I don’t remember when did I purchased this game but I started playing when it was just the Immortal Throne expansion. I stopped playing the game until they released the Anniversary Edition. Now I fnished the game including Ragnarok to unlock the Epic difficulty.
My Interest
I have not played Diablo II and someone once told me that Titan Quest is very similar to Diablo II. I can’t really agree or disagree but the closest I can compare it with is Torch Light. What attracted me to Titan Quest is that the story is about the Ancient Greek Pantheon. I love the Greek Mythology stories and I can’t wait to create a hero based on Achilles or Leonidas. So I rolled a Warden. It is the mastery class of Hunting and Defense. Hunting Mastery is the only mastery that improves the use of spears and the Defense Mastery improves the shield efficiency. Another class is the Conqueror, a combination of Warfare and Defense. As I play with these two classes, I would say that Leonidas is a Warden and Achilles is a Conqueror — it makes sense.
About Game News
When the Ragnarok expansion came out, every game news is rushing to post details about the expansion. Some reviews are not even complete given that they have only played the game for a few hours. When I look at the game news, I look for the game’s features, how much play time it offers, and is there a replay value. Other than those, the reporters are simply giving information that everybody else has or simply making uneducated guesses. In my case, I rather play the game first before talking about it. so after 155 hrs, I think it’s time to talk about.
The Main Story
The game started with me as the unknown person who is capable of doing tasks that even the great General Leonidas is in awe. Little that he knows, I died several times before actually fulfilling the task of stopping the centaur boss. The satyr boss was not even a challenge since there was a regeneration shrine nearby and I simply stood there and killed the boss. The centaur is another story. While I was fighting the boss, several archers are just taking big chunks of my health. I have to disengage several times before I finally lured the boss away from the archers and we duke it out 1-v-1. Well, that was the first run of an ill-experienced player. Now when I roll a new class, I handle the situation like a pro.
After my audience with Leonidas, I was sent to meet the Oracle of Delphi. Meeting the Oracle is when the whole Titan Quest kicks off. I am to track down this titan and clean up his mess on the way. So I chased this titan from Greece, to Egypt, to Orient (Arabia to China), and then back to Greek at Mount Olympus when I fought the titan Typhon. After 10,000 deaths, I slew the titan and it was the time when Hades thought it’s time to rule the world — thus the Immortal Throne. So from Olympus, I went all the way down to the hell (the Underworld) and kicked Hades ass. Soon after killing Hades, the Asgardians are now making trouble.
When I started playing Titan Quest, I didn’t stop playing until I reached Egypt. Then I will restart the game with a new class build to see if the build makes the experience better or worst. I went through several builds and nothing really made sense for the most part so I picked the first one I made, the Warden, and finish the Egypt path. I stopped when the story path is now on the Orient. I didn’t finish the game until Ragnarok came out. When I went to the North, I finished the story path then unlocked the Epic difficulty.
The Expansions
Before Ragnarok, the original expansion was the Immortal Throne and my impression of this expansion is lackluster. The fights were too easy despite my crappy gear. The story also didn’t really made any sense. A lot of story tells a tale where Hades want to rule the world. I saw this in Disney’s Hercules and now in the Immortal Throne, yet they both failed to realize that if Hades was to succeed, it will be the end of him also. Hades is about “fair” judgment that can easily be perceived as merciless and cold, but he has no aspirations for world domination. It is simply out of character, thus making Hades a world conqueror will end the Hades as the god of the Underworld and become Hades the god of war and strife. Hades is not of a warring type of god thus the whole premise of the expansion is nonsensical. Despite this utter nonsense, I love the expansion. Elysium is a place I would like to stay in when I die, without the monsters attacking it, of course.
The Ragnarok expansion is a bit different and has more sense than that of the Immortal Throne. When I finished off Hades, I was summoned to the North to help out their struggles against the Asgardians. Well, the whole “Asgardian Gone Wild” is nothing but the ploy fabricated by none other than Loki himself. Why am I not surprised? Any bad thing that happened in Asgard is all Loki’s fault. The story and the twist were great, but I was left disappointed when I didn’t see Fenrir or Thor and the lackluster looking Freyja. Odin said that he will send Donar (Thor) to help me, but he never did. So I beat the expansion by first unknowingly aiding Loki to attack Asgard, then finding out Loki’s plot aiding the Asgardian against the giant’s invasion. I fought both Ice and Fire giants, only to find Thor already feasting instead of backing me up. I didn’t really need help but it would have been nice to see him in action even for a brief moment.
The Rune Mastery
The Ragnarok expansion also added a new mastery along with many combinations. The Rune Mastery is a bit of a puzzle since I still need to play around it even more. Combining it with Warfare gives me Berserker and using a pair of very fast melee and range weapon (throwing knives) makes this build a very fun experience. The Berserker build is the class I call the “50% Warrior”. The main focus of this build is to build up a very high hitpoint and maintain the health bar at 50%. This way, every time I take a hit, it will bring me down to 40% and trigger the Sacred Rage. When Sacred Rage triggers, the combat is officially over. The key here is Rune for Life and gear with +x% health. Vitality Damage and Leech are perfect stats on items too. Another build I made is the Thunderer, a basic lighting wielding warrior (Storm + Rune). Then there’s my experimental, the Stonespeaker. I don’t know what to do with this build yet, but we’ll see.
Overall Satisfaction
Since Thor didn’t come to back me up, I made the Thunderer and called him Thorim, named after the titan of the same name in World of Warcraft. Obviously, I went crazy with it and made several other classes. Assassin, Dreamkiller, Berserker, Brigand, Summoner, Elementalist, Ranger, Templar, Conqueror, and Stonespeaker. In all of my builds, I find the Conqueror is the weakest and so far I have not found a way to build him correctly so he won’t melt at poison and bleeding. With the Ragnarok expansion, I can create a level 40 character with 1 million starting gold. The problem I’m facing is that the level 40 characters didn’t start with items, thus I have to rely on the vendor to have the equipment I need. Since the vendor run in RNG, a lot of items didn’t come with resistance, especially against poison. So as Conqueror, I need to rely on potions but without resistance, the Conqueror melts in seconds. However, this gives the game a lot of replay value.
