In this Rift invasions guide, I will be going over the exact mechanics behind invasions, why they happen, and the best way to earn experience and rewards from them.
If you’re looking for questions about invasions hopefully you’ll find them answered here. Don’t forget to also add your own tips or insights into the comments below.
Contents:
- What Are Invasions
- When Invasions Appear
- Defeating Invasions
- Invasion Events
- Invasion Participation
- Invasion Rewards
- Conclusion
What are Invasions
In Rift, an invasion refers to a group of enemies which invade Telara. In particularly, invasions have a specific destination that they seek to attack. This is usually one of the quest hubs marked on the map. Once they appear, invaders will head towards their destination and attack anything (both player and NPC) that gets in their way.
Invasions can be both Planar (i.e. elemental enemies) or faction-based (Guardians invading Defiant territory and vice versa). The largest invasions are Planar based.
When Invasions Appear
Invasions do not simply occur out of thin air. They have an origination: either Rifts or Footholds. The strength of each invasion depends on what it was spawned from and the number of players in the zone.
When a Rift is active but undefeated, it will occasionally spew out invaders. Invaders will then go on a crash course, usually for the closest quest hub. Major Rifts tend to spawn more powerful invasions than Minor Rifts.
Sometimes an invasion force will set up a foothold. Footholds are simply structures which appear on the ground and are defended by a small force. Defeating a foothold is much easier than defeating a Rift. However, Footholds spawn invasions much more frequently then Rifts. A foothold will pump out a new Invasion every few minutes! Faction-based invasions always seem to spawn from Footholds as well.
If an invasion force (Planar) overtakes a quest area, they will set up a foothold there and all the NPCs will disappear. The quest NPCs will not reappear until the footholds have been taken out.
Defeating an Invasion
Every invasion is led by some sort of commander. This is always the most powerful opponent in the invasion force. This opponent is much stronger than all of the other enemies within the invasion. As soon as you finish off the leader, the invasion is considered to be “defeated” regardless of the number of subordinates running around.
As mentioned above, if an invasion establishes a foothold in a questing area, you must first defeat that foothold and any invasion forces before the quest hub returns to normal.
Invasion Events
Frequently in a zone (especially the starter zones) the sky will change colors and an announcement will go out that a certain element is invading. When this happens, Rifts all over the map will spawn. These Rifts will spawn invasions at an accelerated rate. These invaders are much more likely to summon footholds as well which will then summon more invasion forces.
Unlike normal invasions which tend to go for the quest hub, the enemies will usually bee-line for 2-4 points on the map. You can see where the enemies are going by opening up the map and holding your mouse over the sword icon. The arrow indicates where the invasion is headed.
Invasion events have different goals. However, most of the events involve protecting a few Wardstones where you try to accomplish a goal such as defeating 40 invasions, collecting items to buff the Wardstones, or closing rifts.
The key thing here is to protect the wardstones rather than go after rifts. If the wardstones fall, the event ends and you miss out on the big rewards. Pay attention to where the invasions are raiding and protect those locations. Do not let the enemy take out the Wardstones!
Once you complete the initial goals of the invasion, a boss will spawn. Players will then have to take out the boss to complete the event. The reward is that players who contribute to the downing of the final boss (see below for contributions) will get top-quality planar currency.
The boss can be tough to find. Usually, the boss has a special icon on the map, but sometimes it looks just like the sword icon. Hold your mouse over each icon and you will eventually see the boss’ name on the map.
Invasion Participation
Before we discuss what the rewards are, it is important to know how to actually get them. When you are fighting an invasion, rift, or foothold, a “participation bar” will appear in the right side of the screen right under the mini-map.
As you deal damage to the invasion or rift objectives, the participation bar will increase. You need to hit at least the first “rung” on the meter to get the experience and planarite bonus. Building up this participation bar is important. The higher you get on the participation bar, the better your planarite reward will be. Note that everyone in the party gets faction for defeating an enemy, regardless of participation. Players only have to hit the first rung (1/4 of a bar) to get experience points.
Note that attacking monsters that do not fulfill invasion or rift requirements do not cause you to build participation points. In other words, if your group is fighting two invasions at once, you might only get credit for one invasion if you only attack enemies from one force while your group takes out the other invasion.
I have found that the easiest way to ensure you get credit for all the invasions is via some sort of AoE healing. When using the Bard’s Cadence ability, I seem to have high participation from all nearby invasions.
As you can see, you need to make a concerted effort to attack every invading force (or heal the group) of an to get the most exp and rewards from Rift invasions.
Invasion Rewards
No Rift invasions guide would be complete without mentioning the rewards. There are three rewards you get for participating in invasions: planar currency, experience points, and faction points. Planar currency can be used to purchase various rewards. See the planarite guide for more information.
As mentioned in the previous section, players get experience points for completing rounds in Rifts or defeating invasion bosses. Since you only need to get 1/4 a participation bar to get experience, the best way to get exp from invasions is to get in a large group during an invasion event (with hordes of invaders). By doing this frequently you will be leveling up rather easily.
This way, your group will take out multiple groups in succession and you will get the full exp reward for each one. This is great when there are 20+ invasions around! Faction is awarded just by being in a party where an enemy planar monster dies, regardless of participation. Again, the best way to do this is go get into big groups. As you earn faction, you can buy rewards from the faction vendors in Sanctum and Meridian.
Conclusion
After reading this Rift invasions guide, you should now have a clear idea of how invasions work and what to do during invasion events. Good luck!
