Playing Titan Quest

[Vympel]

I picked up the Gold Edition on sale at EB a few weeks ago, I'm up to Level 20, playing a Slayer, with most of my points devoted to Warrior (or whatever it's called) Mastery.

So far, I've had little trouble, but is there anyhting I should know about in relation to skills and what not that may harm my ability to complete the game as I advance? I just reached the wrecked Temple of Ptah in Egypt.

[Tasoth]

oh dear, Melee against typhon is horrible. I died enough times that I eventually said screw it and grabbed a trainer to beat him. Unless you have obscenely high offensive ability, you're going to give him enough time to hit you two-three times before you even touch him.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I played Slayer in the game and put heavy emphasis on melee more than range primarily because the ranged firepower are extremely heavily dependent on weapon type. Also, melee was a more sustainable fighting power compared to range.

I managed to kill Typhon actually after making use of the fact that he does not come onto the bridge leading up to the arena and just sniped him with my bow and arrow.

It took half an hour to kill him by the way. Enough for a night and day in game time.

[Stark]

Respecing doesn't cost that much (appears to cap at 45k per point, which is fuck all) so the only choices that matter are which items you don't sell and what masteries you chose. In any case, I've found the game up till Egypt (where I got bored and stopped playing) hideously easy. The only hard parts, as has been mentioned, are when you have the 'wrong' type for a boss: going melee with Acheron was a pain in the ass, for instance (at least compared to the worthless regular guys)

[Darth Wong]

Titan Quest is a very item-oriented game. Find the right items and you're ready to rock and roll. Personally, I like the Earth mastery, if only because the big rock monster is so cool.

[Stark]

My primary character has Nature mastery for a similar reason: the giggling, skipping Elf. Imagine the shame of the enemy! Better than the bloody wolves anyway.

[Vympel]

So ... I have to sit with 30 minutes with my bow and arrow shooting at Typhon to finish the game?

Fuck.

[Darth Wong]

So ... I have to sit with 30 minutes with my bow and arrow shooting at Typhon to finish the game?

Fuck.

No. The first time I fought Typhon, I must have tried to kill him about 30 times without success, always by futzing around with clever tactics or trying these gimpy "shoot him from the stairs" tactics which I could never maintain for long. Then I said "fuck this" (after being shamed; more on this later), ignored what people were saying on the Internet, and charged him. I took my melee-specialized character (warrior + defense masteries), just ran in there and kicked his overweight ass. Shield charge, whack whack whack, run around him when he tries to hit you or bring down rocks on your head, rinse and repeat until the fucker is dead.

All these people saying that you can't beat him in melee are wrong. Of course, it partly depends on what kinds of charms and rings you have. You really want to have a ring that gives you resistance to life leech, because that's an attack you'll have a hard time dodging. You also want to have a fast-attack power, like the shield charge from the Defense mastery, so you can retreat when your health gets too low, recharge, and resume the attack quickly without having to get pounded on the way in. Other than that, he's a big slow brute with a fairly predictable attack pattern. Once you learn it (and learn how to run circles around him at close range so that you don't have to waste time advancing and retreating after every hit), you can kill this fucker the Man's Way: with a sword.

PS. Credit for this is not really mine. I did the geek thing: I surfed the Internet looking for advice on how to kill Typhon. My son David had no such inhibitions; he has some kind of fucking supernatural talent for playing this game, he took over my game, and he opened up a can of melee whoop-ass on Typhon. After seeing this, I realized that the Internet had led me astray, and that what you really need to do is watch an 8 year old. I repeated the level, and (after a few tries) duplicated David's feat, by copying his tactics.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

The trouble with the Slayer class is that it lacks to the constitution of the usual warrior build. The Defence part gives him a wallop of health which the Slayer does not have. It is too offence oriented.

[Stark]

I have had similar experiences to Mike's. With enough gear, the best thing to do in almost all circumstances is just hold left-click until they're dead, and trying tricky bullshit never really worked for me.

That said, melee classes are extraordinarily easy to play and have the highest DPS in the game. A warrior/rogue can kill bosses faster than you can snap your fingers with all their crazy attack buffs and big hits.

[weemadando]

I find that my character often reached a D2 Paladin-esque zeal-lock of sorts from time to time. I really focused on created a character which would build up momentum in combat. All it really takes is for him to land 3-5 strikes and no matter how big the thing is I'll be hitting fast and hard enough to take it down. Just remember to be ready to pummel the "drink your fucking potions" quick keys.

[Anarchist Bunny]

I think I only died twice playing Typhon my first time through(not counting my first playing where I quit part way through with my Earth/Spirit boomstick mage) which was after the Immortal Throne Expansion.

I played as a Templar(Dream/Defense) and kicked ass like fuck all. Immediately after beating Typhon, before starting the IT act I ran him about 20 times with ease. The only thing he had that could kill me was the meteor attack, and the life drain would force me to draw away and recoup health. I actually had a harder time with the Cyclops that stand in your way than the Titan himself.

And I don't know where Mike got his bad advice from online, but I found many useful tips online on how to develop your character, and just used the generic boss strategy against Typhon, which was for the Templar: Transform to collossus, teleport attack, wail on.

[Vympel]

No. The first time I fought Typhon, I must have tried to kill him about 30 times without success, always by futzing around with clever tactics or trying these gimpy "shoot him from the stairs" tactics which I could never maintain for long. Then I said "fuck this" (after being shamed; more on this later), ignored what people were saying on the Internet, and charged him. I took my melee-specialized character (warrior + defense masteries), just ran in there and kicked his overweight ass. Shield charge, whack whack whack, run around him when he tries to hit you or bring down rocks on your head, rinse and repeat until the fucker is dead.

All these people saying that you can't beat him in melee are wrong. Of course, it partly depends on what kinds of charms and rings you have. You really want to have a ring that gives you resistance to life leech, because that's an attack you'll have a hard time dodging. You also want to have a fast-attack power, like the shield charge from the Defense mastery, so you can retreat when your health gets too low, recharge, and resume the attack quickly without having to get pounded on the way in. Other than that, he's a big slow brute with a fairly predictable attack pattern. Once you learn it (and learn how to run circles around him at close range so that you don't have to waste time advancing and retreating after every hit), you can kill this fucker the Man's Way: with a sword.

PS. Credit for this is not really mine. I did the geek thing: I surfed the Internet looking for advice on how to kill Typhon. My son David had no such inhibitions; he has some kind of fucking supernatural talent for playing this game, he took over my game, and he opened up a can of melee whoop-ass on Typhon. After seeing this, I realized that the Internet had led me astray, and that what you really need to do is watch an 8 year old. I repeated the level, and (after a few tries) duplicated David's feat, by copying his tactics.

Awesome. It's too bad I've chosen Warrior + Hunter, but I hear it's a powerful damage dealing class and I've been pretty happy with it so far - I might go dual wield, not sure. I've gone on record before that I love melee characters in these types of games first and foremost - though it is fun shooting enemies with my Turquoise Bow as they approach, it makes fights easier and gives me more health potions to use as a margin for error in tough boss fights.

[Darth Wong]

Awesome. It's too bad I've chosen Warrior + Hunter, but I hear it's a powerful damage dealing class and I've been pretty happy with it so far - I might go dual wield, not sure. I've gone on record before that I love melee characters in these types of games first and foremost - though it is fun shooting enemies with my Turquoise Bow as they approach, it makes fights easier and gives me more health potions to use as a margin for error in tough boss fights.

If you like dual wield, you'd probably like the Imperial armour set. It comes with two swords: Yin and Yang. IIRC, it's for warrior-type characters in the mid-20s for level. I also have the Jade set, which comes with a bow. If you want, I can E-mail you a copy of a character I have with that full set, and you can just copy it into your C:\Documents and Settings\David\My Documents\My Games\Titan Quest - Immortal Throne\SaveData\Main subdirectory. The character should show up on your list when you restart the game, and you can just transfer his equipment to your guy via the caravan driver. With the original Titan Quest it was really tricky to transfer a character from one computer to another, but the last time I checked, it's a lot easier with Immortal Throne. You just copy it over and it should work, unless I've been misled.

The most awesome set is the Tartarus set, because it is the coolest-looking armour in the universe and each piece in the set comes with a 10% bonus when fighting Titans. But you have to be something like level 42 to wear it.

[Stark]

Mike, that won't work without using something like TQVault to prevent TQ doing it's 'characters are locked to CD key' check. I've run into that problem moving characters before (woe if one of your mates plays your copy then gets his own!) and I had to use TQVaultMon to have the character appear. It only happens between installs with different CD keys, so you might not have noticed it.

[Vympel]

If you like dual wield, you'd probably like the Imperial armour set. It comes with two swords: Yin and Yang. IIRC, it's for warrior-type characters in the mid-20s for level. I also have the Jade set, which comes with a bow. If you want, I can E-mail you a copy of a character I have with that full set, and you can just copy it into your C:\Documents and Settings\David\My Documents\My Games\Titan Quest - Immortal Throne\SaveData\Main subdirectory. The character should show up on your list when you restart the game, and you can just transfer his equipment to your guy via the caravan driver. With the original Titan Quest it was really tricky to transfer a character from one computer to another, but the last time I checked, it's a lot easier with Immortal Throne. You just copy it over and it should work, unless I've been misled.

The most awesome set is the Tartarus set, because it is the coolest-looking armour in the universe and each piece in the set comes with a 10% bonus when fighting Titans. But you have to be something like level 42 to wear it.

Holy crap- is getting the sets easy, or is it a lot of effort/ luck involved? I'm awfully tempted, but I feel like that'd be cheating - 50% of the fun in these types of games for me is finding that next piece of cool gear and jumping for joy that you actually found it.

My character is level 21 now, I just found the Skullcleaver axe (what're blue items called?) - before that I had Patroclus' Shortsword, though I had given that up for an Angon of Feasting (green item) upgraded with a 3/3 Achilles upgrade.

I've hoarded a lot of those upgrades (and the more mundane 5/5 types), waiting for that next cool weapon, it's too bad blue items can't be upgraded unfortunately.

[Stark]

It's not worth saving the upgrades: use them, then retrieve them later. You lose the item, but having all those bonuses sit in a box is only wasting them.

[Vympel]

It's not worth saving the upgrades: use them, then retrieve them later. You lose the item, but having all those bonuses sit in a box is only wasting them.

Sorry- retrieve?

I can get them back after using them on weapon/ armor?

(I've only used three so far, so the waste is not huge if I can get them back instead of just selling the relevant weapon/ armor).

[Stark]

It might be an Immortal Throne thing, but there are artefact-making guys who ALSO allow you to remove relics. You only get back EITHER the relic or the item, not both, so...

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I don't like the Yin Yang set. I had them but compared to the sabertooth blades (katanas with green coloured hilts), they are weak. The Sabertooth, if you are lucky, can give up to 45% increase in attack speed. Have 2 of them, and it's full of win.

It's incredibly hard to get the full set unless you cheat...

The weird part of the game is that I had as many as 3-4 of the same blades which were all of the rare (purple) variety. This game's item drop has got to be a joke.

[Darth Wong]

Holy crap- is getting the sets easy, or is it a lot of effort/ luck involved?

It's easy to get parts of a set, but it's really hard to complete a set (and there are some hefty bonuses for completing a set). I've got plenty of sets which I was never able to complete, including some where I maddeningly came up just 1 item short (4 pieces of a 5-item set).

I'm awfully tempted, but I feel like that'd be cheating - 50% of the fun in these types of games for me is finding that next piece of cool gear and jumping for joy that you actually found it.

True enough. And if you get enough charms, you can take a yellow or green item and make it quite effective, although not necessarily the equal of the better blue or purple items. One of my favourite items for a mid-20s character is the Quicksilver Bludgeon: it's a heavy mace but it's magical so it's as fast as a sword.

[Tasoth]

I actually like the hunter class and feel it is one of the best for vanilla TQ. With a high Art of the Hunt, you go through beastmen like they mean fuck all. And since beastmen comprise a huge number of the enemies you face in TQ, there's little that can stop you.

[Vympel]

It's easy to get parts of a set, but it's really hard to complete a set (and there are some hefty bonuses for completing a set). I've got plenty of sets which I was never able to complete, including some where I maddeningly came up just 1 item short (4 pieces of a 5-item set).

How is the placing of set items determined? For example, I found Ramses' Greaves in one of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings - if I hit the tombs enough times, will I eventually get the whole set, or is it totally random?

I just reached Babylon - really - what the fuck. I had died four times before reaching Babylon, then it hit number 5 - those huge fucking plant things that spew the poison ate through my life so quickly I couldn't hit the potion key fast enough - it was a total shock. It's like the difficulty between chapters took a huge jump between Egypt and Babylon, it's really strange - these enemies take a lot longer to die.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

It's easy to get parts of a set, but it's really hard to complete a set (and there are some hefty bonuses for completing a set). I've got plenty of sets which I was never able to complete, including some where I maddeningly came up just 1 item short (4 pieces of a 5-item set).

How is the placing of set items determined? For example, I found Ramses' Greaves in one of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings - if I hit the tombs enough times, will I eventually get the whole set, or is it totally random?

I just reached Babylon - really - what the fuck. I had died four times before reaching Babylon, then it hit number 5 - those huge fucking plant things that spew the poison ate through my life so quickly I couldn't hit the potion key fast enough - it was a total shock. It's like the difficulty between chapters took a huge jump between Egypt and Babylon, it's really strange - these enemies take a lot longer to die.

The enemies in Babylon deal a lot more damage, for less experience, unfortunately.

Sets are hard to get, unless you are willing to download up one of those maps with all the weapons, then reimport your character back for the main game with say, TQ Defiler.

The funny thing is, this game has dropped me a lot of item repeats.

[Darth Wong]

How is the placing of set items determined? For example, I found Ramses' Greaves in one of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings - if I hit the tombs enough times, will I eventually get the whole set, or is it totally random?

I have tried to figure out the algorithm, and as far as I can tell, it rolls dice when you start the game, in order to determine what items you'll find in a given region. It might pick, say, 20 unique items that you're likely to find in any given region (and a region is quite large, encompassing many settlements). No matter how many chests you open, you'll always find only one of that small subset of the overall item list. In order to reset the subset, you need to restart the game (this is why you can find two of a single rare unique item if you play for long enough).

I just reached Babylon - really - what the fuck. I had died four times before reaching Babylon, then it hit number 5 - those huge fucking plant things that spew the poison ate through my life so quickly I couldn't hit the potion key fast enough - it was a total shock. It's like the difficulty between chapters took a huge jump between Egypt and Babylon, it's really strange - these enemies take a lot longer to die.

Babylon is a big shock to the system; even warriors often need to back off and use more elusive tactics when facing those big poison monsters, at least until you get a charm that gives you high poison resistance. Basically, what you tend to find as you move into Asia is that your elemental resistances become a lot more important. At the lower levels, you can ignore elemental resistance and just worry about having enough armour points. Fire resistance and poison resistance are the two biggies against monsters, and ice/lightning are the two biggies against enemy mages.