Classes of Armor in Rift

In Rift Planes of Telara, players can select between different types of armor. The categories of armor are traditional as far as MMORPGs go: cloth, leather, chain, and plate. Cloth provides the least amount of armor whereas plate provides the most.

However, there is distinctive thing about Rift: there's only total "callings" (i.e. classes) in the game. As a result, there is type of armor for each class.

Mages, who are primarily damage-dealing casters, use cloth armor. Rogues, who can be damage-dealers, support, and even tanks (will discuss that below) use leather. Clerics, who can play every role in the game, use chain armor. Warriors are the only calling in the game that can wear plate.

While Warriors can use some chain pieces, and Rogues can equip some cloth pieces, it will seldom be beneficial to do so. As a result, it makes the gear distribution technique simplified. You seldom must worry about other classes battling you for equipment.

As mentioned, Rogues and Clerics can both tank, but cannot wear plate armor. Rogues do not use shields either! This is due to the soul technique. Rifts talkers (a Rogue soul) are given a variety of bonuses that let them tank. They get significant increases in armor and HP total. This lets them keep up with Warriors to an extent.

You may be wondering how this plays out exactly and what role each tank has. The advantage of Rogue tank over a Warrior tank is that the Rogue is the master of mitigation. The Rogue gets a high parry and dodges percentage. The Rogue also has amazing mobility and can blink all over the map.

In a raid or dungeon, this makes the Rogue great at tanking huge numbers of weak ads that may enter the fight. Its superior mobility and lovely mitigation against mobs with weak to moderate assaults.

The Cleric on the other hand actually helps heal the group while tanking, which is a pleasant bonus as well, if the enemy deals area of effect destroy. Cleric tanks receive a huge bonus to endurance and armor as well.

So, while there are only four types of armor in Rift, do not let that fool you. Each class has abilities and abilities which can boost its strength, hp, and armor totals to similar levels of the Warrior. The only class that cannot do this is the Mage.