Titan Quest dynasty - slow ride through "Legendary" play

[hoopsguy]

My defense guy (mixed with Storm) is up to Level 37 and is just destroying stuff in Hades/Normal at the moment. He has a pretty heavy life leech attack, along with good resistances, so he goes wading into mobs and just outlasts them. I agree it is a fun build - I find myself drifting back to this character instead of moving ahead in my Legendary game.

If people want to run a game with characters between levels 25-40 I'm up for it most of next week after 7:30PM CST. I'm also up for starting new builds during that same timeframe if people would rather go in that direction.

[thealmighty]

Never played multiplayer. Could someone outline how it works. Is it just an amped-up version of the same game with more or higher mobs, etc...?

[hoopsguy]

Multi-player - the person who hosts the game determines the starting point. Anything completed in that game goes towards the hosts single-player game. The number of creatures is bumped upwards to account for multiple players. So yeah, basically an amped-up version of the single-player game.

[hoopsguy]

There was a question about legendary items. I've found a total of 16 of them with Colossal Squid, and he is currently using three of them. With one more level he will be able to equip another pair of items, and one of the items has been farmed out to another alt. So all told, I'm using four of my sixteen, hopefully moving up to six of them by next week.

Griefmaker
Leatherskin Shield
Blessing of the Gods (equipped)
Battlemage Bracers (equipped)
Battlemage Greaves (equipped)
Crystalline Armor (need one more point of STR to use)
Crystalline Helm (need one more point of STR to use)
Bloodthirst the Glutton (farmed out, pretty amusing looking item)
Queen Zenobia's Spear
Borealis
Bone Bracers
Pan's Headeress
Souflay Fork
Amazonian Spear
Teucer's Warbow
Doxa Volo

[thealmighty]

Just complleted Epic level. Much easier than I expected, overall. Hades was easy this time as I was prepared for his second coming. The only thing that killed me were the Dactyl guardian things (black ones with wave spell)- got me three times, actually.

I currently have 10 legendary items but 3 of them are duplicates (how unlucky is that). I only have one that is equiped.

[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.

Random speculation on the turtle key:

I got a blue drop, not unlike Hoops' W-900 form, only mine was Gronk's Apology

big boss say i haff to rite to explane akshun. OK.

it simple gronk smash ukla cuz ukla make fun of gronks club. you see? i haff every reeson to smash ukla. no need to push gronk in pit of dispare.

i hope you see now that i had no choyce. pleese no pit of dispare? gronk thank you for your niceness!

lol.

Anyway though, I noticed that the background of the item is a scroll, with *drumroll* a turtle on it!

[thealmighty]

Finished Act I on legendary. Pretty easy for what I was expecting. Only died twice- neither to a boss monster, just stupid stuff.

There was some hydra boss that I wailed on for a good three minutes, often with Battle Standard up, to kill (didn't have to run around because it was attacking my nightmare and storm witches (scroll, they lasted a good while). Those nightmares can take an amazing amount of attacks with their 50% (I think?) to dodge.

Drops SUCKED!! Got one legendary item I can use (only 4 total)- Hunter's Hood or something- and did NOT get ONE blue drop the whole time. I now have over 200 million gold. Got so many divine potions it is ridiculous.

[hoopsguy]

I finished Normal with a second alt last night. By the end this character was loaded up with three legendary items, but still only had a DPS of 294 when finishing off Hades. That value is lower than what I normally shoot for when going after Typhos, so I was pretty surprised with how successful he was. But the character is a defender with a ton of life leech, so he could hang around in mobs basically healing himself as he delivered damage. It was such a different experience than Colossal Squid, who as a Nature/Dreams character was always retreating from battle and trying to avoid mobs. Onslaught, which was a very scary attack from bad guys for my caster was pretty trivial for this guy.

So now I'll have two alts who can collect legendary items. I'm trying to rotate between all five alts, spacing them out in different acts. Hopefully they will all continue to progress onwards at about the same rate. And hopefully I don't get "alt-itis" again anytime soon

[hoopsguy]

No blue drops over Act I of Legendary is more surprising to me than just the one legendary item. It sounds like your luck really does suck

[Brillig]

I went from Medea's place to Elysium with no blue drops. Normal level though.

I've finished normal with two characters now and working on a third.

[Malificent]

I have one character in Legendary - defense/nature. I kind of semi-regret the nature choice, as all he uses in it is Heart of Oak, but Heart of Oak rocks, so not too bad. I've been farming the overlord run in Epic to try and get complete sets of all the bizarre theme sets that the creators seemed to have thrown in.

My alts are very different play styles. I have a glass cannon in my Hunter/Storm character - she currently does 660 dps in Act 3 of Normal, but is getting mauled by most every mob in the act. Then there is my summoner - Spirit/Dream. All about the Liche King and Nightmare (plus the spirit temp summon). That character is interesting because I've totally focused her on health regen rate and right now she's up to 167 health regen per sec, which means, at least in normal, she is very hard to kill unless you can do a tremendous amount of damage at one time.

I also have an Elementalist (Earth/Storm) that I haven't played much and a Harbinger (Warrior/Dream) that is level 23 that I want to turn into a retaliation character - all about getting hit and doing retaliation character. Not sure how effective that will be, but seems like a fun idea.

I'm such an alt-itis freak.

[hoopsguy]

I've found myself playing around with some of those kind of "theme" characters early in the process but bailing as I start to pick up better items that do not necessarily support the concept. For example, my warrior was also a fast-heal guy, with a couple of items that were +2.0 Health Regen. However, when armor that was twice as effective showed up the character fell back to being a little more standard.

Heart of Oak, maxxed out, with defense means that your guy will have a ton of defense and health. I imagine that he is a tough guy to bring down, based on my Level 40 defense guy who doesn't have Heart of Oak.

[thealmighty]

Are there no items available that require a higher level to use? I have not seen any item with a requirement over 45 or so. With mobs that are 10 or more levels above me, and I am in the high 50s, it would be nice if the items scaled higher as well.

Of course, I have had a very easy time in Egypt so far, nonetheless. Have only died once- to Manticore, Beast of Legend (listed as my hardest kill). Maybe my build is built for these parts and I will be in trouble later. Who knows?

[hoopsguy]

From what I've read on the forums the items don't continue to increase in level requirements above what you have found. My guy in Legendary is only about 50% of the way through Greece (nearing Delphi) and hasn't been pushed very hard yet.

What level is your character at now? I've heard it takes forever and a day to level as you hit 60 or so.

[path12]

I had to stop reading once you got to the outskirts of Memphis since that's where I am now. This game rocks.

[path12]

Dola, but maybe I'll post here when I have questions about my kit. I'm still a little fuzzy on some of the benefits/drawbacks. I just try to max my damage per second.

One weird thing, at one point my strength was up to like 180-190, and all of a sudden after some cave it was down to 140 and I had to take a couple of my items I had equipped off because they had turned red. I wish I had kept track of exactly what had happened.

[thealmighty]

I'm at lvl 59- a bit past halfway to 60. It takes massive amounts of xp to level now.

The highest level mob I've encountered was 80!!

Finished Act II and at Babylon now. Naturally, I got NOT ONE blue or purple in the entire Valley of Kings or Temple of Whatever. Did get 2 blues finally...both out of the same chest, too, though not useful.

[hoopsguy]

How are you seeing the level of the mobs you are fighting? I'm clearly missing something here ...

Path, that sounds like a ridiculous drop in strength - even if you unequipped an item, I don't think there is much stuff that qualifies as a +30% gain like the difference between 140 and 180. Not at that point in the game, anyway.

One other note on finding special items - I saw something on the TQ boards suggesting that the game loads up with some kind of random modifier on drops. So if you are getting bupkus for drops then it might make sense to exit and reload. But if you are having luck on the drops then don't leave that game unless you have to. I'm not sure if I buy it, but I'm at least paying more attention to the drops to see if I detect trends to support this idea.

[path12]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Path, that sounds like a ridiculous drop in strength - even if you unequipped an item, I don't think there is much stuff that qualifies as a +30% gain like the difference between 140 and 180. Not at that point in the game, anyway.

I don't know if it was some kind of bug or not. I don't remember switching out any equipment, but I hadn't been keeping that close of track. It was just very strange to have everything working nicely and all of a sudden have two of your best items be back out of service.....

[thealmighty]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

How are you seeing the level of the mobs you are fighting? I'm clearly missing something here ...

In the general section of the Options menu there is a "show monster level" check box.

[thealmighty]

I have found two divine artifact scrolls. None of the needed parts have I ever even HEARD of, much less have I found any of them.

Don't remember the name, but one gives invulnerability at low health for a certain period of time.

Anyone else found one of these?

[thealmighty]

What better hunter or rogue?

[PiemasterUK]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Path, that sounds like a ridiculous drop in strength - even if you unequipped an item, I don't think there is much stuff that qualifies as a +30% gain like the difference between 140 and 180. Not at that point in the game, anyway.

More likely to be a cascade effect. For example, you remove a ring that is adding 8% to Strength. That then puts you below the minimum for your chest armour which is adding another 10 to your strength and so on. Afew steps and it can drop by quite a bit.

[PiemasterUK]

Originally Posted by thealmighty

What better hunter or rogue?

Hunting is widely recognsed to be the mor powerful of the two overall. But it is very difficult to talk in terms of 'best' because it depends on what kind of character you want to play and what you are trying to achieve.

[Brillig]

Originally Posted by thealmighty

I have found two divine artifact scrolls. None of the needed parts have I ever even HEARD of, much less have I found any of them.

Don't remember the name, but one gives invulnerability at low health for a certain period of time.

Anyone else found one of these?

Doesn't surprise me much. A divine artifact generally takes two greater artifacts - the chances that you'll have just the right ones are pretty slim. Heck, it's hard to even put together a greater artifact, even with multiple run-throughs.

[path12]

Originally Posted by PiemasterUK

More likely to be a cascade effect. For example, you remove a ring that is adding 8% to Strength. That then puts you below the minimum for your chest armour which is adding another 10 to your strength and so on. Afew steps and it can drop by quite a bit.

That could be what it was, I'm starting to get a better handle on items, and also have myself back up to where I can use those items (well, the Bracers of Atlas anyway, I got rid of the helm for something better). At somewhere like 225 strength now, 1575 or so health points and just killed the Telkine in Egypt.

[thealmighty]

This game sure is easier with alts when you have items to transfer.

My alt is now into hades with only one death so far. Typhon was quite easy, relatively (died 5 times on him the first go 'round).

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by thealmighty

I'm at lvl 59- a bit past halfway to 60. It takes massive amounts of xp to level now.

The highest level mob I've encountered was 80!!

Finished Act II and at Babylon now. Naturally, I got NOT ONE blue or purple in the entire Valley of Kings or Temple of Whatever. Did get 2 blues finally...both out of the same chest, too, though not useful.

Thought of this just now. I picked up three Legendary items in the span of one hour while working across the middle part of Greece - just after Parnassus. First one came from a chest in the Gorgon/Medusa room, and the other two came in a crypt shortly thereafter.