From Greek mythology, Machae are spirits of war and combat. In Titan Quest they definitely live up to that name. They are demons, but are rather humanoid and speak on a strange language.
Classes
Machae classes:
- Archer
- Scout
- Guard
- Master Archer
- Grandmaster Archer
- Warden
- High Warden
The last 4 are the ones definitely to look out for. Master and Grandmaster archers can deal tonnes of piercing and poison damage, and they're also very fast runners, causing you to chase them all the way across the room and drawing more Machae into the fight. Wardens and High Wardens usually will charge right at you without you even seeing them, some of the time, so be careful of that. It is advised that you use any attacks that can disable or stun Machae.
Heroes
Machae Heroes:
- Sentinel Kar-Nahk
- Warlord Aorg
- Sentinel Nok-Hai – Guardian of the Necklace
- Envoy Kor-Lhrut (quest)
- Dysnomion (quest)
- Trophonios (quest)
- Makaria (quest)
Machae heroes are very tough. They tend to have an impressive arsenal of special attacks and do not go down easily. If you see one, try not to get a lot of Machae soldiers into the fight when battling the heroes. Four of them are part of secondary quests.
Strategy
As an overall strategy against all Machae, forms of crowd control and large radius attacks are very useful. Machae tend to attack in packs and are among the fastest monsters in the game, so they will surround you in no time. Most Machae are able to be killed quickly, but some, such as wardens and the heroes, are tougher.
More strategies (thanks to Gasconron and The Fallen One): Use a peek-a-boo style of approach. Since most machae mobs are spread out, approach a mob (sometimes you will have to get in deep to get as much critters as possible) and immediately retreat. This will cause the agroed mob to kite after you and cluster in a bunch when you stop. You will want to "cluster" them in an area where the line of site of archers are blocked (preferably behind a pillar, or a "door-type" opening ).
All masteries have useful skills against them. Here is a list:
- Warfare - War Horn - Machaes are very susceptible to this. The mxed War Horn will keep the archers from running around and take a nice chunk out of their health and has a good radius.
- Defense - Pulverize - For large groups.
- Rogue - Flashpowder
- Hunting - Study Prey
- Spirit - Necrosis
- Dream - Distort Reality (+ Temporal Rift), Distortion Wave tree
- Storm - Squall tree, Thunderball
- Earth - Eruption
- Nature - Plague