Contents
0. Preface
1. What is Dimension Trip?
2. General Guide and Tips
3. Class Specific Tips - for and against
3.1 Haru
3.2 Erwin
3.3 Lilly
3.4 Stella
4. Closing Remarks
5. Changelog
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0. Preface
Hey there,
I go by Natty in game on the NA Tenebris server, and with the end of the first season of Dimension Trip, I decided to make a quick guide on this mode.
As for personal credentials, I ended 6th at the end of the first Dimension Trip season. Is this definitive proof that I know what I'm doing? Probably not. But anyhow, lets get on with the guide.
1. What is Dimension Trip?
Dimension Trip is an instanced, non-equalized PvE/PvP match that happens 3 times a day at 5, 7, and 9 pm PST (on NA servers at least). The game will start recruiting for Dimension Trip 5 minutes before the hour, and the game will start 5 minutes after the hour and last for 10 minutes. Each game will hold up to 8 players.
The goal of Dimension Trip is to defeat monsters and players to gain Dimension Points and secure them by handing them into a machine (5 second activation time). Anything that hits you will interrupt your turn-in, so you must be sneaky! When a total of 10 minutes has passed or 3000 combined Dimension Points have been turned in, the match will be over. Note that Active Akashas cannot be used in the Rift Arena.
Completing Dimension Trip grants Xeno Stones depending on how well you placed. These stones can be used to craft PvP gear through blueprints bought at Daleska in District 6.
The structure of Dimension Trip is 3 rooms of monsters -> main pvp arena.
Here are some very crudely drawn diagrams:
2. General Guide and Tips
The goal of Dimension Trip is to turn in as many points as possible. There are 4 sources of points in the Rift Arena:
1. Monsters in the first 3 mob rooms.
Monsters in the first rooms give points, with the tougher monsters in each set giving more points. Last hit claims the point drop.
2. Other players.
Kills on other players will grant 20 points + however many they were holding (shown above their name).
3. Mini Stone Golem
The mini golem only takes 1 damage per hit, and will drop 1 point per hit. Spam multi hit moves to make it drop a ton of points.
4. Asphalt Golems
When the mini golem is killed, the Asphalt Golems will begin to spawn. Upon killing one, they drop 50 points and a buff.
When you want to turn in points, head to a turn-in machine and "use" it through clicking or holding down R. If you go uninterrupted for 5 seconds straight, your points will be "turned in" and they cannot be lost through death. The leaderboard on the right side will reflect each player's current turned in points. It does not display any points that players are actively holding onto.
General tips for placing high:
- Kill the monsters in the first few rooms as quickly as possible, using any skills necessary.
- Do not waste time fighting other players in the monster rooms. Kill the monsters, get the points and get out. You want to reach the main room as quickly as possible.
- If you are one of the first players in the main arena, do not fight anybody and turn in your points right away. Fighting will allow others to catch up to you and risk losing your points. If you are able to hand in your points early on, you'll have a distinct advantage.
- If your gear is strong enough to fight other players, try to identify and kill weaker players to claim their points. Don't kill them too much though...that's mean
no bully
- Try to hide in one of the corridors and peek into the main area to try to determine a sneaky time to turn in points.
- Use large golems to block sightlines of people so they don't see you handing in points - but make sure the golems don't interrupt you!
- Kill golems for points - They are worth a significant amount.
- Try to steal last hits from other players for easy points.
- Leave large amounts of points on the ground after a kill so you do not garner extra attention. Note that dropped points disappear after around 4 or 5 minutes on the ground.
- If you are low on hp without any way to heal, try to die to a golem so nobody can claim your points.
- Interrupt people to prevent them from turning in points. However, if the game is nearing its conclusion and someone is turning in points, if it doesn't affect YOUR rank you can let them be.
3. Class Specific Tips
Before I say anything in this section, I will make it clear that pvp is not balanced. Each class has their own pros and cons but in the end some classes are better fit than others for Dimension Trip.
However if you're not seeing success, it is probably not because of your class. Every class is capable of scoring highly, some will just need to work harder, play smarter, and have better gear. Unfortunately that's just how Rift Arena is.
3.1 Haru
Harus have a great mob speed cleartime and can often reach the main arena rather quickly. They also have 2 moves that do immense amounts of damage with high range: Slash and Dash and Wind Rupture. A correctly aimed Slash and Dash can interrupt turn-ins from across the arena, and Wind Rupture's burst potential makes it a killing and kill-stealing machine. A geared Haru is one is possibly the most powerful class in Rift Arena, simply due to the amount of kill potential they have.
Against Harus:
It can be difficult to play against Harus due to the amount of range and damage they have on their skills. However, one of Haru's weaknesses is their lack of self sustain. When they take damage, they have no way of healing it back up. It is also possible to knock them out of their Slash and Dash animation for an easy cc.
3.2 Erwin
Erwins have a decent mob clearing speed. Their Bullseye is similar to wind rupture in its long-range kill and interrupt potential, but the AoE is far smaller. Electronade and SoulCaster are also extremely high damage skills that can burst a target down quickly. Erwin excels in movement speed, between the 75% slow on their smoke grenade and their own sprinter buff, it is easy for Erwins to escape from someone chasing them.
Against Erwins:
Erwins can actually pull off some nasty high damage combos if they are specced into pvp extensions, such as paralysis shots and slows. However, the amount of skills that actually do damage are pretty limited and have pretty obvious animations that are easy to dodge. Unless the Erwin outgears by a significant amount, they should not be a huge threat as long as you avoid their SoulCaster and Bullseye.
3.3 Lilly
Lillys have some of the fastest mob clearing abilities in the game, allowing them to often reach the main arena early. However, that's about where their benefits end. Lilly's skills lack hard cc and immediate burst due to long cast times/windups, making it somewhat difficult to actually secure kills. They are nearly completely reliant on their Die-phoon in order to get anything done. Deathly Triad may hurt, but it has a long cast time and can be difficult to land. Similarly, Guillotine can be dodged out of when the chains pull targets in, negating nearly all of its damage. Basically everything that Lilly is good at revolves around her Die-phoon, whether it's area denial or comboing into Guillotine.
Against Lillys:
Don't walk into the tornado and you should be OK.
3.4 Stella
Stellas have the weakest mob clear of the classes, oftentimes being the last ones to reach the main arena. However, she has the strongest self heal and the strongest ccs of any class in the game, making her incredibly slippery and difficult to kill if built to tank. Her most notable skill is her Soul Cry, which grants her a Paralysis shield that lasts for 10 seconds. If caught in this paralysis shield, it is near inescapable for the entire duration. This makes Stella an incredibly dangerous opponent in a 1v1 situation, as she can paralyze -> Bass Wave for near guaranteed damage. Her self heals means that if she can escape a situation, she can heal up to 70% of her HP nearly instantly afterwards. Extended time alone means she can heal back to full HP through her support Orb Song. Since she does not rely on basic attacks to regenerate SF, it can be difficult to fight a Stella head on.
Against Stellas:
Avoid getting close to a Stella if she has her paralysis shield. This can be seen through a purple aura surrounding her at times. Fight her from range or simply run if she is chasing you. Do not spam dodges as they are slower than running. If a Stella gets low on HP and runs into a corner, chase her immediately and try to prevent her from healing up (but be careful of any traps they may set, such as paralyzing orbs, paralyzing spirit pulse, or paralyzing swamp).
4. Closing Remarks
At the end of a round of Dimension Trip, you will gain ranking points on the leaderboard based on your placement. First place gains 200 points, second gains 150, and the rest gain a small amount that I don't actually know off the top of my head.
At the end of each month, everybody who participated will receive a reward in the form of Grutin Coins (and BP if you ranked highly enough). This goes from 500 grutin coins as a participatory reward all the way up to 10,000 BP and 3,000 grutin coins for 1st place.
Ranking highly overall in the Rift Arena leaderboards is not difficult - If you play every single game possible (3 times a day) you will easily be in the top ranks of the leaderboard. In this month's Rift Arena which only lasted 19 days or 57 rounds, it was possible to make it to the top 50 with only 20-25 games played. Of course, you would have to perform well, but if you played them all you're basically guaranteed to make top 50.
Edit: Upon the start of the new season, the leaderboard was not reset as was expected. This gives players who played previously a huge, nearly insurmountable advantage over players just starting. It is definitely still possible to make it to top 50, but it will take more effort. Top 10 is probably unreachable if you were to start now, assuming everybody in the top 10 continues to play. Hopefully the leaderboards will be reset at some point.
As a final remark, I must say I am slightly disappointed with Rift Arena as a pvp mode. Unless you have stellar gear and can kill everybody, it often feels like the goal is to avoid pvp in order to hand in your points. Teaming is another big issue that's present in Rift Arena, with names/guild names/costumes uncensored you have players blatantly helping their friends or guildmates rank higher, which can be demoralizing to play against. Finally, the fundamental mechanics of pvp in Soul Worker are a little on the shaky side, but that's another discussion for another time.
There are definitely improvements to be made to this mode and the entirety of pvp in SW, but ultimately I still do have fun in Dimension Trip, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered playing. If anybody has questions/comments feel free to ask. I may add more things to this guide as things go on.
5. Changelog
May 1 - Created guide.
