2721

Some questions:

  1. Is Titan quest okay to play without any mods?

  2. Can I start the regular Titan quest? Is Immortal Throne integrated into it, or do I need to start Immortal Throne?

  3. Are all builds viable or are there some really bad ones? What would be a good focus for a beginner?

Thanks

2722

My first mastery is warrior (dual wielding class). Would the dream class be a good second mastery?

2723

Assuming you’ve got Immortal Throne, then yes. There is a decent fan patch. Otherwise you want a few but I think that’s a moot point because you asked …

  1. Can I start the regular Titan quest? Is Immortal Throne integrated into it, or do I need to start Immortal Throne?
    Do NOT use the vanilla TQ link. It will work, but without any of the added features and story length that IT gives you. So to clarify: just use the Immortal Throne link, from which you’ll be able to start the initial campaign that will then seamlessly blend into the added content at the end.

[quote]3. Are all builds viable or are there some really bad ones? What would be a good focus for a beginner?
Some are a little more viable than others. Also, it highly depends on what level you enjoy playing the game at. For a typical “normal” level gamer, go for whatever strikes your fancy. I like Nature for the pets, but they are somewhat weak when you start facing really tough adversaries.

Note that you’ll start with one mastery and then later have the opportunity to get a second mastery. As you’re putting points into various abilities, keep in mind that you’ll eventually come across people in cities who will let you take points back to put toward other abilities should you find one that doesn’t fit your style. However, it costs money and you cannot take away the “mastery level” points (the ones that let you unlock more and more abilities and give you additional HP/mana).

It’s borderline overpowered in my mind, but very fun to use.

2724

  1. Get the fanpatch from titanquest.net, absolutely essential.

  2. Don’t go past Normal into Epic before you have the expansion installed, it adds a whole 4th act that you can play on every difficulty and throws the levelling of enemies around a little if you skip it.

  3. Don’t mix melee and magic masteries (IE defense/warfare + earth/storm is super fucking hard to play). You basically have magic (Earth, Spirit, Storm), physical (Hunting, Defense, Rogue, Warfare), and support (Nature, Dream) masteries. Mixing together masteries from the same category works, and support masteries go with any other mastery.

Notable easy builds are warfare+defense and hunting+nature.

EDIT: Beaten but not really. If you want to throw whatever masteries together that will work for Normal and half of Epic but you are going to start having a ton of difficulty in Legendary if you mix magic+physical masteries (IE someone who is Warfare+Earth basically relies 100% on their fire golem to tank damage because they are fragile as hell, and past level 10 the Earth skills have absolutely no synergies with Warfare skills. The fire enchantment is sweet when your DPS is like 10-20, but once it is around 400 you are not getting any benefit from it).

2725

I think that is quite a good build actually, Claws. My LAN party and I have played the shit out of that game on a few different occasions, and I know one friend as well as myself have tried that exact build, Warfare/Dream up to at least the 30’s, and he went farther than I. It was an extremely solid build, especially when you factor in the AE Stun skill that Dream has as kind of an “oh shit, flee!” button. Dream, in my opinion, is one of the absolute best secondary skills to choose from, at least in terms of a melee/Hunter build, because of the tree that simply increases your damage, movement, etc. alone, let alone that amazing AE stun.

So in closing, Warfare/Dream, and Hunter/Dream I have found to be some of the most solid classes that use Dream as a secondary.

On a side note I just got my g/f into this game and she is really digging it. She hasn’t played any ARPG’s past D2, and she really likes this a lot more as well.

EDIT: Blast, too slow. Dan, etc., beat me there.

2726

I have like a level 25 duel wielder or something. I STILL haven’t picked a second mastery. I can’t bring myself to do it, there’s still more in the mastery to max out the badass awesomeness that is duel wielding.

2727

Cool thanks, I saw that the dream mastery has some kind of teleporting skill and stun skill and thought it would work well with the warrior mastery. Glad to hear it’s a good combo.

2728

Teleporting shmeleporting. The charge is where it’s at.

2729

Does DW ever go far enough ahead of sword & board in dps to make it worthwhile? The sword/board Conquerer (IIRC) is a freaking machine with all the crazy passives that Defense gives you.

2730

Dunno. I got bored with defense. DW has to chug potions but the insane DPS output mitigates the damage you take.

2731

Thanks. It appears I didn’t make a bad first choice with warrior and a point in dual wielding. Though i’m still trying to decide between sword and shield and dual wielding.

Is it better to pump skill points into the “big plus” to raise my overall warrior level so I can reach higher tier skills or should I increase some of the lower skills first?

2732

Big Plus first. I tried putting lots of points into individual skills with my first character, and eventually it became unplayable because I would just die all the time. What I didn’t notice at the time is that the Big Plus gives you not only access to higher level skills, but also increases your base stats too.

So with my second character, a hunter, I was able to kick a lot of ass until I got to the final boss from the main game. Then I got my ass kicked repeatedly. And I eventually quit in the expansion content because each enemy takes forever to kill and I must have done something wrong because the game is way too hard again.

2733

razarok, for myself, I typically focus on raising the bar on the left mainly, and trickle a few points here and there on the way up on my new classes, and then start testing by dumping more points in after that. But that is just me, I like having a lot of options, since no matter what, the first act is kinda just left clicking until you or they die. So for that, I usually raise that stat/class level bar thing as the focus. For my current hunter, I have about 2/3 that left bar filled, with maybe 5-6 points filled in skills, etc. I think it really just comes down to preference though. It is hard to gimp your character, as maxing out that vertical Mastery type bar gives such good stats for the class, it is hard to call that a faulty choice.

2734

At low levels, you really only want to increase skills that increase by a discrete value of effectiveness. So if you have a skill that does like 8-16 damage, and putting another point ups it to 20-30 damage, do that. If there’s a skill that does +5% damage, don’t take it at an early level because that’s a trivial increase. So, yeah, it’s more worth it to do the “big plus” stuff earlier, especially since you’ll then sometimes unlock more useful higher tier stuff.

2735

Alright, thanks! One last question. How about stat point distribution? In my few level ups I split those evenly into health and strength. Do I need dexterity or intelligence on a warrior? Only for requirements for equip?

2736

You definitely want dexterity. You’ll need it for weapon requirements, but more importantly, it boosts your offensive/defensive abilities which determine how often you hit and crit enemies and how often they hit and crit you. Most people recommend a 3:2 or 2:1 strength to dexterity ratio for melee.

I wouldn’t put too many points into health as the masteries will give you a fair amount on their own. A few here and there definitely won’t hurt, though.

No intelligence at all unless you’re playing a hybrid (e.g. Warfare + Storm).

2737

Don’t ever put shit into health/mana. Those are best raised by items, so I always saved my points until I had to fulfill an item requirement.

2738

I do the same as pogo. Never into health/mana, and save the points til I have an item that I REALLY want to use that needs X Stats, etc. The ratios stereoD listed is good as well, either the 3:2 or 2:1 for Str/Dex. Both methods work fine, but you definitely want STR mainly, and dex as a secondary stat as Warfare focused class.

2739

Dream makes the entire game entirely too easy. It’s part of why I started playing the other mods that balance things a bit better.

2740

Agreed in general. But in some builds, e.g. a bow Brigand, throwing 4-6 points in energy can really help and won’t hurt damage output at all.