Torchlight ITP Mk.I: I punch things and make lightning.

[Maeglin_Dubh]

Anyone else here play Torchlight? I've been going through it lately, and guides and discussions seem to be pretty scarce. Mods are plentiful though, which is cool.

Current character is a level 21 Alchemist, going for a mix of Arcane and Battle skills, ignoring Lore completely (might get Barter, but meh.) It's really fun to shield up, empower my weapons, then start shooting laser beams, teleporting around like Nightcrawler, and punching things with lightning.

Favorite characters/skills/builds?

[Starwulf]

I play an Alchemist also, I've almost completely ignored the Battle side. I rely on summons heavily(My spell slots are Zombies and Skeleton archers and skeleton warriors), whom I've also maxed out their "mastery" skill. I've also capped out my lightning bolt(that thing at level 10 does pretty good damage, even to level 40ish monsters), and am working on my final Spell, Ember(it's basically like a meteorite comes down and smacks the enemy), hoping it's not a waste of skill points. so far the damage is mediocre, and it's at like level 5 or 6. If it doesn't get a major boost in the next 4 skill levels, it's going to be weaker then lightning(just a slightly higher minimum damage, but significantly lower maximum damage).

what difficulty setting are you playing on?

[warty goblin]

I really never could figure out the fuss about Torchlight. The randomized levels resulted in spaces that felt dull and empty of personality, I didn't find the RPG mechanics to be deep enough to require any particular thought, and I found the cartoony art style robbed the combat of all real punch. Honestly it didn't seem any better than any of the dozens of other Diablo knock-offs to spawn over the years, and significantly worse than either of the Sacred games, or Divine Divinity; the former for their giant hand designed (and gorgeous) worlds and crazy classes, the latter for actually having something resembling a story, and a well thought out leveling system.

[Starwulf]

I really never could figure out the fuss about Torchlight. The randomized levels resulted in spaces that felt dull and empty of personality, I didn't find the RPG mechanics to be deep enough to require any particular thought, and I found the cartoony art style robbed the combat of all real punch. Honestly it didn't seem any better than any of the dozens of other Diablo knock-offs to spawn over the years, and significantly worse than either of the Sacred games, or Divine Divinity; the former for their giant hand designed (and gorgeous) worlds and crazy classes, the latter for actually having something resembling a story, and a well thought out leveling system.

I'll agree with some of what you said, but I disagree on saying Sacred/2 is better. I played both back to back(Sacred 2 first, then Torchlight) and I much prefer Torchlight. Sacred 2 drove me nuts with the insane amounts of enemies. I mean, I like grinding as much as the next person, but when I can't take more then 5 steps in any direction without being mobbed by 20-30 enemies at a time, it's to much. Got to the point where I just rode my spider mount and ignored every enemy I came across and just fought bosses. Not to mention finding good equipment was a bit of a pain(single player only, no open world), and finding set pieces was useless because by the time you found a 2nd set piece, you were 10 levels higher and you were finding higher level set pieces.

[factotum]

I don't have a problem with randomised levels--I think it worked fine in Diablo 2, and it was OK in Torchlight too. If Torchlight has a problem it's in the limited number of character builds you have available; I would play through D2 multiple times just to test out some new variant, although I'd often get stuck in later Hell difficulty because the build just wasn't powerful enough to proceed.

[Dragor]

Torchlight was good fun, but it's really just a stop-gap til' Diablo 3. What they seem to be doing with Torchlight 2 seems to be interesting- especially their determination to not just have the same mainstay classes again and introduce new archetypes. I don't think Diablo 3 has done that, so it'll be interesting to see if Torchlight 2 will have more variation in that department.

[Maeglin_Dubh]

I'd prefer a more serious art style, but Torchlight isn't ugly, and it's a far site better than Fate. Which was garbage.

I got a mod for respec potions, so I might do that eventually with my alchemist, but right now he's a battle tank. Summoner style seems cool, and I did have a lot of fun as a Necromancer in Diablo...