Knowledge

[Darth Executor]

So armor is useless if the monster's damage is higher than the armor value?

[Phillip Marcus]

Originally Posted by Leth

1) How does the pet scale exactly to the different difficulty levels?

2) Does skills that have a fixed dmg amount scale to higher difficulties at all?

2) Merchant item spawning system.

Don't know about the exact pet changes, other than to confirm that they do get stronger

Nope, but keep in mind that as long as they are Physical, Piercing, or Elemental damage, they'll continue to be modified by stats, which usually continue to increase. Also, for say, Bleed or Poison, you can usually find gear to increase them by some % amount, which scales a bit better than a flat increase.

But yes, that does mean some skills are less useful late in the game than early. Since you can retrain skills, it's not much of an issue though.

Leaving the area. You can just teleport from one vendor in one town to another and go shopping. And yes, if you're going item shopping, bring lots of cash. The only way to 'anchor' an item is to have a player remain with the vendor while you go round up the cash.

Originally Posted by Darth Executor

So armor is useless if the monster's damage is higher than the armor value?

No, it soaks up to the armor amount, any damage in excess goes through. If you get hit for 110 with 100 armor on your chest, you take 44 damage, not 110. This is what makes piercing so heinously nasty later in the game, archers on Epic and Legendary are bad news. Pile on that pierce resistance :P

[Sven]

I am about to go out and buy the strategy guide.. but I was wondering, what is in it? (This might not be exactly on topic.. sorry)

Does it contain any info on game mechanics? Or is it mainly just a list of all quests and storyline? Does it deal with the editor any? Does it go through all the magical properties items can have?

Thanks (And again, sorry for going off topic)

[leth]

Hehe, I am spending my lunch time not eating lunch but thinking of more question... so sad...

Anyway, when you said "pet get stronger" do you mean that they just get more hp/mp or do their abilities become better too. In particular I know you played a hunter/storm build (right?) how does the wisp improve? (it already has 99% chance avoiding dmg but I assume that in higher difficulty levels that percentage is actually lowered by some fixed amount right?)

Leech spells says it does vitality dmg, that is just a "type" of dmg right? I keep on thinking that there is some hidden "vitality" attribute that I am missing...

Yeah I found out the lack of "anchoring" for merchants the hard way... From what you said, it seems to me that items are indeed merchant specific right? And they improve as player gets higher in level too right?
(side note: you know the reviews that says that there are no good vendor items to buy, what are they smoking!? I have found better items on merchants, most of the time I cannot afford them tho... I for one, think that money is going to be a issue...)

[Marine OKeefe]

Ive definitely had money issues in the Demo at least.

Reviewers usually smoke crack, by the way.

[leth]

btw sven take a look at this post
http://www.titanquest.net/gameplay/6...de-author.html

that should give you a good idea of what the guide will have

[Darth Executor]

Originally Posted by Phillip Marcus

No, it soaks up to the armor amount, any damage in excess goes through. If you get hit for 110 with 100 armor on your chest, you take 44 damage, not 110. This is what makes piercing so heinously nasty later in the game, archers on Epic and Legendary are bad news. Pile on that pierce resistance :P

So the formula (assuming no pierce damage or armor absorb modifier) is Monster Damage - Armor*.66?

[Phillip Marcus]

Originally Posted by leth

Hehe, I am spending my lunch time not eating lunch but thinking of more question... so sad...

Anyway, when you said "pet get stronger"

I keep on thinking that there is some hidden "vitality" attribute that I am missing...

From what you said, it seems to me that items are indeed merchant specific right? And they improve as player gets higher in level too right?

I'm waiting for my gf to go to lunch shortly myself, so I'll probably vanish for a bit

Pets, like I said, I don't know the details. I think it was in the last set of questions I sent to the devs, so I might have a more detailed answer for that at some point. It's not something that is immediately apparent from in-game though, since you can't exactly see statistics at a glance for your pets, and I didn't spot it looking through the database. The wisp is a sturdy little fellow, on any difficulty. I never noticed any penalty to his dodging (that was actually added fairly late, which is a good thing ). He can croak to massive aoe attacks, that's about it.

Oh, that reminds me, if you do have a specific question about a certain item/monster/mod, you can often find very detailed info using the Art Manager to access the database, just import a record that looks likely (they're fairly well organized), and then poke around. Often, a record will have links to other records, which can lead you down the trail to find specific info. I did this a few times myself to figure out the damage type on a specific bosses attack, that sort of thing.

Vitality is just a typeless 'magical' damage. It's not Elemental, it's not boosted by Int, and as a secondary resist, it's much more uncommon than other types of damage. Few enemies have resistance to it, and getting resistance to it yourself can be tough.

Items do indeed improve on merchants the farther you get into the game. Affixes have certain minimum levels before they'll start showing up on items, which means that you won't be seeing the very best modifiers until higher levels, and to get the best base items for those modifiers, you need to be shopping in Legendary (well, both kinds of shopping, one with gold, the other involving your axe and a monsters head)

[rmkincaide]

Very nice post, Phillip Marcus. Thanks!

[Phyrex]

Yes, awesome post. Helps a lot.

One question though:

You said elemental damage is a separate damage type. Does this mean that “+50% elemental damage” which Dark Covenant gives, only affects damage that is labeled *elemental* or does it simply include Fire/Cold/Lightning/Burn and Frostburn too? (and no poison)

Thanks.