Titan Quest v1.22 Patch Released on PC

As Nordic Games charges ahead toward their goal to release an enhanced version of Titan Quest and Titan Quest: Immortal Throne on PC, there have been quite a few updates that anyone who owns the Steam version of the action RPG should pay attention to if another play-through of the mythology-based title is in your near future. Here are the full notes for the most recent v1.22 patch:

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Titan Quest 1.22
by Nordic Games
10th May 2016
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Legend

"+": Added feature or improvement.
"-": Bug fix, change or removal.
"|": Comments

General Items
-----------------
+ Optimized world loading to minimize pauses and edited specifically problematic areas

- Further performance improvements

- Fixed window positioning in 1280x720 resolution

- Fixed "Trade" and "Cancel" buttons not working in the MP trade window when the UI scaling option was used.

- Fixed bad items aligment in the trade window when the UI scaling option was used.

- Sandwraiths can no longer be confused by too many projectiles

- Attribute points now yield 40 Health or Energy per invested point

- Updated Templates.arc

EARTH MASTERY
-------------

|Earth is basically a strong Mastery and great for fire mages but offered surprisingly little to high-level fighters.

|So in addition to the new physical damage scaling on spells we added some late-game melee utility to existing skills.

Earth Enchantment:

+ Now also increases Burn Damage

+ Radius increases by 10% per additional level

Volativity:

+ Now also increases Burn Damage

+ Also increases Physical Damage (half as much)

Heat Shield:

- Now aborbs a percentage of Fire Damage for 100 seconds

|Heat Shield was being used as a 1-point physical resistance buff that deactivates upon contact with fire.

|With this change we hope it can better fulfill its actual purpose.

Stoneform:

- Grants an extra 3 Life Regernation per additional level

- Life Regeneration starts at 10

Stoneform - Molten Rock:

- Inflicts an extra 3 Fire Retaliation Damage per additional level

|Popular for their initial effects, both of these skills were classic "one-point-wonders" that offered little incentive to

|invest more. With these buffs they should be a viable alternative to consider for spending your hard-earned points.

Core Dweller

- Changed water step sound

Volcanic Orb - Fragmentation:

- Changed fragment explosion effects to better represent the radius

Volcanic Orb - Conflagration:

- Increased Burn Damage by 150%

|As opposed to what its description implies, Conflagration does not actually affect the radius of the Orb itself.

|It is an independent effect and, as such, was much too weak.

Ring of Flame:

+ Added new effect that better represents the radius

- Increased damage by 50%

- Changed Mana Cost per second to 25% of damage inflicted

Ring of Flame - Soften Metal:

+ Causes % OA Reduction instead of x Reduced Physical Damage

- Changed Mana Cost per second to 25% of damage inflicted

|RoF tended to be a very strong pick early on while both the damage and (absoulte) damage reduction became negligible later.

|With these changes it will remain more relevant while the scaling mana cost discourages early maxing.

Flame Surge

+ Enemies hit have their Defensive Ability reduced by a percentage for 3 seconds

Flame Surge - Barrage

- Increased Burn Damage by 100%

- Reduces Flame Surge base cooldown by 0.6 seconds per level (zero cooldown at level 10) instead of %

+ Reduces Flame Surge mana cost according to the skill's description

Flame Surge - Flame Arch

- Adds more Fire Damage (half of Flame Surge's numbers) rather than increasing Fire by a percentage

+ Adds a 5% chance for 1 second of fear

|Finally, Flame Surge was the model of a sub-par skill for several reasons.

|These changes should make it an interesting pick for mages of all levels, while the %-Based DA reduction rewards fighters

|who still employ it later on with guaranteed critical hits.

HUNTING MASTERY
---------------

Scatter Shot Arrows:

+ Now do 80% of their damage as Bleeding over 3 seconds

|Hunting is generally considered a very strong mastery, and these free armor-pericing splinters and their potential for

|excessive stacking in certain situations had a big part in it. This change will bring bow hunters more in line with other

|classes while strengthening their identity as Bleeding specialists.

Gouge:

- Increased Bleeding Damage by 50%

Take Down - Eviscerate:

- Increased Bleeding Damage by 150%

|Considering the amount of enemies that are immune to Bleeding effects, they deserve a buff even with dexterity scaling.

Wood Lore:

- Now gives 30+32/level DA instead of % increases

|The way OA vs DA works, % increases to either become a lot more potent as the game progresses.

|But with the way Hunters scale there is no reason why they should not rather enjoy a good defense from the start.

Ensnare:

- Reduces DA by 300 instead of 33%

- Removed (periodic) pierce damage

- Increased duration gains with higher levels

+ Stopped net from turning with the target

Ensnare - Barbed Netting:

- Increased Bleeding DPS by 50%

- Made bleeding time correspond to net time

- Lowered initial damage by 15 but inflicts an extra 3 per level

Monster Lure:

- Increased size

- Reduced health by 33%

- Reduced anger generation outside of Provoke radius

- Fixed projectile targeting

+ Added death sound & death effect

Monster Lure - Detonate:

- Added a sound

+ Made the skill one 6m radius explosion with a new effect

- Added an extra 100% Fire Damage and 100% Physical Damage

+ Added 1s of Stun

+ Added difficulty-based damage multiplier

|While the Monster Lure was way too effective at attracting monsters even at level 1, Detonate was a weird skill that was

|hard to set up, unreliable and weak even if it hit. These changes will make investments into both of these more rewarding.

ROGUE MASTERY
-------------

|Previously considered a rather weak mastery except for Lethal Strike and the very powerful Mandrake effect, a few more

|tweaks to poison and bleeding will allow the masters of subterfuge to shine on their own.

Envenom Weapon:

- Now does its damage over 3 seconds instead of 6

Envenom Weapon - Toxin Distillation:

- Switched +% Poison and +%Duration buff values

Envenom Weapon - Mandrake:

- Halved chance of confusion

|Having the same duration as other poison effects allows Envenom to stack with these on weapons and Throwing Knives

|while having extra duration rather than damage % on the skill leaves more room to improve it with gear bonuses later.

Poison Gas Bomb

- Does 33% more Poison Damage and over 4 seconds

Poison Gas Bomb - Shrapnel

- Does 33% more Bleeding Damage and over 4 seconds

Open Wound

- Adds an extra 12 Bleeding over 3 seconds per level

Calculated Strike:

+ Empowered arrows pierce through all targets

Calculated Strike - Lucky Hit:

- Activation chance increased to 44%

- Physical Damage increased by 100% and does an extra 6 per level

- Pierce Damage modifier increased by 20% per level

- Now does 100% increased Bleeding Damage and over 3 seconds

|Lucky Hit was very weak considering that only one effect may or may not activate on every 4th hit. The piercing arrow is an

|added boon to make bows a little more useful to classes other than Hunters, which may become a theme with other LMB skills.

Lay Trap / Improved Fire Mechanism

- Moved the extra health from IFM into the base skill (also +100, at +5 per level)

Lay Trap - Rapid Construction

- Cooldown is reduced by 1 second per level instead of using -%recharge

Throwing Knives:

+ Cooldown is reduced by 0.4 seconds per level

- Chance to pierce was set to 10%

Throwing Knives - Flurry of Knives:

- Increased energy cost by 200%

- Halved +% Pierce Damage bonus

|Knife Throwers are a fun variety of Rogue that we wanted to keep in the game in spite of the necessary -%recharge caps.

|So Knives received an innate cooldown reduction on their base skill (up to 0) with a few other changes to balance it out.

STORM MASTERY
-------------

Storm Nimbus:

- Increased Cold Damage by 50%

+ Now grants half of ist basic effect to all pets

Storm Nimbus - Heart of Frost:

+ Now also increases Frostburn Damage

Storm Nimbus - Static Charge:

+ Now also increases Electrical Burn Damage

Energy Shield:

- Now aborbs a percentage of Cold and Lightning Damage for 100 seconds

Energy Shield - Reflection:

- Increased base chance to reflect from 5% to 25%

- Doubled the amount of damage reflected

|The eponymous effect of Reflection was abysmally weak, with people looking for it getting other skills like Defiance or 

|Trance of Empathy instead. This buff should make it a nice addition for the sturdier Stormcaller.

Thunderball:

- Increased Lightning Damage by 100%

- Initial maximum damage lowered by 30 in favor of a +3 per level increase

+ Reduces Defensive Ability by 25% for the duration of the stun

Thunderball - Concussive Blast:

- Increased Lightning Damage by 100%

Freezing Blast:

- Lowered Damage Absorption to 70%

+ Frozen enemies have -100 Physical Resistance (Absorption still applies)

+ Radius increases by an extra 0.1m per level

- Does Frostburn Damage instead of Cold Damage every second

|On top of making Storm's crowd control skills more attractive, the change to Freezing Blast makes it a useful tool

|for Strength-based characters who can now shatter frozen enemies with blunt Physical Damage.

Storm Wisp - Eye of the Storm

- Removed redundant damage protection info

Spell Breaker

- Now does 10 Physical Damage per level (+50% to Magical) rather than +15 to Magical

Spell Breaker - Spell Shock:

+ Now inflicts some Electrical Burn Damage for the duration of the Disruption

DEFENSE MASTERY
---------------

|Defense is a great Mastery with many good skills to invest in, to the point that weaker ones are never raised beyond level 1.

|We are happy to make your choices even more difficult with these buffs.

Battle Awareness

- Increased Defensive Ability bonus by 150%

Battle Awareness - Iron Will

- Added resistances against Sleep and Conversion of pets

- Lowered initial value to 20%

Batter - Rend Armor

- Increased Armor Reduction by 200%

Rally

- Increased initial heal by 200%, minus 300

+ Added new cast effect

|At a 45 second cooldown the impact of casting Rally should be siginficant.

|Now a Defender with levels in this skill has the potential to bring his whole team back into the fight.

Adrenaline

- Duration now scales from 10s to 17.5s

Quick Recovery

- Block Recovery Time Reduction lowered to 25-81%

|Getting up to 90% out of one skill made it a litte too easy to attain non-stop blocking, so QR gets a slight nerf.

Shield Charge

- Improved animation

Pulverize

- Reduced physical damage by 50%

Shield Smash

- Now reduces DA by 50% on all levels

+ Added physical damage equal to that of Disable

+ Added individual animation

|Whatever reducing DA by over 100% was meant to do, the skill still accomplishes the same... and looks better.

Concussive Blow

- Stun modifier returns increase with each level

+ Now also works with axes

|Axes needed a little love. ;)

WARFARE MASTERY
---------------

|Warfare is in a pretty good spot except for a few number tweaks. Thanks to the new Strength scaling, even skills that

|inflict a flat amount of Physical Damage, like the Battle Rage tree, can now be viable picks throughout the game.

Tumult:

- Now does its Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds

Cross Cut:

- Now does 50% more Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds

Duel Wield:

+ Adds 10 Physical Damage to both hits

Weapon Training:

- Now gives 30+32/level OA instead of % increases

War Wind

- Damage range expanded from -28% to +49%

War Wind - Lacerate:

- Now does its Bleeding Damage over 3 seconds

- Corrected skill description

War Horn - Doom Horn:

- Armor Reduction increased by 100%

Battle Rage:

- OA Bonus reduced to 33%

- Adds 2 extra physical damage per level

Battle Rage - Crushing Blow:

- Adds 8-11 extra physical damage per level

Battle Rage - Counter-Attack:

- Increased Retaliation Damage by 200%

Onslaught:

+ Now also increases arrow speed by 15-114%

- Corrected skill description

P.S.:Direct cooldown reductions are not being displayed by the tooltips yet. But they are there.