Riftwalker overview
Riftwalker is a 15 level magical guild which can be taken by anyone who has finished their race guild. It focuses on letting a member of the magical background be able to survive in the front row by summoning entities and gets cold based blasts. Riftwalkers give magicals respectable soloing ability and can sometimes fill the role of tank when fighting weaker monsters. At the cost of this flexibility are numerous drawbacks. Notably, this guild has low synergy with the other magical guilds and will tend to earn much less exp over time. It can be joined by touching a sphere which floats randomly around a lake northwest of shadowkeep. The sphere shows up as a blue 'o' on the map and can be hard to get to without some means of floating or walking under water.
Riftwalker benefits
Riftwalkers summon magical entities to tank for them, and can heal said entities quite fast. The entities have different strengths and can be switched very quickly, so a riftwalker can tailor their entity to any given need easily. This let magical backgrounders solo very safely, and perhaps play the role of a low powered tank. That's a huge, huge benefit. Riftwalker blasts are cold based, so might depending on their upper power replace the need for cold mage levels. Riftwalkers can visit their guild and then return to their previous location very quickly with the create rift spell, as such they can train more easily than any other guild in the game.
Riftwalker drawbacks
Note the riftwalker benefits. They are VERY nice. Which is why everything else about the guild is very restrictive. Entities have very serious drawbacks. While summoned they eat about 25% of your exp earnings. That's an unprecedented penalty for a guild's primary power. If they die, they lose lots of that exp, you lose about 10% of carried exp, and quite a lot of mana. Every time they die they'll get angrier and will need to be pacified after a while. They are of course inferior tanks compared to players. They won't automatically use their combat skills, so you have to monitor those in addition to your own blasts. Entities have to be controlled with a spell, and casting non-riftwalker blasts can break that control, depending on the entity and some other factors. That means you are often limited to cold damage if you want the full power of your entities. Riftwalker entities have totally seperate reputation systems for each type and start off quite weak, so you have to grind reputation for each elemental type seperately. Entites need to be rejuvinated over time, and you must also sacrifice weapons for them to use that also need to be replaced over time.
Entity info
As entities level up, they gain points which can enhance some aspect of their abilities. You spend these one at at time at the guild sphere by touching the cube and thinking about whatever you'd like your entity to be better at. These points can be gotten back by the shaman to redistribute, at a high cost. The entities are listed in order of their ease of acquisition. Fire and air entities tend to be close by you when you first enter the rift world, water and earth can take a great deal more effort to locate. Entities don't start with many hit points, so even an iron buckler is a smart investment for crit protection. Fire and Earth seem to be by far the most useful entities overall. Fire does excellent damage and is great for stomping rabbits, earth is good for everything else. Air and water seem totally outclassed. Air's skill is relatively less damaging than blazing sunder and the grapple seems unreliable, and water's healing seems only useful against hordes of very weak blockers.
Fire
Fire entities are very good newbie entities because they gain power quickly and do good damage with their unarmed attacks. Their main skill, 'blazing sunder' is a straight damage skill, which makes them extra useful against smaller monsters.
Air
Air entities also do good damage with their unarmed attacks. Their main skill 'suffocating embrace' does not seem to be very good, though it does let you cast non-riftwalker blasts without losing control and can have a grapple effect. Air entities will follow you through the "go" spell, which is very nice when hopping between many areas quickly.
Water
Water entites are focused more on defence. Their skill 'subjugating backwash' heals them and you, and while active you can use non-riftwalker blasts without losing control.
Earth
Earth entities are more durable than the other types. Their skill 'earthen cover' has a taunt effect, increases the physical resistance of the entity, and lets you use non-riftwalker blasts when in effect. They advance in power very slowly.