Sometimes playing games like this on harder difficulties, is like banging your head against a wall, it feels best when you stop doing it. TQ has a host of balance problems, and abrupt power jumps. It also has some fundamental problems with what stats are weighted/important. One of those problems is, that there is really no reward for building an int based character (as you are finding out). One of the major things I complained about during QA, was the lack of “intelligence builds”. Str (especially) and dex carry multiple benefits, letting you have access to armor and weapon requirements while making your attacks better, while INT is much more limited. This becomes doubly problematic given that most of the games danger lies in things like physical and piercing damage.
TQ is a fun game, and a decent one, but if you really get under the hood mechanics wise, it’s kind of a mess.
Yeah I am starting to realize that.I keep telling myself to go back to Grim Dawn, since the game seems like a huge improvement over TQ, but I really want to see this Druid character progress. Another boss like that minotaur though, I am not sure if I can keep it up.
I did just noticed there is no slow resistance though. I was reading a forum post trying to figure out to beat the minotaur, and it said raise your “slow” resistance. Maybe it’s part of stun? Or maybe my caster just was not capable of beating that minotuaur no matter what I did?
Inventory management is becoming a huge issue too. So many Normal level relics/charms that I can’t do anything with. Trying to offload them to an old character is just tedious.
I am not sure I have played a pure caster in GD, did they make them more viable in that game?
I probably posted it upthread, but this game basically forces you to respec whenever you hit a speedbump. I have a lvl 65 Oracle (Storm + Spirit), so I know the Storm tree. For the Minotaur lord you need to tank it because your pet will die very quickly. It is a pretty big speed bump IIRC.
In the storm tree you probably want to dump all your skill points to Storm Nimbus and Squall, in every branch. Storm Nimbus up your DPS while slow your enemies that hit in melee range. Squall is to debuff. Then you just need to stand your ground and tank it. Run away only when you need to wait for the cooldown timer. In the nature tree you also want Regrowth for healing.
As for weapon, you want a high DPS lightning staff, socketed with the lightning relic to up the lightning damage. Artifact wise, Skyfire pendant is easy to make for Storm but you really need Effigy of Skyfire.
As to attributes, when you are playing a pure caster you want to dump everything into health, and just enough dex and int to use equipments and no more. You mainly raise your DPS with equipment, not attribute increase. If you are playing with pets, they do better damage with skill increase, not attribute increase, and with certain equipments. So health is really your main focus.
Better yet, use titancalc.com to plot your skill allocation.
There is slow resistance (reduces the amount of time you are slowed), but at this point (epic) I don’t think you need to care about that too much. Mainly it comes from equipment and relic.
Slow resistance isn’t listed on the character sheet as far as I can tell? Is it just not listed, or am I blind?
Thanks for the info. So I need to respect to more of a tank I guess. Right now, I am mostly Thunderball, Ice Shard, and Lightning Bolt (with some Storm Nimbus). That combo was extremely overpowered on Normal until I got to Act IV, where it became a bit more difficult.
In Epic Act II everything is easy again so far. So next speed bump I will take your advice, thanks.
No slow resistance isn’t listed on character sheet. Slow is dangerous in very specific circumstance, e.g. glass caster that draws aggro. For melee characters it is a non issue mostly because they rarely need to run away. Iron Will of Ajax relic gives slow resistance.
For Storm, my experience is that Squall is essential, anything else depends on playstyle. It is good as a debuff, for yourself and for pets, but you need to max it to make it useful. Storm Nimbus is good for the cold/slow retaliation, but if you depend on pets there is no point sinking anything more to it. Ice shard I never use, because I got something similar on the spirit tree. Lightning bolt is basically a I-win button in late normal/early epic, but going into legendary the damage output can’t keep up with the monster increase in health and is basically too expensive energy wise. Thunderball I think it sucks, because AoE is small and effect isn’t instantaneous. It is probably useful for a melee Stormer for crowd control.
I just got rid of Thunderball because all to often it misses, and as you said, its small. I put the points in Squall instead and having been playing with that.
I just beat the base game with my illusionists. He wasn’t spec’d in a super way, but max traps, and max wolves, with a bit in Nymphs. Although he was a melee character, I just let the traps do work for me, and retreated when the going was rough.
Now, I’m in Rhodes, but I have a Conjurer in Egypt I’d like to level up (with a couple of cool items from my illusionist) and a Storm Caller kicking ass in Greece.
Has anyone had any success with the Storm Caller? She’s level 13, and has a few great Storm Items, but I’d like set her up with a second mastery before leaving Greece. Something that puts a bit of hit points between me and swarms out there. Outside of Nature and Earth, are their any other masteries with a good beefy pet early on?
Beefy AND early on? Not so much, although Spirit has the very potent Summon Lich King available at 10, and with 5 ranks it unlocks a nice area affect attack. However, he’s a ranged attacker and therefore won’t tie up mobs so much if you’re looking for that.
Dream has a good DPS (but poor HP) pet in Summon Nightmare (put at least 5 points into it to provide an extra skill which let’s it fire 10 projectiles every 4 seconds.
That said, you need to be level 10 in these masteries to unlock the skills, so 10+5 ranks = 15 points, which may not qualify as “early” in many books.
Yeah, I didn’t think there was anything easy to get. I might grab Dream, since I don’t have any dream characters, but for now, I guess I’ll stick to storm.
What the flip? I mean, I’ll buy it because I loved Titan Quest, but this seems to be a strange release. Lingering code that someone is flipping to make money off of?
There’s someone actually coding on TQ because the Anniversary Edition updates weren’t just lying on the cutting room floor. Someone had to develop that shit in the now. And I wouldn’t be surprised if part of the point was to be able to then sell expansions.
Such a shame that this game was a flop originally. Grim Dawn means I’ll probably never go back to it. I really like the setting and environments(really all of the Asia chapter) in TQ.
This is impressive. I just started playing Grim Dawn after having it in my queue for a year or two. So I won’t go back to TQ right away but I’ll still buy an expansion b/c I will go back at some point if this is an active game again.
I think, speaking personally, that TQ wasn’t a big hit because it was mythology based instead of medieval fantasy. Some folks really like the ancient era setting but I’d wager most prefer the medieval one. I don’t recall very much hype about it either; sort of just like [another] “Diablo clone”. Why not just play Diablo?
I suspect that this was a problem in the era of boxed games that the game was released in. In today’s digital market I believe that Titan Quest would have been as successful as it deserved to be.
Grim Dawn isn’t a normal medieval setting and seems to be doing well enough.
