123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 _______, ___ ( // ____ ____ _ , // \ . , ___ ____ ____ // / / / \ /| / // / / / / / _ / // / / /--/ / | / // \/ / / /-- \_ \ / (_// _/_ / / / / |/ \\_ /\_) \_/ /___ ____/ / TITAN QUEST Top Ten Most Powerful Classes FAQ (Partially Strategy Guide) This FAQ was written and compiled by me, Clement Lee Yew Xin (evil_smiley, Ice Demon) and is only to be posted on GameFAQs.com. Reproduction of any paragraph or phrase from this guide without my consent is considered plagiarism. This guide is solely for personal use. This guide should not be distributed or sold. ********************************************************************* TABLE OF CONTENTS 01. VERSION HISTORY.........................................[TTMPC01] 02. FOREWORD................................................[TTMPC02] 03. OBJECTIVES..............................................[TTMPC03] 04. MASTERIES/CLASSES.......................................[TTMPC04] 05. CHARACTER BUILDING......................................[TTMPC05] Slayer................................................[TTMPC05A] Assassin..............................................[TTMPC05B] Brigand...............................................[TTMPC05C] Conquerer.............................................[TTMPC05D] Corsair...............................................[TTMPC05E] Guardian..............................................[TTMPC05F] Warden................................................[TTMPC05G] Elementalist..........................................[TTMPC05H] Oracle................................................[TTMPC05I] Conjurer..............................................[TTMPC05J] 06. GENERAL STRATEGIES/TIPS.................................[TTMPC06] 07. TYPHON FARMING STRATEGIES *CONTAINS SPOILERS*...........[TTMPC07] 08. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS..............................[TTMPC08] 09. CREDITS.................................................[TTMPC09] 10. CONTACTING ME, THE AUTHOR...............................[TTMPC10] ********************************************************************* VERSION HISTORY [TTMPC01] 0.7 5:08 PM 11/30/2006 - Guardian added - 4 more to go! it's near completion. 0.61 1:06 PM 11/30/2006 - improved FAQ section with additional info 0.6 6:26 PM 11/29/2006 - added the corsair - slightly refurbished the style of writing - added FAQ section 0.51 6:26 PM 11/28/2006 - posted version 0.5 on GameFAQs.com - corrected the spelling of 'weopon' into 'weapon' (thanks Shiver) 0.5 11:30 AM 11/27/2006 - completed typhon farming section - minor updates to various classes 0.4 2:56 PM 11/20/2006 - 4 out of 10 classes written; added the Slayer class - slightly modified the character building section - added general strategies for all classes 0.3 5:13 PM 11/16/2006 - 3 out of 10 classes written - general strategies/tips updated 0.2 long ago... - assassin and brigand class written - overall faq body created - general strategies/tips completed ********************************************************************* FOREWORD [TTMPC02] Welcome to my very first guide. For this I apologize for any mistakes or inadequacies in content or style. I am writing this guide because I have finished the game countless times and I have noticed the lack of guides for this awesome game. I crafted this guide purely on my experience and memory with the game, so I will have a lot of statistical errors, please bear with me. I do make a lot of assumptions and approximations, so if your build experiences variance, don't be alarmed. I will try to be as precise as possible, but this is really a guide FAQ, not a statistics FAQ with cold, hard figures. And thank God for that. ********************************************************************* OBJECTIVES [TTMPC03] This guide is NOT a walkthrough, so I will not explain in detail how to complete quests/sidequests. This guide may contain some spoilers, so if you are playing the game for the first time, I do not recommend that you read this guide. Before you use this guide, I expect you to have an adequate knowledge on the different classes of characters in Titan Quest. This includes how to build those clases, the 8 main masteries and their respective skills. The purpose of this guide of this guide is to help you understand that every class can be built strong enough to at least reach legendary difficulty. Although some classes are able to reach the harder difficulties with ease, I can assure you that ANY class can also reach legendary with perseverance and the help of this guide (hopefully). I will not elaborate on those classes in this FAQ, but maybe in the later versions. Right now, we will see how to make the ten most powerful classes in Titan Quest. So if you're comfortable, let's move on! ********************************************************************* MASTERIES/CLASSES [TTMPC04] I will first refresh your memory on the masteries and classes related to them. When you reach level 2 in the game, your character will be given a choice to choose one of the 8 masteries available in the skill screen. The eight are; 1) Storm 2) Earth 3) Spirit 4) Warfare 5) Defense 6) Nature 7) Hunting 8) Rogue Each mastery is tied to a main attribute. This means that the mastery allow you to gain most stat points from that related attribute. They are related as the following; 1) Strength - Warfare, Defense 2) Dexterity - Hunting, Rogue 3) Intelligence - Storm, Earth, Spirit, Nature The 'strength' masteries allows you to have a melee/tank oriented character,'dexterity' masteries allows you to have high damage dealing characters while 'intelligence' allows you to have casters. When you reach level 8 later in the game, you will be given a choice to choose a 2nd mastery. You can choose to select your 2nd mastery at any time AFTER lvl 8, so feel free to leave it alone until you have maxed your first mastery. You can only choose a different mastery from your first one. When you have chosen your masteries, you will be given a class. The name of your class is shown in your character screen below your name. The classes for the main masteries and mastery combinations are; 1) Storm - Stormcaller 2) Earth - Pyromancer 3) Spirit - Theurgist 4) Warfare - Warrior 5) Defense - Defender 6) Nature - Wanderer 7) Hunting - Hunter 8) Rogue - Rogue But what combination of classes are most powerful? Some masteries are meant to compliment another, with skills that augment each other. We call this skill synergies. I have made a rough survey on the most powerful classes, and they are listed as below, from the most powerful to the 10th most powerful. 1) Warfare + Hunting = Slayer 2) Warfare + Rogue = Assassin 3) Hunting + Rogue = Brigand 4) Warfare + Defense = Conquerer 5) Defense + Rogue = Corsair 6) Defense + Nature = Guardian 7) Hunting + Nature = Warden 8) Storm + Earth = Elementalist 9) Storm + Spirit = Oracle 10) Earth + Spirit = Conjurer So now, we have a good knowledge on the masteries and their classes. Time to move on to building our character. ********************************************************************* CHARACTER BUILDING [TTMPC05] I will NOT describe how to build every single class here, as there are just too many. Well after all, this IS the top ten most powerful classes guide, isn't it? In building a character from level 1, I almost always choose to max the mastery before I max skill points. This is so that I can unlock the most powerful skills as early as possible. In addition, the mastery adds important stat points for you to wield better equipment and they also boost your health/energy. However, this playing style makes the game absolutely boring until max out both masteries, which take a whopping 64/3~=21 levels. Which means until a few levels later where your skills start to kick in, you'll be WEAK. Your damage will suck, but at least you'll survive. And with good equipment, it probably won't be so bad. Once you max out your main bread and butter skill, things will get really easy. And that would mean you're at approximately level 30, where things are supposed to get tough for others. This is where you reach act 3 and the end of normal difficulty. But at this point, you will realize all your effort has not been in vain. Do not bother putting stat points into health until you have about 500 points into your main stat. The health you get from maxing masteries alone will be sufficient to carry you through all difficulties, especially when you get item bonuses such as +health or +% health regen. For those builds that involve the rogue mastery, I don't suggest that you use rogue as your 1st mastery. Learn the other mastery first, as rogue tends to be weaker by itself. Besides, most other masteries have a left click skill that clashes with calculated strike. Although calculated strike is good, onslaught and marksmanship is always better. ===================================================================== SLAYER [TTMPC05A] DESCRIPTION The slayer, in my opinion, is the class capable of dealing most damage, whether it be to bosses or the normal horde. However, it isn't as popular or common as the assassin or brigand. This is probably because the slayer shows his potential very late, and most people wouldn't bear playing through the game 3 times to see his power. This class depends a lot on his skills and items, which is both good and bad. Most of the time you'll have to spam debuffs on the enemy and buffs on yourself, while hacking them away with the most up to date weaponry. Therefore, until you complete your legendary set of items, you probably won't be dealing tens of thousands of dps. EARLY LEVELS As I said before, the slayer has to endure a weak starting for being the most powerful build at level 65. Which means that you'll be doing hit and runs, chugging potions like mad, and if unlucky, dying a lot. Until you get TWO good epic/legendary weapon, I suggest that you use the spear and shield combo early game. The spear has very good damage, but slow attack speed, so you'll have to draw out the monsters one by one. With a good shield, you'll be much healthier than dual wielding from the start. Therefore, don't pump dual wielding first. Use the mystic at later levels to respec your skills. You should be doing this post level 40, or best when you reach legendary (normally around lvl 45). Early game skills: Warfare skills a) Weapon handling b) Evasion c) Onslaught d) Ignore pain Hunting skills a) Take down b) Wood lore c) Art of the hunt d) Study prey (very important) e) Call of the hunt You should max take down as soon as possible, as well as passives such as wood lore, weapon handling and evasion. Second priority will be onslaught and study prey. Study prey will be your spammed skill, as it helps to magnify the damage you deal. However, I didn't recommend you to max it asap as it is a high level skill, and its effect won't shine until you have a good base damage. Onslaught on the warfare mastery should be gotten asap, as this will be your main attack. The 1 mana cost is negligible, and the extra dmg it gives is really good. Move up to ignore pain next, and then we can leave the warfare mastery until we complete hunting first. Art of the hunt is a very good reserve energy skill, don't miss out on this as well. Lastly, call of the hunt should be maxed followed by its upgrade. Call of the hunt is an active skill, lasting around 1 minute at max level and has a significant recharge time. This skill can be spammed later once we have good -recharge items. With this early game setup, we most like won't have trouble until epic Act 2 or Act 3, if you have good items. Or, if you have TQVault and another character to farm for you, you can start to shine in epic. But that's highly unlikely, we still need a lot of skill points. LATE LEVELS Once we have sufficient skill points to distribute, we will totally change the course of the game. Instead of making monster shish kebab with our spear, we will switch to dual wielding weapons. That includes swords, daggers, clubs and axes, but no spears. That means we can dump take down, wood lore, and most probably art of the hunt too. These skills only affect piercing weapons or spears and bows only. However, study prey and call of the hunt still applies as they give -enemy damage resistance and +% attack speed. Late game skills: Warfare skills a) Weapon handling b) Evasion c) Onslaught tree d) Dual wielding tree Hunting skills a) Study prey b) Call of the hunt c) Some points into herbal remedy for poison resistance BEWARE! Don't switch to this late game configuration too quickly. Besides skills, we also need to rely on weapons! So hold on to your spear and shield and skills before you do any drastic changes. Best yet, backup your character first. If you got used to your spear & shield, you may find dual wielding hazardrous or uneffective. It's okay if you prefer to stick to spear and shield for your slayer. It's an alternative slayer sub-class. However, a dual wielding slayer definitely dishes out more pain. PROS AND CONS OF BUILD: Pros: a) Boss killer in legendary. Typhon, the Hydra, the Manticore, Talos etc. won't stand a chance! b) IMO, if you give the Slayer two Thorny Mauls, two Apollo's Will and the works, together with study prey and onslaught, he would be the highest dps class in the game. Cons: a) Only starts to shine VERY LATE in the game. b) Weaker than other builds in normal/epic. c) Moderately effective against mobs, horrible against mobs if using spear. STAT DISTRIBUTION: 1 dex for 2 strength To allow for spear wielding and high attack/defense rating. Dexterity also improves spear piercing damage with take down. 1 dex for 3 strength Do this when dexterity hits around 300 or when you start to lack str for weapon/armor wielding. We will need more than 400 str to start legendary, the items have really high requirements. After all, spears are only temporary. GENERAL STRATEGY: Spear and Shield Variant Try to lure enemies out and kill them one by one. The luring part is hard, as they tend to mob you on sight. Try to use the largest area of view if possible to scout the surroundings. For bosses, just keep casting study prey and use take down on it until it dies. Use call of the hunt if necessary. Dual Wielding Variant Stack up on health potions and get a good set of armor, preferably boosting up your health regen, armor and defense rating. Clear small mobs quickly before they do significant damage. Aim study prey to affect all of the mob. For bosses, just use study prey, call of the hunt and move in. Onslaught the boss to oblivion. Chug potions whenever necessary. ===================================================================== ASSASSIN [TTMPC05B] DESCRIPTION Just the name is enough to scare you, isn't it? Yes true to its name the assassin is one of the most deadly class in Titan Quest. This is the class that you read on GameFAQs.com boards oh so every often. And yes, the assassin can take down the legendary titan under 10s. Maybe 5. Note: You can dish out damage well, but you can't take it in. With dual wield, you won't have a shield, and rogue + warfare masteries don't have permanent pets to tank for them. EARLY LEVELS Start your character as a warrior at level 2. Learn onslaught first. Concentrate stat points on strength, putting approximately 3 points into strength for every point of dexterity. Continue putting points into the mastery until you max it, while putting one point in all the dual wielding skills on the way. Ignore the rogue mastery first when you hit level 8. Instead, continue to pump onslaught and the dual wielding tree until you max it. Do not up hamstring in the onslaught tree. Basically; Onslaught > Ignore Pain > Dual Wield > Cross Cut > Tumult > Ardor > Hew I suggest hew because it's the least effective dual wielding technique. Now that you've successfully mastered the ways of war, it's time to increase the pain you cause. Start learning rogue mastery. Then, envenom weapon, put one point. Don't start using it yet, though, at this point the measly damage you get from envenom weapon isn't worth the 1 active mana cost per second. If you're planning to use swords/spears for a long time, I suggest you max blade honing; it's a wonderful skill for only 8 skill points. You can use the mystic later on. Once you hit nightshade, max it out slowly, 1-2 points into it per level. The rest goes into the mastery tree. Totally ignore toxin distillation, as we're not going to use poison as our main offense. Instead, go for mandrake. This skill will make those monsters run around helplessly while you hack them into pieces. Nice. LATE LEVELS This would be level 40 and onwards, where every single stat point and skill point count, because it takes forever to level up. But when you hit around this level, you've probably maxed out the two masteries, the dual wield tree, the onslaught tree and the two poisons. Feel free to put points into skills you see necessary. Now you will do better on using skills that help you survive against mobs and bosses. I would suggest; a) ancestral horn - being able to summon 5 hard hitting allies with moderate health is a big advantage, when you're in epic/legendary those monsters will kill you if you're mobbed. Yes, you can die, since you're not supposed to be a tank, remember? This is the only 'pet' you can get. b) battle standard - this ward makes your damage even more ungodly; with battle standard on and onslaught and your items, you can easily exceed 10-20k dps. Imbalanced T_T c) flash powder - this roguely spell/skill allows you to keep the archers at bay, while you plow through their defenders. Useful to some extent, but don't rely on it too much. PROS AND CONS OF BUILD: Pros: a) Definitely one of the top, if not the most damaging classes in the game. b) Good disabling skills (slow + confusion) c) Good mob handling (dual wield) d) Able to dual wield weapons e) Effective against bosses too. Cons: a) Not good in tanking or taking damage STAT DISTRIBUTION: 1 dex for 3 str Dexterity only for wielding swords (low dex req.) and attack/defense rating. Add additional dexterity when necessary. GENERAL STATEGY: This build is very straight forward. Without any debuffs or buffs, you just move in and hack'em all to death. Much fun, I assure you. But be careful, the assassin doesn't have any healing or getaway spells to save his own skin. Other than that, it's pretty simple. ===================================================================== BRIGAND [TTMPC05C] DESCRIPTION The brigand is the cross between a hunter and a rogue. Both being dexterity masteries, this class is definitely a dps class. This is also the class with most dexterity, you will need it to wield the best bows and spears. Don't even bother with other weapons, you won't be able to fully utilize either of the masteries if you used other weapon types. BOW VARIANT Spend stats into dexterity and strength, approximately 3 points of dex for 1 point of strength. Yeah, opposite of the assassin. EARLY LEVELS As you start out with hunting, pick up a good spear until you have around 6/12 points into marksmanship. Only then should you switch to using bows, otherwise your damage will be horrible, and you won't even be able to kill satyrs with one hit. Not good. Distribute skills like this; Lvl 2: Hunting mastery, marksmanship, wood lore Lvl 3: Hunting mastery, wood lore, art of the hunt Lvl 4: Hunting mastery, marksmanship, wood lore Yeah you get it. Max wood lore first, for attack speed and damage. Then, go; Lvl n: Hunting mastery, marksmanship, art of the hunt Lvl n+1: Hunting mastery, marksmanship, art of the hunt Until you eventually max out both, then you learn pierce and study prey. Leave call of the hunt for last, the cooldown is too long and since it's +%, you won't benefit much right now. Wait until you have -recharge items and better damage. You may be tempted to learn a point of herbal remedy, seeing the amount of health it can heal over time, you can, but it's really not that useful. The health regen is negligible, but you will need the poison resistance when in Act 2. *coughslibrarybosscough* Once you move onto using bows, (having at least good marksmanship, pierce and art of the hunt), things will begin to get easy. Snipe away at foes from a range and run when they get too close. You may want to dodge some incoming missiles manually, do it. You will do this a lot later, anyway, to survive. Spend 2 levels now to max volley- trust me, it's worth it. Once you max pierce, marksmanship, volley and art of the hunt, then we can move on to the rogue tree! As before, the only friends we have in the poison tree are nightshade and mandrake. Take your time maxing them, and make sure you have sufficient mana recharge before you activate poison. You will need around 2 for art of the hunt and poison, not to mention ~1 for the active energy cost for poison. So if you have at least 3 energy recharge/s, you're good to go. At the same time, learn scattershot. Using the hit and run tactic, you can leisurely cruise your way to epic act 2. At epic act 3, you will realize that the monsters are becoming more and more, we say, impenetrable. Now is the time to spam study prey which we learned levels ago. This will soften them, and once they have that eye over their heads, they will die withing 1-2 shots of your bow. Sweet, eh? Well you really didn't need it before this. But now, you will start chugging energy potions... like mad. You will probably have ~300 energy, since you haven't put any stat points into it, right? Good, just buy them from merchants, they're pretty cheap anyways. Do not, do not get ensnared or mobbed or hit by bosses at this point, they're liable to kill you. I remember my brigand getting killed by one rock cast by the neanderthal in china... uh oh, not good. Otherwise, just cruise your way through epic china, and we're now good in legendary. PROS AND CONS OF BUILD: Pros: a) Long range fighter with uber damage at late game b) Excellent crowd controller with poisons and scattershot c) Excellent against bosses by using hit and run tactics Cons: a) Horrible endurance. You're very likely to die by one hit in legendary... Otherwise, you're good. Hunting/Rogue armor are particularly good against pierce damage, heheheh. They're also one of the classes with highest attack/movement speeds. SPEAR VARIANT Follow the above, but your playing style will definitely be different. Instead of wielding a 2 handed bow, you'll be using a spear, short spear actually together with a shield. Instead of learning marksmanship, learn take down, and move over to rogue mastery earlier. Then, max blade honing asap followed with calculated strike. Use calculated strike as your left click skill, with take down as your boss killer. Easy as that... However, you will need more strength for wielding shields. So, I recommend about 1 strength for every 2 dex. This way you'll have sufficient strength for up to date shields, and you'll probably be able to wear warrior armor. Put additional points into strength as neccessary, as it also increases your spear damage, as it is a melee weapon. This class deals slightly more damage than the bow variant, but you'll be taking more damage as you're a melee class. Be more cautious epic onwards, and you'll be fine. But you'll probably be killing monsters fast enough before they touch you, anyway. PROS AND CONS OF BUILD: Pros: a) Arguably the highest dps class in the game, comparable to assassin b) Godly offense coupled with good defense c) A shield means that you have another item to give you enchantments d) Ultimate boss killer with take down, lethal strike Cons: a) Being a main dex character means you won't take hits well b) Probably dies more than the bow brigand c) Not very good for mobs "Dies more? Shouldn't you be an uber character?" you may ask. Bear in mind, even the strongest tank can die if careless in legendary. Although the spear brigand can damage well, his survivability will depend on his resistances. Without good resistance, things can get out of hand. (x.x) LATE GAME No need to discuss this section, for both builds with maxed main skills, they can get through pretty straightfoward. Just continue playing hit and run, and monsters won't be able to touch you. Just farm for better items along the way. STAT DISTRIBUTION: Put str only to wear up to date armor. Plain and simple, dexterity boosts your piercing damage, be it bow or spear. And strength is needed for wearing armor, the damage it provides to your melee spear is minimal. So only add it when necessary. Since pure dexterity armor is rare, and you can hardly find dex. based boots/gloves, I suggest you have enough strength to wear warrior armor. That's about 1 dex per 1 str until you hit 300~ str. Don't forget that the masteries adds str too. GENERAL STRATEGY: Keep art of the hunt and envenom weapon on, blade honing too if you're the spear variant. Study prey on mobs, and volley/scattershot them to oblivion. The bow variant controls mobs better, because scattershot carries whatever effects you imbue into your arrow. That means you have a mass-slow, mass-confuse, mass-murder machinegun. For bow brigs, just stay on the edge of the map and kill. Spear brigs should lure enemies out one by one. For bosses, hit and run, hit and run. Don't tank damage, and you'll be fine. With study prey, call of the hunt, lethal strike ===================================================================== CONQUERER [TTMPC05D] DESCRIPTION Conquerers are the most authentic 'warrior' styled build, with two stength masteries. You should be allocating around 3 points of strength for 1 point of dexterity and 1 point of health. Meaning; Lvl 2 - Strength, Dexterity Lvl 3 - Strength, Health Lvl 4 - Strength, Dexterity And so on. And with 2 strength masteries, we would have approximately 500 strength, ~250 dexterity and PLENTY of health. Approximately 3.5k to 4k of health I guess lol. Very strong, very tough. But without proper equipment, I still die against legendary bosses. T_T Early Levels I suggest we first go warfare, since survivability is not a problem in normal difficulty. Blazing through normal is more important. So, we go onslaught and weapons handling, as well as ignore pain asap. After that, you can choose to be a play it safe sword and shield conquerer, or kill'em all dual wielder. I'd say we go dual wielding, the best defense is a good offense. Lol. Assuming that you took my advice of dual wielding, we will now ignore the defense mastery's shield skills. That includes shield recovery tree, concentrate tree, shield charge tree and all those passive shield skills. Yeah they take up a lot of valueble skill points anyway. Instead, we will use these points to pump dual wielding. So wouldn't that make the defense mastery useless? No, not really. We still have 2 very good skills, adrenaline and colossus form. While dual wielding and in colossus form, nothing can probably stand in your way. Once we have weapon handling, onslaught and ignore pain almost maxed, start concentrating on dual wielding. I'd say by now your only problem is health, as you'll be taking in lots of damage. Doesn't matter, just continue to chug those potions. Stay alive, as you level up, you'll be increasingly strong and soon you won't be taking so much crap from those pesky monsters. Make sure you have at least 1-2 levels in rally by act 3, this skill will soon be your life saver. Now about getting the damage we want. By dual wielding, we have a choice of swords, axes, clubs or daggers. If you use clubs, you can choose to up the defense skill which gives you some stun effect, it helps but nothing really to be excited about. Axes have no pierce and are slower than swords but they deal more damage. Swords are the fastest so they're best for mobs of weak monsters. Maybe you can have 2 sets of weapons; 2 swords and 2 axes/clubs. Daggers are mostly like swords, but they are very fast weapons. Of course, they are also the weakest weapons. On average dps, they're really the same. Try getting some +damage, +pierce dmg, +%dmg or +elemental dmg weapons. Best if they have 2 of the above enchantments. Further enhance them with runes, and you'll be using them for a long time to come. If you must know, the ultimate weapon is a maul (club) which is 100% piercing with lots of damage. So, feel free to be clubbing your way to this weapon. *coughthornymaulcough* LATE GAME As I said, this is around level 40. You would've definitely maxed out your masteries, and onslaught, ignore pain, dual wielding and have some points in rally, colossus form and ardor. Good enough! By this point you probably don't need anymore advice, since your dps is already in the thousands. Thank me. What, you don't? Don't worry you soon will, your items are probably the factor. Your priorities now will be maxing rally, ardor, and anything you left out earlier. Extra skill points can be spent in either ancestral horn or battle standard as I mentioned earlier. Pros and cons of build: Pros: a) Balanced character; with good power and endurance. High health and high strength makes sure you kill and avoid getting killed in the process. b) Very high dps character, another one of those super hack and slash'em to death builds. Cons: a) Without permanent pets, you're the tank. Bosses can still kill you if you're careless b) Your mediocre dexterity doesn't allow you to critical hit as often as the assassin or brigand c) Very old-school. Warrior. STAT DISTRIBUTION: Aha... don't just dump everything into strength and ignore dexterity completely... Dexterity allows you to do critical hits more and more importantly, you get to AVOID getting critically hit too often. Besides, swords and daggers have some minimum dexterity requirement. It would be wise to have around 1 dex per 2-3 str. GENERAL STRATEGY: As a conquerer, there are quite a few buffs to cast. Keep focus on, cast quick recovery as often as possible and use rally in place of potions. For your warfare side, since you don't need dual wielding, battle standard is a nice compliment, or you can choose ancestral horn. Quick recovery is a must when facing mobs, as you get to block more often. Bosses can be dealt with by using battle standard and onslaughting them to death. ===================================================================== CORSAIR [TTMPC05E] DESCRIPTION The corsair... I particularly like the name of this build, I have one at epic too! No, not just because it sounds cool, but the corsair is actually quite a powerful class. A mix between the rogue mastery and defense mastery ensures that you get to deal damage and survive. The main weopons we will see in this guide will be swords, spears and the Thorny Maul. The last weapon is for late game only; you're one lucky @r$e if you get it before legendary. Anyways, let's move on to our corsair hero. Early Levels You can choose to start out as a rogue or a defender, I really can't decide between these two. As I said before, the rogue is the damaging half, while defense is the well, defending half of the corsair build. If you start out a rogue, you will have trouble surviving until you get your defense skills up. But if you start as a defender, you will have trouble killing satyrs and other lesser monsters. Of course, you won't die, but you will be bored to death by having to hit a boss 1 million times before you kill it. Oh well, might as well go rogue first... since the more monsters you kill, the faster you level up ;) Follow the order below using either a spear, sword or club with a shield. If you're using a club, just replace blade honing with concussive blow in later levels, its effect is only good with a good weapon. Lvl 2 - 6 : rogue mastery, calculated strike, blade honing Lvl 6 - 7 : envenom weopon, nightshade (put only 1 point into envenom weapon) Lvl 7 - 10 : rogue mastery until you unlock lethal strike (LS) Lvl 10 - 12 : distribute evenly between nightshade and LS Lvl 12 - 14 : defense mastery, rally, battle awareness, quick recovery (QR) (put only 1 point into battle awareness) Lvl 14 onwards, slowly max out nightshade, quick recovery and focus. Rally should be upped only once every few levels, concentrate on maxing the masteries first. Strangely, I have no fondness for adrenaline or defiance. I don't find them as useful as claimed. Instead, when you find a good shield, pump up shield smash, disable and pulverize. They're all equally useful, so feel free to max them as you like. The rest of the points goes into mandrake, shield charge and colossus form. LATE GAME Once you reach level 30 and beyond, you probably won't have trouble killing or surviving. With quick recovery, battle awareness>focus, rally, blade honing, calculated and lethal strike, just pummel away at everything in your path. Even run into mobs when you have pulverize, it's really fun when it activates >.< Once you beat epic, return to farm the epic bosses repeatedly to find better weapons and armor. As mentioned, you might even stumble upon the Thorny Maul! If you have some good -recharge equipment, you can even keep colossus form on all the time. This significantly improves the power of your build, but you will be going through the game slower. Pros and cons of build: Pros: a) A balanced character with good attack and defense skills b) Able to survive very well with various defense skills c) Has many disabling abilities such as disable, nightshade, mandrake Cons: a) Using spears will make you attack slowly, thus ineffective in killing mobs b) Limited AOE spells which are only mildly damaging at most c) Not as deadly as brigands or dual wielders STAT DISTRIBUTION: If you're going with spears, I suggest 1 str per 1 dex Otherwise, oh well, just go with 1 str/ 1 dex... you're a corsair. GENERAL STRATEGY: Mobs: Try to keep quick recovery on often as possible, it is safe to run into mobs until you start legendary. If anything goes wrong, just cast rally or chug potions. Shield charge into archers and casters to clear them out. Try to aim calculated strike so that it always hits a full health target. Of course, you will want to keep your energy reserve skills on too. D'uh. Bosses: Cast colossus form and quick recovery, and do repeated calculated strikes and lethal strikes. Nah, shouldn't be a problem. Just stay away from 1 hit killer spells. ===================================================================== GUARDIAN [TTMPC05F] DESCRIPTION The guardian is a defender of nature, hero of the forest. With skills in defense and an ability to commune with mother nature herself, the guardian calls upon the wilds to aid him in his task of preserving the woods. Pretty nice description, huh? Well, in the world of TQ, the guardian is the best tank IMO. With two super healing spells, a giant form that grants +50% health, an aura that gives +92% additional health, tanking pets, and to top it off, an instant refresh skill. Wow, huh? Not only that, at higher levels when you get -recharge items to attain no recharge time, you can keep colossus form on all the time and squish everything in your way! But all defenders can do that too... Early Levels I would recommend starting with... Nature mastery. As I said, defenders are friggin' boring to play in early game. A nature mage, on the other hand, gets to sit back and relax while the wolves gain levels for him. Lvl 2 - 3 : 1 point into nature, call of the wild to get 2 wolves Lvl 3 - 5 : nature mastery, 1 pt regrowth Lvl 5 - 11 : unlock and 1 pt into all the wolf tree Lvl 11 - 14 : 1 pt into sylvan nymph, max nature mastery Lvl 14 onwards, unlock the defense mastery. You may want to max your other skills, but I strongly recommend you get points into the defense mastery for all those health and strength to wear equipment. Use any 1 handed weopon of choice, as we want to utilize the defense mastery's skills. If you're gonna go staves, might as well choose another mastery. So you chose sword and shield? Good good good... Now, unlock rally. This is the skill we want; it heals all allies in a certain radius and gives bonus enchantments for a short duration. But don't go maxing it yet! We also have the wonderful battle awareness tree which is an aura- meaning that your wolves and nymph will also get buffed. Oh, and I forgot to mention, don't start using heart of the oak until it gives at least around 50% more health, the active mana cost is not worth chugging energy potions for. Now, you can slowly max your offense, namely your wolves and nymph. You can learn some plague skills, but I doubt you have enough skill points to spend. Don't ever invest into the rally/regrowth tree except for the main skill. Regrowth and rally itself takes 28 points, which equals to almost 10 levels. The wolves and nymph are costly too. I don't suggest survival instinct and strength of the pack, both being costly and the buffs are nothing to jump for joy. LATE GAME When your wolves, maul, nymph and auras are almost maxed, I would expect that you find no problems. Cast regrowth when needed, and rally is best when you're dangerously close to dying or when all your pets need health. Once again, with a Thorny Maul or a similar good weopon, you can pummel through your enemies with ease. Bear in mind that the wolves and nymph doesn't scale with difficulty as well as the Core Dweller or Liche King, so you'll have to tank instead later on. With refresh and colossus form, you get a 48s avatar, and with ~50% less recharge, you would probably be able to cast everything again after that time. Your main problem will be bosses, as you yourself won't do much hurt. Rely on your pets for their enemy health reduction skills to help soften the bosses, then move in for the final blow. Pros and cons of build: Pros: a) You're the best tank in the game. Walk up to anything and let it b1tc4 slap you as it likes. Kill it when you're tired. b) Many pets, which is good for animal lovers. No, JK, they're really good and powerful later on. c) Decent against bosses who are susceptible to health reduction. Cons: a) Not very good damage output. b) More of a hybrid, which requires all-around stats, making you significantly weaker than pure str/dex/intel. STAT DISTRIBUTION: This is really questionable, as you will have well distributed stats with your two masteries maxed. It's okay to have some dex with str, or some dex with int, but you'll need all three if you're gonna wear a guardian's set. I'd put less points into int, you only need it to wear better items. It doesn't contribute to your damage unless you're using a staff, which you really shouldn't be using ;) So I'd say around 3 str for 1 dex AND 1 int. Not really sure, I'm not good at hybrid classes >.< GENERAL STRATEGY: Mobs: Shouldn't give you any problems. As a supertank, you should be able to rush mobs even until epic. Double heal when you're in a tight fit, and you'll be okay. Bosses: I'm not sure if the supertank guardian would be able to survive some of the 1 hit killing spells... Erm, my advice is not to try! Your pets are your best bet here in dealing massive damage by health reduction. Finish him off then. ********************************************************************* GENERAL STRATEGIES [TTMPC06] 1. Multiplayer runs? Your best friend. To max your character as soon as possible, it is recommended to have a friend to use a higher level character to run you through the game. However, this may not be possible for all of us, so there is an alternative in doing so, although less efficient. 2. Play linearly The general rule to complete a difficulty as soon as possible is to simply run from area to area, completing the main quest. Only necessary side quests should be done, such as those that give unusually high xp or stat/skill points. All you have to do is run from fountain to fountain and stay on the main path. Avoid being mobbed by monsters, especially trappers. Get a pair of boots that increase movement speed asap, this will really help. 3. Backtrack Once you reach the end of the difficulty, you will be slightly underleveled. This is the time to backtrack and complete those sidequests you've missed. They gain you a lot of xp, and are your main xp source once you hit the harder difficulties. This should be easy as you outlevel the monsters in previous areas. Your level should be at least 26 for normal typhon, 40 for epic and 50 for legendary. Of course, these levels also require you to have appropriate equipment and skills! 4. You must survive! Always, always avoid dying. If you're running through the game, make sure you have your fingers ready to press the pause button. Why? So that you can exit the game without dying, and reload at the nearest fountain. Running again is better than losing a bar of xp. 5. Play dirty and stay healthy Hit and run is a must. If you notice, monsters always stop chasing you after you've run a certain distance. Then, they will give up and return to their spawn point. This is called the 'invisible wall'- an area that bounds the particular monster. This area is within a radius from that creature's spawn point, and different creatures have different radii. Lure them to the end of the wall, hit them once or twice and let them run back. Rinse and repeat as necessary. This is the general rule that applies to ALL CLASSES, including melee tankers. Once you hit the late difficulties, getting mobbed = instant death. Yes, even with uber equipment. 6. Manual dodge whenever possible As mentioned, left click all over the map so that you don't stay stationary. This applies especially in epic/legendary, where those archers start to dish out the pain. You may be tempted to take one or to hits, like "bah, one tiny scratch from talos won't kill me...". Wrong. Monsters in epic/legendary tends to 1 hit kill you, because of resistances and such. Even if they DON'T kill you, there are all kinds of nasty status effects they can inflict on you, like stun, freeze and skill distruption all of which can be dangerous. 7. Resistance over armor Aim for resistances in epic/legendary instead of armor. If you are to choose between a breastplate that gives 100 armor and another with 60 armor and 20% pierce resistance, GO FOR THE 60 armor one. Pierce is a great problem in epic, and a total achilles heel for you in legendary. 8. Titan Quest Vault Use the vault. It is really invalueble. Until I started to use it, my characters were running around like pack mules carrying tons of nice buy useless equipment around. And charms only took a whole inventory bag. Besides, if you are successful in creating one of the top ten most powerful characters, you can farm and transfer items to your lower level characters. Sweet. 9. Use up the relics and charms! Don't be like me, I like to collect those charms and relics in a nice pile in the vault. Having 6 different characters, I have 4-5 pages in the vault just for charms! For goodness sake, you should use them up whenever necessary. You can remove them later by using TQ Vault, so don't be afraid to do so. However, don't add charms to your items just because the charm is complete. Make sure that you actually need that particular bonus; for instance, if you're an archer, don't bother adding a completed essence of zeus's thunderbolt to your bow, add artemis's bowstring instead. In later difficulties, incarnation relics and legendary charms imbued in a green item tend to be better than most legendary items. Do it. 10. Ask for help/read guides No, I'm not trying to promote my guide here. Well, maybe just a little... but anyway, my point is that all those wonderful people out there on GameFAQs.com are ever willig to write guides and provide help when you're stuck with your character. By reading, you can get nice info on how to build a better class, so you can further enjoy the game. Most importantly, have fun! If you do all of the above, and you are still finding difficulty in epic or legendary, don't worry. You are probably lacking the equipment that can only be found much later. So, hang on and you'll be there... a Titan slayer. ********************************************************************* TYPHON FARMING STRATEGIES *CONTAINS SPOILERS* [TTMPC07] For those of you having trouble with Typhon, this is the part to read for strategies. To me, usually side quest bosses give most trouble in epic/legendary, but they don't have many skills or spells so it makes them simple. Just stay out of the way and hit them whenever possible. When you respawn or first reach Mount Olympus, you will spawn at near a fountain at the bottom most of the map. Proceed north. Here, you will find the orthus, limos and a bunch of skeletons. The skeleton mages deal most damage in epic/legendary, and should be dealt with asap. Those black dogs have mildly damaging fire attacks, while the limos, as usual, loves to suck. Life, that is. Move up the stairs, and the path turns left, here you'll find automatois. They're very much pushovers, and my favourite part in my runs. Just slay'em all. Proceed onward, as the path heads north, you'll see a big bunch of minotaurs lurking around. Careful, they're very fast with their charge attack, and can stun you. So, lure them to you one by one, and kill them. Not hard, but just be careful. As you pass the four statues which leads to a gate, you'll see another bunch of minotaurs behind the gate. Same strategy, and move on. You'll find a primitve chest here. Then, as you move on, there will be 6-8 cyclop elders in your way. They have high health, a roar that does a LOT of damage and stuns, and a moderate melee attack. My best bet is that you run past all of them straight into the lion's den. Once you head up the steps into heaven, you'll find our guy in the middle. TYPHON Typhon is the last boss, and his strength varies greatly between version 1.15 and 1.20. Personally, I've not fought him in version 1.20, but I know roughly the mods they made to him. V1.15 a) Has destroyable statues b) Can only use specific skills when near each statue c) Has less health d) Does less damage v1.20 a) Statues are indestructible b) Can use any of its skills at any time c) Has more health d) Does more damage with attacks I'd pretty much say that the v1.15 Typhon is more of a pushover, but he's still threatening. They both have the following skills; a) Melee attack Typhon swipes at you with his large claws, dealing physical dmg. Attack is very slow, mostly avoidable even with melee characters. Mildy damaging even to casters. b) Flame breath Typhon charges up, and releases a breath of fire from his mouth, to a far distance in front of him. Small width of attack, fire damage. As he charges up, the attack is unmistakable, so just move aside and hack him. This breath is moderately damaging, does dmg over time, and can kill in epic/legendary. Counter with higher fire resistance, or just avoid it totally. The above two is always available in v1.15, whereas those listed below are only available when Typhon is near the statues. c) Life leech Typhon sucks up his chest, and very quickly after that sucks life from your character. This attack is unavoidable, only midly damaging, but it heals him A LOT. We would want to avoid him using this attack, of course, or all the damage you previously did to him will be in vain. For version 1.20, I have no idea how to prevent this. As I said before, this attack sucks. In v1.15, this attack is linked to Hades's statue, nearest to you as you enter the the round area. Just keep him away from it. d) Energy leech Similar to life leech, Typhon sucks up and prepares to drain you of every bit of energy you have left. I seldom see him use this, in v1.15 it is tied to the upper most statue. Just chug energy potions when he uses this; his energy never runs out anyway. e) Poison breath This attack, tied to Demeter's statue, allows Typhon to release an arc attack of poison, similar to that of the boss in the egypt library. Very damaging, this could kill you quickly in higher difficulties. Move away from him as soon as you see him do this, or pump up poison resistances if you want to tank it. Otherwise, not too disturbing. f) Meteor This attack is tied to Zeus's statue all the way in the back, and lets Typhon cast meteor on you. Similar to the Wusao Mountain Telkine, this attack is rather hard to predict where it hits, and can kill you instantly in higher difficulties. Best bet is to run away as far from him as possible. Otherwise in v1.15 just keep him away from the statue. Other than that, Typhon has moderate health, not very much more than most other bosses. His life leech will be your main concern, deny him of that and he'll fall much easier. Have fun salvaging his remains for nice items ;) ********************************************************************* FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS [TTMPC08] Ahaha, this is the real part of the FAQ. I will post here all the
questions which I see so very often on the message board or those
mailed to me. Do not mail me these questions please.

1. Your guide stinks/sucks/is horrible/useless!
   Well, if my guide does not make you happy, then I'm happy. I did
   not write this guide to make anyone happy, I'm just voluntarily
   trying to help out.

2. The information in your guide is incorrect/inaccurate!
   As I've already mentioned before, I am writing a guide, not a
   technical data spreadsheet. So don't expect me to tell you how
   much %piercing dmg a level 3 blade honing gives you, etc. I'm
   writing this based on experience/memory.

3. Your guide is insubstantial/lacking.
   Kindly point out what you would like to see in my guide, and I'll
   try to make amends. Hopefully I will enter the information you
   desire on the next update.

In-game questions below:

4. What's piercing/elemental damage?
   There are many types of damage you can inflict in TQ, each with
   its own resistances. When a weapon says it deals 25% piercing
   damage and a damage of say, 100-200, you will do 25-50 piercing
   damage to the enemy, the other 75% will be normal damage. If you
   increase your piercing damage by say, 5%, you will do 30%
   piercing damage, thus dealing 30-60 piercing damage.
   o-------------o-------------------o
   | Damage Type |    Resistance     |
   o-------------o-------------------o
   | Normal      | Armor rating      |
   | Piercing    | Pierce resist     |
   | Fire        | Fire resist       |
   | Frost       | Frost resist      |
   | Lightning   | Lightning resist  |
   | Poison      | Poison resist     |
   | Bleed       | Bleed resist      |
   | Life leech  | Life leech resist |
   o-------------o-------------------o

5. How does dual-wielding work?
   All skills that are passive with a x% chance to activate works 
   off your normal attacks. Suppose you wield 2 weapons, and have 6%
   to dual-wield.
   Normally, you'll have 50% for left hand attack, 50% for right hand
   attack. Now, you'll have 6% for a simultaneous attack, 44% left
   and 50% right. Just like that.

6. What does [skill] do?
   Please refer to a skill guide. There are too many to list here.

7. What does -recharge?
   Items that give -recharge will reduce cool down before you can
   cast the same spell again. Each spell has a base recharge time,
   for example say 12s for lightning bolt. If you wear a -25%recharge
   item, it will only take you 9s before you can cast the next
   lightning bolt. The effect is direct cumulative, which means if
   you have 4 items with -25% recharge, you will have -100% recharge.
   That means you will have NO cool down time for all spells. Nice.

8. Then what is cast rate?
   Cast rate is the rate which your character takes to cast a spell,
   more widely known as casting time. For example say, again,
   lightning bolt requires your caster to spastically wait 2s before
   he calls a air-strike from zeus. With a Cartouche ring (+96% cast
   rate), it would take take only 1s for you to cast the spell. The
   stacking is direct, as observed from the character screen.

9. Is ternion attack worth it in version 1.20?
   At maxed level in version 1.15, you get 3 bolts which do +5%
   extra elemental damage. Post 1.20 it becomes 3 bolts which do -20% 
   elemental damage. In addition, the arc at which the bolts spread 
   are much wider in 1.20, so it becomes more of an AOE spell rather 
   than a single target nuke. Nope, I wouldn't recommend it unless 
   your class lacks an AOE spell. 18 points should go else where.

10. Why does my character suck after following your guide?
    A few reasons, this guide is written based on v1.15, besides, you 
    may not have a legendary character farming items for you ;)
    Items are a huge factor in TQ, skills alone won't make you.
   
*********************************************************************
CREDITS [TTMPC09]

To: 
Titan Quest for making this game. Everything mentioned in this guide
is part of the game, and I wouldn't be writing this guide if the game
didn't exist.

Me, Clement Lee Yew Xin aka evil_smiley aka Ice Demon for taking
effort in writing and compiling this guide for your viewing.

All the people who contributed on my post on GameFAQs.com. titled:
Thanks to;
iohc -  for advice on suggestions for many builds
goofyhippie - for advice on the brigand
Sh4D0w D3m0N - for advice on the assassin
tachiKC - on the supertank warden
helene_lin - for advice on the conjurer build

Shiver - for pointing out my spelling error of weapon 
Blame my memory and not my heart if I didn't post your name here.

GameFAQs.com for providing me with faqs and guides that brought me
through so many games. I feel only right to contribute as gratitude.

My summer job for being boring enough. Otherwise I'd be actually
working.

*********************************************************************
CONTACTING ME, THE AUTHOR [TTMPC10]

I can be contacted at evil_smiley@hotmail.com, but most of my mails
are sent to junk if your address is not on my list. Best to post on
my board titled top ten most powerful classes on gamefaqs.com message
board.