet beforehand.

1) GET A GUARD. No seriously - get one. It doesn't matter how 'tanky' you think you are without one; if you are rifting a group of 6 players towards your disc, you need a guard. Simple as. Having a guard will allow you to survive longer, and therefore output more PBAOE DPS.
2) ENSURE YOU HAVE AT LEAST 2 HEALERS. The importance of healers in a rift group can not be underestimated. As a riftbot, you will be taking a lot of focus from competent opposition who will anticipate what you are trying to do. To survive through this, 2 good healers and a good tank are compulsory.
3) GROUP UP WITH AN AOE SORC. Choppa is decent, but due to the nature of the Sorc and Magus both being magical damage classes that can help eachother with resist debuffs/etc (and the fact that Sorc just pumps out more PBAOE burst) I would advocate finding a good sorc over any other class. HOWEVER it can work with a choppa, provided the choppa knows how to coordinate with a rift magus.
4) RUN WITH A DEDICATED GROUP AND COORDINATE YOUR ATTACK ON TS/VENT. This is the most important. Even if you are running with a group of 6 competent players, if you are not using a voice comm software to coordinate your attack so that your group knows EXACTLY when you are pulling, you will not yield the same results. In my opinion: if you are not willing to use ts/vent as a rift magus, then you should respec.

It is essential that your team know to the closest milisecond when you are going to rift: healers can focus heal/shield in anticipation; tanks can stagger the frontline/knockdown; Sorc can prepare 100 DM and pop their morale2.
Successful rifting is all about being 2 steps ahead of your enemy, and hitting them with 5-10 seconds of pbaoe burst damage/cc that they will struggle to react to accordingly.

Spec and rotation
This is assuming you are R30/RR40:
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=mag ... :;;0:0:0:0:

Skills:
1) Rift: needs no explanation. Take it!
2) Aegis of Orange Fire: a lot of people use it as an 'ohshi-' free heal. If you're rifting, pop it just before you are about to rift; it will increase your wounds significantly, and also grants you a thorns-like damage ability that has a 25% chance to hit someone for elemental damage. Therefore a boost in DPS.
3) Agonizing Torrent: every 3 seconds you will pump out spirit damage, for 9 seconds. This ability is affected by your glean magic, and is a substantial PBAOE DPS skill when you have enough intelligence. Take it.
4) Daemonic Contract: 15% extra damage just for doing what you do best - close-range pbaoe damage. No brainer.

IF YOU ARE NOT RR40: Take Aegis out of this spec, as it offers the least in terms of pbaoe burst (and if you're with a good group, you shouldn't be going down anyway)

With this spec, you have access to all the main PBAOE skills/dmg increase that will facilitate towards the demise of your enemies.

Tactics
These are subject to opinion, but in my personal opinion:
1) Daemonic Contract. Essential
2) Devour Energy. Recommended (if you have sufficient AP pots/an inno zealot/very very strong pbaoe burst, then you can get away with not using it - otherwise take it. You will find yourself running out of AP a LOT.)
3) Endless Knowledge. Depends. If you have high 700s, e.g. 780-, of Intelligence without using the tactic then don't use it. If you have anything lower than 750, use it (with a pot, of course).
4) Close Quarters. Essential. In my honest opinion, if you want to catch your enemies by surprise and kill them as fast as possible you will want close quarters. It will turn your rift into a 0.5 sec cast, your pandemonium into 0.5 seconds, your agonizing torrent into 0.5 second cast. This will allow you to simply dismount, cast your pet (in 1.0 second), pop Aegis, AT, rift, panda, glean, and infernal blast all in under 6 seconds. Essential. It also ensures that the window of opportunity in which your enemy can interrupt your rift is significantly smaller (good players will try to interrupt you mid-rift cast)

I personally use Daemonic Contract, Close Quarters, and Endless Knowledge as I run with a very good PBAOE sorc and we typically burst down our enemies in 5 seconds max. However, if you feel your group's damage is not that high yet, just play around with the tactics until you find a set that work best with you.

Renown abilities
Assuming rr40:
* get RD 2/3
* CW if you feel you need it, otherwise max int

Some people like to play Magus as a semi-tank when rifting. In my opinion, this defeats the point: the whole idea of rifting is to kill your enemies ASAP, before the rest of their teammates can react.
Magus PBAOE burst is severely underrated: if you have all of your dots rolling, your pet's 20% damage, daemonic contract, agonizing torrent - all the while spamming lash - you will be doing some serious damage.

This game is all about killing your enemy before they can react. Help your team do that. With a good team helping you, you should not need to spec defensively (though I do run with around 4.5k wounds).

Rotation
This is the bread-and-butter rotation; assuming you have found a group of enemies that you are about to rift, and are ready to coordinate with your group.

1) Spawn pet/resummon (I usually spawn my pet somewhere beforehand, so that I can resummon it asap during rift);
2) Pop Aegis
3) Pop RD and Agonizing Torrent
4) Pop rift (which you will have alerted your group to)
5) Mid-air, cast pandemonium and glean magic (if you have a Chosen in your group - WHICH YOU SHOULD!! - then don't cast glean magic)
6) As soon as the enemy lands, USE THE AOE KD. This is a VITAL part of the rift process, especially if you are pulling healers. Due to lack of heal debuff, you will NEED to use the knockdown and try to kill them before they can get up.
7) Pop infernal blast
8) Spam lash

Most unorganised opposition will be dead after this, if you are quick about it.

If you have morale2 up, pop up before you rift. It is essential you are not CC'd during this whole process. I also tend to pop a rejuv potion, just to aid with the healers - given that I am rather squishy.



Enjoy!

[Shanell]

We should nerf magus.
#2OP2Play

[Deehorsey]

Great post. I Looooovved my Magus back in the day. Often considered the worst class, this one-trick-pony was a great fight initiator and ender. I'll make one eventually, but so many other fun classes too

Judging by your post though, [Warpfire] is still useless? What a shame. One of the cooler looking abilities.

The AoE KD you're talking about is the [Daemonic Infestation]? From the time I played, I believe it was relatively unresponsive, so I would instead have to use a [Resummon] on a pre-existing pet with [Instability] to get that same effect.

The rift works quickly though, so I'm not sure I agree with casting [Pandemonium] as the following spell. I imagine that may put you a half second behind starting the rest of the rotation you put in place. Doesn't this create opportunity for your rifted targets to escape before KD? I would argue it would be more effective to get your DoT's out before starting the rift rotation, but I understand the logic if you can't if the enemies had a good spread-formation.

Alternatively, if you run with a chosen, let them do the KD so you can get to your dirty work sooner

[peterthepan3]

Thing is on this server the rift is noticeably slower than it was on live: your enemies are in the air for up to 2 seconds sometimes. With CQ slotted, this gives you ample time to cast panda mid-air, while already having activated Aegis torrent (the first proc of which should hit at the same time that your enemies land).

The AOE KD is Instability. Daemonic Infestation is the stagger.
Chosen don't have access to an AOE KD I believe. If you're with a Marauder, they can provide it (though that is unlikely as mara aoe is pretty meh)

9 times out of 10 you will be using the AOE KD to give your sorcerers 5 seconds of (almost ) uninterrupted dmg.

[Deehorsey]

Ah maybe I am miss remembering. I thought kotbs/chosen was a cone KD, not stagger. Good to know.

Still though, I remember the 2 CD's of Resummon+Instability being too slow, leaving a gap for counter-measures.

[talissera]

My 2 cents. You should separate SC rifting and RvR rifting.
For second you absolutely don't need Ago Torrent and Int. You need wound talics and def decor (wound/tougness cloack and accessory). Tactics: AP tactic, tougness from summoned daemon, daemonic taunt/Close Quartets. CQ allows to move faster and spam abilities. Taunt.. % dmg from all sourses.
Faceroll order: if you have a few seconds - relocate daemon, rift, blow, glean, panda, step back, shout, summon new daemon for tougness, orange if hp less then half.
If you have mara - rift, glean, panda, resummon.
If you don't have mara and blowing on cd - use your infestation, 1-3 sec of stagger depends on damage, interrupted casts of victims, your party can gap closer to it. And you have 1-2 secs to make aoe dots.
Guard seems good but doesn't essential. If you move fast, then your mates kill anything. If you stay, it's worse. Always move, try to get out of hot places and reload your rift, let your mates to draw an attention. Always use your mount and don't come to vanguard unless you will rift in seconds. Use voice

For scenario you need 2 aoe damager (I prefer sorc and mara), 2 healers (1 dok included), 1 tank who know how to switch guard between damagers. Doks pretty tanky so usually don't need guard. here you should find a balance between int and survivability. You don't have damage. Aoe dots isn't a damage. Mara has aoe knock with thin cd, it's tasty. Rift, knock, cascade, repeat. Beware Ekrund SC, beware melee trains. Tactics for AP, Int, tougness. Int decor.

Something like that.

P.S. and delete black roots from your hotbars. Glassy, gives one of cc immunes to targets. And morales. All is dust, nothing interesting.

[Renork]

My 2 cents. You should separate SC rifting and RvR rifting.
For second you absolutely don't need Ago Torrent and Int. You need wound talics and def decor (wound/tougness cloack and accessory). Tactics: AP tactic, tougness from summoned daemon, daemonic taunt/Close Quartets. CQ allows to move faster and spam abilities. Taunt.. % dmg from all sourses.
Faceroll order: if you have a few seconds - relocate daemon, rift, blow, glean, panda, step back, shout, summon new daemon for tougness, orange if hp less then half.
If you have mara - rift, glean, panda, resummon.
If you don't have mara and blowing on cd - use your infestation, 1-3 sec of stagger depends on damage, interrupted casts of victims, your party can gap closer to it. And you have 1-2 secs to make aoe dots.
Guard seems good but doesn't essential. If you move fast, then your mates kill anything. If you stay, it's worse. Always move, try to get out of hot places and reload your rift, let your mates to draw an attention. Always use your mount and don't come to vanguard unless you will rift in seconds. Use voice

For scenario you need 2 aoe damager (I prefer sorc and mara), 2 healers (1 dok included), 1 tank who know how to switch guard between damagers. Doks pretty tanky so usually don't need guard. here you should find a balance between int and survivability. You don't have damage. Aoe dots isn't a damage. Mara has aoe knock with thin cd, it's tasty. Rift, knock, cascade, repeat. Beware Ekrund SC, beware melee trains. Tactics for AP, Int, tougness. Int decor.

Something like that.

P.S. and delete black roots from your hotbars. Glassy, gives one of cc immunes to targets. And morales. All is dust, nothing interesting.

Um what? Please no. Peterpan's guide is fine for scenarios and open field. You will have an incredibly difficult time beating any half decent melee premade in scenarios though, rifting in scenarios is effective against pugs and that's about it. Play style is obviously subjective, but I don't understand the reasoning behind your post. No agonizing torrent? Why not? Wounds? Why? Guard not essential? Lol?

[peterthepan3]

Magus pbaoe is very very good. Better than marauder. For that reason I opt fot maximum offence over defense. Agonising is a must.

[talissera]

Um what? Please no. Peterpan's guide is fine for scenarios and open field. You will have an incredibly difficult time beating any half decent melee premade in scenarios though, rifting in scenarios is effective against pugs and that's about it. Play style is obviously subjective, but I don't understand the reasoning behind your post. No agonizing torrent? Why not? Wounds? Why? Guard not essential? Lol?

Um yes.
Guard doesn't essential. Main damage to you will be aoe burst. Focused damage relatively rare. You have hp boost, CC, and main target still healers or sorcs.
In RvR there are only roles, dd/tank/healer/support. Magus is support, he have crap damage anyway. So his best - to be alive, use def gear and rift. Agonizing torrent with such gear pretty crap. And please don't tell me about mague dot damage, it will be cleansed or mitigated by aoe heal spam.

Rifting in scenarios.. Pretty good when party know what to do. When 2 premade parties against yours and 1 without hands and brains.. Nothing here to do.

[peterthepan3]

I was going to make a comment about you suggesting that you can rift effectively without guard, but then I saw you're in Porn Factory
Jokes aside - if you're up against good competition, you will need a guard. It's absolutely essential.

Agonizing Torrent on a debuffed target is free damage if you cast it before rifting - use it.
Infernal Blast can crit for over 1k with the 50% crit dmg tactic.
Daemonic Lash can crit for over 1k in endgame.

Sorry but please don't post bullcrap. The class has never really been weak in PBAOE DPS (just not as good as others)