Quote Originally Posted by Waliel View Post
Sure you could spec either Assassination or Combat for Rogues, but inside those specs there was only one choice. If you wanted to be fire mage, there was exactly one build for PvE fire and one for PvP. Maybe one talent variations at best. 41/25/5, or whatever it was, with X talents was the only viable Arms Warrior PvE build. Mists did change it around, but what little I played it at launch, there was the best choice for DPS talents and for the utility ones you took what you wanted. Some choice, at least, but choice that didn't really matter outside of PvP.

I don't know how it was later in Rift but the short time I played it, I could swear every damn Rogue was Sab.
Then I'm assuming you only played vanilla Rift and not post expansion? Rogue was my main after expansion and I was a hardcore raider in one of the top 5 guilds. As a matter of fact, I was the best Rogue ranged dps on server. There were quite a few popular Rogue builds. Riftstalker (Tank), but usually wasn't used in hardcore progression groups. Marksman and NB/Sin were two most popular DPS builds. Bard (support) was another must have in raid groups. Tactman was absolutely amazing and the go to AoE build for any fights that required it.

In the end, each class had many build variants. I raided with them all. Even if someone came up with the best possible build for one thing, there were always "options" to tweak and push further. For example, there was one famous build for Ranged specs but personally I was running a tweaked version of it that I never shared with anyone and that's how I remained on top. Then I knew people in other hardcore guilds who were doing the same. That's why I loved the competitive nature in Rift and the character builds were a huge part of it.