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

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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

Depends what you want to do with Nature. If you start trying to build up wolves at this stage of the game, you'll find them terribly weak. Heart of Oak is a useful buff at any time. The Plague line can be used to help keep enemies off your back by slowing them, but you do need to invest some points to get it viable.

My skill tips to Freddybear apply to you as well, if you end up feeling you need to reskill a bit. The difficulty ramps up a lot at this point.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
Freddybear
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by Freddybear »

Amen to that. I found that past Typhon I had a problem finding better armor and gear that I could use because I had not enough str from my previous dex-heavy build.
It was mighty tough going, and then I got lost in the Tsukkomi swamp and I'm not at all looking forward to fighting and dying through that again.

So I started playing around with another Hunter according to your suggested method, and she's at the great labyrinth but I'm kind of bored with archers.

So now I've got a Pyro mage going. I found a staff with +8% attack speed and then I added a completed Prometheus Fire charm which happened to come up with another +13 attack. Can't quite one-shot a basic Centaur yet but almost. And the Earth Elemental makes a great tank. Too bad I can't heal him up.

Oh, and it's just so ridiculously funny to throw a volcanic orb into a bunch of mooks and watch the silly physics engine fling them all over the place.
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

Dexterity-based armours are somewhat of a rare beast. You could portal back to China and repeatedly kill Tigermen, hoping for some rare drops. Their Monster Infrequent torso armour (Prowler's Cuirass) is a good one. Once you get into early Epic, even basic Gorgon armour is an option.

Dexterity is important for having good Defensive Ability (Offensive Ability too, for melee). Defensive Ability means monsters have trouble hitting you. You want that high. But you need to not neglect strength as well because of armour considerations and because piercing damage is based off your physical damage, which is determined by strength. But it's definitely not too late to start pumping it and be fine. The game is pretty forgiving that way.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
Freddybear
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by Freddybear »

I had to share this one. I found this special item in the remains of a beastman archer hero.
Spoiler:
Image
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

It's always a treat to get one of the notes I haven't seen before. There are quite a few of them.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
Freddybear
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by Freddybear »

I played around with the Allskins mod yesterday, and I got most of it working, but it seems that the vendor Salome's amulet isn't showing up correctly. Does anybody know how to fix that? I tried to search the TQ fansite forums but without much success.
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

I haven't used any skins, but Salome is the "adult" merchant, right? Did you get the code to unlock it from the right section of their forum?
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
Freddybear
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by Freddybear »

There are two "adult" merchants. Desiree sells some topless and nude skins, and Salome supposedly has more decorated skins (tattoos, tiger stripes etc) and color variations.
Desiree works just fine. Salome's trinket isn't connected up right or something.

They say they're going to fix it on the forum, but that was from 2008. :roll:

(NSFW)
Spoiler:
Image
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theohall
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by theohall »

silverjon wrote:Depends what you want to do with Nature. If you start trying to build up wolves at this stage of the game, you'll find them terribly weak. Heart of Oak is a useful buff at any time. The Plague line can be used to help keep enemies off your back by slowing them, but you do need to invest some points to get it viable.

My skill tips to Freddybear apply to you as well, if you end up feeling you need to reskill a bit. The difficulty ramps up a lot at this point.
Thanks for the tips. Have not changed my build yet to the recommendations you made and have one shot several "Hero" bosses in Act III. Having a bow that does 111 poison damage combined with a completed essence that life leeches, everything except the major bosses dies in 2 shots at most. It took until Act III to finally die. It's happened 4 times now, but every time was me not paying attention which is a bad thing for a Hunter.

Plan to finish on Normal with an almost pure Hunter, but will probably start messing with the Warden when going to Epic and Legendary. Changing skills around will definitely not be an issue with amount of money acquired. Bumping up STR at each level up now, because DEX is plenty high. Heck, the dude can stand in the middle of a pack of the Act III Beastmen warriors without fighting back and they barely do any damage at all. High DEX - High Defensive Skill. The only challenges are Hero Bosses if not paying attention and the big Bosses at the end of quests.
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

My Warden is my furthest advanced character. Lots of deaths racked up due to learning curve, but practically indestructible at this point.

You will be reskilling for sure because an archer with Defense would just be weird. But spear and shield absolutely rules this game for big damage.

Most of your damage as any kind of warrior, even piercing, is based off strength, since piercing is a % of physical.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
Freddybear
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by Freddybear »

I finally found out the story about the Allskins mod: it's the difference between "skirt" and "no-skirt" character model meshes. The no-skirt mesh isn't necessarily nude, the clothes are painted on as part of the skin; there is a separate skirt piece in the skirted mesh. Anyway, the skirt mesh vendors all work fine and all the NSFW stuff is in there too.
unic
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by unic »

I'm tempted to get back into TQ... I played it extensively before the expansion (up to Act 2 / Legendary), but when the expansion came, I never did more than dabble with it.

Have been feeling in the mood for various action-rpgs lately though, so perhaps now would be a good time to revisit it. I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the game back then, as well as the character building possibilities that the game had due to getting to pick two classes.

Are there any recommended fan/community patches or mods that one should install? (I would be playing the Steam TQ Gold version, if that matters...)
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

I use the basic fan patch, because it fixes a bunch of broken skills and quests. I think it's the only must-have to add to the game itself.

TQVault and TQDefiler are handy utilities. Vault is for unlimited storage. Defiler allows you to install a few little fixes and tweaks (potion stacking!). I haven't messed much with the other capacities. You can use it to cheat, of course, but also to set a different rebirth fountain, etc.

Sounds like the AllSkins is good if you get bored with the basic models.

I'm relatively certain that all the most-recommended content mods are substantively different from the base game, to the extent you need multiple directories if you want to switch back and forth (Paingod mentions in this thread how to set it up). There are also mods to increase the amount of monsters in the game. Basically player discretion.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
Freddybear
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by Freddybear »

I've been using the fan patch for Immortal Throne right from the start, and I also use TQVault.

I tried to set up the Defiler utility but it was being weird about finding the right directories in Steam. Maybe I'll give it another try. It's probably worth it just for the potion stacking.

If you want to try the Allskins mod, I'd suggest downloading and installing that separately since the one that is supposed to be included in the fan patch wasn't working right at all.
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Daehawk
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by Daehawk »

I hate to embarrass myself again but I lost my last play through in my most recent reformat. So thats like 3 or 4 times ive never finished it. I was close. I was in Egypt and going back to old spots to farm. SO close.
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Freddybear
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by Freddybear »

Did the titanquest.net site just break? All of a sudden it's redirecting me to some site called webpronews.
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

It's working for me, though I think webpronews is one of those sites that camps on expired domains.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
unic
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by unic »

(I get the WebProNews site as well, though it was working earlier tonight).

So, I've settled upon wanting to play a melee character. My 3 main alternatives:
Harbinger: http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.asp? ... 0-0-1-12-0" target="_blank
Conquerer: http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.asp? ... -0-0-6-0-0" target="_blank
Haruspex: http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.asp? ... 0-0-1-12-0" target="_blank
Opinions?
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

@site down. Should be fine now.
The problem is that our DNS records were switched accidentally. We weren't hacked and WebProNews & TitanQuest.net both are owned by the same company (iEntry).

We are sorry for the trouble this has caused, and most people should be back to normal now. There could still be a few members who have cached the bad DNS, but once their system updates they will be back to normal like the rest of you.

Again, sorry for this.
@unic builds. All options with a lot of power potential and I can't say I favour any over the others. Specific critiques:

Harbinger. Make sure you have the fan patch so Triumph will actually work. Even a single point in War Horn can be a useful addition if only as a panic button. You don't really want to miss out on Ancestral Horn, at least for boss fights. Cast in the Battle Standard to be even more powerful (also applies when summoning your Nightmare). No Dual Wield? That is a stylistic choice though; it's a big point sink and it's not like carrying a shield is bad. Master Mind is a wasted point with no other pets. One point in Trance of Wrath can be useful for the skill disruption; flash at enemies to switch off Death Chill Aura, Onslaught, etc..

Conqueror. Totally worth it to go club and shield and take Concussive Blow. Your stun damage (duration) will be massive, from all sources. Look for clubs with extra stun and seek out relics with chance to stun as a completion bonus. Also increases duration of stun from War Horn. Ancestral Horn, as above. Crushing Blow and Counter Attack are wasted points; chance to trigger on top of chance to trigger, and piddly-assed damage. Maxed Colossus Form is ok, but also functional as a one-point wonder. The Rally line is useful, especially if you get used to whacking a hotkey for it when you hear the Adrenaline Rush trigger, since they'll synergize. One point in the base skill; max Inspiration (fairly decent mana recovery); whatever points you can spare into Defiance. I like Batter as a multi-target slowing attack with a fast cooldown, but not everyone does. It only takes two points to be effective.

Haruspex. I've only played one of these as an archer, and still in the teen levels. People like them for "immortality", meaning they become very hard to hit. Tips on Dream skills as for the Harbinger. I like to take Monster Lure with my Hunting Characters, because it's a life-saver, but I've been told it isn't needed with the Haruspex because nothing can hit them. But I think true immortality doesn't come in until high levels with great gear and maxed skills, so it might be good to take and then buy back if you're not using it. Further points would go into the Call of the Hunt line. It's an excellent buff, long cooldown being the only drawback.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
unic
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by unic »

silverjon wrote: Harbinger. Make sure you have the fan patch so Triumph will actually work. [...]
Thanks for the critique.

Got the fan patch and the bugfix patch for it, so Triumph should work.
Ancestral Horn - Is it that good? Looks like one would have to invest a lot of points, or the summons will be very weak...
Trance of Wrath - that sounds like a great idea; I had gotten stuck in the mindset of only one trance.
Concussive Blow - Yeah, but I don't have many other sources of Stun (and I thought Stun resistance was common - my memory could easily be wrong though, I played this a lot before the expansion, but that was years ago).
Batter - I was choosing between this / War Wind / Shield Charge for AoE attack - but I guess having two available would give flexibility, and at 1/1, Batter/Rend Armor is cheap.
Monster Lure - Is it worth investing multiple points into Monster Lure (/ Detonate), or is it a 1-point skill?
Call of the Hunt - yeah, either that or Psionic Touch would be the next place I would put skill points into for the Haruspex.

Whichever character I go with, it will likely get tweaked a bit as I play as well and find my play style. Still, good to get pointed towards some skills I had skipped past. Thanks.
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

Ancestral Horn - I found them not a bad distraction skill with one point even to the end of Normal. More points for more warriors; 10 points gets you 5 warriors, so invest 6 if you can get +4 skills* on your default gear, adjust accordingly. Warriors will benefit from the boost to summons in higher difficulties, so they hold up fine. Battle Standard helps them a lot too.

Concussive Blow - This is why I tailor gear towards stunning on most Defense characters. Conq doesn't get as many sources from skills as some other classes, which is why you don't want to skip War Horn. Your big benefit here is that Triumph reduces stun resistance, which you'll want to use for bosses. Mobs should still be pretty vulnerable, even in Legendary (my Harbinger stuns things just fine without reducing resistance). You can generally cast a Battle Standard as often as you'll need to though, if you want it for heroes or specific monster types. Also keep in mind that you hit things a lot, between your Onslaught and your shield passives (and all your increased attack speed), and every strike against every monster has the 5% chance of triggering Concussive Blow, plus whatever else you've got going on. It adds up.

Batter (etc.) - More active skills means more things to use to rotate cooldowns. War Wind with one point gets you the max speed and number of targets. I don't think the reduced damage is enough to make a difference at high levels, but I haven't tried it personally. Shield Charge is great, but if your target moves, it's possible to miss (very bad if you were counting on the skill disruption). If you have enough points and enough hotkeys, consider taking them all. (I use the alternate hotkey bar for aura-type skills when I run out of room.)

Monster Lure - A one-point Lure doesn't last long in endgame Normal, but it gets the usual summon boost afterwards. More points give it a bigger provoke radius, and can pull monsters from offscreen. Possibly more useful for ranged attacks. No points in Detonate, ever.

*Skills go to +4 from the highest you can level them up (except, apparently, pet synergy skills, which do not go higher than shown). You can achieve this with gear and mastery shrines. Temporary +skills is good for summoning pets and casting buffs with a long-but-finite duration. Permanent +skills can make an enormous difference with skills you use all the time. If you can get more than +4 to skills on gear, or on a gear swap, you can adjust invested points downwards accordingly, to get to the max or desired level (like 10 for Ancestral Horn). Warfare can count on an extra skill point by casting a Battle Standard.

You might already know about how to use and abuse +skills, but it's not a bad tutorial to type out for general reference.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
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astyanax
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by astyanax »

This might not apply to you specifically for your current run:

I remember is keeping +skill equipment in my inventory for when I cast long lasting summons (I think I was running some sort of nature minion-meister) then switching to more battle-effective equipment after doing my 30-seconds of summoning. This probably won't be as viable for clutch summoning to save your bacon, but if ever run a toon with lots of summons, you may want to keep it in mind.
.
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persself
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by persself »

Has anyone had problems with crashing? I got digital version from Gamersgate, and run TQVault, and TQDefiler. All was well until I tried to create an artifact at an Enchanter in Athens. I can put the required elements in the slots, but when I click the yes button confirming I want to pay and create the artifact, it crashes to desktop everytime. I've been using several Defiler mods, all working just fine.

Any ideas? I am going to download the fanpatch next, just to see if that helps at all. Oh, I tried quitting the Defiler program and reloaded IT, but same result: crash to desktop when trying to create an artifact. Playing normal, and just got to Athens.
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

According to this, removing yellow items causes this problem.
http://www.titanquest.net/tq-forum/thre ... tion-Crash" target="_blank

Use the fan patch anyway. It's good.

And do you have Defiler running while you play? I think you shouldn't do that. (I know you shouldn't run TQVault at the same time as the game because it will screw everything up.)
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
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persself
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by persself »

silverjon wrote:According to this, removing yellow items causes this problem.
http://www.titanquest.net/tq-forum/thre ... tion-Crash" target="_blank

Use the fan patch anyway. It's good.

And do you have Defiler running while you play? I think you shouldn't do that. (I know you shouldn't run TQVault at the same time as the game because it will screw everything up.)
Not running vault, but I think I have to run Defiler while playing for the various mods to work? Have not tried to run without Defiler to check if all my mods running ok without the actual program running. Try that too, thanks.

edit: unchecking the "remove yellow items" did the trick. I had been all over that forum looking for solution. Thanks much, silverjon.
Last edited by persself on Tue Sep 04, 2012 2:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

I don't use a lot of mods from Defiler, but as far as I know, you run it to install mods, and you quit the utility before launching the game. Maybe some components are different. I'm not familiar with the instructions for anything I don't use.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
Freddybear
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by Freddybear »

I use only three of Defiler's mods, and they work fine without having Defiler running while I'm playing. As far as I can tell, anyway. One of them isn't too obvious (the RNG patch) but the other two definitely work. Potion stacking is of course quite obvious and the "rebalance" patch is super-stingy with better-than-yello drops, even from Majestic chests in boss areas.

There was something about how TQ would complain if a character was altered, and there was a patch routine that would fix TQ on the fly to get around that. But the fanpatch version of TQIF doesn't complain so you don't need that sort of thing, I guess.

Correction: the Defiler's RNG patch is the one that changes item drops. There isn't any "rebalance" patch in Defiler. That was elsewhere and I didn't apply it after all. The other patch from Defiler is the "slow cast" patch which is marked *Recommended.
I also have the "show all damage" patch installed.
Freddybear
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by Freddybear »

Woohoo! I beat Typhon with a melee character!
Olanthe the Conqueror, lvl 30. Two rings with Demon's Blood to mitigate the Life Suck.

Just keep running in circles and run in to attack when he's not thorny.
Ran around like mad, and whittled him down. Only died once when I fumbled the mouse and he dropped rocks on me. (that's three so far for this character).

Now on to Hades! :horse:
Freddybear
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by Freddybear »

Yep, my Conqueror has finished off Hades on Normal.
I think the Conq build just might be a little bit OP, especially with a %attack_converted_to_health weapon.
I basically just stood there and beat on Hades until he died twice. Popped a few potions was all.

Now on to Epic!

First thing I notice is that even junk gear at this level has higher base stats than the good stuff I was using to beat Normal with.
So it's pretty much starting over with a big fat bank account and a vault full of mostly obsolete junk.
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theohall
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by theohall »

Knocked off Hades on Normal. No deaths in that particular fight using a pure Hunter. Did die twice fighting Typhon when entering Hades due to me not paying enough attention. Time to start messing around with mixed builds on Epic.
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by Freddybear »

Olthare the Conq is in legendary now, at the Labyrinth, wondering whether to go farm for better gear or venture in and get pwned. Is it worth doing Epic Typhon or Hades runs or should I farm some of the minor Act 1 bosses in Legendary instead?
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

Epic Hades/Secret Passage (you don't have to kill Toxeus if he's too hard) is a good run. Kill Hades until he drops an Overlord to access the secret passage outside Rhodes. Come to think of it, Hades is more likely to drop the Overlord in Normal.

The fastest, most productive farming run in Legendary chapter 1 is the Hydra, which only requires a melee character to have excellent poison resistance. I run back from the rebirth fountain outside the Athenian Battleground, because I find it faster and safer than the other direction. Keep one eye on the satyrs you run past for unique items, but don't bother stopping otherwise (maybe for hero monsters). I clear the swamp for turtle shells, and the ichthians have dropped me a couple of legendary items as well.

I didn't find the Legendary Minotaur too bad with a character using Onslaught because they're then somewhat evenly matched, and the Telkine is a pushover by comparison. Park at the last rebirth fountain in the labyrinth to be at the fastest location for farming Stonebinder's Cuffs. If you don't get a gorgon spawn, quit the game and try again. Gorgons are also decent XP.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
Freddybear
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by Freddybear »

I got past the Minotaur all right.

Tried a Hydra run, got pwned almost instantly. I need better armor to be able to stand and fight that guy and running around while health potions take effect is not a viable option.

I did about twenty Hades/Normal runs to get the Overlord (along with a few more blues for the vault).

The secret passage is weird though, it's way too long for the number of bad guys there. Fortunately, most of them don't aggro until you hit them even when you're fighting somebody else right next to them. Epic Toxeus is quite a fight. The others weren't much except for the mini-Hydra guy, and I know now to just stand and beat him to death.
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

My Warden is still wearing a Hunter's Armor torso piece into her 60s (lack of suitable upgrade drops/lack of need to upgrade), and farming Hydra without needing any potions. Quick Recovery, Colossus Form (only one point invested) and toe-to-toe, casting Study Prey every time it runs out (BS/Triumph should achieve the same for shredding resistances). Most of the rest of her stuff is nice legendaries, but it's not really the armor class, just paying attention to key resistances for boss fights.

Melee characters don't have to worry about Hydra's breath attacks, just close quickly (I approach from the bottom of the screen, trying to keep it from noticing me until I can get it alone). All you need is to get your poison resistance as high as possible, even if it means switching gear temporarily. For any Hunter class, this is easy using Herbal Remedy, but any character can shop for items with poison resistance as a modifier, socket with Pristine Plumage, etc.

If not taking massive poison damage while in close, Hydra's attacks should be possible to offset with potions, I think. Running around rather sounds like asking it to breath-weapon you.

Hard to say if Hydra or Epic Hades/Secret Passage have an average of better drops. The formulas and relics will be different, obviously. I think my luck with items is about the same either way. Hydra's chest is thought to be skewed towards jewellery (I agree with this), and can't drop wrist armor. It is a good place to try to get a Ferrus Gnosi, which can only be found in Legendary Greece, but it's a really rare drop.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

A note about moving Titan Quest saves between computers, or even when upgrading an operating system, make sure you run the caravan fix from TQ Defiler before playing, because even with a functional save transfer, the pathing change will wipe your stash. The Defiler utility corrects everything so it reads properly.

I didn't really lose anything except a bit of time, since I was able to re-transfer my original saves after I was reminded in-game that this can pose a wee slight problem, and get it all straightened out.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

Shoe spam!

Image

totally look like

Image

Murk Crawlers
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
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GreenGoo
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by GreenGoo »

I'm skimming thread titles and I see there is a new post in this thread and my first thought is "I wonder what silverjon has been up to".

I like those shoes, btw.

I kind of have a shoe thing.
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

In my own TQ experiences, I've got a Bone Charmer up to the start of Epic Ch.2, a Firewitch Summoner and Bow Brigand not quite that far into Epic, a Corsair halfway through Normal Ch.4, and been futzing around with a bunch of non-standard builds. I started a Caster Conqueror but haven't put in any serious playtime with that as yet (concept is to focus on -recharge and cast a lot of Battle Standards and Ancestral Warriors, use Colossal Form for damage reduction, etc.). Really, I ought to advance the Harbinger or Warden further through Legendary, but I kinda like having the option of picking either one up for some quick gorgon/Megaleisos or Hydra farming, so I doubt I'll move on until someone else catches up.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

Making a liar out of myself, I decided I should push on with the Warden after all. She's a bit of a slow grinder with mobs, but Monster Lure makes for very safe play, even with less-than-optimal piercing resistance.

The Alastor battle was pretty much over before it began with the deadly combination of Call of the Hunt and Colossus Form.

Although I remember getting killed by the Undead Tyrant on the way up Knossos in Epic, I guess I overcompensated this time. He never even got a chance to charge up his Onslaught. (I think I usually kill him so fast in Normal that I didn't realize he uses that attack until Epic... surprise!)

Really need to remember that right-clicking rings in inventory only changes the same equipment slot out twice, and I need to put them on properly. Lightning resistance in the negatives almost got me killed twice over (Talos and Megaleisos) and I should have learned that lesson from the first time.

Talos took some time because he wasn't really having any part of the Monster Lure, and I had a little trouble balancing out dodging to heal and keeping up Study Prey enough to hurt him. Again, this would probably have gone better if I'd had on both lightning resistance rings. But it's a net win for not dying.

The Minotaur Lord did get me though (death #66, and I feel no shame for this is my primary learning curve character), which was totally my fault for foolishly trying to tank him when he noticed me before the Monster Lure I had thrown down. Wasted my good buffs, but didn't really need them on round two, because he did go for the Monster Lure that time, and was already pretty damaged and easy to smack down from behind.

Megaleisos is often a pushover after the Minotaur, and this was no exception. CotH had recharged, so he went down very fast to being poked with my pokey stick (Peleus' Ashen Spear; Ancile shield... both from mob satyrs spotted with ooooo-a-shiny while running Hydra, iirc). But my health gong did go off right when he died and I think I managed to hit the potion button just in time and probably wouldn't have survived one more spell. Ah, negative resistances.

Scarabaeus took about two seconds. Poison damage should never ever be a problem for a character with Hunting mastery.

Got to Memphis and quit. Not really anticipating problems with anything in Egypt, as the Manticore absolutely loves the Monster Lure, and I think I can remember to stay out of Aktaios' instadeath columns of light (if he lives long enough to cast them).

Absolutely no notable loot on this stretch. Hoping for a better seed while clearing Giza.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
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silverjon
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Re: Titan Quest gold...should I.............

Post by silverjon »

Legendary sand wraiths hurt quite a great deal. One death due to not paying attention and getting swarmed and the wraiths not taking to the monster lure too well. Lesson learned and this didn't happen again.

No significant difficulty with anything in Egypt over a couple of sessions, but not much for fun goodies either. Couple new arcane formulae. Finished a few Egypt relics.

So, booting along in China with the same basic tactics of poking everything in the face to death and using the ML to keep from getting swarmed by anything too damaging. The fire sprites are surprisingly hard to hit, but overall it's going fine.

Then... I hit a Chimera-shaped wall. After three deaths with no progress (or tombstone recovery), I'm going to have to visit the Vault and see what I can do about resistances (fire/lightning again, I think). Fire is one type of damage the ML can't stand up to, so one blast from the breath weapon means my distraction tactic is done for, and so am I about two seconds later.

If I have a shield with the right resistances and add some relics to rings, that might work. I've also got a Protean Armor which has lightning resist, and I did find a new Hallowed helm that can replace my one from Epic, just needs a nice relic.

Kinda frustrating. I do not recall this being a difficult boss previously. Problem might be mostly that I was doing a bad job of dodging its special attacks though. Oh well.
wot?

To be fair, adolescent power fantasy tripe is way easier to write than absurd existential horror, and every community has got to start somewhere... right?

Unless one loses a precious thing, he will never know its true value. A little light finally scratches the darkness; it lets the exhausted one face his shattered dream and realize his path cannot be walked. Can man live happily without embracing his wounded heart?
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