[Warden Build] The Skilled Warden ...

[Mjoll]

... or how to turn 207 skill points into 529 skill points.

Preface on mods

The preface is for singleplayer mode only. Feel free to flame open servers and those that bring mods to multiplayer games and ruin your fun but don't flame me, this guide or those that use mods in singleplayer games. And do the flaming in another thread of course.

So why do i use mods?

1. Free will.

2. I bought the game with my money, my rules.

3. Just because you play the game a certain way doesn't mean you have the right to tell other how to play. Some play without cheats, mods, trainers etc, some like using a mod or two, some cheat, cheat and then cheat some more.

4. I am playing against myself and my goal is to get the most fun i can out of this game. If a mod helps with that and is not against my rules (not your, not their but my rules since i'm the one playing at my computer) then i would use it. There are mods that ruin one's game experience and mods that don't.

5. The game supports modding. The game comes with editors. The forum is the biggest TQ forum and has a mod section. The forum is moderated by Iron Lore stuff. Anyone here saw at least one self-righteous "hacks!!! lynch the mod user!!" fanatic player making a poll or a petition and asking for the mod section to be removed? I didn't think so.

6. A player mentioned something about Epic and Legendary healing potions healing less than they should. If someone would have made a mod to fix it that mod would have been labeled as a "cheat". But here is a quote from the end of the patch v1.20 notes: "Increased healing from health potions in Epic and Legendary". Strange eh? And this is just one example.

7. There are two worlds: the world of the hermits living in the wild and feeding off roots and berries and that have fun doing so (the no-mods players) and the world of those that have fun by throwing parties and eating at restaurants (the mod users). Evil comparaison i know.

You want to wait for the game devs to modify the game and in the mean time you call any unofficial modification a heresy? Suit yourself, I know I'll take what I like from both worlds, the official patches world (I always use the latest patches for all my games even if they nerf things I like) and the modding community world.

Conclusion:
Keep having fun and let others have their fun. That's what the game is for.

Intro

I wasn't thinking of making this build when i started playing but at some point on legendary difficulty i had +3 to all skills in Defense Mastery and +5 to all skills in Hunting Mastery (Telamon's Boar Skewer, Aphrodite's Favor and Deimos). Browsing the GameBanshee database i found out that there are 3 more items i could equip to make this build work so i went farming for them.

The build aims at maximizing all skills from both masteries by using socketed legendary items with +x to skills modifiers and gets pretty close of doing so. It is not meant to be the ultimate killing machine but fares damn well on legendary.

Equipment

Amulet (+2 to all skills)
Aphrodite's Favor

Arms (+1 to all skills)
Phobos

Chest (+2 to all skills)
Alexander's Cuirass

Head (+1 to all skills)
Dark Justice of Tartarus

Legs (chosen for the partial set bonus)
Unyielding Shackles of Tartarus

1st Ring (+1 to Volley/+1 to Art of the Hunt)
Apollo's Will

2nd Ring (+1 to Volley/+1 to Art of the Hunt)
Apollo's Will

Shield (+1 to all skills)
Deimos

Weapon (+2 to all skills in Hunting Mastery)
Telamon's Boar Skewer

Total bonus
+2 to Volley
+2 to Art of the Hunt
+7 to all skills in Defense Mastery
+9 to all skills in Hunting Mastery

You can replace the Boar Skewer with Phorkos' Trident which grants +1 to all skills but you will lose up to 1000 DPS.

Skills

Whenever i say maxed i mean the max skill level reached by using skill points only + the max skill level bonus granted by +x to all skills equipment.

Example: maxed Shield Charge = lvl 16/12 Shield Charge.

Defense mastery at lvl 59
- 18 skills maxed
- 2 skills ignored: Concussive Blow (doesn't work with spears) and Disable (not because is not a useful skill).

Hunting mastery at lvl 59
- 13 skills maxed (Eviscerate is 3 skill points away from being maxed)
- 2 skills ignored: Ensnare and Barbed Netting. Not a priority.
- 2 skills ignored: Monster Lure and Detonate. Not a priority.
- 3 skills ignored: Marksmanship, Puncture Shot and Scatter Shot. None of them works with spears.

Defense mastery at level 65
- 19 skills maxed
- 1 skill ignored: Concussive Blow. It doesn't work with spears.

Hunting mastery at level 65
- 17 skills maxed
- 3 skills ignored: Marksmanship, Puncture Shot and Scatter Shot. None of them works with spears.

Skill distribution at level 65 without bonuses from equipment (TitanCalc link)

Shield Smash, Pulverize, Volley and Gouge, each of them has a 20% chance of being used so there is a 80% chance for something bad to happen to mobs each time i attack (100% chance if Disable will be fixed).

My stats

Unbuffed

Basic buffs (Art of the Hunt + Battle Awareness + Herbal Remedy) - these are the ones that are always on

Full buffs (Basic buffs + Adrenaline + Rally + Quick Recovery + Call of the Hunt)

Full buffs + Colossus

Notes:
- I'm not DPS hungry so i put just enough AP in STR to meet equipment requirements and i dumped the rest of AP in DEX.
- I haven't cashed in the reward for the Proper Offering quest on Epic difficulty, i'm stil hoping for a +5% or +7% cold resistance. I got only fire resistance bonuses on my last 20+ tries grrr.

Adrenaline

Don't ignore the Adrenaline and Rally skill trees, they are priceless when it comes to saving one's life, with the help of those two and of Herbal Remedy i can get my hp regen up to 250 hp/sec.

Base = 5.32 health regen/sec (1.0 + 432% bonus from equipment)
Rally level 16 = 150% health regen
Adrenaline level 10 = +28 health regen/sec
Herbal Remedy lvl 10 = +8.4 health regen/sec

My health regen:
- 5.32 (Base)
- 6.82 (Base + Rally)
- 50.01 (Base + Herbal) - permanent
- 64.11 (Base + Herbal + Rally)
- 154.28 (Base + Adrenaline)
- 197.78 (Base + Adrenaline + Rally)
- 198.97 (Base + Adrenaline + Herbal) - very common
- 255.07 (Base + Adrenaline + Herbal + Rally) - common

My play style

- I play singleplayer only since i can't play multiplayer due to my lousy system specs.
- I use the "stacking pots" mod, the "relics in all mod" and TQ Vault. I also used Preed's "get it all" mod to plan ahead.
- On each difficulty, when encountering a major boss for the first time, i used to backup my character and do some tests to learn the special attacks and to see if any of them are one hit kill attacks. This includes getting my char killed on purpose 1-2 times for each major boss.
- I have finished normal difficulty at level 39 and epic difficulty at level 48. Some farm bosses for items, i farm normal mobs for SP and AP, afking near Dark Obelisks in Egypt helps with that. Plus this spares the community the read of another "omg i'm lvl 2x and i'm getting my *** handed to me on Epic" thread.

[Zhenghir]

Brilliant Guide. God i wished they would make a section for these kind of Guides. Anyway. keep it up man

[Mad_Bombardier]

Great guide, but I have a question. You said that Disable doesn't work with spears, but the detailed ingame description says it is a shield attack. I read on the Warfare page that Hamstring doesn't work with spears, could you possibly be thinking of this? Or is Disable bugged to work with weapons (but not spears) and not shield as per the Skill description?

[JenoSidhe]

disbale does not work with spears tested myself

[Mad_Bombardier]

So, we have a problem. The ingame description reads "A fighting technique that utilizes the shield to crush foes and throw them off-balance." Which brings us back to the same questions.

Is the the ingame description wrong and the skill should utilize non-spear weapons? Or is the skill bugged to work with weapons instead of shields?

[Mjoll]

There is a post of Xaece explaining how he found out that Disable is not working with spears:

http://www.titanquest.net/defense/22...able#post32433

[medierra]

Disable will be fixed so that it only requires a shield in the first balancing patch.

[uncas]

I have a query. How could you socket your spear with relics when legendary unique items cannot be socketed?

[Mjoll]

It is explained at the end of my first post, i'm using bman's "relics in all" mod.

[Blendy]

^ I was wondering the same thing

It's probably a mod, if so I'd say it means you can't play multiplayer, not worth it imo