No, only a Legendary thing iirc. Do you mean the wand or the extra helper?  Wand maybe, helper is Legendary only I think.

Should have maxed wolves straightaway.  It can be done by L7.  Then they shred things while you do the other stuff.

They should do pretty well up until Act 4 Normal.  The IT expansion boosted difficulty all round and they do tend to go down quickly in that Act.  Can't say how well they perform in Act 5 since I haven't run a petmancer through there yet. 

Keep well back and let wolves do the work.  If you cast a spell before they engage the enemy they'll switch their focus to you and come after you.  Only cast after wolves/pets have already started their attacks.  And if you get chased, run around in a circle.  That way pets can catch up and attack.

Dream can be good, but I find it's AoE spells a bit limiting since they only go a certain distance and can't be cast through walls, etc.  I'd go for Storm for Squall and Lightning Bolt since both can be used that way.  That said, an Haruspex (Hunting/Dream) can be very strong if you want a ranged bow using toon. With both Trance of Convalescence and Herbal Remedy you get plenty of health and energy regn, Nightmare's Hypnotic Gaze to confuse enemies, etc.  If you don't mind playing with pets then a Druid (Storm/Nature) could be good.  Max wolves straight away and they'll get you though most of Acts 1 and 2 without too many problems.  Throw in the Nympth and Wisp and you've a good team working for you while you cast Squall, Lightning Bolt or Plague from afar.  Set them to aggressive (right click on their icons and choose that) and watch them go to work.   A Sage (Hunting/Storm) might be another good choice, or if you want a melee then try a Paladin (Defense/Storm) or Juggernaut (Defense/Earth).

The main thing to bear in mind is not to max out skills eary.  Very few of TQ's skills need to be maxed: Onslaught, Wolves (if playing a petmancer), Squall are pretty much the only ones you need to max right off.  Otherwise you're better climbing the masteries and putting just a point into each skill you want to use since the masteries themselves help you with str/int/dex, health and energy increases helping you stay alive.

Well done you two.    Progress updated and good luck.

Quote from: Tauceti on 31 March 2018, 12:53:44

Progress from Saiga:
My feeling about Act 5 is that it is tedious with Xmax because of densely populated areas. And got some performance issues in badly optimized zones (troll camps, war camps).

I really do wish there was a fix for this, Act 5 xmax became unplayable for mage hardcore on my old i3 rig, unless you pulled and cleared at snail pace. There wasn't even a chance of running past the horde. Even with me upgrading to a new rig (i7 7700, 16 gb RAM, GTX 1080) im still getting stutters and half a second freezes/lags during gameplay.

@Tauceti gj on progress man... hope you clear the challenge, might boost my motivation to grind again. Having too much fun with Darkest Dungeon at the moment...

Um, interesting gasconron.  I haven't noticed any lag with my old PC, but have only run through the expansion once so far in normal play.  I have an LoC Wanderer in there at the moment and some quests seem to be bugged as BG hasn't updated his mod for Ragnarok yet, but so far it's been smooth.  I just got a new rig too, quite close to yours I think, so will be interesting to see if I do have problems when I get an Xmax toon that far.  Won't be for a couple of weeks though since I'm off on holiday tomorrow so no machine to play on. Everyone keep posting their progress though and I'll update when I get back. 

Yes, it is and of course some of the gear may have changed in AE.  It's a knife spammer hence the name Bladeflinger.