Titan Quest Atlantis “Trickster : Traps and Poison Extravaganza” Guide(Poison Gas Bomb, Traps, INT based Trickster Build)
Oh! Curse that Trickster!!! The name “Trickster” sound cool and appealing to many players, but you’ll curse the day you’ve chosen to become a Trickster. The combination of Rogue and Rune masteries is no class for beginners, since it’ll make everything complex, from your stat distributions to skill combinations.
At the time I was building my Trickster, I had already built around 20+ characters with each top tier gear I could freely choose, and yet I still feel that it’s very hard to make Trickster into a strong character. I’d say that this is one of the weakest combination in the game.
Let’s analyze why Trickster is one of the most problematic characters.
1. If you want to be a weapon user (whether throwing or melee) : Rogue is focused on piercing, bleeding and poison damage, while Rune is all about conversion from physical (and piercing) damage to elemental. If you go with INT as a base and choose Rune Weapon as your default attack, you’ll lose piercing damage, which is one of the selling points of Rogue mastery. If you go into STR, and choose Calculated Strike, you won’t get much synergy with Rune.
2. If you want to be a Trapper : Rune doesn’t offer any pets, only Guardian Stones, which are static and have a super long cooldown. And worst of all, Rune doesn’t provide you with any aura. So your traps won’t get any benefit from Rune.
3. If you want to be a Knife Thrower: Rune offers you Magical Charge (+63 elemental damage to your knife) but you’ll have to continue hitting the enemy to keep Rune Weapon active all the time. So you can’t really spam your knives and you’ll need both attack speed (for default attack) and casting speed (for Throwing Knife). That’s not very effective.
4. Splitting your stat points to equip all INT, DEX, and STR (shield) items will make you end up with too low Health, Energy, not enough DA or OA. A typical problem for Rune characters.
Why Trickster?I’ve sacrificed over 160 deaths to find out this hidden side of Rogue and Rune synergy. It’s all about Rhythm and Probability of skill combinations. What is it? The key skills of this build all take time to activate, they are randomly exploded – aimlessly fire projectiles – uncontrolled scattered fragments all over the map and mobs are accidentally hit by them. Seriously!!?? Sound super awful… but together they will create a deadly playground for every mob step into. Imagine your traps fire 24 projectiles, 40+ shrapnel will be scattered throughout the map, 20+ Runic mines will spring up on the ground, add on top the AOE (area of effect) of 4 Poison Gas Bombs and Seal of Fate in every 2.5 sec. All mobs will be hit by 10 things at once - elemental, bleeding, poison and piercing damage will add up and kill them.
Since the build depend a lot on skills combos, let’s have a look at the skills first.
ROGUE SKILLSOne of the main reason I’ve build the Trickster is because I love to poison the enemies. So Poison Gas Bomb would be the main skill here.
Poison Gas Bomb tree : This skill use to underperform before the Atlantis DLC, many players ignored it because it’s uncontrolled. You toss it… hope that it’ll kill and slow a pack of enemies then…if it hit the target it’ll explode (that’s fine), if not it will ruin your plan by staying on the ground for 1-2 sec and then explode when a mob already kill you. What a pity T_T
Now that the DLC buffed this skill with new synergy - Poison Mayhem - which lets you toss up to 4 bombs at the same time. Super awesome! I recommend to use this skill as your left mouse click, If you have a lot of -recharge, you can throw this poison bomb all the time.
1. Poison Gas Bomb (base skill) – Max this! For 6 meter radius, 566 poison damage and slowing effect.
2. Shrapnel – The underrated skill, many players put only 1 point to it. I recommend to max this for 40+ fragments of shrapnel from 4 Poison Gas Bomb to fly over the screen, each one will inflict 215 piercing and 255 bleeding damage to every enemy it hits. This synergy is very destructive with the new DLC.
3. Poison Mayhem – At level 10 you’ll throw 4 Poison Gas Bombs at the same time.
Lay Trap tree : Max all of the skills. Consider maxing out Improved Firing Mechanism and Rapid Construction first. If you don’t have enough points, you can leave base skill at lower level and wear pet rings to add up more damage to your traps.
Envenom Weapon tree : Max Toxin Distillation and Night Shade to make your Poison Gas Bomb reach its full potential. You can cut some point to invest in base skill and Mandrake to add poison damage and confusion effect to your weapon attack.
Anatomy : This passive skill will increase your bleeding damage. Invest some points or max it to make your bloody shrapnel even more deadly.
Flash Powder : In case your stone wall falls, you can cast this skill to protect yourself. I recommend to max this for effective radius and chance of confusion.
Blade Horning : Invest some points to it, just to add flat piercing damage to your weapon attack and traps. It’s also great to provide this aura in multiplayer.
Disarm Traps : Constructs are immune to poison and bleeding, so you have to use your elemental damage to destroy them. Invest some points to the skill to make you own every construct mob like golem and mimer’s drone in the maze.
RUNE SKILLSDespite being a poison build, you’ll never have problems fighting against undead and constructs, reflective mobs won’t be too dangerous because you have Rune mastery. Let see how it works.
Runic Mine tree : The skill is now super crazy in Atlantis DLC. Its new synergy, Rune Field, will make up to 30 mine traps pop up around the area. This can be a blessing and a curse : Great damage dealing and crowd control indeed, the mine will freeze and slow enemies who step on them, but they will draw aggro from nearby mob, making it hard to control.
Either max this entire tree or leave Rune Field unmax. The skill has a different pattern in each level, some level - the mine will pop up more around your toon, some are scattered throughout the area. Rune Field will also cost a lot of mana. If you cannot afford it, consider invest only a few points until you’ve found the most effective pattern.
Seal Of Fate tree : Max all of the skills for 1300 elemental damage!!! Stun and 46% HP reduction. The synergy After Shock will add 484 Bleeding damage and 77 reduction to all resistances, which is amazing for a poison build. Good side - one of the most powerful nuke in game with huge resistances reduction, everything will go down fast once it got hit by the skill. Bad side – Very short radius and it takes 1-2 sec to explode, making the skill hard to aim. Good side (again) – You’ll have a lot of cool down reduction, so you can cast this skill every 2-3 seconds. Consider it as a TNT bomb on your killing field.
Menhir Wall : Summon a stone wall to block mobs, a good crowd control skill. Mobs in acts 4 and 5 will destroy the wall too fast, so I recommend to max this in late game.
Runeword : Feather : Try to max this skill before you invest much on your stat points, since it’ll lower STR requirement for weapons and shields. You won’t have to invest much on STR (none or just a few points will do) and stay focused on INT and DEX to increase your elemental, piercing, poison and bleeding damage.
Rune protective skills : Though Rune doesn’t provide you with any aura, the mastery will give you some protective buffs and passive skills. So don’t forget to invest points in Rune of Life (10% movement speed, %STR, vitality and bleeding resistance), Runeword : Absorb (-% shield recovery time = you’ll block incoming damage more frequently), and Energy Armor (physical, piercing and bleeding absorption shield) to greatly increase the survivability of your toon.
Guardian Stones : Invest some points to the skill just to speed things up when encountering a tough boss.
Tactics, Play Style and SynergyKilling Field Combo : Traps – Poison Gas Bomb – Seal of Fate – Runic Mine First, Cast Menhir Wall to block mobs and start setting up your traps – throw a Poison Gas Bomb and cast your Seal of Fate around traps or stone wall – then boooom! Poison Gas Bomb and Seal of Fate will explode at the same time as your traps start to fire their projectile – Come closer to the mob and cast Runic Mine, enemy will run around and step on your mines. Bang!!! Bang!! Bang!! (It’ll be very noisy, I warn you) – Kite around and continue to throw poison bombs and Seal of Fate until all enemies have been dealt with.
There are many synergies between these skills as follow.
Poison Gas Bomb + Runic Mine = Enemies will run back and forth, thanks to the fear effect, and step on every mine and shrapnel possible. This is very entertaining!
Menhir Wall + Flash Powder + Energy Armor + Sacred Rage = Quadruple protection.
If your Menhir Wall should fall down, re-cast the wall or just use Flash Powder to confuse all enemies surrounding you. If it fails, you’ll have your energy armor and damage absorption from Sacred Rage as your final protection.
Traps + Menhir Wall + Seal of Fate = Lock on targets.
Traps and wall will taunt the mobs to gather around them, super good for your Seal of Fate nuke.
Energy Armor + Flash Powder + Runic Mine = Suicide flash bomb.
When facing ranged enemies, they will destroy your wall quickly and can happen to fire projectiles over the wall. You can rush into the group of foes and cast Flash Powder along with Runic Mine. They will get confused and step on your deadly mines (make sure that your Energy Armor is on or you’ll be one shot to death). Kite around and continue casting Flash Powder, Poison gas Bomb and Runic Mine until they are destroyed.
Rune of Life + Energy Armor = Reflect damage protections.
Normally, Poison Gas Bomb build will face a serious problem with reflective mob. But Energy Armor will cut the bleeding and piercing damage out, Rune of Life will also increase your bleeding resistance. I’d say that 30-40% of reflect damage will be absorbed by the shield, so continue re-casting Energy Armor after it breaks. You’ll still need high poison resistance - around 50% to be safe when fighting reflective enemy.
Stat DistributionRune characters always have some problems with stat, too low HP, DA and Energy will be the case.
My trickster is an INT based caster, but she also needs high DEX to equip throwing weapons and boost piercing, bleeding and poison damage of spells. You’ll need around 500 INT and DEX to equip endgame gear.
Don’t invest points too much in INT until you’ve found the right gear. Many INT items also have +INT on them, so it might be better to invest points to reach 450 INT first and let your gear do the rest.
I recommend to invest points on HP to reach around 5,500(many items will boost your HP too)
Energy pool is also important, because you’ll need to cast Energy Armor. The effective level of this skill is above level 8 (cost 684 energy). You’ll need to reserve some of your energy for Envenom Weapon aura, Runic Mine is also a very mana intensive skill. Invest some points on Energy to reach around 800.
DA should be around 1000, otherwise your Energy Armor will broken too often.
STR is optional. You’ll gain STR from many quests, as well as Runeword : Feather( -% STR req)
GEARPlease don’t hesitate to go INT route and don’t underestimate INT gear! The advantage of INT gear is it tends to have higher resistances than STR gear, and many of them come along with high amount of DA, casting speed and –recharge. They’re all needed here.
Your goal is to have
1. Good resistances and DA (especially pierce, bleed and poison)
2. +4 to Rogue, mainly for Rapid Construction skill that will reduce your traps’ recharge to 0.
3. 200%+ casting speed for setting up your traps.
4. -40% recharge or more, for effective use of all the spells and re-casting Menhir Wall, Energy Armor and Flash Powder for protection.
5. -20% energy cost or more to continue casting you expensive spells.
6. 150%+ movement speed. They are Trappers! Speed is very important for kitting around and dodging mobs. In multiplayer, you’ll need to reach the mob first to set up your traps or you’ll find yourself useless when your friend has already killed the enemy without any help from you. (many DEX items can boost your speed considerably.)
7. Pet jewelries or gear. Your traps will heavily underperform without them.
8. DPS and attack speed are optional
WEAPONMy Choice : Winds of Asphodel – 40+ Resistance reduction is golden for poison build.
When combined with Seal of Fate, they will apply -100 all resistances to the mob. Good amount of poison damage that comes along with 100 Life leech, makes it safe to use against reflective mob.
Alt Choices : Gorgon’s Edge – for +1 to Rogue and an insane amount of poison damage.
Touch of Nyx is good for 30% casting speed and – 30% energy cost.
Blessing of Morae, +1 to Rune and 35% elemental resistance, -20% recharge and 10% total speed.
Good green, MI weapon that has an Assassin affix (+2 to Rogue), socket it with Shen-Nong’s Dark Medicine relic (18 reduced resistances) with 25% poison damage bonus.
Actually, there are many good throwing weapons to choose from, for total speed, total damage, physical and other resistances. Caduceus Staff is also a great choice for huge resistances and +1 to Rogue.
SHIELD My Choice : Golden Shield of Pelaron (fire and lighting resistance upgrade) – One of the best shields for a hybrid caster character, it provides with you good casting speed, -recharge, and -energy cost, all in one.
Alt Choices : Shield of Skuld with high vitality, pierce, and poison resistance, and 10% total speed. 50 INT is also great(a bit too low block rate)
Any good shield like Zeno’s Third Paradox with 20 CTAP(chance to avoid projectiles) and dodging, Soldier Unyielding Will and good old Aionios (may need to invest some points on STR to equip highest level shield)
TORSO ARMORMy Choice : Mantle of Amun-Ra(pierce resistance upgraded) – One of the main reason I’ve build the Trickster is because of this mantle, it used to belong to my Thunderer before I changed to Coat of the Chosen and became an icesharder. This gorgeous robe has high fire resistance, 60 casting speed and -20 recharge. Perfect for the build and that stylish, egyptian, gold-red look is irresistible.
Alt Choices : Robes of Sidiros Loros, +100 INT and DA is not something to overlook, with 50 elemental resistance and 15 total speed! It’s a solid choice.
Plouton’s Cornucopia, high pierce resistance, 220 DA, -10 recharge and +1 to all skill. It’s also perfect!
Torso of Loki, as the name of the Trickster God suggests, is another possibility for this build. +2 to Rogue and Rune plus some good resistances and 10 total speed. (too bad…it looks awful in my opinion)
Prowler’s Cuirass, this MI from Tigerman is already have high Fire and good elemental resistance. You can socket Mechanical Part charm for total speed or Golden Fleece relic for -30% energy cost(the relic can also have -8 recharge bonus, but it’s very rare).
HEAD ARMORMy Choice : Hermes’ Winged Helm . Mainly for +1 to Rogue and 21% movement speed!. The helm also provide you some elemental resistance, 10% DEX, 126 DA and chance to dodge. It’s look matches perfectly with Mantle of Amun-Ra.
Alt Choices : Tracker’s Hood, for -40% recharge and a boost to your Shrapnel’s piercing damage, Assassin’s Shroud (100% poison damage), Ismene’s Helm (40% poison damage and 60% poison resistance) or choose more protection with the likes of: Crest of Hypnos, Coronal of the Abyss, and many other INT base helmets. Stheno’s Wisdom is a great choice for 70% casting speed and physical resistance.
HAND ARMORMy Choice : Armlets of Freyja (upgraded with cold resistance) – many high resistances, 100+ DA and some -recharge. These armlets also trigger Seal of Fate on attack adding up to even more confusion around the screen.
Alt Choices : Jormungandr Guards - good boost to your poison damage and they also have high poison resistance. +1 to Rogue and Rune is fit for our Trickster.
Archmage’s Clasp – A hand down mage gear for 100 casting speed and -40 recharge.
Stonebinder’s Cuffs, always a solid choice for hybrid character for +3 to all skills.
LEG ARMORMy Choice : Demonskin Walkers (Plato of Might upgraded) – my all time fav!! Great resistances and +1 to all skill. This upgrade is invaluable for my hybrid characters, one of the most useful items in my treasury.
Alt Choices : Belisama’s Greaves - many good resistances and 15% DA. +3 to Rapid Construction is also very helpful.
Boots of the Valkyrie, +1 to all skill and base 12% movement speed. You can socket it with Hermes’ Sandal relic to get more speed and resistances or Epona’s Horse relic with puppet master bonus (200 HP and 10% total speed to pets) to make your traps fire faster.
Volva’s Hardened Wraps, -10% recharge and -20% energy cost make these boots a solid choice for the build. It’s also has some good resistances and +1 to Rune.
JEWELRY My Choices :
Ring1 : Sindri’s Loop – very useful ring for a pet build. It’ll provide you -20% recharge, movement and casting speed, and some chance to dodge with 70 physical damage added to your pets.
Ring2 : Allfather’s ring of Supremacy – the highest level of pet ring with good DA, socketed it with demon’s blood for vitality resistance. You can choose +HP one if you like.
Amulet : Aphrodite’s Favor – great resistances, 900 HP and +2 to all skill make it’s one of the best amulet for casters. It’s not so good for weapon users, since the amulet will mind control mobs and it can be annoying, especially in multiplayer.
Alt Choices :
I’ve found some Ritualist Ring of the Tinkerer in Atlantis area, these rings are also a good choice for trapper since you can socket 2 relics or charms. Star of Evening relic with puppet master bonus can be socketed to the ring along with other resistances relic that you want. You can use one Occult Ring or amulet if you need casting speed.
ARTIFACTMy Choice : Knot of Isis – Boost poison damage and 20% CTAP with -20% energy cost.
Alt Choices : Golden Eye of Sun Wukong(boost elemental, pierce and poison damage with 15% total speed), Conqueror’s Mark (Boost your traps speed and -10 energy cost)
Performance in legendary: 9/10 (A good trapper and caster build)
Performance in 6-players difficulty: 7/10 (weak against Dactyl, a bit squishy and need to be very careful when encounter some tough mobs.)
Performance in Multiplayers 9/10 (devastating and uniqueness, make the gameplay more fun by draw aggro from every corner of the map. but -1 point for crashing the game
)
Fun meter: 10/10 (Very colorful play style)
The Guide was edited by Torstein.Thank you for reading, I love to build characters and share idea, hope it'd be useful. And if you want to see a particular one of my builds next, please say so
Link to my
Untouchable Spellbinder Guide :
https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=986.0Nuchy