CritMage (Dexterity Build Embermage) Torchlight II

This guide will introduce you to the CritMage (aka. Dexterity Mage build) and how to use it properly to avoid insta-kills.
This is a fun and wacky build for both hardcore and casual players. You can rack up CRITS for acheivements with this build!
Several variants are explained and provided based on your difficulty preferences

What is a CritMage?

As you can see, a CritMage's goal is to stay alive and deliver massive critical hits (CRITs).

• Instead of boosting an Embermage's key damage source - elemental - you rely on consistent CRIT to boost your damage amount.
  
• You max out your Dexterity (DEX) stat to a viable extent, while investing in armor, unlike most Embermage builds, which are offensive.

Pros and Cons

PROS:

• Consistent CRIT
  
• Lots of damage late-game!!!
  
• Hardcore gamer and casual gamer builds. Variations within the CritMage build.
  
• Opportunity to focus on pet and minion combat abilities
  
• You will acquire a wide range of abilities and superior equipment
  
• Points toward CRIT acheivements
  
• Efficient and appropriate use of gold and using or selling of found items
  
• Ranged combat. Good ratio of mana abilities - weapon usage

CONS:

• Nearly impossible to get over 70% CRIT. Thus still fairly unreliable.
  
• CRIT chance from Dexterity attribute maxes at about 50.1%. Investing this far will utterly waste stat pts.
  
• Many opportunities for death...are taken
  
• Constant $ funding into new equipment (not enough money left for good weapons) up to around Lv. 50. More balanced after that.
  
• Gear and luck-based gameplay
  
• Not recommended for more than 2 playthroughs (fighting monsters over Lv. 100) or Hardcore (permadeath) characters. Also, not recommended for a Tarroch's Tomb run.
  
• Once you're a CritMage, you may have unbalanced your Stats too much to change builds (ex. to a Prismatic Bolt build. Depends on how many points you choose to set aside for Focus stats)
  
• Fast enemies will kill you (remedied with Frost Phase skill and other options.)
  
• Relies on pet and minion damage absorption and spell-casting. Be careful when you send your pet to town!

Essential Mana Abilities (Skills)

• Do NOT invest points in any of the elemental "Brand" passive abilities.
  
• Do NOT waste enemy HP on lingering effects, except Frost Fate.
  
• Make sure you're actually attacking to rack up critical hits.
  
• Ice moves are needed to slow enemies.

Links: Torchlight 2 Armory for Stat and Skill point calculator [torchlight2armory.com]

Prep + Character Building Map

A useful read, if you want to hardcore farm equipment Dedicated Gold/Unique/Legendaries/Skulls Farming Build
By potatopeppie

• Up to Lv. 20: Ignore all Gray or ordinary items at the market when possible. Use Claws, or a claw and shield. (Don't buy Great- anything as most are too slow. Stick to small, fast weapon types as CritMage. More small hits = more enemy HP to CRIT against!) Look for equipment that increases Pet and minion damage %.
  -Those will help you find items with Dexterity attibute bonuses, and also to earn money by selling items. Put points into all stats.

  Invest in combat mana abilities like Magma Spear or Prismatic Bolt

  . Equip Adventuring, Treaure Hunter, and Barter tomes.
  
  
• Lv. 30-50: Look for Green and Purple and Orange items with bonuses to gold find (GF) and magic find (MF). You may notice a disparity between your gear and your enemies' attacks. This will balance out after Lv. 50 as you will have much more money by the time you gain levels and need to improve your gear. Use items with 3% or more CRIT chance. Otherwise, go for DEX attribute bonuses. You will have many high DEX bonus items which are green, purple, or orange. Only increase the attributes on each item. Don't settle for less! It may take ages to find another with equal or higher DEX.
  -Invest in essential mana skills such as

  Charge Mastery, Frost Phase and Astral Ally

  - when they become available to you. Socket gems with mana recovery, health recovery, and and sort of defense. Even your fire specks and shards!
  
  
• Lv. 50+: Reroll to find new or better shop items. Alternatively, reroll Sundred Battlefield many times for Notch's Mine. You will dual-wield Cobblestone swords. Each gives a DEX bonus of 18 as well as +18 to your other stats. That's +36 to each of your stats and you can focus on being a mana-based soldier. This will help you equip higher-level armor when you're only investing in DEX.
  -(You should only be funneling stat points into DEX. STOP investing in DEX when your CRIT chance from those points reaches 35%. Then, just invest in other stats and gear, gems with direct additions to the Critical hit chance, not your DEX attribute points.)
  -Combat will be fast-paced. You will either hit fast with many CRIT or die fast and still land a few.

  Swap your farming tomes for Armor Expertise, Dual-wielding*, Blocking, and/or protective buffs. Socket gems with defense in mind (Missile reflection, health/mana recovery, etc.)

• *Really depends on what equipment build you chose.
  
  
• Lv. 100: Congrats! Hope you had fun with this build. Keep plugging away with a new world if you like, but be warned - you are not built for heavy hits. Be wary of Champion creatures!

  You may be able to continue against Lv. 100+ foes with a wand, shield, and blocking tome....other defensive mana buffs.

End-Game Gear

Armor Recommendations:

• General Grell's Command for 4% CRIT [purple grade set items]
  
• Granite Helm for 4% CRIT [purple grade set items] --> *usually has that bonus, but may not
  
• 4pcs Exorcist for 4% CRIT [purple grade set items]
  
• 4pcs Bloodsteam for 4% CRIT [purple grade set items]
  
• Dominion Belt for 8% CRIT [orange grade Unique item] [Unearthly set item]

Obviously you can't equip all of these at the same time. Do what you can!

Weapon Recommendations:

• Blizzard (wand) for 4% CRIT [orange grade Unique item]
  
• Professor Parma's Steam Shield for 6% CRIT [orange grade Unique item]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Congrats! You've just added at least 18% to your CRIT chance. This is in addition to your Dexterity points investment.

Tips

By now you should realize how important defense is to the CritMage. Be sure to have passive defense even if you get good gear
Basic Ideals for the CritMage:

• DO expect close combat!!! However, you need to keep your distance! You need to build your physical weapon set as well as your mana abilities. Be sure to equip appropriate tomes and defensive buffs.
  
• All stats should be increased to 75. Refer to the Point Chart included for further stat investment. All other stat points go to DEX (until CRIT = 35%) and Vitality (stat up to 100 pts). Increase unneeded stats AS NEEDED only if you DON'T dual-wield Cobblestone Swords.
  Link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=158273785
  
• STOP investing in DEX when your white-labelled CRIT and Dodge bonuses from stat points reaches 35% or about 235 DEX points. At that point, STOP wearing armor that increases your dexterity. Recheck that your DEX is about 235. Just wear gear that directly increases your CRIT chance, because THAT will allow you to go beyond 50.1% CRIT chance (the max you would get from max Dexterity, and making your other stats useless.
  
• Purple (rare) or orange (unique or legendary) weapons can sometimes increase your CRIT chance by up to 7%, not to mention certain Chaos gems you can socket for more CRIT chances (up to 6% each!).
  http://torchlight.wikia.com/wiki/Gems_(T2)
  
• Get 4 set pieces of Exorcist armor for =4% CRIT chance. Make sure none of those pieces are a helmet and equip the Warlock hat for a DEX bonus!
  
• You will find yourself being mobbed often, so find & equip spells that influence your speed, teleportation, health recovery and armor. Crowd-control is your best friend. Equip your pet with the Heal All spell. You will be too busy critting or dying to heal yourself. Lv. 50+ invest in healing potions.
  
• While I would like to think claw weapons are inherently found with CRIT enchantments, pistol builds are better for avoiding death in the squishier variations (ranged builds).Consider one ranged weapon and one shield late-game & beyond.
  
• Your pet can earn Critical Hits toward acheivements. Pet gear can increase that chance. Your pet can also slow down enemies with Web and Frost spells to let YOU land most of the hits, or run away while restoring health.
  
• Look for a Giant Largemouth bass or Warbeast, and feed it to your pet. You need your pet to meet faster enemies in battle. There are many fishing holes in Rotting Crypt and Sundred Battlefield. If you want, reroll those maps. Refer to the above link on how to reroll maps.
  

Variations & Tips - Casual Gamers

Casual CritMage:

• Refer to the included Point Chart.
  
• Equip a claw and shield. (Your CRIT will still be very high due to DEX stat investments)
  
• Invest in specifically Exorcist set armor (when possible). Have a minimum 4 set pieces for +4% CRIT. Get ahold of a Warlock Cap!
  
• Do NOT exchange for higher level sets, unless they allow for ranged attacking with CRIT bonuses or slowing/immobilizing effects like Stun or Freeze.
  
• Other good armor sets will simply provide good defense and speed up mana/health recovery as well as reflecting missiles.
  
• Invest in the following skills: Magma Spear, Charge Mastery, Frost Fate, Frost Phase, Astral Ally, Prismatic Bolt
  
• Equip "farming" Tomes on you (and your pet) and Armor Expertise up to Lv. 50. Lv. 50+ Exchange for any of the following tomes: Dual-Wielding, defensive buffs, mana or health regen.
  
• Lv. 50+, consider using a shield and one claw, if you aren't already.
  
• Follow all the other CritMage Building recommendations, especially re-rolling maps and letting your pet do most of your combat.

Credits/References

Dedicated Gold/Unique/Legendaries/Skulls Farming Build
By potatopeppie

How to Generate Notch's Mine in Torchlight 2
By The Vhampster

Torchlight 2 Armory Skill Calculator© 2014 ZAM Network LLC [torchlight2armory.com]

Microsoft Excel - for making the skill investment spreadsheet [office.microsoft.com]

Errata/Clarification/Updates

• You do not want CRIT bonuses, just CRIT chance.
  -->CRIT chance = more critical hits
  -->CRIT bonus = more damage on what Critical hits are actually made
  
• Also, amended the guide to put a cap on Dexterity (DEX) investments. CRIT from stat bonuses will max at 50.1%%. Any more points into DEX will be wasted! Invest in Vitality after your DEX is at about 235 (35% CRIT chance).
  
• Added End-Game Gear section 04-05-14

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[That Wun Wabbit]

@Captain McPants
IIRC, it's because those types of weapons are easiest to find crit bonuses on. It's a mage build though, so you're using alot of spells/abilities

[Captain McPants]

So let me get this straight: You insist on equipping claws but NOT going melee? How does that work?

[That Wun Wabbit]

aww, thank you!
I hope you enjoy it! It plays like an old school arcade game with the "ding ding ding" Critical Hit notifications

[Talana 💃]

My next build for sure - seems like loads of fun
I`ll also have this frequently displayed on my profile , in hope that you`ll receive some of the stars you deserve .

[That Wun Wabbit]

added end-game gear recommendations

[Duke T.M.]

Okay, interesting guide. I will have to find out later. (if the game does not crash xD ).

[Khbikhib]

i do enjoy those chain or axe pull iam a hit an run huy , it's funny to see them miss XD

[Khbikhib]

i like it , i've had ennough of thoses cliché , mages has to carry wands and staffs , outlanders ranged weapons ... why can't a berzerker go with guns ? , or a mage with claws ?(like your build XD) i do encourage thoses initiatives , and i found your build worthy trying !
outlander in an interesting class too , it deals ranged AOE damages ,with claives and poison arrow , but it lacks hp and armor when lvl 30-50 realises that i should have spent points on vitality , didn't found the perfect build for my style , i am still looking ,and if there was a class i suggest people to play it's the outlander (with a bow and a shotgoon as a secondary weapons ) bow does not deal massive damage but their good at hit and run which is fun instead of auto-attacks :)

[That Wun Wabbit]

yeah I hear ya.
Can't say I'm very fond of Embermage class, but this build was basically me saying, "Okay, I"m going to butcher all that is known as Embermage and make it do what I want"
This is one reason I DON'T use Prismatic Bolt. It's overused.
Thus, the squishy build
I need to play as an Outlander sometime. I haven't done a full playthrough of him yet

[Khbikhib]

look's interesting i dont like mages , its not i dont like them , XD i just think they'r hard to raise , the physical appearence isn't that good too , first time played this class , made an embermage with 3points in str 1 focus , 1 vitality , i was using shields and maces , but that was a faillure as soo as i reached level 30 started to feel the mistake , and since then i never created an embermage again
i will keep that in mind (crit mage look promising :) )