2021

Yep, what happened was that when you activated the deathchill aura, you no longer got the replenishment rate you formerly got. Now, when you attack, Onslaught is actually causing your energy to drop instead of remain level. It happens, but usually isn’t a big deal. It just gives a reason to keep energy potions for some melee-based combos.

Since this thread has been resurrected, I’ll add that I’ve now got a character of every mastery combo (not the singles) going in TQ. That’s 36! I don’t recall ever playing a game as often as TQ. Really, that mastery combo idea was a stroke of genius.

2022

I can see what you mean Equisilus, the game plays entirely differently with the different mastery combos, and the campaign itself is quite good on its own even without taking into consideration the variety that mastery combos introduce.

I’m curious what you found to be the most lethal combos in your opinion, whether against normal trash monsters or bosses.

2023

I thought the Haruspex (Hunting/Dream) to be the powerhouse of the group in nearly any situation. In fact, I’d say that any time I put Hunting into a combo and use a bow, the character becomes pretty much unstoppable. But, it really depends on the skills you choose and the equipment you gather, as well. You can easily make a Haruspex that’s weak just by having incompatible skills and equipment. I have some lethal melee and caster characters, but they seem to have a weakness against particular bosses that Hunting combos (with a bow) can avoid.

Of course, with so many characters, I may be a little skewed in my view because I just exited the game after playing my Avenger (Hunting/Earth) and she’s one-shotting a lot of the minor creatures and/or knocking them down before they even get to her. Regardless of who’s most powerful, I’d have to say that I enjoy the bow users more than most other combos.

2024

Of the masteries I didn’t like storm, and I don’t think I gave hunting a real chance. Bravo Equisilus, have you been able to finsh the campaign with each?

Thanks for the explanation, I have on 3 parts of the oracle set, which is also giving me an energy rate boost I think. With onslaught + the aura lowering enemy armor once I get going I can wipe out most enemies easy, but I’m not far up either tree yet (7 for warfare, 17 for spirit).

2025

I have a Thane (Storm/Warfare) I finished with, and while Storm offers some great melee power, it also kind of forces you to go melee without offering much in the way of melee defense. She started out Storm and I picked up Warfare late (respecced for the Titan fight), and some of the harder-hitting bosses were a real pain in the ass.

I also have a Hunter (in China I think, haven’t played for awhile), and she is a powerhouse. With the net and bow, she rarely has to get up close and personal. Easily the most survivable of any of my characters.

2026

No, haven’t finished with all of them. Because I’m taking some of them through Epic and Legendary, the majority of the characters are scattered throughout Normal. I prefer the lower levels anyway (up to level 30 or so), as leveling and equipment changes happen often enough to keep it vastly more entertaining than later on. I should have mentioned that when I said I had all 36 combos; my lowest level character is level 8, which takes very little play time to get to and doesn’t really allow you to try out the second of the chosen masteries well. I do other things besides play TQ, after all. ;)

Since Storm was mentioned, I notice that my Paladin is one at level 8, so perhaps I’ll start playing him up. I’m surprised that you didn’t like Storm much, pfreak; my Oracle is one of my best characters, but perhaps that’s because I took her as a caster instead of melee (she loves spamming that Ice Shard). I think the difficulty you found, Raife, with the Thane is the same that most players of hybrid melee characters have with bosses: they are only mediocre on both defense and offense compared to the full caster or full melee. That’s when range really shows its usefulness, as even range hybrids seem to do well.

2027

Yeah. A lot of the Storm powers seemed to be melee-oriented and sounded like fun, so that’s the direction I took her. I could have avoided melee powers in favor of Ice Shard, Thunderball, and Lightning, and it would have played out much differently. She did dominate everywhere but some of the boss fights, though, and it is fun to wade into a pile of enemies and blow everything away. With Storm Nimbus (upgraded) and Storm Surge going, everything around you dies both fast and spectacularly. Offense wasn’t a problem, it was the Defense.

The really nice thing about Storm is that you can just crush casters at range with Spell Breaker, and hamstring any melee types that use mana for their attacks. The problem with most bosses is that they have way too much mana to drain, although I did manage to empty undead Typhon.

2028

One of these days I’ll fire up the game again and get my Warfare/Defense character through Epic and try a shot at Legendary. I quit after playing through the main game and the expansion and killing Hades, but quit right after it.

What’s the draw in Epic and Legendary? New bosses? Better loot?

EDIT: Also my favorite thing about my character is the fact that I could pretty much go hand to hand with almost every boss, with the only really tough one with that approach being Typhon. But once I got to Hades, particularly the last couple of areas, I was chugging so many potions. I remember that being one of the things that turned me off about continuing on to higher difficulties - ranged mobs would be owning me hard.

2029

Some new bosses and a lot of new loot, but I think it’s more an opportunity to keep playing your character(s).

But once I got to Hades, particularly the last couple of areas, I was chugging so many potions. I remember that being one of the things that turned me off about continuing on to higher difficulties - ranged mobs would be owning me hard.

I think everyone hates those archer demons pretty much equally.

2030

Yep, the draw in Epic/Legendary is the better loot. I’d say that the new bosses are NOT a draw simply because they are so extremely difficult in many cases (one hit kills, but that’s an old discussion from various points in this thread). This is why I spend so much time in Normal and would rather create a new character and play there. Of course, I’ve no new combos to create, but I have a lot of time to spend in Normal with a bunch of classes before I have to move everyone to Epic.

My Conqueror is my oldest and highest level character, Kareem, and he moves so fast and hits so rapidly that I sometimes have trouble controlling his movements. I rarely play him now, though. When you mentioned chugging potions, it reminded me of one of the reasons my Haruspex is such a powerful character: the combination of Herbal Remedy, Trance of Convalescence, and some health regeneration boosts on items make him regenerate health so quickly that I rarely need to use a potion at all. Couple that with the fact that he uses a bow exclusively, which means he’s rarely being hit anyway, he mows through everyone (well, except for the boss fights, of course).

2031

I also have a Haruspex and am planning on making it my main character, but I’m going spear and Phantom Strike, wul pumping points into the +DA and +Dodge Projectiles skills. Apparently dodge projectiles is not capped, so if you can get it to 100%, it becomes immunity to ranged mobs.

Either way, that’s a long way off as I’m stuck at 15 with my regular TQ partner being offline due to modem issues.

2032

I just bought this and the expansion yesterday. Played it for a few hours last night. Not quite as “compelling” as Diablo but still fun. Is there a way to show dropped items permenently instead of pressing ALT all the time?

Also in warfare the Onslaught ability. Is it purely a passive ability or do I need to “discharge it”. Tooltip isnt 100% clear. I am guessing its a passive always on ability once its bound to an attack.

2033

Yes, it’s passive. It just gives you more damage once you’ve been swinging for a while. If you have warfare, don’t miss the battle standard. That’s one awesome power, especially if you stack points in it.

2034

Onslaught is always on once bound to the attack, so all you do is attack to build the charge (one level with each hit up to the skill’s current maximum level) and if you stop attacking it’ll wear off.

No, you can’t show dropped items permanently. Which is a good thing because one of the improvements with the IT expansion is that you can’t pick up items without having them highlighted first. This means that you won’t mistakenly pick up stuff when you are moving (it was annoying without that enhancement).

2035

I was pretty sure that feature was in the non-expansion version of the game, just IT changed what it defaulted to.

2036

You sir, are crazy. Crazy, I tell you!

2037

Hmm, quite possible, but I still remember how easy it was to mis-click on items before, but now I never do. I used to even pick up broken items even though they were never highlighted (I always had them filtered). Are you sure that was in the non-expansion? Perhaps it was a patch addition, then? I’ve played so much that it’s hard to remember way back then. ;)

Undoubtedly. At least I’m having fun in my madness. Most insane people do not.

2038

Sigh, after that now I’m going to have to try a storm/hunting character to see how well they are :).

Also I perfer to hit the X key rather then alt for item hunting, it shows yellow and higher items as well as gold and potions. My only problems with the expansion are how hard typhon is now compared to vanilla TQ, and the almost impossible nature to get some of the artifacts, in my how many months I’ve played tq(I honestly can’t remember) I’ve yet to get one rank 2 (forgot the term used) artifact built.

2039

Thanks Mike. So going to ask a “class” question. My wife and I are playing through it whats a good team combo? Solo I started with warfare/dream but duo I may try warfare/defense. My wife loves blasting so whats a good mastery combo for that?

So far in warfare I have just put 1 point in everything and then leveled up the overall mastery. Did this just to see what each power does. You mention the battle-standard. Any other “must have” and “dont ever get powers” for warfare?

Thanks.

2040

Actually Dream is a pretty good nuking mastery from what I saw playing a pure Dream character through the early levels.

As for Warfare/Defense I’ll post more about my spec when I get home and can check my character build. Defense is actually surprisingly potent in dealing damage if you pick the right talents early on (I started with defense and picked up warfare later), which is a really huge plus point in my book. Rarely do you find games that balance your desire to be hardy enough to go toe to toe with bosses while not being a sitting duck that does as much damage as a kitten.

I felt TQ really did that well with pure defensive talents, and allows you to augment this damage dealing greatly by picking up compatible warfare talents.