So...... Runemaster. Tricky class, innately hybrid. Hybrids are finicky divas who can hardly wear up-to-date gear and have a hard time scaling.

So how does it work? You get lower STR requirement for weapons, so you can get some big heavy melee weapons and... then you get stuck with caster armor. Or maybe medium-weight weapons and caster armor. Still, you will just get shredded I think?

Or you could go Rune/Defender to get weapons and armor easily, and I guess that's cool, but then there's not a lot of damage synergy. It's bound to be more damage than a straight Defender, so it's probably ok if you invest in Rune mostly.

But yeah, maybe you just go with bows and ignore the -% STR Required part of that skill? Or throwing + shield, because shields count as a weapon...

Earth and Storm seem like the most obvious magic-damage basic-attack buffers, but then you don't get any Attack Speed perks, which I guess should be bearable anyway. If you go Hunter or Warrior, you don't get a whole lot to go with +INT buffs.

I'm just really puzzled here. It doesn't really help that store-bought gear on a new Level 40 character is super weak, in the absence of hand-me-downs. So it's not even that simple to test anything...

There have always been mastery combinations in Titan Quest that don't really work well together. Just as you, I saw the Rune/Defender connection and that is what I am trying now, however all the way from the start (level 1). I am playing melee, mostly dividing my points between dex (OA + DA) and int (elemental damage) however. I have no idea whether it will work, but if it does this will be a pretty unique melee build. I am still in the first act, but so far I have no problems breezing through the content. Thunder Strike + Unleash seems to be pretty powerful in the beginning to decimate mobs.

Act 3 and 4 are the real tests. You don't really see how it's going to scale so early. :(

I also think throwing daggers seem to work with Rune + Storm/Earth. The higher attack speed is useful for getting stacks and using the aura, even if the range is shorter. And you don't need as much STR to make it work. The base damage may be a bit of an issue in later acts, when the enchantment itself doesn't cut it alone, but I guess we'll see. Earth Enchantment in particular has always wrecked Act 1 and fallen off after Act 2.

Decided to try out Runesmith (Rune + Defense), since it's the easiest to build. Seems like it's probably a tanky solo-capable build with decent AoE damage and a few built-in CC skills, especially after you hit Rune lvl 30. But it's probably not as fast as a real mage at that.

The Defense skill to lower armor STR requirements has a much lower discount than the Runemaster skill for weapons, so I might lower the Runemaster skill to a point or two. It just depends on where they break even with the actual gear requirements.

Dual melee will miss out on the only available gap closer (Shield charge), so that's not great. Unless I'm missing something big, this is probably just bad.

Dual throwing might be good. It would probably make it easier to get stacks of Rune Weapon before casting spells, but aggressive use of gap closers can make up for that if you have the gear to live through it.

Mace+shield is the most obvious, since the bonus stun duration can combine with two different Rune mastery stuns and the Shield Charge stun.

I'm sticking with mace and shield for now. It's possible to respec if for some reason double throwing turns out to be awesome. Maybe I'll save the throwing weapons for a Thunderer or Stonespeaker.

I am using Thunder Strike as a gap closer and it works great. Although I play with shield, Thunder Strike should work with dual wield too.

Almost forgot about that. Shield Charge is 400% compared to 200% for Thunder Strike, I think. And you get twice as many available cooldowns to juggle. But yeah, I guess it would make dual melee slightly more bearable.

I think if your going with defense you should stick to a shield, since all those passive special attacks with a certain proc chance in defense are really good. Stacking the defensive shieldbuffs from runes and defense should also help a lot
I don't think there is any harm in having a throwing weapon as your second weapon but I'd probably just put a shield on the offhand there aswell. Gives you the ability to block projectiles and such and if it's just a secondary weapon you don't want to divert points away from your build just to slighly increase it's damage. I do wonder though what all the skills requiring a weapon do when you have a throwing weapon equipped instead of a melee weapon

Thunder Strike shoots a fan of projectiles, for example. I haven't tried the other skills yet.

For some reason, bows and throwing are ok for Rune Weapon, but staves are out. I guess they didn't want the extreme end of +%INT bonus scaling to kick in? But then at high ranks you get 40% conversion to magic damage anyway...

A lot of the Defense skills work with one point with +skills pretty well, with all the debuffs and whatnot. Some of the burst skills in Rune look tempting, and maybe basic attacks should just be used to increase the Rune Weapon stacks. It could be possible to micromanage a weapon swap, so you have fast throwing to get stacks and then a mace with good bonuses for stun and burst damage. It could be a pain to set up, but that might be one way to play a weird spellcaster with +%INT stacks on thier basic attack. I might not bother and just stick with all melee and hope I'm tanky enough.

I am agonizing over the decision. Give up 1/3 of the armor in the game, or give up a huge boost in elemental damage. Thinking about endgame, I really don't want to miss out on gear. But Defense is very one dimensional.