Spellbinder Build Guide - Titan Quest
Skill Trees: Spirit and Defense
Primary Skills: Quick Recovery, Dark Covenant, Rally, Life Drain, Unyielding Phalanx, Shield Charge
Important Stats: -Recharge, +Skills, Defensive Ability, Attack Damage Converted to Health, Life Leech, Reflection
Attributes: Strength and Dexterity to wear tanky gear and the rest into Intelligence for damage/Health for Survivability
The Spellbinder build in Titan Quest is a bit quirky and prior to Atlantis wasn't too powerful at all. Atlantis buffed the Life Drain ability though which is one of the core abilities this build is centered around and made this build viable. Since we're using the Spirit and Defense Masteries this build is going to be a hybrid between Strength and Intelligence and is not recommended for beginners.
For your Attribute Points you'll want to invest enough into Strength and Dexterity to wear tanky gear as well as a shield. The rest of your points will go into Intelligence for increased Vitality Damage as well as a small amount into Health for extra survivability (if desired).
You'll also want enough gear with -Recharge on it to drastically reduce the cooldown of 3 skills, Life Drain, Quick Recovery and Rally. Dark Covenant will benefit greatly from your -Recharge too and you can keep it up almost the entire time with enough cool down reduction. As with many builds in this game, Spellbinders are going to heavily rely on gear that comes with -Recharge aka cool down reduction. I recommend you take a look at my list of -Recharge gear if you'd like some ideas on items you can get/aim for.
Essentially what you will want to do on a Spellbinder is keep Rally (for the Damage Reflection and Elemental Resists) up at all times as well as Quick Recovery. Since we're stacking -Recharge anyway for Life Drain you may as well also use the other skills that it highly benefits. Keeping up both Rally and Quick Recovery 24/7 will greatly increase your survivability and if you have any Energy Regeneration problems whatsoever Dark Covenant will fix that too.
For the most part your melee weapon ends up being a stat stick, I personally went with The Imperator for the additional Attack damage converted to health and flat % +Dex and +Str increases; it allowed me to dump less Attribute Points into both to wear the shield and chest piece I wanted. Aside from The Imperator I used any gear with -Recharge I could find. Talisman of the Jade Emperor, Odysseus' Armor, Deimos and Tracker's Hood are the pieces I chose. Get Jewelry with Resistances on it, Pierce, Vitality, Poison are all highly needed.
When it comes to playing this class, you're going to be rotating Rally, Quick Recovery and Dark Covenant constantly between fights. I tend to just hit those buttons in a rotation every 10 - 20 seconds; Quick Recovery lasts the longest but I refresh it at the same time as the other two because it's barely any energy cost and less brain power to pay attention to 3 short term buff cooldowns. It's easier to just refresh them all at once imo.
Dealing damage is straight forward - Life Drain! You'll spam this and keep Shield Charge as your right click for closing the gap immediately with Archers/enemies. Keep enemies close to you so they are under the effect of Deathchill Aura and Life Drain will do an insane amount of damage. You can add in other attacks if you'd like such as Soul Vortex, Circle of Power and/or the pet but the play style for this build is very simple. Keep up your short duration buffs and Life Drain the enemy.
Some bosses in this game are insanely resistant to Vitality damage even with Deathchill Aura. Thankfully, we're not a one trick pony because we have Unyielding Phalanx at our disposal as well as Colossus Form and Summon Outsider if needed. If you stack enough -Recharge gear then you can get Unyielding Phalanx to where it is able to be kept up 24/7. Just keep dropping this ontop of the boss every time it is up and it'll solve the high Vitality Resistance problem.
Last but not least, I have included a list of all the abilities you'll be using and why for this build.
(Defense) Rally: For our build you'll want to keep Rally up at all times for the Damage Reflect (Defiance) passive that comes with it; it will also give you 65% increased Elemental Resistances too. Alternatively, hit Rally every time you need a heal - typically you use Rally first then a potion to heal yourself.
(Defense) Battle Awareness: Long term buff that you'll want to use for a lot of survivability. Get the passives that go with it, especially Iron Will since that gives you 80% resistances to most of your Secondary Resistances (Sleep, Stun, Trap, Freeze).
(Defense) Colossus Form: Boss killing ability. Very long cooldown but you become insanely powerful (and big). When there are no bosses around to kill you can use this ability to run through maps like a giant and skip tons of enemies that you don't feel like fighting.
(Defense) Unyielding Phalanx: Added into the game during Atlantis and one of my favorite Defense abilities. Drop these ontop of a boss for tons of damage or a pack of enemies and they'll decimate them.
(Defense) Quick Recovery: The best way I can think of to describe this ability is it's like a tanking cooldown. Pop this to take less damage from all of the enemies attacking you. Will only work against melee or ranged (physical) attacks. With all of the -Recharge gear we're stacking for this build you'll be able to keep Quick Recovery up 24/7 making it an amazing ability for us.
(Defense) Shield Charge: Bind to Right Click. It's great for closing the gap between you and enemies (pesky Archers) as well as interrupting skills with the Stun and Skill Disruption Passive. I sometimes use it when enemies are in my face just for the Stun/Skill Disrupt.
(Spirit) Deathchill Aura: One of the most important abilities in this build. It will apply an aura to your character that significantly increases the Vitality Damage enemies take close to you along with reducing the amount of damage they deal to you. Keep in mind that this won't affect Archers unless you are in their face - making them the bane of your existence.
(Spirit) Life Drain: Bind to Left Click. This is going to be your main damaging and healing ability. With enough -Recharge gear you can get this down to 1 second which basically allows you to spam it. With Deathchill Aura active on the enemy this ability will hit like a truck and heal you for the damage done! Make sure you get the passives as this ability is nothing without them.
(Spirit) Dark Covenant: I found myself almost always full health on this build but almost always running out of Energy. Dark Covenant is the solution to that problem, it'll eat away at your health but that isn't a big deal since one or two Life Drains will fully heal us anyway. With -Recharge gear you can keep this ability up at all times.
(Spirit) Spirit Ward: Decreases the damage undead enemies deal to you and increases the damage you deal to them. Great ability for our natural enemy since undead typically have higher than average Vitality Resistance. Max it along with the passive that comes with it.
(Spirit - Optional) Circle of Power: Creates a totem on the ground similar to the Warfare Battle Standard. It gives reduced cooldown duration and energy cost as well as increased Casting Speed if you stand inside of the aura. It's nice for bosses and with enough -Recharge gear you can get the cooldown pretty low. It's up to you if you'd like to use the ability.
(Spirit - Optional) Soul Vortex: Added with the Atlantis Expansion, it's essentially a PBAoE (Point Blank AoE) ability which is a lesser version of Life Drain with a much longer cooldown.
(Spirit - Optional) Summon Outsider: Very long cooldown short duration pet which is half way decent for boss fights. Pop this and Colossus Form on bosses or hard enemies.
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.
- Use a weapon/play a different build levels 1 - 30. Throwing weapon works well or a melee weapon and use Defense's Batter ability. Until you get enough -Recharge gear this build can be very lackluster. Also, Life Drain really needs its two Passives which are late game to shine. You also need full points into Deathchill Aura yadda yadda.
- Get the Summon Liche King pet for help leveling up, you'll want to completely spec out of him later though.