After three excruciating weeks, it ended up being something so incredibly simple. I was playing Alan Wake on my computer when I started to see the same issue happening. So, I decided to download a program to check my computer's temperature. I noticed my processor and motherboard were both running at an insanely high 90+ Celsius. I opened up my case, and lo and behold when I checked behind the fan of my processor, I noticed a ton of dust blocking vent. Took a can of air and cleaned it out real nice. My temperatures dropped a good 40 degrees, and now Rift runs perfectly normal again.
After telling my guild this, someone else decided to do the same thing (he runs on a laptop). He noticed a significant improvement in his performance as well.
It's always the simplest things that you forget, isn't it?

