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[Dice]

Does block apply to magic?

I'm not sure, but I feel like it should since your armor boost applies to magic armor and shields include magic defense.

 

[bdouble]

So rerolled an engi on vet and just made act 2. For actives just have 1 point in flame hammer, Seismic slam and onslaught and 5 points in heal bot all working pretty well. Then for passives in pumping points into heavy lifting and super charge. With a point in charge domination because well full charge everyonce in a while is awesome.

So far its been working well. Partly due to the fact i have a 299 dps great axe that ive been using since i had 104 strenght. Onslaught in stun with slam then attack/flame hammer till dead. The only thing i have a problem with is force field. I dont really like having it take my charges so wondering would I be ok going woth aegis, bulwark and just heal bot? I seem pretty squihy. Also how is ember hammer?

Looking to go lots of stun and strenght so staying away from the focus tied abilities. Definitely going to pick up tremor and after that its up in the air.

 

[Fugu]

I'm pretty sure it doesn't. That would explain why they let it cap out so high. But it also is a bit bugged in that it doesn't display every time the dodge happens, you may be dodging a lot more than you think.

Does block apply to magic?

Block applies to almost everything. There are very few situations where it does not apply. Dodge basically only affects melee attacks.

 

[scy]

So far its been working well. Partly due to the fact i have a 299 dps great axe that ive been using since i had 104 strenght. Onslaught in stun with slam then attack/flame hammer till dead. The only thing i have a problem with is force field. I dont really like having it take my charges so wondering would I be ok going woth aegis, bulwark and just heal bot? I seem pretty squihy. Also how is ember hammer?

Depends on the difficulty you're on. Aegis is pretty terrible for Elite, for instance. Possibly manageable on Veteran but it's still vastly inferior to Forcefield.

As for Ember Hammer, it's really best suited for one point for stripping shields. I personally think it's fairly clunky to use.

Looking to go lots of stun and strenght so staying away from the focus tied abilities. Definitely going to pick up tremor and after that its up in the air.

Dynamo Field is amazing for building Charge. It's basically a staple for an Engineer to be honest. Also, pretty much everything an Engineer has scales with Focus :x Though, Flame Hammer does scale better with STR than Focus (and Emberquake is the opposite, better with Focus than STR).

Block applies to almost everything. There are very few situations where it does not apply. Dodge basically only affects melee attacks.

Likewise, reflect ranged applies to basically anything that isn't an actual melee swing. Spell damage that you have to walk into will be reflected, for instance.

 

[Krabboss]

Dynamo Field is amazing for building Charge. It's basically a staple for an Engineer to be honest. Also, pretty much everything an Engineer has scales with Focus :x Though, Flame Hammer does scale better with STR than Focus (and Emberquake is the opposite, better with Focus than STR).

Have you done much testing with Emberquake? I'm currently level 94 and have about 100 more points in STR than I do in FOC. My weapon DPS is somewhere around 7,000 and Emberquake deals something like 61% of my weapon DPS (still only at 14/15). I'm not sure how much fire damage it deals at 15/15 and at level 100, but it's probably somewhere around 1500 right? I'll have to put some effort in and check out which part of the damage can be increased more easily. There's Fire and Spark, obviously, and a lot of late game engi equips boost fire damage as well. I'll reset my stat points once I've reached the level cap and mess around a bit.

 

[QisTopTier]

Dumping points into aegis isn't that great, but no reason not to have a single point in it for any build.

 

[bdouble]

Depends on the difficulty you're on. Aegis is pretty terrible for Elite, for instance. Possibly manageable on Veteran but it's still vastly inferior to Forcefield.

pretty mich what i expected. I may just try no forcefield for now its not bad.

Dynamo Field is amazing for building Charge. It's basically a staple for an Engineer to be honest. Also, pretty much everything an Engineer has scales with Focus :x Though, Flame Hammer does scale better with STR than Focus (and Emberquake is the opposite, better with Focus than STR).

Oh yeah definitely getting dynamo field. More chaege the better. I guess forxe fieldau be worth maxing because only flame hamer is decreasin the charge. As for the skills tied to stat It seems to be true for almost all the classes. I feel in TL2 the stats are just tweaked enough to what affect they have you really need a good balance of the first 3 up to a certain point and then just vitality as needed. I mean i dont want to run put of mana after ive done one onnslaight and seismic slam. Eventually ill put more point in focus. I guess ill just stick with flame hammer for attacks.

This is the first game where im really not worried about gimping my character with stat distribution. Which used to be a hige problem for me in these games. Now they all have a positive affect on pretty much all the classes. Strength focus and dex Obviously first tier then vitality as needed. I mean on the engi i dont care if i have tp drop 20 points in focus to equip an item because in the long run ill have more mana which means more skills and they will hit harder.

 

[antiquegamer]

Yep. And its a huge problem for me. Because in NG+ every enemy that hits you make 4k dmg. And i just have 4200 hp

Yeah, dodge is useless ... I found on my Outlander, Stone Pact is my new best friend on NG+, plus tons of Vitality and armors of all kinds) I have about 5000k health and I can withstand a surprise hit then stand back in my Stone aura to heal back up along with popping potion. I definitely died a lot less now than before. Kudos to whoever suggest Stone Pact, I would never looks at it. Also great to have for multiplayers and for minions/pet.

 

[antiquegamer]

Yes. Check your waypoint portal in town.

Thanks! I would never thought it would be there!

 

[bdouble]

Oh yeah once i took stone pact and repulsion hex it drastically changed my outlander and made survivability much easier. I will probably take stone pact to 10 or 15.

 

[Herla]

Well it looks like I can't play this game for more than ~30 minutes without feeling a little bit of pain in my fingers, to the point of being uncomfortable playing...
I think I'm fucked.

 

[Dead Prince]

Well it looks like I can't play this game for more than ~30 minutes without feeling a little bit of pain in my fingers, to the point of being uncomfortable playing...
I think I'm fucked.

swap hands.

 

[Cloudius12]

Well it looks like I can't play this game for more than ~30 minutes without feeling a little bit of pain in my fingers, to the point of being uncomfortable playing...
I think I'm fucked.

your mouse finger? Are you constantly clicking?

 

[Herla]

your mouse finger? Are you constantly clicking?

No, funnily enough I feel a bit relieved if I start clicking instead of just keeping the button pressed. Maybe it's because I'm a claw grip user, or maybe I just need a better mouse...

 

[scy]

Have you done much testing with Emberquake? I'm currently level 94 and have about 100 more points in STR than I do in FOC. My weapon DPS is somewhere around 7,000 and Emberquake deals something like 61% of my weapon DPS (still only at 14/15). I'm not sure how much fire damage it deals at 15/15 and at level 100, but it's probably somewhere around 1500 right? I'll have to put some effort in and check out which part of the damage can be increased more easily. There's Fire and Spark, obviously, and a lot of late game engi equips boost fire damage as well. I'll reset my stat points once I've reached the level cap and mess around a bit.

What it comes down to when I say that Emberquake scales better with Focus is that the majority of the damage comes from the splinters, not the initial hit. Meanwhile, Flame Hammer is the opposite and deals most the damage from the initial hit rather than the scaling. Fire and Spark (and all +Fire Damage%) only works on the splinters part of the damage.

Edit: As for the splinters damage numbers, I can test that later if you want. If I recall, I had them around the 4000 damage mark with minimal +Damage%/+Focus equipment on (if any, actually).

From a post I did over on the Runic forums:

Flame Hammer - Second best STR scaling option, splinters scale with Focus. Damage is primarily around the Initial Hit/STR, not the Splinters/Focus.
Seismic Slam - Scales with Focus.
Emberhammer* - Best STR scaling option, skill is clunky to use, ultimately less total damage than Flame Hammer. Charge use semi-at-odds with Forcefield.
Onslaught* - Scales with STR, not primarily used for Damage.
Storm Burst** - Scales with STR, not primarily used for Damage.
Emberquake - Scales with STR, splinters scale with Focus. Damage is primarily around the Splinters/Focus, not the Initial Hit/STR.

If we add in the Aegis tree:

Shield Bash - Scales with Focus.
Overload* - Scales with STR, conflicts with Forcefield for Charge use.
Dynamo Field - Scales with Focus.
Tremor - Scales with STR, not primarily used for Damage.
Fire Bash - Scales with Focus.

*Also scales with Focus due to them dealing "WeaponDPS as Element" Damage.

**Initial hit scales with STR, the bolts it fires will scale with both STR and Focus.

Worth note that Seismic Slam is, as far as I can tell, bugged with +Fire Damage%. Fire and Spark worked with it but +Fire Damage% from equipment did not. Rather odd as both did increase the Fire Damage% stat in the Arcane Stats menu. No idea if the patch today (?) fixed anything or not, however.

 

[Ashodin]

Emberquake is fucking godly damage. I have shit for Focus and it STILL hits hard as a truck.

 

[UncleSporky]

Emberquake is fucking godly damage. I have shit for Focus and it STILL hits hard as a truck.

This is why I'm not worried about my str engineer. I won't be optimal but I should still be able to kill everything.

 

[Einbroch]

Does difficulty change anything besides how hard the game is?

 

[big_erk]

No, funnily enough I feel a bit relieved if I start clicking instead of just keeping the button pressed. Maybe it's because I'm a claw grip user, or maybe I just need a better mouse...

What type of mouse are you using. Is it ergonomic, are the buttons hard to press? I use a Logitech G9x and it is very comfortable. Good luck.

 

[Fugu]

Likewise, reflect ranged applies to basically anything that isn't an actual melee swing. Spell damage that you have to walk into will be reflected, for instance.

I've posted about this before and reflect doesn't always work as advertised. While there are instances where an attack contains both a reflectable component and a non-reflectable component (a projectile that leaves something on the ground, for example) but there are also attacks that claim that they are reflected but do their damage anyway.

 

[SnakeswithLasers]

Couple quick questions (I'm level 15):

1. I'm making a ranged outlander (not sure which weapons yet, but probably bows or pistols, not likely to be shotguns). How should I spend my stat points? I've been pumping dex, but this isn't D2, and all the stats seem useful.

2. Any skills that are flat-out terrible and I shouldn't really bother with? How about any flat-out can't miss? So far I'm liking the poison explosion passive and the shadow skill that breaks into 4 pellets when it hits a target.

3. I see that I can respec only the last 3 skill points I've spent. Is there a way (without modding) to reset everything? I don't want the point in glaive that is auto-spent, but is it too late to get it back?

 

[Toma]

Does difficulty change anything besides how hard the game is?

No.

Quote from my "Games with engaging difficulty levels"thread:

This is my biggest problem with Torchlight 2, I played about half of it on Veteran and having very little gold and very few pots the whole time, figuring this was the trade-off from normal for getting the better drops on Veteran. Then I read presumably in the OT this isn't true, and loot drops are all the same on every difficulty?? So there is no advantage to playing on Veteran? You get the same exact rewards yet all the enemies hit harder and have more HP. Really dumb IMO.

TL2 did many things right, but that surely not.

 

[InternHertz]

If I buy Torchlight 2 on the official site, will I get a Steam key or is it standalone?
Any other place to get it even cheaper and hopefully add it to Steam?

Haven't followed the thread at all so sorry if it has already been asked 1000 times already.

 

[Dice]

1) Play on Casual
2) Get to NG+++
3) Get best loot easily
4) ????
5) Profit

 

[bdouble]

No.

Quote from my "Games with engaging difficulty levels"thread:


TL2 did many things right, but that surely not.

How is that not right? To get easy loot then play on normal. It just means that upgrades and that one item or your itemization and skills are that much more meaningful at higher difficulties. If you had crazy eipc and more loot drop in veteran than normal it wouldnt be much harder.

 

[scy]

Couple quick questions (I'm level 15):

1. I'm making a ranged outlander (not sure which weapons yet, but probably bows or pistols, not likely to be shotguns). How should I spend my stat points? I've been pumping dex, but this isn't D2, and all the stats seem useful.

STR and DEX if you're set on that route. If you pick up more skills that do not deal WeaponDPS Damage (e.g., Glaive Throw), you may want more points in Focus. Generally speaking, a WeaponDPS heavy build will do 3 STR/2 DEX until the DEX cap and then probably just purely pump STR.

~110 DEX, with the proper skills, will get you to the 75% Dodge Cap, for the record, so going beyond that isn't that useful outside of Crit Chance% and earlier ranged weapons to equip. And/or saving yourself some points from Dodge Mastery, I suppose.

Also, if you're not on Elite (and, even then, only if you're using a Shield), points in VIT aren't totally necessary.

2. Any skills that are flat-out terrible and I shouldn't really bother with? How about any flat-out can't miss? So far I'm liking the poison explosion passive and the shadow skill that breaks into 4 pellets when it hits a target.

Poison Burst is pretty bad :x Shadowling Ammo, Shadowling Brute, Death Ritual, and Bane Breath also aren't that good. Flaming Glaive is awkward to use and I don't particularly find Burning Leap to be a good skill all-in-all. Vortex Hex and Shattering Glaive possibly though I didn't really invest much time in either skill. Bramble Wall conflicts with Glaive Throw but it doesn't seem like you're going that route.

3. I see that I can respec only the last 3 skill points I've spent. Is there a way (without modding) to reset everything? I don't want the point in glaive that is auto-spent, but is it too late to get it back?

Outside of activating the console, nope.

TL2 did many things right, but that surely not.

They just didn't want to enforce the whole "harder game modes for better loot" I guess. Honestly, they should have given something for it.

 

[Fugu]

STR and DEX if you're set on that route. If you pick up more skills that do not deal WeaponDPS Damage (e.g., Glaive Throw), you may want more points in Focus. Generally speaking, a WeaponDPS heavy build will do 3 STR/2 DEX until the DEX cap and then probably just purely pump STR.

~110 DEX, with the proper skills, will get you to the 75% Dodge Cap, for the record, so going beyond that isn't that useful outside of Crit Chance% and earlier ranged weapons to equip. And/or saving yourself some points from Dodge Mastery, I suppose.

Also, if you're not on Elite (and, even then, only if you're using a Shield), points in VIT aren't totally necessary.

I'm going to disagree like I did last time: Dexterity outprioritizes strength at lower levels due to the fact that it can push you ahead on item requirements and since you will likely be hinged fairly heavily to crits, a higher crit chance than you'll get from 11x dexterity is likely more desirable. It's not unreasonable to get near the crit damage cap in the upper levels.

You also probably shouldn't play without a shield, but that depends greatly on your tolerance for dying.

 

[SnakeswithLasers]

STR and DEX if you're set on that route. If you pick up more skills that do not deal WeaponDPS Damage (e.g., Glaive Throw), you may want more points in Focus. Generally speaking, a WeaponDPS heavy build will do 3 STR/2 DEX until the DEX cap and then probably just purely pump STR.

~110 DEX, with the proper skills, will get you to the 75% Dodge Cap, for the record, so going beyond that isn't that useful outside of Crit Chance% and earlier ranged weapons to equip. And/or saving yourself some points from Dodge Mastery, I suppose.

Also, if you're not on Elite (and, even then, only if you're using a Shield), points in VIT aren't totally necessary.

Poison Burst is pretty bad :x Shadowling Ammo, Shadowling Brute, Death Ritual, and Bane Breath also aren't that good. Flaming Glaive is awkward to use and I don't particularly find Burning Leap to be a good skill all-in-all. Vortex Hex and Shattering Glaive possibly though I didn't really invest much time in either skill. Bramble Wall conflicts with Glaive Throw but it doesn't seem like you're going that route.

Outside of activating the console, nope..

Thanks! We can be TL2 thread friends, just like we were D3 thread 'friends'... =P
Not having a full respec blows. Oh well. Does console command refund disable achievements?

I like that what I've enjoyed (poison burst) is pretty no good. Makes me feels good man. I enjoy 'on death' stuff, even though it's complete trash on bosses. I'm playing on veteran though, so I probably should try to find some decent skills.

I'm going to disagree like I did last time: Dexterity outprioritizes strength at lower levels due to the fact that it can push you ahead on item requirements and since you will likely be hinged fairly heavily to crits, a higher crit chance than you'll get from 11x dexterity is likely more desirable. It's not unreasonable to get near the crit damage cap in the upper levels.

You also probably shouldn't play without a shield, but that depends greatly on your tolerance for dying.

Shield on ranged? Can't use a shield with a bow, right? Maybe I'll try a berserker, I've always liked SS builds.

 

[spirity]

Whats the point in boss chests? I've never seen a unique or legendary drop from one. They seem to drop the same amount of stuff a 'blue' chest drops. At least, thats the way its been for me up to ng+. Does that change?

 

[Toma]

How is that not right? To get easy loot then play on normal. It just means that upgrades and that one item or your itemization and skills are that much more meaningful at higher difficulties. If you had crazy eipc and more loot drop in veteran than normal it wouldnt be much harder.

Because it doesnt give incentives to replay the game on a higher difficulty. I actually like the difficulties they put up here in terms of how difficult they are, but I still think they dont differ enough. Enemies dont have new attacks, there arent any new items, you dont get more EXP etcetc.

It simply doesnt feel rewarding. Read the thread I linked for how higher difficulty levels can actually make you WANT to engage in higher difficulty settings. All of the people I know will never touch Elite again after beating it once, and THAT is bad design. There are like a thousand ways they could have accomplished that, and they did none of that.

There wouldnt have been any downside to change some aspects on a higher difficulty, it would actually provide an incentive to play it on a higher difficulty than the one you played first.

I still think the game is the best dungeon crawler to date, though.

 

[MasLegio]

just started the game after coming back from work and suddenly the game is really choppy
almost unplayable.

any known bug or how ot fix this?

 

[Cloudius12]

Whats the point in boss chests? I've never seen a unique or legendary drop from one. They seem to drop the same amount of stuff a 'blue' chest drops. At least, thats the way its been for me up to ng+. Does that change?

It is rare that the boss chest drops unique, but it is so bad that the boss drops unique and you are greeted with a boss chest that is not guaranteed unique.

 

[spirity]

It is rare that the boss chest drops unique, but it is so bad that the boss drops unique and you are greeted with a boss chest that is not guaranteed unique.

Yeah, bosses typically have much better loot than boss chests. Not that I'm complaining, it's just that there's this huge shiny gold chest labelled "Boss Chest" that seems significant. I'm thinking the intention was there during development to have good stuff inside but that changed.

 

[Fugu]

Shield on ranged? Can't use a shield with a bow, right? Maybe I'll try a berserker, I've always liked SS builds.

I use one pistol.

All of the people I know will never touch Elite again after beating it once, and THAT is bad design.

I'm playing hardcore and I'll play elite again. However, if I die I'll probably play the earlier playthrough(s) on veteran to speed them up because I've already done them before.

 

[scy]

I'm going to disagree like I did last time: Dexterity outprioritizes strength at lower levels due to the fact that it can push you ahead on item requirements and since you will likely be hinged fairly heavily to crits, a higher crit chance than you'll get from 11x dexterity is likely more desirable. It's not unreasonable to get near the crit damage cap in the upper levels.

Testing is showing ~200-ish STR to give the best returns for damage at base Crit chance. You are right, though, that putting yourself ahead on the item curve is a huge factor, arguably greater than the +Damage% from STR. Especially since gambling can net you really nice items. I just tend to build towards my end game rather than making the route to it easier. Of course, that cannot apply to Hardcore so the builds and priorities are definitely different.

Also, more than 110 DEX isn't exactly bad, just saying that most stop there. If you don't, make sure you save some skill points from Dodge Mastery since you'll overcap (and/or keep the points so you have max Dodge without Charge filled). Of course, we're back to needing to figure out how worthwhile Dodge ultimately is for survival ... :/

You also probably shouldn't play without a shield, but that depends greatly on your tolerance for dying.

I don't necessarily disagree here, just saying VIT without a Shield is questionable :x

Thanks! We can be TL2 thread friends, just like we were D3 thread 'friends'... =P

I enjoy TL2!

Not having a full respec blows. Oh well. Does console command refund disable achievements?

Flags that character as having done something suspicious so it really only applies to online play. If you plan to never play online (and/or never play with randoms online), it's most likely irrelevant.

You can also create a character, console command in a few respec potions, and transfer them safely via the Shared Stash. There's nothing like this for stat points, however.

I like that what I've enjoyed (poison burst) is pretty no good. Makes me feels good man. I enjoy 'on death' stuff, even though it's complete trash on bosses. I'm playing on veteran though, so I probably should try to find some decent skills.

To be fair, Poison Burst as bad is mostly due to it scaling with Focus and Poison Damage so a high STR build doesn't get the most out of it. A high Focus build will use Glaive Throw primarily and that doesn't trigger Poison Burst either. Just an awkward situation.

Shield on ranged? Can't use a shield with a bow, right? Maybe I'll try a berserker, I've always liked SS builds.

I have a fully functional Caster Berserker. Pfft, melee class.

 

[Toma]

I'm playing hardcore and I'll play elite again. However, if I die I'll probably play the earlier playthrough(s) on veteran to speed them up because I've already done them before.

Yeah Of course I am not saying that people cant/wont enjoy the game as it is. I can pretty much assure that the game could be better though if more development ressources were to put into that. Its not the best way this could have been handled. Most games are rather bad in this aspect, so TL2 is in good company. Still wouldnt hurt to be better than the rest.

 

[Ceebs]

Oh man, decided to try some higher level dungeon maps just to see what I could handle.

Blazed through the lvl 100 dungeon as a 74 Focus Engi. The boss was a bit difficult but the rest of the place was a cakewalk.

Forcefield is stupid OP.

 

[Recall]

Act III sure does like to ramp it up with both dungeons and general maps having a shit load of enemies. Reached level 45 with my Enginneer, Forcefield & Healbot continue to make me near invincible. Love it.

 

[Fugu]

Testing is showing ~200-ish STR to give the best returns for damage at base Crit chance. You are right, though, that putting yourself ahead on the item curve is a huge factor, arguably greater than the +Damage% from STR. Especially since gambling can net you really nice items. I just tend to build towards my end game rather than making the route to it easier. Of course, that cannot apply to Hardcore so the builds and priorities are definitely different.

Also, more than 110 DEX isn't exactly bad, just saying that most stop there. If you don't, make sure you save some skill points from Dodge Mastery since you'll overcap (and/or keep the points so you have max Dodge without Charge filled). Of course, we're back to needing to figure out how worthwhile Dodge ultimately is for survival ... :/

Who has base crit chance, though? If you itemize for it you'll be at the cap, and if you don't I suspect that the average Outlander will still be closer to the cap than the base.

I have max dodge with five points in dodge mastery. Honestly, I didn't need the extra skill points anyway as I'm deliberately avoiding glaive throw but still.

 

[scy]

Who has base crit chance, though? If you itemize for it you'll be at the cap, and if you don't I suspect that the average Outlander will still be closer to the cap than the base.

What I meant was that ~200 STR yields the best returns for any distribution of those points. The higher the base crit chance, the higher the return on STR, incidentally. It takes a lot of Crit Damage% to get the extra value out of Crit Chance%.

Edit: Unrelated and maybe nobody asked it here but some numbers from Ember Hammer:

Test setup:
15 STR, 5 Focus, unless otherwise noted.
0 Armor target
7/15 Ember Hammer (100% WeaponDPS)
+0% Fire, Electric Damage from equipment

I used an Axe (125 DPS, 149 Damage listed) for this test and stripped all Armor from the dummy. Each data point is at about 50 swings.

Autoattack Damage - 161
Ember Hammer Damage - 143
15/15 Fire and Spark - 240
15/15 Fire and Spark, 15 Strength/205 Focus - 376
15/15 Fire and Spark, 215 Strength/5 Focus - 377

So, yes, Fire and Spark scales it as does Focus.

Also tested Frost Breath and the Tier III bonus doesn't let it proc "Conveys Physical Damage over 5 seconds" sockets. Darn

 

[Fugu]

What I meant was that ~200 STR yields the best returns for any distribution of those points. The higher the base crit chance, the higher the return on STR, incidentally. It takes a lot of Crit Damage% to get the extra value out of Crit Chance%.

Edit: Unrelated and maybe nobody asked it here but some numbers from Ember Hammer:



Also tested Frost Breath and the Tier III bonus doesn't let it proc "Conveys Physical Damage over 5 seconds" sockets. Darn

But at high levels it's really, really easy for Outlanders especially to get high crit damage percentage, and that skews the numbers significantly.

Going to try an embermage on hardcore. I'm less than confident.

 

[UncleSporky]

Hey scy, I've been working on a similar ice mage berserker to yours. Did you get to 42 and try out Wolfpack? Are you finding it useful? What does it do that the other spells can't, how does it fit into the rotation?

 

[scy]

Hey scy, I've been working on a similar ice mage berserker to yours. Did you get to 42 and try out Wolfpack? Are you finding it useful? What does it do that the other spells can't, how does it fit into the rotation?

I dropped it since I'll just spam Glacial Shatter for my Right Click. Wolfpack does proc Shred Armor, however, so it gets honorable mention for that. In fact, it's probably the absolute best way to stack Shred Armor as far as I can tell.

My normal procedure has basically just been Glacial Shatter, Shadow Burst in, Northern Rage, Shadow Burst out, rinse, repeat. If I feel lucky/tempt fate, I'll just hold down Northern Rage spam. Whenever Battle Standard gets fixed, this probably won't be possible without pots though so it'll be more Glacial Shatters instead.

Hm. Maybe I could try Wolfpack again but it just feels like I have too many active abilities as is. Plus I still have Frost Breath to worry about getting as I get closer to 92 for the Tier III bonus.

 

[PoweredBySoy]

After a few hours with it, I'm not sure how I feel about Torchlight 2. I think Diablo kind of spoiled me with its flawless combat - despite it's many, many other problems.

Although having a much better loot system, TL2 kind of makes my eyes glaze over with boredom after about 20 minutes.

 

[TheExecutive]

After a few hours with it, I'm not sure how I feel about Torchlight 2. I think Diablo kind of spoiled me with its flawless combat - despite it's many, many other problems.

Although having a much better loot system, TL2 kind of makes my eyes glaze over with boredom after about 20 minutes.

I too like the combat in D3 more so than I do in T2 but the monsters and loot are better in this game. They both have their trade offs but both games are very very good.

What a year to be an ARPG fan... Don't really know of a better year to be a loot fan than this one. It's really one for the books.

 

[TheExodu5]

I prefer the combat in Torchlight. Ranged combat in D3 is incredibly frustrating when you reach the higher difficulties since it's impossible to kite.

 

[Fugu]

After a few hours with it, I'm not sure how I feel about Torchlight 2. I think Diablo kind of spoiled me with its flawless combat - despite it's many, many other problems.

Although having a much better loot system, TL2 kind of makes my eyes glaze over with boredom after about 20 minutes.

I'm always surprised to hear people say that they like the zero fidelity combat from Diablo 3.

 

[Orlandu84]

I prefer the combat in Torchlight. Ranged combat in D3 is incredibly frustrating when you reach the higher difficulties since it's impossible to kite.

I definitely agree with the above statement about kiting. My alt in Diablo 3 was a Wizard, and my main in Torchlight 2 is the Embermage. The difference in kiting is night and day between the two games, i.e. I could not kite in D3 whereas I can in TL2. I cannot speak, however, about melee combat since I have not played that much melee in TL2.

 

[UncleSporky]

Because it doesnt give incentives to replay the game on a higher difficulty. I actually like the difficulties they put up here in terms of how difficult they are, but I still think they dont differ enough. Enemies dont have new attacks, there arent any new items, you dont get more EXP etcetc.

It simply doesnt feel rewarding. Read the thread I linked for how higher difficulty levels can actually make you WANT to engage in higher difficulty settings. All of the people I know will never touch Elite again after beating it once, and THAT is bad design. There are like a thousand ways they could have accomplished that, and they did none of that.

There wouldnt have been any downside to change some aspects on a higher difficulty, it would actually provide an incentive to play it on a higher difficulty than the one you played first.

I still think the game is the best dungeon crawler to date, though.

Mentally I take this a step further, too - I don't see the point of mods, and/or mods are always in the back of my mind as that option you could always take to destroy the game. "Why are you playing this game normally? You could download some kid's totally broken mod with the recolored Prismatic Bolt that kills everything in one hit and forces enemies to drop uniques when killed by it."

Of course the answer is that it's no fun. But then, what is fun? How in the world do you strike that balance? If I use any mods at all, I'm changing the way Runic designed the game. If I make it any easier then I've cheapened the base game and wasted all this time I've spent at regular difficulties; if I make it any harder then I'm wasting my own time for no good reason when I could just be playing the game the way Runic designed it.

Take the simple respec potion. I mod that in, and maybe I artificially make it cost 10,000 gold and you can only buy it in act 3 and up. Well, why didn't I make it available sooner? It's desirable, isn't it? Why don't I make it cheaper? And yet just by its very existence, it means I'll never start a character class from scratch again. Heck, maybe somebody will make a class/gender/name change potion and we'll only ever have to make one character.

Even if you don't find stuff like that fun, the fact remains that it exists, and using it would mean saving a lot of time spinning your wheels. Paradoxically, it is both fun to be challenged and fun to watch and feel your character advance quickly.

Myself, I just want the game Runic designed, and I honestly think it'd be easier and better if everyone else did, too. It's why Diablo 2 ladder worked.

 

[Salsa]

kept playing the Outlander. Lvl 23 now, got super boss super fast