Synergies is not balanced for NG+, it's a fact, and that's why I have changed the quest dialog, to tell the player "ok man, this cute little girl wants you to go NG+, but be aware that it's not balanced for Synergies. You've been warned".

But then this means you can't go to the exclusive NG+ dungeon, which is a little bit sad.

So I'd like to look into the files to see if I can bring this dungeon somewhere.

What happens when a boss is overwhelming you ?

You go there, you fight him you die. OK, no problem, you respawn in town, you go back there, you damage him a little bit more, and then you die again. And you repeat until the Boss completely died.

But then, what's rewarding in doing that ? Everyone is able to beat a boss such a way, there's no challenge at all.

Remember the Luminous Area, and how hard is this place ? It's hard because of the monsters, sure, but the fact that when you die the monters respawn, that adds something to the challenge.

Didn't you jump all over the place the first time you finished Luminous Area ? Come on we all did that ;)

I want to bring this feeling in every Boss fights of Torchlight 2 (i won't modify the end game though - it's already hard as it is)

So basically :

• If you die in a boss fight, everyone in the boss room respawns, and you have to fight the Boss again at full life.
  
  This modification alone would be fine for Act 1 & possibly 2, but definitely not for Act 3, where Bosses can one shot you very easily.
  
  
• Bosses damage will be balanced, so that they don't one shot you anymore.
  (unless you run a glass cannon build ; but you know the risks, don't you ?)

"balanced" is a great word, but in practice it will take some time before it becomes so.

I plan on taking an Outlander (which I believe to be the weakest class in early game), and try to beat all the bosses of the game without dying. This way, I will be able to know which boss needs to be toned down a little bit so that it becomes compatible with the "no death" thing.

Of course, I would balance it for Elite difficulty. So if you have trouble with a particular boss and can't stand the frustration, you could always temporarily switch to Veteran or Normal

Any feedback about this change will be welcome.
Don't expect me to make it too easy though ;)

I have never understood why the base drops give you more change to have a Health potion than a Mana potion.

Sure it's fine for AA Melee characters, but what about those mages ?
Plus, when you have no mana potion left, well basically you have to go back to town to buy some, it kinds of break the flow of the game.

No, i won't give infinite mana/health because that would mean infinite gold if you sell them all, but I would like to have sufficiently enough mana potions dropping so that you can fight without having to go back to town very much.

I will have to find something about the Rejuvenation potions though..

Everyone knows that they are way overpowered compared to Health potion (even if you use it only to regenerate your health), and they are very easy to get if you know the trick.

I don't want to tone down the Rejuvenation potions altogether because right now it's the only viable way to play the Synergies Endgame. But I find it too easy to use them for the leveling process.. Hmm.. Anyway, I will have time to think about it.

Because that's bad for loading times, but also I find it a bit annoying when you have wiped out the monsters, but they respawned, and then you have to wipe them out again if you want to go through.

I would do so only for the very big areas of the game with a lot of population :
(sorry, can't remember the names, I'll add them later)

• The first desert of Act 2. Maybe decrease a little bit the population of the second one as well.
  
• The two wide maps of Act 3 (the one before the werewolves, and the last one)

Once again, I prefer not modifying the End Game. Even though I would decrease the population of Darkness Falls, it's still under development, and I would have to do it again once Salan finishes Darkness Falls.

Namely, the almighty Fireball spell. It has a cooldown, and it's the weakest spell I have ever seen. I mean, why would anyone want to use it.

I haven't thought of a way to replace it yet, but there is definitely a need to make these spells more useful.

The spells I would not change would be :

• Dervish : this one is already very powerful, no need to change
  
• Elemental Overload : this one can reveal to be very powerful as well with some builds
  
• Retribution : I'm not sure how this spell really scales.. If anyone has precise numbers that would be helpful
  
• Frost : the freezing effect is nice, so I would keep it.
  
• All the summons : because if you have the right gear, they can turn out to be very powerful.
  
• All the passive ones : these are fine

The spells I would change :

• Draining Touch. 33 health stolen on hit for a spell level VI. yey. And it's not even a passive, meaning you have to cast it again and again ! Might be useful for the early game, but nothing much else.
  
• Elemental Protection. For lvl VI, +80 bonus to all armor. That could be fine for a lvl 10 character, but monsters do way more damage than that. So right now it's really useless.
  (though, I will check if Synergies didn't change this spell already. I remember a mod changing that, but not sure which one was doing that)
  
• Fireball : cf the explanation above.
  
• Roller : same
  
• Heal & Heal All : the amount of health gained is nice for the beginning, but then you realize that it's not that helpful (even though it helps a little bit). I might change this spell as well.

So that's a damn lot of changes I want to do actually..
And I didn't even tell you yet about new skills i want to add for the boss encounters.

Little step by little step, I will update this mod with these changes.

Feel free to discuss any of my intents :)