Anyone ever come across this guy in the tomb near Tegea?  He popped out of a scepulchur in there and his tedious title is well earned.  He doesn't do anything except run around, but his HP is incredibly high (Titan high I'm guessing).  I got him down to around 50% then made the mistake of thinking I'd try a different AoE skill on him.  Portaled back to Sparta and the mystic there and by the time I'd changed and portaled back he was up to full health again.  Having already been fighting him for around 10 minutes I gave up at that point and moved on.  Hope he drops some good loot - we deserve it after all that work.

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Since the forum is becoming more popular we're get close to using up all our monthly allowance of bandwith and disc space which will lead to extra costs.  To help prevent that could I ask that all members use a third party photo storage like Imgur or PhotoBucket and then copy/paste screenshots.  Please DO NOT USE the attachment option.

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FOREWORD
Welcome to my nature mastery guide.
The purpose of this guide is to show you how to do this in around half the time and in the easiest way possible.
Allow me to bring you up to speed minus several months’ worth of frustration and toil.
This guide is designed for both new players and veteran players and should (hopefully) be a valuable resource for anyone interested in playing a nature/x petmancer.
Enjoy. 🙂
Abbreviations/Relevant Terms:
TQ – Titan Quest
IT – Immortal Throne (TQ’s official expansion)
AE – Anniversary Edition (the latest major TQ official modification)
mod/s – modification/s, usually player generated. A lot of the more interesting ones have an official thread in these forums
Int – intelligence
Dex – dexterity
pot – potion
proc – programming random occurence, the chance of a special ability activating
respec – visiting the Mystic NPC to re-assign skillpoints
aggro – aggression, “to draw aggro” would mean to draw the aggression of enemy monsters
HP – health points/health
DPS – damage per second
AoE – area of effect
toon – your character
twink – the act of giving your toon powerful pre-farmed gear, can also be used to refer to a toon with with pre-farmed gear
affix – enchantments on items
completion bonus – the random enchantment generated after you complete a relic, charm or artifact.
standard completion bonus – completing a relic/charm already socket-ed in an item causes it to generate the standard completion bonus, which is a fixed bonus (as of November 2016, the standard completion bonus feature is still missing from TQ:AE)
Table of Contents (Use this to ctrl-F your way around the guide)
I. Nature Pros and Cons
II. Stats
III. Gameplay (includes Pre-AE and Post-AE builds)
IV. Items and where to find them
VI. Relevant Data
VII. Multiclassing
VIII. Frequently Asked Questions
IX. Credits
I. Nature Pros and Cons
Nature is the game’s default pet-user mastery. It is the only mastery that relies almost exclusively on pets to defeat enemy monsters. Any nature/x combination can be played as a petmancer, although each of the other masteries has something different to offer.
Pros
-Solid gameplay, you have several options for offense, defense, crowd control and buffing/debuffing
-High single target/multi-target DPS
-Great survivability with skills like Regrowth and Heart of Oak
-Core gear can be bought from NPC stores
-Playable as a petmancer within minutes of character creation
Cons
-Needs to shop for items
-Some nature skills have really long cooldowns
-Lacks a killer AoE nuke
-Pets won’t defend you if you lag in multiplayer
II. Stats
There are two basic stat routes in TQ – the Str route (for melee types) and the Int route (for casters). Builds using bows/spears usually also pick the Str route.
Either stat route works for nature but pet builds can be very mana-intensive so picking the Int route (most points in Int, a few in Dex) helps offset high mana consumption and allows you to use staves with pet affixes.
An excellent guide on proper stat point distribution, made by Poinas, can be found here. Use the guide/google if you want specific item requirement values.
The general idea is this:
Int – enough points to get to 560+ by legendary for staff requirements if you pick the Int route, zero if you decide to go melee/ranged
Dex – enough points to get to 170+ by legendary for Int gear, 380+ if you want to use very rare Dex gear (like Stonebinder’s Cuffs), 400+ if you want to use the best bows/spears
Str – zero for casters, enough to get to 140+ by legendary if you want to use very rare Dex gear (like Stonebinder’s Cuffs), enough to get 500+ of you pick the Str route and wish to use the best weapons/armor
Don’t forget that you get bonus stats from different quests once per difficulty. You can also increase your stats easily through gear, accessories, relics, charms and artifacts.
III. Gameplay
There are basically two builds you should aim for (one if you play the AE version) though feel free to tweak them to suit your personal tastes. One build is ideal pre-Wusao while the other is for the rest of the game. Regardless of any changes you make, I recommend not getting Plague until after you reach level 25.
Build 1: Pre-Wusao, Level 1-29
http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.asp?mastery=Wanderer&master1=4&master2=0&sa=5&m1=32-1-7-12-8-1-0-1-14-0-0-1-0-1-0-1-1-0-1-0-10-0-0&m2=0
Playstyle
Let your pets defeat everything while you heal and loot. Your pets should have no trouble handling anything except bosses and against these just use scrolls. A scroll of Unbroken Fortitude works well against the gorgons and Alastor while a scroll of the Harpy Witches works well against bosses like the minotaur.
Since your character won’t be doing a lot of fighting take the time to familiarize yourself with enemy mobs and their behavior. Of note, learn to identify which mobs prefer to attack you instead your pets. Stay mobile. Study bosses and their behavior/attack patterns. Bosses in TQ have very specific strengths and weaknesses and it is very easy to fight a boss the wrong way and die.
Assemble a complete set of “Beastmaster’s”/”Spiritcaller’s” affix gear as soon as possible – the whole set includes a staff, pendant and two rings. You can buy these from any merchant in the game. Pick elemental damage over physical/vitality damage, you can switch to a damage type more appropriate for your build once you start buying “Summoner’s” or better affixes.

Defense & Nature
The Idea/Goal/Purpose
After finishing the whole game with 2 different Guardians without any deaths, some forumers requested me to create a Guardian Guide and seeing as how (surprisingly) this forum has no Guardian guides while there are a lot of people who ask for help with their Guardian, ive decided to create one. This forum has some really amazing and well made builds and I have tried some of them out, some builds offer huge damage and some other builds offer “immortality” but as we all know there is no such thing as immortality in Titan Quest, the closest you can get is probably with an immortal haruspex but even that toon has its weakness, dying from AoE attacks or reflect for example, and that’s why I wanted to create a different kind of tank, one that relies on a smarter gameplay that wont get you killed because you received too much reflect or because “dat aoe hit you for 5k damage”.. thus, I will discuss about the making of a powerful tank that has huge and I mean HUGE health (HP) but at the same time has max resistances, a very powerful debuff, reflect, pet buffs, decent damage and a smart tactic along with a brilliant shield method.. a tank that will not be scared of the rocks of Typhon or the AoE’s of Hades. If you like playing tanky classes that are extremely hard to take down, then I believe you are going to like this idea.
The build starts to shine later in the game, epic and mostly legendary. In normal and epic your main purpose is to familiarize yourself with the skills and the tactics. Farming should be done slightly in epic and mostly in legendary.
The Masteries

Both masteries provide some good skills so I cannot say with certainty which one of the 2 (Defense/Nature) is the main one, not that it matters though. But lets see what these masteries have to provide. Nature will take care of the HP boost with the Heart of Oak, some speed and resistances along with the wolves that will prove a great asset later on in the game.. lets also not forget about one of the most powerful debuffs in the game, Plague! And last but not least, the refresh skill which will be useful. Defense on the other hand is going to make your Guardian hard as a rock while keeping the damage in good levels, even for dealing with multiple opponents, the reflect skill of Guardian will be useful as well. Defense provides so many Trigger skills (skills that activate while you attack or while you are being attacked).
Skills of Defense
Colossus: The boss killer, adds damage and damage absorbtion. Lasts for a short period of time, that’s why you should use it only when needed, mostly for boss runs imo.
Battle Awareness & Synergies (Focus,Iron will): Probably your best defensive skill, treasure it! Adds shield block which will be essential for the build as well as some resistances that you dont usually get from items such as freeze resistance or entrapement, very very useful because if you get trapped while fighting multiple opponenes it could be dangerous, even though as i said this build is gonna be super tanky, so no worries.
Rally & Synergies: I personally dislike this skill, but it will be one of the main skills for boss runs because of the reflect synergy.
Adrenaline & Synergies: This is gonna be procing all the time in legendary, one of the best skills of Defense definitely, it will help you deal with multiple opponents as well as bosses because it adds damage and speed.
Quick Recovery: The magical skill of this build, this is going to be active at all times in end game, blocking all the incoming damage from mobs and some of the incoming damage from bosses.
Disable, Pulverise and Shield Smash: Those are trigger skills, they exist in the background and they activate when you attack, as you add more points into those skills, their chance increases as well. They will help you slow and disable your enemy, even deal with multiple enemies (pulverize). A technique that allows shield and weapon to hit simultaneously. Key skills!
Shield Charge & Disruption: Assign this in your right mouse click. You will only put 1 point in shield charge but you will max Disruption because it is the best way to kill multiple enemies, at first you stun them and if they are still alive you wipe them =D
Concussive Blow: This works only with clubs/maces so it will be one of the main skills in end game, but feel free to put some points in it anytime in the game as long as you use a mace that is. It adds a good stun effect, very helpful.
Armor Handling: It will give you access to better gear earlier in the game, also adds some nice defense, especially useful in the beginning of the game.
Batter (Not butter ): Assign it in your left mouse click, a nice strong shield attack that slows the enemies, its synergy Rend Armor allows Batter to hit more opponents at the same time.
Skills of Nature
Plague: Its your main debuff, you will be using this always and against everyone. At some point later in the game you will have to max Plague and the synergies. It decreases the strength,speed and defense of your enemy and it spreads to nearby enemies, one of the best skills in Titan Quest.
Heart Of Oak & Synergies: Crusial skill, adds huge amount of HP, some speed and resistances.
Refresh: Takes some time off the cooldown of skills making them available more often, useful.
Call of the Wild: Wolves,they get stronger as you add points, you can have more wolves in higher levels. We will be using them mostly for their buff though (Strength of the Pack) which adds damage and total speed not only to the wolves but also to you.
Leveling Up
First off, i want to say that this guide is mostly focused on end game.. but i will still try to give you some tips about the game progression until you reach the end. “For the Normal difficulty it is better if you buy green gear from the Shops, look for veteran’s chest piece which will provide the chance to avoid projectiles and of the glade gloves or boots , 2 hardy/robust/hale rings and a necklace of the cat/lynx/tiger for speed and stately or hallowed helm, socket those depending on what you need, i usually socket most of my gear with speed/damage relics/charms in normal in order to make the game go faster, in epic you will start getting nice purple gear and you can start replacing the greens. Green gear can be obtained from the merchants in each difficulty and town, i advise you to look for veteran’s green weapons and green shields that give strength/Hp/Damage/Speed..changing your shield and weapon in each act at least once is very important.. the rest of the gear can be kept pretty much throughout the whole difficulty if you cannot find anything better. For example when i was leveling my second guardian i found an excellent piece of veteran’s breastplate with 22% chance to avoid projectiles, 20% defensive ability, HP, damage resistance, i socketed it with mechanical parts and used it up until Orient in Epic because up until that moment i hadnt found anything better than that, and of course all the green equipment that i found was a lot worse, only a really good purple can replace such green, really”.
Lets proceed with leveling.. i usually start with defense, put 2 points into the mastery tree and 1 point into armor handling. Once you find a shield, put a point into batter and the rest in the mastery tree again. Until level 8 just max shield smash and put the rest of the points into the defense mastery tree and 1 point into quick recovery. Once you get to unlock the second mastery, choose nature and immediately unlock the call of the wild. From now on, focus on the nature tree for awhile, add points into the mastery tree until you unlock plague and heart of oak (while doing this, try to max armor handling from the defense skills), max plague (not the synergies yet) and max heart of oak (not the synergies), try to be adding same amount of points in each so that they get maxed at the same time, dont max the one first and leave the other one without points. While maxing the 2 skills, try to add a few points in quick recovery. Put 1 point into shield charge.
If you want to be relatively tanky in the beginning of the game, invest in some Hale gear for maybe the 2-3 pieces of your armor, anything with hp boost will be a great help because Heart of Oak is going to boost that HP bonus even more. With my first guardian i took out normal typhon in 12 seconds because i had invested a lot in HP/Str (like 3-4 pieces of the gear combined with HoO).
PS: The cyclops in early greece (polyphemus) can be tricky to kill because you are gonna tackle him while you are pretty much naked, so i would suggest having a low level bow or staff and kill him like that.
Now you are around level 20 your skill setup should look something like this: http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.asp?mastery=Guardian&master1=4&master2=5&sa=0&m1=4-0-1-12-0-0-8-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0&m2=12-0-0-1-6-0-0-8-6-0-0-1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Now its time to max the defense tree, every time you unlock a new skill, add 1 point into it and continue maxing the defense tree (ignore concussive blow if your weapon is not a club). When the defense tree is maxed, add 1 point into colossus and 3 more points into iron will, then proceed to max pulverize,disable,disruption in that order.
You are now around level 36-39 and your skill setup should look like this: http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.asp?mastery=Guardian&master1=4&master2=5&sa=0&m1=4-0-1-12-0-0-8-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0&m2=32-0-1-1-6-1-1-8-6-1-1-1-1-1-6-1-4-6-1-1-6-0-0-0-0
Dont rush to finish normal, make sure that you are in your early 40’s at least, before you go to Epic.
This is your main goal so from now add the points respectively until you reach your final build: http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.asp?mastery=Guardian&master1=4&master2=5&sa=0&m1=32-0-6-12-0-1-8-0-1-8-6-0-0-0-6-12-0-8-12-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0&m2=32-8-1-1-6-1-1-8-6-6-6-1-1-2-6-8-2-6-1-8-6-0-0-0-0-0. In titan calc it says 75 but it is actually not, because you will also be receiving skill points from quests in each difficulty, so by around level 69-70 you will have the above build. When you reach level 75 you can max some other useful skills like the 2 synergies of rally (not rally itself) or anything else you want.
Attribute Points (including the 18 points that you receive from quest rewards throughout the game): Until level 35 add 1 point into Strength and 1 Point into Dexterity in each level. From level 35 until 65 add 1 point into health and 1 point into dexterity with each level. For the last 10 remaining levels 65-75 add everything into HP. You do not need more strength because you will be using hale rings and possibly other items that will boost your strength, armor handling will also lower strength requirements for gear.
Gameplay, Basic Skills and Methods
Your main defensive skill against mobs (both ranged and melee) is quick recovery, so by late epic make sure to have a shield with at least 40% block chance and by legendary a shield with 45% block chance. Let me explain how this method works. Quick Recovery has a 45 second duration at level 12 which you will achieve with your end game build, but its recharge time is longer than 45 seconds, so what you need to do is use the refresh skill of nature mastery in order to be able to have quick recovery at all times. You can only put a few points into refresh in order to achieve that, but I prefer having refresh maxed because it also helps lowering the cooldowns of your other skills. Now, in your end game build you will have over 100% chance to block, (45-49% from your shield, 25% from quick recovery, 25% from focus, and 5% from your chest piece and some more from your shield relic) this means that every time you get attacked you will block the indicated amount of damage on your shield, for example soldier’s undying will blocks 733 damage. This all sounds great but the thing is that shields have a 2,5-3,0 seconds cooldown after every successful block. So quick recovery comes to rescue again, with maxed quick recovery you will also get -90% shield recovery time and with a shield like Ancile or I would suggest Soldier’s Undying Will socketed with a turtle shell charm you will get the remaining –recovery time required in order to achieve 100% block chance without a block cooldown, in short you will be able to block all incoming damage and since most monsters don’t hit you for over 733 damage, you will most of the time not be receiving any damage at all. Quick recovery also blocks incoming damage from bosses, so for whatever they hit you, you will receive 733 less damage (this doesn’t apply on Area of Effect skills). So let me say this again, you need to have quick recovery active at all times in higher levels (of course in early game this wouldn’t be possible, so just use it whenever you can). This is basically how it’s gonna be: Use quick recovery > Refresh > quick recovery again, and so on.
With the refresh method you can have Rally up at all times as well, i dont personally use it always but it is a good buff that you can probably use all the time together with quick recovery. Rally is pretty much a boss killer when it comes to bosses that can deal huge damage like barmanu “watch the short video in the end of the guide”.
Resistances: With the gear I will suggest later on and with the relics and charms that you can add on your items, you should reach max resistances on everything which will lead to a lot less damage received. Your HP is going to be around 20.000 or more so there is really no way you die unless you let them kill you. In order to receive even less damage, you will be using Plague against everyone. This is mainly how you are gonna kill anything on your way: Throw Plague > Shield Charge/Batter (At this point pulverize and the rest will hit as well) > all’s dead > Repeat. In boss fights you can also use colossus form which will make you ridiculously overpowered to the point that skills that can 1 hit other classes, will only take a really small portion off your life which you can replenish again with a few hits of your weapon due to your attack damage converted to health from Sapros and from the green mace socketed with Anubis relic. So when fighting bosses you have the following: Colossus (Decreases ALL incoming damage and increases your damage and strength), quick recovery (decreases 733 of the incoming damage,excluding aoe damage),plague (decreases your opponent’s damage,defense and elemental resists and speed), Sapros the Corrupter (decreases the resistances of the opponent, so you kill much much faster), Rally (reflects damage and adds more speed and elemental resistance), adrenaline (increases total damage and speed).
How do you kill stuff? Start with plague/Shield charge/batter, make sure to attack one time with sapros in order to lower the resistances of the enemy and then switch to your secondary green club and kill. Basically, you have 2 of the most powerful debuffs in the game, plague and Sapros. So once both debuffs are applied on the opponent, all you have to do is switch to your strong green club and kill the opponent. If the opponent is a tough boss, then switch to sapros and apply plague every few seconds. While you attack you are gonna be replenishing a lot of lost HP because both your weapons will have the attack damage converted to health stat. For trash mobs you might as well just kill them with your green club in order to save time. The synergy of Call of the Wild (Strength of the Pack) will also give you more damage and speed when you are fighting against mobs/bosses, but you need to have your wolves active if you want to get that buff so make sure that when your wolves die you spawn them again.

After being a silent reader in this forum for quite some time, I thought I might as well start big and post a guide to a class that seems to be a little underappreciated: the Magician.

The reason for me to choose this combination was simply wanting to try a character who uses Rogue's Throwing Knives as a main attack. My first TQ-toon ever was an Assassin and I instantly fell in love with the skill. But to have any viability at all, the build would have to offer some different and of course "scalable" damage type apart from those provided by the Rogue mastery, and the choice boiled down to Sorceror or Magician, of which I chose the latter for reasons mostly concerned with finding the right gear to synergize with the main damage type and because I always nurture a soft spot for the underdog

First, let me lay down some "warnings" about this build:
It surely isn't the highest damage build out there.
The term "glass cannon" might have been coined by this build.
It is heavily gear dependent but that shouldn't be too much of a problem, considering you have the Vault at your disposal. So, luckily, it is not like those infamous Diablo II builds which require you farming on the BattleNet for five years straight to acquire the necessary items.
The build does not develop it's full potential before level 45 and you may encounter some problems at boss fights prior to that.

Those are the major drawbacks and with them being out of the way, let's have a look at the advantages:
Great crowd control, I actually made this toon especially for playing with the Xmax-Mod
You'll be a mad knive-spraying machine!
Straightforward gameplay, using roughly just two active skills.
Energy problems? What's that?
An Earth mastery caster build that doesn't need the Core Dweller (I'm not big on pets...)

So, done with the prelude, let's get to the guide:

Gear
I'll start with the items you should use and believe me, it's mostly quite mandatory, not much wriggle room in this department.

Your gear has to provide three things, primarily:
as much -%recharge, as possible
adding fire damage to your knives
get +4 at least to the Rogue skills to maximize the number of knives per flurry up to 9

So, according to those needs, your final setup should be:

Head: Hesione's Golden Veil
This "helmet" gives us everything we want: increased fire damage, -15% recharge, energy, health, resistances...
(side note: just for this I recommend playing as female, you'll look ridiculous, otherwise)

Chest: Cestus
Again, the selling point here is the -15% recharge, but the pierce resistance, procentual increase in INT and health and the double regeneration are nothing to be sneezed at, also. Additionally, it looks awesome, at least in my opinion.

If you feel like it, you may switch to Plouton's Cornucopia at level 47 and basically trade off -10% recharge for +1 skills, which would open more Artifact choices (as seen below), just do as you prefer.

Weapon: Well, this is a caster build, so you'll be using a staff, namely the Heka Staff
This one is perfect, it deals decent base fire damage, has about -20% recharge, lowers energy cost and gives +50% increase in projectile speed, which applies to your knives.

Arms: Archmage's Clasp
Now, that really is a no-brainer: massive -% recharge, increased casting and attack speed and a chance to lower resistances (and as is already well known, %chances virtually skyrocket on knives) - what's not to like?

Legs: Demonskin Walkers
Great defense, +skills and increased elemental damage. 'Nuff said.

Neck: Aphrodite's Favor
You'll need the resistances and the +2 skills are crucial. Furthermore, 899 additional health go a long way. The only downside here is the 18% chance of mind control. It may look like a nice perk, but all it really does at the end of the day is to slow you down since you can't hit controlled enemies and have to wait for the effect to wear off. And with knives, it proccs ALL. THE. TIME.

Fingers: When it comes to rings, there are simply two choices: Archimede's Cogwheel and Seal of Hephaestus.
The Cogwheel adds flat tri-elemental damage to your knives that in the case of the fire part gets heavily augmented by your other gear and Earth Enchantment. On the other hand (no pun intended), the Seal basically doubles the burn damage provided by Brimstone and has a guaranteed +60% fire damage instead of Cogwheel's 33% chance of +33% fire damage. So the question which should be used is a bit iffy and to answer it precisely would involve some serious maths which I'm neither capable of, nor willing to do. Since the Seal becomes available 5 levels earlier, you can gather your own experience with "double-Seal" and compare the performance of different setups when you hit level 45. I prefer to mix them.

Artifact: There are basically two-and-a-half choices of which artifact to use.
The first two assume that you wear Cestus, so in order to obtain the maximum number of knives you have to get something with at least +1 to Rogue skills. So it boils down to either Crimson Viper which does exactly that, adds some physical damage, increases your poison and pierce damage, gives some poison resistance, has a nice procc-skill and can provide you with +80% health regeneration as a completion bonus. If you want +1 to all skills, you have to go for Glorybringer, but that doesn't give you anything much interesting apart from that, though the reduced damage from undead/demons is OK and it helps you level a bit faster. Also, pierce resistance as a completion bonus is worth a look.

If you went for Plouton's Cornucopia instead of Cestus, you already have all skills +4, so you can go for the Eye of Ra to further boost your fire damage. Only, it requires level 55, so Heart of the Earth is a possible pick to traverse the 8-level-gap in between.

Alright, but what about the gear I'll be wearing before I hit the late 40s, you might ask?
Here goes...

Head: I went with Oracle's Wreath (lvl 9) for quite some time and then switched to a neanderthal shaman's antlers with -% recharge and +skills until level 42.

Chest: My personal choices were Ephor's Garb(lvl 6), Yuya's Garb(lvl 20), Occultist's Raiment(lvl 29), Robes of Calchas(lvl 33), Ymochel's Riddlerobe(lvl 37).

Weapon: I used a Staff of the Magi for the fire damage and -% recharge with Prometheus' Flame on it. I was lucky enough to have stumbled upon one that also dealt some poison damage. When i reached level 35 I switched to Qa'a until Heka Staff became available.

Arms: Glowing Bangle (lvl 6) was a long term friend, later Bracelets of Illumination(lvl 31) proved useful, as did Dragon's Breath on levels 37 to 40.

Legs: Not much to tell here, up until level 31 just take what's your fancy, then I suggest Loratian Greaves for the +skills, though I replaced them with Leggings of the Defiled at level 42 for some additional protection.

Neck: Early on, Paean (lvl 9) is a good start, after that, Shard of the Elements (lvl 25) and later Eye of Flame (lvl 36) are obvious choices, though you might rather have a Divine charm/necklace/beads/medaillon... to boost your skills, that's up to you.

Fingers: Now, that's so easy, it might even be boring - double-Brimstone or nothing. Yep, you'll be using the same old rings from level 10 to 40.

Artifact: Almost as exciting, as the rings, you want to grab Molten Orb at level 5 and basically keep it until Dragontongue is available on level 35, though since mid-normal can be quite tough on this build and you'll be using your staff more often, Soul Shiver is worth a try on level 20 for the AdctH.

OK, enough with the gear talk and on to skills and levelling:

Skills
Pick Rogue as your first mastery, get Envenom Weapon and Throwing Knife and then max the mastery as fast as possible to get to Flurry, cause that's what it's all about, eventually. On your way there, also drop the odd point into Nightshade and of course Mandrake, since your crowd control heavily depends on the knives' high chance to procc confusion.
Though climbing up the Rogue tree is our priority, nevertheless don't skip picking Earth on level 8 and put some points in it. Not only because you want some more energy and INT, but because you want earth Enchantment/Brimstone (Stone Skin is not worth the hassle), which are useful even with a single point each that early in the game, and Heat Shield. For survivability reasons I even delayed getting Flurry a bit further to reach Earth level 10 and grab Stone Form - saved my buttocks on many occasions.

Since a single knife is not that useful, you will be attacking with your staff mostly, which is the phase during which most people might get bored with this build, but don't - it will be worth your while when you get there, believe me. Some may be tempted to dabble a bit in Volcanic Orb, but you won't have the energy pool required for that, since Rogue regrettably offers no points there. If you really feel like using another skill on your way to Flurry, you might invest some points into traps instead of the mastery itself, keep count of the spent points and then buy them back to push the mastery to 32 all at once. But i wouldn't really recommend that - partly because I even like traps less than pets.

Once the Rogue mastery is maxed, all points go into Flurry, which fortunately only takes 6 of them. At this point, Throwing Knife at last is more than a gimmick you use every now and then just to do something else. Instead, you will fling a cone of hurt towards your enemies with best wishes and pierce, bleeding, slowing and confusing poison, fire and burn damage all in a neat, fast traveling bunch of packages, hitting everything in it's way. Don't you get a warm, fuzzy feeling in your stomach just by reading it?

OK, so now that Flurry is on the go, you should build up the other skills, right? Wrong. Next on the agenda is climbing Earth mastery, sorry. The reasons are simple: you want Eruption and Volativity. The first, because it will be your best friend against bosses, who are sadly immune to the irritating charms of your Mandrake, and the second because a 33% chance of increased fire damage is a friggin' certainty with all those knives, each possibly hitting multiple enemies. And since the flat fire damage your knives carry is nothing to write home about even with high-end gear (I'll admit that much) you need all the increase you can get.

Nevertheless, or rather even because of that, one or two points in Volativity will suffice for now, rather pump Mandrake and Nightshade. Eruption, being vamped by gear and passives also does not require too many points to still kick ass at this time. Sure, it is tempting to crank it up, but you are playing a bladeflinger, remember?

Besides that, increasing your DoTs is a good idea, especially when still being knee-deep in normal difficulty. You won't be able to throw knives too frequently before level 40 when you get your Archmage's on, and this is the way to make every single one of them count the most between casts.

Obviously, that means Brimstone first, since it goes along well with your gear, burn damage profits from INT and it works on the undead and constructs who can't bleed or be poisoned.
Don't get me wrong, I won't claim bleeding and poison to be pointless, far from it. I say, get a few points in Anatomy as long as it makes a difference and a fully developed Venom tree is a force to be reckoned with, even later on.

Don't forget that after you hit the enemies with your knives, they will be slowed significantly and a lot of them will be stumbling away from you anyway, due to the confusion, so any conceivable DoT can go a long way here.

I also advise you to sink at least one point into each damage-enhancing "passive" before pumping a specific one, to get the most out of your +skills as soon as possible.

After that, just slowly put more points into all the skills you use, there is really no rush to max any of them. Eventually, max out the Venom tree, Volativity, Eruption and even Anatomy - it may not be much and it's just bleeding, but it's damage.
Once you are there, you can do whatever you like with any further points - maybe get some Ring of Flames as a cherry on top or increase Heat Shield so it lasts longer, or, if you just cannot resist, get yourself a pet, why would I care? It won't help you that much, anyway.

And that's already it, skillwise - plain and simple.

Attributes
Attribute point investment is as basic, as it comes: just INT. Your masteries alone will provide you with a total base dexterity of 178, which is already 4 more than you need for your equipment (174 on Demonskin Walkers being the highest requirement). So every point can be used to bolster your burn and fire damage. Maybe you might consider putting some points into health, but that shouldn't be necessary. One Seal of Hephaestus and Aphrodite's Favor alone add 1149 points of health and Cestus increases the lot by another 10%.

Gameplay
Gameplay is equally straightforward. As I mentioned earlier, you will be using a mere two skills in combat, not counting the odd Stone Form, which you won't be using very often after level 45 anyway.

The main thing that you do is SPAMMING knives all over the place.

With all the -% recharge on your gear, which will get you up to around -95% (my Archmage's Clasps provide 46% alone), the casting and recharge time are basically the same which amounts to practically instantaneous refresh and you can just hold down your right mouse button, dishing out knives like a crazed Charged Boltress in Diablo II. And since Throwing Knives are darn cheap, you could keep this up for minutes without ever worrying about your energy pool. So you don't have to be picky, don't wait for more enemies to appear or kiting them in a tighter pack to take more advantage of your Flurry. As soon, as you see or even suspect a monster to be there, just point in the general direction and hold down the right button, your knives, sped up further by Heka Staff, will travel off screen for a decent range and oftentimes on your way you will encounter the corpses of monsters of whose existence you have never even been aware. Unfortunately, "untargetted" knives tend to develop a nasty habit of flying straight into the ground if there is a slope in front of you. So it is safer to click on an enemy, since then the angle is adjusted to enable you throwing them "uphill". But as long as you are on fairly level grounds, feel free to hold that button down (also using shift if you like), wave the cursor around and just go nuts.

Of course, before you get to level 42 which completes your recharge gear with Hesione's Golden Veil, you will do quite some kiting and using your staff or Eruption, when push comes to shove. Eruption at your feet plus Stone Form is likely to be a quite popular tactic in mid-to-end normal.

That brings us right to Eruption's main role in this build: boss battles. Bosses tend to laugh at Throwing Knives, so here Eruption comes in. I won't say it's a substitute, because it quite frankly is pretty awesome, it just is not the main focus of the build and as such it is "merely" a backup skill for boss fights. And a darn good one, since with full recharge gear you can SPAM Eruption and thanks to the increased casting speed you don't have to stop too long to place it at the feet of the boss monster, before legging it to evade it's attacks. Also, it can be a nice touch to cast a couple of Eruptions halfway between you and a big host of monsters, fling some blades at them to lure the lot through the field of fiery doom and clean up the remains once the dust has settled.

Sure, in your pre-fourties, some bosses have the potential to send you up to your room crying, no pudding and no TV, especially when they are multiplied by the Xmax-Mod. So on normal difficulty, you seriously should refrain from wrestling the following bosses with the mod active:

The Gorgons
Geez, are you crazy? You just have a slow-firing staff and a single knife every few seconds and now there are multiple healers among them, I mean, seriously - what were you thinking?

The Giant Scarab
Believe me, you don't want to be slowed and poisoned at all, least of all by more than one of this bugger at once.

The Neanderthal
He is also pretty tough when being alone and you won't have Eruption at this point, which could make it more manageable. I did succeed to kill a triplet of him, eventually - but I died about 12 times in the process - not worth it.

Cerberus
You might have considerable offensive power by now, but your poison resistance STINKS. So prepare to hate the whole freaking Tower of frigging Judgement for being packed with those nasty flying, poison bomb hurling squid anyway.

I have yet to encounter the Manticore, who might be another jawbreaker and I shudder to think what might happen when I dare face the Hydra, but up until then, this is the most fun I've had with any toon this far - and there have been a lot over all those years.

Alright, so that's it - I appreciate the probably single person who bothered to read all those lengthy ramblings, even if it was just to make fun of me and tell me how wrong I am, afterwards.

But hey, there aren't that many Magician-Guides out there, so it was worth a shot.

https://www.kirmiziperfect.com/titan-quest-the-bladeflinger-magician-guide/

Link for the original TitanCalc here:

http://www.titancalc.com/