Titan Quest Blog

[essjayehm]

I was running thru Normal with a Warrior and when I arrived at Megara, I found an interesting weapon. I had to pull some stuff from the shared stash (I'll have to re-farm some MI's) to afford it, but the stats on it blew me out of the water when I first laid eyes upon it:



I showed the Defiler pic as I think this is the highest Itemseed I have gotten... 98th percentile, baby! Anyway, just about the go-to weapon for any twinked level 11, dont'chathink? Unfortunately, it doesn't last much past level 18, when the base damage starts to matter more than the bonuses.

[Asheron]

I don't get it, those are just typical Veteran's Maces, what's the catch?

[Irma2]

+28% Damage is very high for Vet's, as is +18% IAS. For Vet's, I usually expect between +12% and +20% Damage, and anything from +10% to +15% IAS.

[essjayehm]

Both maces are the same one, left pic is from Vault, that shows the "standard" bonuses that get adjusted by the itemseed, which makes the ingame item on the right.

Upon re-looking thru my Vault, it is indeed the highest itemseed I have. A couple of 97's and lots in the low 90-s... seems that dual-affixed items with matching affixes (ie, fire, piercing, physical) are the top dawgs in this department.

[Vinmar]

Had a wierd event happen tonight. Within 30 minutes I had 3 folgs dropped while advancing my Haruspex in Legendary. It was in the Stygian Swamp. Being a numbers person I know the odds of that happening is very low, about like getting hit by lightning.
Now I wish those Hunter Frogs would have been dropping Bramblebows instead.

[Irma2]

Hmmm, three Folgs in thirty minutes isn't abnormal imo. Folg is by far and away the most common Trog MI, about on a par with Sabertooth for Tigermen and Khthonion Spikes for Mellinoe. Now if you'd found three Gogs in thirty minutes, that would have been rare. When farming the Trogs, I get about twenty Folgs for every Gog.

[Lunitis]

I showed the Defiler pic as I think this is the highest Itemseed I have gotten... 98th percentile, baby! Anyway, just about the go-to weapon for any twinked level 11, dont'chathink? Unfortunately, it doesn't last much past level 18, when the base damage starts to matter more than the bonuses.

Noob mode on...
What you does mean that 98%?
The higher the % the best the item is? I gave a look now on my vault to have a look on what i have (never paid any attention to that number) and i see that i have a green item with 99.658%:
Babylonian Copper Helm of Glory:
57 Armor
5% elemental resistance
+3% increased XP
Level 8
Strength 187
Is this good?
Its very hard for me to compare gear, i never know what is the better one, so normally i use the one that give more "basic" attribute (damage, armor....) or take one that gives me a resistance i will need to the next boss. Any tips or thread talking about this already? As i dont trust much on what i choose normally i compare prices on a shop and keep the one that has a higher price (if both have attributes that are important for my character), is that a good method to choose the best gear?
Why the 2 pictures? Whats the actual mace you found? I dont get it..
Its hard to be a noob

[essjayehm]

Noob mode on...
What you does mean that 98%?
The higher the % the best the item is? I gave a look now on my vault to have a look on what i have (never paid any attention to that number) and i see that i have a green item with 99.658%:
Babylonian Copper Helm of Glory:
57 Armor
5% elemental resistance
+3% increased XP
Level 8
Strength 187
Is this good?
Its very hard for me to compare gear, i never know what is the better one, so normally i use the one that give more "basic" attribute (damage, armor....) or take one that gives me a resistance i will need to the next boss. Any tips or thread talking about this already? As i dont trust much on what i choose normally i compare prices on a shop and keep the one that has a higher price (if both have attributes that are important for my character), is that a good method to choose the best gear?
Why the 2 pictures? Whats the actual mace you found? I dont get it..
Its hard to be a noob

Well, suffice to say, you are doing it correctly! Basically, the item modifiers (ie Veteran's, ... of Glory, etc) have a base value, and to make things somewhat interesting, that value is adjusted slightly so that not every single Babylonian Copper Helm of Glory is exactly alike. I believe that adjustment comes from the itemseed property you can see only when you look at an item in the TQ Vault... which for my Vet's was 98.126 and your helm was 99.658.

When you look at an item in the Vault, you only see the "base" values for the modifers. The actual values are seen in-game, and the picture I posted above is the same mace. The pic on the left is from Vault, with the base values for any Veteran's melee weapon. The itemseed boosted the stats to their in-game values of the picture on the right, my "unique" Veteran's mace.

Ok, enough about that, it really doesn't matter, truly. Choosing gear at your point in the game (Act 3, or later) starts to get tricky, and balancing everything depends on what character you have, skills you are using, etc. You can post your stuff here, and either myself of other can point you in a general direction... or search the forums for info on your class, and you can see lots of info on just about every combination is around, if you look hard enough. Using the Advanced Search, and looking at "thread titles only", gives great results!

And, as I said above, suffice to say, you are doing it correctly! Dying on bosses is expected, but if you are getting killed by 1 or 2 trash mobs, then you would need to figure out some tricky stuff. Don't worry, that doesn't happen until late Epic difficulty.

[Irma2]

The % figure does indeed indicate item quality - higher % is better. However, do not base your selection on %. For example, your ...of Glory helm gives elemental resistance and extra XP. Regardless of whether the figures are higher or lower than average, are these the bonuses you want on your helm, and cherish above all others? Personally, I'd rather have a Hallowed with +1 to all skills and ~50% Vitality resistance. I favour those bonuses more than anything I can find on an ...of Glory helm.

As you play, you'll get a feel for what the "average" bonus figures are. For example, my gut-feel average for a Relentless item is to have both Attack Speed and Damage increased by 15-20%. So if I find one with 19% and 20%, that's a good one. Likewise, a Veteran's torso armour with more than 20% to CtAP and DA is a good armour. On Juggernaut's torso armour, the +% Damage can range anywhere from around 15% up to 28%, perhaps even higher. So I'll generally want one with at least 25%.

The actual % rating isn't that important, it's whether the item meets your expectations or not, and whether it gives you the bonuses you want or not. I'm not ever going to wear Deathweaver's Armplates (for example) regardless of how high the bonuses are - because nothing on it compares to the +skills and elemental resistance which I get on Stonebinder's Cuffs. So I'll always pick a "bottom of the range" SBC over a "top of the range" Deathweaver's.

Edit: oops, ninjaed by essjayehm.

[Lunitis]

So the bigger the % the bigger the boost for the gear in the game(?).

Using the Advanced Search, and looking at "thread titles only", gives great results!

Im doing this, learning a lot. Prepared skill guides for 5 characters that i already started to play with all the different classes. Already died a few times, but mostly against bosses (also managed to die on the 1o cavern of the game near the "trapped" dude ). Anyway my most advanced character its only at A3 normal.

One thing... it looks like the the younger starts shows up with more monster, i think i never saw as many crows as with my last one, and im almost sure that i didnt saw the satyr wizards summon boars in my first game. Its just my impression or the game make it harder for newer games?

Bonus question..
Do you guys kill a seek for everything always? Im doing that with my 1o one to see everything in the map and find everything...
But with the 4 new chars (all still in Greece) im mostly going only on the main road and doing all the secondary missions because i dont feel like killing everything and looking whats in every single grave. That can be big a problem latter due to less XP gain and less gear found? (im twinkling -> i think is that u call to the share of gear between chars).