5/28/2020 Titan Quest Anniversary Edition Reviews
For its 10 year anniversary, Titan Quest will shine in new splendour. This Anniversary Edition combines both Titan Quest and Titan Quest Immortal Throne in one game, and has been given a massive overhaul for the ultimate ARPG experience.
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I have retired my Conjurer at level 50 for simply farming Typhon on legendary. From the countless runs on Typhon and almost as many deaths now due to running past everything to get to Typhon as fast as possible and unlucky one-shot kills from mainly the minotaur lords (runs typically take about 2-3 minutes like this) I’ve picked up so many legendaries it’s not funny.
So I twinked my Warden with some of this gear and I admit he does have what I think are the two best items in the game for him Achilles’ Spear and Achilles Shield. Anyway at level 35 he packs a real punch. I can reduce his damage from about 2000 dps to 1400dps to maximise all resistances with a different set of gear/rings if needed. He wades through everything on epic. With a battle shrine he tops over 4k dps (cannot recall exactly what it was so 4k as a conservative estimate). What is interesting is the best piece of armour I have in terms of increasing my Warden’s damage are green Sentinel’s Armbands 165 armour, +36% pierce dmg, +26% attack speed, +3 all skills hunting mastery, and a completed embodiment of heracles’ might +24 str, +15 damage, +31% damage.The journey to 35:I started with the defense tree and rushed to get pulverise - maxed.
Then I went back and filled in adrenaline rush and the skills above this, then 1 point in rally and maxed the skills above this (inspiration necessary). Then I filled in the rest of the passive shield skills.
I’ve dropped 1 point in the other necessary skills like colossus, batter, shield charge and disruption etcUp until about level 20 I used any weapon that complemeted my character and his gear. However it was about level 20 that I chose Hunting as my second mastery and pumped 6/6 into Wood Lore.
Then forever after I have just equipped green spears with achilles’ relics until I was able to use the legendary spear Achilles’ Spear. I am still currently pumping points into defense mastery for the stats/HP and aiming for Volley (27/32 currently) for further damage. I’ve dropped 1 point into herbal remedy, take down (my second charge!), and art of the hunt and the two skills above this all of which I intend to max down the track.So basically my usual tactics are find the biggest group of mobs possible run around and group them all together and then charge the archers/mages (alternating between shield charge and takedown if there are two groups separate from one another) and then finishing off any melee guys that follow me around that weren’t already killed by pulverise. Addrenalin rush +herbal remedy adds an insane amount of health regen esp.
When coupled with rally. If my HP ever drop below 1.8-1.5k I’ll hit rally which lasts 20 seconds and often will benefit from 1 full addrenalin rush and another shortly after for the dying seconds - 60 HP/sec regen. And if I am really pushed or taken by surprise I can always pop a potion.
Against bosses colossus form + quick recovery + rally to counter the mana drain of colossus = sure win.So basically this build deals strong physical damage, huge piercing damage. Little or no elemental damage so my 2nd weapon set has a spear with fire + lightning dmg on it just in case (never needed it so far).Just thought I’d share my experience with this class.
I’ve seen and played alot of builds now and this takes the cake for survivability + HUGE damage. The use of a spear + shield and Wood Lore skills = huge defense and attack speed bonus.
The only build I’ve seen deal more damage to single targets is an assassin who does not have the luxury of a shield + the defensive/survivability bonuses. And whilst the AoE damage of this build isn’t 100% predictable. Pulverise and batter deal a huge amount of dmg and knock all 3 targets hit for 6.
Then remember the two charge abilities which really are as useful in getting out of trouble as in dealing damage.Statwise I’ve pumped strength and dexterity equally. I am going to pump alot more into health though and when I hit 4k HP I’ll start pumping them back into str/dex. Still early days and only lvl 35. Alot of room for improvement and lots of skills still to max out (and still no volley!). So expect that the damage will be alot more in time.Again this thread is here to raise awareness of an often overlooked class. Truly one of the most formiddable melee classes out there. And it looks awesome to be weilding a shield+spear in the true spirit of this Greek mythology style game.Any questions fire away.My build at lvl 65 with all quests completed would look like this:Alternate build if you don’t mind a bit more active spell casting and mana usage:If leveling up the build at lvl 20 should look like this:By lvl 35 where I am it is more filled in and looks like this:-Guide by Tyorll.
Titan Quest is one of my all-time favorite action RPGs. It falls in the same camp as the Diablo series but focuses on Greek mythology. There are other differences as well, which I’ll break down shortly, but for the most part, all you need to know is Titan Quest is Diablo but in Greek. With that said, the PC version is stellar, and this review is not a reflection of that game. For me, the Steam version of the game is an easy 9/10. Now on to the console edition.First off, I was extremely excited to see that Titan Quest: Anniversary Edition was coming to consoles. After the successful move from PC to console that Blizzard pulled off with Diablo, I figured it would be brilliant.
I was sadly mistaken. Fortunately, a few of the issues have been fixed in a patch, which pushed my review back as I waited for one more big thing to be done to the game with a future patch. As of this writing, that big thing hasn’t been done. A top-down action RPG that only differs in customization and setting from Diablo has no couch co-op. For a game that originally launched in 2006, there are no hardware limitations that I could think of that would prevent this.
This is just a lazy port of a fantastic game.Now, with a recent patch, the movement in the game has been fixed – which pre-patch was horrible. So there is one plus. Other small issues have also been fixed which has saved this game from getting a very negative review. With that preamble out of the way, let me tell you about this title and what makes it so great and what went so wrong.Titan Quest was developed by Iron Lore and made a small splash in the ARPG scene when it launched. This was primarily due to the visual presentation, which was stellar at the time.
The visuals are so good, in fact, that they still look great today. You won’t be tricked into thinking the game was developed this year, but you’ll likely be surprised that the game is 12 years old. In addition, the character customization in the game is second to none. Instead of choosing from a preset class at the start of the game, you earn points that can go into increasing your stats tied to one of ten classes. Or, you can spend those points on buying abilities and upgrading them. Either way, you are strengthening your character as you level. In addition, you will gain the ability to unlock a second class, which then changes your class name and your play style completely.
For example, if you chose Rogue and Dream as your two classes, you would be a Dreamkiller. If you chose Warfare as a second class, instead, your Rogue would become an Assassin.On top of that, your build has a huge impact on how easy the game is. Make too many bad choices and you are in for a rough ride.
Make the right choices and things are fairly easy. You also have your main stats, such as strength and intelligence to spend additional points on, which need to be at certain thresholds to equip higher end gear. This all leads to a ton of menu math and careful planning. Which is where Titan Quest fails pretty hard on the console. The menus are difficult to navigate and checking different gear is more of a chore than a reward. For a game so deep on stats, the menu system had to be stellar and it is the opposite.Another big part of this game is the size and scope. Titan Quest is longer and bigger than Diablo and most of its counterparts.
Which is fantastic, as ARPGs are a blast with friends. Just make sure you have friends to play with online. Unfortunately, for no reason at all, there is no couch co-op. That kills the game on console. The PC version is superior in every other way. Without the ability to sit on the couch with a friend to play, there is no reason to purchase it on a console. You can run the game on a low-level computer without any issue, and the visual upgrades, if there are any, are not noticeable on the console version.
So without couch co-op, the game is kind of dead already.Even with couch co-op, though, there would be other issues to face. Combat feels off. It isn’t as tight as its competition and for much of the game you can just hold the attack button and your character will run to the nearest enemy and attack. This takes a very simplistic console genre and makes it almost autonomous. On the PC, you need to focus on where you are moving, what gear you are using, what weapons your enemies have, their positioning and their weaknesses. You need to worry about that on the console version, but the controls are so loose, you can’t do anything about it.I could go on and on about how great Titan Quest is as a game, and how poorly it was ported over, but you should get a pretty solid read at this point.
There is no reason to continue down the path of explaining the great parts of the game in a review for the console version. Instead, we will consider doing a video playthrough of the PC version of the game in the near future, and show off why the game stands the test of time. For now, save your money and move along. If you don’t have a PC that can run 12-year-old games, there may be a reason to buy this when it is in the bargain bin, otherwise, buy the superior and cheaper version on PC.
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