Overview
Physical/piercing damage-oriented, dragon hunter (Hunting + Rune) build for Titan Quest AE: Ragnarok.
Introduction
This is a guide on the Spear Dragon Hunter (Hunting + Rune). This is my new favourite class since Ragnarok as it’s the most well-rounded character I’ve found in Titan Quest. This focuses on physical/piercing damage.
Why Hunting and Rune go very well together:
- In terms of defense, between themselves, they already gives the character a lot of resistance for Poison/Vitality/Bleeding, a good Defensive Ability boost and a good chance to avoid projectiles.
- Spear Hunter does very good single target damage (e.g. vs bosses), while Rune provides good AOE skills.
Pros:
- Well-rounded character with good offense and defense
- Very good at killing bosses while also good at AOE
- Consistent damage (no random chance)
- No short buffs that need to be refreshed frequently
Cons:
- Not the best AoE class.
Attribute Distribution
Roughly 1:2 for Strength and Dexterity, for example, split 1:1 until around level 45, then dump all points into Dexterity after that. Maybe a few points on Health/Energy, if needed.
Skill Distribution
Hunting:
- Art of the Hunt tree: full. Good offense and defense buffs
- Call of the Hunt tree: full. Good offense cooldown
- Study Prey tree: full. Good debuff
- Wood Lore: full. Good offense and defense buff
- Herbal Remedy: full or until you’ve reached 80% poison resistance with this buff. Good defense buff (add 100% Poison Resistance at level 10)
- Volley: full. Good offense skill
- Gouge: full. Decent offense skill. This is not important and can be left for last.
- Monster Lure: full. Good defense cooldown. Detonate: not necessary, maybe 1 point.
Rune:
- Runeword: Feather: full. Good offense buff.
- Rune of Life: full. Good offense and defense buff.
- Thunder Strike: full. Very good offense and AOE cooldown. Assign your right-mouse attack to Thunder Strike. Unleash: 1 point initially and more when you have spare points.
- Runeword: Explode: full (the basic skill only, Runeword: Burn is not necessary). Good AOE skill.
- Runeword: Absorb: full. Good defense skill.
- Sacred Rage: 1 point for the damage absorption effect. Frightening Power: full. Good defense skill.
- Rune Weapon: a few points initially, and put more when you have spare points. It’s because spear is a slow but hard-hitting weapon so most of the time you kill monsters in a few shots. 1 point into Energy Drain initially for the Attack Damage converted to Health, and more when you have spare points. Magical Charge: not important, put points there if you have spare. Assign your left-mouse attack to Rune Weapon.
Why some seemingly good skills are not taken:
- Take Down tree (Hunting): Thunder Strike is a better charge/right-mouse attack: does more damage in Legendary and is AOE.
- Energy Armor (Rune): this requires a lot of energy to be effective and falls off very quickly
Late Game/End-Game Set-Up
For late game (Legendary), this is what you should aim for (and you can achieve) in terms of set-up:
All skills: +4
Defense:
- Health: 5k+ in Act 1 Legendary and by Act 3 Legendary: 6k+.
- Defensive Ability: 1.4k+ in Act 1 Legendary and by Act 5 Legendary: 1.7k+. This level of DA gives good protection vs melee.
- Elemental Resistance: 40 – 50%+, except that Fire Resistance should be 80% or close to it. The reason is that some bosses have strong fire attack (Talos, Surtr).
- Pierce Resistance: 50%+, ideally close to 80%
- Vitality Resistance: 50%+
- Poison Resistance: 80% (easily achievable thanks to Herbal Remedy)
- Stun Resistance: 50%+, ideally close to 80%
- Bleeding Resistance: around 30 – 40%. In Act 1 and 2 Legendary you can even use a lower resistance.
- Change to avoid projectile: You already have 35% from Find Cover skill.
- Attack damage converted to Health: around 15 – 20%. This considerably increases the survivability of your character. While Rune skill gives you 4%, it’s not enough by itself.
Offense:
- Offensive Ability: 1k+ in Act 1 Legendary and by Act 5 Legendary: 1.2k+
- DPS without Cooldowns: in Act 1 Legendary, you should have around 5k+ DPS. By end of Act 5 Legendary, you should have around 10k DPS; this means DPS with Cooldowns (Call of the Hunt and Scroll of the Primal Chaos) would be 25k+.
Late Game Gears
Get a mix of legendaries and green gears (with relics/charms) to achieve the above offense/defense target (defense target is more important). The exact gears depend on what you can get, but some tips are:
- Arms slot: Stonebinder’s Cuffs for the +3 skills and elemental resistances. This can be farmed from the Gorgon Queens/Heroes.
- Head slot: a good one is a green one with Hallowed prefix which gives +1 to all skills and 50+% vitality resistance. This can be farmed from the shops.
- Weapon slot: A good green spear is one with Devouring suffix (gives Attack damage converted to Health) and some good prefix such as Veteran’s (+Physical Damage, +Offensive Ability, +Speed). This can then be enchanted with the Achilles relic to boost damage further. Just farm the shops until you get a good green spear.
- Artifact: Symbol of the Polymath is a good one, and should be quite easy to get.
- Scroll: Probably the best scroll in general is the Scroll of the Primal Chaos. For fast clearing of mobs, the Scroll of the Behemoth is also good.
- Relic: A good defensive relic is Amun-Ra’s Glory with bleeding/vitality/elemental resistance completion bonus (depends on what you need), and a good offensive relic is Herakles’ Might with +25% physical damage completion bonus. For weapon, a good one is Achilles relic with +25% physical damage completion bonus.
End-Game Gears
At end-game, you aim for best-in-slot gears given the target set-up. This is what I use:
- Weapon: Blacksteel Spike with Devouring suffix
[link]
Relic: Achilles relic with +25% physical damage completion bonus
[link] - Shield: Crest of Taurus
[link] - Head: A green Hallowed Helm of Immortality from the shop with Amun-Ra’s Glory relic (bleeding resistance completion bonus)
[link] - Chest: Ferrus Gnosi
[link] - Arms: Stonebinder’s Cuffs
[link]
Relic: Herakles’ Might with +25% physical damage completion bonus
[link] - Legs: Greaves of the Argonauts
[link] - Rings: double Apollo’s Will
[link] - Amulet: Myrmidon’s Pendant
[link] - Artifact: Symbol of the Polymath
[link]
Farming Spots
Best farming spots are:
- Gorgon Queens and cave (Act 1): for Stonebinder’s Cuffs and Epic/Legendary Spears
- Minoan Labyrinth, right before the last rebirth fountain (Act 1): for Stonebinder’s Cuffs
- Hydra (Act 1): for Legendary items and relics
- Telkine (Act 3): for Legendary items and Act 2/3 relics
- Fafnir (Act 5): for Legendary items and relics
- Land-End ground floor (Act 5): for the Blacksteel Spike. On average it takes around 20-30 runs, or around 400-500 fire giant kills to get one Blacksteel Spike. It took me a few hundreds runs to get a Blacksteel Spike with Devouring suffix.
Tactics
- Vs mobs: Cast Study Prey, then wait for melee to come in and AOE (Thunder strike) them, then cast Study Prey on ranged, charge in (Thunder strike) and kill them. Main thing is to position your thunder strike to one-shot as many mobs as possible. It usually takes 1 – 2 hits to kill a target.
If the mobs look potentially dangerous (e.g. lots of skeleton archers, dark elves…), cast Monster Lure, Study Prey and pull back a bit (so that the monsters attack the decoy), then attack.
If low on health, use Scroll of the Primal Chaos and Monster Lure.
- Vs bosses: Use Call of the Hunt and Scroll of the Primal Chaos, cast Study Prey, rush in. It usually takes less than 10 seconds to kill a boss. With End-Game gears, you can one-shot bosses such as Minotaur Lord and Chimera with Thunder strike.
Changelog
22 May 2018: Initial version
06 June 2018:
– Attribute Distribution: changed Strength:Dexterity ratio recommendation from 2:3 to 1:2
– Skill Distribution: added Monster Lure (full)
– Tactics: expanded Vs Mobs tactics
15 June 2018:
– Gears: added relic recommendation
– End-Game Gears: changed the shield
– Farming Spots: added spot for Act 2 relics
– Minor edits