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 COMBINATIONS
You’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 ORB
A 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.

THUNDERBALL
A 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 SHARD
One 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 BOLT
Max 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 AURAS
The 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 REFLECTION
Surprisingly, 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 PETS
SUMMON 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 TACTICS
The 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.

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 SKILLS
One 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 SKILLS
Despite 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 Synergy
Killing 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 Distribution
Rune 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)


GEAR
Please 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

WEAPON
My 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 ARMOR
My 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 ARMOR
My 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 ARMOR
My 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 ARMOR
My 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.

ARTIFACT
My 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=986.0


Nuchy

Titan Quest Atlantis “Untouchable Spellbinder” Guide
(Retaliation, Reflect, and Life Drain Build)

Hello everyone. My name is Nuchy and I’m a veteran TQ Player. I’ve played for around 3500 hours and have built over 20 high-level characters, so I tried to make a character building guide I hope it’ll be useful.



I've been playing with my friend Torstein for a long time, we've built many characters together and often share items (which you'll notice in the next guides). Torstein also help me edit this guide.
Let start with my building style:

1.   I don’t usually focus on high dps, but rather on being effective enough to kill packs of monsters.
2.   My builds depend on skills combos and synergies between 2 masteries. (around 30% of a build)
3.   The choice of gear is quite important (around 30%). I love to vary my gear as much as possible. For each build, I never wear the same torso armor.
4.   Balancing is key. I love to make all-around characters, that can deal with every type of mobs or bosses in the game. That means, I opt for good resistances and different types of damage.(20%)
5.   I get bored easily, so I try to make each character unique in terms of skills and play style. (10%)
6.   Fashion! I love fashion, so my characters should dress well, or at least try to avoid ugly items. (10%)




Why Spellbinder?
He’s so boring, everyone said that. Yes, I agree, this character stood in my barracks for a year. I  just reached epic act 3 and stopped progressing. Back then it was boring as hell. After running him for 15 min I’d fall  asleep. That’s why I decided to make a Spellbreaker instead (he’s hot as everybody said).
The good idea came from my friend (Emhyr), who made a reflection Templar using Ice Scale armor set. He said that enemies’ resistances are the main problem, when we spoke about reflect builds.  Your toon must have good resistances, because you deal reflect damage upon being hit. The enemies also have good resistances, so your damage might be too low, hence he had to use Sapros The Corruptor (a club which applies -70 resistances to enemies). That’s the way to make reflect builds effective.

Why Defense+Spirit?
Defense will give you, as the name suggests, defensive skills and an aura, as well as elemental resistance. The mastery also provides you with the best shield skills and a skill with damage reflect.
Spirit is used mainly for Deathchill Aura, that can lower enemies’ resistances (Vitality, Bleeding and Life Leech) and life drain skill, to sustain your toon’s hp.

Reflection & Retaliation
It’s a bit different. The simplest explanation would be:
Reflection works on every type of enemy: ranged, spellcasters, and melee mobs, all will be affected by reflected damage.
Retaliation works only on melee enemies. Archers and spellcasters won’t get any retaliation damage.
The best thing is, enemies still get affected by reflection and retaliation, even when they miss the target.

Stat Distribution
This is a STR based melee char. You’ll need around 650 STR to equip endgame gear.
DEX is still important for every melee, mainly for Offensive Ability (OA) and Defensive Ability (DA).
You’ll need around 400-500 DEX to equip DEX Gear (if needed). 
OA for this character should be around 800. With too low OA, your melee attacks will start to miss the targets.
DA should be above 800, just to prevent enemies from landing critical hits on you.
HP should be around 5500-6000 for tanking, you can invest around 10 points to hp (if needed)
Energy and INT are optional.

SKILL

Defense - Key Skills
Overall, the key skill combo from Defense mastery is to make your toon moderately tanky.  He’ll have to soak up a good amount of damage and reflect it back to enemies. He’ll also have to move fast to kill archers and spellcasters.

Rally tree :  its a multi-purpose spell, that can benefit any build, but the main reason for getting it with spellbinder is to increase our reflected dmg. The skill effect can last long up to 21.2 sec if you max the skill tree.
1.   Rally (base skill) – You can put more points if you want extra healing and armor.
2.   Inspiration – Max this skill to make Rally last for 21.2 sec. The skill also provides you 10 energy regen per sec and 10% total speed, which is sweet.
3.   Defiance – This is the key skill. It’ll provide you with 65% elemental resistance and 80% damage reflect at the highest level.

Battle Awareness tree : a defensive aura with multiple benefits.
1.   Battle Awareness (base skill) -  You should try to max this for 238 DA and 58 armor that will apply to all parts of your armor, that equals to 58 x 4 = 232 combine armor (leg, torso, head, wrist).
2.   Focus  - Consider to invest some points to get 80% block chance. You can get another 25% block chance from Quick Recovery skill. The end game shield already has around 50-64% block chance, so no need to max Focus   
3.   Iron Will –  You just need level 7 of the skill to make your secondary resistances cap at 80%

Quick Recovery :  Max the skill to get -81% shield recovery time (you’ll block incoming damage more frequently) +25% shield block chance and 45 sec duration.

Shield Charge tree : A shield attack that will hit multiple targets. I recommend to assign the skill to you left mouse click.
1.   Shield Charge (base skill) – Max it, or if you don’t have enough points, just put some a few to increase the damage.
2.   Disruption – Max this skill to make your shield attack up to 6 targets. The skill will cripple all enemies with 6 sec of skill disruption, good for tanking Dactyl.

Perfect Block : New skill in Atlantis DLC. It’s essential for dealing with archers and range caster. At level 1 already provide you 1.1 sec of 100% damage absorption and stun retaliation. Put some points to gain more movement speed, so you can reach ranged enemies faster without getting hurt.

Armor Handling : Max this for +24% armor absorption. Compulsory for even more tankiness.

Defense - Optional Skills
These skills are mostly for killing bosses and making your melee attacks more effective. The things is, your retaliation damage won’t be enough to deal with bosses, almost all bosses are also be immune to HP reduction.
Shield Smash, Disable, Pulverize : Atleast, put one point to all of these shield proc skills. You’ll sometime attack with your weapon and shield.

Adrenaline tree : A good choice to improve your melee attack.

Concussive Blow : Put some points for both a chance to stun, as well as increased stun duration of your stun retaliation from Perfect Block.

Colossus Form : A top notch skill for killing bosses and tanking tough enemy. Works fine with only one point.

Unyielding Phalanx : A new summon skill in Atlantis DLC, this ghostly wall attacks every enemy which comes in range. A great boss-killing skill indeed (even stronger than Outsider, imo), just put it under a boss and see for yourself.


Spirit – Key Skills
Many reflection and retaliation builds weren’t viable in Legendary difficulty, because they focused on stacking huge amounts of reflected damage, yet didn’t think about enemy resistances that also increase with difficulty. Their killing rate would be too slow.
What’ll you want from Spirit Mastery? Surely a ton of resistance reduction from Deathchill Aura. The mastery also provides you with an aura directed at killing undead, and Life Drain skill, which is very powerful now with Atlantis DLC

Deathchill Aura tree : The most essential skill for the build. This aura will auto-apply various effect on every mobs that come close to you. Great both offensively and defensively. We should max everything in this tree.

1.   Deathchill Aura (Base skill) – The more points you invest, the higher the radius of this aura.
The -33% total speed applied to every enemy  helps a lot for tanking. Consider maxing this first.
2.   Ravages of Time –The -45% armor absorption, will make the mob receive more reflect damage when they try to hit you.
3.   Necrosis – Insanely high reduction to resistances. It’ll apply -119%  vitality, bleeding and life leech resistance to every mob in its radius. Actually, -119% from Necrosis is absolute, meaning  you can pull enemies’ resistances deep into the negatives.

Life Drain tree : This skill was mostly overlooked by players before the Atlantis DLC. However, I’ve found a use for the skill with many of my characters. The skill is great for every melee Spirit build, using it for sustain your toon’s life, especially when you need to get closer to a tough archer mob. Now this skill tree got buffed in the DLC by adding a new synergy. It’s even stronger now.

1.   Life Drain (base skill) – Max this and your HP will be full after casting this spell on mobs.
2.   Cascade – You’ll need it at level 12 or higher, and now you’ll drain health from multiple enemies in range.
3.   Soul Drain - Makes Life Drain an AOE (area of effect) skill and adds HP reduction, energy drain and Sleep effect on mobs. A great crowd control skill, combined with Deathchill Aura, the HP reduction will Drain every living thing to death.

Spirit Ward tree : An aura that helps you own every undead mob. It’s essential, cause you’ll be very good at killing alive mobs, but not undead or construct. Now, invest some point to both Spirit Ward and Spirit Bane to easily clear 1/3 of all mobs in game.

Spirit – Optional Skills
Dark Covenant tree :  To make this build effective, you’ll need around -40% recharge time for permanent Rally and Quick Recovery. With this cooldown reduction, you’ll have an almost permanent Dark Covenant (-60 recharge would make it). So this skill is the best option to invest in.

Death Ward : Consider putting one point or more to the skill, just to help your toon gain some damage absorption and HP when in a near-death state.

Summon Outsider : One of the best temporary pets for bosses. Work fine with only one point though.
 
Soul Vortex : A new skill in Atlantis DLC that will leech life and energy from all living things around you. Long cool down, short radius (5 metres) and short period (4 sec ) make the skill a bit ineffective, but it can act as a panic button. It might work as melee supportive skill if you have more than -60% recharge. The skill is not great in low level, so either max it or ignore it.

GEAR


With this setup, all melee mobs that touch my spellbinder will get : 235 Frostburn, 255 Vitality Decay, 100 Life Leech, 40 HP Reduction, 80% Damage Reflect and 50% chance to get more 60% Damage Reflect and…. 15% chance to get 500% damage reflect. Basically, the half of their HP will gone after the first hit. And on the second hit, they will kill themselves.

The essential item that you’ll need is “Legendary Atlantean Artifice” relic. It can be obtained by doing the Ancient Craft quest in Atlantis. The relic has an incredibly high, 40% HP reduction retaliation and can be sockets to torso armor and shield.
The Concept is: “layering different types of retaliation and reflection”. Your goal is to have

1.   A good resistances and DA (for sure)
2.   Good MI, green shield or torso armor to socket the relic.
3.   -40% recharge or more, mainly for permanent Quick Recovery and Rally. After you get rid of one mob -recharge will also make all the key skills ready for the next round
4.   Dps and attack speed is optional
5.   A cocktail of vitality decay, bleeding, life leech and HP reduction retaliation items. All of these type of retaliations will be benefit from your Deathchill Aura (any retaliation are also welcome here). Most of them are DOT (damage over time) which I’m unsure of, whether it can be stacked.  The more various damage retaliations you have, the more effective your character will be.   
6.   (If possible) An additional damage reflect gear. Archers and ranged spellcasters are annoying, however spike reflect damage will kill them with ease.

WEAPON
My Choice : Figurehead of Naglfar – provides 230-260 vitality decay retaliation, 230-260 frostburn retaliation and also great damage and +40% total damage which will boost your Life Drain spell. +1 to Spirit Mastery. Just perfect!

Alt Choices : Scepter of Thanatos is another great choice, if you want 11% ADCTH and also has around 150 Vitality decay retaliation

Mbuti’s Advocate, a spear that activates Sturdy Prey on attack, which will lower pierce and physical resistances and in turn make them more vulnerable to damage reflect.

Good green, MI or any good legendary weapon that synergy well with your Deathchill Aura.

I recommend to have secondary weapon for fighting constructs. Dvergr MI weapons grant +30% damage to constructs, for example.

SHIELD
My Choice : Deimos – Boosts your melee attack and DA, gives +1 to all skills, and the best thing is it has 70-130 life leech retaliation! Sound meh, but when used with your Deathchill Aura. All of the living melee mobs will be your free healers.

Alt Choices : Green MI shield of focus for -18% recharge with DA or any resistances that you want, socket it with Atlantean relic.

You can use Blacksteel Bulwark as a secondary shield for fighting archer mob, this MI shield will grant you Shadow Touch skill that will activated to any range enemy shooting projectiles at you. The skill will cause 83 vitality decay and chance of fumble attack, impaired aim and confusion which is good for crippling archers. I recommend to socket this shield with The Shade of Hector relic for 180 DA and 9% chance to avoid projectile.

TORSO ARMOR
My Choice : Icescale Armor – the armor couldn’t  drop in Legendary difficulty pre DLC. But now the DEV fixed this with the DLC already. It’s provide you a super spike 500% damage reflection that instantly kills archers when triggered (15% chance). Farm or pre-farm it until you get the good one (just some resistance would be fine). The armor can be socketed with Atlantean relic.

Alt Choices : Verdant Plate, with 15% chance of 70 pierce retaliation and 195 bleeding retaliation, synergizes well with your Deathchill Aura. This armor also provides +1 Defense Mastery, -10 recharge and great poison resistance.

Raiment of Xi’Gua, another great choice for 174 vitality decay retaliation and 34% less damage from demons, which will help a lot when facing archer mobs in Hades’ Palace. The armor also has some basic resistances.

Any good green, MI with high resistances socketed with Atlantean relic, or just good legendary armor that boost physical damage for melee-oriented character.

HEAD ARMOR
My Choice : Resistant Serpent Headguard of the Tinkerer. Mainly for socket Crystal of Erebus relic (with all resistance bonus) and Troll Tusk charm (life leech bonus). It’d help leeching HP when you fight archers.

Alt Choices : Tracker’s Hood for -40 recharge (I recommend to use a spear in this case, since the hood boosts your piercing damage)

Huo Qubing’s Helm :  -20% recharge and some good resistances.

HAND ARMOR
My Choice : Gauntlets of the Necrolord – high resistances, +1 to all skill,  boost your life leech and gives 4% attack damage convert to health.

Alt Choices : Hugin and Munin - high resistances and 4% HP reduction, this armguard will activate Sturdy Prey on the mob, making them more vulnerable to damage reflect.

Icescale Bracer is also a great choice for stacking another 15% chance to reflect 500% damage to mob. Or any bracers that have a lot of resistances.

LEG ARMOR
My Choice : Trollwrestler Greaves – mainly for resistances and speed. +20% STR is also sweet.

Alt Choices : Barbarian’s Spiked Greaves - good resistances, DA and OA. Have a chance of piercing Retaliation.

Hermes’ Talaria - gives a bit of reflect and good movement speed, with 15% chance to dodge.

Murk Crawler - chance for poison retaliation and a good poison resistance.

Green / MI with Defiled affix leg armors - adds poison retaliation to your build and also has a good poison resistance (can socket a relic with +movement speed, with any bonus you want).

JEWELRY
My Choices :
Ring1 : Hale Ring of Supremacy – Normal melee guy ring with boost OA. Socket with Golem Heart charm (25% Attack speed bonus), which boosts your melee combat ability and gives a bit reflection.

Ring2 : Adroit Loop – Another popular melee ring for some resistances, a boost to damage, DA and OA.

Amulet : Brisingamen – For -28 recharge and +2 to all skill. The amulet also gives you around 10% physical resistance.

Alt Choices :
Band of Souls - for vitality and energy leech resistances, boosts your life leech attack and… 30% chance of 120-160  Life leech or energy leech retaliation which is good enough when combined with your Deathchill Aura.

You can socket one green ring with any relic or charm that has  less damage from demon bonus, if you found that Machae archers is your main problem. The best relic is Tortured Soul with Ritual bonus.

ARTIFACT
My Choice : Talisman of the Jade Emperor – great elemental resistances, +15% STR and… -25% recharge.

Alt Choices :
Arcane Mirror - Stack 15% chance of 100% damage reflect. The Artifact can also trigger a 300% damage reflect shield for 12 sec (long cool down).

GAMEPLAY and TACTIC
Melee mob : Actually you just cast Rally and Quick Recovery, run in to the mob, standing still, no potion. They will hit you and die in about 3-5 sec and your HP will be fully restored by life leech retaliation.
To speed things up : use perfect block to the mob – they will hit you and get stun retaliation -  they will lost around half of their HP already – Your cocktail of DOT retaliations still doing their job – Cast Life Drain to leech their life and Shield charge them to death.

Ranged Enemy : When dealing with archers, I recommend to cast Dark Covenant combined with Rally and Quick Recovery to give your toon more movement speed – Run into the mob with Perfect Block, they will shoot you and get some damage reflect – Cast Life Drain to leech their HP and put them to sleep – You’ll  get a lot of damage so consider using Perfect block and Shield Charge combined with Life Drain again and again, until they all die.

Undead : The most dangerous enemy is the Spellbreaker Lich at Wusao Mountain and Olympus. The build depends a lot on your aura. If you get dispelled, you’re done for. Fall back to re-cast undead aura and consider using boss killing skill like Outsider or Unyielding Phalanx on them.

Boss Fight : All of your retaliation damage is limited. So you’ll have to kill the boss with your melee attack. Fortunately, Spirit and Defense have a lot of good boss-killing skills. So just rain Outsider, Unyielding Phalanx and Colossus Form to crush them.



Thank you for reading, I'll gladly answer any questions, and if you want to see a particular one of my builds next, please say so
bye bye