If you pared Runemaster with Defense you can pick the ability that lowers the strength cost of heavy armour, so an INT build can wear the heavy stuff.
Rune Weapon works with anything that isn't a staff. I assume the Transmutation ability is the reason staffs are barred: turning energy damage into energy damage might not work well!
I suspect that faster weapons are better as there is a flat +x elemental damage per hit.
i'm playing this game for the first time, picked warfare + runes, dual wielding. i'm not doing that great in act 4, starting difficulty...no defense. i'm using stone form from certain gauntlets in combo with seal of fate and some retaliation, kamikaze style. not dying a lot, but it's pretty tense.
i'm playing this game for the first time, picked warfare + runes, dual wielding. i'm not doing that great in act 4, starting difficulty...no defense. i'm using stone form from certain gauntlets in combo with seal of fate and some retaliation, kamikaze style. not dying a lot, but it's pretty tense.
Act 4 was from the first expansion (immortal throne) and is a significant jump in difficulty over act 3 in my opinion.
So.....yeah.....they just stealth released ANOTHER expansion yesterday, this one set in (where else) Atlantis. I have no idea why THQ Nordic continues to insist on just dropping these out of the sky with absolutely NO publicity or forewarning whatsoever, but I know there are at least a dozen people who will want to know about this. It's only $13 at the moment. At the very least I know it will entertain @BelgarathMTH for a couple dozen hours.
@jjstraka34 , Thanks for the heads up. Because of restartitis, and an aversion to getting through Hades, I never even got a character up to Act V. Now there's an Act VI? I'll have to think about it. I only recently played two different warfare mastery characters through Act I Greece. (one with defense mastery, and went back and decided I'd rather pair with dream mastery.)
So, in the end, what has been added here?? Well, there is a new act in Atlantis (obviously). All the mastery bars have been given two new talents on a new 40-point investment tier. There is a wave mode, and some quality of life improvements. Of course, there is new gear to be collected.
In the end, this and Ragnorak are not "major" expansions like Ashes of Malmouth or Reaper of Souls, but they are certainly a welcome addition, and are really not at all expensive. I still don't know why THQ Nordic is basically keeping even the fact these are being worked on a total secret until release. Titan Quest has a niche audience, but it is a loyal one, and I simply don't understand the business sense of "well, maybe they'll come across it". Because the only reason I knew was because my Google News feed on my smartphone feeds me a regular supply of ARPG news.
@jjstraka34 I only know about it because you told me. Then, today when I checked out YouTube, my suggested videos had a 12 hour old video from a streamer I like to watch named "Madcap", where he started the new expansion with the same character he had run in a previous stream of the Immortal Throne plus Ragnarok. He also expressed extreme surprise, and said he only stumbled into it because he saw Titan Quest on sale in the Steam store and clicked on it unthinkingly, without intention.
It is indeed puzzling why THQ keeps releasing expansions and doing absolutely nothing to promote them. It's like they are depending on their niche fans to do their marketing for them. That's either crazy or marketing genius. I'm not sure which.
I'll almost surely buy it eventually, even if I never play the new content, just to get the tweaks backported into my base game runs. Ragnarok put new weapons throughout the base game to support their new Rune mastery, which updates the experience of playing the base game whether you take a toon to Ragnarok or not. Did Atlantis add any new mastery?
@jjstraka34 I only know about it because you told me. Then, today when I checked out YouTube, my suggested videos had a 12 hour old video from a streamer I like to watch named "Madcap", where he started the new expansion with the same character he had run in a previous stream of the Immortal Throne plus Ragnarok. He also expressed extreme surprise, and said he only stumbled into it because he saw Titan Quest on sale in the Steam store and clicked on it unthinkingly, without intention.
It is indeed puzzling why THQ keeps releasing expansions and doing absolutely nothing to promote them. It's like they are depending on their niche fans to do their marketing for them. That's either crazy or marketing genius. I'm not sure which.
I'll almost surely buy it eventually, even if I never play the new content, just to get the tweaks backported into my base game runs. Ragnarok put new weapons throughout the base game to support their new Rune mastery, which updates the experience of playing the base game whether you take a toon to Ragnarok or not. Did Atlantis add any new mastery?
No, new mastery, just two new high level talents in each of the existing ones. And I will also add this (at least if you have it on Steam) which is to make sure you choose the option to run it under DirectX9 instead of the new default option. Because it isn't optimized yet and was causing the frame-rate to tank even on my GTX 1060.
Comments
Rune Weapon works with anything that isn't a staff. I assume the Transmutation ability is the reason staffs are barred: turning energy damage into energy damage might not work well!
I suspect that faster weapons are better as there is a flat +x elemental damage per hit.
I have seen a runemaster enemy boss using dual throwing axes, and another with throwing axe + shield.
Some of the enemies in Act 5 have very high Defense scores, so I had to look to increase my Offense to stop attacks whiffling.
It is sometimes necessary to click questgiver NPCs more than once, some side quests are slightly less obvious than in the earlier acts.
Energy drain auras.
beware trolls who throw boulders.
Nods to to Asterix the Gaul and Lord of the Rings.
Trapped chests.
i'm using stone form from certain gauntlets in combo with seal of fate and some retaliation, kamikaze style. not dying a lot, but it's pretty tense.
In the end, this and Ragnorak are not "major" expansions like Ashes of Malmouth or Reaper of Souls, but they are certainly a welcome addition, and are really not at all expensive. I still don't know why THQ Nordic is basically keeping even the fact these are being worked on a total secret until release. Titan Quest has a niche audience, but it is a loyal one, and I simply don't understand the business sense of "well, maybe they'll come across it". Because the only reason I knew was because my Google News feed on my smartphone feeds me a regular supply of ARPG news.
It is indeed puzzling why THQ keeps releasing expansions and doing absolutely nothing to promote them. It's like they are depending on their niche fans to do their marketing for them. That's either crazy or marketing genius. I'm not sure which.
I'll almost surely buy it eventually, even if I never play the new content, just to get the tweaks backported into my base game runs. Ragnarok put new weapons throughout the base game to support their new Rune mastery, which updates the experience of playing the base game whether you take a toon to Ragnarok or not. Did Atlantis add any new mastery?
No, new mastery, just two new high level talents in each of the existing ones. And I will also add this (at least if you have it on Steam) which is to make sure you choose the option to run it under DirectX9 instead of the new default option. Because it isn't optimized yet and was causing the frame-rate to tank even on my GTX 1060.
I finally played past Act III and IV, and am about halfway through V. Planning to get to Atlantis soon as well.
I've been running it on DX11 with a steady 60 FPS, too.