Dream is a good combo with Warrior, I think, FWIW. A lot of the more magic-oriented disciplines have passives or attack-based abilities that don’t need too much INT.
It depends on how you’ve built your guy so far. You can go a good long while without even worry about a second mastery.
I am assuming you are fairly low at this point, still below 10? I would focus on maxing Onslaught, Weapon Training, and climbing the mastery tree. Warfare is probably the most passive tree out there, so if you are looking for lots of flashy skills, you aren’t going to find it. Put one point in battle standard as soon as it unlocks and put it on your rmb.
Warfare really shines with dual wielding, but if you take defense you obviously don’t want to do that because you need a shield for the bulk of the good defense skills. If you want to go sword and board, switch to defense as soon you finish maxing onslaught and weapon training. Pump the defense tree until you get to shield bash, put a few points there, then go straight up until you get pulverize.
If you want to dual weild, dream compliments every mastery perfectly. The skills to max here are Trance of Convalesence (regen + damage absorbtion), the Lucid Dream tree (increased damage, defense, and attack speed), Phantom Strike (1 point in the base skill, max dream stealer to really spread out the damage), and the Distort Reality tree( 1 point in base, max temporal rift for the petrify duration).
Pogo
2663
On my dual-wielding warrior, I never picked a second specialization. The Warrior tree is just that badass.
And greens are the good stuff. You’ll frequently find greens better than blues, and greens can also be given runes unlike blues.
Been playing with a combo of the Lilith mod and the Masteries mod and it’s like a whole new game. Lots of fun.
still think Dream kinda broke the game though powerwise, it’s just soooo damned good in all situations
Yup, just dinged 10 last night. I’d been ignoring the option to choose another mastery until that point, as I wanted to pump up the Warfare skills more.
Sounds like Dual Weild with Dream as the second mastery could be a lot of fun. The skill tree on Defense looks pretty cool too though. Is there a way to respec if you decide you’re unhappy with the second mastery?
abrandt
2666
Yeah, picking Dream as a second mastery and dual wielding results in a character that will near instantly drop mobs of enemies for much of the game. Once you are dual wielding two purple weapons it gets even more ridiculous.
Pogo
2667
You can’t unspec a Mastery itself, I don’t think, just the talent points within it.
At level 10 I wouldn’t even touch a second mastery. At level 25 my dual wielder is still ridiculous with only Warfare.
My main character was a hunter, and she kicked all sorts of ass well into the third difficulty tier without ever taking on a second class.
Kalle
2669
Archers are amazing because piercing damage is crazy in TQ.
Pogo
2670
Yeah, I had zero problems getting through the game with my Ranger (Hunting/Nature). Typhon was a walk in the park.
Just don’t attack when the spikes are up. Insane DPS + low HP + retaliation damage = fist through monitor.
I’ve started up again recently, and I have to say this feels like the longest game ever made in the history of mankind. I’m starting to enjoy it again too. When Act 2 first started (Egypt/Desert), it was just really, really easy for the first few hours. But now I’ve run into these things called Scorpios, which seem to be half Scorpion, half man, and specifically their boss variants, the Scorpios Manslayers who have almost killed my archer/dream character several times because they hit hard and they’re SUPER fast. So the game is starting to feel interesting again.
I hated the room in one of the tombs though where four statues came alive and I had to run around with my archer for what felt like 20-30 minutes just hitting and running until they finally went down. Such a boring and tedious fight. That’s one thing about being an archer that’s a downside in these kinds of games (including Diablo 2): boss fights sometimes take forever, and require a LOT of running around with little to no real danger.
Raife
2673
The Manslayers are probably the most dangerous enemy in Egypt. My first character to Egypt was a melee hybrid, and they were pretty brutal. My second character there was a straight Hunter, and I mostly managed to kill them before they closed, which is the preferred method.
They were nearly as annoying as the bow demons at endgame, though far less numerous.
The core content is pretty bad, its too long, slowly paced, and very few interesting fights.
I get around this by using the xmax mods. There are 2x, 3x, and 10x(xmax) variants, which multiply the monster spawns. The real pisser is that all variants have 3x bosses. It makes the game much more challenging, but the upside is that you level incredibly fast and really, really learn how to play the game.
You can download the mods here:
http://www.titanquest.net/forums/modifications-editor/13688-rel-x2-x3-x4-xmax-monsters-1-1-a.html
To install, put them in your \My Documents\My Games\Titan Quest - Immortal Throne\CustomMaps directory. To play, go to custom game, pick the xmod you want to use, create a new garbage toon, and click start. The game will pop you back to the main character select screen, where you can create a new character or pick one of your existing toons.
I know you are big fan of ‘hardcore’ rules, there is a 0 death xmax hardcore challenge over at tq.net:
http://www.titanquest.net/forums/challenges/32009-eric-reds-0-death-xmax-challenge-redux-paste-progress-here.html
Even without trying to play for zero deaths, if you don’t plan your build properly, you will quickly hit a wall where you cannot progress via attrition. Should be right up your alley.
Strato
2675
Yeah, pretty much spot on. In fact, I had to re-check the green items with relics myself, because I thought it couldn’t be done, but it can. Greens I believe have some variation with their stats, even though they may be the same item name. I’ve noticed that on epic difficulty where green items tend to drop a lot more frequently. They can be good when matched with a relic to provide a very specific attribute that would be desirable, however on the whole I’ve stuck with blue/purple items on my characters.
Blue item names are not strictly set items, many are in fact single pieces, but yeah blue and the purple though do include sets also. They are fairly rare items to find, and I’ll make a point of saving the game immediately after a blue or purple item is found, just to be safe. I’ve got a mule system set up to hoard all of my blue and purple items.
As I run through the game, I tend to press “X” to filter all of the junk and normal items, so that only yellow, green, blue and purple items show. Once past the first act, I don’t really see gold as being an issue, the main use tends to be respeccing as needed. Personally, I have rarely purchased items from a vendor. Part of that may have been due to luck; my hunter on his run through normal mode found the Ram Bow fairly early on and was able to make use of that weapon right through until the end of the second act. I got lucky in epic difficulty too, picking up Borealis in the first act, and doing some crazy damage with it since, considering he is now in Legendary and still doing fairly well.
Finally, be aware in the final act (if anyone reads this and gets that far) that there is a gate which can only be opened once the final boss is killed in Immortal Throne, and that he drops a paticular item, which happens somewhat rarely. Nothing too exciting in that area except for a big chest, can drop some good stuff on the rare occasion.
-
Blue items suck in general. Unless you have literally no better options, don’t use Blues. Greens and Purples are way better.
-
Gold is useful for buying potions, shop-farming, and constructing the higher level artifacts
-
Legendary purple Bows are for suckers. You want to find a green end-game legendary bow with +%damage and +%speed modifiers on it, then attach one of the legendary level piercing relics (artemis bowstring?). Waaaay better.
-
For the little turtle, it’s best to farm Hades on normal mode, as the little turtle thingy drops and is usable for all difficulty levels. Then go to legendary and farm the Secret Passage, tons of good stuff in there, if you can defeat a (slightly gimped out version of) Toxeus the Murderer* that is. Lots of cool stuff like Santa sets and Sherlock Holmes sets in there.
*If you are playing harcore do not ever fight this boss monster, it spawns randomly in different areas of legendary and always in the Secret Passage. You WILL die, his aura reflects nearly 100% damage done to him or some cheap shit like that. My Ranger shot him once accidentally and died instantly.
Also the gate to the Secret Passage can be farmed, I don’t know where you got the idea it could only be done once from.
Strato
2677
I can not see where I mentioned the secret passage couldn’t be farmed…
I misinterpeted the first sentence of the last paragraph, sorry.
I finally made it to Thebes, and discovered something very cool that I haven’t seen in the Diablo games. The magic vendor there sells scrolls which temporarily give you huge boosts to about 3 of your secondary stats, like Health, Offensive Ability, that sort of thing. So kind of like carrying around a shrine effect with you in your inventory. That’s pretty neat!
Do you guys ever use that? Like against bosses perhaps? Or are these things just redundant and not really all that useful? Anyway, it seems like a really neat idea to me.
(Also: I’m still in Egypt. I was only joking earlier about it being the longest game ever made, but maybe the joke’s on me and it’s actually true!)
Well, I just want to somehow get through the game once on Normal to see what Ironclad has made before I start modding it. I might take you up on those mods if I can finish the game at least once. Maybe if I decide to make a different type of character.
I know you are big fan of ‘hardcore’ rules, there is a 0 death xmax hardcore challenge over at tq.net:
http://www.titanquest.net/forums/challenges/32009-eric-reds-0-death-xmax-challenge-redux-paste-progress-here.html
I am a fan of hardcore rules, but in games designed for them. As it is Titan Quest, I firmly believe now, would make a terrible candidate for Hardcore. Every time you die, can your friends at least loot your corpse, if you’re playing with someone? And how long would it take to level up a character again from scratch? Way too long. Plus just the idea of playing through that first Act again is so unappealing to me. It makes a big difference that you always encounter the same farm, with the same monsters on the road, and then you go across that bridge, and into that little cave later. It always looks the same. It’s not randomized like Diablo 2. All these things add up. I just think a game like this would require some heavy changes for it to be a viable Hardcore game. Really heavy changes.
I do appreciate you linking me to the mods themselves though. Everyone else in this thread would have just said “the mods exist, go forth and find them my son. You’re a big boy now, you can use google”. (I’m paraphrasing).
Strato
2680
I personally never used the scrolls. You can get some as quest rewards too later in the game. They are something else though to spend gold on, with epic and legendary, the cost of them ramps up significantly (though when you have say 40 million gold, it doesn’t really matter too much).
I believe Act 2 is actually the shortest act in the game (excluding Act IV). I could certainly be wrong, but it felt shorter, especially compared to both Act III and Act V (the expansion act). Once when I finished the first act, I brough up the map to get an idea of how big it was, and to be honest, there is a fair bit of ground that gets covered in that game. I just wish the map, and in some ways the story, was more than moving from one exclamation point or rebirth fountain to the next. I’ll concede that is the appeal of having a random map such as Diablo 2 (and to a point, the original Diablo) but at the same time I don’t think Titan Quest could look as good as it does by needing to implement random elements, without for instance, moving more emphasis perhaps to the underground sections, and randomising those areas.
