One of the recurring criticisms of MMOs - often voiced by people who don't play them - is that the combat is boring since it involves nothing more than trading blows with an enemy until either you die or it does, and that there's no skill involved since it's all about who has the biggest numbers. Obviously this is a gross over-simplification that fails to take into account factors like well played rotations and reactive abilities.
That's not to say there isn't some shred of truth in this view of MMO combat. Games that put a heavy emphasis on auto-attack mob grinding can play out like this, and even titles that don't go all in on that style can borrow some elements of it. Especially older MMOs.
RIFT is an older MMO, and even allowing for the fact that I'm playing a tanky Warrior the combat is more static than (relatively) newer games like Guild Wars 2 or Neverwinter. Once I'm toe to toe with a mob I'm likely going to stay there until it's dead, making it more akin to World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online. The deliberate pace of the combat in this game is further reinforced by a global cooldown on most - though not all - attack abilities.
So it's an old school tab-target MMO experience, but that's not in itself a bad thing. The Soul Trees open up a lot of options for customising combat style, and I have enough abilities on my hotbar to give me a sense of having choices to make, without there being so many that half of them feel redundant.
RIFT's combat does lack the visceral punch of GW2 or Neverwinter, but it does the job and mobs mostly die quick enough that it doesn't start to feel like a slog. If it has a particular weak point it's not in any of the mechanics but in the presentation. Combat music can be a mixed bag in MMOs - it does a lot of work in Secret World Legends but became so tiresome in LOTRO I turned it off in favour of the zone music. In RIFT it's barely there, except for an odd little sting of strings whenever a fight ends, and it really doesn't work. The music in general, thus far, is distinctly underwhelming, and one of the weakest aspects of the game.
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