Torchlight 2: Verdict & Review

About a month since release, Torchlight 2 has been taking up most of my time as expected. But it was all well worth it as the game is everything I expected and more. It is money well spent as where can a gamer get a game that gives them hours of replayability for under USD20.

Here is a quick summary of my views on the game thus far:

• Gameplay is great and filled with action  as it totally satisfies ARPG fans. Blast and hack your way across hordes of monsters ready to die for their cause.

• Loot, so much freaking loot! Torchlight 2 is totally not shy on giving players loot. Unlike a certain multimillion dollar title, Torchligt2 rewards player on a acceptable basis with unique loot just enough to keep you grinding for moar. (I have 2 mule characters filled to the brim just after 10 days... Yes, I hoard uniques)

• Quest NPCs and Bosses are memorable and laughable, making it a ball to play through all the side quest in the game.

• Random terrain/ map is done beautifully making no 2 map similar (except for boss arenas) and filled with random or set side quests that makes players just want to fully uncover each map they step into.

• Reward items from quest are actually useful to players and gives a good gear upgrade. There is even a quest that rewards player with a NPC vendor after completing the quest.

• Item enchanting was quite unbalanced from Torchlight 1 where players would spam enchantment on powerful item all the way. But in Torchlight 2, items can be enchanted up to 3 times and this helps a lot when players want to wear and item that they have outleveled but still want to wear it for its particular stats or not have something better.

• All class skills have potential and it is up to the player to find which skill synergizes with another skill and how it all compliments to the players intended build. It does not mean a level 1 skill is weak later in game or that a level 42 skill is the best in higher levels.

• Skill respec has been generating quite a lot of buzz in Torchlight 2 as the game only allows players to respec up to 3 most recent skills taken. This means players can respec skills that they taken early on in the game or respec all skills and rebuild a character. There are 2 sides to this as it is from the makers of Diablo1&2 and it is in their style to keep it that way. This also causes players to replay the game more by remaking new characters to test different builds. Best thing to do now, is to plan your character build with a skill calculator and best one out there is Torchlight Armory.

• Near endless end game content with Mapworks. The game features a random dungeon generator with special attributes tied to it which players can purchase from an NPC vendor after they have completed the final quest. Pick the attributes and zone, grab a couple of friends and farm till the world ends. Unlike Path of Exile which the maps are dropped from monsters as loot and can be modified afterwards, players can only purchase what the NPC vendor offers. (tip: remaking a LAN game and ticking the reroll  map box cause all NPC vendors to refresh their items on sale but all reseeds all your explored locations.)

• New Game Plus (NG+) lets players who have finished the game once start all over again with the game adjusted to 51. (not sure if there is a New New Game Plus after completing it once as my Mage just started of NG+ while my Berserker is busy farming Maps.)

• Resistance matters and Torchlight 2 introduces 2 types of defence against menacing elemental damage. With elemental resistance armor, player reduces elemental damage propotionally from an element. (based on my observations) There is also direct elemental damage reduction by percentage (not sure armor or percentage takes effect first). At higher levels, stacking elemental armor and having a few percentage reductions are key to surviving elite or boss's 1 hit kill skills.

• Mapworks let characters that have completed the game (kill the final boss in the final act) access the final town zone and purchase Maps (randomly created zones with positive or negative effects applied to players and monsters in that particular map) with gold. This options provides near endless gameplay to players. The monsters within the zones are randomly selected from one of the themes and the boss is also randomized. Players can farm for exp, money, loot or just for fun for 3 levels per map (2 levels of mobs and 1 level with the boss).

• Patches and updates come frequent and developers address bugs and game balances very well by buffing or nerfing skills when needed.

And heres a quick look at my 2 main characters that I am currently playing:

• Berserker
• I play this badass as a dual wielding melee monster equipped mostly with passive skills and area effects skills without any single or focused skills.
• Relying on passive skills, war cry and battle standard, this playstyle makes the Berserker near indestructable while tanking bosses (with sufficient life drain).
• Currently at level 68, I kept the Berserker at non Game Plus so that I can play with my friends and level up by farming Mapworks.
• My verdict on the Berserker is that it is too reliant on Life Steal per hit (either % or X amount) to survive when going toe to toe with elites, bosses or groups of mobs. But does very well when soloing bosses as Berserker does a good consistent flow of damage while taking almost anything the boss can throw at him (as long as  enough HP is stacked)

• Embermage
• This is my second character which I started after playing Berserker and it is a totally awesome class to play.
• During beta in May2012, I felt that Embermage was a little underpower but boy was I wrong. This elemental damage dishing madman mows down mobs and bosses in a jiffy, as long as you don't get hit by boss's instant kill skills.
• My solution was to stack Hit Points so my Embermage currently has about 8000 HP at level 100 and I plan to get more.
• Not relying too much on the Charge bar, a lot of my sockets used are Mana Regen per second which is great for letting my Frost Phase (aka Blink/Teleport) around the map limitlessly and spam non-charge building spells for a long period of time.
• The main thing that made me level my Embermage to level 100 eventhough it was my second character is that it clears groups of mobs so quickly and easily. Mana is almost never a problem even without drinking mana potions.
• The most powerful spell that kills anything = Flame Pillars. Reason being, it does damage per tick and totally ignores monster armor. With 7 Pillars stacking on a target, it literally dies in miliseconds.

Now I have just moved on to an Outlander since I keep finding so much Outlander gear and guns/bows/xbows. At level 55, I still don't feel it is anywhere as efficient in clearing mobs and bosses like Embermage. 

Next on the list is either a caster/frost Berserker or Cannoneer.

All in all, this game proves to be a testament to the great ARPG games that the original makers of Diablo 1 & 2 are able to deliver. Hope they keep it up with their free DLC and expansion/sequels.

I will post my skills and built after I compile the screenshots.

Countdown to Torchlight 2 release.

If you have been living under Blizzy's Failablo shadow, then you might not have heard of Torchlight2. An ARPG from the makers from Diablo1 & 2, Mythos, etc etc.

Basic information about the game.

There is so much content, even Kotaku approves of this.

Link to Kotaku's article.

And here is a simple run down of how much stuff there is compared to the sequel.


Got to love it when game developers are not tied to money grubbing publishers as players end up rejoicing in all the free goodies that the developer willingly throw in to pamper supporters.

Music by the awesome Matt Uelmen (the mastermind behind Diablo1's Tristram town music) has been released in CD quality for free and can be downloaded now.

Link to Torchlight2


Game is due to release via steam just hours away, so quickly head on over to Steam to grab a copy of the game now.

For those who have purchased, you can preload (predownload game files, but there might be additional patch file downloads later on) the game now so you can hop right into the game once it is released in 5 hours time.

Here are the simple steps:

1. Load Steam
2. Select View
3. Open your Game List
4. Look for your purchased Torchlight2 game
5. Select it to start preloading.

Click to enlarge

Torchlight 2 Release Date, Official!

The game is finally here! (click here to read more about the game)

Just recently announced at PAX, the game is confirmed to be released on 20 September 2012!

So, stop waiting and head on over to Steam to purchase the game now!


Oh, and here is a yummy new video released at PAX, showing off the stuff since beta in May 2012.

Just look at all the new stuff, just a couple months of release being held back and players get a ton of changes.


Lastly, here is some additional read of this great news!

Torchlight 2 delayed but still to release by Summer 2012.

* Updated (23 July) 

Here is more sexy reasons why they are taking a tad longer to polish the game :

So much awesomeness heading our way and only for a mere USD20.00.

TAKE MY MONEY!!! TAKE IT NOW!!!

So it seems that this highly anticipated game (for me at least cause Failablo3 was so fail, duh!), will be delayed and released sometime later in the year. Their main reason for delay after the beta is due to balancing issues, touch up of contents and generally making the game more awesome!

A complete response from Runic themselves, can be found below :

LINK 


Thankfully, they are still scheduled to release this sexy game sometime later in Summer 2012 (initial plan and speculations were early Summer, slightly after Failablo3 release).

The DPS, Crits, etc is just mad on Berserker...

Since the Beta 2 months back, I am still playing my overpowered (OP) Berserker from time to time when I got nothing to do cause nothing there is nothing quite like slaying groups of trash mobs, uniques and bosses for some sexy loot.

But I can understand the extra time needed to balance as Berserker to me is totally OP when I can kill the Act 1 boss in just a few seconds due to mega crit + execution, in the highest difficulty. Sadly, none of the other classes I tried with good gear, could achieve anything near.

I rather wait for a well polished game then play something broken that would require constant patching like a certain Blizzard game recently released, Dia.. ahem... blo... three...


... and here is a picture of Nicholas Cage.

Source1, Source2

Torchlight 2: Berserker & Embermage

If you though Diablo3 was good, this game will make D3 look like game made for 5 year olds, with a 8 year old game engine. Just in beta alone, I have played 5 characters of all classes to max beta level and trying out my sixth now. Compared to D3, I only played 1 Witch Doctor to max beta level, a Wizard to level 5 and didn't even bothered with the rest. Proves to show how much more polished Torchlight2's beta is with almost all game mechanics in (I though I saw all the quests in game after 4 characters, on my 6th character, I still managed to find a new random quest dungeon.)

Sadly, the beta has passed (I manage to find a source for offline, single player mode of the exact beta, message me if you want the link), but I have made a short compilation of the classes and skills available so you can prepare yourself on which class to pick when the game releases.

Initially, I decided not to write a class review/preview on Torchlight2 cause there would be many out on the interwebs. But to my amazement, I could barely find any that provided eager fans or new players, a glimpse at how each class functions.

More information about the game features can be found HERE

To start it off, each class has a unique charge bar which charges up when attacking (normal attack and some skills) enemies (gradually loses charge slowly when out of combat). Once full, it activates and grants bonus for a duration (except for Outlander and Engineer which I will describe below:

• Berserker's charge bar, when full, grants increased attack speed and critical chance for 5 seconds (can be increased with passive skill), before diminishing. Once charged, it is triggered after dealing the first attack to an enemy. (tip: you can charge the bar full in town on a dummy before leaving town)

• Similar to the Berserker, Embermage's charge bar fills up as you cast and hit enemies with your spells (not all spells grant charge). Once full, it grants free spell casting and increased spell damage for a short duration. The countdown to diminish starts the moment it triggers.

• Outlander has slightly varied charge bar which grants the Outlander increased move speed, attack speed, critical chance and critical damage as the Outlander gains more charge (cap at 10% for all bonus when full) (eg. at half charge bar, you will get 5% bonus)

• The class that runs on a totally different charge usage is the Engineer. Instead of getting bonus on full bar or incrementally, Engineer can hold up to 5 charges on his charge bar (basically a bar with 5 points that light up with each charge). The Engineer has number of skills which will deal bonus effect/damage by expending charges. The Engineer also comes equipped with skills to help gain charges faster.

Next is a rundown of each of the 4 classes available in Torchlight 2 and I will start it off with the Berserker!

Berserker

If pointy claws, upclose and brutal melee, icy breaths and feral wolves are your thing, then this is the class for you. The Berserker has 3 main skill trees which a player can choose from:

• Hunter

• Mainly focuses on dual claws engaging in constant melee bloodlust while dishing out powerful single target damage and maintaining crowd control with deafening battle cries.

1. Eviscerate (active): req. melee weapon, deals damage to all units in front, cleave
2. Howl (active): debuffs all enemy in medium AoE, slows attack, lowers defence
3. Raze (active): single target, heavy damage based on weapon, interrupts
4. Wolfstrike (active): lunges foward, damage all in path, chance to stun
5. Battle Recovery (active): heals players based on current rage charge, reduce incoming physical damage by %
6. Rupture (active): single damage, knockback, explodes on death
7. Blood Hunger (passive): heals players for % of total health whenever critical hit on enemy
8. Rampage (passive): chance to trigger, increase rage charge rate
9. Executioner (passive): req. dual wield, increase chance to exeute and increase dual wield damage 

• Tundra
• If blood soaked claws alone can't satisfy you, then it is time to throw in some ice and lightning. Packed with bellows of Icy breath, lightning imbued claws and thunderous throwing axes, this class offers single target claw-ers with much needed AoE utility.

1.  Frost Breath (active): short range cone damage to all in path, increase damage taken
2. Stormcloaw (active): over period, imbued basic attack with chance to deal lightning damage to nearby enemy
3. Storm Hatchet (active): long range, single target, slows, damage based on weapon damage, generates extra charge
4. Northern Rage (active): ice shard spreads from player damaging nearby enemies
5. Battle Focus (active):  recover player's mana based on current rage charge, increase % resistance for period
6. Permafrost (active): large AoE, ice damage over time to all enemies hit
7. Cold Steel Mastery (passive): increase % physical damage, increase % ice damage
8. Shatter Storm (passive): chance to freeze enemy, frozen enemy explode on death, explosion freezes enemies around.
9. Rage Retaliation (passive): chance to auto retaliate to enemy attack

• Shadow
• There is nothing hairless about the feral wolves here in Torchlight2 and Shadow lets the Berserker control summoned wolves or even choose to transform into one him/herself temporarily to wreck havoc on poor little monsters.

1.  Shadow Burst (active): player lunges forward, damage all in path, 100% shield break
2. Saveage Rush (active): transforms player into a wolf with increase move speed, does melee range AoE damage, damage done heals player, cost mana per second to sustain
3. Shadowbind (active): links group of enemy, damage dealt to 1 target spreads as % damage to all those linked
4. Wolfpack (active): summons a few wolves for a duration to attack enemies for physical damage
5. Wolf Shade (active): summon a short duration wolf that deals damage and heals players
6. Frenzy Mastery (passive): increase duration of rage staying active
7. Red Wolf (passive): critical strikes causes extra damage to hit nearby enemies
8. Shred Armor (passive): reduces enemy's armor per hit and player gains armor per hit

Embermage

An ARPG is never complete without a spell blasting caster and Embermage does just that, and very well for that matter. Armed with an arsenal of spells, this glass cannon dishes out a fury of elemental damage able to topple an island. The 3 elements which the Embermage can harness are:

• Inferno

• Pyromaniacs can rejoice as this skill tree offers enough burning spells to set even the coldest heart on fire. Focusing on large area damage, Inferno makes short work of grouped enemies in a jiffy.

1. Magma Spear (active): channeled, deals fire damage to enemies in a path
2. Magma Mace (active): 270 degree melee arc damage, knockback, chance to stun
3. Fire Bomb (active): throws 3 fire bombs at location, sets location on fire, chance to cause enemies to flee
4. Blazing Pillar (active): summons 4 pillars that seeks out enemies, damages enemies touched, generates charge, short duration,
5. Infernal Collapse (active): places a ball of fire on target location, detonates after short duration, medium AoE, high damage
6. Immolation Aura (active): medium duration, medium AoE, fire damage aura around player
7. Charge Mastery (passive): increase charge gain, reduce charge diminish rate
8. Elemental Attunement (passive): increase duration of all elemental effects
9. Firebrand (passive): increase fire damage taken by enemy if they are on fire

• Frost
• Fancy turning your foes into ice statues or turning warm beer into nice mug of freezy chilled beer fit for a king? There is always little Mr. Freeze in all of us and this skill trees is right down that alley.

1. Icy Blast (active): fires multiple ice projectiles, deal frost damage, chance to freeze
2. Hailstorm (active): large AoE, ice damage, chance to freeze
3. Frost Phase (active: blink/sends player to target location, chance to freeze enemies at cast point and travel point
4. Frost Wave (active): wave of ice, damage all in path
5. Astral Ally (active): summons a untargetable companion that cast spells. medium duration
6. Stave Mastery (passive): enemy attacked by player with stave takes 10% extra magic damage
7. Frozen Faith (passive): chance to freeze, chance to explode dealing ice damage to enemies around
8. Ice Brand (passive): increase ice damage taken by enemy if they are frozen

• Storm
• This probably a direct reference to Storm from X-men and it does her a whole lot of justice. Dishing out millions of volts to all who oppose, I would dare say Tesla himself would approve of this electrifying can of ass-whoop.

1. Prismatic Bolt (active): cast multiple bolts, seeks enemies, deals all elemental damage, chance for elemental effects
2. Shocking Burst (active): short range, small con AoE, channeled damage to all in path, knockback
3. Thunder Locust (active): places a ball of lightning at location for duration, auto attacks enemy around it with lightning damage
4. Arc Beam (active): medium range, channeled beam, damages all in path, explodes enemy, chance to bounce beams to enemies nearby upon explode
5. Deaths Bounty (active): AoE debuff enemy, refunds health and mana to player if debuffed enemies are killed.
6. Prismatic Rift (passive): chance to teleport enemy away upon hitting player
7. Wand Chaos (passive): require wand, chance to cast random negative effect on enemy attacked by wand (meteor, wind, poison, electricity, etc)
8. Lightning Brand (passive):  increase lightning damage taken by enemy if they are electrified

The other 2 classes, Outlander and Engineer will be explained in a separate post to make it easier for reading cause I think it is getting a little lengthy here.

Torchlight 2

Finally, the real sequel of Diablo is here, and no this isn't some torchlight app for your smartphone...

From the original makers of Diablo 1 and 2, comes the epic sequel filled with monster killing, loot hording, item enchanting and explosive fishing.

Torchlight2 is bound to get your ARPG taste buds all tingly and yearning for more button mashing action. Don't worry about Auction Houses, overly easy gameplay, cookie-cut builds and uncostumoziable classes, cause none of them are available in Torchlight2.

An Outlander (physical, range attack class) in action & a shot of the inventory.

Instead, you will be treated to:

• Value for money - game will only cost you $19.90 ($59.90 for 4 copy bundle on Steam) for months of gameplay (lack of sleep is part of the package)

• Stat point distribution when leveling up (place them as you damn well like)

• Skill point distribution when leveling up 
• An NPC in town allowed players to reset for free till level 10 (in beta, not sure about release)
• You can be anything you want and builds are not restricted by the class selected.
• eg. Staff wielding, melee Embermage with short range spells
• Dual wielding, melee Outlander with poison and summons
• Beefy, cannon master Engineer and so on...

• All 4 classes have a unique charge bar that grants specific bonuses either when it is full or at certain points.
• Attack speed, Crit Chance, More magic damage, empower spells, etc.

• Item enchanting that can make low level gear as awesome as higher ones and more powerful gear even more awesome.
• Enchanting is done at NPC enchanters that appears in random maps (dungeons only from what I experience, can enchant above 1 enchantment) or NPC enchanter in town (you save them from a dungeon, but only enchant items to 1 enchantment)

• Take time to away from the hustle and bustle of monster bashing and partake in some relaxing fishing at your nearest water hole

• Categorized Inventory system
• 1 for normal loot
• 1 for potions, scrolls and fishes
• 1 for learn-able spells
• spell scrolls are consumed once learned (by yourself or pet, each can hold up to 4 spells)
• can remove a learnt spell to learn new ones

• NPC vendors that actually sell useful stuff

Berserker (melee, physical attack class) engaging a Giant Spider mini-boss in its lair.

• Quest item rewards which you will actually use (not all but most)

• Varied item tiering for near limitless loot table.
• Normal items (white) - No magical stats
• Magic items (green) - 1 to 2 magical stats (with low min-max values)
• Rare items (blues) - 1 to 5 magical stats (with average min-max values)
• Named rate items (blues, with special prefix/suffix) - 1 to 7 magical stats (with average min-max values)
• All rare items have a chance to be part of a set that is random (same rare item could be part of different sets).
• Sets grant extra bonus by wearing more pieces of gear with the same set name.
• Unique items (orange) - 1 to 7 magical stats (with high min-max values)
• There could be set unique items but after playing 5 characters in Beta to level 21 (max for beta), I have yet to acquire any.
• Be ready for trolling - some unique items are there to troll you.
• It will probably exceed 7 magical stats with higher level uniques
• On top of all this, ALL gear can be enchanted (whites, yours, pets, etc) with an enchanter NPC and gold.

• Loot drops at a variable and acceptable pace and rate
• The game does not deprive you of better loot to give you continuous character progression.
• Each character I played has given me a couple or more Unique items even at low levels, which I feel lets the players see how their can grow.

• Item socketing
• Gems (normal, magic, uniques) can be stuffed into items with sockets to further enhance its monster slaying powers.

• Anyone can wear anything as long as you meet the requirements
• Items have 2 to 3 requirements (only unique has 3 so far)
• One is a level requirement 
• Another is stat point requirement
• As long as you meet either, you can wield the item
• This means, you can eventually wear any item at some point in time.
• Only Uniques have class requirement as far as I played. 

• Have a pet without the trouble of cleaning up after them.
• Same as before, pets will join you in battle (8 total pets usable in beta)
• Pets sell and now buy consumable items (pots & scrolls)
• Extra storage place.
• Give pet spells like Heal All or Summon Zombies/ Skeletons to turn them into a mini support cleric / summoner

• Fame - Not sure how this works yet but completing Quest and killing quest mobs/boss grants you some fame points

• It can be difficult if you want it
• 4 difficulties available - from Easy to Elite
• Veteran gives a nice pace to those comfortable with a few ARPGs under their belt while Elite lets you have the fun of dying to bosses like a fly if you don't dodge their killing blows.
• I can only imagine the massacre that will take place in a 4 player elite. 

• NPC vendor buy back - just in case you sold the wrong stuff

• A nice mix of big open map to explore and pathways that guide you along your quest while dotted with a few dungeons that send you a few levels down to meet its boss
• Not all paths are shown on the map as there are hidden paths in the map that only appear as you go near them or trigger something
• eg. Going near the edge of a path triggers a bridge to be deployed opening a new area that is not shown on the map

• Secret doors, buttons, triggers and booty.
• They do not light up until your mouse hovers over them and you can click on it to open a secret room filled with booty!
• Some secret trigger requires a unique item to unlock which you will obtain if you are lucky enough and gives lots of sexy loot!

• A nice and detailed statistics page for all those AnaLytical players.

• Harder mode after game completion - not available in beta but it lets the player restart the game again with all monsters and difficulty set to match the level of the player or even higher for that extra challenge. (be ready for level 2 goblin gang rapes)

• The game never really ends
• Killing the last boss on the highest difficulty does mean its over.
• There will be mod tool for players to make their own maps, campaigns, scenarios, etc for endless hours of fun! 
• Willing to bet my shoes on a fishing competition mod map  :)

• Dummy!
• Not you, I meant practice dummy in town for players to bash senselessly.
• For a game with no PvP (or with) it is always good to have a damage sponge for players to test their damage, view debuff stacks on enemy and their effects, etc.

Inferno, Frost or Storm. The elements at your disposal as an Embermage (spell caster).

Hope the summary above helps to paint a clear picture of how this game, in almost every way, is more a successor of Diablo-ish francise then Diablo3 will ever be. And for those who are unaware, Blizzy has finally noticed that they are losing more and more players every single day from their juggernaut of a fail game. Now they have started to implement some of the fan suggestions and earlier game mechanics which they conveniently threw out the window after being clouded by lust for money. Just check for them on Blizzy's D3 forum.

Next up, is a rundown of the classes available and their skills as shown in the recent beta.