Titan Quest dynasty - slow ride through "Legendary" play

[Brillig]

Warfare is a hugely fun skill set, especially if you go the dual wield route. My second highest char is war/dream - at one point I had a pair of Fell Blades and was running around with an attack speed of 151% I think.

Ginsu comes to Greece.

That character is another attribute build, though, so I only have battle standard at level 1 - seems to make a difference, but it's hard to say how much of one. Doesn't seem to help quite as much as it does the early centaurs, for example.

The 'pets' build is fun to watch though. It's almost like playing a healer in a MMO. I just set the attack puppies to aggressive, then trail around after them picking up loot and tossing the occasional heal. I'm sure later I'll need to coordinate them a little more, but right now, even a single one is more than a match for the typical spawn of five critters.

The item drops have me a little bemused though. On my now-defunct characters, I think I had a lot more set items, but I'd only completed one artifact (through maybe half the hours I've put in). This time around, I've got a baker's dozen artifacts, but collected four set items.

Edit: Just had to add - got a second piece of +1 to skills gear equipped at level 15, and woot! Now I can have 3 wolves out at skill level 18.

[PiemasterUK]

Progress Update - Just completed Normal mode and am eagerly anticipating epic (where I've heard my pets actually become useful again). Didn't manage to complete the generals quest in Hades palace despite the fact I cleared the entire palce and then searched thorougly. Must have missed something somewhere.

[TonyR]

My character for whomped by Typhus. Don't know how I'm going to go and beat him...oh well... time to start a new character

[Brillig]

What's your build like? I doubt it's possible to make something so borked it can't be fixed...

[hoopsguy]

I agree with what Brillig said - I had to go through a number of different builds to find one that worked with Typhos. Tinkering, plus practice getting whomped, eventually led to a breakthrough.

Of course, I have two characters of my own that are sitting at Typhos. But that is more from being obsessed with the current guys than a fear of Typhos. Or at least that is what I tell myself

[PiemasterUK]

Having read most of the thread now, I have come to the conclusion that 90% of the major problems you have had could have been resolved by maxing out Plague .

[TonyR]

Originally Posted by Brillig

What's your build like? I doubt it's possible to make something so borked it can't be fixed...

My character is a juggernaut. Fire/Defense. Don't know too many specifics since I haven't played in a while. But I went up againt Typhos like I did against most mobs since my char is more of a physical attacker, and just got crushed once. Twice went in more reserved with my fire demon set to aggressive, and me being more reserve role shooting off spells/scrolls only to get crushed a 2nd time. Haven't gone back for a third try yet.

[Brillig]

Hmm, well if you've got Earth Enchantment built up, you could just use a staff - run around him in circles, shooting until he dies. Summon pets when they're up, but don't expect them to do much. That was basically how I did it on my warlock.

Or maybe Shield Charge - run away - Shield Charge - etc. I doubt you have Defiance maxxed, heh, but that would probably work great since mostly he does elemental attacks.

The other thing to keep in mind is, you don't have to give up just because you die. As long as you don't portal out of Olympus, I don't think he regenerates. So you can wear him down, as long as you remember to bring plenty of supplies beforehand.

[Brillig]

Originally Posted by PiemasterUK

Having read most of the thread now, I have come to the conclusion that 90% of the major problems you have had could have been resolved by maxing out Plague .

I've read that plague is really great too, although I can't really tell why it would be just from the description. Details?

[PiemasterUK]

Originally Posted by Brillig

I've read that plague is really great too, although I can't really tell why it would be just from the description. Details?

It's great against really hard bosses because you can just plague them, run away, come back, plague again, wash/rinse repeat. Also because it does damage as a % of total health, it is especially effective against bosses with lots of health who you need to grind down, such as Typhon.

[hoopsguy]

Sounds like I need to revisit Plague - I had it at one point in time, but decided to focus on pets instead.

FWIW, I went back with one of my other alts and whupped Typhos. Heavy defense type, used a bunch of potions and a series of Shield Charges - just took patience and dying once when I hung in too long with his poison + mana attacks doing me in. That character has a pretty impressive set of gear.

Do people who are playing deep into the game have full sets of items? I think the most I have for any of them is three, with several items sets of two. I'll post some of this stuff over the next day or two, depending on when I get time to play again.

[hoopsguy]

Also, one thing that I'm not sure I commented on - the game got significantly easier for this character when I switched to a weapon that did Life Leech and started using some of the Dream Auras to share damage with my foes. Both of those, in conjunction with the Psionic Immolation group attacks, really made the Squid much more effective in Hades the second time around.

Finally, what is the spell effect where a yellow circle appears under a creature? I saw that with a number of the tougher spearmen and ants in Hades, and those guys always dealt a ton of damage. I've never been sure what kind of damage they have dealt, which has made it hard to mitigate.

[twothree]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Along these lines, I'm curious to hear where other people are with their games. Has anyone else made their way to face Typhos or Hades yet? Anyone lapping me at this point?

Played quite a bit on the 4th of July. Started a new hybrid character, a guardian (nature/defender). Got to 10th level near Delphi. Found an epic shield (Captain's Shield?) and one rare item, a gauntlet, along the way. The shield goes well with the defender build, so I was very pleased.

[Brillig]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Also, one thing that I'm not sure I commented on - the game got significantly easier for this character when I switched to a weapon that did Life Leech and started using some of the Dream Auras to share damage with my foes. Both of those, in conjunction with the Psionic Immolation group attacks, really made the Squid much more effective in Hades the second time around.

Finally, what is the spell effect where a yellow circle appears under a creature? I saw that with a number of the tougher spearmen and ants in Hades, and those guys always dealt a ton of damage. I've never been sure what kind of damage they have dealt, which has made it hard to mitigate.

The swirly yellow hula-hoops o doom? That's the warfare Onslaught skill. The more they hit you, the more it powers up, and the more it powers up, the more damage they do.

At least that's what I think you're talking about - I'm not there yet in Hades.

[PiemasterUK]

I actually have both pets and plague going on. What is your build at the moment? Here's mine at level 39 (in Epic Greece).

http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.a...-0-0-0-0-2-0-0

Note I have a Wanderers Helm giving +1 to all nature skills.

[hoopsguy]

Doing a quick review, here are some of the differences between our builds (currently Level 54, just starting Legendary Greece):
- have Heart of Oak maxxed out
- have a bunch of points in my Nymph, although neither it nor my wolves are maxxed (only two wolves)
- no Plague
- maxxed out Lucid Dream
- near maxxed Psionic Immolation
- similar points in Empathy to your Trance of Convalescence

[Brillig]

Originally Posted by PiemasterUK

It's great against really hard bosses because you can just plague them, run away, come back, plague again, wash/rinse repeat. Also because it does damage as a % of total health, it is especially effective against bosses with lots of health who you need to grind down, such as Typhon.

Hmm, thanks for the feedback. I don't think it's for me though, seems just too cheesy.

[TonyR]

Originally Posted by Brillig

Hmm, well if you've got Earth Enchantment built up, you could just use a staff - run around him in circles, shooting until he dies. Summon pets when they're up, but don't expect them to do much. That was basically how I did it on my warlock.

Or maybe Shield Charge - run away - Shield Charge - etc. I doubt you have Defiance maxxed, heh, but that would probably work great since mostly he does elemental attacks.

The other thing to keep in mind is, you don't have to give up just because you die. As long as you don't portal out of Olympus, I don't think he regenerates. So you can wear him down, as long as you remember to bring plenty of supplies beforehand.

Go figure, no points in shield charge. Also, Typhos seems to fire to fast for me to stop and shoot at him and fire at him.

[Brillig]

The one thing you positively have to avoid is the avalanche of doom. Everything else was survivable for me (survivable = 1000 damage or so). Make sure you bring a lot of potions though. Scrolls can also be good... I particularly like Crushing Vortex, as all you have to do with it is run around and not aim it. Pet scrolls are mostly worthless as Typhon'll munch em fast.

Aside from the avalanche, his fire attack seems to take the longest to animate... that's what I'd start with first, trying to attack during that. In fact if you wanted to stick with attacking only during that, it might be a viable strategy to just load up on fire resist, wait for him to start blowing smoke then nail em.

[hoopsguy]

He also gives you plenty of warning for the "avalanche of doom" - you just step out of the way and that is a great time to land a couple of hits before he moves on to his next attack.

I liked having my resists up a decent amount for this fight, as he shows all the elementals and poison in his attacks. I think somewhere in the 50 range for each is doable (going from memory). And I liked having a DPS of at least 300 for this fight, higher if possible. I think I went through about 50 potions in that fight with my defender.

[Brillig]

Finished normal difficulty, finally...

Level 39 Warlock

Health 2755
Energy 892

Strength 123
Intelligence 387
Dexterity 198

Resistances - What are resistances? Poison 5%

DPS 451

Combined Armor 178

Monsters Killed 16,863
Greatest Damage Dealt 737
Elapsed Time 57 hours
Total Deaths 19

Weapon: Shadow Staff of Lightning w/Essence of Zeus' Thunderbolt

Skills:
Spirit Mastery 32/32 (+3 to Spirit Skills)
* Ternion Attack 15/12
* * Arcane Lore 9/6
* Death Ward 4/8
* Deathchill Aura 7/6
* * Ravages of Time 6/8
* Life Drain 4/12
* Summon Liche King 7/16
* * Death Nova 4/12
* * Wraith Shell 4/12
* * Arcane Blast 4/12
* Summon Outsider 5/16

Rogue Mastery 32/32 (+1 to Rogue skills)
* Envenom Weapon 5/12
* * Nightshade 5/8
* * Toxin Distillation 5/12
* * Mandrake 9/8
* Disarm Traps 2/6
----


I noticed some folks are missing the fourth general for the Hades Treasury side-quest. Here's where it be:

Spoiler

In the Fields of the Diadochi (past the eerie purple barrier), there's a revival shrine. There are two wooden ramps, one due west, another more north-west - you need to climb up the ramp and follow them to a small clearing with the Empusa hero.

[PiemasterUK]

Originally Posted by Brillig

I noticed some folks are missing the fourth general for the Hades Treasury side-quest. Here's where it be:

Spoiler

In the Fields of the Diadochi (past the eerie purple barrier), there's a revival shrine. There are two wooden ramps, one due west, another more north-west - you need to climb up the ramp and follow them to a small clearing with the Empusa hero.

I'm one of those really anal people who likes to explore every inch of the map, so I actually found that

Grats on finishing Normal. You can now sit bakc and relax because Act 1 of Epic is really easy.

[hoopsguy]

Yeah, I've found it as well but I have not gone back to complete the quest even with the four stones. Probably should do that, as I still have them kicking around the inventory (Epic ones, not Normal).

[Brillig]

Actually, rather than dive right into Epic, I'm thinking of running some more alts through Normal. I've already gotten four Greater Artifact recipes on my Warlock, *none* of which I have the artifacts to complete. This in spite of having completed 13 Lesser Artifacts already. I'm obviously missing a lot.

Oh, and did anyone else get a really cool completion bonus for the crystal of Erebus charm? I got

Spoiler

+8% to experience

.

[hoopsguy]

Brillig, that is why I'm breaking out some of the other alts now. I had 7 items to collect on Normal and I've pulled in five of them. Of course, those haven't yielded really cool artifacts but I'm still happy to have them completed rather than having two of three components lying around.

[Poli]

I really think I need to get this game.

[Brillig]

If you liked Diablo it's a no-brainer.

[Brillig]

So I decided to go back to my 'all-skills' Nature char. Alastor was no problem, though he did get two of my puppies first . Mino Lord was easy. The Telkine was quite long, but not tough - he made me run around a lot.

Having pretty much maxxed out the first two tiers of Nature (Heart of Oak 14/12, Regrowth 6/16, Accelerated Growth 8/8, Call of the Wild 18/16, Maul 14/12), I need to figure what to do next.

I could build Nature up to tier 3, pick up Survival Instinct and maybe even Briar Ward (see if it sucks as badly as it sounds).

Or I could pick up a second mastery... Since the pets are my primary weapon, I'm looking for something to make the pets better.

Dream has Sleep, a useful regen aura, another pet, and at the very top tier, the Mastermind skill which would be great.

Hunting has an attack aura, an attack buff, regen buff, and defense debuff. Also a great poison resist.

Earth has another pet as well, and the fire shield. The attack aura is nice, but too short ranged to use with pets if you're a non-contact char.

Storm has the pet, and a cold/lightning shield. Also the vs archer debuff.

In the end I decided to go with Hunting. The Mastermind skill is too far up the tree, I might not even reach it by the end of Epic, heh. And I can get some small elemental resists in Nature, but nothing vs poison. Finally, the attack aura in Hunting works quite well with the wolves, buffing both piercing and bleeding damage - the wolves don't have any base damage in that category, but their Maul is doing 146 bleed/3 sec and 26 piercing right now. By the time Art of the Hunt is maxxed, it should be more like 244 bleed/3 sec and 50 piercing. The extra damage to beasts and beastmen is just gravy. I'm also a big fan of Herbal Remedy - it doesn't sound like much, but the regen is actually very nice, and it gets to max poison resistance very quickly (6 points). Hopefully I don't regret the choice in Hades when the elemental attacks start coming in heavy. Or (gulp) at Typhon.

[thealmighty]

Anybody else get the Overlord turtle key from Hades? Let's you in to a locked area with a HUGE chest at the end.

[Brillig]

That doesn't sound familiar. Whereabouts was this?

[thealmighty]

The key (called Overlord or something but looks like a turtle) is a random drop when you defeat Hades- at any level. I read about it on a forum. These guys were talking about farming for the key. Some said they had killed Hades 50+ times and no key while others had it drop very quickly.

It opens a special area outside Rhodes and it has a huge Majestic chest at the end of it. They say on the forum that they farm the chest as well but I only opend it the one time.

[ageofquarrel]

Decent Game. I got it about a week ago, leveled up a Dream/Nature to lvl 11, but made an alt because I cant kill the life eaters. Now i Have a Lvl 10 Warrior, haven't decided on a second Mastery. But I did get a blue armor drop that i could use, Labrythine Curraiss with a 100+ armor compared with all the other drops I was getting at 30+.

[Brillig]

Originally Posted by thealmighty

The key (called Overlord or something but looks like a turtle) is a random drop when you defeat Hades- at any level. I read about it on a forum. These guys were talking about farming for the key. Some said they had killed Hades 50+ times and no key while others had it drop very quickly.

It opens a special area outside Rhodes and it has a huge Majestic chest at the end of it. They say on the forum that they farm the chest as well but I only opend it the one time.

Thanks for the info - no wonder I hadn't heard of it if it's a rare drop. Assuming the huge chest is like any other chest (except more stuff), I don't much see the point of farming it. I'd rather just play more alts

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by ageofquarrel

Decent Game. I got it about a week ago, leveled up a Dream/Nature to lvl 11, but made an alt because I cant kill the life eaters. Now i Have a Lvl 10 Warrior, haven't decided on a second Mastery. But I did get a blue armor drop that i could use, Labrythine Curraiss with a 100+ armor compared with all the other drops I was getting at 30+.

Sick - my current Level 18 Warrior doesn't have an item that compares to that one.

Long time no talk - glad to hear you are having a good time with this so far. I really liked the storyline on this the first time through and found the balance interesting enough to keep coming back.

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by thealmighty

The key (called Overlord or something but looks like a turtle) is a random drop when you defeat Hades- at any level. I read about it on a forum. These guys were talking about farming for the key. Some said they had killed Hades 50+ times and no key while others had it drop very quickly.

It opens a special area outside Rhodes and it has a huge Majestic chest at the end of it. They say on the forum that they farm the chest as well but I only opend it the one time.

I got it when I finished Normal, but had not yet read about it on the forum. Naturally I had flushed it when cleaning out inventory by the time I read about the chest

[Brillig]

Now I'm hacked off. I picked up the formula for one of the artifacts I'm missing to complete a Greater Artifact... I figure, no problem, since I have at least one copy of every charm and relic in storage (I *never* slot the last one...)

Only to find that the recipe requires a relic so freaking rare I don't even have a partial shard of it.

Grr.

Grr I say!

[thealmighty]

Killed Typhon in epic...died once and it took a while. On to Act IV.

Level 52 Harbinger

Health 5265
Energy 595

Strength 664
Intelligence 262
Dexterity 440

Resistances: Fire- 58%; Cold- 74%; Lightning- -19%; Poison- 14%; Pierce- -13% (this one hurts me with all the archers in the game)

Attack Speed: 191%
DPS: 1060

Combined Armor: 933 (no blocking)

Gold: 100+ million (yes, that's right, unfortunately...see note below)

Weapon: Dual-wielding Sabertooths (they are only 83-90 damage but are very fast. Plus, they are green so they both have a relic/charm on them. They give me 57 dex and about +70% speed bump)

Best Item: Athena's Battle Greaves (legendary):
384 armor
45% fire resist
52% cold resist
49% poison resist
+25% damage
+37 strength
+315 health
+56 defensive ability
+30% movement

Artifact: Soul Prism (not that good but the best I have. Gives necromancy skill which gives me some skeletons that pop in for me in battle)

Skills: (+2 to ALL skills on my cuffs)
Warfare Mastery 32/32 -- I have 18/16 Ancestral Horn and 12/10 Battle Standard. Put those two down and things just fall in a big pile at my feet- except the red monsters. of course)

Dream Mastery 32/32 -- Have nightmare and the bottom trance thing but I have no idea what is good here really. Need to see the man and change these up I think. Suggestions?


I have so much gold because I am the unluckiest person ever when it comes to item drops and merchant ware. I realllly need two new rings, a new amulet and a new helm. I have no intel so can't use a wand, but my bow is still a yellow item and sucks but I never can find one that does better. I had 6 legendary items drop so far but only have one I can use (sucks). Never, ever have had more than one piece of any set, either (sucks also).

[thealmighty]

dola...

I got two items- Detective Spats and Tarwater's Kickers (look like cowboy boots)- that it says cannot be sold. Anyone have something like that? What's the deal?

They are blue and have good stats on them, btw.

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by thealmighty

Dream Mastery 32/32 -- Have nightmare and the bottom trance thing but I have no idea what is good here really. Need to see the man and change these up I think. Suggestions?


I have so much gold because I am the unluckiest person ever when it comes to item drops and merchant ware. I realllly need two new rings, a new amulet and a new helm. I have no intel so can't use a wand, but my bow is still a yellow item and sucks but I never can find one that does better. I had 6 legendary items drop so far but only have one I can use (sucks). Never, ever have had more than one piece of any set, either (sucks also).

Dream - I've been coming at it with primarily a spellcaster, while it sounds like you are a lot more physical (duh). But I've really enjoyed the multiple options for electrical burn and vitality damage multipliers that are inherent in this power set.

Lucid Dream, capped at 8/8, gives you +28% damage with +45% for Electrical Burn and Vitality.

Premonition, capped at 6/6, gives you +18% Offensive and Defensive Ability

Temporal Flux, capped at 6/6, gives you +12% Total Speed, +15% Avoid Projectiles, and 28% Slow Resist. I would expect those should have value for your close-up fighting with twin Sabretooths.

Temporal Rift is probably next on my list for my caster - I'll probably respec at some point in place of Psionic Immolation which is clearly superior when all foes are not Demons (Hades).

I've got a bunch of my legendary items tucked away for other alts, as I've only been able to use a couple of them. However, I'm up to two items in a number of sets and up to three items (out of six) with another one that seems to be based out of the Orient on Normal difficulty. Since I still have two alts that are in Egypt, hopefully they can find additional items for that set.

[hoopsguy]

Add Distortion Field as another close-fighting Dreams skill. No pre-req skills required, capped at 8/8 it gives 39 Damage Absorbtion and 45 Damage Retaliation for 15 second duration (5% chance of activating).

[PiemasterUK]

Just got my first Legendary Item. A Thorny Maul dropped by the first Telkine in Epic Greece. Unfortunately it's completely useless for my character but I'm sure one of my alts can use it one day.

[Brillig]

Got a very cool item for my pet-master from an Act III quest:

Puppetmaster's Talisman

+6.0 Energy Regeneration per second

Bonus to All Pets:
+200 Health
+10% Total Speed

[Calis]

Finally picked up Immortal Throne today, after having not played for at all for a long time. Great expansion, adds lots of new nice things. I've been playing with a friend and have been going Nature with an intent to melee, so far I've just taken Heart of the Oak and Wolves. I'm thinking of taking Dream for secondary and using some of the attack bonuses in there and try out that tree. Having a blast so far

Anyone ever get a FOFC multi-game going? We had some fun doing a Diablo 2 one a few years back. Not sure if it's already been done, don't want to read the whole thread as I haven't got too far in the game yet.

[hoopsguy]

Calis, I think we have a few people that would be willing to do it, if we schedule a time.

I've played with TonyR and EaglesFan once each, and discussed playing with a couple of others.

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by Brillig

Got a very cool item for my pet-master from an Act III quest:

Puppetmaster's Talisman

+6.0 Energy Regeneration per second

Bonus to All Pets:
+200 Health
+10% Total Speed

I had never seen one of these with the Squid, but just ran into it with my Paladin. Also, these can be slotted - even better! However, it won't replace the legendary item that I've got slotted bringing all resists up 50% - I can't even think about it with the penalty going from Epic to Legendary, where most of the resists are underwater again. But this would have been seriously nice to have earlier in the game.

[Brillig]

I finally got to Typhon with the pet-specialist. As expected, it was a pretty brutal grind. Even the maxxed Wolves died in seconds - maybe if I'd have been able to max Survival Instinct too... No deaths though, but it took eight scrolls (three sky's rage, five crushing vortex) and about 20 minutes. I should have taken a screenshot afterwards - for some reason, the nymph's corpses don't disappear, so the rotunda was carpeted with em

Having lots of trouble in Act IV now though, the casters are killing the wolves in job lots. On the other hand, the Grays, who gave me a lot of trouble the first time around, didn't do much this time.

Getting tired of Shadow Veil and Eye of the Heavens recipes - got four each now. Two pairs as drops and two more as the quest rewards. Blech.

[thealmighty]

Just got to Elysium on Epic... WAY easier than Normal for me. The Master Archers tore me up before but this time they were cake. Swept through from Styx up to Elysium in no time at all completing all quests.

Oh, and I got 3 more legendary items- one I can't use and two I already had. Bah. Are there not that many or am I still the unluckiest bastard ever?

[hoopsguy]

I've probably found 10 legendary items. I'll look to post all of them sometime over the next day or two. But most of them are stashed away for my other alts. My Level 37 Paladin has been a lucky beneficiary of this so far, and the others are gaining on the point where they can use the legendary items on layaway.

[PiemasterUK]

Completely randomly I just got a Legendary ring as a quest reward. Not only that, but it is really balla for my character. Check it out!

The Int boost gave me a whole load of DPS.

[Calis]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Calis, I think we have a few people that would be willing to do it, if we schedule a time.

I've played with TonyR and EaglesFan once each, and discussed playing with a couple of others.

Cool, well we'll have to come up with something some night when people are free/interested.

I for the next couple weeks am going to be playing WAY too much as I've got a nice break from work and school. I have been playing some at nights with a friend like I said with a Nature/Dream build, but for my daytime solo class I've been playing a Warden(Defense+Hunting). I hadn't used either of those trees before and frankly I thought Defense sounded pretty boring, even though I heard it was very very good.

I was wrong.

It's fun. Far and away my favorite so far. I'll probably end up going basically straight defense for a LONG time. Just some great passive skills, and some nice attacks as well. I have only touched the Hunt tree so far to max out Wood Lore, but I think I'll go back sometime soon for some of those boss killing skills, as it can take a LONG time to finish off some of the bosses so far, and I'm not very far at all.

Does the TQ thing work like Battlenet at all? I've been playing even when solo in a MP game passworded just because I wasn't for sure if you could import a character you played SP into Multi, but there's no accounts or anything so I'm guessing it doesn't matter.

Anyway, I've been running a game named FOFC with a password of dola, so if anyone wants to stop by feel free. My guy is only lvl 11 so it's just on normal, but if anyone wants to roll a new guy I can always be convinced or set something up.