Questions regarding my Thane

[Wintersmith]

Hello everyone! I've played Titan Quest for the first time a few years ago, but bought it myself just a few days ago.

I decided to make a thane. So, here are some questions:

1. Weapons. Should I dual-wield, or perhaps use a staff of some sort? Dual-wield is tempting...
2. Armor. Well, I pretty much just use the ones with pretty high defense and boosts to strenght or intelligence. Which also means my STR and INT are quite boosted and my DEX is pretty much 0 because I haven't really worked on it, which brings us to
3. Stats. How should I distribute my points? I've pretty much put everything in STR and INT and neglected DEX. A dumb thing to do?

4. Skills. I've used ice shard a lot, but if I dual-wield I'm thinking about moving most of the point into Stom nimbus and perhaps using lightning bolt and squall(into which I've already but a few points)

I'm sorry about the possible misspellings, English isn't my first language And please, use simple terms and explain things as much as possible. And oh yeah, my thane is only lvl 15 so nothing permanent has happened yet (I think).

[ASYLUM101]

There are several ways to build a thane, none of them is regarded as "right", it's all based on how you like to play.

*The physical fighter - Thane
This is the easiest one to pull off probably, aside from the mage thane. Just put points in strength and dexterity for stats, and rely on your warfare tree, using storm skills for support. Squall and its synergy will be your friend. Storm nimbus with the lightning synergy (or cold, depending on your tastes) will help boost your DPS, especially if you use some weapon with elemental damage.
~Pros~
-easy to setup
-strong/durable
-very straightforward
-can use persephone's caress (ultimate sharder weapon)

~Cons~
-slower casting, less energy regen
-low elemental damage

Prospected build : http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.a...-0-0-0-6-6-0-0

FunRating: 7 (plain old dual wielder with a few support spells, FUN)

*The elemental fighter - Thane
This is similar to the previous, but rather than relying on all heavy armor and (most likely) heavy maces (since they deal the most damage) you'll be working primarily on intelligence, secondary on dexterity. You'll also be distributing some points into strength, just so you can equip SOME sort of melee weapon. Swords are your best bet here. Low strength requirements as opposed to maces and hammers, they are easy to access and wield for a warrior with low strength. You want to enchant your gear with as much elemental damage stuff, and you're gonna have to equip mage gear, which is less effective in negating damage unlike the warrior gear, but does provide nice boosts to elemental damage and -recharge, allowing you to spam various skills easier and deal more damage with them (as well as your elemental weapons). For this build, again, squall is your friend, as will be the wisp and it's synergy, the storm nimbus tree (and one of the synergies of your choosing). You mentioned ice shards - it's a good skill early on, but in legendary it's a bit weak unless you have lots of good elemental buffing items.

~Pros~
-very high elemental damage
-good spellcaster and melee fighter provided you choose your weapons wisely(and enchant them properly - zeus lightning or shendong work nicely)
-fast spell casting, good energy regen

~Cons~
-weaker than the physical fighter(damage wise)
-not as tough, mage gear doesn't provide the same defensive boosts
-somewhat complex to equip properly
-cannot use persephone's caress easily

Prospected build : Same as the one above, just change stats from str/dex (2:1) to int/dex/str (3:2:1 ~ish)

FunRating: 8/9 (melee gear with spellcasting focus, FUN)

*The mage thane
Completely different from the previous 2. Relies purely on a staff, storm magic, and spamming important warfare skills. (warhorn/doomhorn, ancestral horn, battle standard, etc.) Same as the elemental fighter above, but without any focus on strength or melee weapons.

~Pros~
-strong elemental attacks and magic attacks because of intelligence focus
-easy to setup, direct mage approach
-spammable warfare skills with mage gear

~Cons~
-lack of warfare usage
-fragile mage
-cannot use persephone's caress

Prospected Build:http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.a...0-0-6-0-0-16-0

FunRating: 7/8 (spamming warfare skills, FUN. )


*The mixed thane
Dunno what to say about this one, but I guess it's possible to switch from staff to dual wielding with a very complex build, don't know how to do it though. I do not recommend this lol.



Other notes:

Well, thane is a fun class as far as I can tell, I've never used one but I've been planning on it, and reading on a few interesting thane stories.

Ice shards: very powerful early on, gets weaker and weaker as you progress through difficulties and in legendary it's almost hard to kill things with unless you have very good gear.

Squall: Same as above, but you want squall for it's synergy really. the debuff and the fumble chance make it really useful for A)killing enemies quickly and B) ruining ranged units, preventing them from hitting you. Intelligence/elemental builds can also make use of the decent damage of this spell later on, but nothing to write home about.

Lightning blast: Very powerful spell, utterly destroys crowds. With the synergy, it can rip apart mobs in one shot, provided you have invested alot of points in it, and have a decent intelligence. With elemental boosts, it can be an important part of your arsenal, as such, intelligence-thanes make better use of it because of their high intelligence, mage-gear, and -recharge gear, making it easier to spam it.

Spellbreaker/Spellshock : EXTREMELY underrated spell. Rip away your enemies mana and use it against them. In normal, it can 3 shot one of the end game bosses. (don't know if you've beaten the game yet, I don't wanna ruin it) It can one-shot almost every caster unit, and all the sprite units. In epic and legendary, it's not as powerful unless you debuff first, but still I highly recommend it.

Thunderball: pretty good spell if you get alot of points in it, AWESOME for the stun, but aside from that, I'd say go with lightning blast instead. this one is superior to LB because it has a much lower recharge, but the damage lost and the inaccuracy of the spread kinda devalues it.

Triumph: I didn't include it in any of the builds (i don't think I did) because it doesn't work unless you have the fanpatch. If you have it, MAX IT. VERY useful skill.

Wisp: you NEED the wisp as a thane. it will boost all the damage of your elemental attacks by a HUGE amount, provided you get the synergy, eye of the storm.

Storm Surge: Great skill, but only really worth 1 point for the stun. Triggers when you get hit, and stuns everyone around you, very useful if you go for one of the fighter builds.

Storm Nimbus : Like I said above, the first skill you only really want one point, but the synergies are where it rocks. I would only choose one, lightning or cold and put one point in the other. It saves you alot of skill points this way, especially if you focus on an element in your storm tree, otherwise you'll probably become way too spread out.

Hmm... can't think of anything else...

[Wintersmith]

Thanks dude!

I chose dual-wielding with some Storm nimbus and Static charge + Lightning bolt. It seems quite nice, I just completed Greece and went over to egypt. That Telkine bastard seemed quite hard but I just beat him until I couldn't beat him anymore and it did the trick so this dual-wielding seems to be a good choice

And I have never beat the whole game so please, no major spoilers.

Got some decent weapons and some new armor so things seem quite nice ATM. Keep on going with the advice people!

[BrigandPwnage]

The Thane is a hybrid skill, which consists in the fighting types of melee and mage damage. If one were to choose this skill, like you Wintersmith, there would be a confussion on either to wield two weapons or do elemental damage to their opponents. as saying this, the Thane is a kind of build you don't find around much. Its a rare skill. most builders would go for the melee crap like the Slayer for instance. It may do lots of damage, but the Thane is just like it. It builds on the more catchy stuff. Moreorless, this may be a suitable skill for some of the best TQ players. Have fun man.

[Phantasy_snot]

you posted a bit late don't you think BP?