Titan Quest: Character Builds

Warning: Multiple Game References ahead.

Yes, Yes. I know. I showed up to the party late and I am sure there a ton of nuggets with ccopious amounts of glorious information and insight buried deep within the confines of "the other TQ Thread". I will mearly state that I was unable and unwilling to wade through the review and various nic-nack posts to find the information I am looking for.

Background: The Wife loved Fate. It was simple, easy to learn and pretty to look at. Three character classes within Fate were simple to learn and fun to mess with.

TQ has 36 character builds (Link).

Now, some of these fit into the Fate models pretty easily:
Melee in Fate = Warfare or Defense in TQ
Ranged in Fate = Hunting or Rogue in TQ
Spell Caster in Fate = The remaining 4 Classes in TQ

NOTE: There is a cool little utility to test build your characters in TQ that can be found here.

I won't even get into the hybrid/multi-class options that are available.

Now, all this being said, I need to show The Wife a specific build. I would prefer a melee class and am leaning toward a Warfare/Defender combo. Note: The shield smack is pretty freakin' cool.

Thoughts?

I have a pretty muched maxed out (level 65) Conqueror and he's been the easiest character to play so far. The shield attacks are indeed excellent.

For my build I focused more on the defense side, using warfare to help out damage dealing.

My build.

It works really well.

And my Assassin build.

That one I don't have finished yet, but he's at level 59, so he's close

To complement warfare/defense, I highly recommend nature/spirit build.

Those two types of combo mixes very well.

What skills are you guys using alot. I like some of the passive skills (stun/reduce armor requirements) from the Defensive discipline, but I miss the whole net thing from the hunter class. Being able to stop your opponents from closing is kind of improtant for me in single player.

I did build a hunter/nature combo that worked pretty well when I first started messing around with the game. The combo between the wolf and the ensnare skill are pretty key.

I've been playing a stormcaller lately. Picked up a green hood of the magi really early, adding 50% cast speed.

I have 3 items that reduce recharge time by almost 30% (total). My squall is maxed out, and almost covers the whole screen. I am able to cast another one before that one has dissipated. While they're up, I throw piercing ice bolts into the mix. It's insane.

I just need more mana regen. I go through mana pots like candy. Delicious, blue, energy-restoring candy.

I use a Sage build. Pretty fun for soloing as you stun and then let loose several arrows. Bosses seem to pose a problem though.

CEJ wrote:

What skills are you guys using alot. I like some of the passive skills (stun/reduce armor requirements) from the Defensive discipline, but I miss the whole net thing from the hunter class. Being able to stop your opponents from closing is kind of improtant for me in single player.

For the conqueror (Warfare/Defense) get the War Horn ability, and get the Doom Horn upgrade for it ASAP. It's essentially a quick means of reducing all enemy health by like 25% and it stuns them in place for up to 6 seconds. It also takes down their armor total by a fair amount.

Amazing ability for a melee character. It actually makes larger mobs manageable, especially at higher levels.

My highest-level character is a Corsair (Rogue and Defense), and it's mostly a melee build. Here's examples at level 20, 35 and 50.

At the start, I focused on bleed and poison damage. I later respecced, since that damage doesn't scale well at higher difficulties. The rogue tree has great slow and confuse abilities that let you do some cool crowd control. The knife throwing's more like a first strike/poison delivery option than something you would consistently do through a fight. I tend to open with that and then follow up with shield charge and batter.

Unless you go for traps, Rogue is definitely a melee mastery.

I went with Warrior/Elemental Fire combo - Battlemage is what it becomes I believe - interesting, but I am not sure I spec'd right. Some mobs I slide and dice through and some make me speed eat health potions.

- Spy

Ok, I just started playing this a little while ago and like my druid lvl 20 . But I was wondering how do you guys actually build your builds. As in how much do you put into the mastery level's as comparied to the actual skills? And do any of you think it worth it to get a second mastery just for the extra hp/mana/attributes it gives you? So far I have had to respec twice because I didn't have the right skills to actually beat some of the mobs, like the Telkin which is as far as I've gotten.

Editted to have correct link. And thank you guys for your thoughts, I'll look into changing a few things around.

Zaque, your link doesn't actually show how you've allocated your points (you want the "return link" at the bottom of the page).

Hmm. I'm not sure that I'd pick up a second mastery solely for the stat bonus. But I also can't think of a build that couldn't take advantage of a second mastery. If you're focusing on nature, I'd still pick up some lower-level storm skills. So, with the caveat that this may not apply to your build... Spell Breaker is handy, since it'll dispel hostile enchantments on your conjured creatures and hurt spellcasters. Squall is handy and gets really good with it's upgrades.

Unless I'm actively chasing a specific skill, I try to keep my mastery-to-skill ratio at about 1:1.5. Obviously, this changes a bit at higher levels.

I respec a lot. There's no reason not to - you'll be swimming in cash and there are lots of places to do it.

I would absolutely recommend pumping one mastery to near max it at level 10. Those tier 10 skills will allow you to breeze thru to level 15 or so but become much less useful at the ending acts.

I have a Brigand (Rogue/Hunter) and the game was a cakewalk until Act III. Poison + bleed + slow + lots of ranged power = never, ever using healing potions. I had something like 700 in inventory by the time I got to Act III. Unfortunately, poison and bleed don't seem to work very well from Babylon onward.

I started an Elementalist (Earth/Storm) just to have a melee character who dealt an ungodly amount of elemental damage. She was doing rather well a couple of weeks ago, which was the last time I played. Alas, I did what I always do: put it down and forget to pick it back up.

There's a character editor out there called TQ Defiler. If nothing else, once you've enjoyed the game to its last drop, create a 1st-level character and roll his stats up to 100,000,000, which is the maximum the game supports. (In case you're curious, yes, you can one-shot Legendary Typhon bare-handed.)

Well, still playing my defender and threw some points at Rend

TitanCalc wrote:

Rend Armor: (Rank: 1 of 8)
Increases the effectiveness of Batter causing it to hit three targets with enough force to dent their armor.
15 Energy Cost, 90 Arc of Attack, 3 Target Maximum, 5 Reduced Armor for 5 Seconds)

I was very please with the result. when you get surrounded, Rend is the icing on the Defender Cake. The stun effect from Concussive Blows doesn't hurt any.

TitanCalc wrote:

Concussive Blow: (Rank: 6 of 6)
Adds a chance for attacks to stun enemies and increases the duration of stun attacks when wielding a club type weapon.
+40% Stun Damage, 5% Chance of 3.5 Seconds of Stun

Still, on Normal, it's pretty easy so far. Just have to stay focused on health and elemental resistance and I'm good. Rally has also become a much appreciated skill.

TitanCalc wrote:

Rally: (Rank: 3 of 12)
The resolute call of your horn can turn the tide of battle, inspiring all in its range to fight with renewed vitality.
56 Energy Cost, +345 Health Restored, 10 Second Duration, 10.0 Meter Radius, +150% Health Regeneration, 10 Armor

PLEASE HELP i have a level 30 hunter only 1 mastery with all my needed skills in the hunting branch and i am doing fine i have 1k+ of health potions and i have alot of free skill points but no second branch whats a good combo with hunter, note; i dont want defence or warrior

I went with the Lightning one. The stun moves were great at holding guys still.

Edit:

Me From 5 Years Ago wrote:

I use a Sage build. Pretty fun for soloing as you stun and then let loose several arrows. Bosses seem to pose a problem though.

Wow I can't even remember what this game was like. I had two characters, a Warrior/Assassin duel wield brawler, something of a glass cannon. And a Druid/Necromancer so that I could have the maximum number of summons. Having such a large party was kinda easy and I never finished the second time.

I had a similar build with my second playthrough except it was with a Druid/Pyromancer. Wolf + Magma Man + Dryad + Vines = Too Easy.

I'm a Conqueror. Warrior + Defender = stand there all day and wait for your ablilities to proc. When they do, goodbye enemies.

In days of yore, I did an Earth / Spirit combo. Summon earth elemental to tank/aggro/melee and the summoned undead whatever that would stand off and range attack. Combine that with my range attack and most enemies were dead as soon as they appeared on my screen.

I've been using Dream Mastery and wielding a staff. Very powerful.

First teir power "Sands of Sleep" is cheap on mana and very good for stunning.

"Trance of Convalescence" is a constant heal to comapnions.

"Summon Nightmare" The bizarrest looking pet you ever saw.

"Hypnotic Gaze" Can cause your pets attack to confuse enemies so they attack each other.

Some may find it an overpowered build.

I think it is the Spirit tree they added in the expansion?

If so, that one is really powerful and the pet alone complements just about every other build/tree.

Dag nabit. All this talk and you guys are going to make me reinstall this... Its funny that I bought the game and expansion seperately and then they came in the THQ master bundle on Steam. My computer will prolly run the expansion a lot better now.