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Titan Quest - Anniversary Edition => Gameplay => Guides AE => Topic started by: gasconron on 01 December 2017, 10:25:03

Title: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 45 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 01 December 2017, 10:25:03
Note on Ragnarok Expansion Update: Characters who finished the challenge prior to the Expansion release will be updated on how they perform in the new content under the same xMax rules. This is a Work in Progress (WiP) Guide

Introduction:

Hi guys, gasconron here. I’m an avid RPG game-fan that mostly spent most of my time on Diablo-clone type RPG’s (Hack & Slash ARPG). With that said I now consider Titan Quest, as my number one favorite Diablo Clone surpassing my total play time in Diablo 2 and Sacred 2 (approx ~7,000-9,000 hours (~12 years) pre-anniversary, and close to 2,300+ hours for the AE) both of which I also played extensively over the years. My dedication to the game has been mostly fueled by my participation in the game’s previous official forums; predominantly in the Challenges - section, where avid players of the game test how far they can go in clearing the game with specific handicaps. What I consider to “specialize” in is the xMax Hardcore Challenge.

I would like to share my experiences with you guys in attempting to complete this challenge for every profession. For the most part, newer players can use this as reference to get the Hardcore Achievement for all 3 difficulties, without resorting to using God Tier professions to finish the challenge.

Below are the conditions I set for myself personally, most of which adheres to the original challenge conditions in the original forums:


Should you attempt to play this challenge as well, I highly suggest to take note of the following:

Defiler Mods are Now Unavailable  -  Back when people played this challenge in pre-Anniversary, it was easier to play untwinked due to the consensus of allowing challengers to tweak their drop settings to a more “reasonable rate” via Defiler. With Chests modded to have 2-3x increased drops and x3-5 increased chance to drop Epic and Legendary, and the ability to filter out broken and white item drops, which indirectly increased the chances of Monster Infrequents. This shaved off 100s if not 1000s of hours worth of farming to build up a reasonably large collection of gear that you can spread out amongst your characters. Unfortunately, the current state of the available Defiler has these mods disabled for Anniversary Edition, which is a shame because there were so many built in mods in Defiler that made gameplay convenient (stacking potions & scrolls, freeze time of day, disable Zeus speech, show damage, show pet damage).
Gear Matters, Have It Ready - If you are an old-time player chances are you already have a large library of gear ready for use. However, if you are a relatively new player it’ll be very hard to play this challenge right off the bat. As with any Diablo Clone RPGs, it will always be a numbers game. Stats especially pertaining to your resists and defenses matter a lot if you are going to play this game hardcore. Given that Stat buffs were globally given to monsters and bosses and resist nerfs were imposed on the player, this becomes even more of an issue. I highly recommend newer players to farm out gear in the pre-anniversary game (where it is easier to gear farm and Defiler is available for drop chance modification) and export their gear.
Patience - You need to have a lot of it. Even the best people die regardless of skill and game knowledge, I have completed this challenge around 17x pre-Anniversary before resetting for Anniversary Edition, but  I tend to die with lower-tier professions and pet builds. I remember dying 6-7 times on Soothsayer before finally clearing the challenge. Losing a character with 4 game time days invested in it already is indeed frustrating, but that never stopped me from trying again.

TQ + Gaming Abbreviation and Terms List
Note: I will be using these terms extensively in this “guide” compilation

TQ Specific:
STR, DEX, INT, HP, MP - Integral primary stats: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Health, Mana
DA, OA - Defensive Ability, Offensive Ability
CtAP - Chance to Avoid Projectile
CtDA - Chance to Dodge Attack
ADCtH - Attack Damage Converted to Health
CtRR / RR / "Shred" - Chance to Reduce Resists
CDR - [Skill] Cooldown Reduction
ECR - Energy Cost Reduction
AE - Anniversary Edition
pre-AE - TQ + IT with community patch 1.17 or later, prior to the Anniversary Edition release.

General Gaming Terms:
Crowd Control (CC) - a way of managing agro focused on the target of the agro, usually disabling the agro’d monsters from inflicting their potential damage output on the agro target.
Cooldown (CD) - time it takes for a certain skill to completely recharge and be usable again
Area of Effect (AoE) - exactly as the name implies, skills that affect a certain area rather than a specific single target selected by the player. Examples in TQ are Eruption and Squall.
Point Blank AoE (PBAoE) - skills that affect a certain area rather than a specific single target originating from the player. Examples in TQ are Distort Reality and Warhorn.
Nuke - usually referring to an AoE skill/spell that deals massive damage, and usually has a relatively long cooldown
Spike - to inflict a large amount of damage within a short period usually in the form of combination attacks and skills with medium/long cooldowns.
Agro -  the act or effectiveness of getting the attention of enemy monsters to focus on the player that initiated the agro.
Kite/Kiting -  method of killing mobs (monsters) by staying at a distance, using ranged attacks, and running whenever the enemy comes near.
Agro Line - the maximum kiting distance limit a monster will travel following the player before it resets back to it’s original position
Offscreen - referring to something that exists and active in game but currently not within the field of vision of the monitor display.
Cheesing - is basically exploiting an unfair mechanic that gives the player an unfair advantage
Best in Slot [BiS] - the best choice gear in a specific equipment slot for a certain profession/build

Terms I Personally Use:
“Cheesing the Agro Line" - A game mechanic where in you kite a specific monster back and forth it’s agro line; taking advantage of its vulnerability when it starts reset back to its original position. Giving the player a few seconds of unchallenged damage output until the monster re-agros on to the player. This is usually repeated indefinitely until the monster is dead.
“Offscreen Nuking/Cheesing” - Using AoE skills with extended durations to do damage to a target currently offscreen but cannot retaliate as the current distance between its position and the player makes it unable to agro on to the player
“Wall Nuking/Cheesing” - Similar concept to Offscreen Nuking, except the monster is able to agro on the player, but cannot retaliate as the nature of his attacks, being melee or projectile, cannot hit the player; as the wall prevents his attacks from connecting. The player on the other hand bypasses the wall with his AoE nuke, cheesing the monster(s) until they die.
Tech/Teching/Rush - Old Warcraft 3 term that refers to foregoing early units to quickly advance through the tree and be able to purchase higher tiered units in a much shorter period in comparison to not teching. In terms of Titan Quest, avoiding purchasing low tier skills and pumping early skill points immediately to the Mastery Bar, in order to get access to higher/highest tiered skill in a certain class.
Synced Attacks - xMax bosses’s particular behavior of syncing their skill usage or spell casts.
“Desyncing Bosses” - agroing all 3 bosses, letting 1 or 2 reset back to their original position, while having 1 or 2 maintain agro on you. This greatly increases the chances of preventing synced attacks.
  • Very useful when fighting a boss with a high damage skill: Barmanu Showers, Yaoguai Dance, Hydra Breaths
  • Very bad for bosses with timed buffs, disables, high sustain damage: Typhon Thorns, Talos AoE Stun, Hades 3rd Form AoE Stun, Hades 2nd Form Homing Blood Pool and Ball of Doom that scatters on impact

Completed Classes:
1. Hardcore Run Class: Conqueror [Pre-AE:R re-run]; [AE:R completed] https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg757#msg757 (https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg757#msg757)
2. Hardcore Run Class: Elementalist [Pre-AE:R re-run]; [AE:R completed] https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg759#msg759 (https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg759#msg759)
3. Hardcore Run Class: Diviner [Pre-AE:R re-run]; [AE:R completed] https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg771#msg771 (https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg771#msg771)
4. Hardcore Run Class: Haruspex [Pre-AE:R re-run]; [AE:R completed] https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg772#msg772 (https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg772#msg772)
5. Hardcore Run Class: Dreamkiller [Pre-AE:R re-run]; [AE:R completed] https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg773#msg773 (https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg773#msg773)
6. Hardcore Run Class: Evoker [Pre-AE:R re-run]; [AE:R completed] https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg774#msg774 (https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg774#msg774)
7. Hardcore Run Class: Soothsayer [Pre-AE:R re-run]
8. Hardcore Run Class: Juggernaut [Pre-AE:R re-run]; [AE:R completed] https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg959#msg959 (https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg959#msg959)
9. Hardcore Run Class: Avenger [Pre-AE:R re-run]; [AE:R completed] https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg1531#msg1531 (https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg1531#msg1531)
10. Hardcore Run Class: Sage [Pre-AE:R re-run]; [AE:R completed] https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg3460#msg3460 (https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=122.msg3460#msg3460)
11. Hardcore Run Class: Thane [re-run] [Pre-AE:R re-run]; [AE:R completed]

In Progress Classes:
1. Hardcore Run Class: Paladin [re-run] ~ Legendary Act 3
2. Hardcore Run Class: Battlemage [re-run] ~ Normal Act 1

Planned Runs:
35 classes to go
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 01 December 2017, 10:46:44
Hardcore Run Class: Conqueror

My primary character and flagship profession. It’s easy to build, brain-dead to play, and very strong. A good boss farmer, SP runner or farming anything that is melee-based.

Build Concept & Source of Damage:
- Sword & Board Tank
- Onslaught, Shield Passives, Colossus, Battle Standard, Sapros
Personal Class+Build Tier Rating: 5 out of 5; God-Tier (cookie-cutter)
Difficulty Rating:
Early Game (1-45): 3 out of 5 Early Game
Late Game (45-65): 1 out of 5 Late Game
Normal to Legendary Completion: 3 Days, 2 Hours, 11 Minutes
Kills: 93,052 Kills
Level Finished: 65; (150,000 kill requirement finished at level 67)

Class Notes:

Personal Challenge Equipment:
Myrmidon's Pendant [main]
Ritual Amulet of Immortality - Tortured Soul (L) w/ Ritual Mod [optional swap]
Hale Ring of Immortality (2) - Dionysus Wineskin (L) w/ Bleed Resist Bonuses
Hallowed (any helm) Legends/Immortality/Mastery - Crystal of Erebus (L) w/ 20% Resist Bonus to All
Legionnaire's Breastplate
Purifying Ismene’s Bracers Alacrity - Pristine Plumage (L) w/ Bleed Resist Bonuses
Resistant/Hale Revenant Greaves of Pegasus -
Sapros the Corruptor (2) - 2 copies for weapon switch
Aionios (main shield)
Any shield -% damage x creature type (switch shield) - situational
Glorybringer (greater artifact)

Equipment Notes:

At first glance, my personal equipment choice is a bit weird, and admittedly this is NOT the BiS gear you would want. You can throw in a mix of powerful 2-affix MIs like Stonebinder Cuffs of Guile and Veteran’s Alcyoneus’ Breastplate to give you a massive stat boost in just 2 items (making your remaining slots more flexible), plus giving you a whooping ~40% Chance to Avoid Projectile (CtAP) to address one of the main weaknesses of the class making your Conqueror more OP. However, in my case, I chose my equipment set-up based on a single factor: eliminates the need to gear swap or re-relic for specific areas/boss fights. Making my choice of gear more of a personal preference for convenience rather than efficiency and necessity.

Myrmiddon’s Pendant gives a massive bonus to a lot of important resists, including secondary and tertiary ones. This item just makes the character balanced as a whole, and since my goal is to avoid any need for gear/artifact swaps or re-relics. This item is best suited to do just that.

2 Hale Rings of Immortality is a no-brainer. As I’ve mentioned, this profession scales well solely of HP and STR. This makes you the tanky destroyer this class was meant to be.

Any Hallowed Helm with a Suffix. Vitality Resist and + Skills which are both good things. However, we want to be able to socket the item for Crystal Erebus w/ the multiple resists bonus. This item along with Aionios and Myrmidon’s Pendant, will take care of the bulk of your resist needs.

Legionaire’s Breastplate is a very solid pick, considering that it’s not too hard to come by. It gives a massive flat DA bonus, +skills, and a generous bonus to your Pierce resist, which is one of the more important stats overall for a Conqueror in xMax (Act 3 Dragonians/Act 4 Machaes); making it an inferior version of  Alcyoneus’ Breastplate, which can roll with an Impenetrable (for 1 piece pierce resist gear) or Veteran’s (DA % bonus) prefix and a Glade (% CtAP) for your suffix.

Ismene’s Bracers is a very easy farm with a relatively decent drop rate. Getting a Purifying one shouldn’t take you ages to farm. The main purpose of this item is to protect your Conqueror from one of the known hardcore challenge enders in the game for melee: Yaoguai. With non maxed bleed resists, even with 60% damage absorption from a maxed colossus + flat damage reduction from Unbroken Fortitude scrolls, 3 Yaoguais stacking that AoE burst will cause that 9-10k HP to melt like cheese in a microwave. My chosen relic + item is will basically make this slot address not only Yaoguai (bleed), but also the Cerberus and Hydra fights, which are similar in nature on non-maxed poison resist toons.

Revenant Greaves’ only purpose is +skills, having foregone SBCs, the +2 skills modifier on your Crystal Erebus, or a +skills amulet like “Sacred”, Bronze Heart of Talos or Aphrodite’s Favor, you need the get those +skills from somewhere. Considering my choice of equipment in other slots, the best roll you can hope for on this item is added resists.

Aionios is the probably one of the notable OP items in Titan Quest pre-Anniversary. Even after the 20% nerf on all resists across the board, I still consider it to be the best shield in the game. You just can’t find another item like it that will give you a massive bonus on multiple stat line. Comparable to Demonskin Walkers for mages and Aphrodite’s Favor as an amulet in general.

Sapros, the Corruptor is still my recommended weapon of choice, regardless of the massive nerf (-25% HP). Since this profession will most likely be built with a massive HP pool. It’s able to take the ~ -25% HP hit. With my gear and all the HP quest rewards, my HP pool is at 10k+ with the debuff active. In exchange for the HP handicap you get a massive Attack Damage Converted to Health % bonus (ADCtH), and FLAT reduction to resists bonus (increases your damage multiplicatively; refer to the official forums for the exact math), both of which are very strong stats to have in general

Glorybringer Artifact is chosen for the creature damage reduction (Undead & Demon):

Biggest Threats/Potential Challenge Enders (Highest to Lowest Threat):


Progression & Recommended Grinding Routes:

Performance in Ragnarok:
Level Finished: 85
*Given that this is main xMax farmer and one of my 2 only level 75 toons, Ragnarok XP curve boosted it to level 84 right of the bat.
Completed Ragnarok Hardcore: Yes
Difficulty Rating in Legendary: 2 out of 5

Threats:
- Very few that bothered me. There was only 1 instance where in my HP hit critical level, and that was at the last area of the game where there were packs of Dark Elves. Their damage was off the charts.
- There were a couple of times that my HP reached half-way but this was mostly because I was speed running the content while still exploring, which meant I was taking a lot of unnecessary damage with 0 sustain.
- I have read that there are some very nasty damage reflect critters in Yggdrasil and Valhall, but I didn't really want to test that out firsthand with an actual hardcore toon. I didn't linger much in the area and I just completed the story line.

Possible Improvements to Existing Build/Setup:
One of the weaknesses of Conqueror is the lack of CtAP options except on equipment, and while this can be resolved with a large HP pool. This is weakness proves especially true in Ragnarok because there will be swarms of projectiles. I had to stock up on a lot Arrow Dancer scrolls while traversing the lands just to mitigate as much projectile damage intake I was receiving.

Like I mentioned, the Equipment setup I went for is not optimal. However, it's just the most balanced I could get to addressing all resists, while maintaining a huge HP pool. Equipping a Veteran's X of the Glade armor with a x of the Glade gloves  and a Knot of Isis, would probably take it back to Easy Mode. I just had too much pride to resort to doing this, which is why I didn't have as much of an easy time as I would have if I did.

In terms of Boss fights, there was nothing really that hard worth noting. None seem to pose the same 1-shot capability or heavy sustained damage as that of Barmanu, Bull, Hades Ball, Typhon Thorns or even the 3 Mino Lord Bosses had.
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 01 December 2017, 11:32:55
Hardcore Run Class: Elementalist

The profession I consider my main alternate. Holds sentimental value to me being the first Squishy toon I managed to complete the challenge with. Also, being the profession considered by many to be low-tier, I was really happy to complete the challenge with this profession.

Build Concept & Source of Damage:
Low Cooldown AoE Mage
Squall, Eruption, Lightning Strike, - resists (flat) sources
Personal Class+Build Tier Rating: 3 out of 5; Average
Difficulty Rating:
Early Game (1-45): 1 out of 5 Early Game
Late Game (45-65): 3.5 out of 5 Late Game
Normal to Legendary Finish: 4 Days, 6 Hours, 27 Minutes
Kills: 174,431
Level Finished: 66

Class Notes:

Personal Challenge Equipment:
Aphrodite’s Favor
Socrates Ring of Immortality (2) - Demon’s Blood w/ Bleed/Stun/Vit resist bonus or Monkey Tricks w/ INT/DA bonus
Archmage Diadem or Coronal of the Abyss
Archmage Mantle or Battlemage Robe
Archmage Clasp
Archmage Leggings or Battlemage Leggings or Demonskin Walkers
Archmage/Socrates Staff of the Magi of Focus (casting staff)
Any (any staff) of Betrayer (auto-attack debuff)
Glorybringer (greater artifact) [main]
Marduk’s Tablet of Destiny [swap] advisable to use for: Minotaur Lord, Hydra, Yaoguai and Barmanu (if you’re not confident with your kiting)

The hardest task for me was not actually running the character but setting it up. The synergy of the 2 masteries coming from buffs and changes from AE make the gameplay of the Elementalist very interesting. However due to the fact that Boss HPs and resists are buffed overall, high damage-spike glass cannon builds are no longer recommended for Hardcore play. The paper toon that relied on stone form and crawled its way to Challenge completion (my pre-anniversary run) is no longer efficient and practical.

The approach I took went 1 step further. My goal was to reduce as much physical damage taken giving me as much freedom to spam my AoE’s without being to trigger happy with Stoneform. You have 2 options:
Archmage Regalia-way (you gain a massive +30% physical resists from your armor, +15% physical resists from the set bonus, + 15% damage resistance from Heat Shield). Given that you have at least 5-6k HP, you become a walking mini core dweller in your own right.
You can go the mixed-way (AM clasp, BM torso/legs and Coronal of the Abyss) to get your DA to a decent 800-1,000 DA, to decrease the chances of being critted to dangerous levels by random mobs, and have a much more balanced stat sheet.

Given that the focus of the setups used is to let the caster stay alive longer, sacrifices were made on DPS department. Following the setup provided, you will only get ~1,100-1,200 INT and rely solely on your masteries for elemental damage modifiers. A method I found to get around this is to take advantage of AoE, Low Cooldowns and the now accessible Betrayer suffix. Alas, this affix is a shadow of it’s former self in the Vanilla days of the game (- resists no longer guaranteed, a much lower flat value, and lost is “Devouring” aspect). You can definitely use Fingerbone of Boreas as another option (for the guaranteed - 35 resists), but with a green item socketed Sheng Nong, you are looking at a possible -53 flat resists, if you stack these with dual Monkey’s and stacking Squalls and a touch of Eruption, even the most hardy of bosses will fall in Legendary with a measly 1,200 INT.

This essentially trades the “fire and forget” aspect of glass cannon builds for the ability to micro safely to maximize your damage output.

Biggest Threats/Potential Challenge Enders (Highest to Lowest Threat):

NOTE: Why not Barmanu?
Legendary Barmanu may have been a problematic boss for Elementalists pre-AE, which most likely was dealt with by offscreen nuking him for 30-40 minutes to avoid agroing him. However, that is no longer the case with the AE changes. Energy Shield is now a timer based skill (60 second duration) and will not expire upon receiving cold damage. Also, Molten Rock is no longer buggy and does not freeze the player upon expiration of Stone Form. Do you get the picture now?
Equip Marduk’s Tablet of Destiny
Cast Energy Shield on yourself with max +4 Reflection
Agro 3 Barmanus
Cast Stoneform with Molten Rock - 8 Seconds
Stand Still till Artifact Skill is triggered - 10 seconds
Cast Stoneform with Molten Rock - 8 seconds

That’s ~26 seconds of continuous invulnerability, more than enough time for 3 Barmanus to one-shot themselves by casting Ice Shower on the player. If this notion sounds retarded to you, you can always go back to 40 minutes of offscreen nuking.

Progression & Recommended Grinding Routes:

Performance in Ragnarok:
Level Finished: 77
* Ragnarok XP curve boosted it to level 75.
Completed Ragnarok Hardcore: Yes
Difficulty Rating in Legendary: 5 out of 5

Possible Improvements to Existing Build/Setup:
The selling point of the existing Elementalist build was that you could get 1,100-1,300 DA, ~25-30 Physical Resist, a row of mostly positive resists, and around 5,000+ HP. While still retaining +4 skills, 1,200 INT breakpoint and max -CDR%, which pretty much makes you a legitimate nuke mage that can sustain well. This worked well for the most part because mobs pretty much had lower levels resulting in less stats and HP, and would go down easy to a couple of Squalls and an Eruption. This made some of my negative resists manageable for the most part and can be ignored except during boss battles.

However, in Ragnarok, critters are around level 80+, while I pretty much capped the damage output I could produce a while back. As the only way I can increase my damage through my INT, this meant prolonged mob clears, which exposes the Elementalist to more dangers. The most probable solution is to go back to a frailer setup to keep every resist on a positive, by sacrificing some DA. This lessens the life degen impact of having negative poison and bleed resists.

Specific Equipment Changes:
Heka Staff - retains some of the recharge properties of our choice staff, but gives damage reduction to Magical Enemies
Freyja's Panapoly (5/6; all except amulet)

Given that majority of the AE:R Legendaries are very well-rounded in their bonuses. Freyja's Panapoly is really made for mages that aims to do Hardcore Runs. Lot's of Caster bonuses. Massive bonuses to Resistances and flat and % DA. With the new Smithing gimmick it's possible to tank up even the frailest of glass cannons. Although I didn't need to resort to that just shows how much AE:R items impacted heavily on the gameplay.

Threats/Bosses:
- Pretty much everything is a threat to you. The new act is pretty balanced, and by that I mean that there is a healthy mix of mage, archers and melee type enemies. They hit harder, they swarm in packs and they die a lot slower compared to the pre-Ragnarok update.
- Giants pack a HEAVY punch, but they are flipping slow. There is no reason why you should be getting hit by them except in rooms and narrow passages. When this is the case, put a squall on top of you to minimize their damage output, followed by an eruption, while you stone form.
- Tread very carefully when you explore. The biggest enemy to Elementalist hardcore gameplay is yourself. One distraction is all it takes to end your run. I play with 1 finger permanently on standby to hit that Stoneform when needed. If you plan to take on the HC challenge with an Elementalist, tanky or not, this is a very good practice have.
- Majority of the Boss Fights are a non-issue. All boss fights are "cheesable." You can render a lot of these bosses harmless by keeping their energy drained with Spellbreaker. While some bosses retain their special attacks even with all of their energy drained, some are rendered helpless and you can face tank them. Last Boss fight (Sutr) is the most anti-climactic fight you'll ever do. 2nd Form becomes a joke with Squall.

Loki Boss Fight
This is possibly the most fun and at the same time most dangerous encounter you will face in the entire act. This is a guaranteed enclosed arena fight. Thankfully, you have a lot of space to work with.

Assuming that my assumptions are correct, Loki's 2 Forms are as a Corsair/Warden and as a Warlock. Since his forms are as a Giant and as a Diety, there will be no  damage reduction sources available. This means you need a decent DA not to get and critted.

Avoid getting hit by his 1st Form's Charge attack. he usually combo's this with an auto attack that chunks you life to half. Getting hit by his charge will guarantee the followup. The worst case scenario is that you get sync'd or chain combo'd in place, which will get you to critical if not kill you outright. Kite him around the arena while leaving Squall on your trail. Don't forget to Spellbreak him form time to time to keep his mana low and his attack options limited. The animations/overall AI of bosses in general become very predictable when their energy is drained. Use this to your advantage.

Once you get Loki to his 2nd form, the fight is pretty much over, with him relying mostly on Ternion and other projectile attacks, you can shut him down with perma Squall while draining his energy to 0. Then from there, it's all routine work.
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 02 December 2017, 01:47:11
Hardcore Run Class: Diviner

Build Concept & Source of Damage:
Vita-Ternion Spammer w/ CC [caster]
Ternion , Distort Reality, Distortion Wave, Trance of Wrath, Pets, Massive Vita Resist Reduction
Personal Class+Build Tier Rating: 4 out of 5; Very Strong
Difficulty Rating:
Early Game till Late(1-7x): 2.5 out of 5 Early Game
Normal to Legendary Finish: 2 Days, 23 Hours, 41 Minutes
Kills: 150,213
Level Finished: 64

Class Notes:

Personal Challenge Equipment:
Essence of Styx
Socrates Ring of Immortality - Demon’s Blood w/ Bleed/Stun/Vit resist bonus or Monkey Tricks w/ INT/DA bonus
Star of Elysium
Hallowed any helm of Immortality/Mastery/Divination - Cunning of Odyseus w/ INT bonus
Overlord's Vestment
Battlemage Greaves
Impenetrable/Resistant Witch Doctor's Bracelet of Alacrity - Boar Hide w/ Bleed Resist bonus
Praxidikae or Socrates any vita-dmg staff of the Betrayer - Anubis Wrath w/ Attack Speed bonus / Energy Leech bonus.
Knot of Isis [mob clear]
Marduk's Tablet of Destiny [boss fight]

Hardly anything to explain in terms of gear choice. Staff of choice is Vitality damage based and it's synergy with the class's innate RR shred abilities will carry it throughout the game. Everything else is focused on making the toon sturdy enough to sustain any burst damage and sustain effectively with ADCtH + Ternion.

There is  very little emphasis on Electric Burn Damage as, most of the active skills in the Dream tree in late stages of the game will serve as crowd control rather than actual damage sources.

Biggest Threats/Potential Challenge Enders (Highest to Lowest Threat):

Progression & Recommended Grinding Routes:

Performance in Ragnarok:
Level Finished: 76
* Ragnarok XP curve boosted it to level 73.
Completed Ragnarok Hardcore: Yes
Difficulty Rating in Legendary: 2 out of 5 (with Equipment switch), 4 out of 5 (if no changes)

Possible Improvements to Existing Build/Setup:
No significant changes were made to gameplay and tactics. The concept of the build remains the same: spam Ternion until nothing is left standing.
ToC can be dropped in favor of ToW for more RR shred. The new equipment setup makes this possible.

Specific Equipment Changes:
Hallowed any helm of Immortality/Mastery/Divination - Crystal of Erebus w/ +skills bonus
Glykon Acolyte's Robe - gain more EBD, Vita damage, more CtAP (combined with Knot of Isis and Passive = ~60%);

Minor changes were made in the equipment but this transformed the class from Good to Godly; making it a mage steamroller. This class initially had great sustain already. With a respectable DPS, insane HP management (ADCtH + Ternion) and a relatively high mage DA ~1000+; granting it 60% CTAP on top of those stats kills the only weakness the class has: ranged damage, which AE:R has boat-loads of. Simply popping a scroll of Unbroken Fortitude or Arrow Dancer will negate any probability of HP spikes in-game.

Threats/Bosses:
- I don't see any viable threats to a Ternion Diviner in AE:R
- Even challenging areas like Gladsheim and Land's End can become worry free due to how the areas are structured.
- With a competent pet at your disposal you can minimize the risk to you even further, and being that you have one of the best pets in game that doesn't need to be in melee range you can easily pull mobs into choke points; balling them up and setting them up for a Ternion nuke.
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 02 December 2017, 03:28:15
Hardcore Run Class: Haruspex

This class needs no introduction to Hardcore runs. It is probably the most OP class in the game. I don't even know why I'm making this passage for this class.

Build Concept & Source of Damage:
- Bow/Spear-spex
- Ranged and Melee
Personal Class+Build Tier Rating: 5 out of 5; God-Tier (cookie-cutter)
Difficulty Rating:
"What's difficult?"
Normal to Legendary Finish: I don't even remember, didn't log the details (that's how disinterested I was in running this guy)
Kills: 150,000
Level Finished: 63

Class Notes:

Personal Challenge Equipment:
Persephone's Ring
Apollo's Will
Myrmiddon's Pendant
Hallowed Stonebinder Crown Immortality/Legends - Crystal of Erebus w/ +2 Skills bonus
Veteran's Batrachos Plate of the Glade Incarnation of Heracles w/ STR Bonus
Gauntlets of the Necrolord
Athena's Battle Greaves
Bramblewood Bow of Alacrity
Glorybringer - Health Bonus

Armor - No deep meaning in my choice any MI armor that give massive bonus to DA/Resist would do; since this is an OP class the equipment choices is flexible in General. Veteran's/Glade is a staple on pre-Anniversary "Immortal" characters; and still is on the traditional Spear/Bow-spex. In my case, my choice was to address my pierce resist and cap my CtaP

Gloves - This should be where you x Stonebinder Cuffs of Alacrity should go, but because I don't like using the same equipment on several toons, I usually handicap OP classes with less traditional items.

Helm - Due to the loss of an SBC I had to makeup for the +skills. Any Hallowed Helm would do, but Stonebinder's is an easy farm. It comes with a poison resist bonus and because it's such a common farm landing a Hallowed isn't much of a problem.

Rings - This is where your traditional 2x Apollo's should go. But because this class is no longer 100% CtAP & CtDA. Persophone's Ring was taken for safety.

Amulet - This is where PIR should go, but then again, I didn't deem it necessary.

Boots - I just put here any item that filled in the resist I was lacking.

Weapon of choice - Bramblewood Bow is a staple of most non elemental archers. Sometimes it's even taken by other classes as a means to debuff targets for it's RR proc. In my case I took an alclarity one because I didn't use an alclarity SBC

Biggest Threats/Potential Challenge Enders (Highest to Lowest Threat):

Progression & Recommended Grinding Routes:

Performance in Ragnarok:
Level Finished: 85
* Ragnarok XP curve boosted it to level 84.
Completed Ragnarok Hardcore: Yes
Difficulty Rating in Legendary: 1 out of 5

Possible Improvements to Existing Build/Setup:
With this build's focus being on max dodge, max CtAP, 1-shot lethal strikes/phantom strikes and good mob clear. The supremacy of Immortal-spex has not waned a bit even with AE:R.

Note that I put on non-optimal gear just to get the breakpoints needed and resists on positives and some boost to HP. The kit just has too much survivability and damage.
There was nothing the new content could offer that actually phase the class. Majority of the threats in AE:R comes from ranged damage, and with a 80% CtAP, a decent HP pool and positive resists, your attacks will just offset the damage by healing it back up with ADCtH.

Specific Equipment Changes:
No changes to equipment necessary.

Threats/Bosses:
- Threat? What threat?[/list]
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 02 December 2017, 03:46:56
Hardcore Run Class: Dreamkiller

When played normally, this class can be a strong melee character that has access to HIGH one-hit kill skill. When used in congruence with a sword or spear combined, with Dream Mastery's defensive options as well as it synergy with Rogue mastery in crowd controlling packs of mobs, this class is no slouch when it comes to Hardcore challenges and is definitely a viable pick. However, I chose to play as a DoT toon, using mainly poison. I was inspired to build this back in TQ:IT, when the general consensus was that poison sucked. Of course, since I was out to prove that everything and anything can work in this game, what better way to prove it than running it Hardcore on xMax.

Build Concept & Source of Damage:
- Poisonmancer, DoT melee w/ CC (lot's of it)
- Lethal Strike, Phantasmal Strike
Personal Class+Build Tier Rating: 2.5 out of 5; viable
Difficulty Rating:
Early Game (1-50): 1 out of 5 Early Game
Late Game (50-65): 4 out of 5 Late Game
Normal to Legendary Finish: 4 days, 8 hours, 51 minutes
Kills: 150,354
Level Finished: 66

Class Notes:

Personal Challenge Equipment
Aphrodite's Favor
Hale Ring of Supremacy - Monkey Trick w/ DA bonus
Hale Ring of Immortality - Demon's Blood w/ Vitality Resist bonus
Hallowed Any Helm of Legends - Crystal of Erebus w/ Resist All bonus
Armor of the Phantom
Defiled Ismene's Bracer's of the Glade - Boar Hide w/ Bleed Resist bonus
Defiled Gogs of Any - Hermes Sandal w/ DA bonus
Zeno's Third Paradox (2)
Lethal Deathweaver's Legtip of the Betrayer or Sapros the Corruptor (debuff weapon)
Lethal Deathweaver's Legtip of Devouring (main weapon)
Star of Ishtar - w/ Dex bonus

All of your combined gear aims to fulfill the following goals:

Since the only difference between you and a normal melee DPS character is the way you do damage. Survivability is a must. This means positive resists, high DA a decent HP and some form of CtAP. Defiled Ismene's Bracers and Gogs are a must. These, not only boost your base stats and resists, but they also increase you overall damage.

Lethal Deathweaver's Legtip SHOULD be your only option as a poison melee. It boasts the highest flat poison base damage weapon in-game available, and is further amplified when you relic it with a Sheng-Nong's for more flat poison damage.

Now that it is possible to get "Betrayer" suffix from AE, you should be should be looking for a Lethal Deathweaver's Legtip of the Betrayer as your primary choice of weapon. A Devouring one is also a good choice for sustain, but best if you have both. So you have a debuff setup and a sustain weapon switch. A Sapros can also be used as a Debuff weapon, but I do not advice to use one. From the setup used, you will most likely end up with only 5.5-6k HP. With the -20+% HP debuff on Sapros, your HP pool will take a massive hit. Something I do not advice on a melee toon on AE xMax.

Biggest Threats/Potential Challenge Enders (Highest to Lowest Threat):
Progression & Recommended Grinding Routes:
[Level 1 - 10] Snowball your way to Sparta. Farm Nessus to develop your Distortion Wave. These 2 damage sources will get you through most things until end of Act 1.
[Level 10-24] tech your way to Trance of Wrath and Distort Reality (respec out of DW) and farm the Gorgons until XP gains start becoming insignificant. By then these 2 skills will be developed and will serve to be your primary wave clear and boss killing skill.
[Level 24-35] By equipping a low level armor from Epic or even Legendary using Captain's Signet(s) and boosting your STR through relics, just steamroll your way to Typhon. Any available equipment slots should be dedicated in boosting your EBD
[Level 35-50] Respec out of ToW/EBD rush to an early melee poisonmancer setup; farm high XP bosses to gain the levels you need to equip your end-game Equipment. Typhon till 40 and Hades from 45-46 till 50.
[Level 50+] Play as intended.

Performance in Ragnarok:
Level Finished: 76
* Ragnarok XP curve boosted it to level 74.
Completed Ragnarok Hardcore: Yes
Difficulty Rating in Legendary: 3 out of 5

Possible Improvements to Existing Build/Setup:
Surprisingly not too many changes are needed for this build to excel in AE:R. With the 11 levels jump, that the class got for the transition we got 33 free skill points in return making this build a lot more flexible. You can make a decent investments into knives that will allow you to have some degree of AoE poison to soften out mobs if not outright kill them. This also means you now have:
- AoE fumble & confuse (knives+mandrake)
- AoE Sleep
- Flashbang
- AoE Stun (Distort Reality)
- Slow (Distortion Wave)

Ther is no way you should be overwhelmed at any given time with all the crowd control you have at your disposal. With Phantom Strike having Invulnerability animations and Aggro reset properties, you can use it as a repositioning tool to put yourself in a more favorable location as long as there's an enemy to teleport to. Majority of the new enemies are "fleshies" and very susceptible to poison, use this to your advantage to clean house.

Specific Equipment Changes:
Bronze Heart of Talos - lose +1 skills, and elemental/poison/pierce resist but get a whooping +40% HP and +20% DA
Guantlets of the Necrolord - replaces the lost +1 skills; Poison Resist and Vitality Resist lost from removing Hallowed Helm and Defiled Equipment are compensated by this switch
Volund's Masterpiece - retains +1 skills, replaces massive loss in Elemental resist
Trollwrestler Greaves - replaces the massive loss in Bleed Resist coming from Ismene's Bracers, and boosts Pierce Resists.
Winds of Asphodel - Drop the Deathweaver's Legtip of the Betrayer; this is now your debuff weapon -50 flat resists with a decent poison bonus. A ranged Sapros that doesn't debuff your max HP. The overall damage input increase now lessens the need for Defiled items. The +33% bonus you get will become insignificant when their target's resists are debuffed to this extent. There is very little need for this item in generic mob cleaning, it just helps you kill bosses a lot much faster.

* With these changes the overall build is no longer dependent on affix-specific MI to be effective. This is not a AE:R specific change, you can simply replace the existing gear with the following and still be able to play this concept effectively. Note that, while Winds of Asphodel now increases your damage output much more, do not expect boss fights against Undead and Constructs to be any easier. Even pre-AE Talos, Undead Typhon & Dragon Lich with Sapros debuffing was horrendous, don't expect it to be any different with Winds.

Threats/Bosses:
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 02 December 2017, 03:48:11
Hardcore Run Class: Evoker

The perfect class to build an auramancer on. Has a very strong early game and has a serviceable enough performance in the late-game. If you are fine with this power curve or simply looking for a profession that can blitz through the game and reach Legendary really fast, This profession is for you.

Build Concept & Source of Damage:
Auramancer + Melee
Trance of Wrath, Ring of Fire, Eruption, Distort Reality
Personal Class+Build Tier Rating: 3.5 out of 5; Decent
Difficulty Rating:
Early Game (1-55): 1 out of 5 Early Game
Late Game (60-67): 3 out of 5 Late Game
Normal to Legendary Finish: 3 days, 4 hours, 3 minutes
Level Finished: 67

Class Notes:

Personal Challenge Equipment
Amulet of Morpheus
Eye of Reveries (main)
Socrates/Ritual Amulet of Supremacy - Tortured Soul w/ ritual bonus (situational)
Socrates Ring of Erudition - Demon's Blood w/ vitality resist bonus
Visor of the Shadowlord
Hale Myrmidon's Chitin of the Gods/Immortality - Iron Will of Ajax w/ HP bonus
Gauntlets of the Necrolord
Demonskin Walkers
Scepter of the Shadow King
Aionios
Glorybringer - HP bonus

There isn't really any need to discuss each equipment piece separately, as they revolve around giving massive +stats%, + resists% and + skills.
This setup gives so much survivability and bonus stats which allows us to get 500-600 STR, 800 INT, 1,100-1,300 DA, capped resists in legendary and almost 6k HP.
It also enables us to have access to:

Making you a very well-rounded character overall.

Biggest Threats/Potential Challenge Enders (Highest to Lowest Threat):

Progression & Recommended Grinding Routes:

Performance in Ragnarok:
Level Finished: 75
* Ragnarok XP curve boosted it to level 72.
Completed Ragnarok Hardcore: Yes
Difficulty Rating in Legendary: 4 out of 5

Possible Improvements to Existing Build/Setup:
Gameplay and tactics remain unchanged, for the most part, everything else is the same as before.

As our existing equipment include a huge +skills both our masteries, there is not much more to expand in terms of the skill tree.

Specific Equipment Changes:
Odyseus's Armor - With this armor swap, the current setup now makes us ~-28% damage from undead, -52% damage from demons, -35% damage from beastmen and -24% damage from magical. That's about ~70-80% of monsters in the game. As a character dependent on auras for damage, this is very good for the build
Trollwrestler Greaves - more resist to balance out the toon further and raise damage reduction from beastmen to -50%

With the Levelling Curve revamp, we gained 10+ levels equating to 30+ skills points. Since the existing equipment has numerous +x Skills (Eye of Reveries), why did I not revamp the gear to put this into consideration?

The answer is simple. Majority of the items chosen was not exactly chosen for the +skills bonus, but the damage bonuses the gear had. Being a built as a tank mage hybrid, with no inherent tank skills save for ToC, attributes were spread thin between STR/DEX/INT, with our main damage from Fire and EBD (both affected by INT), we sacrifice the stat so that we could wear items like Aionios, Visor of the Shadowlord & Sceptre of the Shadow King. To compensate for that we equipped items that further increased our aura damage. Unfortunately, I have not come up with a combination that would give us the same effect as our usual gameplay.

Threats/Bosses:
[/list]
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 02 December 2017, 08:00:27
Hardcore Run Class: Soothsayer

Considered by most to be one of the stronger Petmancers available in-game. It's synergy fits well when boosting your pets with Vita-damage becase of the built in RR shred aura Necrosis provides.

Build Concept & Source of Damage:
Petmancer & Support Class
Wolves, Lich, Outsider Nymph & Deathchill Aura tree
Personal Class+Build Tier Rating: 1 out of 5; Very Weak (in xMax)
Difficulty Rating:
Early Game (1-45): 5 out of 5 Early Game
Late Game (45-65): 5 out of 5 Late Game
Normal to Legendary Finish: 7 Days, 5 Hours, 13 Minutes
Kills: 50,292
Level Finished: 67

Class Notes:

Personal Challenge Equipment:
Wraithlord/Ritualist Amulet of Convocation - Dionysus Wineskin w/ DA or Bleed Resist Bonus
Wraithlord/Ritualist Ring of Immortality (2) - Dionysus Wineskin w/ DA or Bleed Resist Bonus
& Demon's Blood w/ DA Bonus
Archmage Clasp
Deimos
Mantle of Sa'Jun
Hallowed Revnant Crown Legends/Mastery/Immortality - Crystal of Erebus w/ Resist All bonus
Impenetrable Batrachos Greaves of Any - Pristine Plumage w/ Poison Resist Bonus.
Weightless Stone Hammer of Might - Valor of Achilles w/ DEX bonus
Star of Ishtar - with Elemental Resist Bonus

[Stat Buffing/Req Debuffing Equipment:]
Thoth's Glory Relic
Captain's Signet (2)
Hale Ring of Might

Helm - The odds of this dropping in a regular farm is impossible. However, since the optimization benefits of it to the overall build is BADLY needed. I consider it a must. I suggest for you to farm this using an exploit in pre-Anniversary (patch 1.17 comm patch or later) with Defiler filtering (yellow, white and broken). This increases the chance of some MIs spawning to abnormal levels only with rare (green) affixes. Since this drop requires a Hallowed affix this is your best bet to get it. Scumbag much? Yeah, but better than MI shop, yes?

Gloves - Massive CDR; only reason why

Armor - low str req means you can use it early. It provides huge boost to a lot of resists.

Boots - The thin spread means that this build lacks the DA it needs to be viable in Legendary xMax. Lowered STR req makes it an ideal equipment for this build.

Shield - +Skills and Resists to fill in and avoid the -% for Legendary

Jewelry - This is self explanatory. For pure petmancers, you'll need the extra damage in Legendary. Plague and Necrosis RR shred with this on your pets will result in a servicable slow clear. IMHO, this is the only way you can make this build viable in xMax in AE. It was optional pre-Anniversary, but I concluded that this is mandatory in AE.

Biggest Threats/Potential Challenge Enders (Highest to Lowest Threat):
too many to mention, rather than mention specific encounters I will try to classify certain threats and group enemies within that category.[

Progression & Recommended Grinding Routes:

Performance in Ragnarok:
[to be updated...]
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: Medea Fleecestealer on 02 December 2017, 11:33:56
Pleased to see you doing this gasconron.  Sure it will be a great help to those wanting to try the Xmax HC challenge.  I too chose Conqueror as my first toon, the first time because it seemed to be the strongest class, I was totally new to the genre and needed all the help I could get.  ;D  I died lots of times (60+) iirc, but it was the first toon I got through to the end of the game.  Played it again as my first toon when I got a new PC and move the game on to that.

One suggestion though - lose the yellow text.  It's unreadable against the forum background.  My eyesight's not 100% (I wear glasses), but all I see is a blur of yellow so no idea what stuff you're suggesting to look out for. 

Since you're posting details of when your toons completed the Xmax HC challenge I'll add them to the new leaderboard.  :)  Are these all new toons you started in the AE version or are some older IT ones?  Let me know so I can mark them up if needed on the leaderboard.
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: Melari on 02 December 2017, 18:54:58
indeed yellow is unreadable for me as well.
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: efko on 02 December 2017, 19:38:31
I think that there might be chance for changing yellow to darker one.
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 02 December 2017, 21:42:11
@MedeaFleecestealer :

No need to add; these are re-runs and for the most part just for my own satisfaction. i just wanted to see if i am still able to do them with the new buffed monsters and nerfed cap and res values of AE. Last thing i want to do is clutter LB for newer players; will be doing my own thing for now. Will rejoin the challenge soon enough using other classes I haven't used before or old classes I'm convinced can't finish the challenge using the same concept I used originally.

As for the yellow tagging, sorry just wanted it to match the labelling system of TQ. It does hurt the eyes doesn't it?  ;D
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: Medea Fleecestealer on 03 December 2017, 17:41:50
Well, I don't think it would hurt to give new players some examples, but I can link to this thread in the opening Xmax HC one and they can see for themselves.

It wasn't so much hurting my eyes, just that I couldn't make out what the words were supposed to be.  It was just a blur of yellow something - couldn't even say for sure they were letters. I thought you were trying to match the ingame colour coding, but unfortunately that simply didn't work.  The orange is much better and I can read what you're actually talking about!
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: CrocMagnum on 05 December 2017, 15:25:03
Woah, gasconron! I'm so happy to see you back. :)

I can see you still have it. Doing a crazy set of challenges like that takes some talent (and time). +respect for doing it with xMax. ^^

I also like the way you put Classes into perspective: indeed some Classes are better at survival than others.

Anyways! Good luck on your endeavours.
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 05 December 2017, 16:31:25
@CrocMagnum : Thanks, was already a daunting and time consuming task to do all 36... Ragnarok just made longer (45). And I have to revisit past entries to see if they can do expansion content no worries :D It's all good. Love this game though. Talent not really, more like patience.
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: Fisch on 05 December 2017, 18:27:44
Gasconron thanks for the guides! I look forward to watching this grow and learn from it. Already been very helpful and the guides are well laid out to! I dunno how well I can handle hardcore cuz my patience slips sometimes especially with a silly death we are all to familiar with but definitely gives me something to consider going forward when I make a new toon.
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 06 December 2017, 20:16:05
Hardcore Run Class: Juggernaut

Build Concept & Source of Damage:
High Armor - Melee/Caster Hybrid [hybrid]
Flat Resist Reduction, Eruption, Flame Enchantment, Volcanic Orb, Shield Passives
Personal Class+Build Tier Rating: 2 out of 5; Below Average
Difficulty Rating:
Early-to-Mid Game (1-55): 2.5 out of 5 Early Game Difficulty
Late Game (55+): 4 out of 5 Late Game Difficulty
Normal to Legendary Finish: 3 days, 12 hours, 2 minutes
Kills: 150,931
Level Finished: 65

Class Notes:

Personal Challenge Equipment:
Necklace of Harmonia
Hale Ring of Immortality - Demon's Blood w/ Ele resist bonus OR Monkey Tricks if Crest of Hypnos used
Hale Ring of Supremacy (OA) - Demon's Blood w/ Ele resist bonus OR Monkey Tricks if Crest of Hypnos used
Hallowed Any Helm of Divination - Crystal of Erebus w/ All resist OR Crest of Hypnos
Ferrus Gnosi
Purifying SBC of Any - Boar Hide w/ Bleed resist
Impenetrable Myrmiddon's Legplate of Any - Boar Hide w/ Bleed resist
Pyrophoric Loop (2)
Persephone's Caress [optional]
Shield of Korybantes
Zeno's Third Paradox
Talisman of the Jade Emperor [main]
Might of Hephaestus [damage spike]

Setup is nothing peculiar. When looking at it as a big picture, it's your run of the mill melee setup. DA/OA barely functional in Legendary, relatively high AR and balanced resists with nothing in the negatives. The kicker is in the weapon sets used in this setup.

Necklace of Harmonia gives a fair amount of resists across the board and provides ADCtH that is much needed to any melee-based toon. Since weapon sets are focused on debuff and elemental damage we need a source of ADCtH to sustain our toon as he traverses through hordes of pelting projectiles, while clearing through mobs.

Note on Armor: Ferrus Gnossi is not the optimum armor that you can use; but is the most accessible if you are playing this toon twinked. The armor provides a huge bump to your ele resists while adding on to your the effictiveness of your armor whilst boosting base stats. Ideally looking from the setup provided the item you can benefit from the most is a Veteran's and of the Glade armor whilst retaining Elemental resists is Prowler's Cuirass. However, I did not recommend using it for 2 reasons.

SBC is a must. Having not invested in +skills in other equipment, you will need to source it from somewhere. This is your most flexible equipment, as your affix choice will be a filler to what you need based on your current equipment or whatever you prioritize. In my setup I was lacking a lot of poison resist, which is why I had a Purifying on mine. As for a suffix of the Glade or Immortality would be best (both for safety).

Weapon Set 1 is your multipurpose set, which  is comprised of a Pyrophoric Loop and Zeno's Paradox. You will use the most during your adventuring in this HC run past level 45-50. This will give you added Fire Damage to compliment your build and add variety to your damage. The shield taken was for safety. Being a fairly frail melee you will need the precious +% to CtAP and CtDA during your mob clears. With a healthy supply of Arrowdancer Scrolls, you should be able to comfortably clear areas in Legendary that are problematic for characters that have no ranged shutdown/management skills or CtAP sources from their skillset.

Weapon Set 2 is your debuff set. Combined, Pyrophoric Loop and Shield of Korybantes gives just as much RR as Sapros the Corrupter. Except you don't have to deal with the -20-25% HP reduction. As a melee Defender-based toon your HP is your lifeline, decreasing your total HP by a huge % is counter productive. Since this is designed to be a Hardcore toon, a bigger pool means you have more allowance for minor mistakes and more time to react to unexpected damage spikes, which can be fatal.  This combo'd with your Eruption, Volcanic Orb and RoF ticks will make your fire damage much more potent despite the low INT investment on the character. This is invaluable during boss fights in Legendary where Boss resistances are off the roof.

[optional] Regarding using Persephone's Caress, while I do say this item is optional. This switch has saved me more times than I can count in this character's HC run. This item per se, is not a legitimate weapon switch as you already have 2 weapon sets. This is a manual switch from the inventory UI into your 1st Weapon Set. Personally, this is a situational switch, which you will somehow get a feel of as you play this profession with this setup. It's usefulness is in the 50 HP/sec regen that it gives, which is gold in surviving sticky situations you find yourself in unknowingly or put yourself into due to carelessness, the type where in turning on Colossus can't save you from the mess you in. With Zeno's Third Paradox + Arrowdancer Scroll w/ Quick Recovery + Rally on top of the regen on this item will make sustain better.

Why 2 Artifacts? TotJE is logical it gives you a huge boost to elemental resists and gives you a chunky CDR to help your utility skills (stoneform, rally, quick recovery) to recharge faster. Might of Hephaestus, on the otherhand, has always been an abusable reset tool due to its powerful proc. The main problem with it is it's long 2 minute cooldown. So while it is less useful for classes that have efficient boss killing capabilities, for a Juggernaut that is always exposed to long drawn-out boss fights in Legendary, being able to proc it every 2 minutes is a huge help; especially when you setup the damage spike with a couple of hits with your debuff weapon set.

Biggest Threats/Potential Challenge Enders:

Progression & Recommended Grinding Routes:
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 17 December 2017, 12:18:49
Conqueror, Haruspex & Elementalist updated for Ragnarok.

Will put this thread's progress on hold to do more farming on Ragnarok with my Conqueror to hunt for new Legendaries.

My most current run in Ragnarok with my Elementalist made me rethink about the feasibility of my non-cookie cutter entries in Ragnarok. The content is considerably challenging for caster-focused builds and I want to ensure I have the best possible gear available before I venture my toons to AE:R.
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 36 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 30 December 2017, 08:11:22
Hardcore Run Class: Avenger

Build Concept & Source of Damage:
Magic Archer (Fire)
Eruption, VO, Marksmanship
Personal Class+Build Tier Rating:
Difficulty Rating:
Early-to-Mid Game (1-55): 2 out of 5
Late Game (55+): 3 out of 5
Normal to Legendary Finish: 3 days, 6 hours, 37 minutes
Kills: 163,459
Level Finished: 75

Class Notes:

Personal Challenge Equipment:
Terisias's Guide
Blessing of the Gods - Demon's Blood w/ Energy Leech & Stun Resist Bonus
Socrates Ring of Immortality - Monkey Tricks w/ Elemental Resist
Socrates Ring of Immortality - Demon's Blood w/ Energy Leech & Stun Resist Bonus
Robe of Sidros Lobos
Impenetrable SBC of Immortality - Iron Will of Ajax
Boots of Freyja
Apollo's Curved Bow
Blessing of the Gods -

Tiresias' Guide is a no brainer, being a hybrid -% to equipment requirements is a god send. The -% CDR is also welcome due to lessen the cooldowns of Stone Form and Eruption. It gives a decent chunk of DA and is also one of the few unique items that give a generous bonus to +% INT. Overall, this is a very good base item for any mage hybrids, as it tends to fill out exactly what the class is lacking.

Robe of Sidros Lobos was taken for its massive bonus to Elemental Resists and flat +INT bonus, it also give a good chunk of DA all of which are benficial to the build concept.

Rings of choice are obvious, INT% boost with a generous bonus to +HP. Then Monkey tricks relics for the RR and added resists from the bonus. Amulet taken was to bump up most of the resists to positive as well as boosting HP and MP values.

Apollo's Curved Bow was used over Ichaival for two reasons:
Regardless, Apollo's Curved Bow is very a strong choice for an Avenger. It has flat fire dmg bonus, +% fire dmg bonus, +attack speed % and a stun proc. All of which are useful to your gameplay.

Biggest Threats/Potential Challenge Enders:
Progression & Recommended Grinding Routes:
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 45 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 21 March 2018, 10:52:03
Avenger Guide filled out...

Haruspex, Diviner, Dreamkiller & Evoker Guides updated (AE:R section), I don't have the confidence to tackle the expansion with my Soothsayer in xMax. I really don't think she will make it...

Will leave the Sage Guide empty for now, and will fill out the bits gradually. Didn't have much to do today, had a lot of time to write these. Hope I get to do this again tomorrow.

I think I will be eventually adding videos for each in the future, since it doesn't really achieve it's purpose of a guide without proper demo. For now, words will have to suffice. I miss college, I used to have all the time in the world.
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 45 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 21 March 2018, 10:53:30
Hardcore Run Class: Sage

Build Concept & Source of Damage:
Magic Archer (Lightning & Cold)
Squall, Spellbreaker, Lightning Strike, Marksmanship
Personal Class+Build Tier Rating:
Difficulty Rating:
Early-to-Mid Game (1-55): 3 out of 5
Late Game (55+): 2 out of 5
Normal to Legendary Finish: 2 days, 22 hours, 58 minutes
Kills: 150,007
Level Finished: 74

Class Notes:
Personal Challenge Equipment:
Terisias's Guide
Sacred Amulet of Feasting - Tortured Soul w/ Ritual Bonus
Socrates Ring of Immortality - Monkey Tricks w/ Elemental Resist
Socrates Ring of Immortality - Monkey Tricks w/ Elemental Resist
Cestus
Impenetrable SBC of Immortality - Iron Will of Ajax
Battlemage Greaves
Astrapi
Ethereal Veil - Attack Speed or Physical Damage bonus

Tiresias' Guide is a no brainer, being a hybrid -% to equipment requirements is a god send. The -% CDR is also welcome due to lessen the cooldowns of Stone Form and Eruption. It gives a decent chunk of DA and is also one of the few unique items that give a generous bonus to +% INT. Overall, this is a very good base item for any mage hybrids, as it tends to fill out exactly what the class is lacking.

Truthfully, I could have used Robe of Sidros Lobos for Avenger as well. Choosing Cestus was an aesthetic choice to be honest, because of how it fit well with the Sage's theme. However, in exchange for the DA and large flat bonus to INT, you get a generous amount of resists for Elemental, Vitality and Pierce, some -% CD, as well as +% to INT and Health.

Battlemage Greaves was taken for the massive + flat DA, keeping us at ~1,000 DA breakpoint.

Rings of choice are obvious, INT% boost with a generous bonus to +HP. Then Monkey tricks relics for the RR and added resists from the bonus. Amulet of choice might be questionable at first glance but it was the only slot where I can get ADCtH from. While Necklace of Harmonia give a bigger ADCtH % bonus, other stats from the item are superficial. Having a Sacred of Feasting on the other hand gave me +skills and an extra slot for either another Monkey Tricks, Demon's Blood or even a Tortured Soul (Ritual bonus) depending on the situation.

Astrapi was used over Ichaival for two reasons:
Regardless, Astrapi is very a strong choice for a Sage. It has flat lightning dmg bonus, +%lightning dmg bonus, +attack speed % and a stun proc. All of which are useful to your gameplay.

Biggest Threats/Potential Challenge Enders:

Progression & Recommended Grinding Routes:
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 45 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: Jerome26 on 11 May 2018, 08:34:57
Very informative guide… thanks for help and advice
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 45 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: andyblast on 15 October 2018, 10:48:21
Are u going with potion-usage or potion-free?
Title: Re: Breaking Titan Quest AE xMax on all 45 Professions - Hardcore (0 Deaths)
Post by: gasconron on 02 November 2018, 16:45:20
Always with potion... and I am a chugger. Given that I play this game in Hardcore setting 100% I use whatever available resource there is for me
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