Hack and slash ARPGs

anyone wants to play an ARPG together ?

How could you forget Synergies mod?

Is there 60 fps patch/mod yet?

It's the same composer, you schmuck. That's Matt Uelmann, the real deal. Admittedly, he could have tried a little harder to differentiate though, but I guess he did it intentionally for the first part of the game as a tribute. I know he's capable of much more variety in music than that.

Because it changes the game way too much, its awful. I would NEVER recommend Synergies, it also has issues with other mods making it "only Synergy".
It does not fix nearly any of the problems Vanilla has. I'll try to go one by one about this mod

What's the point of unlocking skills before if I can't place points on it for a long time? Some of them even have higher level requirement than before. How is that an improvement? In vanilla the highest requirement to unlock a skill was 42 which you reach easily on Act 3.

Adding more fame means more skillpoints, which means more broken character and less thinking to it. We already have enough with 132.

The only thing worth using gold on becomes worthless. Why do you want gold now? For potions?

You just made gold useless, this is useless. Even if gold wasn't useless, you're just destroying the build up of a character by giving it gold to enchant the pieces. It's enough that you can share set pieces of other classes. What's more, by doing this you can just place all the gold into it and have no penalty whatsoever for dying + resurrecting on the area.

Redundant. Make stuff harder and better gear. For what reason? Bigger numbers for the sake of it.

And a bunch of more stuff.
tl;dr: No, Synergies is awful and stops you from using many good mods. This is the STALKER Complete of Torchlight 2. Avoid it unless you can't take your time to look for actual good mods.

PoE is pretty awful
Go with Grim Dawn instead or back to Diablo 2

Because Synergies is the Brutal Doom(tm) of TL2.

And?
It still kicks the game pace into overdrive.

Let me rephrase what I said:It's the OLD Brutal Doom of TL2.
Meaning it fucks up everything to do something that's not needed.

I see there's a Torchlight 2 essentials mod that contains most of the stuff from the list and way more, it's also recently updated. Wouldn't that be a better solution than downloading all of them, or is it just as bad as you say Synergies is and also screws stuff up?

That one is actually a good compilation with good mods on it. Yeah sure you can go ahead with it.
I just don't like to gather too many compilations because the bigger the compilation, the easier the game crashes due to conflicts with other mods.
In this case, I do believe that this compilation would conflict with some of the mods from my list like LurkHudlite, bigbagmod and possibly with Variant since it already has two classes from it.

Also Tenebris and Preacher are fun classes, I really enjoy Preacher and I have been playing alongside one for two weeks already.

Pics are from Far East Pack mod 1 and 2 with Adventure Pack 2 Immortal bosses. The Immortal ones have the gimmick that you only have one try to kill them, if you die as previously stated, you are out of the map and have to start from scratch, in multiplayer is hit and miss because if someone dies that person gets no loot nor exp leaving the rest trying to beat the challenge. I have only been to do this challenge with two characters so far and a friend of mine with other two, Berserk Embermage and two classes from Far East.

In short, TL2 Essentials is an actual good compilation unlike Synergies.

Great list, thanks for posting senpai. Also, I'd highly recommend the Diablo UI pack.

Sadly not, no.

fix'ing 404

So, is there any way to get Adventure Pack II for folks without the Steam version of the game?

it's a massive grind fest
the skills are kind of like the final fantasy 7 materia system
the passive talent tree is kind of like the final fantasy 10 sphere grid
you'll get more loot than you know what to do with and almost all of it is going to be shit
it's dark, it's gritty, it's fast, it's unforgiving
it's good if you like that kind of stuff
and as pointed out there's an update coming out in july or august
the gameplay loop won't change much, if at all, so you might as well try it now to see if you like it or not

Torchlight 2 was boring as fuck. Played 2 hours and decided to get my refund.

...

Grim Dawn.

Outside of that, I can't think of any other hacknslash rpg I actually thought was good since Diablo 2. You'd think it wouldn't be a difficult thing to do but whatever. Well, the older Divinity games were pretty snazzy. I played the most recent one and not only was it turn based and not a hacknslash, but battles took fucking forever. I got 2/3 through the game and uninstalled because I didn't want to waste my time spending ten minutes giving orders and waiting for animations to end every battle.

For what it's worth the last two arpgs I enjoyed were Silverfall and Dungeon Siege 2. TL2 was pick the zerker and roleplay a lawn mover.

I take it it's less boring than Victor Vran games?

ToME is a game thats sorta like D2
to get ToME, take D2 and do the following:
remove gems
remove all 5 classes and add well over 20 new ones, most of them locked behind gameplay
add quite a few races, some of them locked behind gameplay
switch from real-time to turn-based combat
switch from regular to tile-based movement
make hardcore mode not locked behind winning
lock non-hardcore mode beingdonating any amount of money
remove new game+ and new game++
prevent all enemies from respawning
remove almost all consumables
replace potions with nature or magic tattoos(or injectors/implants with the xpack) that recharge themselves over time
add 3 difficulties above normal, one of them designed to be unbeatable unless you break the game
and replace the talent system with pic related:
for a single category, such as psionic/slumber, talents on the right have at least 1 point in every talent to its left as a prerequisite
typically the first talent in a category costs 12 of a stat and lvl 0(you start at lvl 1) to learn, with an extra 1 level and 2 stat points for each raw point invested, and the talent to its right costs an extra 8 stat points and 4 levels to learn
theres also advanced categories that require an extra 10 levels and stat points to learn talents in, and they are locked until you spend a category point on them
you also get 2 prodigies on your way to the realistically attainable maximum level
and theres even a in-game IRC that you're always connected to unless you play offline

i think you might be able to get your fix of D2 from this game
te4.org steam is optional and alchemist is the worst class

behind*, not being
also its open-source, has mod support, and has active development
also, the vast majority of the game is free, barring the expansion pack campaign which isn't as long as the base campaign

to be fair, ToME is a RL, not a hacknslash. I'm a roguelike fan myself but it simply does not satisfy the craving for visceral carnage that an action slasher does. It's similar but it just isn't the same, the underlying architecture in both games has a lot in common but they way they're executed is different. Like if someone wants to eat rye bread, they won't be satisfied with raisin bread. Close, but not quite.

Lots of little things hidden behind paywalls, you even have to buy the base (free) game in order to use any of the paid expansions. I can accept a standard paid game, but ToME tries to pass itself off as free without actually being free, which just pisses me off. Hard to find on torrent sites too, the only way I managed to come accross it was in a GOG megapack. I should really upload ToME myself to GGn or something.

Yes the "die with no consequence or play iron man" dilemma fucking sucks

The skill trees sucks

The gameplay sucks

The WE WUZ face avatar sucks

Almost everything in Torchlight 2 sucks except the environment.

Pretty sure this is why I could never get into TL2. I'm the type to always play on the hardest difficulty. Feels wrong playing anything else, like giving up.

Elite is doable, you can still get nearly oneshotted by traps however on elite since those things are a motherfucker. Damage wise I went with these base stats, for all 4 classes to make use of the "Convey X damage over time", chance to cast effects ie Glacial Spike on a weapon, and Thunder from Marishka broach. Shield + weapon layout 95% of the time. (Exception outlander, when I use shotgun + blind on weapon switch.)

Nothing on Strength, 55 Dexterity, 100 on Vitality, everything else goes to pump Focus.

thats not how you spell rogue, alchemist fucking rocks when you throw 8 tile radius bombs that dont even hurt you while killing and debuffing everything inside while your golem works as a mobile chokepoint that shits lasers from its eyes.

neat, I'm gonna play TL2 for the first time in years with Essentials & Adventure Pack + level scale
I remember not being too fond of it when I played it initially and then I tried it later with synergies and a handful of those small nifty mods that are in the Essentials pack
it was dogshit, explosive, colorful dogshit

I'm a huge fan of te4 too even though I'm terrible at it
my only gripes for a casual tier shitter like me is that the start of the game is too slow and it feels grindy levelling your character up to the part where it gets interesting only to die a stupid death yet again
but that might be because I spent the first fifty or so hours stubbornly playing it in roguelike mode because that's how you're supposed to play roguelikes

I also have yet to finish Titan Quest and I think I have one of those Van Helsing games

I really wish ToME looked better, it's almost distractingly ugly.

It's a roguelike, it's that or ascii, and I think the tiles are pretty good

There's something odd about the look to me, like too much detail or something, wish there were some active tileset mods.

Poe is good, but wait for 3.0. And try diablo median xl, just updated.
Shit.
And try grim dawn. Its smaller than poe in every regard and might seem lamer, but it was made by real developers and not a retarded hacks who hired a real coder after YEARS of telling players that "the X problem is unsolvable! Just purchase a few ssd and move to new zealand!" until real coder fixed their shit for them..

Have you ever played an arpg, or did you just make all that up?

2/10 made me reply

before I commit a new character to a mod setup, are there any really recommended quest/map mods that I should get on top of that Essential mod pack?

Torchlight never changes. Its same boring shit all the way. Upgrades are really underwhelming. Bosses are easy on any difficulty except harder difficulty means more enemy hp and therefore longer fight. Enemy damage is low. Your damage is low. May be it plays better in MP, but I never even invited anyone to play it.
But your point is really valid in general.

Go play Path of Exile. If you were entertained by Dungeon Siege 2, then Path of Exile is right up your alley.

okay but none of the shit you listed fixes any of the problems, unless your only issues with the game were "I want slightly more inventory space, wish that enchanters were forced, and
that gambling isn't even a gamble"

You're talking about Torchlight2, not the first one right? Again, how far into the game did you get, if you are only level 20 or something, that's not the full game.

Convey X damage over time, Chance to Cast glacial spike + a Focus build can do high damage, probably not at level 20 though. Act 3 is when most of character power starts to ramp up noticeably.

Yes.
To "maps". Difficulty of everything is extremely flat. And nothing feel rewarding.
Btw, how is TL1?

torchlight 2 made me realize i would like to rest between giant sphinx tits

Character level around 40-50? The map room that opens up after you beat the -not- diablo right? For better or worse IMO TL2 is Diablo2 redux in a lot of parts. It's closer to something like Gauntlet in some ways.

If you like Diablo1, you might like TL1. SP only though, personally I'm fine with that and I liked it enough for what it is. Easier hardware requirements compared to TL2, if that is an important criteria. I haven't played it in a while but iirc passives are stronger in TL1. TL2 can be a bit too much active skills juggling, then again that's probably my preference. Some people like that, I'm not so hot on it.

I liked TL1 but I wouldn't really compare it to Diablo 1 that much. Diablo is closer to its roguelike roots. It can be rather stingy with what it gives to the player, you are supposed to struggle through the floors based on what you can find in a single playthrough, not what you can grind.

Torchlight wants to make the player powerful and then give them ways to show off that power. It's not really about challenging the player every step of the way.

By that logic, he would also love Skyrim and Bioware games. Since DS2 has the gameplay of Skyrim and the writing capability of Modern Bioware.

The least relevant thing in these kind of games. Even before blizzard takeover of blizzard north(who made d1 and d2) writing was abysmal.
Canonically, player killed diablo once in d1, and 3 times in diablo 2. And story is "oh noes, diablo is at it again! Go and murder everything!".
And new poe story.
But it has good parts.

You wanna talk about story in ARPGs?

Reminder that ARPGs are only good for keeping your hands and eyes busy(and occasionally rewarding you with delicious loot) while you listen to music, podcasts or audiobooks.

Sometimes shit like endgame bosses is really challenging and theorycrafting often more fun than actual play.

It sounds like crazy sorcerer would sound. Or if story was written by angry coder who was forced to write dialogue.

what game is this

I want something like pic related. I thought for sure I'd find a arpg on the computer that played like these series did, but everything I've tried hasn't scratched that itch that these games give me.

sacred 2

I want to play this game, but, then again, I don't want to have to build a merchant character first.

I know what you mean, but you have to drop that mentality sometimes. The point is enjoying your hobby and not let your autismo kill you just because you chose a different difficulty.

Elite does nothing but fuck you anally, Elite is only "fun" playing the first 50 levels but after that everything one shots you. Meanwhile in Veteran the one shots start around lv80-90 onwards, however you can fix the oneshots in Veteran stacking HP like a mad man. In Elite you still get oneshotted no matter what so it's totally not worth it.

Post the outcome if you find the game better man. Most probably you do, but post that char and see how it goes here mate.

I cannot help you since most mods are only posted on Steam and I dont know how to manually get the pieces for this one mod and upload it myself.
I know your pain and this is one of the reasons on why it's better to buy the game than pirate it.

Try mods, try the end game, try Tier 3 skills. It does change. Upgrades make a big difference, at end game the gear LVL requirement goes beyond 100 which is the cap, so you are forced to have the stats to wear it, in other words you need enchant of stats for those or sacrifice a tome slot.
The bosses are not easy if you play on Veteran or Elite unless you're overgeared in Vanilla.
Yes the more players there are, the higher the enemies stats are: double armor, double damage etc. I have played Elite in a 4 man team, the only time I stopped dealing "1" single point of damage was around lv20, it gets that tough with players.

What I posted fixes:
Like, read the post previous I made about the list.

The most fun of ARPGs is building the character and have a vision of end game with it that can complete all content.
Then after doing that a lot of times is when you do that but on Hardcore. However I'm going to be honest and say that (in Vanilla) the only character that is worth playing in Hardcore is the Engineer and maybe the Embermage, there's always surprises that can one shot you. The Embermage can be so far behind that it's really hard for him to be touched to begin with and the Engi is just unkillable if played right. Berserk and Outlander can, even when played right, get oneshotted by something random or unexpected.

Pic unrelated but the negative gold on the first one is because I gave myself a fuckload of gold to try the end game of Adventure Pack back in the day and toyed around spawning Lv100 bosses to test builds with him.
Later on I started making a second character and to give that char max everything to test stuff and thus the Sheet would not be broken. The rest of the stats are legit however, the damage of the Berserk is fucking insane if you stack buffs/debuffs but good luck surviving.

There's a coop mod for TL1. Also a mod that lets you rotate the camera. I don't have a link to hand but it should be easy enough to find on google if anyone is particularly desperate.

You mean "Better to buy from Steam".
I bought the game directly from Runic's website back in the day.
It actually annoys me as the game is set up perfectly to easily load and distribute mods without the need for something like Steam Workshop. There's even a .mod filetype you can bundle up all your stuff in for easy distribution.

Yep and many of the modders that still update on Steam has versions for those who dont use Steam workshop. You could still take a look at it and look for stuff.

However it's way too easy for them to get it on Steam and even easier for people to install those mods with a single click.

Have you tried the "new" Gauntlet?

I guess Mephisto and Baal were Diablo all along. Silly me.

Lilith resurrected diablo and others. And once he was resurrected just because. PS. And fucking blizzard killed whole diablo franchise later.

This is depressing since this is the first game where the art style alone has made not like the game. I will play damn near anything you put in my face from dwarf fortress to neptuina to a fucking wrestling game but the art style from Torchlight prevents me from playing it more than an hour or two.

I found torchlight 2 to be fairly weak and lose interest in playing it every time I try but I'll give it another go in the future. Path of exile is really awful and I've no clue how people could like it but to each his own

Grim Dawn on the other hand never seems to get any attention and holy fuck is it good. Clocked over 500 hours with dozens of maxed builds and still planning to put in at least a thousand or two more especially once the expansion is released

I really like Grim Dawn. It knows what it is and not ashamed of it. You can grind to your heart's content thanks to the faction system but also alt friendly by allowing you to buy a scroll that maxes out your rep by using it. I didn't really care for the crucible though, I liked their skeleton key system and endless dungeon they put in the game itself a lot more.

It's not a 1:1 comparison and yes I was generalizing it a bit. That said Diablo1 iirc does not seem to have a lot of similar "clones" when it's boiled down to it's details. (Tile based, real time hack and slasher arpg) Nox was good but it's not really a clone. Darkstone was not bad but it was somewhere between Diablo 1 and 2, a Diablo 1.5.

Even to this day, while I haven't touched Diablo1 vanilla in years, I played the fuck out of Diablo Hellfire:Fixed mod. Since that was the closest thing to the ideal Diablo1 formula for me.

By the time a character hits level 35+ in diablo 1, assuming just regular play, not a restricted or challenge build or ironman etc. Sorcerers in Diablo1 was basically easy modo mang, only speedbump for them was triple immunes. A rogue is good middle ground, and warrior was the only class that was actually the opposite of most fantasy rpg template of "if you're a beginner choose the fighter class". Since playing him to higher level was not the most beginner friendly experience.

tl;dr, I still miss Diablo1 tile based real time monster clicking.

I had to get over that and it's not easy since I favor Diablo1 art style far more. Diablo1 > Diablo2, naked succubi titties don't lie But yes, the art style is not everyone's thing.

Kept hearing good things about grimdawn. Looked it up again, windows only. I've set my current gayman machine as a loonix box. Fuck.

Wine that shit. I have heard nothing but good things from GD and it's compatibility with Wine.

what's wrong with torchlight's art style? i'm mean yeah it's a bit kiddy/low rent 90's comic book but it's serviceable. I just wish it was a bit more consistent. some stuff looks a cool Don Bluth take on a cell shaded diablo. (i've only played the first game with a few nice mods)

I will say that nobody should ever play torchlight without the champions, otherwise the game gets boring fast.

It's the same reason why I can't stomach digital made cartoons like Johnny Test, Adventure Drama island, and other shows like that. They have this look like the artist gave no fucks what so ever and because of that the whole thing looks flat and boring. The biggest issue I have when I try to play it for extended periods of time is how flat everything looks and the comic sans tier font everything uses, the music also doesn't help since it rarely looks like it goes with the style of the game. In short, the whole thing is a mess aesthetically in my opinion.

first game had lots of BDSM demon ladies, and the three sisters bossfight had some very suggestive dialogue that was cut from the beta version.

I get what you're saying, somebody did some graphic overhaul mods to make the game look more like diablo 2, but i'm not sure if it ever got finished. the asia and mobile version of the game a much more anime artstyle. so that might be one to try.

I really wanted to give TL2 another try with some of these cool as fuck mods and now all I leave with is disappointment. God damn it.

it could also be that the game was designed to run on sub 1ghz netbook computers.

D1 had exposed succubi titties though, and crucifixes, and a more gothic overall aesthetic. Again TL1&2 is not bad, I'm still playing TL2. But it's not quite the same dark atmosphere. For me it's mostly the characters proportion. D1 had a less cartoony proportion, TL1 and 2 is closer to Fate iirc. It's not all the way cartoony, but it's there.
In TL2? I can't find it by googling it at the moment, spill the beans.

The environment art for TL1&2 still looks ok to good imo.
Something more devs and studios should really pay attention to in [current year]. Not necessarily the sub 1ghz thing, but optimizing stuff in general and not having games be a bloated mess.

I have an on and off relationship with Diablo 3. I play it when I have a really bad day at work and don't feel like chatting with anyone, so I play some smooth jazz on Pandora in the background, get some coffee, wrap myself with a blanket and just watch demons and shit explode. It's a good little time waster and greater rifts are fast enough that you don't need that much involvement or attention. Not saying that's a good thing but that's why I still play it.

Otherwise I have better things to play that are far more engaging.

But that's part of the appeal of these types of monster clickers. Not many want to admit it, but fat lewt monster pinata is part of why people do play these things.

Lurker here thanking you for your input on mods. I gave up on this game after trying it with synergies and a couple of cosmetic/ease of use mods. Going to give essentials a shot with TL2 next time I want to play one of these "clickers before clickers were cool" games again.

I was a beta (alpha?) tester for the first torchlight, I went to school with some people that worked at runic games. so I rember what a lot of the enemies looked like before the final release. the game had more female enemies in general and the demon ladies made sexual moaning sounds. one of the male enemies had an S&M ball gag and the final level had naked demon lady statues before the entrance to the final boss. a lot of the pre production art was very much inspired by Dragon's Lair (the game also had a character named daphne, I don't remember if she made it into the final) at some point it seemed like the chinese investors/woman (blue haired liberal) staffers wanted the sexy stuff toned way down for the game.

no it was in the first game. underground crypt i believe. older version had the sisters telling the male characters very suggestive that threats about being a "play thing" and tieing them up and how much they would "enjoy it" dialogue was different for the female class. it was also sexual but more along the lines of they were going to make her like one of them (one of the early ideas was that ember turned females into sex demons/bdsm succubi and made males submissive monsters)

So, as I recall torchlight and runic was froged out of the ashes of two failed games and one (two?) dead company's flagship studios and Hellgate: London was the first part of the debacle. then I can't recall the first name but it eventually become "Mythos" the prototypes like just like diablo 2 almost too much… anyway Mythos continued to advance it development but somewhere along the way it was turned into an MMO and then sold to a korean company. so from that dumpster fire runic and torchlight become a thing to restart the ARPG development (with little of the ideas from Mythos) and then the creator of Fate got involved I believe and thats why torchlight ended up the way it did.

and this seems to be the closest we'll get to a Torchlight 3.

...

I almost rather you be lying to me, because that just fucking hurts if you're telling me the truth. What could have been.

Wew, haven't heard those titles in a while. The gaming guild I used to play in had a few members in it that was semi involved in mythos iirc, since through 6 degrees of separation the guild owner was friends with some old ex blizzard staff at the time.

Yeah Torchlight iirc was originally supposed to be the jumpstart and gateway game into their MMO, but last I heard that plan was shelved. (Schaeffer and Baldree ?) left to start a new game and studio on their own, and Runic is not doing an ARPG for their next title iirc.

thats how I remember it, buts been like a little over ten years new so some details are a bit fuzzy, I think the most telling thing is how almost all the official pre-production and female enemy artworks for TL have basically been expunged from the internet. even the wiki doesn't have them anymore. I also remember the game having better artwork in general before release. like I said things got changed but not for the better. and I can only assume it was self censorship. I have an episode of some defunct seattle "gamer-gurl" podcast interviewing someone from runic and she complains about how unrealistic and sexualized the female models are (this was about 5 months before the game released) but most of the chat shifted to info about the ogre3d game engine TL is based on.

(but it's been a little over ten years now) sorry about the typos. i'm not used to posting from a tiny phone

You're welcome user.

Not the dev's fault, it's the modders. But I can't blame them, it's way easier on the steam workshop. Also TL2 gets really really cheap constantly, it's worth at least 5 bucks my man.

That's just painful.

Why do you need 60 fps for a 2D sprite game? You're not missing out on small details or split second reactions. On higher fps these games start skipping frames and animations look choppy. This isn't 3D models where 60 actually work, with fixed frames (25 was the standard) you literally wont notice a difference.

so are all the mods gone now? or has everything moved over to steam? I remember having to use a special tool to install mods for TL1.

Not all the mods are gone. Some modders STILL upload their stuff and give links on the very same steamworkshops for those who don't use Steam.
However not all of them do that, so you're better off getting a key of TL2 or waiting for a sale.

The game should be around 3-5bucks easily and also worth it for that price. Also, the LAN is complete and utter garbage with more than two players but the online (need original copy) is good/decent, so the only way to play with friends properly is with an original copy of the game.

I would even recommend to people here that want to play TL2 to make maybe a discord or steam group to play together. That way some anons may feel like playing vidya instead of just shitposting.

oh, I forgot to mention the three sisters were made "transparent" in the final game for no real reason (to make it harder to see the texture details I guess?) so i assume that was also part of the censorship. (if any occurred).

checked
Jesus I know I should not be surprised but that is just anger inducing.

yeah its disappointing when stuff has to be changed because of social pressures. it's also possible that microsoft and the ESRB might have also had some input on the changes (TL1 got a port to Xbox Live arcade) most of the american game industry is unfortunately located in some of the most culturally regressive cities in the country.

i've mostly stopped playing these types of games with a Mouse/KB (hurts my wrists) so I just use xpader and a controller. feels great to me. (I was also a big fan of baldur's gate dark alliance on the ps2 and xbox)

Diablo1 and D1Hellfire is for me at least I would say it fits, even needs a KB+M setup. But yeah, after years of playing them, I now am making more of a switch to some sort of game controller. Played victor vran with a controller, D3 on console over at a friends place, and yeah I'm convinced. Monster clicker with a game controller done right is actually good and more comfortable for the hands.

My nigga right here. ToME is excellent, definitely give it a try.

Works fine in wine.

Baldurs gate was THE game to play when I was a kid.
The fights I had with my brother on splitscreen was glorious

Could I convince someone to provide an upload of any of these not on Nexus? I was looking for Adventure Pack and LurkerHUD in particular, neither seem to be available off of steam workshop and I'm not paying $20 for this shit.

steamworkshopdownloader.com/
Try this.

I'd be down to play some TL2 with ya'll. I really loved the first torchlight but the sequel had some issues. The questing around the map felt kind of like WoW and you ended up crisscrossing fuck huge maps littered with dead shit to turn in quests. I downloaded a bunch of mods once but still didn't make it feel quite the same. I really liked how in the first torchlight it was one pretty well designed dungeon just sprawling downwards while the second one was not as tight of an overall experience and the classes were lackluster.

20th user that will tell you to go play Grim Dawn. Honestly the best loot grinder that's not Diablo 2.
Alternatively, reinstall Diablo 2 and go play some mods like Median or Eastern Sun or something.

If you're still digging, there's Sacred and 'Blade and Sword' for two combo-ability oriented games. Zoldak's collection (Zombasite and prior) are aspie dungeon crawlers with some redeeming value. Titan Quest is a classic that's a precursor to Grim Dawn, engine wise. I've been meaning to get Wolcen myself, mixed bag I hear but it seems promising. Van Helsing is a hard play, but is worthwhile and has a tower defense sidegame in it. For all the hate Victor Vran gets, it's not a bad game given that you need to have the mindset of it being more 'arcadey'. Finally, there's Path of Exile, which I enjoy solo, but the trade economy aspect and reliance on some uniques for skill viability can put people off.

And with that list, you should be busy for quite a while.

What? You don't have to.
I got bargaining on my seraphim on level 50 and the proceed to outfit here with +all skills shit.

oh that baldur's gate

How's it play pretty standard hack and slash or any cool bells and whistle type stuff?

seems to have a lot of freedom in character builds, if you could call that a bell and whistle.
but, i wasnt good at it or anything.

How do you guys even get to stomach class and overhaul mods?
They didn't even try hard enough to make the artstyle fit. It's very ugly.

Sacred? It's all bells and whistles, to the point where most ARPG fans hate it.
I absolutely love it, but it's a very niche game in a niche genre to begin with. It has insane attention to detail though.
It does have very loyal autistic fanbase though, as there is huge community patch mod and a lot of smaller shits to enhance your experience.

If that looks too silly/intimidating, you can always try Sacred 1 - it's more of a traditional ARPG with some cool shit like skill combos and in-depth socketing.

i should go enjoy that again now that i could probably get away with not playing it on n64 tier settings.

For something 10 years old it's a very pretty game.

...

I hear Sacred 2 is a bitch to get running on modern systems, or is that just win10? I'm still running 7.

I don't have any problems on win7.
I heard almost everything is a bitch to run on win10, including win10 exclusives, but I've never used win10 myself. And am not going to.

OP again, stupidly tried to get back into Torchlight 2 just in case my first impressions were wrong (competed 2nd act).

Enemies are complete bullet sponges but the coup-de-grace skill helps immensely, yet for some insane reason bosses / champion units are immune / mostly immune so the enemies you actually need to use the skill for …it's ineffective.

Every fucking dungeon is a linear path. Every one.

There is even less penalty for dying than i first thought. In fact, dying can be used tactically to zero the cool down of the gunbot summon I'm using.

For some reason healing bot disables when travelling between areas but gunbot does not.

This game is a fucking mess. I'm annoyed I wasted a few more hours on it. I can't understand how it was so highly praised.

Too bad it just feels like a way worse game than the first.

Act 2 is probably the shittiest act of them all.
I had way more fun in Act 3 and 4.
Fuck the stupid desert and fuck that genie game.

Torchlight 1 is 8/10 while 2 is barely 5/10.
Go play the first one.

Post your character level, stats, build and gear. It sounds like you may benefit in looking up some build guides just to get an idea of what is more effective. (I'm going to use some D2 examples just because I played a lot of both.)

I posted a Focus stat build in , but really you can switch Strength instead of Focus and it would still generally work. But the key thing is you need to choose which you will go for, Strength or Focus based.

IIRC coup de grace only benefits Strength builds. Even then it's mostly a bonus. Not a main attack skill, at least at higher character levels. I've played all 4 classes to clvl100, max NG+++++ plus whatever the fuck it is. And the only time I can say enemies are bullet sponges are in the Tarroch's Tomb optional dungeon. Where the monsters there can go up to lvl 200 iirc. Iirc the highest level monsters go in the 'regular' game is 120 or so, and as long as you chose either Strength or Focus heavy for your build and not split it, and choose an attack skill that isn't crap, enemies will go not be bullet sponges.
That's due to how it generates the area, some are fixed, the ones are not are iirc put generated as "rooms", so it's not as randomized. Not sure if there is a mod or anything that fixes your beef with that unfortunately.
Hardcore mode can be switched on right away when you make a new character iirc.
Yeah. It is annoying, which is why I put a hotkey to summon him everytime I enter a new area. Just think of the healbot as a D2 paladin aura, it will drive you less crazy that way.
TL2 is not like Diablo2 when it comes to summonables.

D2 amazons valkyrie for example, is a fucking tank. TL2 combat summonables sucks, yes even the gunbot, and I played with the gunbot, I want to like the gunbot, but the game simply does not respect the gunbot due to the too short of a timer. And the way combat summonables are treated in the game sucks balls, since it's not a set it once and forget it. It's summon, watch the timer, if it doesn't have a retardedly long cooldown it's a game of pressing the button to summon it again, and that's if it has enough HP to make a difference in Elite difficulty.
If you don't like the game, then that's fair enough. I'll just say that I've also seen people who got frustrated with it, because they were using some other game's mentality and got frustrated when it didn't work. TL2 has it's own quirks, once it's figured out, believe me user. Enemies will not be bullet sponges. Honest injun.

My current engineer on the linux gayman box is lvl80, focus based emberquake main attack, with a Glacial Spike chance to cast weapon and shield, Thunder ctc from Marishka broach, and a Convey X damage over time gem socketed into the weapon (scales with Focus stat, even if it's Convey Physical damage). And he can kill enemies fine in Elite. 1-2 hits of emberquake for normal trash mobs, 2-4 hits for champs.

Have no interest in playing further now. Forgot to mention that the armor system is fucking pants on head retarded.

Your armor and element resistance seem to be mainly based on damage reduction as a hard number rather than a %. Thing is, you have like 50 armor but that's fucking useless since most monsters are hitting you for 750 - 1000 and some are oneshotting you for 2k.

Anyway, it's not even like I need to git gud, since you can just keep wearing them down and brute force any areas. There is absolutely zero skill involved.

There is a % based reduction, but it's a socketable that you need to hunt for, if you want to. I played with and without that %based socketable fine. Otherwise just ignore armor and element resists, since defense is really about blocking and moving. It's much more "arcade" based when it comes to the defense game.

I understand that frustration, and to be fair the difficulty spike in TL2 is actually lopsided, the hardest parts of the game can actually be the starting to low mid character levels, especially if you start out in elite mode.

But honest injun mang, TL2 has it's own quirks that once you figure it out. I'd bet that at least half of your complaints with it would be gone.

Could have worded that clearer. It's not something to rely too much on. It's a 1pt or none Passive imo.

Forgot to add. Just ignore armor and element resist, they might as well not exist. The defense game comes down to:
-moving
-blocking with shield (the Vitality stat is only good for blocking, the HP it gives is peanuts compared to the next part)
-HP as a buffer, via socketables.

All skills affect bosses except CC ones that are REDUCED but still EFFECTIVE.

I have for example from Vanilla a Shotgun Outlander without a single active skill of damage and I just M1 everything, the fun thing is that I stunlock everything including bosses, so the CC still works but the time is shortened.

Anyways let's go point by point:
Yeah like D2 on /players 8 which is how people usually play. Even then, TL2 does not suffer from HPSponges unless your build is bad with the exception of Bosses (yellow ones). Please post your build so I can tell what is wrong.

Yes if you have everything on STR with fast attack speed it's really good, obviously need a stun previously.

Nope they are not. You see, you deal electric damage and most Act 2 Bosses are resistant to electric.

They're like D2 with some secrets here and there randomized.

Dying gives you a penalty of gold which is not a big deal. Dying resets all your CD to 0. Summons that do not have a timer to disappear usually requires to be resummoned after every loading screen (change of area/level).

As said (which I agree in everything). The only worth summon is the healing bot which is like a palading aura and maybe the Embermage summon which is used as bait instead of damage.
Wait, "convey X" scales with Focus? I didn't know that.

Yes armor is stupid in TL2, it gets fixed with the proper mods.
Well it sounds to me that you're not building the character properly, which is a skill and the most important part in an ARPG.

Pretty much, TL2 is still my favourite ARPG and better than D2 (with mods). If you remove the mods however it's way inferior than D2. But no other ARPG is close to any of those two to be honest.

Also my favourite build for Engi on Hardcore would be something like pic related (I opened a new game with Engi and gave him all the end game skillpoints needed to show pics).

While I do agree that act 2 is the worst…
YOU'RE PLAYING ON ELITE, YOU OVERGROWN FAGGOT.
Holy fuck you're retarded.

Yep. And it shreds monsters pretty well with a fast attack or an attack that stacks it fast. Ie: Venomous Hail from a Focus based Outlander with a socketed weapon that has a high Convey X over time, will fuck the monster's shit up fast.

Fucking fuck I must have a hangover or something. I meant
*a weapon with a high amount of Convey X or socketed with a high level Convey X, will fuck the monster's shit up fast.
And I playtested it on Elite, it works there too.

Is there mods to be a QT succubus lady?

...

I have not played any of the major mods just the vanilla version of TL2, but yep. Convey X + Focus heavy + fast attack skill to stack = shred monsters even in Elite.

Bullshit, I don't think coup de grace triggered once in either of the two end of act bosses I fought.

Players 8 enemies don't get bullet spongey until Nightmare. Unless I was getting enemies stunned to trigger Coup de grace, their HP was chipping down slowly.

By end of act 2 I was around level 30, with 6 (game doesn't let you max out a skill so was having to split my points) in

heavy lifting
coup de grace
healing bot
fire and spark
Gunbot

I had a couple points in the energy shield skill.

Most of my stat points were dumped into strength, with the rest split evenly across the other 3. My cannon was doing around 200 DPS. I had 2,000 HP or so.

I have just looked online and this doesn't seem like a bad build.

No. D2 is nothing like TL2 in terms of layout. D2 isn't remotely linear, it's a random layout of many interconnected rooms you need to explore. TL2 is almost always (at least in first 2 acts) just a long linear path that mind wind left or right but still a single path. Very occasionally you're given a short fork to explore but it's nothing like D2. The fact that you say this makes me think you haven't played D2 or you're trolling.

I didn't say the game was difficult. I said it wasn't fun. Keep up. Also, lol at "you aren't playing it properly". An ARPG should be fun enough on first playthrough that someone would want to play through again with a tailored build.

You have shit taste

I bet you also love the elder scrolls. Christ this board has gone to shit.

You're truly retarded.
That's fucking rubbish, at that level you should be critting 2k with a cannon.
Why are you putting points on Focus? Even as a new player it makes no sense at all.
Why are you putting points on Vit? Everyone here told you already that the scale of VIT is awful and only worth with a shield, you're saying you have a fucking cannon.

Yes I have played D2 for years with friends even. I'm really burnt of it, I still have it installed and guess what, with mods as well because like it or not everything is better with mods. There are many good games that are improved with mods and not only Elder Scrolls has a modding community, it's like you haven't been in a single STALKER thread either.

You're whinning about everyone being sponges, that means that you are building the character like shit (and you are).

It's been a while since I played D2, but last time even nightmare can be done in players 8, shit starts to gets ridiculous in Hell mode, 1.10+ patch, where most players who don't use cheated out gear do have to scaledown back to player1.

heavy lifting
coup de grace
healing bot
fire and spark
Gunbot

Wait hold on, what main attack are you using? Not regular attack right? Are you primarily a cannoneer? And take gunbot out, it honestly sucks balls due to the cooldown at your character level, even when maxed out at 15 it's just barely ok, combat summons are sub par in vanilla TL2.
That is not that high tbh. Thats a bare minimum of a hp buffer.

Don't split your stats evenly like that. TL2 does not work that way, that is one of it's quirks, just like D2 has it's owns quirks. Choose whether or not you are Strength or Focus heavy, then for VIT choose whether or not you will primarily be shield +1h weapon, or primarily 2 hander or cannoneer, because VIT is the stat for blocking. 55 to DEX, there are players who advocates more, up to 103-105 but personally I never found that huge of a difference, and I'd rather put 50 points into either STR or FOC.

Where online, there is a lot of outdated or just plain wrong info about TL2 unfortunately. The official forum is actually not that bad, ignore some of the very early and now outdated info when players were still figuring out the game and there was still patch tweaks.

Sounds like mixed messages here.
And more than one anons told you there are ways to build a character so you won't experience 'enemies are bullet sponges tho'.

What a shit taste, just play Diablo 3, it has convoluted skill system, but at least looks good and has right style.

D3 is even more shit.

said no one in the history of ever

Jay Wilson plz, just leave and stay leave.

I never found Bulwark useful.

Instead I filled up Fire and Spark, then put 1 pt in Charge Domination and 1 pt in Immobilization Copter is a must for me.

I've just played a couple of hours of Nox for the first time. It's ok, but kinda boring, I guess it's meant to be played in co-op to be proper enjoyable. I just got to level 4 as Warrior and I think I'll switch to LOKI instead, see if it even works on this Thinkpad.

Grim Dawn is pretty good, I played through it twice even though my PC was crashing constantly because of faulty RAM/Motherboard.

I was never able to finish an Engi tank, because the party would break somehow.

Yeah Bulwark is not that useful but I was working with phys damage reduction.

I'm too much into the modded classes anyways and nearly forgot about everything of the vanilla.

I was talking about the DPS figure you're given when viewing the weapon stats. I was critting for around 2k.

Thanks for vindicating my build you moron.

Anybody got a direct magnet link? I'm on an office network, so all torrent sites are automatically blocked off.

Out of curiosity, what are you using for a main attack, Blast Cannon? Regular attack? Are you switching back and forth between cannon and 1h weapon and shield?
If you are still that frustrated, download a total re-spec mod and redo your points and stat distribution. Gunbot is not that good, you'd be better off switching to spider mines. Even 1 pt in it is pretty good.
Shit mang, it honestly sounds like you are still figuring out the game in general, sticking it out in elite when you are still trying to figure out the quirks of the game, it won't be a fun time for anyone really.

I used a website to download mods from steam.
Steam workshop downloader or something. Easy to find anyway.

Found it:
steamworkshop.download/

That's what I said "at that level you should be critting 2k with a cannon" at that level of DPS, which is rubbish, that's the damage you do naked with a 150DPS cannon at lv31~.

Your build IS really bad and all you do is attack people here when you're the retard. Did you by any chance read before selecting the difficulties? Pic related: Veteran and Elite. If Veteran already asks for those who are familiar with Torchlight, what do you think Elite will be? It's pure masochism to go for Elite when you have 0 knowledge of the game.
Sure ARPGs do not take that much skill, the skill of ARPGs is properly building and adapting to the enemies/area with what you have, if you have NO knowledge of the game you CAN'T do this properly and thus going to harder difficulties is shooting your feet.

If you really want to give the game a try first lower the difficulty, you can do this without creating a new character: when selecting the character instead of singleplayer make LAN or Multiplayer and host the world in the difficulty you want (like Veteran) and you'll play on that difficulty instead of the character's difficulty.
Second get a respect and remove the crap you have and those wasted stat points.

Third reconsider not going Engi with a cannon since it's quite "meh", Engi goes either 2H melee or tanky as fuck, the cannon is not as good. If you insist on "m-muh cannon and stun" play Outlander with Shotgun since it's the same but better. Also the summons of the Outlander are slightly better but they only work as meatshields to distract more than to deal damage, however with his AoE healing you can make them tanky as fuck (as well as yourself) and stunlock even bosses with a shotgun that fires fast without the need of using a single active skill of damage.

If you insist on loving the Cannon, the class Dread Pirate has a really nice Cannon tree that I'm currently playing. It's really really good and it's working great so far

Thanks, that's a godsend.

Cannon can be fun tho. Granted I still used 1h + shield most of the time since I likes muh shield and Emberquake just fucks the monsters shit up, no fuss no muss. But a Focus based cannoneer, can be fun. Blast cannon and Fussilade (at 10 only, iirc maxed fussilade is not worth it), Convey X, Glacial spike, Thunder, yadda yadda still shreds monsters well enough. Even in Elite.

But yes, if someone is still figuring out the game they should really try what you outlined already.

Basically it was either torchlight2 or diablo 3 at a time.

Loky is shit. But I want to play it somehow. Always dropped due to boredom. But what if it gets better? But the start is so fucking lame.

Not reading the whole conversation here, but I ended up in a canon build myself. I was going to go sword and board, but found that the AOE on the canon just wrecks. Any points in dex/vit/foc are for gear requirements only, using respec mod so I don't mind putting them in and taking them out again later.

I tried looking at outlander shotgun, excuse me shotgonne, but I didn't really see any skills to support it. Engi has good damage skills (blast cannon is actually pretty great DPS compared to a lot of skills and very spammable) and more importantly lots great passives and defensive skills (healbot and forcefield especially) that other classes just outright lack.

Shotgun mastery as a passive. For the blind effect.

And that's pretty much it. Why the hell would I choose a class for only one useful skill? Doesn't even have an attack that makes use of shotgonnes properly

Er, what? Shotgun mastery as a Passive, it works for all attacks and skills that uses a shotgun. So skills such as Rapid Fire, Chaos Burst and Venomous Hail, it applies the blind as long as it's fired from a shotgun.

All of those skills you mentioned would be better utilized with a bow or handgun though. They neither take advantage of the shotgonne AOE nor require a shotgonne specifically. Besides I think blind might be kind of shit, since Blast Cannon applies blind and I still havent noticed it doing anything

A handgun's advantage is being able to use a shield with the other hand slot. There is no disadvantage of using a shotgun with the skills mentioned, if anything it offers more advantage since the blind effect applies. Bows are not that good, only range mastery passive applies to it, and at higher level the +damage bonus is meh since Blind is far more effective at shutting down monsters.
Shotgun mastery blind, I forgot the exact point but I usually put it to max anyway, is > then Blast Cannon's blind. It can shut down Act end bosses cold, it can shut down level 200 monsters cold.
There are different ways of getting the blind effect, but the outlanders shotgun mastery (it needs to be more than 1pt though iirc) is one of the most reliable way to shutdown a monster's AI. I've played all 4 classes with various builds up to max, this is not a dickslap of outlander vs engineer. I am stating it as a fact. Shotgun Mastery's blind effect, is worlds of difference compared to Blast Cannon's blind.

Wait, do you mean shotgun AOE with a -regular attack-? No one uses shotguns with a regular attack outside of early character levels when you don't have the mana pool or skill access. It's too slow.

Fug, is this what is causing some of the frustrations I wonder. For those who are trying out the game. Don't use regular attacks as a main skill. That's only for very young characters.

A handgun and bows advantage is very fast attack speed, which gets them more benefit from socketed embers and enchants that apply damage per hit (bigger dps boost=bigger skill damage)

In terms of passive that helps it, which only boosts it's damage. Which isn't that great, and crowd control and fucking up a monsters's AI is far more effective.

Honest question. Are you using the regular, auto attack.

To build charge, because blast cannon does not naturally build it. Otherwise not really. The only thing charge is used for is forcefield, so it's not needed that often and I can usually keep it up with charge domination

Wait I think I know your answer. You are using regular attacks aren't you. When you use skills that takes up mana, the game ignores attack speed and only uses CASTING SPEED, with some exception (some skills have a cooldown or timer so casting speed doesn't apply). Rapid Fire is fast no matter what, casting speed might only affect the startup time of Rapid Fire, which is negligible.

If you have a faster cast helmet and gloves, you can fire the slowest shotguns using chaos burst for example, at a fast rate.

The game uses WEAPON DPS to determine the damage, WEAPON DPS is determined by attack speed and damage

I meant with an Outlander. Because I'll say it again, no one especially outlanders, uses regular attacks, outside of the very young levels.

But if you're talking about engineers. I personally don't use regular attacks either to build up charge. I use Dynamo, and 1pt in charge domination.

Yeah that's the plan for later, but I don't have dynamo yet. Not sure if Dynamo is worth it from range though, probably not until about the tier 2 bonus

Let me ask you something simpler then. Have you actually tried out playing an outlander, with the Shotgun Mastery passive at say around 10pts, with Rapid Fire, and Venomous Hail. Because in actual practice, it may surprise you how it performs. Even in elite.

Then again I usually play a focus based, stack convey X, with a glacial spike weapon. Even the first end game run shotgun reward you can choose to get if you play as an outlander, that thing served me until my outlander was level 90.

No I don't think I've played any character long enough to get a non-starter skill up to tier 2 level.

Pump it to tier1 if your clvl allows it. Tier 2 is serving me fine with my current lvl 80 engineer. (I had multiple 100s of various classes and builds in my now wiped out windows machine, re playing in my loonix box.)

At older levels Dynamo is much more efficient at building charge vs regular attack. I mean, no offense mang, but come to think of it maybe that's why OP was having frustrations with the game. There was a lot of players even when the game first came out that still tried to use auto attack\regular attack beyond the early levels for some reason.

You still haven't responded to the fact that skill damage is effectively determined by weapon speed (times damage), and that faster weapons gain more DPS from embers and enchants, hence leading to much higher skill damage. This was even more a thing in Torchlight 1, where you could stack enchants on one weapon. Basically you wanted to find the fastest weapon you could and then stack damage enchants on it.

Ok. If you have a character editor and make a throwaway edited character, try it for yourself if you don't believe me. 10pt or so in Shotgun Mastery, and using those Skills mentioned, and a faster cast gear. The shotgun comes out on top, if you have Shotgun Mastery for the blind.

At higher levels when the monsters rush you they can make it hurt, and there is a limit to moar damage, and what looks good on paper (I tried outlanders with bows, the effectiveness of the bow is not as good as you may believe) doesn't match when the monsters does the fulsom county rush at your character. And Outlanders (and Embermages) do not have the built in 25% damage resistance that Engi and Zerkers have iirc. The shotgun mastery's blind however, can shut down the monster's shit cold.

And that's the other reason why I go for Engi/Cannon instead of Outlander. Defensive abilities, including that 25% damage reduction, various passives self heals and forcefields. Also blast cannon's blind is better, 4 seconds vs 3 at up to 75% chance unless shotgonne mastery is applying a stronger version of blind which isn't stated. I just hadn't noticed it (had to look closer) because enemies are normally stunned anyway.

Last thing I want is another glass cannon build that dies the instant I miss my CC.

And this is TL2. :^)
IIRC you can look up on the official site\forum what is the exact formula there, since there was early on some patch tweaks with how damage is calculated. At one point it was changed, changed back, changed again, not sure what the current status is but iirc there wasn't a huge patch change since they released the editor and loonix version.

What I can tell you, is in practice, a pistol is great because it lets you use a shield as well. A shotgun when using Skills + Mastery for the blind + faster cast helm and gloves, and not regular attacks. Will still in practice, come out better than bow + longrange mastery. The damage bonus is not as high as you believe with bows. Even if I use a bow with that Focus based outlander, Convey X stacking with Chance To Cast, which is very damaging in elite. I still want the shotgun because it gives that + blind. Something very valuable against say, Act End bosses.
Blind shutting down their AI = they are sitting ducks.

It is, and it's not stated but can be seen if you play it. Another example chance to cast blind from a weapon. If you see a weapon with 5% chance, it not only triggers less but does not seem to apply a noticeable effect. 10-15%, seems to make a noticeable difference. 25%, is even more. And a maxed out or tier 2 Shotgun Mastery blind, consistently shut downs monsters even act end bosses, even tarrochs tombs level 200 monsters ice cold.

I mean I played all 4 classes, various builds, all to max, going to tarrochs tomb in elite. So I don't have any clear favorites of the 4, because they all have their own pros and cons. But I'm telling you mang. Shotgun Mastery's blind, it's good.

depends, if you enjoy making builds and going all out autistic over character customization it may be the game for you. Also clearing maps with insane mods is always fun if you have a decent build.
i'd say wait a few months for the 3.0 expansion because the leveling right now sucks balls and they will fix it.
Oh and dont listen to the retards who will tell you to play hardcore, you can do that if you have 500 hours and know all the bullshit that could onehit you and even then you probably wont last very long unless you play in the most boring possible way.

OP
user
?

That reminds me
Is literally the opposite of what the game says. It says (paraphrasing) "Don't wait to use socketables because you can recover them to use again later, use them as soon as possible"

The exact text I was referring to is:

Don't save your Ember for later! Use them in any piece of equipment with an open Socket. You will find better varieties soon, and the ancient art of combining gems to make better ones has been lost in this era.

gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/85875/can-i-get-a-list-of-helpful-hints-during-the-load-screen

But yes, there are certain skills that are way worth using with the shotgun, Venomous Hall is just the most broken (damage wise) skill of the Outlander and Shadowshot makes shotgonnes a sniper rifle out of the blue.
Shotgonnes is what, in my opinion, makes the outlander not shit.

Shotgonnes have at max 90% blind chance of 67% blind and 60% of stun at the very same time.

This is bait. Read.

checked
On what difficulty, Elite? If it works for you, great. Regular attack with shotgun is too slow for me, gottagofast. I usually put minimum 1pt in Rapid Fire (max 10 since 15 is too much of a mana hog without much benefit) put that on the right mouse button and Glaive throw (1pt early on, 5pt max) on left mouse button on early to mid level characters.
1pt in RF still applies the shotgun mastery blind on act end bosses, or else it gets the hose again.
At level 90+ I usually switch that around.
VH is fine, Shadowshot's shard split was nerfed a bit too much iirc during the game's playtesting, the rate of fire is a bit too slow for my taste, and tangling shot is just, just pretend it's not there because the monsters does the same when shot with it.
Yep. In the defensive department Outlanders can also use blade pact, rune vault or burning leap (to get out of getting cornered, though I personally use burning leap vs rune vault, since it suits my playstyle better), in addition to the Blind of shotgun mastery.

I still wish combat summons was handled differently in the vanilla game. I kinda miss D2 valkyrie big & beautiful tanky ass.

Elite, yes. But I reset him not long ago because the summons weren't working against Immortal bosses so I have this built that is not properly tested at the moment (pic related).

You don't use a particularly large amount of potions, but you also don't have any mana regen, how do you manage your mana then?

I don't need mana that much. Those buffs are persistant and stay for a long while, I can still use potions if needed, Dervish is not used unless boss or champion and I have enough mana to do a full combo of skills.

In fact Im going to try right now an Immortal and post the outcome here.
No problem whatsoever.

Woops, yeah I forgot it actually does state it on the skill menu. Good catch.

Yeah, combat summons are distraction cannon fodder at best in Elite difficulty most of the time.
I think I wound up dropping those in favor of using a shield most of the time. And putting the points into Shattering Glaive and Cursed Daggers.
Defensive wise I went shield+pistol, blade pact, burning leap to get out of getting cornered (shit happens). Shotgun mastery maxed, stone pact maxed, shotgun on secondary weapon switch. Act end bosses or Tarrochs Tombs raiding, usually it's shotgun time for me.

Oh shit the Level Scale made the Immortals lv70 what the fuck. Let me restart it without the Level Scale mod.

Yep this is Immortal on Elite alright. Let's try another Immortal.

The build seems fine but let's try to get two more pics.

Such is life.

I dont like Pistol + Shield to be honest.
Shadow mantle is a damn must because certain bosses one shot me at range, the Vortex is not needed but it's a nice addition that has poison damage and helps sticking the enemies in the same area of Venomous/Blade Pact.

There is literally nothing on the market that even approaches the Dark Alliance or Champions games. We'll probably never even seen a milked remaster thanks to how spread out the rights are now. Warner Brothers owns Snowblind studios, who made Shadow of Mordor, and have since been absorbed into another studio, the one working on the sequel, Daybreak owns Everquest, seems like Sony still owns some part of it too. Similar deal with Dark Alliance but replace Daybreak with Wizards.

The engine was also used in the Justice League game that was on everything around the same time but it's basically shit.

For some reason no one tried to make a knockoff of any of them, they always try to knockoff Diablo instead. To make it better, they're among the hardest games to emulate if you haven't got a pretty modern PC I don't, feels bad man.

I live in hope that some day someone will get together a team and funds to try and make a decent spiritual successor but at this point it's definitely waning.

Different strokes mayne. I like going with shield+pistol (even with focus based and glaive throw ) most of the time because that's one less active skill management I have to do. Exception is very early on when I might dual wield not for Akimbo, but to use the whatever 1h weapon on the main slot, and pistol to fire Chaos Burst but get the benefit of that weapon in the main hand.

The vortex and repulsion hexes, I think there was a very occasional glitch, that sometimes made it constantly be up for the game session. Happened to me a couple of times, not sure if it's patched now since I have not seen it occuring since. But it's not a common bug either. I'd rather that be made a feature than a rare bug, treat the hex same way as the healbot. Summon it once every time you enter a new area.

But that's just me. If I had the know how to mod the game, I'd put that in. Buff up all combat summons into D2 level tanks, and speed up Sandstorm as well, because a slow sandstorm is just not right to me.

after grinding middle eastern act bosses two hours without success I ended up using cheats to complete that damn Grand Wazir set

it's not even that good for my character at this level anymore but goddamn you game, throwing me three set pieces within half an hour amd then leaving me thirsty

this is how wasting money on crane games must feel like

You shouldnt care about sets that much unless its about unique set after lv80.

For some reason I thought I was only around lvl 80…

That looks like your first character
Because it doesn't look good statwise nor skillwise

It is. I had a lot of fun with it. Especially in co-op. Once I get down to the metagame in any vidya, it's a 50-50 chance: I either become extremely proficient at it or get bored beyond belief.
I also have this engineer as my second highest character, but he's not as fun.

Absolutely beautiful, it jest twerks.
You're probably going to say that my Charger is the most skillfully made character because I didn't spread skillpoints all over the place with this one like I usually do

Class mods and HUD mods?

...

I found the dupe/reset bug. Couldn't help myself

If you die and exit to menu instead of respawning, you reload at the last save as if the game were using a standard save/load system (saves are made when exiting game, entering an area, or manually from the esc menu). However, your shared stash is NOT reset, meaning if you put something in there you'll keep it even after you reset your character back to a previous state. The trick is dying in down, but there's a quest reward in act 3 that you can use that kills you.

I really fucking suck at this keyboard bullshit. Do any of you guys use the default keyboard setup? Any recommended set up?

Usually no.
On TL2 vanilla since I have not played GDawn. Right hand mouse, left hand keyboard similar to WASD layout, basically 3x3 grid.

QWE
ASD
ZXC
a few stragglers like R or T for weapon switch.

I wanted to ask if anybody wanted to play a bit of co-op, but I was just rudely reminded that my PC is a piece of shit that freezes every single game I throw at it.

That…actually sounds pretty neat. I'll probably be swiping this to figure out how to git gud with the GDawn game.

… what for? The way I understand it, you're supposed to use only 3-4 skills anyway + potions. Even with my spread-out Embermage I was doing fine using the default skill keys.

I was just wondering if I was doing anything wrong because I keep fumbling with my keyboard controls despite being 40+ hours into Grimdawn. And spent 15+ on Torchlight 2.

Alright.

I use QWER-ASDF-12 and it's working out pretty well.

If it works for you then great. For myself I use that as a general template layout, which includes potion(s) or something else, such as Haste spell. For the characters I have that don't use the full 3x3 grid there is usually a duplicate of one of the skills.

It's mostly an organization and customization thing for my playstyle. Weapon switch nearby but not too near to accidentally hit, I usually put it as T. Character page and Skill menu as K and L.

After playing D2 Martial Arts assasin, I want my hotkey layouts simplified for my own use and style.

Yep, whatever works for your style. I use that 3x3 since I am used to WASD from FPS games and I can shift fairly easy with it.

I'm not judging or anything because 1) Why would you give a shit? and 2) If it works, it works.
Is there a way to make Diablo 2 play NOT like shit? As in 60 FPS, visible hotkey bar, none of that Function key bullshit, and at least 1 extra row of inventory space?

I'm not sure if 60 fps can benefit D2, everything else you might have to look at mods, sorry mang I am somewhat out of the loop on those. Last mod I remember using was mostly that mod that allows easier re-spec option, ability to transfer items between characters, and a bigger town chest storage.
Not sure if it had an extra row of inventory space on your character though, if that is what you meant.

Doesn't Tree of Savior have like 5 Spear classes?

Wait for the inevitable Diablo 2 enhanced edition, akin to what they just did to Starcraft. IIRC, there were some rumors about it.

Hmm, I had to look that up. Aight, I'm not against animu style like that, but I wanted more of D1 or D2 art style, and not a MMOMOOOOOG, needs to have an offline single player mode similar to D1 or TL2.

Nopenopenopenope.jpg No thanks, I don't want current day blizzard's "enhancement".

All of these are actual quotes from him btw

It sucks because he has a very mixed taste when it comes to video games. Like he plays a lot of really good ones but he also plays a ton of shit ones too. I figured he might like it but I guess not. Shit man, I just want to play this game with people but none of my other friends want to play it and randoms don't ever play the game with other randoms unless its to trade.

Life is fucking suffering.

As someone who has consistently tried and failed to appreciate the Diablo formula, I'd like to give a shout to Din's Curse for being the only Diablo style ARPG I've ever been able to put more than 10 hours into.

Reading up on it, it's available on loonix, huh interesting. Thanks for the recommendation.

He made a similar game called Drox Operative, which was good. Not enough aRPGs in space.

Still, I heard Din's Curse made the whole game feel very samey. Gear and enemies scaling in a very transparent way.

ok, where's the "i press a button and it's on forever and i kill everything" skill?

din's curse is i only play it for the graphics

That's funny.
You can effortlessly and cheaply respec.
I dunno what he means but is overall slower paced than most of these games.
I agree with this, I like when you need to actively dodge shit rather than rely on stats and just stand in one place hacking at the mob until it dies. Ever played Harbinger?
It's small as shit, especially after something like PoE. Except in PoE 90% of skills are "+3% to stat" bullshit.
Ha ha what the fuck.

I mean GD is strong 7/10 game, but you casual piece of shit of a friend has some legit complains about it.

That's the "Soldier" class.

wow i fucked up my build, where's the "i have infinite energy" skill

What are you talking about?

throwing nades non stop eats energy and pressing 0 is way too fucking hard, how the fuck do i get more fucking energy

Stack up energy vampirism whatever it's called rings/amulets/shit

Just rebind fucking keys. Its not like you need more than 10 keys that are available near left hand.

what the fuck, what a casual game. I wanted a left-handed piano simulator.

Press E.

Well that took a bit more hassle than I expected. Is this site trustworthy? Because I'm downloading a 300 MB executable.
old-games.com/getfree/10931

Seems real to me.

ho lee fook, I had to find a youtube video with a torrent file link in the description instead
208329ff1141ac34f690dd8b31b97f7e7cba35c5
no seeds tho

Do you have link to it or something?

I'll grab it off ggn then mega it or something, give me 30 minutes or so

If you are finished, can I go ahead and remove this now? I don't really like the idea of running my own public tracker

If you dont have anything better to do, why not upload it to a mega and mention it in share thread/pastebinsthere.

It's stalled with 0 seeds. I'd like to be doe with it, but it's just standing still.

That's because I deleted it after it stopped uploading and it appeared that whoever was interested had completed their snatch. I'll go ahead and put it back

Oh nope, here we go.

One of you can do it, I assume 5f0ff9 you were the one who downloaded it the first time. I'm not fucking around with the share thread, or keeping this thing running longer than I have to.

Why the paranoia?

Because I'm uploading this on a home connection, client-based tracker, through my own IP, no vpn/anonymizer anything of that nature.

I don't mind seeding on torrent trackers, but creating my own torrent tracker with no protection goes one step beyond.

The worst that could happen is you get a threatening letter from your ISP. That's it, just the piece of paper with mean words on them
Regardless, I appreciate you sharing it. I'll make a copy myself and put it on the Share thread.

He probably lives in germony.

Thanks.

USA

Got it.

Enjoy.

Funny thing is I actually owned a physical copy of Harbinger at one point, no idea where it got to. Anyway it wasn't too bad, my complaints are just that it's too short and offers no NG+ or Multiplayer, just the single difficulty/playthrough and it ends.

...

I'll be your friend if you want.

Hey now! It might be kind of basic but I wouldn't say "shoddy". Although there was that one random glitch that caused several trillion UAN (currency) to drop in one pickup.

I'm sorry, user. I love you.

I find it's similar to Torchlight in that respect, it's just that I prefer the graphics and it's randomized more fully. Also the character building is more open.

I actually really like the graphics as well.

Why do they all have to have shitty ASSFAGGOT artstyles with giant spiky pauldrons and 2colorful4u backgrounds? Are there any with a M&B realistic artstyle?

Torchlight in particular is trying to look like Blizzard's cartoony 3D style. PoE has a little bit grittier edge, and Din's Curse has the simplicity of M&B's graphics. I haven't tried Grim Dawn but its graphics seem to fit its title. They're mostly fantasy games though, so they generally have a more magical visual style than the mundane M&B.

I'll check them out. 10 years ago I'd be fine with that artstyle but I'm getting tired of everyone trying to look like blizzard. I think their aesthetics were good for the early 2000s when hardware was limited and they needed games that would run on all systems, but that was then and this is the current year

Path of Exile is probably your only choice if you're set against "Blizzard" art styles.

...

Because cartoony graphics is the only artstyle that properly goes with blowing up hordes of enemies with flashy spells and abilities. Anything else is trash tier.

I think you're right in a way, but I also agree with user that Blizzard's style is aped too often. It should be cartoony but cartoony in the way Diablo was, not the way World of Warcraft was

Xanadu Next is a lot more like Zelda though.

Is there any point in not dual wielding as a Vanquisher using mostly the Marksman skills in Torchlight 1? I'd assume that any lower dps pistols typically have would be offset by that 60% increase in damage you could get. Does it not work for skills that use weapon dps or something? I know that other weapons have longer auto attack ranges but that doesn't seem very important.

Thanks to Grim Dawn's interact/auto-pickup key I struggle to go back to older arpgs due to having to click on individual items to pick them up. It is such a small addition that they made but not having it in a game now feels so alien to me. I can still play other games just fine but that convenience I was used to really screws with you after using it for hundreds of hours

So strength is the only stat you need to dump into in TL2?

And only because they are shit at drawning.
U wot m8?

Skills that rely on weapon DPS only use one weapon even when dual-wielding

I should clarify, I'm just talking about if you're looking for damage for % weapon DPS skills. Pistol + Shield would be a good defensive option. 2h ranged weapons seem like they are in a useless spot where all they have over dual wielding pistols is auto attack range.

Right, but that single weapon is still going to get a 60% damage boost from the Dual Wielding skill, which should affect weapon DPS skills too.

I haven't played it.

No. You can go either Strength, or Focus, but don't split them. Choose either or.

If you go STR heavy, then just substitute as everything into STR, 55 DEX, 100 VIT -if- you go with shield, none on FOC.

Forgot to add, if you go STR then Convey X over time won't do much since it scales off FOCUS, instead you want just +Damage socketables or enchants or affixes iirc. The reason I like going with Convey X over time is it's a DoT that stacks and ignores monsters armor.

If there's one thing you should definitely consider, it's that you don't need to pick Loonix or Windows explicitly. Look up unRAID. Basically you can set up a host system that's Linux-based but has no actual systemic components, it's just a virtual machine host. Then you can create virtual machines and you can run either Windows (any version) or Linux (also any version), or whatever other OSes you want to run. You could even set up two simultaneous VMs that you can run off of however many CPUs, however much RAM and whichever GPU/peripherals you want to set.

Here's the video where they show you how to set up such a thing should you decide to go about it. You can even plug in a dedicated USB stick to run unRAID instead of using a standard SSD/HDD.

Oh I forgot to embed the video.

I'd rather keep it simple for myself famalam, and if I were to go back to windows gayman, I'll just separate it different as physical machines or different physical drives. Technically I do have a win7 machine for work purposes, but it's offline and strictly work programs only. That machine will be win7 until it's working life because fuck w10.

Thanks for the tech idea though.

Besides not having a high enough rank in that skill, if you don't have two weapons roughly the same the averaging could hurt you.

In TL1 enchants are infinitely stackable but punishingly random. It would be easy to get one pistol (or bow) to have so much higher damage that using a second weapon, even at a 60% bonus would kill your DPS. I'm not actually sure if skill damage uses a specific weapon, alternating, or averaged though.

What is the amount of vitality one should use if they do not use a shield? Just avoid putting anything into it?

For TL2? If you know for sure your character will never be using a shield, don't put anything into VIT.

that's because PoE has a passive tree, hell I think it says that at the very top. like 70% of nodes are travel nodes.

If you dont use a shield, don't put points on vit.
If you're having trouble surviving, all your sockets on armor must be those that increase max HP, also max HP as stat is legit good.

At lv100 with the base VIT you should have 4.1K HP, with almost full HP sockets you should be around 15-16K which is more than enough to run dungeons. However if you're on Elite a crit can STILL one shot you. Really, I'm tired of saying it: don't play on Elite, you get nothing out of it, it's suppossed to be a challenge (a bullshit one) for those that have played the game previously a lot and know what they're doing.

If you want just to play the game as a first time even having played Diablo 2 or others, play on Normal. If you want to play the game as a first time and have played for YEARS ARPGs and know that knowledge is the most important part on it, play on Veteran and learn the game.

PoE is just awful I dont know how people can play it (I have spent quite a hundred of hours so I know). It's just an MMO with an ARPG skin on it. If you want to do something end game related you're forced to have a shop and attend it daily so you can BUY from other players the pieces that you need for your build. If you don't follow a build and do something on your own you will never be able to do anything end game related.
Because you need the shop, you need more stash inventory (that's where they make the most money).
The game is fucked beyond repair.

Go and fucking play it.
Git gud.
Yeah, unplayable without 10+ stash tabs plus a few premium tabs. Basically pay to play game.

the what now?

The difference being that with D2 you didn't need to buy anything from a player since you could farm it with certain ease, you could play offline, you could mod it to have nearly infinite stash pages etc.

No, PoE is just garbage MMO grind. Pic related, I know what the fuck I'm talking about.

Torchlight 2 is not as good as the first game.
It never lets you feel powerful.

I felt pretty powerful in the second act when I was clearing hallways with my Flame Pillars.

I agree that PoE is shit, but it is ((Free)) so you get what you pay for?

Have you actually played it? And do you know that poe has fucking solo league without trading and somehow people are playing it without trade. Amazing, right?

What? Im going to use a simple example and tell you how powerful a character (in vanilla so to not use "X specific mod"), Embermage.

Prismatic Bolt, first pic. You don't give a FUCK about the resistances cause you have every kind of fucking damage. The best part is that Prismatic Bolt has homing missiles, so you can SPAM this shit at really long distance and they will kill everything even offscreen.
Three passives like this one for the rest of the elements. Increases damage of all elements cause fuck you that's why.
Third pic to even make it stronger like if it wasn't enough.
Fourth pic. "But mana! You need mana" When fully charged skills are mana free with crits up your target's ass. Do you know how fast you get the charge with this? One hit. Infinite mana.
Fifth pic. Do I really need to say it? Make the already overpowered build OP as fuck.

Fun fact, even with this build you still have 27 skill points left.
You can be fucking overpowered in this game, I tell you.

Yeah because the drops work like in D2 where you could just farm Mefisto.
The solo guys can't do end game content unless many month of grinding are followed by it like, you guessed it, a korean MMO.

Yes, I even paid for stuff on PoE since I played Hardcore leagues most of the time. It was the most fun of the game since end game is just a grindfest with a jew simulator next to it. However after Invasion was over no Hardcore league has been as fun anymore.

Focus based spell trigger outlander, focus based emberquake engineer, focus based savage rush wolfpack berserker, stack Convey X damage , and shop or gamble for a glacial spike weapon or farm for an Eye of Aleera, then socket that in a weapon with a wet juicy hole. Marishka Broach gives 5% ctc Thunder and is always dropped as a reward if you do the 3 Sisters quest.
There, assuming you are within a reasonable level range you can now do damage even in Elite.
Last embermage I played I built it as a STR heavy embermage. And it worked too. A Prismatic bolt with mostly cold based skills.

All reached clvl 100 and max NG++++, all did fine in Elite. The most dangerous area aside from Tarrochs Tomb which is optional, was for me at least the Luminous Arena in high level Elite difficulty, since some traps can just gut you instantly and it becomes an arcade style timing game.

Not with the wrong skills you won't.
TL1 seems to be able to cater to different builds, but for TL2 vanilla, it seems that there has to be a certain few builds per class that will definitely make you feel really powerful.

For vanilla Engineer, I never found the need to put to Vit, almost all to Str, some to Foc.

Some skill damages rely on both Str and Foc

Unlike diablo 2. Have you actually played diablo 2 or poe? And do you consider effort to be something horrible? Because TL is sure as hell dont require any. Complaining about fucking grind in a fucking diablo clone. And complaining about fucking trading in a fucking diablo clone. While good players clear endgame content in one fucking week. Do you ever played something that requires effort?

No wonder you defend PoE like that.

Do you know what effort means? Because sure as hell taking months grinding EASY content does not mean EFFORT. There's a reason of why so many people use in PoE mods for loot, to spend less time looking into it so they can keep grinding.

Do you want to play something that actually requires effort and you to git gud? Play a fighting game or a stylish action game. Not saying RTS cause they're quite the dead genre

In torchlight I don't require trading to get what I want, when I grind I don't need hundreds of hours to get what I want. Because it's not a complete grindfest unlike PoE there is no need to trade so you don't become a slave to your own shop neither a good goy waiting for that one dude to sell you the stuff you're looking for because after a thousand hours the item you want did not drop.

Path of Exile is a Korean MMO disguised as a Diablo clone.

Hmm, are you talking about Flame Hammer or something? There was a yuge debate of which is better when the game first came out in the official forum iirc. But in practice, personally I only used flamehammer at 1pt, and I buy it out when Emberquake is available.

Splitting Str and Foc in general though, on paper, and after a certain theoretical numbers that I personally never find to be practical. ie: perfect max enchant rolls from Borris or something. After a ridiculously high number, then the math says it's better to have it on the other stat.

Problem is, it's not practical for most characters to reach that very high stat number on the math, even with Boris the stat enchanter, because he does not obey your wish to have a perfect roll, and on the exact stat location you want. A character who does not use shield, can wind up with a bunch of VIT+ enchant on their gear, thanks Borris. And that has actually happened to me.

tl;dr: IIRC Str and Foc does not have a diminishing return for their respective damage bonus, and most characters will never reach that perfect math high number (iirc something like a 1000) even with Boris. So choosing one that suits your build, then stick with it is almost always in my experience, more practical to do than splitting it.

?
Am I the only one who played offline solo D2: LoD, normal to nightmare on player8, then finish all of Hell mode on player1, no trading between any other players. All the classes.

Sure they weren't challenge builds, most of them were pretty powerful build combos, but I didn't use a single cheated gear and I didn't trade with anyone. Patch 1.10 I still say made hellmode mostly bullshit, but jesus christ, it wasn't impossible to do either.

And funny part is that diablo2 dont have any difficult content and only retard who know nothing about loot in d2 would farm him. Its not evel lvl 85 location.

Ok. According to you, diablo 3 is right your alley. No trading, no effort, every action rewards you with celebration.

Try playing on hardcore, you scrub piece of shit. Defending game with no endgame over game with shitload of endgame content, where difficultly rewards you with better loot. But no, who needs endgame and challenge? Better farm meth another hundred times.

I'm playing Embermage with only passive skills and it feels like spells aren't even worth it with all the extra effects caused from shooting my akimbo wands.
I'm also giving the boss spells to my pet because I'm too lazy to even select and cast one of those.

(playing with TL2 Essentials mod compilation and Adventure Pack II btw)

Russians beat ubertristram on hardcore in a couple of days wearing only belts for potions.
Beating diablo 2 while knowing runewords is pisseasy. Spirit sword + insight on merc and you can beat diablo 2 on hc in a couple of days. The hardest part is the trial of barbarians, whatever it was called. Except murdersnakes in nitlahack temple. Clouds dealing 192 physical damage per fucking frame(or something like that). Even with block you can rip in a moment.

Read

Sperg more you autist and keep ignoring all the arguments. You even put stuff in my mouth that I never said neither implied, you're a complete retard.

Like most players, I played it over a thousand hours offline solo with players8

Try Prismatic Bolt and shit gets crazy.

Nice projection.

And after all these years, that actually seems backwards, with the way the difficulty mode is tied and structured in D2, which I guess is a holdover from D1 as well.
Yeah you don't like TL2, I get it, however their difficulty mode is at least separated from the area levels, and doing elite difficulty does not for example raise the gold or drops, if anything it lowers the gold you get.

See the part where I said I played offline solo, as in had no one else to help out during the offline solo characters I played. And yes, I also did play hc as well, calm your tits Bob.
That was an actual bug, iirc similar to the Gloams lightning. And before you sperg out, no really, it was something to do with exactly what you mentioned, the way the frames was (mis)counted that was never fixed, even though multiple bug reports were submitted with technical notes explaining and iirc some even had the fix for it.
I remember that part because some modders incorporated that fix into their work instead.

Dude, you did bring in
when no one was talking about it. Wew, it feels like I'm back in public b.net again for some reason.

Ok just wanted to make sure this timeline is the same. I had all my HC characters offline solo, because I don't particularly like playing HC online due to lag and at the time my less than rock stable connection. Even with a good connection, I never trusted b.net.

Imagine how "fun" it is to play Hardcore on PoE with forced always online, yet I kept playing
Imagine how it was with constant desync, yet I kept playing.
But I can only be pushed so far with awful end game content that forces hundreds of korean grind while you can get killed at any second thanks to desync.

I don't exactly know what you mean by "this timeline". I played D2 for years since release and I still have it installed on my PC.

Poe reward making maps harder for yourself. Seeing players play with fucking 15 map modifiers is not unusual. And they have separated category for endgame bosses with fixed loot.
I was pointing out the hardest part of diablo 2.
If so, try telling me what is wrong with diablo 3 that is right with TL2. Same or better visual style, same free loot, same lack of challenge, same lack of trading. What is the fucking difference? Not always online is the only thing I can think of. TL2 is just as brain dead as d3 if not more so. Even with grim dawn with its lackluster customization you need to know what are you doing although after one of the last updates its better, but skills are lacking. Summoner with one or 2 fucking pets, what the fuck?.

I mean I saw a post here that said
That just seemed odd, because last time I played unless I was playing a deliberate challenge oddball build character, most characters can make it through players8 even until the end, act 5 of NM. Was there a new patch or something, because again last I remembered 1.10(+) was the last major gameplay change patch.
Martial arts kicker assasin was the last one for me. Had my last fun with that one. Though it was the one game that I did install WINE for, and cancelled at the last second because I didn't want to get sucked back in. Still, as addictive as D2 can be. The cocaine dipped in chocolate for me would be Diablo1 Hellfire with mods.

Yeah that type of cancer really needs to be dead.

Again just curious. Because some of the things you are asking seems not quite consistent, unless I am misunderstanding you here.
Like that part, you are saying you want more trading between players? Because TL2 is not the game for that, anne frankly, thank god, because I just want a self contained, offline capable diablo like clone, not a pseudo MMMOOMOOOG. If anything I remembered there was some fakeass petition during the early alpha\beta of the game from the people that was running some d2item stores, to get TL2 to have a D2 like realm system. Thank kek that did not happen.
Which classes did you try out in TL2, what build, you mentioned you got to the map room, which is what you get after defeating the Not Diablo chthulu big end boss of TL2. Which in the first run through would be somewhere between say clvl 49-50. Since you sound like you are eager for a challenging game, there is nothing stopping you from playing it in HC as well.
Hey mang, if you don't like the game, it's ok. Not worth busting a vein over it.

I am saying that d3 and tl is barely different. What is the difference between d3 and tl2 besides online?
Grim dawn.
Played years ago. Good thing, there was no updates, right?

I use emberquake
it has physical damage that relies on str and fire damage that, IIRC relies on foc. Same goes for that flame hammer skill.

I focused on STR, but added some to FOC because of the elemental damage. Not minmaxing, but just saying that from what I recall from what I've read when trying to make a build for engineer.

On PC, basic gameplay wise (how the character moves and so on) not that yugely different, though not sure if that was updated or on D3. D3 continues on with the D2 Realm items concept afaik, while TL2 seemed to decide to go back to more like D1's approach of items. By that I mean they have no interest in making the game items into a virtual trading commodity.
Yep I heard the suggestion from others too. I'm using loonix on the gaming machine right now though, and at one point I was going to install WINE but I decided for various reasons against doing that. Nothing wrong with WINE or dual booting but I'm fairly sure now it's not for me.
They released the editor and a linux version, which is a very nice surprise for me. I bought the standalone edition before a certain cutoff date so I technically have it on either windows or loonix. But major update wise in terms of gameplay change, it's completed from the last patch before the editor release and linux and mac version afaik. Which after D2's neverending fuckery with their patch until they stopped with 1.10, is a welcomed change for me.

Yep. One of my earliest engineer was a 2h staff emberquaker, 55 Dex, everything else on Focus and his emberquake just tears shit up in elite. Offensive power was not the problem by then, but those damn traps. I once got killed by opening a trapped quest item chest, during the get the goblin crown part in act 3. I did play STR heavy builds as well, but I usually wind up picking Focus heavy builds just because I like having more mana pool and regen. And for me at least, I kind of know after playing those for a while what the affordable and practical weapons, armor and gems to look for with a Focus heavy builds.

Sheeit, maybe the reason I like Focus heavy builds for me is I don't like having to rely on mana potions.
shrug.jpg

I just gave a try to a Conveys build with all focus, and I have to say that I am not really impressed compared to a strength/dex build. Between weapon damage, crit chance, and crit damage off of those two stats effectively being the only things in the game that stack multiplicativly, I was doing more average damage per hit than with the entire 5 second DOT. Specifically, I was doing around 30k crits about 43% of the time, wheras the combined dots were only going for about 17k.

Note that I abused the hell out of enchanting and item duping. My focus/DOT build is currently sitting at 902 focus, 262 strength (I didn't undo ALL the strength, needed 172 for the weapon anyway) and 59 dex, wheras the strength/on hit build had around 800 str 400 dex (approximate values)

U wot? Just install one package and grim dawn works fine, even with or without steam. Takes a fucking couple of minutes.

It's not a tech problem, I have installed WINE before. The problem is I don't want to get sucked back in to D2, and D1 Hellfire again. Because if I have WINE there, I know I will also install those 2 games. And those 2 games can be like crack cocaine for me.

Did you try it combined with this part though?
It's a stacking DoT from convey + spell trigger of Chance To Cast, since both scales off the Focus. Also what class and skill selection did you try it out on?

Er make that
*chance to cast Glacial Spike and or Thunder, since both scales from Focus.

Forgot to ask, did you also try it out on actual monsters or on the dummy?

monsters only, but the math is simple

And what was the amount of Convey X did your character have, Satan?
ie: was it a giant blood ember gem, an elemental enchant etc.

I keep forgetting too, this part of the combo is important as well,
Glacial Spike and or Thunder, as well as what type of class and skill selection were you using to stack and trigger the combo.

I don't have those no, I'm only talking about the difference between using DOT/Focus and Hit/Strength.

Excuse me, I forgot to socket that (had to remake it)

Ok, that's much better actually since the target dummy is meh, I'd rather get the results from actual monsters and more practical play scenarios and such. The socketed gems are not that much convey X amount, while the built in is ok and the enchant is decent enough, Ismeldan skull at 425 is not much. However the enchant and built in is decent, but I think I might guess what might be the potential hiccups here.

Focus based Convey DoT stack combines really well and almost needs CtC such as Glacial Spike and Thunder since they both scale off the Focus. But the bigger hiccup might be the speed, you're showing me a cannon, are you using Blast Cannon as the skill to apply the DoT? Because it needs to be fast, do you have any faster cast gear on your character? Fussilade might also be another option to apply the DoT stack + CtC glacial spike and thunder.

With my current engineer this is what the character is using, keep in mind it's not endgear by any means. But it does have glacial spike built in at 10%, character is wearing Marishka's broach which gives 5% ctc Thunder, and uses emberquake to apply the DoT and proc.

The faster the application, the more it stacks. (Which is why outlander skills like Rapid Fire and Venomous Hail excels at applying stacks and triggering the procs) With this particular engineer at the moment, clvl 88, on Elite difficulty if squaring off against the same level monster, normal trashmobs takes somewhere between 1-2 hits of emberquake, champs go down in 2-4. maybe 5th if there is an obstacle or if the fissures get wonky.

I don't really count the crit numbers since sometimes the numbers seems off or does not match up what is actually happening on screen, I basically count how many hits or how long it takes for the monsters to die from the hits.

Forgot the stats for this clvl 88 emberquake engineer, pic is modified with gear.
Base stats are
15 str
55 dex
305 foc
100 vit

Yeah I just hop into a level 105 map and everything dies in one hit with the str build (I'm level 55). For the Focus build they still die in about 2 hits, but only if I wait for the DOT to tick. I don't know if weapon speed impacts DOT applications via skills in any way, but just calculating the base DOT damage against my focus multiplier of roughly 400% gives me that 21550 per application over 5 seconds (I miscalculated in the old post, multiplied by 4 instead of 5)

I mean the DOT build isn't BAD, but compared to a build that literally just 1-shots all the trash it's not worth it. Maybe a faster skill like Fullisade would give it a higher dps, but frankly fullisade sucks in terms of usage. Blast cannon just kills everything in front of me.

Here is the truth: Diablo 2 was an accidental skinner box and you got hooked, but your brain has become resistant to the stimuli over the time which is why you feel dissatisfied with continuing playing Diablo 2 and other ARPGs.

I wish there was a fast way to farm good stuff.

I bet you a nickel it's the lower speed and the lack of proc, weapon speed does not afaik impact it, it's the -application- speed. If you are waiting for the DoT to tick against trashmobs, that means it's either not fast enough of an application, and or it does not have the proc of glacial spike + thunder, which I mentioned this was a part of in earlier post.
Throw a DoT stack and CtC proc like glacial spike +thunder with fussilade. (And obviously Focus based for it to work properly). You might be pleasantly surprised. If you like blast cannon that's all well and good, all I'm saying is the game has options and combos that you might find surprising. But it needs to be done with the right components. I mean you're seeing it without the proc that I mentioned you need to combine it with, along with what sounds like not enough speed to stack it with. But if you love blast cannon and it works for you, well keep on keeping on.

Just hopped into a lvl 105 elite, random dungeon map room with that emberquaker for a quick test. I'll still bet a nickel, It's the speed and proc that your test character did not have for the test run, because trashmobs die in one hit, champs in 2-4. And that character does not even have 900 in focus. Emberquake is not a fast attack due to timer cooldown, that Nightmare Hammer is not fast by any means, but the -fissure- of emberquake does apply the stack and fast and triggers the proc often.

Quick question the purple looking spells enemies like to through, what damage type is that? Is it some 6th unresistable type or is it just a weird looking version of physical or something?

I went around dual wielding a pistol my level and a really shitty pistol for a bit. When the good pistol was in my main hand my skills would always do good damage, when the shit pistol was in my main hand my skills would always do shit damage. Didn't do any more damage when I had the good pistol alone. Seems like weapon DPS only works off your main hand.
What's now confusing me is that I have a pistol in my offhand that's supposed to increase all physical and elemental damage by 20% but I can't see a difference in damage without it. There's a big difference in the numbers next to dexterity but I don't know if I'm just not observing well or if there's something I don't understand.

only if it requires a particularly and rare unique, in which case you should be trying something else, tweaking your build until it doesnt require it
This is so wrong, honestly, 500 hours and you don't know how to make a build? The great majority of my builds are original memes, and most of these work, I consider them "working" when they can do shaped shores comfortably and quickly and can kill the boss reasonably fast.
When I saw some good SSF players I was humbled, one in particular played less than me, got to higher levels much quicker, had 10 times better gear than me, and had several characters near the top of the ladder. I hand't realized how inefficiently I was playing until then, you don't trading, you don't need meta builds, you just need something that can go relatively fast and identify rares of good bases, and then proceed to actually go fast and not dick around in your hideout for 10 minutes between every map.
True, but not due to the reasons you mentioned, except for the tabs

I thought Torchlight 2 was pretty fun overall, though I was a bit disappointed in some of the Embermage skills (particularly Arc Beam; I was hoping it would be like Ember Lance from Torchlight 1, but it turned out to have low damage as well as short range). I'm with you on the loot, though. It annoyed me too. Way too many items with way too many small bonuses. Trying to keep track of it is tiring. It wasn't long before I stopped caring about trying to figure out what the best equipment was and just stuck with whatever gear had a description that felt right and wasn't unpleasant to look at.

how can I make a good outlander? I tried running with 2 atk, 2 dex, 1 arm for all the game, but still. I feel I haven't reached all the potential of the class. Ty in advance. And thank you for the user in this post
you made me touch the game again

From the netherrealm type monsters? Does it look like the outlanders spinning glaive, the footstomp emberquake looking fissures, the shadowshot looking bolt from the corrupted etherians? Don't quote me on this one since it's been a while but might be "shadow type" damage. Seems to be mostly trivia since in practice things like elemental resists might as well not be there, and the few things that makes any difference is moving\positioning, blocking, HP buffer and %based damage reduction.

What do you mean by

You can make a good Outlander in many ways, by the way. I'll give you the build I am currently using on mine, however it is a personal build with personal taste, so you may not like it: tidbi.ru/eng/outlander.php?lvl=100&fm=32&skill=0000F0FFF0000000000FF000FC0F00&stat=iIbsakafaaaaaaaa
I'll post a pic just in case the link does not work.

If you get a mod with reset, feel free to use rapid fire to level up also this build is made to use SHOTGONNES, buff, debuff and deal massive AoE damage with a blind that turns the enemy AI off (even Final Bosses, making you one of the strongest characters in the game AS LONG as you keep hitting the blind).

That user is me, by the way. At this rate I'll leave my nickname to help anons interested on steam and a possible discord server for multiplayer pourposes.

I meant when I level up I distribute my points that way. In skills? I am not of the kind of people that like to press lots of buttons, o I tried to run with all most of the passives and and things that make me keep my distance

Path of Exile worth playing now or should I wait until the Fall of Oriath? Been looking for a new game to play and PoE sounded cool, but I don't want to learn the game just to have the expansion change everything up. I hear it's a pretty large xpac

Path changes a lot often but it's always Path if that makes any sense. You won't lose anything by starting a standard character at this point and if you like it you'll love it but I've always struggled to actually get into it.

dubs checked
Are you asking stat distributions? You can tailor it to your skills choices and personal playstyle. Strength or Focus based can work, I've done and play both types. Dex, you can look up the debates and dissertations on lower vs higher dex, I've done 100 plus dex and 55 dex. Personally I prefer 55 since 10% crit is good enough for me, even in elite. But that's something you have to try out for yourself. VIT, depends on whether you use shield or not. No shield, don't bother. With shield, personally I put in 100 base, with a good enough shield and Blocking spell passive most of the time it's fine.

%reduction (elemental) is the big one. It can be hard to come by, but it's not impossible to get it to 75%. IMO it would be kind of pointless to try for 75% all resist if "shadow" isn't included.

You can just press a key on your keyboard and your character picks up any item that isn't filtered out off the ground for you as long as you're close to it.

Another thing with GD that I love is the free camera movement, it is very nice to be able to look at your game from any angle you want. Tons of these little convenient additions to the game that you'd think every hack & slash arpg would have but they don't.

Ok. I was thinking more along the lines of putting something like Limoanys for the dmg reduction unless we are basically talking about the same thing. Then again personally I usually just put Richlieus socketables since my luck with farming area 48-55 for limoanys is meh at best. Setting aside moving and blocking as different ways of damage avoidance and so on.

There might be more info at some of the threads on the runic forum with that type of damage you mentioned, it's unfortunate that there isn't much activity there anymore.

I have been trying some of the variant mod classes, and I would have to say my favorites are the theolentist and the nethermancer. How good is that far east mod? I heard the classes were either unbalanced or bland.

Wait.