Recommend a pet-less Ranged build?

[caelcyndar5]

Decided to create a ranged Char (Hunting mastery is pretty much required). I'm asking because you CAN'T respec attribute points (GD Defiler doesn't work for Titan Quest Anniversary Edition anymore) and I want to make sure I spend each point correctly. Not interested in the Atlantis Ranger in the Guides section because you use pets and I already have a Summoner.

[chris.ferrantegerard]

You can combine Hunting with pretty much any other mastery to make a ranged char. Warden is obviously better as a spear + shield user, otherwise you can make bow / throwing builds with any of the other masteries.

Haruspex (+Dream) is a popular and strong build. Brigand (+Rogue) as a glass cannon DPS build. Dragon Hunter (+Rune) for an elemental damage ranged build via Rune Weapon's Transmutation. Sage (+Storm) or Avenger (+Earth) can be made as hybrids or if you have the gear elemental conversion builds. Bone Charmer (+Spirit) for Deathchill aura, support, etc.

[Lobo de hielo]

My kind of player.
Hunter is king when it comes to this game (or defence if you want to play slow), it can go with any other mastery. Some are better than others (p.s finished normal 0 deaths 1st time with a Hunter).
Haruspex is strong and a definite for a first timer. Bone Charmer is a lot of fun. Just remember Hunter gets all the points first, every other mastery is just to compliment the way you wish to play.
The way you go with your attribute points depends on what you choose as a second mastery. Warden is easy attribute lay out, but choose something which has int as a high part of its build is a lot more difficult. In that case Dragon Hunter is a great choice.

[caelcyndar5]

Hmm... Hunting/Rogue seems pretty good. More increased piercing and bleeding damage as well as some poison support if I choose. I'm VERY terrible at making my own build which is why I was asking for a concrete guide. Attribute and skills points as well as some of the optimal gear.

[MedeaFleecestealer]

There is a tool called TQRespec which you can use. Sadly Soulseekkor seems to have abandoned GDDefiler since it's not been worked on in well over a year now.

[sarcastic_godot]

Hunter synchs nicely with all masteries, but for ranged you won't want Warfare or Defense. ditto Nature, because that's pretty pet-centric. Re. Pets: If there is one in a mastery, you don't have to pick it... Let's make a list, shall we?

- Rogue: Nice bleeding and piercing synergies, plus all that poison. Absolute single-target damage beast, great for bossfarming. Both Pierce as Poison are buffed by DEX. Traps are great as aggro trigger. Downside: weak dmg vs. undead and constructs - bones and inanimate matter simply don't bleed, and take little damage from poison.

- Earth / Storm: Elemental damage plus the spell skills. Downside: INT is the dmg buff stat for those, DEx + STR are the buff stats for ranged weapons, so you'll be a bit meh in the late legendary game.

- Spirit: A mixed bag... ...awesome defense via Deathchill, some extra vs.. undead via Spirit Ward. Powerful tac nuke that also heals you in one shot with Life Steal's rank 40 extenmion (if and when you have Atlantis). Also, Dark Covenant is a sweet self-buff and solves all your Energy problems. It's leaning more towards close-range, though.

- Dream: Great CCs, great AoEs, good stuff in the middle range. Trance of Wrath is awesome, as well for the defense as for the offense, but it's close-combat only. The synergies aren't _that_ great, though - It's more of an allround mastery, complementing Hunter nicely, and plugging some weaknesses. Bbut it doesn't boost your Hunter strengths that much.

- Rune: Works best with thrown weapons, you can go for elemental damage via. the Rune Weapon tree, and Rune has some awesome resist skills and Energy Armor. Thunder Strike is a powerful burst attack and even gives you some zap-to-attack mobility. Stones / Runes can be used as mines, remote aggro-triggers,


Global advice:

With your "don't misspend Stat Points"-approach I advise to not spend points on Health. If you go for Rogue, you'll probably want to spend some picks on Energy, else you'll run dry very fast, With all other combos above you'll get enough Energy from climbing your mastery bars.

I recommend thrown weapons over bow: All the Marksmanship tree and Wood Lore work with both. You can carry a shield with thrown => better defense, and there are a lot of nice shields out therre. And thrown weapons have a faster base attack speed. Especially useful with DoTs - switch targets, paint all the baddies, let them suffer, while you shoot the wounded. Also, in case of the Brigand (Hnt+Rog), Blade Honing works with thrown weapons, but not with bows.

HTH + HF!

[Lobo de hielo]

Originally posted by suicidal_godot:

- Spirit: A mixed bag... ...awesome defense via Deathchill, some extra vs.. undead via Spirit Ward. Powerful tac nuke that also heals you in one shot with Life Steal's rank 40 extenmion (if and when you have Atlantis). Also, Dark Covenant is a sweet self-buff and solves all your Energy problems. It's leaning more towards close-range, though.

- Dream: Great CCs, great AoEs, good stuff in the middle range. Trance of Wrath is awesome, as well for the defense as for the offense, but it's close-combat only. The synergies aren't _that_ great, though - It's more of an allround mastery, complementing Hunter nicely, and plugging some weaknesses. Bbut it doesn't boost your Hunter strengths that much.
HTH + HF!

Agree with almost everything said in that post.
Here is a very old Bone (bown) Charmer build:
https://www.kirmiziperfect.com/titan-quest-bone-charmer-guide/
But remember this is old before throwing weapons which could make it even stronger.

Dream plugs the gaps beautifully with its "Distort Reality" when things get too close.
The Trances are awesome depending if you want close combat or totally ranged and the Lucid Tree gives a lot of extra speed , avoid projectiles, extra damage (need to find good weapon and relics) and 111 plus DA and OA no + skills needed.
I also recommend throw plus shield, bow in off hand for getting grunts to attack you.

You want an easy time, choose Haruspex.

Any mastery you choose is just to compliment an almost perfect mastery to begin with, Armour and weapons do not worry about unless going into Legendary, most everything you need will fall in your path or be store bought upto then.

p.s the shield you choose does not have to have the best defence, look for a shield with extra to resistances, speed, etc.

[caelcyndar5]

Originally posted by suicidal_godot:

Hunter synchs nicely with all masteries, but for ranged you won't want Warfare or Defense. ditto Nature, because that's pretty pet-centric. Re. Pets: If there is one in a mastery, you don't have to pick it... Let's make a list, shall we?

- Rogue: Nice bleeding and piercing synergies, plus all that poison. Absolute single-target damage beast, great for bossfarming. Both Pierce as Poison are buffed by DEX. Traps are great as aggro trigger. Downside: weak dmg vs. undead and constructs - bones and inanimate matter simply don't bleed, and take little damage from poison.

- Earth / Storm: Elemental damage plus the spell skills. Downside: INT is the dmg buff stat for those, DEx + STR are the buff stats for ranged weapons, so you'll be a bit meh in the late legendary game.

- Spirit: A mixed bag... ...awesome defense via Deathchill, some extra vs.. undead via Spirit Ward. Powerful tac nuke that also heals you in one shot with Life Steal's rank 40 extenmion (if and when you have Atlantis). Also, Dark Covenant is a sweet self-buff and solves all your Energy problems. It's leaning more towards close-range, though.

- Dream: Great CCs, great AoEs, good stuff in the middle range. Trance of Wrath is awesome, as well for the defense as for the offense, but it's close-combat only. The synergies aren't _that_ great, though - It's more of an allround mastery, complementing Hunter nicely, and plugging some weaknesses. Bbut it doesn't boost your Hunter strengths that much.

- Rune: Works best with thrown weapons, you can go for elemental damage via. the Rune Weapon tree, and Rune has some awesome resist skills and Energy Armor. Thunder Strike is a powerful burst attack and even gives you some zap-to-attack mobility. Stones / Runes can be used as mines, remote aggro-triggers,


Global advice:

With your "don't misspend Stat Points"-approach I advise to not spend points on Health. If you go for Rogue, you'll probably want to spend some picks on Energy, else you'll run dry very fast, With all other combos above you'll get enough Energy from climbing your mastery bars.

I recommend thrown weapons over bow: All the Marksmanship tree and Wood Lore work with both. You can carry a shield with thrown => better defense, and there are a lot of nice shields out therre. And thrown weapons have a faster base attack speed. Especially useful with DoTs - switch targets, paint all the baddies, let them suffer, while you shoot the wounded. Also, in case of the Brigand (Hnt+Rog), Blade Honing works with thrown weapons, but not with bows.

HTH + HF!

Actually with Rogue, there's a passive that increases the damage to devices and constructs so the undead would be pretty much the only challenging mobs to deal with.

[caelcyndar5]

What would you recommend as the best gear for Pierce/Bleeding Hunter?

[DF]

TQVaultAE[github.com] has the ability to reclaim your attribute points, as well as manage items and so on.

[caelcyndar5]

Just asking about gear, attributes and skills cause anytime I try to create something myself, it ends up being a Leeroy Jenkins type build.

[sarcastic_godot]

Originally posted by caelcyndar5:

What would you recommend as the best gear for Pierce/Bleeding Hunter?

...that depends on what you have. And what level you have. it would help to get a bit more background there. Also, ofc, on what other mastery you choose.

If you go for Rogue, you can safely ignore all gear that has an INT requirement. You don't want to spend a single pick on INT. With other Combo masteries, you'll get some INT from the mastery bar, but I'd still refrain from spending stat points there.

You want your gear to give you all* the resistances on the first page: Pierce is IMHO most important (there's archers everywhere...), elements, pierce, vitality, and pierce are next important, poison and bleed less so. And don't forget about piercing resistance! I'm only half-kidding here: TQ is won on the defense. DA and res are way more helpful than max-tweaked DPS.

Another must-have is some %AttackDamageToHealth, and extra movement speed never hurts. Also, ofc, +AttackSpeed. And you'll want +4AllSkills in total - the four hidden over-picks are somewhat included in most builds, and for many somewhat stronger that the ones before. Also desirable: Some -Recharge, some Energy leech (need not be much).

There are a few items you should keep, and keep in either your stash or backpack even after they're somewhat obsolete damage- or armor-wise, because they're nice problem solvers. One example would be The Crow[www.tq-db.net], with 40-50% more DA you're almost melee-proof. Other stuff would be e.g. the Mantle of Sa'jun[www.tq-db.net] or the Priam's Gate[www.tq-db.net] shield, for their nice broad-spectrum resistances. The right hand tab in each of the item cards tells you where you can find them.

But you don't absolutely need high-rarity gear to win the game, there's plenty of powerful and interesting green stuff...


Throw + shield in one switch, bow in the other. I'd go for hard armor - STR does buff your base damage, so the points aren't wasted.

- Hallowed helmet (can be found at vendors, but they're terribly rare),
- Stonebinder's Cuffs (can be farmed from Gorgons - all coloured ones and the queens can drop those)
- Some boots with good resists, if you can find some, Valkyrie boots are OK, too, for that +AllSkills
- Torso Armor depending on what you have,
- Jewelry to plug your resistance gaps, and/or add piercing damage.
- Artifact: A good starter Artifact is the Lvl 10 "Shroud of the Eternal Night" - +AttackSpeed, some res, some dmg. Other, later ones would be e.g. the


* with a well-stacked vault (or mules), max res is quite easy in Normal or Epic. Way less so in Legendary... ...then you'll have to juggle depending on what the baddies hurl at you in the place you're currently cleaning out.

Originally posted by caelcyndar5:

Originally posted by suicidal_godot:

[...]
- Rogue: [...] Downside: weak dmg vs. undead and constructs - bones and inanimate matter simply don't bleed, and take little damage from poison.
[...]

Actually with Rogue, there's a passive that increases the damage to devices and constructs so the undead would be pretty much the only challenging mobs to deal with.

*shrug*

...you lose something between 75% and 90% of your dmg to their immunities, then multiply the remainder by 2.5... ...still pretty meh and slow.

Give it a swing, zap to Mount Olympos, and take the time you need to clear out that lump of Automatoi, and compare that to the time you need to clear out all the three chunks of Minotaurs behind that...

[caelcyndar5]

I was mostly asking about best end-game gear. As of right now, my Hunting/Rogue is lvl31 at the end of Act 1 Normal (normal EXP is SO SLOW that I'm using a bounce mod for x4 the regular EXP). Did use TQAEVault cause all the throwing weapons that keep dropping are STILL under lvl10 and do crap damage.

[sarcastic_godot]

...might be due to the circumstance that the XP in Act 1 normally only carry you to Lvl 20. Just take a look at the tags on the baddies. After all, why should you get big time XP for swatting flies...

Seriously: you are seriously overleveled, so you only get little XP. Keep going forward, and get more XP from eye-level-baddies. Level 30 would be the proper level in late Act 3.

TQ has a rigid map structure, level-wise. While the specific mobs vary in composition, the level is given and depends on the place in the story where you are. So if you go too slow, you'll also grow slow...

Oh, and the loot also is bound to the baddies' - i.e. map - level.

Also, "crap damage" depends, Attack speed plays quite the role. 50 damage * 2 attacks per sec is almost as good 200 every half second (armor pinches off a bit off each hit, so...) The DPS figure on your char sheet does the math for you and is a decent enough guide for gear choices. It's not all the story - resistance reduction etc. play a role, too - but don't go by the item stat card, equip the piece of gear to decide. And check when all your buffs are on, the game considers those in the DPS calculation. You can even do that with gear from merchants - as long as you stay in the shop menu. Your trades finalized are only when you leave the shop.

[Lobo de hielo]

A tad over levelled for that area. As said above check the monster levels you are fighting.
A list of items (throw weapons) below, where it says i.e Level 22 item, that is the level the monster needs to be to even have the chance of dropping the item

Skeletal Dart, people overlook because of weakish damage but it has 50% pierce damage and can be socketed also has 10.0% Chance of 40 % Reduction to Enemy's Health,20.0% Chance of +200% Pierce Damage.
Starts dropping level 14 item.

Jaguars Claw: 33.0% Chance of 20 Bleeding Damage for 3.0 Seconds
+20% Attack Speed
+1 to Open Wound
Starts dropping level 12 item.

A better one starts dropping from level 32 monsters and that is the Demonic Rippers
but aimed for Dream mastery: 25 Vitality Damage,+1 to Psionic Burn.

Epics like Deaths Wings, Blue Dragon's Scales,Blood Blossoms start dropping level 22 to 26 items.

This would probably be best for a Rogue Build.
Blood Blossoms
46 ~ 49 Damage
10% Pierce Ratio
Speed: Fast
10.0% Chance of 50 % Reduction to Enemy's Health
+25% Physical Damage
46 ~ 49 Bleeding Damage for 3.0 Seconds
25.0% Chance of +100% Bleeding Damage
10% Chance to Dodge Attacks
10% Chance to Avoid Projectiles
+3 to Open Wound

[caelcyndar5]

I HATE green gear (playing Grim Dawn where the affixes you need on a particular pieces may be 0.0005% chance to drop).