========================================
Titan Quest 1.22
by Nordic Games
10th May 2016
========================================
Legend
“+”: Added feature or improvement.
“-“: Bug fix, change or removal.
“|”: Comments
General Items
—————–
+ Optimized world loading to minimize pauses and edited specifically problematic areas
– Further performance improvements
– Fixed window positioning in 1280×720 resolution
– Fixed “Trade” and “Cancel” buttons not working in the MP trade window when the UI scaling option was used.
– Fixed bad items aligment in the trade window when the UI scaling option was used.
– Sandwraiths can no longer be confused by too many projectiles
– Attribute points now yield 40 Health or Energy per invested point
– Updated Templates.arc
EARTH MASTERY
————-
|Earth is basically a strong Mastery and great for fire mages but offered surprisingly little to high-level fighters.
|So in addition to the new physical damage scaling on spells we added some late-game melee utility to existing skills.
Earth Enchantment:
+ Now also increases Burn Damage
+ Radius increases by 10% per additional level
Volativity:
+ Now also increases Burn Damage
+ Also increases Physical Damage (half as much)
Heat Shield:
– Now aborbs a percentage of Fire Damage for 100 seconds
|Heat Shield was being used as a 1-point physical resistance buff that deactivates upon contact with fire.
|With this change we hope it can better fulfill its actual purpose.
Stoneform:
– Grants an extra 3 Life Regernation per additional level
– Life Regeneration starts at 10
Stoneform – Molten Rock:
– Inflicts an extra 3 Fire Retaliation Damage per additional level
|Popular for their initial effects, both of these skills were classic “one-point-wonders” that offered little incentive to
|invest more. With these buffs they should be a viable alternative to consider for spending your hard-earned points.
Core Dweller
– Changed water step sound
Volcanic Orb – Fragmentation:
– Changed fragment explosion effects to better represent the radius
Volcanic Orb – Conflagration:
– Increased Burn Damage by 150%
|As opposed to what its description implies, Conflagration does not actually affect the radius of the Orb itself.
|It is an independent effect and, as such, was much too weak.
Ring of Flame:
+ Added new effect that better represents the radius
– Increased damage by 50%
– Changed Mana Cost per second to 25% of damage inflicted
Ring of Flame – Soften Metal:
+ Causes % OA Reduction instead of x Reduced Physical Damage
– Changed Mana Cost per second to 25% of damage inflicted
|RoF tended to be a very strong pick early on while both the damage and (absoulte) damage reduction became negligible later.
|With these changes it will remain more relevant while the scaling mana cost discourages early maxing.
Flame Surge
+ Enemies hit have their Defensive Ability reduced by a percentage for 3 seconds
Flame Surge – Barrage
– Increased Burn Damage by 100%
– Reduces Flame Surge base cooldown by 0.6 seconds per level (zero cooldown at level 10) instead of %
+ Reduces Flame Surge mana cost according to the skill’s description
Flame Surge – Flame Arch
– Adds more Fire Damage (half of Flame Surge’s numbers) rather than increasing Fire by a percentage
+ Adds a 5% chance for 1 second of fear
|Finally, Flame Surge was the model of a sub-par skill for several reasons.
|These changes should make it an interesting pick for mages of all levels, while the %-Based DA reduction rewards fighters
|who still employ it later on with guaranteed critical hits.
HUNTING MASTERY
—————
Scatter Shot Arrows:
+ Now do 80% of their damage as Bleeding over 3 seconds
|Hunting is generally considered a very strong mastery, and these free armor-pericing splinters and their potential for
|excessive stacking in certain situations had a big part in it. This change will bring bow hunters more in line with other
|classes while strengthening their identity as Bleeding specialists.
Gouge:
– Increased Bleeding Damage by 50%
Take Down – Eviscerate:
– Increased Bleeding Damage by 150%
|Considering the amount of enemies that are immune to Bleeding effects, they deserve a buff even with dexterity scaling.
Wood Lore:
– Now gives 30+32/level DA instead of % increases
|The way OA vs DA works, % increases to either become a lot more potent as the game progresses.
|But with the way Hunters scale there is no reason why they should not rather enjoy a good defense from the start.
Ensnare:
– Reduces DA by 300 instead of 33%
– Removed (periodic) pierce damage
– Increased duration gains with higher levels
+ Stopped net from turning with the target
Ensnare – Barbed Netting:
– Increased Bleeding DPS by 50%
– Made bleeding time correspond to net time
– Lowered initial damage by 15 but inflicts an extra 3 per level
Monster Lure:
– Increased size
– Reduced health by 33%
– Reduced anger generation outside of Provoke radius
– Fixed projectile targeting
+ Added death sound & death effect
Monster Lure – Detonate:
– Added a sound
+ Made the skill one 6m radius explosion with a new effect
– Added an extra 100% Fire Damage and 100% Physical Damage
+ Added 1s of Stun
+ Added difficulty-based damage multiplier
|While the Monster Lure was way too effective at attracting monsters even at level 1, Detonate was a weird skill that was
|hard to set up, unreliable and weak even if it hit. These changes will make investments into both of these more rewarding.
ROGUE MASTERY
————-
|Previously considered a rather weak mastery except for Lethal Strike and the very powerful Mandrake effect, a few more
|tweaks to poison and bleeding will allow the masters of subterfuge to shine on their own.
Envenom Weapon:
– Now does its damage over 3 seconds instead of 6
Envenom Weapon – Toxin Distillation:
– Switched +% Poison and +%Duration buff values
Envenom Weapon – Mandrake:
– Halved chance of confusion
|Having the same duration as other poison effects allows Envenom to stack with these on weapons and Throwing Knives
|while having extra duration rather than damage % on the skill leaves more room to improve it with gear bonuses later.
Poison Gas Bomb
– Does 33% more Poison Damage and over 4 seconds
Poison Gas Bomb – Shrapnel
– Does 33% more Bleeding Damage and over 4 seconds
Open Wound
– Adds an extra 12 Bleeding over 3 seconds per level
Calculated Strike:
+ Empowered arrows pierce through all targets
Calculated Strike – Lucky Hit:
– Activation chance increased to 44%
– Physical Damage increased by 100% and does an extra 6 per level
– Pierce Damage modifier increased by 20% per level
– Now does 100% increased Bleeding Damage and over 3 seconds
|Lucky Hit was very weak considering that only one effect may or may not activate on every 4th hit. The piercing arrow is an
|added boon to make bows a little more useful to classes other than Hunters, which may become a theme with other LMB skills.
Lay Trap / Improved Fire Mechanism
– Moved the extra health from IFM into the base skill (also +100, at +5 per level)
Lay Trap – Rapid Construction
– Cooldown is reduced by 1 second per level instead of using -%recharge
Throwing Knives:
+ Cooldown is reduced by 0.4 seconds per level
– Chance to pierce was set to 10%
Throwing Knives – Flurry of Knives:
– Increased energy cost by 200%
– Halved +% Pierce Damage bonus
|Knife Throwers are a fun variety of Rogue that we wanted to keep in the game in spite of the necessary -%recharge caps.
|So Knives received an innate cooldown reduction on their base skill (up to 0) with a few other changes to balance it out.
STORM MASTERY
————-
Storm Nimbus:
– Increased Cold Damage by 50%
+ Now grants half of ist basic effect to all pets
Storm Nimbus – Heart of Frost:
+ Now also increases Frostburn Damage
Storm Nimbus – Static Charge:
+ Now also increases Electrical Burn Damage
Energy Shield:
– Now aborbs a percentage of Cold and Lightning Damage for 100 seconds
Energy Shield – Reflection:
– Increased base chance to reflect from 5% to 25%
– Doubled the amount of damage reflected
|The eponymous effect of Reflection was abysmally weak, with people looking for it getting other skills like Defiance orΒ
|Trance of Empathy instead. This buff should make it a nice addition for the sturdier Stormcaller.
Thunderball:
– Increased Lightning Damage by 100%
– Initial maximum damage lowered by 30 in favor of a +3 per level increase
+ Reduces Defensive Ability by 25% for the duration of the stun
Thunderball – Concussive Blast:
– Increased Lightning Damage by 100%
Freezing Blast:
– Lowered Damage Absorption to 70%
+ Frozen enemies have -100 Physical Resistance (Absorption still applies)
+ Radius increases by an extra 0.1m per level
– Does Frostburn Damage instead of Cold Damage every second
|On top of making Storm’s crowd control skills more attractive, the change to Freezing Blast makes it a useful tool
|for Strength-based characters who can now shatter frozen enemies with blunt Physical Damage.
Storm Wisp – Eye of the Storm
– Removed redundant damage protection info
Spell Breaker
– Now does 10 Physical Damage per level (+50% to Magical) rather than +15 to Magical
Spell Breaker – Spell Shock:
+ Now inflicts some Electrical Burn Damage for the duration of the Disruption
DEFENSE MASTERY
—————
|Defense is a great Mastery with many good skills to invest in, to the point that weaker ones are never raised beyond level 1.
|We are happy to make your choices even more difficult with these buffs.
Battle Awareness
– Increased Defensive Ability bonus by 150%
Battle Awareness – Iron Will
– Added resistances against Sleep and Conversion of pets
– Lowered initial value to 20%
Batter – Rend Armor
– Increased Armor Reduction by 200%
Rally
– Increased initial heal by 200%, minus 300
+ Added new cast effect
|At a 45 second cooldown the impact of casting Rally should be siginficant.
|Now a Defender with levels in this skill has the potential to bring his whole team back into the fight.
Adrenaline
– Duration now scales from 10s to 17.5s
Quick Recovery
– Block Recovery Time Reduction lowered to 25-81%
|Getting up to 90% out of one skill made it a litte too easy to attain non-stop blocking, so QR gets a slight nerf.
Shield Charge
– Improved animation
Pulverize
– Reduced physical damage by 50%
Shield Smash
– Now reduces DA by 50% on all levels
+ Added physical damage equal to that of Disable
+ Added individual animation
|Whatever reducing DA by over 100% was meant to do, the skill still accomplishes the same… and looks better.
Concussive Blow
– Stun modifier returns increase with each level
+ Now also works with axes
|Axes needed a little love. π
WARFARE MASTERY
—————
|Warfare is in a pretty good spot except for a few number tweaks. Thanks to the new Strength scaling, even skills that
|inflict a flat amount of Physical Damage, like the Battle Rage tree, can now be viable picks throughout the game.
Tumult:
– Now does its Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds
Cross Cut:
– Now does 50% more Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds
Duel Wield:
+ Adds 10 Physical Damage to both hits
Weapon Training:
– Now gives 30+32/level OA instead of % increases
War Wind
– Damage range expanded from -28% to +49%
War Wind – Lacerate:
– Now does its Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds
– Corrected skill description
War Horn – Doom Horn:
– Armor Reduction increased by 100%
Battle Rage:
– OA Bonus reduced to 33%
– Adds 2 extra physical damage per level
Battle Rage – Crushing Blow:
– Adds 8-11 extra physical damage per level
Battle Rage – Counter-Attack:
– Increased Retaliation Damage by 200%
Onslaught:
+ Now also increases arrow speed by 15-114%
– Corrected skill description
P.S.:Direct cooldown reductions are not being displayed by the tooltips yet. But they are there.