It looks like you have completely different perspective on the game than I have ^^. I play with massbosses mod (every enemy is multiplied by 20) and all curses. You don't seem to value damage reduction given for example by storm's squall or spirit's deathchill aura, nor avoid and dodge chance, those are king with massbosses along with corwd control (poison bomb or petrifiy from distort reality). With good gear, resistances won't be that much of an issue. Oh and the most important skill in the game, the skill distruption/debuff spell from storm, if you don't have it reflecting enemies will be a nightmare (like Typhon for example). Some specifics: Rogue's upgraded Poison Bomb with the fear is one of the best crowd control skills in the game. And it can whipe out full packs of enemies even on legendary. As for spirit, deathchill aura's reduced damage on enemies is a big layer of defense, not to mention the reduced life leech resistance resulting in crazy recovery. Free dodge from warfare and free dodge from hunting and dream are big too. Overall my favourite combos: Spirit + Dream (Vitality build) Storm + Rune (Caster with recharge cap) Interesting takes though, I'll take a second look at neidan and defense, thinking about a reflect build with icescale items.
Yeah you do make good points, I just think other masteries offer more versatility or ease of use for their specific uses over Storm/Rogue/Spirit. I don't agree about poison bomb though. It doesn't stop you from dying the same way colossus or tranquillity or half of what dream and rune do. I also did say I'd be open to moving Storm up and I even think in my original list I had it a few spots higher. Squall really is good! As for dodge/avoid, they are good, yes, but you can't rely on them. It's just a numbers game. Eventually you won't dodge enough and you'll die. I'd take consistency over them any day. That's another reason I value Neidan so high. Not only do you get the resistance and reduction, AND you get dodge/avoid as well. It just has everything. Spirit + Dream is amazing! Definitely one of my favorites. Thanks for taking the time to comment, I really enjoy talking about this stuff!
@@LughSamildanach Dodge/avoid won't protect you against one-shots, true. But when you take a lot of smaller hits, dodge/avoid average out, the small hits you take become similar to a DoT, and in this sense dodge/avoid is an other damage reduction layer. The way I approach defenses, I try to stack as many multiplicative damage reducing layers as I can, such as resist, reduced damage taken from enemy type, reduced damage for enemies, damage reduction... and dodge/avoid fits in this picture very well. When you're facing 50+ mobs let's say in a satyr camp, the difference between no dodge and 50+% dodge is night and day (basically 50% less damage taken).
@@anathielvanrycanter7696 Oh I totally agree, if you're playing XMAX or massbosses or whatever, taking that many hits makes dodge/avoid much more useful. Same thing for retaliation/reflect. You just get so much more out of it.
Play what you prefer... My Hardcore Char was a Spellbreaker ( Warfare + Spirit ) and i loved it - HC Legend and all the Eternal Embers Stuff done :) My first HC run was a Guardian ( Nature + Defense ) with ~30.000 HP and she died...
interesting ranking! most helpful to me was the breakdown of what's so good about Rune and Neidan, since i last played the game back when IT first came out lol. back in those Dream-rules-all days~ thanks for your work!
Thank you Its fun to hear perspective. The more comprehensive the better the discourse and overall experience. I found for melee that a Champion with first-rate gear is best...between the Battle standard, plague, maxed-out wolves and 150 atk speed 12, 700 hp and 52% dmg resist. For a Shield, I d have to go with the Spellbinder...Colossus and Outsider either consecutive or as twins, as with Dark Covenant and Rally...went with a Ritualist for a Caster/Staff, Melee is just for fun ( Thyestes Scheme for Lethal Strike )Has 1800 armour, all 80s... Never cared for Hunting but that def ability and Herbal Remedy in addition-had fun with that, made a caster with insane dps ( no Ternion ) and would cast Vision Of Death then trap em. If you havent done it, do it. Thats the thing about Titan Quest yo7re only limited by your gear and yo7r math...so I made a Soothsayer. I wanted a line-working foreman-so...just as a goof, took that Nemean Lion set and ended up with damage resistance at 46% +4 to Spirit, + 3 to Nature with Cerberus Bite, Aionos ...and just steamrolled everything...( yes Aphrodites Favor ) ( Band Of Souls, Mark of Overlord ) and Final Breath for that +1 Spirit and 30 vitality dmg. resis. BONUS? 50% damage to Demons. Ended up with bleed +15 and vit dmg. res. +5. Over 1100 Defensive Ability and over 10, 000 HP...workin hard...!
Although @lugh there is a Martin Molloy skit with the voice closest to this. The Depressing British Voice Over Guy Thanks for the vid, glad to see Aussies out here 😅😊
I have found through experimentation that certain masteries are easier to use for levelling up than others. In my opinion, the Strongest four are Nature, Storm, Rune, and Dream. Call of the Wild, Squall, Runic Mines, and Distortion Wave, together with skills that further increase their damage make them even better. The middle four in my opinion are Neidan, Earth, Warfare, and Rogue. The best skills to use for levelling up in those masteries are Dragon's Breath with Dragon's Flame, Shen Pao, Ring of Flame, Battle Standard, and Poison Gas Bomb, all together with the skills that increase their damage further. The weakest masteries in my opinion for levelling up are Defense, Hunting, and Spirit. The skills to use for levelling up with those are Batter with Rend Armor, Marksmanship with Wood Lore, and Liche King. In my opinion, you should always pick the stronger mastery first when making a character.
Rune + Nature (Skinchanger) is my favourite combo. Nature helps a lot with energy cost reduction for the bubble (physical, bleed, pierce damage absorption) without relying so much on specific items. On top of all other benefits like extra 80% health, Refresh, Plague.
Happy New Year! Since I didn't ask anything this year yet :D : I start to strongly believe that + to all skills is a really nice stat to have, getting to +4 is probably mandatory for most builds if not all builds, however getting more than +4 for HC is just a luxury that is outperfomred by a lot of other stats at the end. The only thing getting more than +4 does is gets you an easier 'mid game' since you can put your skills points in other skills. However soon you can put the points there just by levels alone anyways. And I'd argue that if your build is not performing without more than +4 to all skills, then the build is probably not really good anyways. You should be doing okay without it imho. So +4 all skills is high priority but any additional skill points after that becomes super low priority and getting hp, resistance, DA, OA, dmg etc. will be better most of the time. As a result I see myself going with Hallowed Helm and SBC with every character I create. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the only reason you didn't go with Hallowed Helm in your cursed one is because you went with the insane hp route, but for someone like me who likes the decent hp with resistances route, these items are just soo good, really reliably aquireable so yeah.. unless sth insane drops for SSF HC these 2 feels like kings. My question is: what do you think? :3
Yep I 100% agree with you, anything more than +4 is unnecessary most of the time. SBC is unfortunately just too good. It probably deserves a nerf, being honest. Drop it down to +1 in all difficulties like Hallowed or Valk Boots and you'd see more build diversity. There's no build where it doesn't help and is only ever replaced in meme builds like 4x Icescale and in super endgame with other overpowered items like Agenors, the dungeon Sets, Phillips, Hugin and Mugin etc etc As for Hallowed? Yeah it's easily among the most useful items in the game, but personally I find it's usefulness isn't as high as SBC. Hallowed is easier to replace and the jump from +3 skills to +4 isn't game changing and the vit res can be got elsewhere easily enough. I do love it in regular HC, yeah.
In my time i played warfare with almost every other mastery, most fun was probably storm and most damage was hunting. My last build after many years and thinking about from my experience make me chose defense + hunting, its like they say when in Rome.. But what this combo do is just so practical and strong and cover all you ever need, just its up time and synergy of active/passives make it basically equivalent of warfare DW.
Yeah Def+Hunt is very strong. You have so many good offensive AND defensive buffs. It's also crazy strong for normal difficulty, with the insane amount of Defensive Ability you get.
Neidan and Nature was the most flawless for me, hard to kill and makes enemies weak, and the damage is decent too. My next would be Rune and Rogue, one of the best damage build. A little squishy but deals a lot of damage. I'm trying out Warfare and Neidan next, wish me luck.
I just loved running around shooting with a bow as a Hunter/Rogue build... That confusion from the rogue often meant, that I could shoot them down before they reached me. Actually beat hardcore with that, but with several deaths though.
The strongest possible character in this game is Champion (Warfare + Nature), i love him as dps but he can play with multiple play styles. Ritualist (Dream + Nature) is the easiest to do the no death achievement, even giving life steal to pets without gear in super hard core mode. This would make Nature the 1 unbeatable champ of this game and warfare is criminaly underrated. Personally i did my first 0 death with Defence + Spirit and i would say Spirit is also criminaly underated.
Champion is the one of the worst combs imo. For me the strongest build that doesnt even require you to play the game is full reflect dream+fire. Step 1: go in front of Boss or large enemy group Step 2: press stone Step 3: they instantly kill themselves. If you go hardcore selffound early lvls might be rough though.
What timing! Im gonna make a new char. Saw your post on nature + neidan Beat normal and elite with 5 deaths. Monk. Taking a break and making a legendary character and going to try eternal embers. May try runesmith or another neidan + spec
So.. freaking finally... got the hardcore legend achievement. I want to thank my family for supporting me throughout this hard time. I want to thank my mentor LughSamildanach etc. I'm like 100% sure you will understand when I say this that this wasn't a fun thing at the end to go for. I love to challenge myself with video games but I think this was a bit too much and it was harder than anything else, any other diablo clone for me. The game is just so long that it really becomes an endurance test at the end. I was just speedrunning through act 5 and at the very end I almost rip to black elf archers.. anyways.. its done :D I honestly think I'll be able to enjoy the game a lot more now that this thing is off my shoulders. I was focused on it waaaaaaaaaay too much :(
I'm glad you stuck with it, yeah TQ becomes a bit of an endurance test which doesn't help when you're constantly worried about dying. Can get stressful! But very well done! Congrats. Which class did you do it with?
@@LughSamildanach I also experienced what you were saying in this video. Mobs dispelling my heart of oak was super dangerous, it was like -6000/7000 hp instantly
I came back to TQ after a couple of years, only on Switch unfortunately but it's one of my favourite EVER games and I've been gaming since the Master System 😂 loved this vid and it's insights!
@@LughSamildanach thanks, definitely! Can I ask, I've had two Legendary items drop in Egypt but on Epic difficulty, I thought Legendaries could only drop from the act 3 boss onwards??
@@Craig-k6u That may have been the case once upon a time, it might have been changed with patches/expansions. Not too sure. I do know that you can find legendary items as early as act 1 epic, amulets and throwing weapons seem like the most common that early on to me. It's just quite a bit rarer to find them than in legendary difficulty or later epic.
I'm only on my first playthrough bug storm nimbus + a very fast throwing dagger feels OP to me. Most normal enemies are dying in 1-2 hits. And the slow and stuns with some speed on my boots make kiting mobs a breeze.
Man, I love Titan Quest. Even if it can get repetitive and grindy, the sheer variety of unique builds is just so much fun, its the most fun ive had with an ARPG ever. Like you can either go with something understandable, or go with clowny shit like the Diviner and just dab over the entire enemy roster, they cant stop you.
@@LughSamildanach It especially makes me excited to try Grim Dawn down the line as I've heard everyone say its just better Titan Quest, and for me, when it comes to a loot based game, Titan Quest already set a high bar for both loot and class hybridization. I've played and seen a lot of games that do very bad loot systems (why is it called a legendary if it drops like every 30 minutes and I can replace it rather easily?), but I like how Titan Quest adds so much nuance and robust design (to the point my brother was having a crisis of decision every time he got his hands on some new gear that looked really good) going with its Masteries. My first run was Diviner (i thought a necromancer was cool to try), then Battlemage, then Brigand (Act 4 made me cry), and now doing a Champion. None of these have felt the same at all and its just, perfection. I'm glad to have a game that just gives me choices and I can just abandon all reason and stitch 2 together randomly
@@ARStudios2000 Grim Dawn is objectively a great game, it's just TQ with a dash more of complexity and more to do in the end game. I don't enjoy it because of the world/setting though. Sounds like you love it though, it has all the good itemisation and class building that TQ has with just a bit more.
@LughSamildanach For a Solo Self Found Hardcore no potions no shrines and no scrolls (only for artifacts) run through, I am deciding between warden and Juggernaught, for the warden i will farm the stone form gauntlets. What would you reccomend for that playthrough?
I play as contemplator, in beginning had some troubles until I found good gear and upgrade my caracter enough. Now on legendary level I rarely die. Also as contemlator you can play melee or ranged it works both very well.
I think you're on the right track. Poison will fall off, but you can still use it as supplementary damage. Blacksteel Spike is a good choice, but you could also go with an Icthian Harpoon if you want to go more into bleeding. Play around the bleeds and hit every enemy once to get the "aoe" damage going. One other item I think could be fun is an Icescale piece or two. They're an easy way to cheat some more aoe into a build.
@@LughSamildanach I made the transition into physical/pierce/bleeding when I got to act 4 on epic. Ichian Harpoon didn't drop, mabye I had bad luck but my first impression is that it might be a nightmare to farm. Anyways I used a trinkerer spear with avg attack speed from act 5 with bleeding dmg added and attack speed, and it was going fine. Champion outperformed Corsair by a lot I don't think I'll a fan of Rogue :/ I did enjoy Defense and just putting points into the mastery itself felt like a Heart of Oak. My problems were that I think I was dealing the majority of my dmg as bleeding so I had to skip certain mobs because they are immune. Not a huge deal though I'm used to Diablo 2 :D My bigger problem is is that I think I'm too dumb to make pierce dmg work. Since it transforms your physical dmg you want big pierce ratio and big physical dmg. But at that point aren't you just a big physical dmg character? My Champion seems to be doing fine without much pierce and even with all this crazy %pierce dmg on Rogue as I said I'm certain I was dealing most of my dmg as bleed. So I just don't get it I'm afraid. I died to Canace the Serpent Queen I believe, not sure I looked down to my keyboard for 0.5 sec as I was in her room, about to move out because I didn't feel like getting the stones for Hades Treasury and when I looked up I was dead, so most likely she hit me with a projectile and I didn't respect her dmg at all even with my poison resistance being in the negatives. This being said I think the build was actually more than capable of doing Hardcore Legend, the end result wasn't because the build was not working it was simply because I didn't pay attention D:
I'm a new player, and I learned a lot from this video. I found your placement of the glass cannon masteries low for survivability reasons interesting. Can't you just pair them with a tanky mastery to compensate for that? I have 3 characters, first was a conqueror, second was a druid, and third I'm on right now is a Brigand. And the Brigand is by far the most survivable for me. Although you did say hunter is the best mastery for normal.
Pairing a tanky mastery with a glass canon works really well for regular gameplay, yeah. But it'll never reach the same heights of sheer survivability that two really tanky masteries hit...and the video was very focused on pure hardcore and even the curses too. It'd be quite a different ranking if it was about damage or speed. I'd recommend giving rune and or neidan a try, they're strong both on survival and damage. I have a properly voiced Cursed Hardcore series on my channel that shows off how good rune is.
@@LughSamildanach Yeah you aren't wrong, you can always be tankier. I thought I was doing well enough to do deathless with the brigand character. I was in act 3 with no deaths, and both my previous characters had died as early as greece, so i had high hopes that Tony the Tiger wouldn't be an asshole but he was. Might have lived if I was a warden like I originally thought to make. But I saw rogue and thought heheh goofy pierce build.
I changed my mind on Warfare's Battle Rage btw. After talking with KG and psixi I now think that for most if not all Warfare builds battle rage and crushing blow can act as nice 1 point wonders. I just really hated the idea of me dealing more dmg when I get hit bc I don't want to rely on me being hit to do enough dps in HC ever. But I was being waaaay to puristic with it. (If I get some defensive bonuses when I get hit now thats a totally different story for me I love that for HC in every diablo clone).
Yeah 1 point isn't hard to spare most of the time. I just see it as an overall efficiency thing. Never think or worry about it happening, just think of it as something that speeds up your gameplay over a long period of time. Still, Battle Rage and the def Adrenaline are my least favourite kind of skills in the game. I prefer reliability.
Thanks for this! Great vid! I never would have considered Neidan so high, but i think ive just been using it in the wrong context. Your explanation helps make way more sense of the mastery
Also also.. I was thinking about the ranking and I have limited experience (pushing 300 hours) but I'd probably swap hunting and warfare and mabye even push warfare up to be behind defense. One thing thats really nice about warfare that it is soooo easy to make a build with it and to gear up. It's just a very straight forward mastery and I'd guess that even if u are an expert it can still save u some headache. Basically if u go with warfare ur dmg output is covered, u never have to wonder why u are not dealing enough dmg imho. So yeah
I knew war would be the most controversial one, maybe I didn't give it enough credence outside of cursed HC. I think I said it in the video, but I could definitely move it up a few rankings. Just as someone that only really plays cursed these days, all I see from warfare is the dodge % and Flag. It doesn't offer me much else.
One thing you forgot to mention is that both Rogue and Neidan have abilities that can transmit weapon effects. As far as I know, this is extremely rare and only three abilities can do this: Rogue's throwing knife and blades (the capstone that came with Atlantis) and Neidan's Sheng-Pao.
Yeah, I kind of suffered through Titan Quest because the first character I ever made (and consequently the one I've stuck with the longest by far) was a Bandit- Hunting/Rogue. And that's a GODAWFUL class for one simple reason: undead. When your entire combined class is based around dealing piercing, bleeding and poison damage, 20-40% of all enemies in the game being highly resistant if not _outright immune_ to most of your damage is more than a bit of a pisser. Sure, everything fleshy dies screaming, but the preponderance of ghosts in chapter 4 in particular is absolutely _agonising._
Yeah that's just unfortunate luck, picking those two. Some enemies, especially some bosses like Alastor in act 1 can be a massive slog to get through. Something with lots of flat damage like Rune, or bonus to undead like Spirit would combo with either Hunting or Rogue much nicer than eachother. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Merry Christmas to you, or whatever you celebrate. Hope you have a great one. I thought about doing what you said, but God theres like a billion possible combos. Maybe I could do something trying to find the top 3 for each or something. I can already see a lot of rune/neidan/dream + X class combos. I dunno I'll think about it. I'm also working on a guide for speedrunning the legendary Forge quest over and over with a fresh 70 character.
Absolutly perfect video, bro. I a long player TQ, i am styl curios, how meny combinations is a posibly. Meyby not all build is a posibly enof strong, bad styl is absolutly amazing. Thanx a lot for a cool tips and i wish you good luck.
The biggest problem I find with the Rogue mastery is it's complete inability to face undead creatures. Rogue's damage rely on pierce, poison and bleed, three things undead are completely immune against. The moment you meet a bunch of skeletons, your dps drops to not even 1/3 of what it is against other targets.
Conq is just as good as it always was, but there's better classes these days. The reason everyone recommended Conq is because it's the simplest, easiest class to build. That's why it felt strong, because people couldn't f it up. If you actually know what you're doing there's far stronger options both early and late game. Many combos with Rune, Dream or Neidan can easily beat out a Conq. Not to crap on Conq, it is genuinely good.
For hardcore? I'd put 1 point dex every single level, 1 point strength until you have enough for gear. Put a point into health every 3 or 4 levels. Once you've got enough strength for whatever gear you want, then 1 dex, 1 health every level. For example, a level 70 character with no items equipped would be around 550 dex, 400 str and 5500 health.
@@КомнатныйФиласаф This comes down to how you're playing. The way I see it, if you want to pump strength for damage, then don't play hardcore. You're just fighting against yourself at that point. Every point of strength is higher odds of you dying. But if you want to play HC, dex let's you avoid hits and avoid critical hits more often. You also hit more often, which means you trigger stuns, battle rage and your shield skills more often, which also means dying less. And yeah, just relying on item stats for OA/DA is not enough for legendary hardcore. Unless you're importing items from other characters.
I used to play the ultimate lazy Earth + Dream build that maxed both auras, so I had auto AOE damage and constant regeneration. And I'd leave the pc running overnight near a generator to get massive amounts of gold drops, and so on. Then in the morning while my cpu screamed, I picked everything up. And then go shopping at the shops with all that gold. Then I would respec.
What tinkerer items do you recommend from Atlantis, I mean what gear slot they fit in nicely? Also correct me if I'm wrong but generally speaking you want something that gives some stats already and be a tinkerer on top of that right? Just being tinkerer is nice but rarely enough is my guess. (I did make though a budget ichthian harpoon in a plain tinkerer avg speed spear in epic atlantis for my Corsair beforing RIPing with her in act 4.. but the spear worked okay)
I've always got the most use from Rings, Amulets and Weapons. Things like 20/20 or 40 res. Veterans, Hallowed. (though I don't think I've ever actually found a Hallowed Tinkerer before). Sometimes I like to watch youtube for an hour and just run between waypoints checking shops XD Unrelated, but my Cursed HC guy died yesterday. Got instant killed by having eruption cast under my feet. I think I got shotgunned by every projectile. 30,000 health to 0 in under a second. Guess I'll remake the character.
@@LughSamildanach My thanks. These days I also watch some curiosity stream while playing :D RIP on ur char D: Even though the hp route works as you demonstraited already there are still stuff that can 1tap u even more so with crazy negative resistances
@@MrSarky1992 Yeah game knowledge is just as important as your approach. I knew not to stand still when fighting the guy who did it, to let him cast eruption first. I just grew overconfident :( Was just about to hit 80, as well.... Oh well, new version of the character is already underway. This one will be stronger, too. I put too many points into STR with the last one.
When i look at naidan talent tree it doesn't seem very good for pet build. It doesn't even have strong main attack so how exactly do you make it work with support masteries such as defense or nature?
Want a good bowman, thor bow, or truck wizard. I just started getting lost in Torchlight III, "come on surfer 🏄♂️ 🌊 champion, of course thats battlefront muck.
I'm not playing Hardcore yet, but since I just started playing Titan Quest solo WITH all 3 DLCs, how would you rate my build in terms of Attack and Defense; Dream + Spirit ("Diviner")
Good choice for defence, the dream aura damage reduction goes nicely with spirits slowing effect and life leech. Both are good for offense too, whether or not you go with melee or a staff.
@@LughSamildanach The fun thing is; I've actually been doing both! Melee helps get rid of swarms of enemies, especially with the weapon I got, and Staff lets me outrange other enemies I could potentially pick off! I just feel like I got lucky choosing a powerful (and probably popular) combo ^^'
@littlegoat713 it gets harder to do dual weapon set ups later on as you eventually have to pick either intelligence or physical, but there are actually some physical damage staffs and intelligence (elemental etc) melee too. Really fun to build! I personally like havingml melee+shield and 2x throwing weapon myself on some builds.
Hi. Do u can share builds? I've been wanting to start playing for weeks, but it opens up so much variety of classes, stats to raise, and items. At the end of the day I end up postponing the game because it demotivates me not knowing what steps to take.
The best way to play is learn for yourself while playing. Mistakes dont matter, you can always start again. It wouldn't be any fun if someone else played the game for you. If you want one tip, raise the same stats that are in your class. But if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer. Please ask!
I'd love to know how all of this CC and slow/snare is supposed to help when bosses are either immune or have reduced duration by like 95%. I generally agree with much of what he posted, but it's much different in practice and I think defense is still the undisputed top survival choice... you can pair it with whatever you like, but any build without it suffers in my personal experience, from a tanky survival standpoint.
It's too bad the secondary resistances were nerfed to the new cap of 80%. You could go over 100% in the original version, which meant total immunity. I have a clip of how I take down Typhon without hitting him in the CD-ROM version. Tell me what you think of it. 😃
The last section can't be repeated enough. Play what you find fun. TQ(and its successor, GD) are so wonderfully open that you can make everything work. Except Single Mastery builds, but that's a ... uh ... unfortunate.
Does Ritualist do good on Hardcore and Cursed Hardcore? They're the best and strongest Pet Build for me especially when you get Fervor Of Leuciteus since it gives lifesteal for pets, allowing you to use rings that give elemental attack or HP instead.
It's a very good combo. Extra life, pets for distraction and dream giving stuns, sleeps and damage reduction. You can be very safe. Just lacks a little bit in resistances, but you can work with that.
@@LughSamildanach aight, I'll go play the game again then. Although it's been like 2yrs since the last time I played and I play the mobile version of the game too. Are there like any major changes I should be aware of?
@@LughSamildanach well yup, I haven't played EE yet. It's not exactly 2yrs but I stopped playing when EE DLC was just released and since the mobile version doesn't have EE yet at that time, I stopped playing. I'm already playing it right now and I found a temple with orbs costing Electrum(?) so that's a new thing for me.
@@SheepyPanda95 Yeah you gain the currency for those orbs by applying the curses on the right side of the temple to your character. Each one give a point when killing an enemy, and you also get more per act/difficulty. They make the game quite difficult though. EE also added Neidan, which is probably my second fav mastery. Very strong defensively. Also a new act, new potions, items etc.
Hi Lugh, What do you think of the hermit, have you tried it yet? Heart of Oak is interesting for having high health in hardcore coupled with summons it seems very powerful.
@7errafirma self imposed rules. Hardcore is no dying, if you die delete the character. There are steam achievements for this and you can see your total deaths in the character sheet. Solo self found is only using items found on that specific character so no trading or bringing items from other characters.
You are wrong about the Shaman skill singery, it is AWESOME. Vitality and elemental are both int scaling. If you go for an Int stacker, the Shaman can get pretty ridiculous.
Shaman is Actually great but have to say a pro character not a beginner friendly one by any means l have seen a video here on youtube and the guy was a melee shaman went through all legendary with no deaths but requires specific gear and carefully leveling tbh.
Definitely! Both Dream and Neidan work in melee. Use a fast weapon + shield, put points into both STR and DEX, only as much STR as you need for gear, rest into DEX. I'd use Neidans left click skill rather than Dream. Using both a Dream Trance + Neidan Aura would make you very hard to kill.
My list of masteries ranking for Hardcore from worst to best. Taking into account not only defense but also ability to deal damage (sometimes better defense is offense))): F-tier: 11. Rogue 100% true (weak types of damage, bad survivability). He can cheese enemies with traps, and if it counts - moves to higher tiers. B-tier: 10. Spirit (good against undead, but defense against other enemies types is not good) 9. Earth 8. Storm (squall is pretty good) For me ranks 10 - 8 +/- the same. Casters are weak. C-tier: 7. Nature (superior support for other mastery) A-tier: 6. Hunting (range combat can hit'n'run, CHtAP, entrapment resist) 5. Runes (for me feels +/- as Hunting, maybe Hunting 5, runes 6 place) S-tier: 4. Dream (absorb, CHtAP) 3. Warfare (battle standart is OP if placed correctly) 2. Defense (shield professional) 1. Neidan (no comments;P)
Cara isso foi legal isso da para montar build de varias maneiras e se divertir com elas obrigado pelo video de apoio parar aqueles que esta iniciando agora o game.
There are three expansion packs that you need to buy that have come out over the past 7 years, Ragnarok, which adds Rune Mastery, Eternal Embers which adds Neidan and Atlantis which gives additional skills to every mastery. Each expansion also adds more items, another whole act to play through and much more stuff.
You play the game wrong, nature offers the strongest physical damage buff in the game, it's the wolves buff. You have to max the buff, keep the wolf at defensive stance, i think you need two wolves for the 100% uptime, then you also need all of defence's critical hits except for the stun as you won't use this kind of weapon, also use dexterity for offensive ability, add points in hp too as well as a bit of strength for armor.
Weakest doesn't mean impossible. All classes can do the entire game without dying and it's not really that hard. This is just the order of which are best for it. It's also taking curses into account too.
Btw bro, in my opinion you are unfair to Rogue! Hardcore is easy when you Illusionist. Also Hunting mastery gives you permanent resist to poison and it’s huge by itself! Anyway, waiting for new vids
im not sure whats so great about fire, ive not finished the game with earth ever. it does nothing. the damage abilities are on cd and do very little damage, the pet is super squishy, fire ring stops being useful in hades and fire resist is easily found. disclaimer: i have never played hardcore
Yeah even with endgame gear it never does amazing damage. Try rune+earth and pump as much INT as possible. Runes left click can get some good damage out of the fire skills.
Hi, can you tell me pls if work Runes (for lightning, elemental dmg) + Neidan (defense and regen), and the status i think to put half/half in dex + int - for range atack 2 weapons )
I'll think about it. It probably wouldn't be as accurate as this list because most of the time I play TQ is with tanky characters. But yeah, I'll give it some thought.
Yeah but that's boring and not how I like to play, which was how I ranked the list. Traps like that are lame. If i was going to play some form of meta, I'd just grind normal difficulty chaos dungeons for a full set and sleep my way through the entire game.
@@LughSamildanach Ok. Thanks! In the Korea community, neidan is very undervalued because neidan doesn't have proper attack skills. The majority opinion is that the best class is defense.
@@gisoolsa That's very interesting! I can see why some people would view defence so highly, it has a lot of strong skills behind it. It's my personal favourite mastery, but I'd never say it's the absolute best. Neidan is so good because it gives you almost everything you need defensively except for vitality resistance. I can understand why people would undervalue it because it's not amazing early on and it doesn't have big potential to clear whole screens of enemies quickly. It's amazing for not dying, but not that great for regular gameplay.
@@LughSamildanach Reply Thanks. You've helped me a lot. Can you tell me up to the 3rd place in the Mastery ranking in your opinion? Offense, defence comprehensively. In Korea, 1.Defence 2.warfare 3.Hunting
@@gisoolsa Depends on whether it's cursed, hardcore or not. For regular non hardcore or cursed, I'd say 1 Warfare (battle standard is ridiculous), 2 Hunting (very high damage and great debuff on enemies) and 3 could be Defence, Rogue or Nature. They're all good and I can't pick, you could make a good argument for all of them. Defence is a good boss killer with phalanx and colossus is great, rogue is lots of damage and nature is really, really strong when paired with warfare. Like if you asked me to create the absolute most powerful character in the game I'd probably say it's some type of War+Nature. Or a full icescale reflect. One of those two. For hardcore 1 Neidan, 2 Nature, 3 Rune or Defence. For cursed/hardcore. 1 Neidan, 2 Rune 3 Defence. My opinions on these are in the video already :)
Yeah I could give that a go. The achievement is really quite simple, just start an Accomplished hero (level 40, starts at normal ragnarok) and have a lot of gear ready from other characters. I think I did it in less than 10 hours. Just run through everything and do only mandatory quests. Pretty sure I did Storm+Defence. Storm for the infinite dash skill and def for boss killing. I might make a video. Thanks for the idea.
In hardcore, right, like as if that's really a thing in the game. Er.. there is no such thing in this game. All this is made up bs and a complete waste of everyone's time.
Love your last section. Play what give us the most fun, that's something people often miss.
100%. Especially in a game like TQ. You're not competing against anyone. Just do what's fun!
This video has motivated me to go make a Hardcore all Shrines Warlock(Rogue+Spirit) just to turn the whole list upside down.
That's ballsy. Good luck!
Have a kung fu viking on standby to cheer you up
interesting concise video made with love and expertise on stuff you enjoy ! subbed !
Much appreciated!
It looks like you have completely different perspective on the game than I have ^^. I play with massbosses mod (every enemy is multiplied by 20) and all curses.
You don't seem to value damage reduction given for example by storm's squall or spirit's deathchill aura, nor avoid and dodge chance, those are king with massbosses along with corwd control (poison bomb or petrifiy from distort reality). With good gear, resistances won't be that much of an issue.
Oh and the most important skill in the game, the skill distruption/debuff spell from storm, if you don't have it reflecting enemies will be a nightmare (like Typhon for example).
Some specifics:
Rogue's upgraded Poison Bomb with the fear is one of the best crowd control skills in the game. And it can whipe out full packs of enemies even on legendary.
As for spirit, deathchill aura's reduced damage on enemies is a big layer of defense, not to mention the reduced life leech resistance resulting in crazy recovery.
Free dodge from warfare and free dodge from hunting and dream are big too.
Overall my favourite combos:
Spirit + Dream (Vitality build)
Storm + Rune (Caster with recharge cap)
Interesting takes though, I'll take a second look at neidan and defense, thinking about a reflect build with icescale items.
Yeah you do make good points, I just think other masteries offer more versatility or ease of use for their specific uses over Storm/Rogue/Spirit. I don't agree about poison bomb though. It doesn't stop you from dying the same way colossus or tranquillity or half of what dream and rune do. I also did say I'd be open to moving Storm up and I even think in my original list I had it a few spots higher. Squall really is good!
As for dodge/avoid, they are good, yes, but you can't rely on them. It's just a numbers game. Eventually you won't dodge enough and you'll die. I'd take consistency over them any day. That's another reason I value Neidan so high. Not only do you get the resistance and reduction, AND you get dodge/avoid as well. It just has everything.
Spirit + Dream is amazing! Definitely one of my favorites.
Thanks for taking the time to comment, I really enjoy talking about this stuff!
@@LughSamildanach Dodge/avoid won't protect you against one-shots, true. But when you take a lot of smaller hits, dodge/avoid average out, the small hits you take become similar to a DoT, and in this sense dodge/avoid is an other damage reduction layer.
The way I approach defenses, I try to stack as many multiplicative damage reducing layers as I can, such as resist, reduced damage taken from enemy type, reduced damage for enemies, damage reduction... and dodge/avoid fits in this picture very well. When you're facing 50+ mobs let's say in a satyr camp, the difference between no dodge and 50+% dodge is night and day (basically 50% less damage taken).
@@anathielvanrycanter7696 Oh I totally agree, if you're playing XMAX or massbosses or whatever, taking that many hits makes dodge/avoid much more useful.
Same thing for retaliation/reflect. You just get so much more out of it.
Play what you prefer... My Hardcore Char was a Spellbreaker ( Warfare + Spirit ) and i loved it - HC Legend and all the Eternal Embers Stuff done :) My first HC run was a Guardian ( Nature + Defense ) with ~30.000 HP and she died...
interesting ranking! most helpful to me was the breakdown of what's so good about Rune and Neidan, since i last played the game back when IT first came out lol. back in those Dream-rules-all days~ thanks for your work!
Hey thanks for watching! Yeah Dream was unreal back in the day. Fun times.
Thank you
Its fun to hear perspective.
The more comprehensive the better
the discourse and overall experience.
I found for melee that a Champion
with first-rate gear is best...between
the Battle standard, plague,
maxed-out wolves and 150 atk speed
12, 700 hp and 52% dmg resist.
For a Shield, I d have to go with the
Spellbinder...Colossus and Outsider
either consecutive or as twins, as with
Dark Covenant and Rally...went with a
Ritualist for a Caster/Staff, Melee is
just for fun ( Thyestes Scheme for
Lethal Strike )Has 1800 armour, all
80s...
Never cared for Hunting but that def
ability and Herbal Remedy in
addition-had fun with that, made a
caster with insane dps ( no Ternion )
and would cast Vision Of Death then
trap em. If you havent done it, do it.
Thats the thing about Titan Quest
yo7re only limited by your gear and
yo7r math...so I made a Soothsayer.
I wanted a line-working
foreman-so...just as a goof, took that
Nemean Lion set and ended up with
damage resistance at 46% +4 to
Spirit, + 3 to Nature with Cerberus
Bite, Aionos ...and just steamrolled
everything...( yes Aphrodites Favor )
( Band Of Souls, Mark of Overlord )
and Final Breath for that +1 Spirit and
30 vitality dmg. resis. BONUS?
50% damage to Demons. Ended up
with bleed +15 and vit dmg. res. +5.
Over 1100 Defensive Ability and over
10, 000 HP...workin hard...!
The text to speech sounds so depressed lol
Haha. I suppose I could use my real voice, but it's a thick aussie accent so it might be hard for some to understand.
I thought that was his normal voice. Or... hers. Shows what I know. (I also thought he was British.)🇨🇦
@@LughSamildanachIt sounds fine. Dont pay him any mind
I like the voice!😊
Although @lugh there is a Martin Molloy skit with the voice closest to this.
The Depressing British Voice Over Guy
Thanks for the vid, glad to see Aussies out here 😅😊
I have found through experimentation that certain masteries are easier to use for levelling up than others. In my opinion, the Strongest four are Nature, Storm, Rune, and Dream. Call of the Wild, Squall, Runic Mines, and Distortion Wave, together with skills that further increase their damage make them even better. The middle four in my opinion are Neidan, Earth, Warfare, and Rogue. The best skills to use for levelling up in those masteries are Dragon's Breath with Dragon's Flame, Shen Pao, Ring of Flame, Battle Standard, and Poison Gas Bomb, all together with the skills that increase their damage further. The weakest masteries in my opinion for levelling up are Defense, Hunting, and Spirit. The skills to use for levelling up with those are Batter with Rend Armor, Marksmanship with Wood Lore, and Liche King. In my opinion, you should always pick the stronger mastery first when making a character.
Rune + Nature (Skinchanger) is my favourite combo. Nature helps a lot with energy cost reduction for the bubble (physical, bleed, pierce damage absorption) without relying so much on specific items. On top of all other benefits like extra 80% health, Refresh, Plague.
I am a warfare defense pony, have been since TQIT. Always fun
Nothing wrong with classic Conqueror Tank n' Spank.
Happy New Year! Since I didn't ask anything this year yet :D :
I start to strongly believe that + to all skills is a really nice stat to have, getting to +4 is probably mandatory for most builds if not all builds, however getting more than +4 for HC is just a luxury that is outperfomred by a lot of other stats at the end. The only thing getting more than +4 does is gets you an easier 'mid game' since you can put your skills points in other skills. However soon you can put the points there just by levels alone anyways. And I'd argue that if your build is not performing without more than +4 to all skills, then the build is probably not really good anyways. You should be doing okay without it imho. So +4 all skills is high priority but any additional skill points after that becomes super low priority and getting hp, resistance, DA, OA, dmg etc. will be better most of the time.
As a result I see myself going with Hallowed Helm and SBC with every character I create. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the only reason you didn't go with Hallowed Helm in your cursed one is because you went with the insane hp route, but for someone like me who likes the decent hp with resistances route, these items are just soo good, really reliably aquireable so yeah.. unless sth insane drops for SSF HC these 2 feels like kings.
My question is: what do you think? :3
Yep I 100% agree with you, anything more than +4 is unnecessary most of the time.
SBC is unfortunately just too good. It probably deserves a nerf, being honest. Drop it down to +1 in all difficulties like Hallowed or Valk Boots and you'd see more build diversity. There's no build where it doesn't help and is only ever replaced in meme builds like 4x Icescale and in super endgame with other overpowered items like Agenors, the dungeon Sets, Phillips, Hugin and Mugin etc etc
As for Hallowed? Yeah it's easily among the most useful items in the game, but personally I find it's usefulness isn't as high as SBC. Hallowed is easier to replace and the jump from +3 skills to +4 isn't game changing and the vit res can be got elsewhere easily enough. I do love it in regular HC, yeah.
In my time i played warfare with almost every other mastery, most fun was probably storm and most damage was hunting. My last build after many years and thinking about from my experience make me chose defense + hunting, its like they say when in Rome.. But what this combo do is just so practical and strong and cover all you ever need, just its up time and synergy of active/passives make it basically equivalent of warfare DW.
Yeah Def+Hunt is very strong. You have so many good offensive AND defensive buffs. It's also crazy strong for normal difficulty, with the insane amount of Defensive Ability you get.
Would love to see a let’s play from you. Your game knowledge seems insane.
Thanks for the kind words. Maybe I'll give a let's play a try sometime.
Neidan and Nature was the most flawless for me, hard to kill and makes enemies weak, and the damage is decent too. My next would be Rune and Rogue, one of the best damage build. A little squishy but deals a lot of damage. I'm trying out Warfare and Neidan next, wish me luck.
I just loved running around shooting with a bow as a Hunter/Rogue build... That confusion from the rogue often meant, that I could shoot them down before they reached me. Actually beat hardcore with that, but with several deaths though.
I’m stunned. So many wonderful items. An avalanche!!!! Love from 🇨🇦
Thanks for watching!
The strongest possible character in this game is Champion (Warfare + Nature), i love him as dps but he can play with multiple play styles.
Ritualist (Dream + Nature) is the easiest to do the no death achievement, even giving life steal to pets without gear in super hard core mode.
This would make Nature the 1 unbeatable champ of this game and warfare is criminaly underrated.
Personally i did my first 0 death with Defence + Spirit and i would say Spirit is also criminaly underated.
Champion is the one of the worst combs imo.
For me the strongest build that doesnt even require you to play the game is full reflect dream+fire.
Step 1: go in front of Boss or large enemy group
Step 2: press stone
Step 3: they instantly kill themselves.
If you go hardcore selffound early lvls might be rough though.
What timing! Im gonna make a new char. Saw your post on nature + neidan
Beat normal and elite with 5 deaths. Monk. Taking a break and making a legendary character and going to try eternal embers. May try runesmith or another neidan + spec
Best of luck!
Let us know how it goes!
So.. freaking finally... got the hardcore legend achievement. I want to thank my family for supporting me throughout this hard time. I want to thank my mentor LughSamildanach etc. I'm like 100% sure you will understand when I say this that this wasn't a fun thing at the end to go for. I love to challenge myself with video games but I think this was a bit too much and it was harder than anything else, any other diablo clone for me. The game is just so long that it really becomes an endurance test at the end. I was just speedrunning through act 5 and at the very end I almost rip to black elf archers.. anyways.. its done :D I honestly think I'll be able to enjoy the game a lot more now that this thing is off my shoulders. I was focused on it waaaaaaaaaay too much :(
I'm glad you stuck with it, yeah TQ becomes a bit of an endurance test which doesn't help when you're constantly worried about dying. Can get stressful! But very well done! Congrats. Which class did you do it with?
@@LughSamildanach Champion, the story character :D
@@LughSamildanach I also experienced what you were saying in this video. Mobs dispelling my heart of oak was super dangerous, it was like -6000/7000 hp instantly
@@MrSarky1992 Yeah that's super spooky when it happens.
I'd love to see you champions gear and stats at some point.
I came back to TQ after a couple of years, only on Switch unfortunately but it's one of my favourite EVER games and I've been gaming since the Master System 😂 loved this vid and it's insights!
Hey thanks a bunch! Have a great time with the game!
@@LughSamildanach thanks, definitely! Can I ask, I've had two Legendary items drop in Egypt but on Epic difficulty, I thought Legendaries could only drop from the act 3 boss onwards??
@@Craig-k6u That may have been the case once upon a time, it might have been changed with patches/expansions. Not too sure. I do know that you can find legendary items as early as act 1 epic, amulets and throwing weapons seem like the most common that early on to me. It's just quite a bit rarer to find them than in legendary difficulty or later epic.
I'm only on my first playthrough bug storm nimbus + a very fast throwing dagger feels OP to me. Most normal enemies are dying in 1-2 hits. And the slow and stuns with some speed on my boots make kiting mobs a breeze.
Storm+Dream got to be my favorite fun build. You can charge into any group without a care, and everything around you just dies.
Yeah both very powerful masteries!
THE BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT I COULD'VE ASKED FOR :D
Cheers! Hope you enjoy.
Man, I love Titan Quest. Even if it can get repetitive and grindy, the sheer variety of unique builds is just so much fun, its the most fun ive had with an ARPG ever. Like you can either go with something understandable, or go with clowny shit like the Diviner and just dab over the entire enemy roster, they cant stop you.
@ARStudios2000 Yeah it's got endless replayability. Even characters with the same masteries can be totally different.
@@LughSamildanach It especially makes me excited to try Grim Dawn down the line as I've heard everyone say its just better Titan Quest, and for me, when it comes to a loot based game, Titan Quest already set a high bar for both loot and class hybridization. I've played and seen a lot of games that do very bad loot systems (why is it called a legendary if it drops like every 30 minutes and I can replace it rather easily?), but I like how Titan Quest adds so much nuance and robust design (to the point my brother was having a crisis of decision every time he got his hands on some new gear that looked really good) going with its Masteries.
My first run was Diviner (i thought a necromancer was cool to try), then Battlemage, then Brigand (Act 4 made me cry), and now doing a Champion. None of these have felt the same at all and its just, perfection. I'm glad to have a game that just gives me choices and I can just abandon all reason and stitch 2 together randomly
@@ARStudios2000 Grim Dawn is objectively a great game, it's just TQ with a dash more of complexity and more to do in the end game. I don't enjoy it because of the world/setting though. Sounds like you love it though, it has all the good itemisation and class building that TQ has with just a bit more.
@@LughSamildanach Thanks for the info!
There's a third expansion coming out in a bit too for Grim Dawn too. Lots of mods were made for it too.
@LughSamildanach
For a Solo Self Found Hardcore no potions no shrines and no scrolls (only for artifacts) run through, I am deciding between warden and Juggernaught, for the warden i will farm the stone form gauntlets. What would you reccomend for that playthrough?
The British scientists have discovered...ta-dam-tssssssss
I play as contemplator, in beginning had some troubles until I found good gear and upgrade my caracter enough. Now on legendary level I rarely die. Also as contemlator you can play melee or ranged it works both very well.
Yeah it's quite good. Thanks for watching!
I made a Spell breaker (Spirit/Warfare) with heavy leach and regen. Super fun lol
My Mentor help pls
I think you're on the right track. Poison will fall off, but you can still use it as supplementary damage. Blacksteel Spike is a good choice, but you could also go with an Icthian Harpoon if you want to go more into bleeding. Play around the bleeds and hit every enemy once to get the "aoe" damage going. One other item I think could be fun is an Icescale piece or two. They're an easy way to cheat some more aoe into a build.
Oh and Ares Weakness might be fun too.
@@LughSamildanach I made the transition into physical/pierce/bleeding when I got to act 4 on epic. Ichian Harpoon didn't drop, mabye I had bad luck but my first impression is that it might be a nightmare to farm. Anyways I used a trinkerer spear with avg attack speed from act 5 with bleeding dmg added and attack speed, and it was going fine. Champion outperformed Corsair by a lot I don't think I'll a fan of Rogue :/ I did enjoy Defense and just putting points into the mastery itself felt like a Heart of Oak. My problems were that I think I was dealing the majority of my dmg as bleeding so I had to skip certain mobs because they are immune. Not a huge deal though I'm used to Diablo 2 :D My bigger problem is is that I think I'm too dumb to make pierce dmg work. Since it transforms your physical dmg you want big pierce ratio and big physical dmg. But at that point aren't you just a big physical dmg character? My Champion seems to be doing fine without much pierce and even with all this crazy %pierce dmg on Rogue as I said I'm certain I was dealing most of my dmg as bleed. So I just don't get it I'm afraid.
I died to Canace the Serpent Queen I believe, not sure I looked down to my keyboard for 0.5 sec as I was in her room, about to move out because I didn't feel like getting the stones for Hades Treasury and when I looked up I was dead, so most likely she hit me with a projectile and I didn't respect her dmg at all even with my poison resistance being in the negatives.
This being said I think the build was actually more than capable of doing Hardcore Legend, the end result wasn't because the build was not working it was simply because I didn't pay attention D:
"Neidan comes along and says FUCK YOU"🤣🤣
I'm a new player, and I learned a lot from this video. I found your placement of the glass cannon masteries low for survivability reasons interesting. Can't you just pair them with a tanky mastery to compensate for that? I have 3 characters, first was a conqueror, second was a druid, and third I'm on right now is a Brigand. And the Brigand is by far the most survivable for me. Although you did say hunter is the best mastery for normal.
Pairing a tanky mastery with a glass canon works really well for regular gameplay, yeah. But it'll never reach the same heights of sheer survivability that two really tanky masteries hit...and the video was very focused on pure hardcore and even the curses too. It'd be quite a different ranking if it was about damage or speed.
I'd recommend giving rune and or neidan a try, they're strong both on survival and damage. I have a properly voiced Cursed Hardcore series on my channel that shows off how good rune is.
@@LughSamildanach Yeah you aren't wrong, you can always be tankier. I thought I was doing well enough to do deathless with the brigand character. I was in act 3 with no deaths, and both my previous characters had died as early as greece, so i had high hopes that Tony the Tiger wouldn't be an asshole but he was. Might have lived if I was a warden like I originally thought to make. But I saw rogue and thought heheh goofy pierce build.
@@MistaOppritunity That's act 3 for you. The first proper test for a hardcore playthrough.
I changed my mind on Warfare's Battle Rage btw. After talking with KG and psixi I now think that for most if not all Warfare builds battle rage and crushing blow can act as nice 1 point wonders. I just really hated the idea of me dealing more dmg when I get hit bc I don't want to rely on me being hit to do enough dps in HC ever. But I was being waaaay to puristic with it. (If I get some defensive bonuses when I get hit now thats a totally different story for me I love that for HC in every diablo clone).
Yeah 1 point isn't hard to spare most of the time.
I just see it as an overall efficiency thing. Never think or worry about it happening, just think of it as something that speeds up your gameplay over a long period of time.
Still, Battle Rage and the def Adrenaline are my least favourite kind of skills in the game. I prefer reliability.
Conquerer Gang rise up
Thanks for this! Great vid! I never would have considered Neidan so high, but i think ive just been using it in the wrong context. Your explanation helps make way more sense of the mastery
Thanks for watching! Glad you got something out of it....and yeah Neidan is great if you work with it.
Also also.. I was thinking about the ranking and I have limited experience (pushing 300 hours) but I'd probably swap hunting and warfare and mabye even push warfare up to be behind defense. One thing thats really nice about warfare that it is soooo easy to make a build with it and to gear up. It's just a very straight forward mastery and I'd guess that even if u are an expert it can still save u some headache. Basically if u go with warfare ur dmg output is covered, u never have to wonder why u are not dealing enough dmg imho. So yeah
I knew war would be the most controversial one, maybe I didn't give it enough credence outside of cursed HC. I think I said it in the video, but I could definitely move it up a few rankings. Just as someone that only really plays cursed these days, all I see from warfare is the dodge % and Flag. It doesn't offer me much else.
One thing you forgot to mention is that both Rogue and Neidan have abilities that can transmit weapon effects. As far as I know, this is extremely rare and only three abilities can do this: Rogue's throwing knife and blades (the capstone that came with Atlantis) and Neidan's Sheng-Pao.
Good point, but it doesn't really do much for you in hardcore in most situations. Still, worth bringing up.
Yeah, I kind of suffered through Titan Quest because the first character I ever made (and consequently the one I've stuck with the longest by far) was a Bandit- Hunting/Rogue. And that's a GODAWFUL class for one simple reason: undead. When your entire combined class is based around dealing piercing, bleeding and poison damage, 20-40% of all enemies in the game being highly resistant if not _outright immune_ to most of your damage is more than a bit of a pisser. Sure, everything fleshy dies screaming, but the preponderance of ghosts in chapter 4 in particular is absolutely _agonising._
Yeah that's just unfortunate luck, picking those two. Some enemies, especially some bosses like Alastor in act 1 can be a massive slog to get through. Something with lots of flat damage like Rune, or bonus to undead like Spirit would combo with either Hunting or Rogue much nicer than eachother.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Hope the Holidays are going well
Merry Christmas to you, or whatever you celebrate. Hope you have a great one.
I thought about doing what you said, but God theres like a billion possible combos. Maybe I could do something trying to find the top 3 for each or something. I can already see a lot of rune/neidan/dream + X class combos.
I dunno I'll think about it.
I'm also working on a guide for speedrunning the legendary Forge quest over and over with a fresh 70 character.
Absolutly perfect video, bro. I a long player TQ, i am styl curios, how meny combinations is a posibly. Meyby not all build is a posibly enof strong, bad styl is absolutly amazing. Thanx a lot for a cool tips and i wish you good luck.
Hey thank you! Your kind words mean a lot!
I am currently having a character with Dream and Defence (= "Templar"), because I like the psychic blasts and shockwaves, and having good defense.
Templar is a great class! Trance of Convalescence works really well with Defence to make you hard to kill.
The biggest problem I find with the Rogue mastery is it's complete inability to face undead creatures.
Rogue's damage rely on pierce, poison and bleed, three things undead are completely immune against. The moment you meet a bunch of skeletons, your dps drops to not even 1/3 of what it is against other targets.
I haven't played TQ in ages, but is Conqueror still ape together strong class that just steamrolls everything?
Conq is just as good as it always was, but there's better classes these days. The reason everyone recommended Conq is because it's the simplest, easiest class to build. That's why it felt strong, because people couldn't f it up.
If you actually know what you're doing there's far stronger options both early and late game. Many combos with Rune, Dream or Neidan can easily beat out a Conq.
Not to crap on Conq, it is genuinely good.
Last time i played…warfare and storm…two Persephone axes and all map gone in the air…But that a long time ago…😂😂
How would you recommend to distribute stats for conqueror? BTW, my first full game no death chatracter was templar, it was pretty easy and fun.
For hardcore? I'd put 1 point dex every single level, 1 point strength until you have enough for gear. Put a point into health every 3 or 4 levels. Once you've got enough strength for whatever gear you want, then 1 dex, 1 health every level.
For example, a level 70 character with no items equipped would be around 550 dex, 400 str and 5500 health.
Oh and congrats btw, nice job beating hardcore!
@@LughSamildanach dex is only for DA I assume? Many items have solid amounts of DA and health, is it not enough?
@@КомнатныйФиласаф This comes down to how you're playing.
The way I see it, if you want to pump strength for damage, then don't play hardcore. You're just fighting against yourself at that point. Every point of strength is higher odds of you dying.
But if you want to play HC, dex let's you avoid hits and avoid critical hits more often. You also hit more often, which means you trigger stuns, battle rage and your shield skills more often, which also means dying less.
And yeah, just relying on item stats for OA/DA is not enough for legendary hardcore. Unless you're importing items from other characters.
Great answer, thanks! @@LughSamildanach
I used to play the ultimate lazy Earth + Dream build that maxed both auras, so I had auto AOE damage and constant regeneration.
And I'd leave the pc running overnight near a generator to get massive amounts of gold drops, and so on.
Then in the morning while my cpu screamed, I picked everything up.
And then go shopping at the shops with all that gold.
Then I would respec.
What tinkerer items do you recommend from Atlantis, I mean what gear slot they fit in nicely? Also correct me if I'm wrong but generally speaking you want something that gives some stats already and be a tinkerer on top of that right? Just being tinkerer is nice but rarely enough is my guess. (I did make though a budget ichthian harpoon in a plain tinkerer avg speed spear in epic atlantis for my Corsair beforing RIPing with her in act 4.. but the spear worked okay)
I've always got the most use from Rings, Amulets and Weapons. Things like 20/20 or 40 res. Veterans, Hallowed. (though I don't think I've ever actually found a Hallowed Tinkerer before). Sometimes I like to watch youtube for an hour and just run between waypoints checking shops XD
Unrelated, but my Cursed HC guy died yesterday. Got instant killed by having eruption cast under my feet. I think I got shotgunned by every projectile. 30,000 health to 0 in under a second. Guess I'll remake the character.
@@LughSamildanach My thanks. These days I also watch some curiosity stream while playing :D
RIP on ur char D: Even though the hp route works as you demonstraited already there are still stuff that can 1tap u even more so with crazy negative resistances
@@MrSarky1992 Yeah game knowledge is just as important as your approach. I knew not to stand still when fighting the guy who did it, to let him cast eruption first. I just grew overconfident :( Was just about to hit 80, as well....
Oh well, new version of the character is already underway. This one will be stronger, too. I put too many points into STR with the last one.
@@LughSamildanach 'Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow, and insidious killer.' :D
Really nice video. Thanks :)
Hey thanks a lot!
IMO the Runesmith (Defence/Rune) is ridiculously OP. Options in Rune are awesome combined with tanky Defensive ability equals NOT DYING.
Sure is! Check my channel, I'm actually doing a Runesmith lets play right now!
Which fits good with Earth if I wanna play range?
Thanks for info still desagreed z
When i look at naidan talent tree it doesn't seem very good for pet build. It doesn't even have strong main attack so how exactly do you make it work with support masteries such as defense or nature?
Lugh, he aprovechado el descuento en Steam del TQ AE, pero las 2 nuevas maestrias me aparecen bloqueadas. Sabes por que es?
How do i play hardcore?
Just don't die! On your character, click the third tab. If it says zero deaths, you're still hardcore.
Want a good bowman, thor bow, or truck wizard. I just started getting lost in Torchlight III, "come on surfer 🏄♂️ 🌊 champion, of course thats battlefront muck.
I'm not playing Hardcore yet, but since I just started playing Titan Quest solo WITH all 3 DLCs, how would you rate my build in terms of Attack and Defense; Dream + Spirit ("Diviner")
Good choice for defence, the dream aura damage reduction goes nicely with spirits slowing effect and life leech. Both are good for offense too, whether or not you go with melee or a staff.
@@LughSamildanach
The fun thing is; I've actually been doing both! Melee helps get rid of swarms of enemies, especially with the weapon I got, and Staff lets me outrange other enemies I could potentially pick off! I just feel like I got lucky choosing a powerful (and probably popular) combo ^^'
@littlegoat713 it gets harder to do dual weapon set ups later on as you eventually have to pick either intelligence or physical, but there are actually some physical damage staffs and intelligence (elemental etc) melee too. Really fun to build! I personally like havingml melee+shield and 2x throwing weapon myself on some builds.
Finally managed to get the Champion video done
Dream+Nidan is one of the best combinations in my opinion
Yeah it's very strong!
Hi. Do u can share builds? I've been wanting to start playing for weeks, but it opens up so much variety of classes, stats to raise, and items. At the end of the day I end up postponing the game because it demotivates me not knowing what steps to take.
The best way to play is learn for yourself while playing. Mistakes dont matter, you can always start again. It wouldn't be any fun if someone else played the game for you. If you want one tip, raise the same stats that are in your class.
But if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer. Please ask!
Bro i love warfare but which mastery should i combine with warfare
Rogue , dream or rune ?
They're all good. Try dream!
I'd love to know how all of this CC and slow/snare is supposed to help when bosses are either immune or have reduced duration by like 95%.
I generally agree with much of what he posted, but it's much different in practice and I think defense is still the undisputed top survival choice... you can pair it with whatever you like, but any build without it suffers in my personal experience, from a tanky survival standpoint.
@@christianjohns8352 When playing cursed, 95% of my deaths are from regular enemies and not bosses.
CC helps against the minions and lesser monsters
I always loved Defence, i think one of the first times I beat the game was with a Warden.
It's such a fun mastery. The shield attacks feel so good.
Cool!
It's too bad the secondary resistances were nerfed to the new cap of 80%. You could go over 100% in the original version, which meant total immunity.
I have a clip of how I take down Typhon without hitting him in the CD-ROM version. Tell me what you think of it. 😃
Thank for this.
Thank you for watching!
The last section can't be repeated enough. Play what you find fun. TQ(and its successor, GD) are so wonderfully open that you can make everything work. Except Single Mastery builds, but that's a ... uh ... unfortunate.
where is the best farming area?? i love this game but idk where to farm legendary set and weapon
Can you unlock the last two masteries (#2 and #1) with just the base game + IT only?
No sorry, rune comes with Ragnarok and Neidan with Eternal Embers. They're worth it if you're going to play a lot!
Does Ritualist do good on Hardcore and Cursed Hardcore? They're the best and strongest Pet Build for me especially when you get Fervor Of Leuciteus since it gives lifesteal for pets, allowing you to use rings that give elemental attack or HP instead.
It's a very good combo. Extra life, pets for distraction and dream giving stuns, sleeps and damage reduction. You can be very safe. Just lacks a little bit in resistances, but you can work with that.
@@LughSamildanach aight, I'll go play the game again then. Although it's been like 2yrs since the last time I played and I play the mobile version of the game too. Are there like any major changes I should be aware of?
@@SheepyPanda95 Nah not really, not unless you haven't played with Eternal Embers. Game is still mostly the same.
@@LughSamildanach well yup, I haven't played EE yet. It's not exactly 2yrs but I stopped playing when EE DLC was just released and since the mobile version doesn't have EE yet at that time, I stopped playing.
I'm already playing it right now and I found a temple with orbs costing Electrum(?) so that's a new thing for me.
@@SheepyPanda95 Yeah you gain the currency for those orbs by applying the curses on the right side of the temple to your character. Each one give a point when killing an enemy, and you also get more per act/difficulty. They make the game quite difficult though.
EE also added Neidan, which is probably my second fav mastery. Very strong defensively. Also a new act, new potions, items etc.
Hi Lugh, What do you think of the hermit, have you tried it yet?
Heart of Oak is interesting for having high health in hardcore coupled with summons it seems very powerful.
What is hardcore or solo self found? They are not in game options, are they?
@7errafirma self imposed rules. Hardcore is no dying, if you die delete the character. There are steam achievements for this and you can see your total deaths in the character sheet.
Solo self found is only using items found on that specific character so no trading or bringing items from other characters.
@@LughSamildanach ah! self imposed! ty.
You are wrong about the Shaman skill singery, it is AWESOME.
Vitality and elemental are both int scaling. If you go for an Int stacker, the Shaman can get pretty ridiculous.
Shaman is Actually great but have to say a pro character not a beginner friendly one by any means
l have seen a video here on youtube and the guy was a melee shaman went through all legendary with no deaths but requires specific gear and carefully leveling tbh.
@@Mythos189 yeah, it's a bit squishy early on, but when it gets rolling, it rolls hard :))
The contemplator is very interesting but is it possible to play him in melee?
Should I invest in strength or dexterity?
Your video is great, thank you
Definitely! Both Dream and Neidan work in melee. Use a fast weapon + shield, put points into both STR and DEX, only as much STR as you need for gear, rest into DEX.
I'd use Neidans left click skill rather than Dream.
Using both a Dream Trance + Neidan Aura would make you very hard to kill.
I have a couple of Rune+Heal/Rune+Storm Rune War
Nice! Love me some rune.
Whats the easiest non gear dependant class to farm bosses (no atlantis or ember dlc, only valhala)
Probably Nature+Warfare. Pets and flag.
@@LughSamildanach which pet? Warfare pets not 100% uptime?
@zilverheart Oh I'm so sorry, I meant to write Nature+Warfare!
Hunting is the best class along with dream,hands down
My list of masteries ranking for Hardcore from worst to best.
Taking into account not only defense but also ability to deal damage (sometimes better defense is offense))):
F-tier:
11. Rogue 100% true (weak types of damage, bad survivability). He can cheese enemies with traps, and if it counts - moves to higher tiers.
B-tier:
10. Spirit (good against undead, but defense against other enemies types is not good)
9. Earth
8. Storm (squall is pretty good)
For me ranks 10 - 8 +/- the same. Casters are weak.
C-tier:
7. Nature (superior support for other mastery)
A-tier:
6. Hunting (range combat can hit'n'run, CHtAP, entrapment resist)
5. Runes (for me feels +/- as Hunting, maybe Hunting 5, runes 6 place)
S-tier:
4. Dream (absorb, CHtAP)
3. Warfare (battle standart is OP if placed correctly)
2. Defense (shield professional)
1. Neidan (no comments;P)
Nice list, very agreeable. Thanks for watching!
Cara isso foi legal isso da para montar build de varias maneiras e se divertir com elas obrigado pelo video de apoio parar aqueles que esta iniciando agora o game.
its funny because after neidan came out i instantly made neidan + dream ...sooo super tanky and nice damage...with mage build
Both amazing masteries! You can do so much with them.
why are neidan and rune mastery are greyed out in my game ?
There are three expansion packs that you need to buy that have come out over the past 7 years, Ragnarok, which adds Rune Mastery, Eternal Embers which adds Neidan and Atlantis which gives additional skills to every mastery. Each expansion also adds more items, another whole act to play through and much more stuff.
How do you reset mastery on mobile version? I can't find an answer anywhere
You can't reset masteries.
@@GenMaster
I just found a way to do it :]
Now if only I could hack some gold haha
@@axiosw0774 cheater! 😁
Enjoy nature + defense but running with two "support" masteries is just painfully slow clear times.
You play the game wrong, nature offers the strongest physical damage buff in the game, it's the wolves buff. You have to max the buff, keep the wolf at defensive stance, i think you need two wolves for the 100% uptime, then you also need all of defence's critical hits except for the stun as you won't use this kind of weapon, also use dexterity for offensive ability, add points in hp too as well as a bit of strength for armor.
@@Anastasis-is-here thank you for the help!
@@PerennialSash No problem, do the change and tell me your opinion then 😎
I'm using warfare and spirit
What Rogue is weakest? I end whole game (Ragnarock) without dying as an Illusionist 😇🤔🤨
Weakest doesn't mean impossible. All classes can do the entire game without dying and it's not really that hard. This is just the order of which are best for it. It's also taking curses into account too.
Btw bro, in my opinion you are unfair to Rogue! Hardcore is easy when you Illusionist. Also Hunting mastery gives you permanent resist to poison and it’s huge by itself! Anyway, waiting for new vids
im not sure whats so great about fire, ive not finished the game with earth ever. it does nothing. the damage abilities are on cd and do very little damage, the pet is super squishy, fire ring stops being useful in hades and fire resist is easily found.
disclaimer: i have never played hardcore
Yeah even with endgame gear it never does amazing damage. Try rune+earth and pump as much INT as possible. Runes left click can get some good damage out of the fire skills.
Hi, can you tell me pls if work Runes (for lightning, elemental dmg) + Neidan (defense and regen), and the status i think to put half/half in dex + int - for range atack 2 weapons )
Yep, that would work just fine.
Make one for damage!
I'll think about it. It probably wouldn't be as accurate as this list because most of the time I play TQ is with tanky characters. But yeah, I'll give it some thought.
I get that not dying is fun and all, but you're going to spend half an hour holding shift+lmb to take anything down.
Nah damage isn't hard to get in titan quest. Sure you'll never be blowing up rooms and 1 shotting bosses, but you'd be surprised.
The easiest for me is haruspex combo. Or hunt + naiden.
I love rouge lol. The glass poison bombs are nasty especially when maxed out
Oh of course it's very powerful, especially if you're not playing hardcore.
Rogue is one of the best for hardcore, just lay the traps and run around
Yeah but that's boring and not how I like to play, which was how I ranked the list. Traps like that are lame. If i was going to play some form of meta, I'd just grind normal difficulty chaos dungeons for a full set and sleep my way through the entire game.
What is a Hardcore? difficulty?
Means if you die once, you stop playing the character.
@@LughSamildanach Ok. Thanks! In the Korea community, neidan is very undervalued because neidan doesn't have proper attack skills. The majority opinion is that the best class is defense.
@@gisoolsa That's very interesting! I can see why some people would view defence so highly, it has a lot of strong skills behind it. It's my personal favourite mastery, but I'd never say it's the absolute best.
Neidan is so good because it gives you almost everything you need defensively except for vitality resistance. I can understand why people would undervalue it because it's not amazing early on and it doesn't have big potential to clear whole screens of enemies quickly. It's amazing for not dying, but not that great for regular gameplay.
@@LughSamildanach Reply Thanks. You've helped me a lot.
Can you tell me up to the 3rd place in the Mastery ranking in your opinion? Offense, defence comprehensively.
In Korea, 1.Defence 2.warfare 3.Hunting
@@gisoolsa Depends on whether it's cursed, hardcore or not.
For regular non hardcore or cursed, I'd say 1 Warfare (battle standard is ridiculous), 2 Hunting (very high damage and great debuff on enemies) and 3 could be Defence, Rogue or Nature. They're all good and I can't pick, you could make a good argument for all of them. Defence is a good boss killer with phalanx and colossus is great, rogue is lots of damage and nature is really, really strong when paired with warfare.
Like if you asked me to create the absolute most powerful character in the game I'd probably say it's some type of War+Nature. Or a full icescale reflect. One of those two.
For hardcore 1 Neidan, 2 Nature, 3 Rune or Defence.
For cursed/hardcore. 1 Neidan, 2 Rune 3 Defence. My opinions on these are in the video already :)
I hate the A.I voice. it's so noticeable.
Yeah I ended up buying a microphone and talking myself in future videos. Didn't like the AI myself either.
How about guide for Greece Lighting achievement?
Yeah I could give that a go. The achievement is really quite simple, just start an Accomplished hero (level 40, starts at normal ragnarok) and have a lot of gear ready from other characters. I think I did it in less than 10 hours. Just run through everything and do only mandatory quests. Pretty sure I did Storm+Defence. Storm for the infinite dash skill and def for boss killing. I might make a video. Thanks for the idea.
Sounds good to me. What game speed in the settings did you use? I heard normal speed is the best for this@@LughSamildanach
Some of these classes are not in the original game.
Yes there's been 4 expansions since the original game.
I love how confidently wrong you are.
What’s your tier list?
How neiden can be good? 😂
In hardcore, right, like as if that's really a thing in the game. Er.. there is no such thing in this game. All this is made up bs and a complete waste of everyone's time.
@@magggas. My friend there are achievements for doing it.
I wanted to love titan quest. I really wanted to. But the game is shit.
What didn't you like about the game?
@@aaanarchyrussia6140 get the loot plus mod