Titan Quest Anniversary Edition: Evoker (Dream / Earth) Build Guide

Quetzalcoatl, Piedra Del Sol
Mastery: Evoker (Dream / Earth)
Build: Auramancer / physical / fire hybrid
Recommended only for experienced players

This build is oriented around using auras to inflict damage. Auras are strong early on but fade in late legendary so you will be supplementing the damage primarily with physical and fire damage with a bias toward the caster side of things. The build can be altered easily to slant further towards caster if desired.

The build uses a wide range of skills and doesn’t focus on any single spammable skill. A fun and interesting choice for players who want a style of play with many available options.

One downside is that depending on your gear choices, you can be pretty fragile late in legendary and need to spend a lot of time hiding in Stone Form. Also fairly complex in gear and stat requirements.

• Lots of variety
• Auras can clear enemies while you’re safe in Stone Form
• Good CC
• Optional pets

• Auras slow down late legendary and have narrow range forcing you to stay close to enemies
• Can be fragile outside of Stone Form in late legendary
• Requires complex gear / stats

Run completed with the xMax (x3) mod

The following are core skills for the build

Trance of Wrath

The first damage aura, for only 1 Active Energy Cost per Second, Trance of Wrath inflicts Electrical Burn DOT, reduces resistances and disrupts skills to enemies within its short range. The reduced resistances will help in higher difficulties for dealing damage with your Earth spells. A priority to max.

Lucid Dream

Lucid Dream is an excellent passive. The base skill boosts physical, electrical burn and vitality damage. Premonition boosts your Offensive and Defensive Ability by 111 at 6/6. Temporal Flux grants you extra speed, slow resistance and projectile avoidance.

The base skill can be left at one point until you’ve maxxed other important skills. You’ll want to max Premonition and Temporal Flux quickly through. The extra OA / DA, speed and projectile avoidance are too good to pass up.

Distort Reality

Distort Reality is a 8 meter, 360% degree AOE that does physical and vitality damage and applies a short 1.5 second stun. The Temporal Rift synergy adds an Electrical Damage DOT, energy drain, petrification and bonus damage to demons. Excellent for CC and damage. Make a priority to max.

Ring of Flame

The second damaging aura, Ring of Flame encircles you in a ring of flames that does fire damage to enemies. The Soften Metal synergy adds some additional damage but more importantly reduces enemies’ Offensive Ability and armour. It has two drawbacks: firstly, its range is almost half as short as Trance of Wrath and secondly, it has a puzzling high Active Energy Cost per Second in comparison to pretty much every other aura in the game. A priority to max.

Earth Enchantment

Aura that will boost your fire damage and give your attacks fire damage. The Brimstone synergy skill boosts physical damage buff and adds fire dot. The Stone Skin synergy adds a buff to fire resist and armour. Max both Earth Enchantment and Brimstone fairly early but leave Stone Skin until later. If you’re wearing caster gear then a bit of extra armour may help but there are other skills more worth picking up first.

Heat Shield

One point wonder skill that provides a short term buff that grants a bonus to physical resistance, fire damage absorption and fire retaliation. The skill has a short cooldown before you can recast it. Drop a single point into the skill as soon as you can as you get the full buff to physical resistance (15%) right away. Increasing the skill buffs the damage absorption and the retaliation damage. The fire retaliation damage is honestly negligible so it comes down to the fire absorption. Put extra points into the skill if you want more absorption of fire damage.

Stone Form

One point wonder ability. Makes you immobile and unable to attack or cast but grants you 100% damage absorption and a health regeneration buff. Excellent ‘oh ♥♥♥♥’ button for when you get overwhelmed and need to heal up with a potion or remove a nasty dot like bleed. A great combo with your auras; while you’re immune to damage your auras are slowly killing your assailants. Also comboes excellenty with Eruption. Drop the Eruption at your feet then enter Stone Form. You’re protected from everything while they take damage from eruption.

A single point is fine as extra points just boost health regeneration while in Stone Form. You can just use a pot instead to heal up. The Molten Rock synergy skill adds a pretty negligible fire retaliation damage. One point is also fine but you can add spare points if you want to.

Volativity

Excellent passive that gives you a 33% chance of getting big boosts to your physical, fire and burn damage. Max as soon as possible.

Eruption

Basically creates a mini-volcano on the ground for 6s that spurts out fiery rock fragments that do physical and fire damage. Make a priority to max.

Many of these skills are really great pickups that can supplement your aura damage and provide CC or are optional pets.

Sands of Sleep

CC ability that puts enemies to sleep. More points increases the number of targets it affects and the length of the sleep. Direct damage will break the effect. Can be useful for removing enemies from large packs and archers. I didn’t use it too much but it’s up to you if you want to use it or not.

Psionic Touch

Psionic Touch can serve as your main LMB attack. It boosts your total damage and adds vitality damage. Every hit of the skill builds builds a charge; the skill requires 3 charges to be ready. When you have enough charges, the next attack activates skill, gets the bonuses, and consumes all of the charges. The Psionic Burn synergy skill adds an electrical dot, a slowing effect and does bonus damage against demons. No real reason not to drop a single point into either ability.

The Atlantis exclusive synergy skill, Psionic Beam, increases projectile speed and adds a chance to pass through enemies but is only applicable to staves. If you’re not planning on swapping a one hander + shield for a stave then there’s no reason to get this synergy.

Phantom Strike

Charge type attack skill. Activating makes you vanish and moves you unseen towards the target and attacking in melee. Enemies reset when you vanish and will run back to their starting positions until you reappear. Additional points in the base skill increase total damage %. A single point in the base skill is all you need for the build to unlock the skill.

Its synergy skill Dream Stealer, on the other hand, should be maxxed quickly if you intend to melee. The skill has a 360% attack arc, hits multiple targets, does damage, applies an energy leech and also stuns the targets. Extra points into the skill improves all the elements of the skill. Nice CC, damage and you almost will never have to use an energy potion either with this skill. You’ll want a decent Offensive Ability through as it has a short cooldown and can miss. Spears work best with the skill I believe because of how much damage they do on single strikes but these are high dex so you’ll likely won’t have the stats for one.

Summon Nightmare

Summons a pet that does vitality and physical damage. The Nightmare’s default melee attack deals no damage, but it can be increased with pet bonus items. At skill level 5 the Nightmare gains a new ability: Dream Surge allows the Nightmare to cast 10 projectiles in a 360 degree angle which deal Physical and Vitality Damage and heal the Nightmare. The skill has a cooldown of 4.0 seconds.

The Hypnotic Gaze synergy grants the Nightmare the ability to inflict Confusion and reduce resistances. Reduced resistances will help your spells do more damage. The Master Mind synergy boosts your other pets damage and their health / energy regeneration.

The Nightmare has excellent dodge and projectile avoidance and is pretty tanky overall.

Distortion Field

Gives you a chance to proc a short term (15s) buff that applies damage absorption and physical damage retaliation. Proc rate is only 5% through. If you want you can drop 1 point into the skill and buff with +skill items.

Dream Image

Summons a pet that looks like you for a short duration. Doesn’t benefit from pet bonus gear from my understanding. Nothing outstanding but can provide an extra body for boss fights.

Flame Surge

Earth’s primary spammable nuke (once you’ve maxxed the Barrage synergy skill at least). Flame Arch adds extra damage and more projectiles.

Alternative LMB attack if you want to go more caster oriented. Flame Surge’s range is very limited but as an Auramancer you need the enemies to be close to you for your auras to work anyways. If you intend to use this as your LMB you will want to max the entire tree.

Volcanic Orb

Fires an orb in an arc that explodes when it hits the ground dealing fire and physical damage to small radius. The Conflagration synergy skill adds a patch of burning ground that does burn damage. Fragmentation sends out fragments that inflict fire and physical damage and apply a short 1.5s stun.

Good damage, fairly short cooldown and the stun can be useful. Good alternative for a caster.

Summon Core Dweller

Summons a big golem as a pet. The Inner Fire synergy skill boosts total speed, dexterity and health regeneration and adds a bit of extra fire damage. The Wildfire synergy skill lets him light the ground on fire around him and burns people who step over it. The Metamorphosis synergy skill boosts health, armour, armour absorption and elemental resistance.

The Core Dweller is not really a DPS pet. It is basically a high health / armour tank and as such is useful for casters as they’re squishy. Despite this, I’d say its less tanky than other pets as they have have damage absorption or avoidance instead of straight up health / armour like the Dweller. It has a mid range cooldown and can do down faster than I’d like but can still be a decent tank for you as needed.

The Core Dweller needs a little investment to be useful but can benefit from Nightmare’s Master Mind buff.

Meteor Rain

An Atlantis exclusive skill, Meteor Rain calls down a rain of meteors down on your foes. Visually it looks great. Applies a small burn DOT, applies a decent stun and hits for a huge amount of physical damage. Downside is that the meteors are random so they may miss the targets and the spell has a long cooldown. The upsides greatly outweigh the downsides through imo and I’d strongly suggest maxxing the skill if you have Atlantis unlocked.

Fire Nova

An Atlantis exclusive skill, Fire Nova creates a really long range, 360% AOE that applies a burn DOT, does fire damage and a chance to cause Impaired Aim. From a damage perspective, Fire Nova is really underwhelming. Primary use of the skill is for CC with Impaired Aim. I wouldn’t call the skill mandatory, more nice to have.

This is my final skill allocation. Only have +3 skill to Earth but have a lot to Dream so had a lot of extra points to spread around. With all that +skill, dropping a single point into a Dream skill gave me great return on said skill.

All important auras and passive maxxed out. Maxxed out the main spells I used (Meteor Rain, Eruption, Distort Reality, Fire Nova, Dream Stealer synergy for Phantom Strike). Dropped a few points into pets to use as distractions and support. Dumped spare points into Heat Shield for extra mitigation and protection from reflectors and Molten Rock as I spent some time late game in Stone Form.

If you have Atlantis, the extra mastery points give you:

• Dream mastery = +16 str, +14 int, +280 health, +64 energy
• Earth mastery = +12 dex, +24 int, +180 health, +48 energy

Health: Worth putting at least a few points into health to eat damage as you’ll be up front with your enemies. ~5000+ health is a good target to shoot for.

Energy: Preferably none so you can put the points elsewhere. Ring of Flame and your big spells will eat up your energy pool but not so fast that you’ll constantly be out of energy. If you can, get additional energy from your gear and keep a heft stock of potions on you instead; if required through you can drop a few points.

Strength: Your secondary stat. Earth spells have a physical and fire component and you’ll be able to wear Str gear as well. If you plan to do melee it would benefit you as well. 400 at a minimum but preferably more.

Intellect: Your primary stat. You’ll want a ton of it to help your aura scale better into late game. Aim to get ~1000+.

Dexterity: Enough to equip your gear, nothing more.

Your Auramancer wants a lot of different stats. You need a ton of intellect to help your auras scale into late legendary. You have the minimum amount of dexterity so you’ll be wanting DA from gear. Bonuses to physical, fire, burn damage and elemental and electric burn are nice as well. Good amounts of health and resists. Enough strength for you gear. Energy reduction, cast speed, recharge reduction, etc.

The ideal is 1000+ DA, 1000+ int, 550+ str, 5000+ health, 1500+ energy, 300% casting speed, -80% recharge, 80% all resists, damage mitigation, good amounts of energy reduction, +4 skill, dmg items. In reality you’ll be trying to mix and max pieces of gear to cover as many holes as possible.

Recharge reduction is pretty important so you’ll want to have a good amount of that. The Evoker has a lot of longish cooldown spells (Meteor Rain, Eruption, Fire Nova, Distort Reality, Phantom Strike, etc.) and a lot of cooldown reduction will help you cast them more often. You’ll want to have at least enough cooldown reduction so that you can chain cast Stone Form. 60%+ is a good number to shoot for.

Casting speed is also great. You don’t want to get caught in spell animation. Try to shoot for 200%+. If you’re planning on using Flame Surge as your LMB attack then you’ll want 250%+ probably.

Soften Metal will help reduce enemies OA letting you get by with less DA. 800+ DA for late legendary is still a good goal to shoot for.

High intellect is important to help your aura scale. You’ll want to have enough Dex and Str to equip your gear at least. Requirement reduction gear can help with hybrids like this as you can use it to equip items with less stats than normally required. Tip for equiping requirement reduction gear, use a placeholder item with requirement reduction and then equip the gear you want to use. This applies the requirement reduction to gear including itself. You can then remove the placeholder item if.

Bleed is extremely niche, you can get by most of the game without much. Just keep something on hand to swap on for fights where you need it. Vitality is more important but not needed as much as the others. Your other resists should be at least 40%+ preferably. Good fire resist can be important for reflecting enemies so you don’t kill yourself with your own spells.

Energy reduction and regeneration can help with letting you cast spells and with your aura’s energy drain but you can make do without it with just guzzling potions instead. I’d personally put it as a lesser priority but there are some pieces which have it and other stats that would help.

This is my final equipment loadout. Maxxed casting speed with high amount of recharge reduction.
Health and resists pretty good overall. Used an upgraded Priam’s Gate for a while.

I swapped Priam’s out for an Unyielding Solder’s Will through in act 5 legendary. I was feeling a little too squishy at that point so boosted my DA.

Possible suggestions:
Weapon: Scepter of The Shadow King (DA/OA, +skill, +physical / electric burn), Laevateinn (+physical / fire / burn, +2 earth), Hand of Hephaestus (+fire / burn, +earth), Giant’s Tooth (huge strength bonus), Tyrfing (+1 skill, recharge but requires extra dex as its a sword)

Shields: Priam’s Gate (good resists), Aionios (resists, +skill), Unyielding Soldier’s Will (dodge + DA), Hephaestus’ Molten Shield (lots of fire resist, -20% requirement reduction, + earth), Golden Shield of Pelaron (recharge reduction, energy cost reduction, large energy regeneration, +attack speed, less energy reserved), Zeno’s Third Paradox (lots of dodge / projectile avoidance)

Head: Stheno’s Wisdom (physical resistance + casting speed), Crest of Hypnos (reisistances), Hesione’s Golden Veil (+elemental dmg, recharge), Shaman’s Headdress (recharge)

Feet: Disc of Mani (excellent resistances, +2 dream, +energy, speed, low str req), Demonskin Walkers (resistances, +skill, +dmg, DA), Leggings of the Defiled (resistances, +dmg, +DA/OA), Athena’s Battle Greaves (good resistances, +physical), Chthonic Legwraps (+ fire / burn / vitality dmg)

Hand: Archmage’s Clasp (huge recharge and casting speed buff, attack speed), Verdandi’s Knots (+dream, recharge, casting speed), Shaman’s Coil (recharge)

Chest: Glycon Acolyte’s Robe (+ total / electric burn / vitality dmg, pierce / vit resist, +2 dream, +2 temporal rift, projectile avoidance), Mantle of Sa’jun (high resists), Rhesus’ Whitewashed Armor (resists, +total speed, -requirements), Cestus (resists, +energy / health, recharge), Calypso’s Cover (+2 skill, resists, DA), Vestment of the Overlord (+2 skill, +physical resistance, DA)

Ring: +int%/energy%, +str%/health%, Eye of Reveries (+2 nightmare, +2 master mind, +str%, +int%, +electric burn dmg, DA/OA), Ring of Taranis (fire / lighting resist, 50% chance + fire / burn / lighting / electric burn damage, +skill), Seal of Hephaestus (grants heat shield, +fire / burn), Apollo’s Will (resists)

Necklace: Mrymidon’s Pendant (resists, +health, +physical dmg, +projectile avoidance), Eye of Flame (+fire / burn), Amulet of Morpheus (+3 dream, +int%, +str%, +electric burn dmg), Aphrodite’s Favor (+2 skill, resists, huge health), Torc of the Ancestors (+skill, DA, big boost too all dmg, resists)

Artifact: Talisman of the Jade Emperor (elemental resistances, +str%, recharge makes this best option imo). Other earth mastery and caster oriented ones are also good: Dragontongue, Heart of Earth, Elemental Rage, Eye of Ra, Might of Hephaestus, etc.

I started my character as an Accomplished hero. I filled up masteries and maxxed out my auras, passives and Dream Stealer right away. A single point into other spells at the time to unlock them and then invest more into the ones I found most useful.

Starting as a level 1 character I believe you can start off as either Earth or Dream.

Starting as Earth, you’ll want to drop some points into Flame Surge and play as a pure caster at first. Casters are strong in normal and you can swap out points from the skill later at a Mystic. Ring of Flame is acquirable much faster than Trance of Wrath as well and should destroy normal for you. Invest in Earth Enchantment aura, pick up Heat Shield, Stone Form, Volativity, Eruption as you level up Earth. Meteor Strike is great early and worth picking up.

Starting as Dream, you should start as melee picking up Psionic Touch and synergy, Phantom Strike and max synergy, Lucid Dream passives, Distort Reality and synergy and work your way up to Trance of Wrath. Once Trance of Wrath is maxxed you can switch over to Earth as you don’t really need the lvl 40 Dream skills.