In the initial Early Access release, you will have access to the Earth, Storm and Warfare masteries, with many more coming as we drop our updates. You’ll be picking these early in the campaign, as we want you to experience the possible synergies between them without much of a gap between the two unlocks.
Our overarching goal is to make you feel like you’re a hero blessed by the gods themselves, possessing superhuman powers. Improving and growing your powers will be a perilous journey, but this will be necessary in order to survive against Nemesis.
As for the actual mechanics, you will be able to equip a maximum of 10 skills in your ability bar. This will allow for a wide range of playstyles, such as ones where you focus on a primary damage skill and a handful of support skills, to builds where you utilize several alternate primary damage skills with several support skills. Titan Quest II will greatly reward you when you work out skill synergies, but will also cater to those who heavily invest into a more limited toolkit.
In past blog posts we already mentioned that we will be offering separate active and passive points within skill trees, and that your active abilities can be customized via modifiers. So this time, let’s talk a bit more about what’s in the masteries instead, and we’ll also show some modifier examples.
Earth
Combine fire and earth magic to leave the battlefield in ruins.
- Many of your abilities and modifiers revolve around setting the battlefield ablaze and engulfing your enemies in flames.
- Utilize fire in a controlled manner, or completely let go of any regard for safety and sacrifice your own health in favor of maximum destruction.
- Cause enemies to burn over time.
- Trying to not get burned, but still tempted by this mastery? Take control over earth and rock to shake things up a little, such as with earthquakes
Fissure is a line AoE skill where you break the ground open in front of you, dealing strike damage. With the Lava Fissure modifier, the fissure gets filled with lava, now dealing fire damage as well, at the cost of extra energy.
Adding in the Additional Fissures modifier will reduce your damage, but spawn extra fissures, helping you cover a much larger area.
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Storm
Take control over the battlefield with the powers of ice and lightning.
- From area of effect abilities that regularly deal damage, to modifying abilities to also electrocute enemies on hit, fighting with the power of Storm will result in a battlefield full of thunder and lightning!
- Use ice abilities to chill or even freeze your enemies, giving you total control over what happens in the next few moments.
- Utilize lightning to shock and electrocute your enemies, locking them in place.
Cyclone is a static circular AoE skill where you create a whirling storm, dealing cold damage. With the Blizzard modifier, more damage gets dealt, and Chill/Freeze has a chance to be applied to enemies.
The Personal Storm modifier puts a smaller version of Cyclone around your character, following you around, allowing you to either stack the cyclones, or to hit more enemies at once.
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Warfare
Display your expertise in combat, becoming the ultimate warrior.
- Warfare features attacks for all weapon types, giving you significant freedom to design your build.
- This even includes abilities specially designed for ranged weapons other than magic staves. A warrior can be a juggernaut wading into the fray or one who specializes in attacking from afar.
- Support abilities help with getting into and staying in close combat, such as via leaping into battle, or stunning enemies nearby with a powerful stomp.
Leap is a versatile mobility skill, allowing you to jump into combat, or out of trouble, while dealing some strike damage. The Cooldown Charge mod allows you to cast Leap twice in a row, at the cost of a longer cooldown.
Seismic Leap will increase your damage on landing, while also dealing damage at your launch position.
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Bringing It All Together
When picking your abilities, we want you to think about how to form interconnections between your two masteries. We are ensuring this via global mechanics that all masteries will feature in some form - sometimes via base abilities, other times via modifiers. For example, you could build up status stacks with a Warfare ability, and then consume the stacks with a Storm ability for a more powerful effect there.
Different masteries will be offering different global mechanics, allowing for unique interactions between specific mastery pairs that not all others can cover.
We will soon be sharing some more gameplay footage, so stay tuned--you will get to see all of this in action!
