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Topics - mammoth_hunter

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1
So I loaded some of my old characters in new expac and tried most of level 40 skills at legendary act 4, in Rhodes or Hades palace.

Rune - tested with rune weapon dragon hunter.

Rune storm - haven't seen it trigger any effects, feels useless.
Rune field - creates full screen of rune mines. For some reason skill didn't level past rank 15. The idea is decent but runic mines damage in endgame is too low, it takes 5-6 runes to kill most basic trash mobs with flush out debuff running.

Rogue - tested with poison trickster and phys/pierce corsair.

Blade barrier - creates 3 spheres around you that do flat pierce and bleed damage and convey weapon effects. Not very useful for a poison build as there are better ways to convey poison. For a pierce build the damage seems low to bother. Maybe on pierce brigand with study prey it would be ok as a fancy AOE.

Poison mayhem - throws 5 poison bombs, one where you click and the others at random. The idea is good but I wish it was more predictable.

Dream - tested with vitality diviner and ritualist summoner.

Psionic beam - makes psionic touch pierce when used with a staff. I wish it just did more damage instead or had AOE on every hit, piercing isn't that good to waste points there.

Dream image - summons a doppelganger that attacks with your weapon. Damage is apparently physical as stated in tooltip, and low. Doesn't convey pet damage from gear. Bad for damage, but can hold aggro. But doesn't last long. I wish it dropped one of your items like the original.

Spirit - tested with vitality diviner.

Soul drain - an extension of life drain line that does vitality damage in a nova around first target it hits. Damage is good with deathchill up close but less good at range. But it stuns target. Overall useful as half damage half crowd control skill akin to volcanic orb.

Soul vortex - steals life and mana in a radius around you (lifeleech damage). Can heal very quick and with deathchill can kill mobs. Skill is good and does what is supposed to do.

Nature - tested with ritualist summoner

Earthbind - screen wide immobilization. Overall useful for a character that needs crowd control. 300 something flat poison damage suggests it may be useful for a poison caster.

Sylvan protection - castable ability for nymph that looks like short range wave and does like earthbind. Thats very narrow in utility for those who want nymph to do more things. Can only be unlocked after putting one point in nature wrath which is a major downside for me as I don't want nature wrath.

Storm - tested with a bow/spear lightning sage.

Lightning dash - movement ability like take down. No idea what is it doing in storm mastery, I'd rather asked for more reliable crowd control there.

Arc discharge - does not make wisp do any notable damage on a non-summoner when maxed. No idea how it would fare on a dedicated summoner.

Earth - tested with a physical battlemage.

Meteor rain - rocks fall in a large radius around you in random locations, physical and burn damage. Damage is poor on a physical caster for an ability with such cooldown. Inability to target makes it even worse, if it misses, you'll be waiting some 40 sec to try again.

Fire nova - don't have an appropriate fire caster in legendary to test this.

Hunting - tested on a slayer.

Spear dance - 360o arc attack with low damage, chance of fear and slower attack. I don't think this is useful, spear builds can often kill foes faster than they would scare them, and if they can't kill them, chance of fear won't help.

Finesse - extensio of the call of the hunt skill. Adds 10% and 600 flat offensive ability. This is madness, hunting does not really need more OA with flush out to crit so its a group buff mostly. Some other masteries may need OA more, say rogue.

Defense - tested with melee corsair.

Perfect block - 100% damage absorption for 1.1 sec duration. Mirror of ereoctes like skill, but isn't it too short?

Unyielding phalanx - summons a line of elysium ghosts that attack all mobs that come in melee range with them. Deal decent damage on non-summoner and I don't know if they convey pet damage from gear. Overall fun and efficient but weird for defense mastery.

Warfare - tested with physical battlemage.

Slam - flat physical damage wave-like spell that does damage in a straight line and stuns. Damage isn't good on a physical caster and there is also warhorn for stun so dubious overall.

Lasting legacy - Increased duration for ancestral horn summons. Haven't tested it as I don't have appropriate character for it but should be useful for a dedicated summoner.

2
AE Trading / Hallowed TQ Vault of the Mammoth
« on: 27 February 2019, 19:15:36 »
I'm getting bored with Titan Quest, and with Grim Dawn expansion coming and personal time shrinking will likely have to abandon it sometime soon. I'll push some of my item collections to the public - since similar vaults with legendaries exist here already, what I am sharing is mostly greens and monster infrequents collected over my playthroughs. Some of these were cherrypicked from older stashes, others collected in ragnarok time with lower pretentions.

dropbox link

Threre are four stashes in this file, one with an assortment of basic items, one with jewellery, one with MIs and one with shields. They are probably located in C:\Users\your username\Documents\My Games\Titan Quest\TQVaultData , and work with TQvaultAE 2.5.6.0

3
Earth AE / Using flame surge skill
« on: 23 February 2019, 15:59:55 »
I've been trying to build an evoker around using two close range spells, flame surge and DR/TR with TOW. Ran into problems with flame surge damage in epic act 5. Looks like a clear warning, if it has issues in epic, it will run into a wall in legendary, and I don't seem to know how to fix it. Or perhaps I do, 2x seals of Hephestos, Eye of Ra, Hesione's Golden Veil, but I don't want to do that. It will ruin resists and other stats and playing melee with poor defenses is unpleasant. I'm not sure it will suffice to fix it either.

TitanCalc

Flame surge was buffed in anniversary but apparently is still a poor skill. Its damage is approx on par with ice shards. Ice shards can shotgun, while flame surge hits with one projectile per cast unless the target has a very large hitbox.

Skill has one more infuriating "feature": it can't hit certain mobs that hover above the ground, like valkyries and Hades in final form.

4
Rogue AE / Poison damage deserves better
« on: 04 December 2018, 17:32:04 »
Poison used to be largely ignored damage type and playstyle before Anniversary. Because it didn't scale with stats and for skill points economy. If you specialized on other damage type then adding poison required considerable point investment, and these points could be spent to make your primary type better. While at the same time poison was weak on its own without several gear slots dedicated to it.


Right now with how many skill points all the builds get, rogues can afford to use 2-3 damage types efficiently, those within their mastery or others. You don't have to focus on poison/bleed fully too, just get pierce or physical and add poison to it and you're good. Not 'viable' as people call it, but very good and solid. Bows too. And casters with elemental spells, though more complicated going both dexterity and intelligence, should be feasible.





Spoiler for Hiden:

Thats a corsair with a common ADCTH sword, Shen-Nong, monkey king, envenom weapon and throwing knives. Basically a melee build with AOE ranged spell on demand. TitanCalc

5
Rogue AE / [Guide] Poison and bleed trickster with traps
« on: 17 October 2018, 00:37:57 »
I never liked rogues before and now I think I know why. Rogues used to have only pierce damage for them, everything else in their mastery didn't work for various reasons. With DOTs and traps fixed, there are now at least two more ways to play this mastery.






General info

This trickster is a full rogue build using rune mastery for support only, while  relying on poison, bleed and traps to do damage. It uses throwing weapons or  occasionally melee weapons together with skills like throwing knives and poison gas bomb. Rune is chosen for the quality of its support skills, there is a debuff  (seal of fate), crowd control blocking path (menhir wall) and resistances (rune of  life). Due to this full rogue focus it does not have to be a trickster but can  also be built as illusionist or perhaps a magican.

Poison and bleed do no damage to certain types of mobs, constructs and ghosts, and  only do marginal damage to other undead who in Anniversary edition got 70% poison absorbtion instead of 100%+ resist. Piercing damage which is another rogue mastery specialty also does poor against these mobs. Traps, however, that were made into  "pets" in Anniversary, can carry any damage type from pet jewellery. Physical or elemental or vitality, in practice physical is just enough for killing undead and constructs.



Skills discussion

TitanCalc

Calculated strike - This is an auto-attack replacer skill to start the game  with as one pointer, necessary for early game progression. High direct damage on  fourth hit can help kill any mobs at any stage of the game too. Lucky hit makes it  more valuable with its chance to do high bleed damage.

Lay trap - Taken early, leveled together with its modifiers steadily but  persistently over first four acts of normal. Requires pet damage jewellery to be  good, thus used together with 2-3 pet items. Traps are more consistent than wolves  and do not need support, so minimal pet jewellery is just fine. I was wearing just  two pet items in the end. Its needed to deal with undead and constructs after all,  not being main focus of the build. Rapid construction modifier at ultimate rank  (max +4) reduces skill recharge to 0.

Poison gas bomb - "Spell" that should be taken early at first opportunity  and is a priority to level, it is the main nuke in the build, used to destroy  packs of mobs. Fast recharge even without recharge reduction gear makes it a good  early game nuke. Shrapnel may be left as one pointer until late.

Throwing knives - One more damage spell, does bleeding damage and carries  poison from equipment (except weapon) and envenom weapon. Can be left as one  pointer until early to mid epic, but only to focus on something else as this is  also an important damage skill. Knives have much longer range than throwing  weapons and with flurry of knives can hit multiple targets, thus having its own  use not covered by normal attack. Carrying poison, slow and confusion from envenom  weapon this is part damage part crowd control skill. At ultimate rank skill has 0  recharge time.

Lethal strike - This is how melee pierce rogues suicide themselves on reflect. Thanks to its modifier mortal wound amplifying poison and bleed by huge % poison rogues can try it too. Main skill is best left at 1 point, modifier maxed if possible (and if you were  even going to use melee weapons).

Flash powder - Crowd control skill that applies fumble and confusion,  useful to prevent melee mobs from swarming you or put fumble on a boss.

Envenom weapon - Characteristic rogue buff that is of course fully maxed in this build.  Adds poison damage to attacks, improves %poison damage globally, debuffs mobs with  slow and low chance of confusion. Provides damage, and crowd control by means of  just attacking mobs.

Anatomy - simple passive boosting %bleed damage. Can be left as one pointer until very late.

Disarm traps - boosts % racial damage to constructs. 1 pt is enough if any,  your damage is not your traps damage and you will mostly use traps to kill constructs.



Seal of fate - Very slow-to-fire nuke with high elemental damage (main),  bleed damage and debuff (aftershock). Used as one pointer with maxed aftershock to  debuff. Can easily hit not very agile bosses and immobile ranged mobs. To hit  melee mobs with it, they are best blocked and aggroed by menhir wall first.

Menhir wall - A row of rocks that block path. Most efficient way of crowd  control in the game, there is no immunity to this and it can block bosses. Rocks  can be destroyed, but their hp grows significantly with points invested. Left as  one pointer to be maxed late however, as there are other more important things to  take.

Energy armor - Huge flat damage absorbtion that protects against physical,  pierce and bleed. Requires either huge mana pool or lots of mana cost reduction.  When having neither its still good to keep a few points in it.

Rune of life - A castable duration buff giving vitality and bleed  resistances.

Runeword: feather - Reduces requirements for weapons and provides some OA.  Can help using heavy shields but otherwise not critical. 1 point.

Runeword: absorb - Reduced block recovery makes block more efficient, with  top shields you will hear it blocking all the time. Energy absorb helps to restore  mana.

Sacred rage - Upon reaching low health grants 20% damage absorbtion and  together with its modifier also monster damage reduction. Not much absorbtion and  damage reduction in rather short radius for short duration, so not investing much  in it.

Reckless offense - Allows dual-wielding weapons, including thrown. Not  needed if you weren't planning to.

Guardian stones - A pet that is immobile and fires at mobs that come near.  Attacks do not convey pet damage from gear, so if you don't have sources of global  %pet damage, its damage will stay at what is listed in the tooltip (terrible).  Good to impress early game bosses, but I fail to find a use for it in late game.



Leveling progression

Stat distribution is strength : dexterity 1 : 1 until level 60, then all into dexterity. 6 quest reward points go into energy and 6 in health (all normal and epic), or all 12 into energy for energy armor.

Start with rogue mastery and pick calculated strike and envenom weapon as first skills. Use a spear with calculated strike, and some ranged weapon on swap. Work on the mastery bar to get poison gas bomb and traps.

level 10

Poison gas bomb is super efficient at clearing packs at low levels and will even wipe out undead just as easily as living (except ghosts) until end of normal, if not halfway into epic. This skill is the first priority to max.

Traps won't be very useful with the first few points in them and until rapid construction is maxed, so there is no need to bother with pet jewellery until act II normal. They will become more practical by end of act II - beginning of act III and will be already needed there too, so its best to plan ahead and put some points in them every now and then. They are the second priority to max.

level 25

Envenom weapon is the third priority to max. Maxing both masteries can usually be done around level 40, if putting 3 points to mastery bar and 3 points into skills every other level.

level 40

Next, skills are maxed in an order traps - envenom weapon - rune of life - aftershock - throwing knives - flash powder. The build is mostly finished by level 55.

level 55

level 70



Gameplay and tactics

Poison rogue has distinctive contactless tactic made possible by poison gas bomb and traps. These two skills have unlimited range so you can hurl them wherever you want within direct line of sight, and kill packs before they see you. Withing shorter range it will use menhir wall followed by same gas bomb  or throwing knives for packs, or just hitting individual mobs with throwing weapon.

Spoiler for Hiden:
Sending traps and gas bomb from act I to act V in Arcadia


DOTs in Titan Quest do not stack, they are good at killing mobs but slow at bosses, though placing few traps can still speed up boss fights.

There are several mobs and locations worth noting. Reflect mobs can be very dangerous when you have lots of poison damage. Using something like Gorgon's Edge on mobs like draconian mages is a terrible idea. Use traps to deal with them. Reflect also demands 80% poison resistance in endgame at all times. Not an easy thing to do I know, but I will note a couple of simpler solutions in gear section.

Yggdrasil area has mobs with very high projectile resistance. Mobs get additional proj resist on epic and legendary, so these mobs get to 100% in legendary. Add to this that they all have moderate reflect too. I don't know if its working as intended or an oversight, but for a build like this one relying on projectiles mostly it is a PITA. Poison gas bomb works, but a melee weapon is also needed in legendary. Just don't use lethal strike on them. Get a stack of health potions before going there too.

Ghosts are not affected by either poison or bleed. They also have 60% physical and pierce damage absorbtion that makes them a harder target for physical traps. They are the reason traps are needed early and before you meet lots of them (act IV lost souls). When dealing with them, use debuffing skills and attacks. Winds of Asphodele in particular is better for this task than Gorgon's Edge, but any other source is useful.



Gear Discussion

A poison rogue needs some + skills, +4 rogue is mandatory (because traps, throwing knives), rune can be left at lower but having both masteries maxed is always good. Around 400% poison damage. I consider bleed secondary, but having some is useful with so many bleed skills. My character has 500% poison and can oneshot any mob with throwing knives or gas bomb up to legendary volcanic wyrm, cyclops and yotuns. With Gorgons Edge, he oneshots legendary yotuns too. So it is actually a very high number, but then the lower you have it, the longer you have to wait for mobs to die, running around in circles is fun up to a certain limit. Mana regen is needed to use all the expensive spells, energy absorb and mana leech can also help. 2-3 items with pet damage for traps, this is most common on magic and rare jewellery but can also be found on several strength based armor pieces like gloves and boots. DA and resistances as always.

Where to get DA. This is simple, build is lucky to be dexterity based and every one point of dex is one point of DA. Dexterity can bring around 700 or more than 1000 DA alone. If you scale dexterity with items getting 1000 isnt hard, but these items are not common. Star of Ishtar artifact has 20%, then there are also Sigil of Bast and Symbol of the Polymath. Sigurd courage relic has 9%. A number of rogue related items have high flat dexterity.

1000 DA is sufficient number for endgame when you can keep mobs at distance. 1200 is a more comfortable level though.

Additional DA can be procured from relics. Guan Yu grace and Shade of Hector, both with DA completion. Monkey King can have 75 DA completion.

Where to get poison damage
Assasin's cover is one of the convenient ways to get  that when you happen to have the items, my character uses 3 out of 4.

Diseased plumage charm can have up to 50% (with 25% completion)

Ismene's helm has 40% along with 80% poison resist. Common MI that drops from lamias in act IV that can also help to solve the issue with poison resist.

Jormungandr guards happen to have 33% along with 90% poison resist, +1 rogue and +1 rune. Can similarly help with poison resist.

Venomhusk shield has 50%.

Envenom weapon provides 170% poison damage and is something every poison rogue is going to have.

Dexterity can provide 100-150% (100% per 600 points). 100% is guaranted then, extra 50% can be procured from dexterity scaling, see "where to get DA" above on this.

Where to get energy regen
Items with high flat mana regen. Puppetmaster's rare necklaces, Eldhrimnir stew relic (with rare chest), ring of Veleda, golden shield of Pelaron, Apples of Idun artifact.



Screens of items used in build

Spoiler for Hiden:
Spoiler for Hiden:
Spoiler for Hiden:



Head - Assasin's shroud, option: Ismene's helm

Chest - Assasin's harness, option: prowler's cuirass

Hands - Assasin's bracers, Jormungandr guards, Stonebinder's cuffs, Bracers of the Nemean lion (for pet damage)

Legs - Assasin's greaves, option: Belisama's greaves

Ring 1 - Ring of Veleda, option: Star of Elysium

Ring 2 - rare with Allfather's prefix (pet damage)

Necklace - rare with Allfather's prefix

Artifact - Talisman of the Jade Emperor, Star of Ishtar, Wheel of Taranis

Weapon (throw) - Gorgon's edge, Winds of Asphodel, otherwise use rares with poison damage and Shen Nong

Weapon (melee) - Deathweaver's legtip

Shield - rare with +2 rune, any rare or legendary shield can actually be used here, whatever you wish











6
How did Nordic managed to make Russian voice acting about as good as the original game where there was professional by whoever did the disc version (Buka?), and then completely fuck up the English one? Its a shame to even complain about that when they should have made less of it to begin with, to save budget on unique models for the expansion. To not make hero character models into guards and the like  >:(

This expansion priorities are all wrong with a dozen native voice acting for mobs, console versions (that are even also fucked up I heard) and then reusing models from the original game on industrial scale.

Someone did the effort to model this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glauberg Good job by the way. Impressed.

Spoiler for Hiden:

Only to fuck it up completely with that guard model. There are more of them in that settlement too

Spoiler for Hiden:



7
This is a presentation of a battlemage build made as a melee warrior with spells. It is strength based and uses physical damage in both spells and attacks. It is possible thanks to Nordic making spell physical damage grow with strength stat. Build uses Giant's Tooth mace (GM). People here seem to dislike it considering it overpowered and I don't quite like it myself, but for a physical caster this weapon is just in place. It might be the strongest physical weapon in the game, however, the only thing it has is damage, lots of it. It does not have life steal, offensive ability or attack speed. Warfare build can use that, but for others it is not automatically BiS, not without extra effort to compensate its drawbacks at least.


TitanCalc


Build stat distribution is str : dex 1 : 1. So much dex for defensive ability, it isn't strictly necessary, but with my gear choices its more convenient to do it that way. It could be 3 : 2 with more DA items.

Battlemages rule late normal and epic, volcanic orb and eruption are extremely effective there. Making them still effective in late legendary requires investing a lot in both %str and %physical damage on gear however. Some physical eruption damage testing with various weapons is here.



Battlemage's (obvious) strength is physical resistance, class gets 35% without even trying, and it can be capped with appropriate gear choices, mine is 1% off maximum. Though it looks blatantly OP, it does not make you feel immortal in a way like haruspex projectile evasion and DA did in IT. Biggest reason of this are archers, piercing damage, which are in every corner of every map in this game. They make you still need damage converted to health like any normal melee, which is why I am using just one GT mace (though I honestly have only one too), and a rare weapon with anubis wrath relic. Same rare weapon also helps with attack speed which would be very poor with two GTs. Thanks to physical resistance, very high DA is not necessary - most melee mobs won't even scratch you anyway, dactyls aren't dangerous. Notable exeptions are those with significant non-physical damage on melee attacks, like undead at Zealand shore or Wusao lancers.

Spoiler for Hiden:

Another practical application is Secret Passage farming. So much physical res makes you highly resistant to your own damage reflected and very well prepared for Toxeus. Eruption can also kill three stinky figures in inaccessible cage without forcing you to swap positions and portaling out.



Gear screens and explanation

Spoiler for Hiden:
Spoiler for Hiden:
Spoiler for Hiden:


Chest - Master Forge Cuirass with stew of Eldhrimnir relic - this is a Prowler's cuirass for str builds since it comes with 25% base elemental resist, thats 75% base resists (fire + cold + lightning). Worse than prowlers actually in that regard but much better armor. Relic is for mana regen that build needs to cast expensive spells.

Head - Helmet of Valhalla - used for +1 all skills and +20% total speed aura, a very valuable stat for any caster wannabes and hybrids since it improves both attack and cast speed.

Hands - Gautlets of the Necrolord - +1 all skills and lots of resistances, minor life steal, some attack speed

Feet - Hervor's Fine Steel - +1 warfare, physical resistance, DA, resist

Necklace - Torc of the Ancestors - +1 all skills, physical resistance and other resist

Ring 1 - common rare hale of supremacy with ankh of Isis relic - %str and %hp, DA, relic for more hp and resist

Ring 2 - Ring of the Three - +1 earth, some recharge, used here to get +4 earth and get ultimate level of eruption and volcanic orb

Weapon 1 - Giant's Tooth mace - something like +180% physical damage counting together %str, %physical damage and Durinn's work. I was hoping for life steal there but he made more %physycal instead like I'm lacking it

Weapon 2 - common rare axe, murderous of annihilation with Anubis wrath relic - Some %physical and Anubis wrath for life steal and attack speed.

Weapon swap - double Chackrum of the Sun - was there to have something more to throw at phantoms in Mimer's maze from range

Relic - Star of Ishtar - physical resistance, elemental resistance, %str, %dex





Secret passage run


8
Rogue AE / Concept: Traps and Poison Assasin
« on: 13 August 2018, 22:20:14 »
I was trying to theorycraft some builds for rogue summoner that simultaneously uses some support attacks and came up with TitanCalc. This is supposed to be a character using 3 pet jewellery items and a throwing weapon, Gorgon's edge or winds of Asphodele (or both?). With Ismene's helm and/or Assasins set. Traps and poison for all mobs, battle standard as pet buff for harder challenges and ancestral horn angry mob for even harder ones.

It occured to me that rather than giving some attack to a summoner it offers something for a poison build to use on undead and constructs. Poison damage is not self-sufficient damage type and suffers high absorbtion on first ones and full on second ones. Physical damage on the other hand is almost universal, and only weak against ghosts.

I haven't played with poison seriously ever so not sure how much of its % boost is enough. 300% like on assasin set? With 700-1000 dexterity?

Next thing the build needs is reduced recharge for battle standard and ancestral horn. Jade Emperor should of course fit but what else can be used here? Golden shield of Pelaron? Odysseus armor? Both of these have zero resist, which combined with common rare rings won't make building a good resist pool easy.

9
Spirit AE / Liche King is dubious
« on: 01 August 2018, 00:08:25 »
I've been trying to make this body do something useful in a non-summoner build and couldn't.

Since life reduction is now useless against bosses, so is the liche king, and he lacks the damage to be of any help against both bosses or trash mobs. Arcane blast makes no difference, it is approx 1,5 times stronger than main attack which is still too low in legendary. Best I could make him do is 1,5K-2,5K (normal attack - arcane blast) with the help of deathchill, unearthly power and the circle of power. But then my character in same conditions does 7K per ternion projectile and 3-4-5 shots bosses before liche reacts to their presence.

Spoiler for Hiden:

His attacks  do not convey pet damage from gear, thus he is only made stronger with % buffs like circle of power or nightmare's mastermind, which is still not much.

He can be used as decoy to distract bosses, but nightmare can do the same for 2 points.

This leaves him the role of the glorified debuff tool for 16 points which you can not control directly, slower than seal of fate.

10
Hunting AE / Spear and shuriken slayer build showcase
« on: 19 July 2018, 23:52:44 »
This is a slayer build using throwing weapons and a spear in equal proportion. It resembles older TQIT hunting piercing damage builds but uses some new weapon sets. I started this one long ago but was originally using bone darts not having most of the newer gear at the time.

Build goes approx 1 : 1 str : dex until ~level 65, then all dexterity. 2 stat points spent in health, 10 points in energy, thats all normal and epic stat point quest rewards.


TitanCalc




Fully buffed DPS (call of the hunt and battle standard)


Bone darts can do much better in numbers
Spoiler for Hiden:

thanks to double Valor of Achilles, however, what they do not have compared to Jagged Silk is volley WPS. Build already has it from the mastery, but two weapons add more and these stack with each other, making the chance of its proc go up. Since build is also dual wielding them, that makes for a good chance to throw 6 projectiles with one click. Jagged Silk also has adcth, though 5% is rather low and not enough for good sustain, but it still allows to not use adcth on any other items. For me it freed the necklace slot, allowing to put there an item with projectile evasion.


Switching weapons provides an opportunity to capitalize on evasion and projectile evasion accessible for the class from dodge attack and find cover skills.  These are around 30% with +skills. Zeno's paradox shield brings both to 50%. Then some other gear can bring that even higher, with my necklace I have 66% chance to avoid projectiles. Onslaught skill with ignore pain modifier also adds physical and pierce resistance when it has charges, making physical go up to 33% and pierce to 80% cap. Not only this makes a character into tank without super high defensive ability, its also the best (and only) defense from ranged mobs available to the class. Which is important for a throwing weapons build not using good crowd control skills, especially when going against undead archers whom you can't leech life from.



Gear screens and explanation
Spoiler for Hiden:




Chest - Prowlers cuirass - nothing new or special here, high resist item with stew of Eldhrimnir for mana regen

Head - Tracker's hood - very popular item from the set with high %pierce damage modifier and - recharge

Legs - Tracker's leg guard - used together with the helm for its own resists and set bonus

Arms - Stonebinder's cuffs with rage of Ares- easy +3 skills for a dexterity build, rage of Ares is a potent damage booster for physical and pierce builds

Necklace - common item with honor guard's of guile and demon's blood - valuable pierce resistance and chance to avoid projectiles. Pierce resistance is valuable to withstand your own damage from reflect mobs too. Going from 52% chance to avoid projectiles to 66% does not seem like a lot, but its actually going from half of all arrows missing to 2/3 of them missing, quite a change.

Ring 1 - Appollo's will - popular option with %pierce damage modifier and resistances

Ring 2 - common item with hale of power prefix and suffix and demon's blood - some %str and %health and a little mana

Artifact - Star of Ishtar - +20% str is a DPS boost, +20% dexterity is not only that but also +1 OA and DA for every point of dexterity it gives, and thats alot. 15% physical resistance, 25% elemental, such a pretty item

Main ranged weapons - Jagged Silk - a throwing weapon with high piercing ratio, life steal and volley proc

Melee weapon - Blacksteel spike with devouring suffix and valor of Achilles - not the most impressive stats but doing well, life steal on it is necessary

Shield - Zeno's third paradox - 20% chance to dodge attacks and projectiles








Having fun with black elves in Muspelheim:


11
Hunting AE / Elemental Archer Sage build showcase
« on: 14 July 2018, 15:33:30 »
Hello, you might remember my previous elemental conversion build, dragon hunter. This time I have a new one.

TitanCalc






This one went with storm mastery that has some others useful assets for elemental weapons user, instead of intelligence there is flat damage and percentage damage increases in skills like storm nimbus and eye of the storm. Since the build cannot scale intelligence properly needing lots of dexterity for bows, it scales flat and % damage from both gear and skills.

Stat distribution is 8 points in strength, then dexterity : intelligence 1 : 1 until level 64, then all in intellinence. Normal and epic stat points rewarded for quests go in health (12 points).

This is the epitome of glass cannon with low DA, hp, no defensive stats anywhere except squall damage reduction and not much CC.

Hunting mastery is still there with its debuff in flush out, volley WPS, wood lore and minor utility skills like herbal remedy and find cover/trail blazing. Maxed movespeed is a useful asset for survival especially since this build can't do much else in certain situations having rather poor crowd control. Marksmanship is also used as main attack with no better alternatives.

Build puts points in multiple crowd control skills, thunderball, freezing blast, ensnare and monster lure. This is because their effects do not affect all mobs equally. Yotuns for example are not affected by any of them, and I had to go through most of legendary Yotunheim with spear and shield. Eldyotuns are immune to freezing, but can be stunned and immobilized. Crystal golems can't be stunned. This forces the build to use different combinations in different places. Squall, besides its debuff is used to put impair aim on archers and is the only reliable tool here.

Spell breaker is a versatile utility skill to remove buffs and reset skills on mobs, casting it proves useful on half of all the mobs in the game. Casters and magical are most affected of course. Kelpie, for example, are fully neutered, everything they do seems to be a spell and they can only follow you tragically after this, while slowly losing health to electric burn and squall.




Gear screens:

Spoiler for Hiden:


Using bows and other two handers strips the character of 1-2 resistance sources and maxing them is harder. Bows aren't easy to use in Anniversary edition game.


Chest - Prowler's cuirass with Eldhrimnir stew for energy regen, this is a resistance chest with energy regen relic that has even more resist

Helm - Golden Agris - used for damage conversion to elemental. This or a similar item is necessary for adequate DPS

Hands - Stonebinder cuffs with primal magma - easy +3 all skills for a dexterity build, primal magma here is a way to get adequate fire resistance. I'd love to use cold essence there but 20% fire resistance in legendary is unbearable.

Feet - Boots of Freyja - resistances, DA, recharge

Necklace - Shavo's relic - 60% elemental damage is to scale it without int. There aren't many items like that unfortunately, I can remember Hesione's golden veil but have a necessary competitor for the helm slot

Ring 1 - Common ring with arctic prefix and legendary eitr - lots of flat damage on one item

Ring 2 - Common ring with occult prefix and legendary eitr - for cast speed and more flat elemental damage

Apples of Idun artifact is for vitality resistance and that rare stun resistance

Main weapon - Bramblewood bow with Anubis wrath for lifesteal and attack speed - there are no better bows in the game still and that one has lots of flat elemental damage on it. I tried a bramblewood with lifesteal on it and chill of tartarus relic to capitalize on stacking slow (with arctic ring), but 170% attack speed with 30% slow is better than 140% as with 60% slow.

I forgot to add secondary weapon set, there is a chtonian spike spear for offensive ability the build is lacking, and a shield from act 2 normal with shade of Hector relic, a pure stat stick for DA.






A video with Mimer's maze, Doppelganger and Mimer himself


12
Runemaster AE / Rune Weapon Dragon Hunter Build showcase
« on: 17 June 2018, 17:29:46 »
Header means this is not really a guide, just a brief description of what the build ended like, and how, and why.

TitanCalc link

This is a strong build, perhaps not at the level of some broken builds of TQIT time, but not some elemental hybryd weirdo like they used to be in TQIT time either.

Hunting has some very useful things for an elemental attack build, first of all flush out which makes dealing with 60% all resist monsters have in legendary simpler. Then also volley WPS and wood lore passive. Overall, hunting does not have much for elemental build however, being focused on piercing, there is also herbal remedy, find cover and that's about it. Because of that, dragon hunter is almost all about rune mastery, and takes every skill there, except guardian stones.

This is essentially an elemental attack build with spells. It features capped run speed, almost capped attack speed and very high cast speed to be very nimble. It relies on using skills or just outrunning foes rather than facetanking.

Stats are 1 : 1 dex : int all the time, this is a dexterity/intelligence hybrid like nothing that used to be common in IT. 7 quest rewards, or 14 points, go into energy, mostly for energy armor sustain.

I started it as a developed character at level 40 to avoid dealing with gear and stat issues a hybrid may face at early levels. It should be bossible to level it from level 1, starting as rune and relying on flat elemental damage gear for damage and +strength gear for requirements. Items like storm eye epic ring and rares with "electrified of frost" or similar rolls. Flat elemental damage on throwing weapons, bows and spears, with Zeus thunderbolt for even more flat elemental. That should suffice until the end of normal when rune weapon gets enough points to matter.

Rune weapon skill except energy drain, runeword: feather and wood lore are maxed first together with masteries, everything else is at 1 pt. Then resistance skills, rune of life and herbal remedy, and flush out for debuff. Next rune mastery spells in any order, I started with seal of fate for nuke and runic mines for fun and utility, but it can be thunder strike instead. Energy drain and Menhir wall are left for the last. Energy armor is leveled cautiously, for its price to not exceed available mana pool. Build has leftower points when using blessing of the Moirae weapon, these can go in study prey, trail blazing and art of the hunt, however, these do not benefit the build itself and may only help other people in multiplayer.



DPS tooltip for rune weapon is of course deceiving without charges, it shows dps of non converted physical weapon when the build is intelligence and elemental damage based. Fully charged rune weapon is below



Gear screens are below

Spoiler for Hiden:
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Spoiler for Hiden:

Spoiler for Hiden:

Most of these legendaries are improved by Durinn and Dvalinn, some pretty impressively.


Armor - prowler's cuirass with dragon's blood - this is still a very solid chest for resists which can be enchanted with relics.

Dragon's blood relic in chest is debattable, 20% chance of 100% resistance is not the same as 20% resistance of course, but since hero mostly takes that damage in many hits it helps a glassy character with low DA anyway. Dragon hunter's ring has more of that, but for pierce. Dragon's blood competes with Golden fleece here which could have made energy armor much more sustainable.

Hands - Stonebinder's cuffs with primal magma - together with dragon hunter's ring grant +4 all skills so these aren't needed anywhere else on gear, freeing up some slots for other stats.

Helm - common item with impenetrable of focus with cunning of Odysseus - just something with recharge and a resist, and cunning of Odysseus relic for dps that can be replaced with some resist relic if needed.

Feet - Esus travelling boots - are mostly for resist, that extra movespeed proc isn't necessary, its already capped.

Shield - Hera's shield is there for hp, resist, and its minor debuff, though it also has str/dex/int that can help with stat requirements.

Necklace - Polydegmon - is one of the main DPS boosting items. Build puts lots of points in dex to use stonebinders, then gets missing intelligence from items like this one. Build also needs good energy regen and luckily Polydegmon has just enough, together with 80 int (+40 from legendary craftsmanship quest).

1st ring - Dragon Hunter's ring

2nd ring - Rare ring with occult prefix and demon's blood - is a way to get decent cast speed.

Main weapon - Blessing of the Moirae might be a BiS weapon or one of the best available.

Spear is just something with flat damage picked along the way, used only against shadow lurkers, nixie and some mobs at Iggdrasil.


Out of scrolls, scroll of the sun blessing adds 150 flat fire damage and by that increases displayed DPS by 1,5. Primordial chaos also has flat elemental, but also % total and 40% damage absorption which is the same as "all damage taken reduced by 40%". Legendary frost nova can be used for utility. Normally this build does not need these extras, but in late legendary act 5 something like sun's blessing can speed up the process.











13
How really viable this and distortion wave are in legendary for a generic melee build? When you are stacking strength, %strength and physical damage but perhaps not going over the top with that and want to use them as direct damage AOE spells. What about eruption used by juggernauts and battlemages?

14
Anniversary Edition - General discussion / Flat damage scaling
« on: 13 April 2018, 09:49:40 »
Are there resources or writeups left where the subject is discussed in detail? The changelog states "damage from items" now scales with strength, dexterity, etc.

However I think there was a mess in the original game with what things scale and what things don't scale with stats and %damage, like valor of Achilles scales while peng claws do not. Seems like peng claws do not scale even now. There is more, I remember guides at the time advised against leveling marksmanship above 1 initial point for some reason. Maybe it was just that kind of flat damage that didn't scale, but now it does not give any damage at all. Investing into skill does not change dps tooltip. Thats with throwing weapons btw, maybe I need to test a bow too.

15
Humor / Its terrible how the Aces are doing
« on: 02 April 2018, 18:59:25 »
If they have to rally another world to protect their own. And the only thing their opponent really needs is a well placed portal (defence breach)

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