Let's start at the beginning.
The above image is from the character screen of the Original Titan Quest. Titan Quest is similar to Diablo 2 and 3 in the sense that it is a hack and slash adventure game where you get sent on various quests and fight badguys.
The thing that sets Titan Quest apart from some of the other hack and slash games is that you don't play one set character class with a lot of flavour to it like a Paladin or a Necromancer or a Sorceress with distinctive looks.
Instead you choose and name and to be male or female and start the game. At your first level up, you get to choose a Mastery. They are:
Warfare - Fight hand-to-hand, dual-wielding weapons.
Defense - Hand to hand and shield.
Hunter - Spear and bow skills.
Rogue - Stabbing and poison.
Nature - Spells and summoning multiple creatures.
Earth - Fire spells, enchantments and one summon.
Storm - Lighting and Cold spells, enchantments and one summon.
Spirit - Spells around Lifedrain and debuffs and one summon.
Then you play the game some more and at level 8 you get to choose a second Mastery and this determines your final Class.
Depending on how you pair these up dramatically changes the way that you play the game. Do you mix to combat orientated Masteries? Do you mix Magic and Combat? Magic and Magic? You could go with a character that uses a bow and magic.
Sometimes when you mix two Masteries, you need to choose to favour one skill over the other and use the weaponry that makes that selection work best and thus making it possible for one Class to be played in a variety of ways.
The picture above shows Kharnak, the level 21 Juggernaught. This is Defense and Earth. He is no where near a max build but at level 21 you should start seeing the flavour of this character class.
Mace and Shield with Earth spells to make him hit harder and set the world on fire around him! That is what the Juggernaught does! At later levels he becomes a massive rock that smashes through hordes and lives through most attacks.
Let's look at the story.
SPOILER ALERT
The storyline of the first game follows along the lines that the prison weakens that kept the Titan Typhus from roaming around the world killing everyone, including the Gods. Typhus is the God Killer and so powerful that the Gods could only bind him down.
The Titan has followers, the powerful Telkine and together with armies of beastmen and demons, the Titan was freed.
You are meant to stop Typhus, but you don't make it in time and thus have to fight the fearsome Titan. In order to get there, you fight your way across Greece, Egypt, Babylon, and China and end up fighting Typhus on Mount Olympus.
Thus concludes the vanilla game where Zeus speaks to you and explains that you have proven mortals capable of handling their own business and that the Gods will now depart from this realm, effectively sealing Olympus from the mortal realm.
Great. All is well right? Not really.
Suffice to say that Zeus messed up. He actually messed up in an astounding amount of ways really, but basically Zeus and the Olympian Gods left the mortal plane alone... except for Hades.
So firstly, the afterlife still exists, where dead people go... or at least dead Greeks go. That part is not clear see below. The realm of the dead for both the good, bad and the ugly is ruled by a single Greek God: Hades.
From Elysium to Tartarus, this God is in charge of everyone. He decided NOT to leave the mortal realm and instead become the master of both planes of existance.
The heroes in Elysium revolted and started a war with the other denizens under Hades' command, slowing their advance. One of their mages, reached out to you, the Titan-slayer to help them.
This expansion adds the Mastery of Dream. Which means there are new classes for each combination of the previous Masteries. Dream deals in tances, psionic attacks and also has a summon.
Above is pictured a Ritualist, which is Dream and Nature Masteries, a pet build.
As I said Spoilers.
You do some quests for a witch, who opens a portal for you to the location of the entrance to the Underworld. You get down there and start at the River Styx and go through... hell wink wink... to get to Hades and kick him in his shins.
Great now you are Gods-bane too... but then...
You guessed it. You go to the north where it is cold. Your character finally leaves their loin cloth behind and starts wearing actual pants! Of course, it is up to you whether or not you want to wear long pants or continue to "Wys jou vleis".
But you did not go there for pants.
The Warrior Princess Ylva seeks you, the Titan-Slayer-Gods-Bane-Person, in the Greek city of Corinth because the Northern Gods seem to be attacking the people there and they heard that you are kind of good at sorting things like that out.
Now, like I said above, Zeus seemed to drop another ball there. He said he and the Gods would leave the mortal realm... but then never checked on Hades... he also did not take into account that there are OTHER Gods.
You full on travel to Valholl (Valhalla) and fight Asgardian and Aesir there which means there is ANOTHER afterlife realm that is connected to that specific mythology... which really makes me wonder WHO ELSE is still rummaging around on earth in this story!
Anyway, you fight your way to Woden (Odin) and then get sent to fight Surtur the King of the Fire Giants of Norse Mythology who brings about Ragnarok, the end of the world.
And you kick HIM in the shins too.
This expansion adds the Rune Mastery and another increasingly diverse set of classes to the mix. Above pictured is a Berserker. Warfare and Rune Masteries. When Ragnarok came out, I started a new character and fought my way from the beginning till the end with the Berserker, and defeated Surtur.
All is well for like a brief moment... but then...
Who you gonna call?
Titan-Slayer-Gods-Bane-Giant-Kicking-Person!
I am a little vague on this part of the story. The Atlantis Expansion is a side-story type of expansion. After going through what you have, you discover that there was another Telkine lurking about stirring trouble.
The Telkine woke the primordial Mesapotamian Goddess Tiamat in Atlantis to stir nonse I guess. It ends with you putting all that to rest and allowing Atlantis to finally fully sink.
Or something. I have only done this once with my Berserker and going back into the game does not give me the introduction to those quests because i completed them... so I have forgotten the finer details.
This expansion does not add another Mastery, instead it added an new highest level of skills to each Mastery.
And then finally...
Looks like we are going back to the Orient!
There is a new Mastery called a Nedian - A alchemist of sorts.
Now, Titan Quest has three difficulty levels. Once you finish the game in Normal, you unlock the Epic difficulty, taking your established character and start from the beginning. Once you are done with this you unlock Legendary. Both of those come with special bosses that only appear in these versions. On an old PC in OG Titan Quest, I had two Legendary characters who fought the Hydra in Greece and a few other monsters.
This new expansion adds the extra Mastery, 4 new Acts to the game!
BUT
Only for Legendary Difficulty and you would need to complete Ragnarok on legendary to get there!!!
I am a completionist... I really want to get to it. Why not post about it on Hive?
So I will do so! I will go ahead and take a brand new character and use the new Mastery. As I did when Ragnarok came out. The question is: What secondary Mastery do I go for?
I have whittled it down to 3 choices:
Daoist: Nedian and Warfare
Monk: Nedian and Defense
Wu: Nedian and Earth
Those are my top picks but I would not mind another option.
So go ahead! You vote for your favourite of those three or even suggest a different build and I will need to go from the beginning with that character!
Let me see what you all say!
PS: I have started the process to make one of nearly every Class in the game, now there is another 10 new combinations. I don't mind playing anything.
