Titan Quest Atlantis “Elementalist : The Supreme Intelligence” Guide(Classic old school mage, Tri-elemental Build)
Are mages viable in Legendary? CDR (cool down reduction) caps at 80%. Beside Icesharder, is there any good caster build? Should I focus only on one elemental damage? Do mages suck in comparison to warriors in this game?
These questions from both new and veteran players can be seen everywhere throughout web boards and communities. Back when I was building an Elementalist, I was wondering about it too.
“IMO Conqueror (Warfare + Defence ) is the archetype of a melee character and you can easily make it strong very easily. On the other hand, Elementalist (Storm + Earth) is a no brainer choice for a mage. If you cannot make it viable or as strong as a Conqueror, Titan Quest would fail to please many players, especially me as a mage lover.” The guide was made for this simple reason, to justify an old school mage in this game. My ideal elementalist, as the name suggests, should be the master of elemental – fire, lighting, and cold. This guide is focused on a classic high INT build wielding a staff, not a complex hybrid, which makes it friendly for new players.
HOW TO WORK WITH YOUR STATS As mentioned at the beginning, this is an old school mage build. You just need to pump your INT as much as possible. However, you also need to invest points in HP, DEX and Energy. Let’s see the spec.
INT : You’ll need at least 800+ INT to increase your elemental damage. 800-1000 INT is fine, 1000-1200 is good 1200-1400 is great and 1400+ is ideal. But don’t recklessly spend the points to reach that ideal amount because you’ll gain a lot of INT from your gear too.
650 INT will increase your elemental damage by 100%. If you can reach 1300 INT, it'll be 200% + 150%(from your WISP) +75% cold damage(HEART OF FROST) +100% lightning damage(STATIC CHARGE) +145% fire damage(EARTH ENCHANTMENT) + 245% fire damage (33% chance from your VOLATIVITY). It's 425%-740% already!!. Your gear can boost elemental damage too.
HP is important to every build. You should invest points to reach 5500+, which is the standard for moderate tanking ability.
DEX is less important here since it won’t increase your damage. Put some points to reach around 200+ to equip your end-game gear. I won’t recommend investing points in DEX just to increase your DA (1 DEX = 1DA), putting points in HP is more worthwhile IMO.
DA : You’ll have around 200 base (from your DEX), find the rest from gear to reach 500+ DA or more. Actually, the standard for DA is 800+ to prevent enemies from dealing critical hits. But for this low DA build, you’ll have a protective combo from the skills, together with +physical resistance gear.
Caution!!! too low DA like 200-300 will make you easily crit to death even if you have high physical resistance. So wearing at least 1 or 2 +DA item is essential.
Energy : Invest some points to reach around 1500+ energy. This’ll make a room for you to cast multiple spells efficiently (many items will increase your Energy, so don’t put too many points until you find the right gear).
STR can increase physical damage of some of your fire spell (ERUPTION, VOLCANIC ORB and METEOR RAIN), but this build focuses on elemental damage, so it’s clearly optional.
DPS can't show your real damage, since it's all about weapon attack. So you can ignore it.
We can roughly divide the efficiency of this character into 2 aspects: the damage output and the survivability. The former is no problem for an Elementalist, but the latter is somehow questionable.
“From my experience, survivability depends not only on your gear but also on your auras, skill combinations, and tactics. I’d say it’s around 40% gear 30% skill combos and 30% auras.”
HOW TO WORK WITH YOUR SPELLS COMBINATIONSYou’ll have a vast variety of spells to choose from. Hence why there’s no need to have a lot of CDR, because you can rotate your spells a lot. Tri-elemental combo is good to deal with all types of monsters. They surely have some weak points against either Fire, Cold or Lightning right?
The Wisp will boost your elemental damage (150% at max+4 level) add up to it Volativity (33% chance of 245% fire and burn damage). Your fire damage will be truly exceptional.
“My concept of spells combinations is “Defensive + Offensive”. Many EARTH and STORM spells aren’t just great for damage, but also for their crowd controlling (CC) abilities. Together they’ll bombard the mobs while these little CC things will add up and protect you from harm.” Protect yourself from ranged mobs (Squall + Fire Nova)SQUALL One of the best CC and Debuff skills in game. You’ll need the base skill at level 12 (max+2) for 11 meters radius that’ll cover up the battlefield and have a 100% chance of impairing enemy aim. The synergy,
OBSCURE VISIBILITY, should be at max+4 level; it will reduce incoming damage and lower enemies’ resistances by 45% for 6 seconds. The skill is used for both protecting and damaging, it should be the opening spell in the battle and be recast every 5-6 sec to continue its effect.
FIRE NOVA A new skill from Atlantis DLC, 132 fire and 396 burn Damage in 20-meter radius! The skill also applies a 29% chance of impaired aim to all range mobs. With the damage boost from your Wisp, the skill is strong enough to do the killing.
“Together SQUALL and FIRE NOVA will shut down almost ranged enemy on the battlefield. So RIP, Machae Archers.”I put only one point to
SPELL BREAKER just for situational use such as to get rid of Typhon’s reflection thorns, disrupt Spell Breaker Liches and dispel an entrapment. The skill can deal fairly good damage if you max the entire tree. Its short cool down makes it a good choice for your spell combo.
Protecting yourself from melee mobs (Volcanic Orb + Thunderball)VOLCANIC ORBA fire spell that will explode into 8-15 fragments, each inflicting 1.5 s of stun . VO has a short cool down, so the skill is very handy when you’re surrounded.
You should max the synergy
FRAGMENTATION to increase the number of fragments. Max or invest some points in the base skill (if you like) and put 1 point in the synergy
CONFLAGRATION just to increase the radius and burn effect.
THUNDERBALLA lightning spell which also explodes into 6-8 fragments and stuns enemies. Less fragments but the stun effect is longer than VO (4.5 sec).
Max the synergy
CONCUSSIVE BLAST to increase number of fragments. Max or invest some points in the base skill too.
“This duo of spells, VOLCANIC ORB and THUNDERBALL, will scatter 14-23 deadly fragments around the battlefield. Let’s say 70% of melee mobs will be stunned or dead before they can reach you. If not, you can throw Volcanic Orb (again) up close to stun enemies that swarm around you and fall back to spam Ice Shard and other spells to get rid of them. It’s time to say goodbye to Jotun, Asgardians and Tigermen.”FREEZING BLAST is a good CC skill you can consider maxing for its 6.2 meters radius. It can help a lot when fighting dangerous mobs like Cyclops, Dragonian mages and spearmen.
Tri-elemental nuke for mobs and bosses (Ice Shard / Lightning Bolt / Eruption)ICE SHARDOne of the best boss killing nukes in game. Many players build a character around this skill, so called Ice Sharder. The skill has no cool down so you can spam it with enough casting speed. An Elementalist (clearly) is not as good as a Druid or a Thunderer. However, the skill is still very powerful and essential for the tri- elemental build since it’s the only (significant) cold spell for your Elementalist.
To use Ice Shard efficiently, you’ll have a lot of work with your energy. –%Energy cost and a large energy pool alongside with high energy regeneration rate is essential. As an Elementalist, you don’t have to rely on spamming Ice Shard alone. So the spec of your energy can be less efficiency than a true Ice Sharder - around -20% energy cost, 1500 energy and +5 flat energy regen should be fine.
Oh! Ice Shard also has a CC aspect, the base skill will slow mobs by 15%. Sweet!
LIGHTNING BOLTMax the base skill for 239-486 lightning damage (strong boss nuke) and the synergy
CHAIN LIGHTNING (217 – 324 lightning damage), the spell will be a good multi target nuke. This skill also has a stun effect that will add up to your CC combo.
ERUPTION The longest-lasting spell in the game which still remains as the most powerful one. This lovely small volcano that will erupt around 30-40 total fragments in a 7-8 m radius. As mentioned before, the Wisp’s buff will make this skill truly powerful.
“I pick only ICE SHARD and LIGHTING BOLT because I lack skill points and have too many spells to cast already. You can freely choose your own boss-killing spell combo that suits your playstyle.” You can consider other spells like
FLAME SURGE as your nuke too. Its damage is better than Ice Shard here, the synergy
BARRAGE will reduce its recharge time to 0 at level 10 (max+2) and also give –mana cost. You can easily spam this spell without much energy. But the skill has quite a short range, so you’ll need to come closer to the mobs. Don’t bother with long cooldown spell like
METEOR RAIN if you have less than -60% recharge.
HOW TO WORK WITH YOUR AURASThe main auras are
EARTH ENCHANTMENT and
STORM NIMBUS. They not only increase your fire, cold and lightning damage but also offer fairly good protection.
You should max everything in
EARTH ENCHANTMENT tree, including
STONE SKIN for 39 fire resistance and 75 armor which applies to every armor part (75x4 = 300 Combined Armor). This will make your toon a bit more sturdy.
VOLATIVITY is key for Earth characters, max it to make your fire spells reach their full potential.
For
STORM NIMBUS, just put one point to the base skill since +flat cold and lightning damage will not apply to your spells (they’ll apply to your weapon attack and pet’s damage instead). Max
HEART OF FROST and
STATIC CHARGE for +%cold and lightning damage.
HEART OF FROST provides 50% slowed movement and attack retaliation to the mobs swarming you, very good protection and tactic-wise. In some situations, mobs will be slowed, so you can fall back and strike from afar with your deadly spells.
Put one point or invest a few in
RING OF FLAME. Its synergy
SOFTEN METAL can give you a bit of protection by reducing enemy OA (offensive ability).
STORM SURGE is also a good damaging /CC aura. This skill (at max+ 4 level) will have 15% chance to activate 145 cold + 123-197 lightning damage and 1.5 sec stun to the baddies around you. If you invest in or max it, the skill can help you a lot.
In addition, you’ll be very strong against elemental damage due to your
HEAT SHIELD (fire absorption and 15% physical resistance) and
ENERGY SHIELD (cold and lightning absorption). When maxed out, these 2 shields will eliminate almost all incoming elemental damage, but it’s not necessary to max them out if you already have a lot of base resistance. Basically - the more elemental resistance you have, the less points you need to invest in those skills. Don’t forget that your fire aura and Wisp will also increase your elemental resistances.
“Altogether, you’ll be well-protected by your auras against elemental and melee damage. They’ll provide you extra armor, stun and slow melee mobs, and also reduce their OA. Your Heat Shield will give you 15% physical resistance so don’t forget to have this shield on all the time (even when you are not facing against mobs with fire damage).”HOW TO WORK WITH YOUR DAMAGE REFLECTIONSurprisingly, Elementalist is a fairly good reflective character. Let’s see this hidden side of STORM + EARTH combo.
Your main reflective skill is
ENERGY SHIELD; its synergy
REFLECTION will reflect damage back to enemy (33% chance of 242% damage reflect at max+4 level). Its average damage is comparable to
TRANCE OF EMPATHY (Dream mastery) or
RALLY (Defence mastery) or wearing one piece of Legendary Icescale Armor. So actually, it’s quite powerful.
On top of that, you’ll have many retaliation/auto activated skills :
STATIC CHARGE (synergy from
STORM NIMBUS) will offer you 15% chance of 251 lightning retaliation,
STORM SURGE can activate when you get hit,
RING OF FLAME will automatically hurt enemies around you. Your
HEAT SHIELD also has some burn retaliation.
Finally, you’ll have
STONE FORM and its synergy that will protect you from any harm for 6-8 sec and let your reflect/retaliation/auto activated skills do their job.
“Though their damage seem puny at first, they’ll add up and do significant damage. Technically you can consider it as your secondary source of DPS, so don’t forget to invest some points in all of these skills. You’ll have a good strategy to fight many hard-hitting bosses and mobs; the stronger damage they inflict on you – the shorter their life will be. So say RIP to Toxeus, Dragonians and Typhon.”HOW TO WORK WITH YOUR PETSSUMMON WISP is essential for the build. Its synergy
EYE OF THE STORM will increase your elemental damage by 150% and give you 45% cold and lightning resistance at max+4 level Super awesome pet for a mage indeed.
At level 5, your WISP will gain an ability called Thunder Clap which does lightning damage and stuns groups of enemies. With its 99% dodging ability, WISP rarely dies, however, any AOE from bosses will easily kill it. Simply re-summonning it should do fine, so it’s not urgent to invest many points in the pet itself.
Atlantis DLC expands the WISP tree with
ARC DISCHARGE, a skill similar to chain lightning. This skill does 153-468 lightning damage and applies a 0.5 sec stun to multiple enemies, which means it’s almost as strong as your
LIGHTNING BOLT. You should put at least 1 point (for the stun effect) or invest more in it (will be a good free lightning spell).
SUMMON CORE DWELLER is great for tanking due to his taunting ability. You can sacrifice him to bosses and rain your deathly spells while they are busy with the pet. IMO Cory is too very expensive to be tanky enough. You’ll need to max the base skill,
METAMORPHOSIS, and
INNER FIRE, or you’ll find him to be too weak and too slow to draw aggro from you.
GAMEPLAY and TACTICSThe strategy is simple. Open with
SQUALL and then bombard your stun spell duo,
VOLCANIC ORB and
THUNDERBALL alongside with 1-2 clicks of
ICE SHARD (to conserve energy) and
LIGHTNING BOLT. Your reflection and retaliation skills are still active and subtly do their damage. In 3-4 secs, 80% of the mobs will be dead already. If not, you can recast VO again with
FIRE NOVA and
ICE SHARD to clear the screen.
Melee mobs and bosses with high physical and piercing damage like Dragonians, Ylva, Minotaur, Jotun and Toxeus will be your archenemy, especially when playing in XMAX mod. 1-2 of them are just fine but if there’s 20 mobs or 3 bosses it can be a nightmare. When facing tough bosses, try to keep
SQUALL on all the time (to reduce the damage), turn into
STONE FORM when your HP is low and let your reflection and retaliation kill them, drink your potions and strike back with your tri-elemental spells. You can spam
ICE SHARD to nuke the bosses, they will die fast.