Torchlight 2

[fiddlesticks]

As to skills, prismatic bolt is at 13, and is my bread-and-butter attack skill.!

Ah, apologies, I didn't know you were running Prismatic Bolt. In that case you should be just fine, even after the nerf it's still the most powerful skill the Embermage has.

Your notes about armor explain a lot, I've been fairly baffled by its seeming irrelevance in resolving the issues I've been having.

It seems to be a common complaint on the official forums. The problem is especially pronounced on Elite, but even on the lower difficulties it gets quite noticeable once you reach the higher levels. I hope Runic either changes the way armour works or makes damage resistance more common, as otherwise anyone unwilling to grind won't be able to keep up.

Oh, while I'm at it, how valuable is damage reflection? How does that actually work, anyway?

Not the way you'd expect, unfortunately. If you have an item that gives you 50 damage reflection, then every time an enemy hits you he will take 50 damage. It won't reduce the damage you yourself take, however. Considering by this point your damage output is probably somewhere in the thousands, damage reflection is just a drop in the bucket.

Also, is dexterity any help, here?

It might be, but I'd advise against investing into Dexterity. The problem is that it has diminishing returns, raising Dex from 0 to 50 gives you more Dodge chance than raising it from 50 to 100, relatively speaking. Which means it becomes less efficient with every point you invest. On top of that, Dodge only seems to work on physical attacks, which are generally less dangerous than magical ones. You're better off putting these points either into Focus for even more damage, or Vitality for the added Block chance.

[trjp]

Hmm. Maybe I'll stick with Normal - I was going to restart and put it up a notch, but fun trumps challenge for me. If there's an optimal build that I have to stick to then I'd rather dial down the difficulty and play in a way I enjoy.

I'm on Veteran and the only danger of death comes from bossfights or carelessness (walking into large groups of enemies which have attacks I'm vulnerable to). I'm playing an Engineer WITHOUT forcefield and hitting things with a massive hammer (or occasionally, a cannon) which I doubt is an optimal build either.

The thing with hack-n-slash games is that the 'fun' comes from the challenge surely?? It's not like the story is massively engrossing and I'm not out of Chapter 1 yet and I've done the 'same' dungeons a few times so the scenery isn't high on the list either :)

[vinraith]

@fiddlesticks

Thanks for the further answers. I played a bit tonight after getting a good shield/wand combo going and that, coupled with some +health items and gems, has done absolute wonders. I really appreciate the assistance, the game had been getting very frustrating there for a moment but now it's back to being fun. I still die if I get careless, but not (seemingly) at random anymore.

[Velko]

Hmm, I have to try wand+shield. I've been running my Embermage with dual wands, because I thought that as I spend lots of points on Focus the execute change would be very beneficial.

[vinraith]

Hmm, I have to try wand+shield. I've been running my Embermage with dual wands, because I thought that as I spend lots of points on Focus the execute change would be very beneficial.

What level are you? At higher level, anyway, there's no reason you should ever be attacking with a wand, their damage output is a joke compared to your skills. Personally I have prismatic bolt on left click and frost phase on right click, the only time I fire a shot from my wand is on the extremely rare occasion that I'm out of mana.

[fiddlesticks]

I really appreciate the assistance, the game had been getting very frustrating there for a moment but now it's back to being fun. I still die if I get careless, but not (seemingly) at random anymore.

I'm glad I could help and it's good to see you're having fun again. Torchlight 2 is a very good game but it's weighed down by some questionable design decisions. It's partially why I'm looking forward to mod tools becoming available. Any issue that Runic won't fix themselves will eventually be improved by the community.

[vinraith]

I'm glad I could help and it's good to see you're having fun again. Torchlight 2 is a very good game but it's weighed down by some questionable design decisions. It's partially why I'm looking forward to mod tools becoming available. Any issue that Runic won't fix themselves will eventually be improved by the community.

I'm looking forward to the mod tools as well, as I suspect the community will not only resolve any mechanical and balance issues with the game, but will also undoubtedly come up with some interesting content expansions (especially given the Mapworks architecture). But yes, it's an unusually strong ARPG even on its own merits IMO, the mere fact that I'm midway through an NG+ is unprecedented in my history with the genre.

[Drinking with Skeletons]

I've played all the way to the end with each class, and I've got to say that one thing that bugs me a bit is that some classes are more synergistic than others. The Embermage seems to me to be the most powerful by far, mostly because there are a variety of skills which buff his output in multiple skill trees. Prismatic Bolt's damage output, for instance, is largely dependent upon investing in the brands for each of the trees. Combine it with Ice Storm (or whatever its called) which has an ice and electricity debuff for even more damage.

On the flip side, the Outlander has serious issues with synergy, and seems to really benefit from--if not require--a spread-out approach to skills. I wanted to focus on summoning, since the class's summons are mostly tied into active skills (as opposed to boring summon-and-forget spells), but one is based on using ranged projectile weapons--no glaives!--and the other is a very short-ranged area of effect magic-type-skill. They don't really fit well with each other, but that's not obvious until you use them.

Meanwhile, the Berserker has a wonderful pick-up-and-use approach, where you can focus on one skill tree exclusively and get a perfectly functional--even well-focused--build, but can mix-and-match easily and effectively.

[The JG Man]

So I was playing earlier and picked up a few oranges. It wasn't for a bit that I realised that one of them was a scroll! Take a look:


(If that's too small, just open it up into a new page, it's in 1080 from Steam)

Has anyone picked one of these up before? Does he last forever? Scale to your current level? If so, I was thinking of plopping him down in [minor location spoiler for post end-game] The Mapworks[/spoiler]? Either that or keeping it till later on, maybe till I inevitably reach level 100.

At any rate, what an interesting item to pick up. I've played the game for about 50 hours now, on my NG+ with my mage (as pictured, starting the Djinn quest-line) and up to around the same place on a co-op Berserker (not enjoying it as much) and I'm still finding new stuff. I didn't even find the Minecraft and Borderlands easter eggs the first time round!

[Bankrotas]

I say, keep it till 100 and save your cash before honestly.

[Squirly]

1. Has a timer, can keep window open indefinitely even after he disappears.
2. All in a multiplayer game can use him.
3. For best results be lvl 100 and use a lvl 105 Mapworks Map or higher NG+ zones.
4. High end set pieces cost around 30-40k

From here.

[The JG Man]

Shame it's not permanent, but fair enough. Thanks for the info. I look forward to eventually being able to use!