Whilst the general consensus is against Rift I am going to play devils advocate here by saying that I personally disagree with the argument of the original post and I will explain why. Rift is a viable mode for Iron Banner as it is a mode that really does sort the men from the boys when it comes to PvP in terms of both personal skill and teamwork, more so that other modes such as Clash or Control. Rift boils down to two things, controlling the central area and protecting the runner. Controlling the central area usually involves quite an intense firefight between both teams so good positioning around the spark is a must to both prevent the other team capturing the spark and to ensure that your team does so. Protecting the runner is where the major teamwork comes into play. Now doing this is hard enough in Crucible where everyone has the same light level, so to speak, but in Iron Banner this is not the case so it is going to be even more difficult and will require a lot more co-operation to ensure the enemy rift is ignited. The other thing people need to understand is that the groundwork for this has already gone in so Bungie are not going to waste valuable time and money (they are a business after all) by changing everything at the last minute because a couple of hundred players, out the multitude playing, threw a hissy fit. Bungie also want to see how this mode does in Iron Banner in order to make improvements to the Iron Banner experience as a whole. You are essentially being invited to partake in a huge experiment, so my advice on this issue is to just embrace the chaos that is Iron Banner Rift mode whilst taking this opportunity to truly learn how to work as part of a team and help Bungie improve the game overall. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Now with that out of the way I am going to give a few final pieces of advice to all of you who do not play Rift very often, if at all. The secret to victory is quite simple. [u][b]DENY THE ENEMY THE CHANCE TO TAKE THE SPARK.[/b][/u] Seize it as quickly as you can before the enemy do by whatever means necessary. Now this may seem like a no-brainer but there is more to it than you think. What you are doing is preventing the enemy from getting an opportunity to ignite your rift in the first place. The mistake a lot of teams make is to try and kill as many enemy guardians as they can before seizing the spark. Forget about that and just grab that spark, because the more enemy guardians you kill close to the spark, the more enemy guardians there will be who will be re-spawning a lot nearer to their rift making it easier for them to defend it. You want to draw them out as far from their rift as you can so the runner can get to their rift reasonably unopposed. The rest of the team then need to move in support of the runner. PTC_68 below raised a valid point in that as a team you need to watch your clock. You do have a fair amount of time to ignite the rift so if you feel you have time do not be afraid to double back and choose a different route. The rest of the team could even rush a particular route to make the opposition think the runner is with them whilst the runner sneaks around a different way. A high agility build is great for being the runner. Now if you can make it to the enemy rift, then great, but some of the stages, such as Cathedral of Dusk are quite long, so you are less likely to make it to the enemy rift. Instead make an immediate bee line for the enemy rift and go for the distance bonuses. Between seizing the spark and the distance bonuses this is 300-500 points in the bag, depending on how far you get, and that is before you add on any bonus points for killing enemies. What is more you may even surprise yourself and succeed in igniting the enemy rift where you thought you would fail. Do these things often enough and you will start seeing the difference. However the golden rule, as ever, is simple. [b][u]HAVE FUN.[/u][/b] May your be victories be sweet and your rewards sweeter. [b]JvK B)[/b]