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Titan Quest AE: The Spellbinder

  • October 5, 2016

    Titan Quest is a great game, one that recently got a massive update in the form of its 10th Anniversary Edition. Because of this, I've been putting an awful lot of time into playing it recently, and I think I came across a really interesting playstyle, perhaps not unique, but one that I definitely enjoyed playing. My thoughts for this build were originally to try and create a Pure Tank, a character capable of taking blows and taking no real damage from them, but it slowly twisted to become the Spellbinder. A powerful battlemage who saps enemies of their power and fights side by side with a powerful Undead pet. 

    First Mastery - Defense:

    The Spellbinder is at her core a defensive fighter, relying on heavy armour and shields as well as a simply massive health pool to stay alive. The Defense Mastery allows this to be done beyond any other, with abilities designed to make use of the above, as well as granting massive boosts to them if used correctly. 

    Second Mastery - Spirit:

    The Spirit Mastery is perhaps one of the most powerful, it grants the games most notable pet in the form of the Liche King (a powerful ranged pet that saps health) and grants multiple abilities to drain the health of foes either directly or purely in response to enemies drawing nearer. It also allows for the quick dispatch of Undead enemies. 

    Weapons and Armour:

    Primarily the Spellbinder fights with Axe and Shield, but can make due with any melee weapon bar a Spear or Sword which become harder and harder to use later on. The axe is the most balanced of the main melee weapons (Mace, Sword and Axe) because it has medium speed and damage, a mace user would deal much more damage but would require a higher Strength score, and would be much slower to fight. A Sword user on the other hand, would need a higher Dexterity Score, and would deal lower maximum damage. Armour wise, she can fight in either Robes or Armour, but prefers the later to be better guarded against attacks, with a Shield added to the mix it can become quite difficult for enemies to damage the Spellbinder in direct combat. 

    More importantly, the Spellbinder primarily relies on more interesting forms of ddamage output. Instead of normal elemental attacks, or pure physical damage, she relies on Leeching Life, Bleeding, Poison and Vitality damage to reduce the health of enemies both in large amounts, and then slowly after a period of time. It makes some enemies much harder to defeat, but against others it deals more damage even if the Spellbinder isn't directly fighting. 

    Primary Attributes - Health (High), Energy (Low), Strength (High), Intelligence (Mid), Dexterity (Low)

    Defense Skills:

    Rally - While Rally wasn't originally something I thought I would have much use for, the ability to heal and bolster the defenses of not only yourself, but also any followers/pets nearby is incredibly useful.

    Battle Awareness - This is a simple but useful ability to add, mostly because it's a buff that boosts the defense of both the player and any nearby allies. 

    Armour Handling - Thisis perhaps the most important skill to increase during early gameplay, not only does it decrease the Strength Requirements for Shield and Armour (making it easier to equip better pieces) but it adds a bonus to absorb damage from hits.

    Batter - This is pretty much the only offensive skill chosen, through either Mastery. Batter adds a fairly powerful, that combines the damage of both the weapon and shield as well as slowing down the attacks of enemies. 

    Spirit Skills:

    Summon Liche King - The Liche King is generally considered to be the most powerful follower for good reason. It has a powerful rate of damage, mostly because of it's powerful damage output and the fact that it can heal itself by sapping the health of enemies. On  top of this, it has the use of using ranged magical attacks, which lets the Liche King attack from range, and deal more damage to those who have higher Armour Ratings. 

    Deathchill Aura - This is the most useful ability of the Spellbinder, it deals percentage damage to all enemies nearby, and also slows them down. Percentage damage is more interesting than straight damage, simply because it does far more damage to enemies that have more health. The final upgrade to the skill is of particular note, because it increases vitality, bleeding and leech life damage, which are the most used types of damage.

    Spirit Ward - Spirt Ward and the upgrades to it allow both more damage to undead enemies, and reduces the damage that those undead deal to you. Like pretty much all of the other skills of the Spellbinder, it also will boost the Liche King and all other allies nearby. 

    If there's one thing I can say for this build, it's that the Boss Fights were somehow far too easy, the final boss of the game was killed within maybe a minute or two (and he was one of those bosses that have multiple forms). Anyway, I've only finished the Normal Difficulty of the game, I'm probably going to update this build once I finish the Epic and Legendary difficulties, but for now it was most certainly a fun build to play through. I should be playing a couple more Titan Quest builds in the next few weeks at the very least. 

    Thanks for reading everyone, I hope you enjoyed this build.