New Player Help

[Gorwe]

Right, if a mountain won't come to the prophet, prophet will come to the mountain...

I decided to ask for tips on starting Torchlight games. Here's my biggest issue so far:

-> Enemy damage. I play TL on Hard and TL2 on Veteran and enemies deal...large amounts of damage. Even if I upgrade my armour, even if I walk around in Blue armour, they keep hitting for unusually high amounts of damage. This prohibits me from playing as I want to play. And from my understanding, it gets almost exponentially worse on NG+ modes(though I don't lose sleep over that). Seeing how my prefered mode of playing is melee...yah. How to deal with this?

-> I'd also like to read all comprehensive guides you can link. The more, the merrier.

Thank you.

[oldrocker99]

Here's one from GameFaqs:https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/604445-torchlight-ii/faqs/70117,

[steffire3]

...I will look for and link guides but this is a simple matter of Runic Games's broken idea of one vital stat not explaned in game or easily found or maxed.

"All Damage Reduction %".

Yup, welcome to the Torchlight Imbalanced Defense Meta Club.

I don't know about TL1 but TL2 has the Eyes of Grell and Skull of Limony which can be farmed and placed into gear sockets to hopefully max out at 75%.

Also helps to carry a Shield with some Block Chance or Missile Reflect and a Blocking Tome in a Spell Slot.

Dexterity can be useful for raising Dodge Chance which helps.

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http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=484846879

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=302736918

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=121236062

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=226334276

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Class Guides that boost survival but still benefit from Damage Reduction.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=243021671

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=600015311

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=217342188

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=254048406

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[ADEC Inc]

They really failed to scale armor appropriately. They never intended DR to be so vital, but players naturally gravitated toward it. Funny story: originally there was no 75% cap, so you could actually stack enough to be immortal.

Anyway, DR tends to come later. You probably don't want to sit around farming Grell for ages, and you shouldn't really need to on veteran. Easiest way to start off is look for armor with large bonuses to HP. It's fairly common.

[potterman28wxcv]

Armor is useless. It's good at early levels, but it doesn't scale enough at all at later levels.
Even with skills to increase it, it's barely usable.

If you want survivability, go for HP and damage reduction. Once you understand it, you will find the game to be a damn lot easier.

Consequence of this: don't raise Vitality unless you want to wear a shield

[steffire3]

Originally posted by ADEC Inc:

They really failed to scale armor appropriately. They never intended DR to be so vital, but players naturally gravitated toward it. Funny story: originally there was no 75% cap, so you could actually stack enough to be immortal.

Anyway, DR tends to come later. You probably don't want to sit around farming Grell for ages, and you shouldn't really need to on veteran. Easiest way to start off is look for armor with large bonuses to HP. It's fairly common.

I wasn't aware of that amusing piece of history behind DR since I came late to TL2 and I appreciate the insight. ^_^

Theory Question: Do you think "Runic Games" should have made "Armor" a % or simply a much better scaled Flat number?

[potterman28wxcv]

Originally posted by steffire3:

Originally posted by ADEC Inc:

They really failed to scale armor appropriately. They never intended DR to be so vital, but players naturally gravitated toward it. Funny story: originally there was no 75% cap, so you could actually stack enough to be immortal.

Anyway, DR tends to come later. You probably don't want to sit around farming Grell for ages, and you shouldn't really need to on veteran. Easiest way to start off is look for armor with large bonuses to HP. It's fairly common.

I wasn't aware of that amusing piece of history behind DR since I came late to TL2 and I appreciate the insight. ^_^

Theory Question: Do you think "Armor" should have been a % or simply a much better scaled Flat number?

The big problem of armor is that you can't balance it both for those who care about armor and those who don't care about it. If you balance it towards those who maximize armor, then the glass cannons get one shot all the time, even by the smallest damage possible. If you balance it towards the glass cannons, then the tank guys are not dealt a single point of damage.

This is because armor is a bit of an all-or-nothing. Either it's too high and enemies deal 1 damage to you, or it's too low and you take full damage which usually one-shots you. It's very very hard to get the right armor values on the items.

I don't know what would be better to replace it. I don't have in mind the D2 formula for armor. But flat reduction is just not a good idea

[Gorwe]

Thank you for guides. Anything similar for TL1? I want to play them sequentially...

[steffire3]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Thank you for guides. Anything similar for TL1? I want to play them sequentially...

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https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/960163-torchlight/faqs/60361

https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/960163-torchlight/faqs/58690

Not as much but infomative...

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[ADEC Inc]

It's true that if armor were too high you'd have the opposite problem, but they clearly weren't anywhere near that point. The balance should come from opportunity costs.

D2's armor was more all-or-nothing in the sense that you either got hit or didn't get hit. In the end though, you still had to max out your resistances to survive endgame, including the 50% physical resist.

[potterman28wxcv]

Originally posted by ADEC Inc:

It's true that if armor were too high you'd have the opposite problem, but they clearly weren't anywhere near that point. The balance should come from opportunity costs.

D2's armor was more all-or-nothing in the sense that you either got hit or didn't get hit. In the end though, you still had to max out your resistances to survive endgame, including the 50% physical resist.

Ye I would prefer a system like that where Armor dictates your percentage to be actually hit

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by potterman28wxcv:

Originally posted by ADEC Inc:

It's true that if armor were too high you'd have the opposite problem, but they clearly weren't anywhere near that point. The balance should come from opportunity costs.

D2's armor was more all-or-nothing in the sense that you either got hit or didn't get hit. In the end though, you still had to max out your resistances to survive endgame, including the 50% physical resist.

Ye I would prefer a system like that where Armor dictates your percentage to be actually hit

I prefer it this way, but it's imbalanced. They'd need to look in the direction of Diablo 3 if they wanted to keep this system. I feel like D3 managed to make this 100% hit rate system work and actually be fun. TL was on the right trail too. Seeing the improvements from TL to TL2, I've next to no doubt that with TL3, they'd nail it just right.

[Ghostlight]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Right, if a mountain won't come to the prophet, prophet will come to the mountain...

I decided to ask for tips on starting Torchlight games. Here's my biggest issue so far:

-> Enemy damage. I play TL on Hard and TL2 on Veteran and enemies deal...large amounts of damage. Even if I upgrade my armour, even if I walk around in Blue armour, they keep hitting for unusually high amounts of damage. This prohibits me from playing as I want to play. And from my understanding, it gets almost exponentially worse on NG+ modes(though I don't lose sleep over that). Seeing how my prefered mode of playing is melee...yah. How to deal with this?.

You are the first person I've heard cite Veteran as too hard. It is generally thought that Veteran is trivially easy and the game should always be played on Elite. Sorry.

That said, it is also well know that the game is extremely unfriendly to melee classes. At least melee classes who are not using a shield. I've only ever played ranged classes, and melee classes with a Shield, and only ever played on Elite, so I probably can't help you. However, for melee the stats you are mainly looking for on your items and socketablea are:

1) Damage reduction / absorbtion
2) Health
3) Life steal (but only after you have a massive "effective health" pool)

Notice that no Armour of any kind is on the list. It's useless. :)

[potterman28wxcv]

Originally posted by Ghostlight:

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Right, if a mountain won't come to the prophet, prophet will come to the mountain...

I decided to ask for tips on starting Torchlight games. Here's my biggest issue so far:

-> Enemy damage. I play TL on Hard and TL2 on Veteran and enemies deal...large amounts of damage. Even if I upgrade my armour, even if I walk around in Blue armour, they keep hitting for unusually high amounts of damage. This prohibits me from playing as I want to play. And from my understanding, it gets almost exponentially worse on NG+ modes(though I don't lose sleep over that). Seeing how my prefered mode of playing is melee...yah. How to deal with this?.

You are the first person I've heard cite Veteran as too hard. It is generally thought that Veteran is trivially easy and the game should always be played on Elite. Sorry.

That said, it is also well know that the game is extremely unfriendly to melee classes. At least melee classes who are not using a shield. I've only ever played ranged classes, and melee classes with a Shield, and only ever played on Elite, so I probably can't help you. However, for melee the stats you are mainly looking for on your items and socketablea are:

1) Damage reduction / absorbtion
2) Health
3) Life steal (but only after you have a massive "effective health" pool)

Notice that no Armour of any kind is on the list. It's useless. :)

Veteran is actually quite challenging at high level. Elite just brings the damage outscale non sense closer to your lower levels. But it eventually happens at some point, no matter if you're playing Veteran or Elite.

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by Ghostlight:

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Right, if a mountain won't come to the prophet, prophet will come to the mountain...

I decided to ask for tips on starting Torchlight games. Here's my biggest issue so far:

-> Enemy damage. I play TL on Hard and TL2 on Veteran and enemies deal...large amounts of damage. Even if I upgrade my armour, even if I walk around in Blue armour, they keep hitting for unusually high amounts of damage. This prohibits me from playing as I want to play. And from my understanding, it gets almost exponentially worse on NG+ modes(though I don't lose sleep over that). Seeing how my prefered mode of playing is melee...yah. How to deal with this?.

You are the first person I've heard cite Veteran as too hard. It is generally thought that Veteran is trivially easy and the game should always be played on Elite. Sorry.

That said, it is also well know that the game is extremely unfriendly to melee classes. At least melee classes who are not using a shield. I've only ever played ranged classes, and melee classes with a Shield, and only ever played on Elite, so I probably can't help you. However, for melee the stats you are mainly looking for on your items and socketablea are:

1) Damage reduction / absorbtion
2) Health
3) Life steal (but only after you have a massive "effective health" pool)

Notice that no Armour of any kind is on the list. It's useless. :)

Maybe so. But that's because the damage that enemies do(useless armour stat) is definitely far larger than in other aRPGs. And DR...doesn't come in inbuilt(actually it does 25%, but it doesn't help melee much, does it). I know how easy it is with a Ranged character. I tried a Vanq in TL1 with a mix of Sharpshooter and Arbiter skills and it was pathetically easy(unless you get surrounded-I forgot to put one point into WoJ woops). Meanwhile melee...lol.

And I don't generally have an interest in ranged playstyles unless they offer me something interesting(like, say, Glaives).

I feel like your hp should regenerate passively. Or there should be a passive for that, whatever. Applies to TL1 as much as TL2, that's what makes it difficult(and eventually you do run out of potions-especially if playing maps).

[steffire3]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Originally posted by Ghostlight:

You are the first person I've heard cite Veteran as too hard. It is generally thought that Veteran is trivially easy and the game should always be played on Elite. Sorry.

That said, it is also well know that the game is extremely unfriendly to melee classes. At least melee classes who are not using a shield. I've only ever played ranged classes, and melee classes with a Shield, and only ever played on Elite, so I probably can't help you. However, for melee the stats you are mainly looking for on your items and socketablea are:

1) Damage reduction / absorbtion
2) Health
3) Life steal (but only after you have a massive "effective health" pool)

Notice that no Armour of any kind is on the list. It's useless. :)

Maybe so. But that's because the damage that enemies do(useless armour stat) is definitely far larger than in other aRPGs. And DR...doesn't come in inbuilt(actually it does 25%, but it doesn't help melee much, does it). I know how easy it is with a Ranged character. I tried a Vanq in TL1 with a mix of Sharpshooter and Arbiter skills and it was pathetically easy(unless you get surrounded-I forgot to put one point into WoJ woops). Meanwhile melee...lol.

And I don't generally have an interest in ranged playstyles unless they offer me something interesting(like, say, Glaives).

I feel like your hp should regenerate passively. Or there should be a passive for that, whatever. Applies to TL1 as much as TL2, that's what makes it difficult(and eventually you do run out of potions-especially if playing maps).

Health Regen is almost immortality if DR, Dodge, Block, and Missile Reflect are all 75%...

Problem is... accessing these stats to that %.

Health Regen without the extra help won't save players from multi homing missile boss attacks in final waves of Tarroch's Tomb... .