Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 7:26 am

Had a marathon session and pushed all the way, killed the 3rd Telkine, then went ahead and finished Olympus. Had to kill Typhon the same way: hide a seek with an arrow. This guy's "suck life" and "suck energy" is just too good. The Telkine dropped more goodies than Typhon.

Telkine dropped no less than 3 purples, Typhon only dropped one.

I'm at Rhodes and already finished two quests (lighthouse and giant crab). I'm grabbing my "Underlord" ring and see if I can finish that easter egg thing.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 3:52 am

Went through Medea's grove, and fulfilled one of the secondary quests (the one that involved killing a lot of those ants). Work on the rest tomorrow.

With help of a new bracer, my damage now is over 2000 dps, though seems my armor is never high enough, as some enemies can still do 1000+ damage in one hit. As my life is only 4000+, I'm now carrying 60 potions at a time. It doesn't help that my mace, the one that's giving me this much damage, is the "reckless" kind where I have ZERO health regen. I'm thinking about wearing something else and using a different weapon, but haven't found one that can do at least 1600 dps after using some relics. Should be close though. These Kukris and Jian are pretty good. With a relic they should do quite nicely.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 2:18 am

How would one go about farming a specific set item, not an MI?

I'm looking for the necromancer set item Death Cuffs. Need them to complete my set but they haven't dropped for me, ever.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 2:39 am

GreenGoo wrote:How would one go about farming a specific set item, not an MI?
I'm looking for the necromancer set item Death Cuffs. Need them to complete my set but they haven't dropped for me, ever.

AFAIK, purple and blue items are completely random. WIth some of mods you can enable with TQ Defiler, you can see a few more of them, but you can't really farm a SPECIFIC item.

I haven't seen your particular item. If I see it, I'll let you know.

I'm keeping a ton of them in TQVault.

Chesspieceface · Post by **Chesspieceface** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 3:07 am

GreenGoo wrote:How would one go about farming a specific set item, not an MI?

I'm looking for the necromancer set item Death Cuffs. Need them to complete my set but they haven't dropped for me, ever.

I have them, I think I have two saved. The easiest way to farm every blue for each Act in Normal is to use Defiler to turn the Muliplier and Chest Drops All the way up, and then run the Telkine for that act

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 3:12 am

Made it to City of Lost Souls. Drinking potions like MAD. I realized half of my problem is I didn't get the skill that pumps up your health regen when you get hit. (Stupid me) As I almost never use Warwind I think I'll go trade in some skill points...

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 3:12 am

Blue items are act-specific (not sure about purples). Orbs give you a better probability than chests to drop the good stuff, so first telkine is likely your best chance. Or I could send you a vault file. I have extras.

I got a Thorny Maul tonight, not from any boss fight, but as a drop from an icthian killed while farming turtle shells to assemble an artifact. This is the legendary mace that does a huge amount of piercing damage. It's so great, I pulled my Warden's points out of Woodlore and put them into Concussive Blow. It could be a long while before I find a spear that measures up to the damage again, even though half the item modifiers really aren't all that great for the character. Greatest damage dealt is now 4007. Not sure how that stacks up for a level 54 Warden, though the class isn't known for its damage output.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 1:34 pm

My lvl 59 Conquerer, with some slight cheating mods (I enabled the mod that let me put relics and charms even on blue and purple items) can do 2000+ average DPS, with the "greatest hit" at over 6000. So I would say 4000 greatest hit is quite respectable.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 7:00 pm

Kasey Chang wrote:Made it to City of Lost Souls. Drinking potions like MAD. I realized half of my problem is I didn't get the skill that pumps up your health regen when you get hit. (Stupid me) As I almost never use Warwind I think I'll go trade in some skill points...

It doesn't do a whole lot. Unless maybe you design your character and equipment around health regen. By itself you probably won't notice a difference, even though it does a little. It has a fairly significant cooldown between procs, so even if you're getting wailed on you will only have it up once per fight probably.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 10:14 pm

I find that Adrenaline is pretty decent in conjunction with Rally. Adrenaline has a synergy to shorten the cooldown, so it can end up going off a lot. For the Warden, regen stacks with Herbal Remedy, plus from equipment here and there (not built around it, but I won't say no if the equipment is otherwise good). The health bar also appears to fill faster if you drink a potion while all this is going on. It doesn't replace potions, but it helps. The other synergies to Rally and Adrenaline are good to use as well (one point each in base skills). War Wind isn't really needed on a Conqueror using a club and shield, so it could be a solid respec.

I pushed the Warden through from the Great Wall all the way to returning to Chang An from the Jade Palace. The bull was a bitch for me too. I'd get him a good way down, mistime one of his special attacks, die, and have to start over. Not a whittle-able monster. I gave up on doing it the honorable way after three deaths, equipped a rare bow I was holding to sell in Act 4, and cheesed him from the bridge. At least being specced for piercing damage meant I didn't completely suck at this. His chest dropped nothing notable, but I got a Sabretooth and a Rimescythe from tigermen, and a couple of Icthian Whompers to boot. Pretty good session for the MIs, since I also found an Exotic Armor (arachnoid), an Icthian Aegis, and a Warlord's Helmet (tiger).

And now my eyes hurt.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 4:20 am

Decided to fool around with TQVault and try a completely different stuff... a full set. I found a piece of Legionnaire's Armor, and decided to complete the set, and realized that's what's missing... My character is upside down, so to speak. My defense should be higher than my offense, but in my previous build, I went the other way around. My offense far outpaced my defense. I found a bunch of armor with bonus damage mods (+30%, +27%, etc.) and together they like more than doubled my damage, but as a result my offense is like 1100+ and my defense is at 700+ (not armor and damage, but offense and defense)

With the character going the OTHER way, 700 offense, 1100+ defense, I am using one potion every 3-5 groups of enemies, whereas before I'm using like 3-5 potions per group of enemies (esp if they hit really hard). It also helps that I'm wearing a +50% damage against demons ring, so I still do plenty of damage against everything in Hades.

Got killed ONCE by Cerberus. Forgot to move around and avoid his melee attack, which hits pretty darn hard, AND has a minor stun effect.

The six-armed general is not THAT hard, strangely. I avoid his serious attack, then melee a few hits, then run behind a column or something to avoid the hit, then back at him.

Accidentally died at one of those Gigante's the one that shoots off electrical attack. Somehow this guy is more powerful than all other Gigantes. Even at my max resistance this guy STILL manages to slow and stun me which is not conducive to my character's health. I basically have to run around, get him to waste his energy, then when he can no longer do that special attack, THEN go in and whack him.

Taking a break at prison of souls, and calling it a night. (left a LOT of subquests behind)

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 6:06 am

Kasey Chang wrote:Accidentally died at one of those Gigante's the one that shoots off electrical attack. Somehow this guy is more powerful than all other Gigantes. Even at my max resistance this guy STILL manages to slow and stun me which is not conducive to my character's health. I basically have to run around, get him to waste his energy, then when he can no longer do that special attack, THEN go in and whack him.

That's a Dactyl. Even in Normal, they're tough, and can be impossible for casters. At least they're not a common spawn.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 1:48 pm

silverjon wrote:That's a Dactyl. Even in Normal, they're tough, and can be impossible for casters. At least they're not a common spawn.

The part that bites me is they look exactly the same as the OTHER "senior" Gigantes (the blue ones instead of green ones), and the other ones shoot fire, which I have PLENTY of resistance for, and thus is barely affected! If they want this guy to be special, make him into a boss monster (star above his head?, purple?) and a different color instead of just a senior gigante.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 3:38 pm

They're very similar, but the Vindicators are all blue, and the Dactyls have red in the gaps between the armor. They don't use the wave attack if you rush them, so Shield Charge was pretty effective when I was running Hades with the Warden.

I was so fixated on my troubles with the bull, I neglected to mention how much fun the Dragon Liche was to fight a bit prior to that. Definitely the easiest added Epic boss for the Warden class, though the Manticore wasn't too bad once I had the strategy down.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 8:47 pm

Went ahead and bashed Hades into oblivion. Only took like 10 potions, and one Behemoth.

He only dropped two purples.

I'm now finishing up the various subquests I skpped earlier, though it's a LONG run through the swamps (hey, those keys aren't easy to come by).

Going back to the Plains and going back through.

The game is NOT designed to be ran BACKWARDS. The guadians don't let you open the door the "back way".

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 7:13 pm

Pushed my Harbinger through to finish Normal, and it was faster and easier than with the Warden by a long shot, far more than can be chalked up to my blundering around figuring out which paths are dead ends or how to finish sidequests. Really does show what a difference a "proper" damage-dealing class makes. Got to Delphi in Epic without finding any legendary items, though the drop rates for epic items and relic shards were really good. I got two pieces of the Warrior's Panoply within five minutes of each other, though these will ultimately be handed down to the Conqueror.

It's sort of funny, because I hadn't played with the Harbinger for a while, since dying miserably from the Grey Sisters. Too dumb to run out of the red cloud of death. Killed once by the last machae general, and a couple of dactyls spawned and dealt some damage before being Phantom Struck, but the only real drawback the Harbinger has compared to the Warden is vulnerability to being stunned/trapped. At the same time, the Harbinger takes more damage while fighting Hades and actually has to drink a potion or two. "Has to" might be an overstatement, but just in case, whereas the Warden's Colossus Form outlasts Hades every time.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 2:28 pm

I've done two Secret Passage runs to see how it is, and the difference between going in with the Harbinger and the bow-Brigand was intense.

The Harbinger walked over everything in there up to Toxeus, and the panic-button of the Ancestral Horn successfully took him down. I didn't really notice anything but Toxeus even bothering to fight back, which may depend on monster level compared to character level. They all just sort of stood there to be killed. I was trying to figure out how to kill Arthur and dodge Toxeus without him noticing me, but haven't been successful. Like I said, panic button. One of the summoned warriors even lasted long enough to unsummon after Toxeus died.

The Brigand is really underlevelled compared to other characters I've taken into Chapter 4, and hasn't been given a life-saving point in Monster Lure. I'm trying to figure out a good place to get her at least somewhat caught up, but I don't think the Secret Passage fits the bill, as she took a lot of damage down there just from the monsters the Harbinger thought were wimps. I opted to bail from Toxeus and quit the game rather than die. I did not get to scope out the spoils from the chest, but console myself with the thought that it was only Normal loot.

Monster Lure could make a big difference, as Toxeus doesn't have to be killed to open the chest. I'll have to try that with the Warden.

The Warden, incidentally, is overlevelled compared to place in the game, due to a lot of farming. This affects the randomized modifiers on loot drops, as the vendor trash hits the sell value caps constantly. I probably should just stop picking up the yellows, but I do spend gold on buying rare items and forging artifacts.

The expanded array of formulae available in Epic makes artifacts more fun and more frustrating than ever.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Thu Dec 15, 2011 1:00 pm

I've gotten to the stage where I'm self-conscious about jabbering away at myself, but I'm still playing. Warden and Harbinger have both taken out Epic Typhon and progressed Warden to Medea's Grove and Harbinger to the Plains of Judgement. Next session will involve a major overhaul of the Warden's gear and a respec back to spear skills due to finding a Phorkos' Trident and realizing Volley can't work with a club.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Thu Dec 15, 2011 1:12 pm

Yeah, which is why I usually stop by just to say that I'm still playing, and reading the thread. I haven't had anything new to contribute so I've got nothing to say.

that said, my TQ play is down right now. I'm actually struggling for something to keep my attention. I do put in some time with TQ, and Orcs must Die, and AI War, but nothing has grabbed me (the shine is wearing off TQ) for a bit and I tend to get a bit antsy when I don't have a game that I want to focus on. Gaming withdrawl I guess.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Thu Dec 15, 2011 1:56 pm

In my opinion, it's more fun to be playing a higher difficulty, with new treasures to be unearthed. You might want to pick a character and push to finish Normal rather than noodling around levelling this one and then that one.

But I am a loot whore who has played more than 700 hours and not gotten bored yet. In my defense, Steam does log all the time I leave the game paused to do chores without quitting and losing my good seed/mastery-shrine-summoned pet.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Thu Dec 15, 2011 3:21 pm

silverjon wrote:In my opinion, it's more fun to be playing a higher difficulty, with new treasures to be unearthed. You might want to pick a character and push to finish Normal rather than noodling around levelling this one and then that one.

Agreed. I've even said, to paraphrase myself, that people who only play through Diablo on normal and stop haven't even reached the good parts of the game yet.

That said, while I do like the carrot approach to arpg's and mmo's, I do tire of them eventually. In fact Diablo 3 holds little interest for me. So I'm not surprised I'm starting to run out of steam for Titan Quest.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Fri Dec 16, 2011 2:45 am

Confirmed that Toxeus can be thwarted with a monster lure, and fought Pubos the giant crab hero. Ew.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Sun Dec 18, 2011 12:53 am

Harbinger is up to the gorgon queens in Legendary. Piercing resistance is an abysmal -74, and crows and satyr archers have become more dangerous than they've been since starting out naked in Normal. Haven't changed any gear around in a long time due to not getting much in the way of drops for a fighter, and shopping hasn't been terribly productive either. Holding up ok because damage output is high. Level 58.

There's a quest fairly late in chapter 4 to take some soldiers (all archers) to defend a pass. They will stay with your character for as long as they survive, even after the quest is completed. They don't hold up too well in Normal, but must be coded like pets and get a lot more durable in higher difficulties. In Epic, the Harbinger hung onto them until getting killed by one of Hades' generals, at which point they blinked out of existence along with the summoned Nightmare. Trance of Convalescence probably contributed a lot to their survivability, but in turn, the ranged backup was incredibly useful for the portion of the game where I had them.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 4:09 am

This is what a good seed looks like for a single run of chapter 3 (Normal) with no replayed boss runs:
10 MIs (3 worth keeping, and 2 types of caster armor I hadn't seen)
5 uniques (4 of which I hadn't found before)
3 rare items actually worth keeping
2 artifact recipes (both useful)
7 completed relics (includes finishing partials from the shared stash, but many fragments dropped)
9 completed monster charms (ditto, but demon blood and yeti fur were dropping like mad)

Unsurprisingly, the Telkine and Typhon didn't drop anything better than rares and relics. One of Bandari's chests yielded a recipe, which is unusual.

This was with the Diviner, who had been wearing the Necromancer set. Since I'm using more Dream than Spirit skills at this stage and the lack of resistances has begun to get painful, it's time to revamp the equipment. I'm pretty happy to have gotten through 3 chapters using this set, but playing dress-up-dolly out of the caster gear vault is good too.

One thing to note is that the Necromancer set reduces damage taken from undead by more than half. I've got jewelry in the shared stash that could take this down even further, which inspires thoughts of future Toxeus strategy, hmm yes.

Dramatist · Post by **Dramatist** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 1:03 pm

I bought this game on the Steam deal this week. I played vanilla TQ when it first came out but never got around to IT. I started a Dual Wield Harbinger and played him up to 11. He has no good gear, not even any green stuff. I started a Dream character and she's up to lvl 9 in about 1/5 of the time. I haven't picked a secondary field yet for her. Very fun game, and I'm enjoyed this thread.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:17 pm

Been playing intensely again due to not letting myself buy D3 until it is not-spring/summer and being rained out of the doing of outdoorsy things. Also, for the love. And the loot.

silverjon wrote:There's a quest fairly late in chapter 4 to take some soldiers (all archers) to defend a pass. They will stay with your character for as long as they survive, even after the quest is completed. They don't hold up too well in Normal, but must be coded like pets and get a lot more durable in higher difficulties. In Epic, the Harbinger hung onto them until getting killed by one of Hades' generals, at which point they blinked out of existence along with the summoned Nightmare. Trance of Convalescence probably contributed a lot to their survivability, but in turn, the ranged backup was incredibly useful for the portion of the game where I had them.

Warden in Epic cast Herbal Remedy on all of the soldiers and hung onto them up to one of the final side quests outside of Hades Palace, where a couple got shredded by Melinoe Blade Dancers. The remainder disappeared when I quit the game, which made me a little sad. I kinda want to keep them all the way up to the Throne Room if I can manage it.

Met my first Epic Dactyl and bailed after three deaths without scratching it. Hades himself is not bad. Have done many runs of Epic Hades and Secret Passage with the Warden. Got her a nice set of Athena's Battle Greaves.

Both the Warden and Harbinger are up to the Gorgon Sisters in Legendary, and parked for farming, but I think I want to push the Warden through and try out the Hydra, since her naturally high poison resistance should theoretically help a lot, and the chest could produce some nice stuff.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:56 pm

Hah, this is funny. I also recently started playing again while waiting for Torchlight2 in order to scratch that arpg itch. Plus, the Grim Dawn kickstarter didn't hurt any for getting me in the mood. My harbinger finished off Hades on normal last week and he's just killed the gorgon sisters (the bitches, I hate them) on epic this past weekend. I had to move the game to my new PC and had trouble with the caravan files so ended up installing Defiler and using the caravan fix and the random number fix. I'm seeing more intersting drops now than before.

I'm almost to Egypt now which is my absolute favorite part of the game.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 11:02 am

Started a new character to try out the * from a Secret Passage drop. Basically, it's a snowball. It only shows in one hand, but can't be equipped with a shield, has no requirements and the damage is crazy for low levels. It has a special ability to launch five snowballs in an arc, but the range on that is not as good as launching them one at a time. It doesn't go far enough to wipe out a group that hasn't noticed you, and lands too far away to help if a mob is rushing you. The single shot is so effective it kinda doesn't matter as long as you don't get completely surrounded.

I'd say the best use of * is for rushing the early parts of Normal and climbing the mastery trees quickly, since it doesn't synergize much with weapon skills, though it will benefit from whatever damage-adding auras you might use. Killed everything up to Delphi with no problems, but going to swap out for a preferred weapon at level 15, even if that does mean reduced damage.

The disadvantage of using * is not seeing how a character's abilities really work at low levels (no biggie if you already know what you're doing) and not making use of other starter weapons that are more class-appropriate but less powerful. Also, it's cheesy.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 1:40 pm

silverjon wrote:Both the Warden and Harbinger are up to the Gorgon Sisters in Legendary, and parked for farming, but I think I want to push the Warden through and try out the Hydra, since her naturally high poison resistance should theoretically help a lot, and the chest could produce some nice stuff.

Hydra runs + any melee hunting character = good chance of phat lewts with minimal effort. Depending on how the fight goes, might need to drink a healing potion or two just to be on the safe side. The biggest factor in how long it takes it whether or not her artifact is on cooldown. Lionheart gives a huge combat boost on proc, but it procs on taking damage so that can depend if something clipped her on the run there or not. I run back from the fountain before the Athens Battleground, preferring satyrs on my tail to maenads, thank you very much.

Have also amassed a decent collection of legendary turtles shells and Greek relics.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Sat Jul 21, 2012 2:03 pm

Monster charms definitely have variable drop probabilities. Being strapped for saber claws, I decided to level a character by farming them. The simplest way to do this is repeatedly running the area right past the ice cavern just before the second Silk Road portal. It can spawn yetis, sabrelions, or both. In the first session of about an hour, I completed six yeti fur charms and had a single saber claw shard drop. Second session with a different seed, I ended up playing for longer, because I completed a claw plus two fragments, and only ended up with four more completed yeti furs. I was getting more sabrelion-only spawns, but they were also dropping charms more frequently. I already knew yeti fur drops often (as do bat fangs and lupine claws), but it does seem possible to tweak a seed to get more of one of the rarer charms, if you're at a point where you really need something.

I'm also always strapped for rigid carapace and spectral matter, but part of this is due to the game liking to give me lots of the recipes that use them, and that are ingredients themselves. Since these charms are found in more than one act, I do manage to stay enough ahead to make some of the lesser artifacts and use the ones with crappier completion bonuses to make higher ones. Act 4 shades seem to drop more charms, but Giza is not a bad place to farm for both.

All this is applicable to normal. Drop rates in higher difficulties are a bit different. I don't seem to amass nearly as many bat fangs, but I haven't done a lot of experimenting either.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 2:28 pm

Dancing with myself, dancing with myself

Hydra runs with the Warden are simply too easy and too productive to move on with the Warden, at least until one of the other hunters catches up.

Got a Hippocrates' Vest off one of those runs a while ago and passed it to the harbinger to take care of a substantial gap in poison resistance, which allowed her to kill the hydra once and move on. That battle took noticeably longer than with the Warden, so it's really not worth parking two characters at that point when one of them is noticeably more efficient.

First Legendary Stonebinder's Cuffs dropped from a gorgon in the dungeon on the way up to the Minoan Labyrinth. Wooooooo, even if they did just roll with a hitpoint bonus. Equipping them made a huge difference in killing power. I could put a Hallowed helm back on and really max everything out, but she'd lose a big chunk of her piercing resistance so it's not worth it at the moment.

Killed twice by Talos making the critical error of gearing for lightning resistance thinking his stomp attack would be more dangerous than his flamethrower while fighting in close. So very wrong. Swapped out for fire resistance and max stun resistance. Much better. The lightning damage can be managed with potions, even with negative resistance.

BTW, clicking your tombstone rapidly means you can reclaim more XP than you lost by dying. I'd heard about this before, but a test in a lower difficulty was inconclusive. You don't really lose enough to notice. In legendary, the drain and refill on the XP bar is obvious. So this is kinda cool, if exploitative. Mostly, I try pretty hard not to die. (On a side note, having now taken a caster up to Hades Palace in Normal and an archer past it, Dactyls even in normal are lethal for ranged characters. Bailing on the game and hoping one won't spawn appears to be preferable to the unclaimed tombstones I racked up there.)

A thing that helps a great deal with the not dying is keeping a stockpile of Resistant rings, which I intend to do with each character that progresses far enough to worry about overcoming the big penalties. They drop often, so I'm keeping the best two for each type of damage. Amulets, maybe also, but I need to keep the option of an Honor Guard's open there too. It's worth it to sacrifice the DPS temporarily when fighting something like Talos, even if it's a little fiddly. It's not like I need to do this for mobs. (Not sure if Ritual items would suffice for Dactyls. I will avenge myself with a Spellshock/Spellbreaker user at some point.)

And then... and then... a Sapros the Corrupter club dropped out of the last primitive chest before the Minotaur Lord fight. !!!! With a juiced-up Battle Standard and Ancestral Horn, this ended up being not a bad fight, even though I had been dreading it. The Telkine was even less difficult. But I don't think it's worth farming since the Hydra is faster and can drop most of the same items (except wrist armor).

Since I had a gorgon/automatoi spawn for the labyrinth before the final fountain in there, I did a lot of runs and got two more SBCs (+energy/+energy&regen), a couple of purple spears and swords, and several completed mechanical parts charms. This is likely where I'll leave the Harbinger for a while while progressing some other characters. It takes about a minute, picking up no yellow items but jewelry.

Freddybear · Post by **Freddybear** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 3:23 pm

Oh god, Titan Quest. I bought TQ Gold from steam about a month ago when it was 75% off. I've got 100+ hours on it according to Steam and I finally have a Hunter staring at Typhon on Normal. I think I need to respec or farm up some gear or something because T just eats my lunch and I don't have the patience to just keep pecking away and running back to the ramp to cool off and heal up.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 3:59 pm

That's pretty much how to do it with an archer on Normal. It's annoying and takes a long time, but relatively safe.

If you want to post your build, I can offer tips.
http://www.titancalc.com/" target="_blank

Gear probably doesn't matter much. He's got attacks that do several different kinds of damage, but you can dodge most of them, and take care of the rest with potions (a potion stacking mod is a real boon here, however). You can't do anything about the meteors except dodge them, but it's really obvious when he raises his arms to call them down. I find his mana leech is the most annoying thing, at least on Normal.

Freddybear · Post by **Freddybear** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:36 pm

silverjon wrote:That's pretty much how to do it with an archer on Normal. It's annoying and takes a long time, but relatively safe.

If you want to post your build, I can offer tips.
http://www.titancalc.com/" target="_blank

Here's what I've got:
My Hunter Build

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 5:19 pm

Well, I can see several places where you could pull out points to redistribute, because the top-tier skills can make a huge difference.

Art of the Hunt/Call of the Hunt are lines where I'd be inclined to max out the base skill later. Since you do want these abilities to be as good as possible for an end build, leave them alone if you can (up to 18 points back if necessary). Find Cover will be enormously useful in the expansion, so I wouldn't touch that. Trail Blazing is a one-point wonder, since movement speed is relatively easy to increase with gear (5 points).

In the Marksmanship tree, the base skill increases your projectile speed, but this modifier can be found on gear, and you can get your attack speed up in other ways as well. It can be a points dump when you have no better places to put them, but it's not a priority (11 points).

You need 8 points to max out the mastery, unlocking Scatter Shot and Volley. Scatter Shot is useful for crowd damage, so Volley would be the priority for Typhon. Three shots for the price of one. It triggers a lot maxed out, but even one point will help.

Monster Lure will distract him (never take Detonate), but you do need to get used to placement of it, since it can't be aimed. It takes some time to activate the "provoke" ability, but it can soak a certain amount of his attacks, giving you time to shoot without dodging. I like to throw it near the top of the stairs and circle around the bottom of the screen, completing the circle when I need to run back down. By that point, cooldown should allow me to toss another Lure.

Herbal Remedy is a must-have, not for the health regen (though it helps), but because you will never ever have to worry about poison resistance, even in Legendary. It's worth at least a point in Normal, and you will want it maxed.

Study Prey is my right-mouse button with numerous hunting builds (and I have tried every combination). You can cast it a lot more often than CotH, and increasing your damage can be less useful than reducing monster resistance to the damage you're dealing. Monsters without piercing resistances to start with will get negative resistance while SP is in effect. You will see a big difference. Flush Out is not necessary with a bow, unless were going for a hybrid build where you wanted to add a lot of elemental damage (not recommended for a first character, especially since you probably haven't been putting points in Intelligence). A spear build does need Flush Out, but bows ignore Defensive Ability (which is why avoiding projectiles is your friend).

So you only need to buy back 13 points to max out the mastery and put one into each of my recommended skills. if you take Trail Blazing and Marksmanship back down to 1 each, putting the extras into Volley will make the most obvious difference in the Typhon fight, or split between Volley and Scatter Shot for better crowd control after you get past him.

The cool things about having gone pure Hunter to this point is your options are wide open for the second mastery, and they're all good. Hunting is strong by itself, but the combinations add a lot of style. Do you have something in mind?

Freddybear · Post by **Freddybear** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 8:04 pm

Well, I did as you suggested, and then went after Typhon. I didn't even die.

It wasn't too bad, really, just tedious. Run in, shoot, run out, heal up if necessary. Rinse, repeat.
So now I'm in Rhodes.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 8:41 pm

Normal Typhon is way harder with a melee character, because of damage reflection when he goes thorny, which he inevitably does right when you're trying to use your best attack. He goes down easily and fast with a caster. I find archers are right in the middle. It can be a long fight, because you're whittling him down, but you can do so in relative safety.

Freddybear · Post by **Freddybear** » Tue Aug 21, 2012 12:49 am

So far so good, a few deaths from not knowing what to expect or not planning out escape routes properly. So I got to Medea's place, and got a bunch of fetch quests done. Was that one lamia(?) horse-girl queen supposed to be unkillable? I could hit her but she healed up real quick and she hit too hard to hang around and melee.
So I ran away. Fortunately I've got good +movement stuff. Now I'm hunting treasure and/or Greae in the Tsukkomi swamp, and muttering curses on the level designer who put save points so far apart.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:40 am

There's one lamia hero I have heard can be very difficult, Damaris the Cruel. I think I've only run into her with melee-focused characters, who don't have such a hard time. Her heal is Rally, a skill from the Defense mastery.

Your second mastery when you decide to take one will likely give you some options to keep the monsters off you, which you're increasingly going to need at this stage. Warfare and Defense don't really fit your current focus. Earth and Storm offer a couple of fun toys even for a character going with mostly physical/piercing damage, but still come with the difficulties of playing hybrids even if you don't really develop them that way. Any of Rogue, Nature, Spirit, or Dream could work really well for you.

theohall · Post by **theohall** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 11:46 pm

Started playing this recently also (Steam sale) with a pure Hunter build and just started Act III (on Normal) - so on the way to hit Typhon.

I maxed Marksmanship, Puncture Shot, Scatter Shot, Volley, Art of the Hunt, Trailblazing, and Wood Lore so far. Next levels are going into Herbal Remedy. However, the current Hunter with those skills maxed - the game has been a cakewalk other
than the Cyclops when the skills were barely developed - patient shoot and run worked just fine.

Debating whether to start the Nature path before finishing on Normal or try to finish Normal with a pure Hunter.