Haruspex Build Guide - Titan Quest
Skill Trees: Hunting and Dream
Primary Skills: Psionic Touch, Takedown (Spear), Phantom Strike, Spear Dance (Spear), Marksmanship (Throwing/Bow), Trance of Convalescence, Study Prey, Art of the Hunt, Call of the Hunt, Distort Reality
Important Stats: -Recharge, +% Increased Pierce Damage, +% Increased Pierce Ratio. For survivability I recommend Attack Damage Converted to Health
Attributes: You will want to primarily put your points into Dexterity since you do Piercing Damage. Put extra points into Strength so you can use gear
The Haruspex build in Titan Quest is a combination of Hunting/Dream and one of the most powerful ones. It was nerfed a little bit with Anniversary edition but it is still insanely powerful. With this build you're able to use Bows, Throwing Weapons or Spears, I personally prefer Spear since I think it synergizes much better with Dream.
With Bows or Throwing Weapons you will definitely want to max out the Marksmanship line in Hunting, Marksmanship will be your left click attack. If you're a Spear Haruspex you'll want to put points into Psionic Touch in Dream since that will be your left click attack. I recommend though you not continue up the tree very far since the Psionic Beam passive at the top is for staves only.
As far as gear for the Haruspex goes the most important thing you can get for your character is gear with -Recharge (Cooldown reduction) on it. With enough -Recharge you will be able to reduce the cooldown of Call of the Hunt enough that you're able to keep it up 24/7 giving you an insane damage boost. This is the first thing that makes this build overpowered. Examples of -Recharge gear (Tracker's Hood, Odysseus' Armor, Polydegmon, Talisman of the Jade Emperor) For a full list check my List of -Recharge gear.
Next up you have 2 options available to you in order to significantly boost your DPS even further. +% Pierce Damage and +% Increased Pierce Ratio. You can find +% Piercing Damage on items like (Apollo's Will, Tracker's Hood) and Philip's March and Philip's Unity are both dex based items that have Increased Pierce Ratio on them. You may have noticed Tracker's Hood falls into 2 categories that are very helpful for us which makes this pretty much a best in slot item for the build.
In addition to selecting items that boost your damage you'll also want to make sure you have enough survivability to survive incoming damage. Typically on my Haruspex I try to stack Attack Damage Converted to Health items along with the damage boosting ones. Items like Necklace of Harmonia will help significantly in keeping you alive.
With all of our gear choices out of the way it's time to explain exactly how this build is played. Keep in mind that the playstyle of this build will vary slightly depending on what sort of weapon you're using, I will explain both setups differently below. Before we jump into that though let's talk about the things that are universal for Haruspex.
Assuming you got enough -Recharge gear for your character you'll want to keep Call of the Hunt active on yourself at all times. Even if you can't keep it up 24/7 you'll want to hit it each time it's off cooldown. Summon Nightmare, Trance of <whatever you choose> and Herbal Remedy you'll want to keep active on your character at all times too.
Every single fight you'll also want to make sure you use Study Prey as well. Usually I open every battle with Study Prey on my enemies. Those are the only things I think are universal across all Haruspex builds.
How to play Spear Haruspex: Psionic Touch is your left click, Study Prey or Phantom Strike for right click. Your highest damage dealing attack is Phantom Strike and you should use it constantly. Take Down, Spear Dance and Distort Reality are all abilities you can use with this build too.
How to play Bow & Throwing Weapon Haruspex: Marksmanship is your left click, Study Prey right click. Unless you add in additional abilities like Distort Reality all you'll be doing is using Study Prey on every enemy and spamming Marksmanship. It can be boring but man oh man do you deal a ton of damage.
Since there are so many different abilities for this build I will go over each individually to give you more detailed information.
(Dream - Spear) Psionic Touch: This is your left click ability, essentially your auto attack. I like to max it out but I don't put points into the final ability in the tree which is staff only.
(Hunting - Spear) Take Down: This allows you to very quickly charge at an enemy like Phantom Strike and can be very useful in getting out of a group of enemies too if you are surrounded. Some builds don't use this ability but I like it.
(Dream - Spear) Phantom Strike: Your main damaging ability, I put it on Right Click. This ability has so many uses, it does amazing damage and AoE and is great for initiating fights, it's also a great escape tool if you're surrounded and can click on a far away enemy. I max this ability early along with the ability it's tied to.
(Hunting - Spear) Spear Dance: This is an Atlantis ability and one that I don't see many builds using (probably because when those guides were written the ability didn't exist). It's a combo damage and CC ability. It deals decent damage to all enemies around you and fears them for a short duration. I like to Phantom Strike into a large pack of enemies then use Spear Dance to fear some of them and Distort Reality to stun every remaining enemy around me. This allows me to easily make the large packs more manageable, by the time the feared enemies get back to me I already have a few enemies dead.
(Hunting - Bow & Throwing Only) Marksmanship: This is your left click ability. Throwing Weapons are a better choice than bows. Max out the other two skills in the tree with Marksmanship, all in all this is a bit underwhelming since Anniversary Edition as it got a nerf.
(Dream) Trance of Convalescence: Definitely the best of the 3 trance abilities in Dream. It's an active buff that you cast on yourself once then forget about unless it gets dispelled or you die.
(Hunting) Study Prey: Short term debuff that you will want to put on all enemies before you stab them in the face or shoot them in the face. The build basically revolves around using this debuff on enemies then destroying them.
(Hunting) Art of the Hunt: This is an active buff that you cast on yourself and it will reserve some of your available Energy. The two passives in the skill tree above it are what make it very powerful.
(Hunting) Call of the Hunt: Your Boss killer ability. Using this along with Study Prey on a boss allows you to chunk off their HP with each attack. If you stack -Recharge Delay on your gear as best you can then you can greatly increase the up time of this ability on yourself and use it constantly instead of just on bosses. Stacking -Recharge Delay is how your make yourself insanely overpowered because it lets you always use Call of the Hunt.
(Dream - Spear) Distort Reality: Great ability for Spear Haruspex's but less great for Bow/Throwing. I got Distort Reality when I was level 60+ on my Haruspex and mostly let it benefit from the +Skills on my gear. The Stun component on this ability is great for all melee characters since it works on pretty much every monster in the game.
(Hunting) Herbal Remedy: When you max out this ability it'll give you some Health Regeneration as well as 100% Poison Resistance. The main thing we're using this ability for is the Poison Resistance though since it allows us extra wiggle room as far as our gear goes. Not needing so much Poison Resist on our gear opens up other gearing opportunities.
Other Tips:
- If you're struggling in Titan Quest and need some help check out my Best Leveling Abilities Guide, my Titan Quest F.A.Q or my Titan Quest Tips & Tricks pages for a lot of helpful info about this game. Additionally if you're curious what I think the Best Builds Are in Titan Quest check out that guide too. Last but not least you should consider getting TQVaultAE which is a third party program that nearly everyone who plays TQ uses.
- Curious what other sorts of gear you should get for this build? I have put together a long list of Overpowered Gear Combos in Titan Quest that you may find useful. The guide contains information for all sorts of build combinations and specializations; both offensive and defensive gear choices are included as well as Monster Infrequents you can farm for Best In Slot items for your characters.
- Gouge (Hunting Passive) has a slow attack animation for Spear characters and results in a net DPS loss due to the slow animation. It's recommended you skip it. Post about this for more info.
- If you need Vitality Resistance I recommend you carry an Apples of Idun Artifact on you to swap out to for bosses. To easily make Artifacts in Titan Quest use the TQVault Third Party Program, it's an amazing program and essential if you plan to play multiple builds in this game.