Best match for earth?

[xpanterx]

Hi all!

What would be the best mastery to take to complement earth? I'm going to make a pure caster....

There is dream of course, but it feels a bit boring, maybe nature for plague?

Ideas?

Thanks

[Viper_Sweden]

Storm or Nature. Dream doesn't really offer anything caster-ish...

[Drakex99]

my vote goes for spirit, awesome pets, you can always go cheap with ternion or get -100% recharge, lich king its really great for tank plus his ability to lower resistance and reduction to enemy health, add the outsider for boss fights and you get a pretty nice support for quick boss fights.

For a second choice i would choose storm but i am not a big fan of using storm since i have to cast a squall for almost every fight in legendary once or twice, pretty annoying casting a skill every 6 seconds, thats one of the reasons why i prefer spirit, plus the best pet ingame.

[xpanterx]

Ok, thanks!

Think I'll go nature or spirit... Not sure.

@viper Du är vaken sent...

[Uzael]

For a second choice i would choose storm but i am not a big fan of using storm since i have to cast a squall for almost every fight in legendary once of twice, pretty annoying casting a skill every 6 seconds, thats one of the reasons why i prefer spirit, plus the best pet ingame.

This is sort of an odd synopsis.

The only reason you "have" to cast squall every fight is that it's so powerful. You could easily skip it, and fight as if you were fighting as a conjurer, but then your damage would be severly hampered. You've chosen to go with another build in order to not "have" to cast squall, but the end result is you do less damage.

Your other option, is to pick storm and not cast squall except against the mobs which are extremely resistant. Which the result is you do the same damage you would have done without storm on most mobs, and a lot more on the ones you decide to cast squall on.

And the CD is the better tank pet due to holding aggro, the liche does more damage. I'd rather pick the CD so I can dish out the damage, but that's personal preference.


The conjurer is a fun caster until late epic when resistances start to cause it some pain. The elementalist will have an answer to that, but it will cause you to use squall. Which when you are there seems like a relief, not an anoyance.

[Drakex99]

This is sort of an odd synopsis.

1) The only reason you "have" to cast squall every fight is that it's so powerful. You could easily skip it, and fight as if you were fighting as a conjurer, but then your damage would be severly hampered. You've chosen to go with another build in order to not "have" to cast squall, but the end result is you do less damage.

2) Your other option, is to pick storm and not cast squall except against the mobs which are extremely resistant. Which the result is you do the same damage you would have done without storm on most mobs, and a lot more on the ones you decide to cast squall on.

3) And the CD is the better tank pet due to holding aggro, the liche does more damage. I'd rather pick the CD so I can dish out the damage, but that's personal preference.

4) The conjurer is a fun caster until late epic when resistances start to cause it some pain. The elementalist will have an answer to that, but it will cause you to use squall. Which when you are there seems like a relief, not an anoyance.


1) Answer: i do less damage? really? the only advantage i really see about storm/earth against spirit/earth its that i have more 2 kinds of elemental damage and its more hybrid style since i can change from cold, light and fire when finding better staffs, and i have more elemental skill options, but if i want really do some serious damage, liche king 74 reduced resistance 8 seconds at level 20, and thats flat, not % like obscured that does 46% at level 10, plus the ability to use ternion and death nova, deathchill aura sinergies, squall+obscured its only better if you see thats a cheap skill, only 18 points to max and the ability to impair aim on archers, but for damage purpose lich king does more than squall and he adds more power to my attacks too, unless you found some enemy with over 160 all resistances, then you start to get more reduced resistance than lich king.

After all that, why i should bother recasting a skill every 6 seconds, if a pet does more than that? spirit auras weakens enemies greatly and if you get anything like 40% piercing res on legendary or more thats pretty enough, and lich king>squall imo, its expensive but he does a lot more, later game lich king its really the pet.

2) Answer: if i take storm over spirit, its so obvious that i will use squall on legendary even if its a pain and that i will sodomize myself for not choosing spirit instead. Wait if i dont have storm, and i have spirit, of course the lich king will cripple mobs for me, and better than squall with flat reduced resistance.

3) Answer: i will pick both and use a CD with few points in it just because he have provoke, but lich king still good at luring mobs with his ranged attacks, and he have the wraith shell skill that makes him a really tough pet capable of soloing bosses on legendary, it fells so wrong taking spirit and missing the best pet.

4) Answer: you really have a pattern in your points, but i really dont get it, looks like we are playing a different game, in the titan quest i am playing i have the answer for the great oh my god problem with resistances in legendary, lich king plus spirit auras + ternion or 100% recharge stuff with decent gear, plus a lot of things i said above.

[Uzael]

My point is you do not have to cast squall, and you'll be nearly on equal footing with the elementalist when you aren't and ahead of the game while you do.

You seem to be under the impression that the liche king is going to keep something debuffed all the time. I do have a conjurer, and he is fun, however, the liche king does NOT seem to debuff groups of mobs for me, or even keep a single mob debuffed. Most mobs I kill I have to kill without the debuff, and as a result, I've had to even result to loading a cold staff from time to time, otherwise it's just painfull.

Anyways, I've found late in epic the conjurer is no longer killing as fast as I'd like. The elementalist doesn't lose it's power and can debuff large groups. You can even go crazy on the AE power using squall, lightning bolt, volcanic orb and eruption (I have not tried doing all that, but it would be fun to try).

Add: Exactly what is it about squall that you hate? It's a spell like any other. It does damage, it even defends you against ranged attacks. I find it fun to cast and don't quite get what's so annoying about it. Do you find eruption or volcanic orb annoying to cast too?

[Drakex99]

My point is you do not have to cast squall, and you'll be nearly on equal footing with the elementalist when you aren't and ahead of the game while you do.

You seem to be under the impression that the liche king is going to keep something debuffed all the time. I do have a conjurer, and he is fun, however, the liche king does NOT seem to debuff groups of mobs for me, or even keep a single mob debuffed. Most mobs I kill I have to kill without the debuff, and as a result, I've had to even result to loading a cold staff from time to time, otherwise it's just painfull.

Anyways, I've found late in epic the conjurer is no longer killing as fast as I'd like. The elementalist doesn't lose it's power and can debuff large groups. You can even go crazy on the AE power using squall, lightning bolt, volcanic orb and eruption (I have not tried doing all that, but it would be fun to try).

Add: Exactly what is it about squall that you hate? It's a spell like any other. It does damage, it even defends you against ranged attacks. I find it fun to cast and don't quite get what's so annoying about it. Do you find eruption or volcanic orb annoying to cast too?

if i want to cast volcanic orb or eruption i will just get -100% recharge gear on and hold a buttom for a while, or just use ternion without those skills, i have enough gear to be able to clear maps without problems in legendary.

Anyway i would like to hear about your conjurer setup, since my conjurer(67) have no problem with killing large groups of mobs, and i just care about the debuff from lich king in bosses, and if you dont get arcane blast, he will use soul blight pretty often.

humm, i dont like the squall duration, 6 seconds its annoying, i would love for a 10 seconds at least lol, i see no point of getting storm to use squall every fight and start attacking, i just see that earth/spirit kills faster holding a buttom with recharge -100% or holding a buttom with ternion against bosses, and against mobs its about the same speed for me at least because the time i am starting the squall using an elementalist, i am already attacking with a conjurer, and mobs even in legendary are plain weak if you have the right gear.

[Uzael]

I don't see 6 seconds as a problem with my storm characters. Most fights are done in 6 seconds once you cast squall, and you survive the archers a lot easier. Especially if you go -100% recharge. Chain lightning is the best AE attack spell. Unlike earths AE attacks, it doesn't ever miss.

The fire imps are the biggest annoyance with my conjurer, which I swap to a cold staff to fight and kill a lot faster. After getting the staff, I am finding more and more situations that swapping to cold damage helps. It's clear seeing the difference when swapping staves, that most these mobs have high resists, and reliable AE resistance debuff really does the trick.

If you don't find a problem with out a debuff, then you shouldn't have a problem not casting it with the elementalist either except against bosses. With bosses you gain an interesting boost with the elementalist, spell breaker.

Anyways, you obviously do not like storm, that's your choice, I just don't want someone to make a choice based on a pet pieve that most people actually enjoy. You are the first person I have ever seen who didn't rave about the power and fun of squall.

For the record, I do enjoy my conjurer, but to be fair, he's not more powerfull than my storm characters. Although he doesn't really feel much weaker either. They all have +'s and -'s in different areas.

[Viper_Sweden]

@viper Du är vaken sent...

:surprised:

Orkade inte gå och lägga mig... ;)

[Chal]

Spirit is best by a mile. Simply use 3 monkey kings relics in your jewelry slots for -36 resistance. Find a green staff with +fire damage/attack speed and throw a life leech/attack speed relic in it. Throw up deathchill aura and you can literally tank monsters while gaining your life back. Heatshield and deathchill aura also give you good damage reduction. Try to max out your attack speed if you can.

Nature is good because you have meat shields, extra life, and plauge to lower resistances. It's not the cannon that a conjuerer is, but it works very well. Needs a lot of +skill items to shine.

Elementalists suffer from a lack of crowd control. They do a ton of damage, but have problems with fast enemies. This class will die more often than the others. Needs a lot of -rechage stuff.

Ritualist can petrify and use ToW to lower resistances. This is the only one I have not played, but I imagine it could do very well.

[Uzael]

Elementalists suffer from a lack of crowd control. They do a ton of damage, but have problems with fast enemies. This class will die more often than the others. Needs a lot of -rechage stuff.


How does elementalists qualify as having a lack of crowd control? They have several options: Squall, thunderball, freezing blast and chain lightning. Spirit has visions of death only.

I might have to try the monkey king relics, sadly that will mess up my ring and amulet selections and resistances.

[PHJF]

Elementalist > Conjurer

Nice that you completely ignore the Wisp's buff while ranting and raving about your pathetic liche king.

[Chal]

I've played both elementalist and conjuerer to 60+ with top gear and Conjuerer is way better.

Conjurer has:

Better surviviablity through life leech
Better mana recovery through DC (You'll hardly need any potions)
Better Pets (Seriously wisp is not even close to matching LK's power)
Better Damage Reduction

By crowd control I mean slow/fear/confuse etc... CL/thunderballs/orb's stun does not hit all monsters reliably. Squall does not slow either meaning you still have to kill them before they start hitting you. Frezzing Blast is a joke. Serioulsy who uses it? Yes you will kill the trash mobs very easily, but the faster monsters in this game will still get through and kill you from time to time.

VoD is one of the best CC spells in the game and it only needs one point. That means more points towards other things. You won't even need it anyway if you use the setup I suggested. Heck you don't even need your pets you'll kill so fast.

The hard thing to get right with an elementalist is a good combination of -recharge, -mana cost, + skills, life, resistances. Too much -recharge/mana gimps your defenses way too much. Not enough and you don't kill as fast.

I'm not saying that elementalists are bad. They are pretty good, but late game survivability is key for casters. In this area Elemenatalists don't have it as good as conjurers.

If you think elemenatlists are still better then show me your equipment setup/build and I may rethink the issue.

[Uzael]

Sounds like you gimped your elementalist with your skill selection. The way you talk sounds like you did something very wrong, or your elementalist was first, and you took the knowledge from that to better select your conjurer skills. Your analysis just doesn't make sense.

All these skills you claim suck really kick butt if properly used. Even freezing blast.

[Uzael]

Btw, when you played the elementalist, did you primarly play earth with storm support or storm with earth support? An elementalist would play really poorly if you played primarly as earth. It needs to be heavy storm with just the CD until very late.

And for the record, I do enjoy my conjurer. Those monkey king relics might make it quite strong, but I your judgement of the elementalist seems off.

[Chal]

Lets set this straight. We all know every class can get through this game just fine with proper gear. Elemenatlist is not bad. Does very well actually, but does not compare to the damage output/survivabilty a conjurer can obtain. Survivablity is the name of the game late game.

I did go heavy storm with only CD. Tried heavy earth but there was too much delay for Volcanic Orb/Eruption to take effect compared to instant damage of LB/CL. Tried just about every combination of skills and gear you could think of and Conjuerer was always better.

The other problem I had was pulling aggro off the CD (Yes I maxed it). I would wait a little bit while the CD gained aggro, but LB/CL and squall would still pull some of them towards you. This is not a problem during the easy parts of the game, but late act 3 and 4 the enemies are faster and will get through before you kill them. As a conjurer I could care less about getting hit because I could just leech my life back.

So let's just agree to disagree. Conjuerer > Elementalist IMO

[FrostElfGuard]

If you guys posted your builds... then things would be easier to discuss.

Even more so: if you used something like fraps to take a movie of how your character plays...and posted it on YouTube... we could SEE how things work for ourselves.

For myself, my Conjurer (Earth/Spirit) did well. (but I only did normal). My Elementalist--well... let's just say I had lots of problems. He was indeed weak.

Could you post your builds? I'm sure it would help me straighten things out.

One key thing is I never got the whole Squall thing. Do you cast it on yourself to protect yourself from arrows? Or do you have to cast it on the archer? When an arrow enters a Squall, is it knocked off course? Or does it affect the aim of the archer before she/he lets fly?

[Viper_Sweden]

Or does it affect the aim of the archer before she/he lets fly?

That's right...

[lulu]

Btw, when you played the elementalist, did you primarly play earth with storm support or storm with earth support? An elementalist would play really poorly if you played primarly as earth. It needs to be heavy storm with just the CD until very late.

And for the record, I do enjoy my conjurer. Those monkey king relics might make it quite strong, but I your judgement of the elementalist seems off.




eart enchantement(+145 %fire damage)+volatility(33% chance of +245 %fire damage)+eye of the storm(+150% elemental damage) is the best choice for raw damage.

i focuse on fire damage because storm can support fire damage(eye of the storm).eart enchantement or volatillity has nothing to bring for lightning/cold damage.



Fire elementalist,supported by eye of the storm and squall is the best one IMO

[Creslyn]

You'll never get a definitive answer as to which mastery is the best to use with earth, but one I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned at all is hunting. Reasons for choosing Hunting would be:

1) Earth itself is very skill point heavy if you want to get the most out of it. VO, EE, CD line all take a lot to max. Eruption and Volativity take a few to fill as well. A second mastery that gives you quite a bit for relatively few skill points is worth considering.

2) Study Prey (1pt) + Flush Out (maxed) gives a good group debuff that you don't have to wait for (unlike plague).

3) Monster Lure lets you gather groups of mobs and helps against most bosses quite nicely. Can get by with just the CD using provoke most of the time, but when you need ML, you really need it.

4) Art of the Hunt (1pt) + Find Cover (maxed) + Trailblazing (1pt) helps a lot. Don't see the need to explain why avoid projectiles is useful ;)

In the end, Hunting offers what Earth really needs: -resists, ml to take mob aggro off you, and some useful defense, for a fairly cheap skill point investment. Can toss in Herbal Remedy to take care of poison resist/healing as well, and more movement speed with more investment into Trailblazing, freeing up gear to use for other purposes.

ed: oh yeah, sample build: Avenger (http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.asp?mastery=Avenger&master1=7&master2=1&sa=0&m1=32-0-0-0-0-1-6-0-0-0-6-1-0-0-8-0-1-0-6-0-0-0-0&m2=32-12-0-8-1-0-12-1-16-0-0-8-0-1-1-1-0-12-12-8-12-0-0)

[MDWhip]

I have an Avenger and indeed it works well. The reason why nobody has mentioned it was in the first post a pure caster class combination was specified.

[Creslyn]

Well, with that setup he practically is a pure caster ;)

[ScottyBones]

Creslyn, I completely agree with you that Hunting is a good match with Earth and I am also surprised that this combo wasn't mentioned earlier. It might be that most people use the Hunting Mastery as the primary mastery and only use Earth to supplement (I have taken a bow Avenger into legendary with zero deaths and have loved playing this character). Hunting gives -36% elemental resistance for a mere 7 mastery points (SP-1 and FO-6) and as you stated above, you can get alot from Hunting with just a few points invested.