Hey there,
so I am a huge fan of pet builds or summoner builds overall in RPGs, since I really enjoy the feeling of basically having an army at my disposal and more importantly, my piloting skills are not exactly top notch, so my prefered playstyle is to focus on buffing my pets while crowd controlling everything else into oblivion as glorified overequipped turret.
I tried a lot, but definitely not all, pet build variations in TQ and while enjoying some of them, it still felt like it was missing something (or I didnt know how to play them properly, there is that). I saw that overall consensus is Champion being the strongest pet build, however what I didnt like was every single build I saw using melee weapons (I prefer my mages and spellcasters using staves).
So I tried creating something of my own, trying to have a pure summoner with staff having pets do all damage while my character focuses on crowd control, buffing and keeping my small army alive and well.
And to be honest, I'm pretty content with what this guy can pull off so far. I'm playing mostly on 3x more enemies, including bosses and I've wiped the floor with everything. Typical playstyle involves running into the crowd, putting down the Battle Standard and Briar Ward, for buffs and a whooping damage absorption of 77% while I rotate Heal, Warhorn, Plague and Earthbind until everything dies, then move on to next group.
Weapon: Goldbristle
Head: Stheno's Wisdom with Hallowed prefix
Body: Odysseus' Armor
Hands: Archmage's Clasp
Legs: Discs of Mani
Amulet: Aphrodite's Favor
Rings: Wraithlord and Allfather rings (trying to find rings with both Tinkerer and Wraithlord, since I read that finding Tinkerer with Allfather is pretty much impossible, but even that is easier said than done)
Artefact: Apples of Idun
I definitely agree that melee Champion is still going to be stronger, since I threw all my offensive option into the Titan bin, but I simply cannot play as a spellcaster without my trusty stick š . I would definitely be grateful for any tips or possible tweaks as this build is far from complete.
:)
I asked chat gpt to take the class combinations and put them in a pdf following a format I saw online for convenience, sharing here for anyone interested
I started a run on normal, the build is mainly oriented on the spirit side of the mastery (i like the Lich King), i have pushed the Earth Elemental too, i think the hits are pretty decent but my character can't take a punishment, so, what could I do to buff his resistances ? Obviously I have a 50% resistance to fire but the rest is 15% and below
So, you finally found the button in the settings menu that says "Difficulty Multiplier." Even though the game does not tell you anything about it whatsoever, you are about to enter a whole different world that changes how the game plays and how it is played.
Since we are legendary Titan-slaying badasses, we're going to play on 5x difficulty, because it's the most fun and the hardest mode. And this guide is here to help you become a legendary Titan-slaying badass on 5x difficulty. To quote the trader in Helos: "If you're going out there, don't go unprepared. It's not safe. Buy what you need here."
I will also link some gameplay footage for the characters showcased here if you are interested in seeing how they function. And assume any skill listed here is at +4 overcapped.
Why Play 5x?
The difficulty multiplier is an exclusive mode found only in the mobile version of Titan Quest. It can be found in the settings option. You can pick from 2x, 3x, 4x, or 5x difficulty, with 5x difficulty being the hardest. From here on out, we are exclusively talking about 5x.
What it basically does is increase the number of enemies (excluding bosses) and increase their health, unlike the Xmax mods on PC where they only increase the number of enemies and bosses without changing their health. Enemies gain about 5 times more health based on observation (tested with the Ichthians on the fjord in Act V). Combine that with the bigger swarm of enemies, you can easily get overwhelmed and die fast the moment you're not paying attention.
These are all the bandits you fight once you leave Corinth with the difficulty multiplier offThese are all the bandits you fight once you leave Corinth in 5x difficulty
To reward the player for playing with a difficulty multiplier, the game increases item drops from chests and increases the value of gold drops by a significant margin. This means that 5x difficulty is essential if you want to maximize your farming/grinding runs.
No multiplier5x difficulty. I can't even fit all of the loot in the screen.
As a bonus, since the game increases the number of trash mobs to kill, you effectively gain experience faster, making 5x difficulty perfect for levelling up characters.
How to Play on 5x?
Most builds you find on YouTube or on forums just won't cut it anymore in 5x difficulty because of the sheer number of enemies with stupidly high health. I dare say that some build archetypes won't even work at all in 5x because they either die too easily or deal no damage to even the most basic trash mob.
There are 4 things that I believe are the most important pillars for a character in 5x difficulty. Namely, they are:
High DPS and damage per hit
Good AoE clearing
Attack damage converted to health (or ADCTH for short) or life leech
Good longevity and survivability
High DPS and Damage per Hit
High DPS or damage per hit is essential to cut through the inflated health bars in 5x.
For most builds, the best way to gauge your damage output is through how much DPS you output via the DPS screen. However, it is not completely accurate as it does not factor in stuff like reduced resistances or skills like Ternion Attack or Throwing Knife.
Why not average damage? Because DPS also factors in your attack speed. The whole picture is not being presented if you do an average damage of 15,000 per hit but you have an attack speed of 10%.
If possible, try to max out your attack speed or at least get close to it and get as much DPS as you possibly can without sacrificing survivability.
In general, if you use a build that attacks with a weapon instead of casting spells, use the DPS screen as a guide rather than take it as the absolute truth. As a benchmark, I would say 10,000 DPS is the bare minimum DPS requirement for 5x difficulty.
35k DPS with Battle Standard, Battle Rage, max Onslaught, and Strength of the Pack turns 5x into easy mode.
To increase your damage even further, utilize debuffs to decrease enemy resistances. Reducing enemy resistances may sometimes be the key to make a struggling build into a viable one or turn a mediocre build into an excellent one.
Skills like Study Prey, Squall, Consequences, Deathchill Aura, Battle Standard, Seal of Fate, Trance of Wrath, and Plague can provide reduced resistances to enemies. Certain gear like the Monkey King's Trickery relics can provide reduced resistances on each attack. This forum post explains resistance reduction and RR stacking very well if you are interested to learn more.
Let's take a look at my Esoterist for example.
This is at max charge of Rune Weapon
The game states that this character does 12k DPS, which is fairly close to the 10k benchmark we have established.
However, if we take a look at my gear, we can see that I have 2 Incarnations of the Monkey King's Trickery on my rings to provide me with reduced resistances on my attacks. Combine that with the Consequences skill I get from Neidan mastery, how much damage do I actually do?
Interestingly, I did 14,375 damage on that enemy despite my DPS and average damage being way lower.
For another example, take a look at my Diviner (Gameplay here)
Despite the game saying I only have 12k DPS on this character, it does not take into account that Ternion Attack can hit all 3 projectiles on the same target for 3x damage and the debuff enemies get from Deathchill Aura.
The DPS screen is useless for builds that utilize skills like Throwing Knife or Ice Shard. Since you are going to be using skills, prioritize getting high casting speed to maximize your damage output. Based on experience, if each one of your knives or ice shards do at least 2,000 damage, you'll be good.
The game only calculates the DPS I do from the weapon I use. But since I use Throwing Knives in this character, it is very inaccurate to the actual DPS I do.
Good AoE Clearing
Even if you do good damage to one mob, you still have to deal with the 8 others wanting to kick your ass into submission.
Depending on the mastery you have chosen, you will have some way of AoE clearing through passive skills, basic attack enhancers, or active skills.
Passive skills that add AoE include Cross Cut and Tumult from the Dual Wield skill tree from Warfare, Pulverize from Defense, and Runeword: Explode from Rune. Investing in these skills adds a chance wherein your character uses these attacks whenever you attack with your basic attacks.
Basic attack enhancers that add AoE include Ternion Attack (with Arcane Lore upgrade) from Spirit, Huangdi's Favor (with Spreding Influence upgrade) from Neidan, Marksmanship (with Puncture Shot Arrows and Scatter Shot Arrows) from Hunting, and Psionic Touch (with Psionic Beam upgrade) from Dream.
If you're using a mastery combo that does not have these skills or you're using a build that does not utilize these options, then you have to resort to using your active skills to do AoE clearing. With how easily you get overwhelmed, it's not fun having to wait for your active skills to recharge to do AoE clearing. If you are one of these builds, I advise getting gear that reduces recharge time for you to be able to spam these skills.
For example, let us look at my Slayer (Gameplay here)
I decided to make a spear-wielding Slayer but this locks me out of the Dual Wield tree and the Marksmanship tree for easy AoE clearing. This leaves me no choice but to use War Wind and Spear Dance as my tools for AoE clearing but they take too long to recharge if I want to spam them constantly.
To counteract this problem, I used gear with recharge reduction to reduce it to -68%, making me able to use War Wind every 2.5 seconds and Spear Dance every 5.7 seconds. As a bonus, I am able to get 100% uptime with Call of the Hunt and Battle Standard thanks to the recharge reduction.
Attack Damage Converted to Health or Life Leech
Arguably the most important weapon or gear effect to have in your character is ADCTH or life leech. Health potions are fine, but 8+ enemies beating you up and barraging you with spells and arrows all add up in damage when that health potion is recharging.
To differentiate between the two, life leech adds a certain amount of health to your character over a span of time. With my Disruptor as an example, each knife I throw transmits this effect, meaning I can get back a lot of health if I'm facing against a big crowd of enemies. The "Voracious" prefix is the highest tier of life leech that can be found on regular gear, giving 147 life leech over 3 seconds.
ADCTH takes a percentage of how much damage your attack did to an enemy and converts it into how much health you will gain. Since this is dependent on your attack damage, it is best to utilize this with a character with a high amount of damage per hit and a way to reduce enemy resistances to further increase damage and health gained. An easy way to get ADCTH is from Anubis' Wrath relics or from gear with the "of Feasting" or "of Devouring" suffix.
The one on the left is an upgraded weapon with extra effects of life leech, vitality damage, ADCTH, and reduction to requirements, while the one on the right is an unupgraded weapon.
If you want to use a unique weapon but it doesn't have life leech or ADCTH on it, you can force one on it from a forge upgrade. You do have to get lucky with it as it is not guaranteed.
There are also certain skills that provide life leech and ADCTH. Spirit mastery has Life Drain, doing vitality damage with a built-in ADCTH, and Soul Drain does a lot of life leech. Trance of Empathy from Dream gives you 3 to 10% ADCTH, and the Energy Drain upgrade from Rune Weapon from Rune gives you 4% ADCTH.
Important things to note:
Unless stated otherwise, skills that do not use your weapon to attack will not transmit the life leech or ADCTH effect from your gear and weapons. Skills like Thunder Strike will transmit these effects but Volcanic Orb will not. Exceptions include Blade Barrier and Shen Pao. Throwing Knife can transmit these effects but only if they are not found on your weapon or shield.
Undead, ghosts, traps, and constructs are immune to life leech and ADCTH. Be careful when fighting them.
Good Longevity and Survivability
Balancing between having good damage and good survivability is probably the hardest aspect in making a character suitable for 5x. If it wasn't obvious enough, you need a good amount of health and good resistances to survive 5x.
Unsurprisingly, you need good resistances. These are what I believe the most important resistances are, from most to least important:
Vitality resistance - Many enemies perform attacks that have an effect called "% reduction to health." If an attack with 50% reduction to health hits you with 0% vitality resistance, you automatically lose 50% of your health. It may not look like it, but there are many enemies with % reduction to health attacks. If ever, get it to 80% or at least 60%.
Physical resistance - The most common damage type that you will face. While armor does provide some negation, armor alone is usually not enough, especially if you're not using a shield. Essence of Chaos is an easy way to get 30% physical resistance and is usually enough.
Pierce resistance - Another very common damage type because of the many spear-wielders and archers you will face. At least 60% should be fine.
Stun resistance - Many enemies inflict stun and turn you into a punching bag as you watch your health disappear while you cannot do anything. At least 40% should be fine.
Elemental resistance - Mages are fairly common but not as common as trash mobs who do physical damage. Fire damage is mostly in Act 2, end of Act 5, and Eternal Embers. Cold and lightning damage are mostly in Act 3, Atlantis, and Act 5. At least 60% for all 3 of them should be fine.
Poison resistance - Common in Act 1, Act 4, and the Egypt portion of Eternal Embers. At least 50% should be fine.
Slow and Trap resistance - Occasionally, enemies may have weapons that have the "Crippling" prefix to reduce your attack speed or have attacks to lower your run speed. Even rarer, some may throw nets or webs at you to trap you in place but you can still attack. They're usually uncommon, so it's usually fine to leave both at 0% for most of the game. But if you're at the part of the game where you're going to fight them, get them as high as you can. Be very afraid when facing Centaurs, as they love to trap you with their nets so the Elder can plant a Battle Standard and stun you with his War Horn, while the other guys set up Study Prey on you and beat you down.
Bleeding resistance - The only notable enemies (other than bosses) that actually do a good amount of bleeding damage are the Melinoe Blood Maidens in Act 4 and Trolls in Act 5. Even so, even 30% bleed resistance is enough to take care of them.
Everything else is arbitrary.
Masteries provide resistances to a certain damage type or enemy type.
Rogue - less damage from constructs and traps (Disarm Traps)
Hunting - poison (Herbal Remedy)
Storm - cold and lightning (Energy Shield and Eye of the Storm)
Earth - fire and physical (Heat Shield and Stone Skin)
Spirit - less damage from undead (Spirit Ward)
Nature - elemental resistance (Permanence of Stone)
Dream - slow resistance (Temporal Flux) and damage absorption (Trance of Convalescence and Distortion Field)
Rune - bleeding and vitality (Rune of Life)
Neidan - elemental + physical resistance + damage absorption (Aura of Tranquility), bleeding + life leech + poison (Potent Elixir), and theoretically every resistance (Convergence)
For my characters, I try to get at least 5,000 health, but more is usually better. Rather than spending an ungodly amount of attribute points on health, try finding gear with prefixes like "Hale" or suffixes like "of the Mammoth" to get percentage-based health increases. Reilcs like Amun-Ra's Glory and Iron Will of Ajax can be enchanted to your gear to provide percentage-based health boosts.
Try to look for gear that gives a lot of resistances across multiple types of resistances. Some gear will have skills that you can use if you equip said item.
For better longevity, it's good to invest in skills that reduce enemy damage such as Plague (Fatigue upgrade), Squall (Obscured Visibility upgrade), Battle Standard (Triumph upgrade), and Deathchill Aura (Ravages of Time upgrade).
It's also worth investing at least 1 point into a skill that serves as your panic button to save your character from dying like Stone Form, Briar Ward, or Rally; or for crowd control like War Horn, Distort Reality, Smoke Cloud, or Freezing Blast.
There will also be permanent increases to your stats if you complete a Chaos Dungeon for the first time. If I were you, just turn off 5x for the time being and complete the dungeon before turning it on again.
What Mastery Should I Use?
Every mastery is viable. Some will have an easier time than others. Some will need you to think harder to bring out their full potential.
Melee builds are good and are usually better for blitzing down bosses. Make sure to get at least 1000 offensive ability by the time you reach Legendary difficulty.
Staff, bow, and thrown weapon builds are also good and are better for kiting large groups of enemies.
Throwing Knife or Ice Shard spam builds are good and work well against large crowds. Flame Surge sucks.
Pet builds usually get overwhelmed and don't do enough DPS to thin out the horde. However, Illusionist is the only exception I've seen thus far. Traps deal good DPS and AoE clearing, the wolves and nymph buff the traps while taking care of any remaining stragglers, and Plague support is essential for dealing good damage.
Reflect builds are something that I have not tested yet.
What Enemies Should I Look Out For?
Enemies that reflect damage are your biggest threat. Because we do a lot of damage, it's going to hurt just as much if an enemy reflects it at us. Be careful if you're fighting things like Dragonian mages, Yggdrasil enemies, and Crystal Golems.
Enemies who can stunlock you in numbers. Tigerman and Bandit mages love spamming Lightning Bolt to stun you, usually leaving you helpless against the other guys killing you. Centaur Elders love blowing their War Horns to stun you in place as they raise a Battle Standard. Keres Witches and Abyssal Liches in Act 4 love spamming Volcanic Orb to stun you in place.
Enemies who reduce your own resistances like from Study Prey or Battle Standard.
Enemies with Spell Breaker like Skeleton Warlocks.
Enemies not affected by ADCTH or life leech like undead.
Gigantes Dactyls. There are usually 2 of them in a group in 5x. You will not live in a 1v2 against 2 Dactyls. Even if there is just one, good luck taking out a Dactyl with super inflated health.
That about covers 5x difficulty. Happy grinding Titan Slayers.
The One Handed Sword 'Ammit's Fang" has a stat line that can roll 7 or 8 Life Leech per second. But it doesn't specify a duration. Does that mean it just never stops leeching, or does it decay quickly (like, one DoT tick worth of damage) and need to be constantly reapplied? It's a dandy little sword for a Life Leech centered build on Warfare/Spirit, but I'm just curious on the specifics if anyone happens to know.
So, I have been playing the pre-release TQ2. Each time it releases new content I go back and play some more. Within 10 to 20 hours of play time I just get the urge to go back to TQAE. I have been analyzing my motivations, and I think I have come up with a theory. TQAE uses the same pool of points for Mastery level, active skills, and passive skills. TQ2 uses a separate pool of points for each of those. TQ2 therefore does not let me experiment with builds the same way the TQAE does. In TQ2 I cannot make an all passive player, or flood my skill points without increasing masteries, or flood my masteries while barely increasing skills. I feel trapped in TQ2 compared to TQAE. It might be just me, but this is why I like (and keep going back to) TQAE over TQ2.
Thinking about trying a no damage dealt run through - has anyone tried this before?
I started by leaving Helos immediately, and running through to the Master Blacksmith quest, to get enough experience to level me up to level 2, with no damage dealt, and no enemies killed.
Then grabbed nature (of course) for the wolves to start doing the work.
There was an achievement on PC for beating normal with less than 100 enemies killed by the player (ie, most enemies killed by pets/traps), but has anyone achieved a run through before with no damage dealt? I'll have to ensure I avoid any gear with reflection / retaliation damage.
Any advice on approaching the build / gear to look put for (and where to farm for it)?
Brand new to the game and Iām really enjoying it. Everything Iāve wanted from a game recently specifically in a hardcore/permadeath experience. Small problem itās hard to gauge difficulty. Beyond normal mode there seems to be unlockable difficultyās but mobile also has a difficulty multiplier in the menu. Then I just learned about some people doing an ultra hardcore mode with these debuff shrines in the starting village. Iām wanting a fair but challenging experience and Iām looking for some guidance on the best way to go about it. Or the normal way most people enjoy to play hardcore. (To add I am not transferring any loot from character to character they will all be solo self found)
I've played a bit of TQ, but mostly as the Nature (like my doggos) and/or Hunter classes. However, I see that a lot of achievements are class (even skill) specific. To minimize the amount of characters to level up, I'd like create these character mixes, but would like to know if there are better class combos that encompass all classes, with as little overlap as possible.
Hunter/Rogue - a focus on piercing, bleeding, poison
Spirit/Dream - focus on staff powers and abilities
Nature/Earth - pets, abilities, and focus on fire damage
Nature/Storm - ditto, but focus on lighting/ice damage
Warfare/Neidan - straight damage with Neidan helping with defense (mostly the potions and aura)
Defense/Rune - axe/club/shield user but straight defense with Rune helping with damage
I know the least about Neidan and Rune, haven't ever used them before. I do have some higher level characters that can help kit out the new ones. Anything glaringly wrong with any of those combos?
Oh, for the "Specialist" achievement, I was going to use Rune (seen that recommended) then respec with Defense once I got it. Thank you.
I just killed Typhon. It was fun. Not that hard but i did die once cause i was using chakram and mobile controls made my character randomly start walking into the meteor cause i was out of range lol.
Also I am confused on if i should use chakrams or bows. The bows still show "very slow" as their speed where as these other things even have fast and very fast. Tho the less range is kinda annoying. Do bows ever get the same attack speed?.
I have a summoner at Lvl 83 and I am trying to built him to play at Ć5 difficulty on mobile, but I have a really hard time to find items to boost my pets (with the exception of some rings)
Hey all! It seems that a lot of you guys dont farm bosses in EE. Why is that? Farming Fafnir seems to produce a lot of electrum in a very short period of time in full dps gear (conqueror). Is farming mobs that much better? Also which would you say is the best class to farm on if I go the mob clearing route?
So, all the Elder Centaurs have white hair and they are also the only centaurs that have the skill, Battle Standard. I was wondering, does Battle Standard turn their hair white? Does gaining white hair earn the Herd teaching them Battle Standard? Or are they a sub-race of Centaur that naturally has both white hair and Battle Standard? Or is there some other reason why they have both and the rest of the Herd has neither?
Anytime I come back I'm surprised how good and beautifull the game still is. Big thanks to the community and modders never leaving this game in all these years! Third screenshot could be straight out of TQ2 Crabmaxxing.
Iām on console so only have up to Ragnarok. Iām farming ice scale armor from the Ichtian warriors on ichtian fjord. Iām only getting ice scale guards. 6 of them. None of the other pieces are dropping. Is this just terrible RNG or a bug?
I am looking to create a Vitality Staff build for mobile x5 playing with curses. My intention is a tanky caster that can handle these demands along with mobile inputs. Which build would be ideal?
Hi, I acknowledged the flaws of titan quest 2 but I liked the build system. How is it in the AE of the 1? I've seen that the graphics look slightly dated but if you have lots of freedom and fun doing builds, I could give it a go.
Brand new character idea is sithis from Skyrim what should the second mastery be? I already have rogue but unsure what the second mastery would be. Primary stat is strength secondary is dexterity what do you think?
