Ritualist Build - Titan Quest
Note: I have +5 to skills in total on my gear, +2 on my chest and +3 on my bracers. Keep that in mind when viewing these screenshots.
Skill Trees: Nature and Dream
Primary Skills: Psionic Touch, Plague, Call of the Wild (Wolves), Summon Nightmare, Trance of Convalescence, Sylvan Nymph, Heart of Oak
Important Stats: +Skills (almost required), Elemental, Vitality, Poison, Pierce Resistance as well as I recommend Life Leech
Attributes: The majority of your points will go into Intelligence but you want to make sure you have high enough Dexterity to always equip Stonebinder's Cuffs on each difficulty
Ritualist is a pet build in Titan Quest and it's arguably the most powerful pet build of them all, at least the most powerful one I have played. My Ritualist didn't have trouble with any boss in any difficulty and was able to stand in many attacks that most other builds had to dodge. The biggest downside I have found with this build is it's not the best in Multiplayer. Your pets suck in games with multiple players & can be targeted accidentally by other players' attacks too.
It's worth noting that your pets will be very strong in Acts 1 - 3 on every difficulty but they will become much less powerful in Acts 4 and 5. Also, your pets are weakest in Normal difficulty. In Epic and Legendary they gain a nice boost in survivability and damage.
For this build your main rotation is going to be casting Plague on enemies and then blasting away at them with Psionic Touch. Once you get the final passive in the Psionic Touch tree your primary left click attack will be much more powerful. It'll be like a beam that you channel and it passes through enemies, dealing lots of damage. Aside from your pets, this will be your primary form of damage.
Aside from getting Resists, +Skills is probably the most important upgrade you can get for your character. Pet Builds are highly dependent on +Skills because you need to make the pets as powerful as possible. In this game you can go 4 over the base skill, since wolves cap at 16 Skill Points you can go 4 over for a max of 20 into the skill.
Below you will find a list of each ability that you'll be using on the Ritualist as well as a little bit of information about the ability. Keep in mind that some passive abilities in the Ritualist tree are one point wonders; use my screenshots above and remember that I have +5 to Skills.
(Nature) Call of the Wild: This is one of your most important skills for the build and for leveling. Max it out as early as possible and get +3 Skills as early as possible too as it'll allow you to summon 3 wolves. Survival Instinct and Strength of the Pack passives need to be maxed as well.
(Nature) Heart of the Oak: At max rank gives you and your pets +85% Health, additionally the Permanence of Stone passive will give you and your pets 31% Elemental Resistances too.
(Nature) Plague: Spread the Plague everywhere you go. It's a fairly weak DoT but the debuff on it is extremely powerful and will increase the amount of damage you deal as well as the damage your pets deal.
(Nature) Sylvan Nymph: I dump my extra Skill Points into the Sylvan Nymph as well as the 3 passive abilities tied to it once I am done all of the other important skills for this build.
(Dream) Psionic Touch: This is your left click attack and the main way you will deal damage outside of your pets. Max this as well as all of the passives tied to it (the final passive at the top of the tree is the most important).
(Dream) Summon Nightmare + Master Mind: Your Dream skill tree pet. The Master Mind ability it comes with is almost more important than the pet itself since it will boost the damage of all your other pets by a flat % amount.
(Dream) Trance of Convalescence: By far the best Trance in the Dream tree, especially powerful for this build since it'll put the buff on your pets as well as yourself. It will give you Damage Absorption as well as Health Regen (1% per rank). So long as you keep this Trance up your pets will constantly be healed without you having to do a thing.
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.
- Get Call of the Wild ASAP and keep putting points into it until you get your two wolves
- Get Trance of Convalescence after Call of the Wild
- Farm Stonebinder's Cuffs on every difficulty for the +Skills if you don't have any hand me downs from your other characters. This build is insanely dependent on +Skills gear