On level up player receives 2 attribute points, which are used to improve your strength, dexterity, intelligence, health and energy.

One attribute point:
• improves strength, dexterity, or intelligence by 4;
  
• improves health or energy by 25 (vanilla);
  
• improves health or energy by 40 (beta-patch).

• Increases physical damage by percentage
  
  • One point increases physical damage by 0,2%
    
  • 500 points increase physical damage by 100%
    
  • This is just a milestones. They are NOT cumulative.
• Adds flat amount of physical damage
  
  • One point adds 0,04 physical damage
    
  • 25 points add 1 physical damage
    
  • This is just a milestones. They are NOT cumulative.
• Does not increase damage of physical spells, which is disappointing (changed in beta-patch).

• Increases pierce damage by percentage
  
  • One point increases pierce damage by 0,1%
    
  • 1000 points increase pierce damage by 100%
    
  • This is just a milestones. They are NOT cumulative.
• Adds flat amount of pierce damage
  
  • One point adds 0,03 pierce damage
    
  • 500 points add 15 pierce damage
    
  • This is just a milestones. They are NOT cumulative.
• One point increases Offensive Ability (OA) by 1
  
• One point increases Defensive Ability (DA) by 1
  
• Does not increase pierce damage of skills. (changed in beta patch)

• Increases elemental damage done
  
  • One point increases elemental damage by 0,15% approximately
    
  • 650 points increase elemental damage by 100%
    
  • This is just a milestones. They are NOT cumulative.
• Adds flat amount of elemental damage
  
  • One point adds 0,025 points of elemental damage
    
  • 40 points add 1 point of elemental damage
    
  • This is just a milestones. They are NOT cumulative.
• Increases elemental-related damage over time
  
  • 500 points increase burn damage by 100%
    
  • 500 points increase frostburn damage by 100%
    
  • 500 points increase electrical burn damage by 100%
• Increases mana regeneration by 0,01;
  
• every point Increases vitality damage by 0,2%.

Some stats have a maximum you can't exceed. Everything you invest above this "cap" is effectively lost.

• Movement Speed : 166%
  
• Attack Speed : 350% [needs testing]
  
• Attack speed with weapon: 222%
  
• Dual wield attack Speed: 200%
  
• Chance to Dodge : 80% (Beta-patch only)
  
• Chance to Avoid Projectiles : 80% (Beta-patch only)
  
• Reduced Mana Cost : 80% (Beta-patch only)
  
• Reduced Cooldowns : 80% (Beta-patch only)

Section outdated

Every time you attack an enemy, your Offensive Ability is compared to his Defensive ability. Based on this comparison your attack could:

• miss
  
• do reduced damage
  
• do improved damage
  
• score a critical hit

The exact calculation is as follows:

1) Calculate the variable PTH_Real = ( (OA - DA) / 10 ) + 100
2) Compare PTH_Real with multiple thresholds


3) Actual critical hit is determined as follows:
Multiply PTH_Real with a random number between 0 and 1.
If the result exceeds one of corresponding thresholds, then you score a critical hit. The highest threshold being surpassed determines the multiplier.

• If the result of multiplication is less than 100, you don't get a critical hit
  
• Surpasses 100 - your critical hit multiplier is 1.1
  
• Surpasses 105 - your critical hit multiplier is 1.2
  
• Surpasses 110 - your critical hit multiplier is 1.3
  
• Surpasses 115 - your critical hit multiplier is 1.4
  
• Surpasses 120 - your critical hit multiplier is 1.5

4) Useful notes.

• If you have a 'chance to dodge', it is checked separately before OA-DA check, so if dodge had been successful, the entire OA-DA mechanics are skipped for the hit in question.
  
• Important note - OA-DA mechanics come into play only if you was hit by melee attack. High DA won't prevent you from becoming a pin cushion.

After recieving a successful hit from an enemy, game runs a check where exactly you were hit, based on simple randomization.

• 40% chance to be hit in the torso
  
• 20% chance to be hit in the legs
  
• 20% chance to be hit in the arms
  
• 20% chance to be hit in the head

Thus, the amount of damage done is mitigated only by armor piece corresponding to the part you've been hit to. Your superb breastplate won't matter if you got hit into legs, that is.
The exception being rings, passive abilities and buffs, those are actually applied to every piece of your armor.

The armor works as a flat amount of damage mitigation. So the physical damage damage you have recieved in the torso is reduced by { Torso Armor amount + Armor on rings + Passive abilities + Buffs } * 0.66, where 0.66 is simply a balance coefficient. If you have a +x% armor absorbtion modifier, the coefficient is changed to 0.66*( 1 + x% / 100 ).

You may note that there are two different modifiers - +% armor protection and +% armor absorbtion. They are doing the same thing in general, but the former one is applied directly to armor, an the latter is applied to balance coefficient, as shown above. The difference is that by default, your armor can sink (absorb) only 66% (yes, the balance coefficient) of incoming physical damage, no matter how huge your armor is compared to damage being done.

Dual wield mechanics are quite simple. First of all, you can't dual wield without a certain skill with the same name from Warfare mastery. Even then, you can't dual-wield anything except daggers, swords, axes and maces. Spears won't do, even though they are one-hand weapons. When you are attacking while dual-wielding, you have a 50/50 chances to hit with main or off-hand weapon. If your weapons possess the different attack speed ratio, then the real attack ratio is the average of the two. This could be used to your advantage. Try mixing some good damaging mace with super fast dagger.

Then, there is a chance to hit with both weapons at once, which is listed in your Dual Wield skill hint.

Furthermore, there are numerous statements, that with dual-wield skill some modifiers on weapons are shared. E.g., if you have %damage and %attack speed on offhand weapon, it is shared on main weapon, and vice versa.

Just like dual-wielding is an unique mechanics of warfare mastery, shield bash is an unique mechanics of defence mastery. You may note that there are damage listed in shield's description. This damage is utilized every time you use a shield bash. It is physical and scales with strength.

A shield attack does not mean you don't get a hit with your weapon. Even though animation shows you doing a shield bash attack, you actually hit with your weapon and your shield at the same time.

Sources of shield bash attack are:

• Passives like Shield Smash, Disable, Pulverize
  
• Shield Charge
  
• Batter

Unless you are making something exotic like a dual-wielding Conqueror or armored mage, those skills are a must have for defenders. They improve your damage and provide you with multi-attack.

Unlike dualwielding, where flat modifiers from one weapon to another does not transfer, this was reported to be different for a shield. If you have a shield with +damage, it is applied to both weapon and shield.

Since all the passives are a %chance to be used without actual augmentation to your attack speed, they scale greatly with your attack speed.

And conclusion - when most people read 'defence mastery' they think about unkillable tanks that do little actual damage. This is somewhat different in TQ. Defence mastery in its core is a fairly good offensive mastery.

Shield block is basically a passive ability of every shield user to block X damage with an Y% chance. This ability have its own cooldown, the base cooldown is 3.0 seconds. So, after successful block, you can't score a block for the next 3.0 seconds.

This is actually pretty bad, since if you tank pack of white mobs with couple of yellow ones and a monster hero, weak hits of white mobs could proc your shield and run cooldown timer, while really serious enemies will hit you hard.

The cooldown could be reduced with the -%shield recharge modifier, which decreases the base cooldown by % listed. If you can stack up to 100% shield recharge, you will have zero cooldown, giving you ability to reliably tank packs of enemies.

The other shield-related modifier is +% block chance, which is additive with inherent %block chance on your shield.

Up to this point it was pretty simple and intuitive, now's the weird ones.

Unlike the armor, shield doesn't sink damage, it either negates it completely, or not. For example, if you have a shield with 75 damage block, and you got hit for 76 damage, you will still recieve full 76 damage even if you score shield block. So if you plan on using shields, always aim for the shield with the highest block damage amount. While highly outlevelled armour still gives you a degree of protection, highly outlevelled shield does not.

The good news is that your shield comes into play after armour and resistances are taken into account.

The second good news is that in TQ every damage source is calculated separately, so if you have a shield that blocks 75 damage, and you recieved 50 fire, 80 physical and 50 pierce damage in a single hit, then if you score a block you will recieve only 80 physical damage.

What was left, but is still important:

• Unlike OA-DA mechanics, shield works against both melee and ranged attacks.
  
• Unlike armor, shield blocks all kinds of damage, including DoTs like poison. The latter works based on average dps, so if you got hit with 150 damage over 3 seconds poison, and your 75 dmg block shield scored a block, you will negate all poison damage, since 150 / 3 = 50 < 75.
  
• Shield block is actually improved by your dexterity, a bit different for melee and projectiles
  • Projectile block chance is (%InherentShielBlock + %ShieldBlockModifier) * ( 1 + dex / 1000 ). So 500 dex will improve your total projectile block by 1.5.
    
  • Melee block chance is (%InherentShielBlock + %ShieldBlockModifier) - ( PHT_Real - 100 ) * 0.5. If you don't know what PTH_Real is, check the Offensive and Defensive ability section.

• 1. Physical damage. Physical damage is done by melee or bow attack, and certain spells too. Physical damage of melee and ranged attacks is affected by +%damage modifiers and scaled with strength. Physical damage of spells is affected by +%damage, but is not scaled with strength. Physical damage is reduced by %damage resistance, armor and damage absorbtion. First it is reduced by %damage resistance, then by armor, and damage absorbtion is the last but not least.
  
• 2. Fire/Cold/Lightning damage. Fire/Cold/Lightning damage is done by fire spells and weapons with +Fire/Cold/Lightning bonus. Fire/Cold/Lightning damage is affected by +%Fire/Cold/Lightning modifier, and scales with intelligence, and could be resisted by %Fire/Cold/Lightning resistance.
  
• 3. Burn/Frostburn/Electrical Burn damage. It is done by either weapons or spells. This damage scales with intelligence and is resisted by %Fire/Cold/Lightning resistance, but is not affected by +%Fire/Cold/Lightning damage. Burn damage types are always a damage over time. 300 damage during 3 seconds means 100 damage per second. There are +%burn/frostburn/electrical burn modifiers. While I've never seen the former two in the actual game, the latter, I mean +%electrical burn, could be found on some items and artefacts. +%electrical burn improves only damage, while duration remains the same.
  
• 4. Poison and bleed damage. Also done by weapons and spells alike. It is affected by +%poison/bleed damage modifiers, but are not scaled with any of stats, which makes it pretty silly to depend on them later in the game, unless you are very acquainted with the game. Poison/Bleed damage is reduced by %Poison/Bleed resistance. There is a modifier +%Poison duration. For example, you have 300 damage over 3 seconds, +50% poison duration and +50% poison damage. First, your base average DPS is 300/3 = 100. +%poison makes it 150 damage per second. +50%poison duration improves the duration from 3 to 4.5 seconds. So, you are doing 150 damage per second for 4.5 seconds, or 675 damage during 4.5 seconds, if you convert that to the format the game uses to display DoTs. Also, there is a rare modifier %reduced poison duration. This one decreases the duration of poisons applied to you by % listed.
  
• 5. Pierce damage. Pierce damage is done by weapons and skills. For a weapon piercing, check special section Pierce Damage. Basically, both weapon pierce damage and skills are improved by +%pierce damage. While weapon pierce damage is scaled with dexterity, pierce damage on skills isn't. Pierce damage is reduced by %pierce resistance.

Pierce damage is a type of damage in titan quest with unique mechanics.

The main source of pierce damage are certain weapons that could pierce, which is stated in their description as X% piercing. This means that X% of physical damage being done by a weapon is replaced (not added) with pierce damage. A really simplified example is a weapon that is supposed to do 100 physical damage and has 30% piercing actually does 70 physical and 30 pierce damage.

The first thing that should be kept in mind about pierce damage is that it is calculated after taking in account every physical damage modifier - weapon's, flat and %, also strength. After that X% of already modified damage turns into pierce damage. After that all pierce damage modifiers are added, like +%pierce damage. If weapon does no pierce damage then +%pierce damage is useless.

What makes pierce damage an unique type of damage, not just a physical damage sidekick, is that, unlike physical one, pierce damage completely ignores armor, but could be resisted via '%pierce resistance' modifiers.

Piercing damage does critical damage when you've scored a critical hit. The actual floating numbers (if you enabled them in options) only show your physical critical damage, but the pierce damage is multiplied too.

The majority of piercing weapons are spears and bows. Although swords and daggers also use pierce damage, there is a huge gap in %piercing rate, while most spears have it at 25-35%, most swords got only 15%. It is possible to make use of them as piercing weapons, but this is akin to making a warrior/mage hybrid (in my opinion, at least). In general, axes and maces do not do pierce damage at all, with the exception of some blue/purple items.

The most common rookie mistake is to improve only dex while using a bow. The source of bow's damage is mostly physical, with the pierce one being calculated out of it. Considering that there is only a dozen or so of weapons that do at least 50% pierce damage, plenty of damage remains physical, making improving str on par with dex more than reasonable. I haven't even mentioned that ranged weapons can't crit, so dex isn't shining there too.

And now's the practical part. Actually, there is a point, at which one point of str gives more pierce damage than one point of dex. This point is actually two variables - your stacked +%pierce damage stacked and %piercing on a weapon. For a bow with 25% piercing, str will give you more pierce damage than dex after you stack up to +230% piercing. You do the rest of math.

Probably the simplest part of this guide since the concept of resistances aren't new in this genre of games. This is basically the % by which the damage of certain type is decreased.

In titan quest there are two sets of resistances - primary and secondary (in a name only).

Primary resistances are:

• Elemental
  • Fire
    
  • Cold
    
  • Lightning.
• Poison
  
• Pierce

Secondary resistances include:

• Bleeding
  
• Vitality resistance. This is actually the weird one, since this is
  

  引用自 In-game hit on mouse over：

  Reduces damage from vitality attacks such as vitality decay, life leech and vitality damage.

  Vitality decay means reducing health by %, vitality damage is usually a flat amount of damage, when lifeleech is...well, a lifeleech. The weird part is that there is a separate modifier %lifeleech resistance, which is listed as additive with vitality resistance (if you have 40% lifeleech resistance and 15% vitality resistance, the 55% vitality resistance will be listed in your stats.
  So question arise - do lifeleech resistance modifier and vitality damage resistance modifier are actually the same. I've seen different opinions on forums, but no one had conducted a test and documented it, or at least I've yet to find it. So for now - I don't know.
  
• Energy resistance. Also a weird one, but have less impact on actual game, since simply energy leech won't kill you, and mana-burn using mobs are very rare, although outright dangerous.
  
• Stun resistance. This one reduces the duration of stuns.
  
• Disruption resistance. This one decreases the duration of skill disruption effect.

Just like in other games, %resistance modifiers are additive. This makes heavy stacking very efficient. 50% resistance will reduce the incoming damage by two times. 80% damage resistance will reduce the incoming damage by five times. For that reason, the damage resistances are hard-capped at 80%. The stun and skill disruption resistances work a bit different, and could be stacked up to very high amounts.

Primary resistances are decreased on Epic difficulty by 50% (could become negative), and by 100% on Legendary difficulty.

There is also one unlisted resistance called Damage Resistance. This one is present on some items and skills. Actually, this is a physical damage resistance. It comes into play when you recieve physical damage, but before armor reduces it by flat amount, making it a really effective addition to your defence. Also capped at 80%.

We all know what modifiers are - this is a bonus to your character's parameters. What is often rises a lot of questions is how exactly those modifiers work and stack. This section explains the difference between local and global multipliers.

Some modifiers only affect the item they are attached to. They are local modifiers. Other modifiers are applied to all items, they are global modifiers.

There will be some correlation to what I said in other sections.

+Armor is local, if it appears on torso, leg, arms or head gear, but is global if appears on rings, amulets or artefacts. See Locational Damage for additional info.

Flat damage modifiers on a weapon are applied only to that weapon, so they are local. This includes flat fire damage, cold damage, lightning damage, poison, bleed, physical and 'bonus' damage, also flat lifeleech and energy leech. Because those modifiers are local, they are not added to spells, even if they do related kind of damage. The only excetion is knife throw from Rogue, this is a very special skill.

+%fire, +%cold, +%lightning, +%poison, +%bleed etc are global. If you found one on a spear, even if the spear itself does no related kind of damage, it will affect your spells.
This includes +%damage and +%pierce, it is global too. If you dual-wield, then +%damage on main weapon and offhand weapon will add up and affect both weapons. +%damage affects physical spells like Distort Reality and Eruption.
+%attack speed could be considered global, read Dual Wield for more info.

Although originally I didn't intended to give any credits, since I've just explained pure knowledge without copy-pasting, I still felt like making this section. This will also serve well as the collection of links. So, I'd like to thank those people:

1) Poinas from titanquest.net forum, for his Attribute points guide[www.titanquest.net]
2) apocalypse80 from titanquest.net forum, who did plenty of testing. You can just read all of his posts[www.titanquest.net] and become very knowledgeable about this game.