Outlander Skill Guide

Short but thorough guide for evaluating the Outlander's skills in Torchlight II.

Introduction

In honor of finishing the other three class-specific skill guides, I present to you my short primer of all Outlander skills in Torchlight II.

I've put well over 600 hours into Torchlight II and leveled multiple Elite characters through various NG+ tiers, both on softcore and hardcore, so I know a bit about how the game works. Hopefully this guide will help you in picking skills for your build and whatnot.

There are generally two main ways of building an Outlander - either an Outlander that focuses on Glaive Throw and other pure elemental attacks, dumping most points into Focus (a glaivelander), or an Outlander that focuses on DPS-based skills (Rapid Fire, Chaos Burst, etc.), likely uses a shotgonne and dumps most points into Strength (a gunlander).

Charge bar

Filling the Outlander's charge bar grants the character passive bonuses to attack speed, cast speed, dodge chance and crit chance, up to +15% with a full charge bar (there's an unlisted +5% bonus for a full bar). Since charge rate is based on the amount of damage you deal, strong Outlanders essentially always have +15% to all those stats throughout most of the late game because of the high damage output.

For an excellent Outlander skill calculator, click HERE[www.tidbi.ru]

Warfare

Rapid Fire


You fire a rapid burst of projectiles that force enemies back and strip away their armor.


The main single-target skill for gunlanders. It's a channeled attack that drains mana as you shoot. The mana cost can become pretty big at higher ranks, so make sure you don't level this skill too fast to the point where you can't sustain it. Reaching the Tier II bonus is almost mandatory, though, because the initial range of the skill is very poor and it cannot be improved by range bonuses from gear or the Long Range Mastery passive. Like other DPS-based skills, Rapid Fire also conveys any weapon effects like -X armor on hit (in addition to its own armor reduction), damage-over-time, chance to proc spells on hit, immobilize, burn, freeze, silence, etc.

Rune Vault

You vault swiftly backward, away from your target. This vault leaves behind a mystic sigil that damages and blinds foes in a four-meter radius.


The main escape skill for Outlanders. While it can take a bit of practice to use it effectively, Rune Vault can help you avoid hits and quickly backflip through areas. Low mana cost and fast cast speed make this skill a true one-point-wonder.

Chaos Burst


You fire a trio of chaotic, ricocheting projectiles.


Chaos Burst is essentially a basic "fire in the general direction of the enemy and hope for the best" attack. Excellent all-around tier bonuses, decent damage and the ability to clear rooms quickly make Chaos Burst a good choice for a primary left-click attack for gunlanders.

Cursed Daggers

You fling nine piercing daggers in a wide arc, which poison and cripple many foes at once, reducing the damage they deal.


One of the best overall Outlander skills, especially for Focus-oriented builds. The damage improves with character level and skill rank and is also improved by Focus and +% poison damage bonuses. Since damage-over-time ignores all enemy armor, Cursed Daggers can become a pretty potent skill. Even though hitting an enemy with multiple daggers does not increase the damage, individual daggers can still deal massive damage with high Focus. But wait, that's not all! Struck enemies are also debuffed and deal up to 34% less damage. The skill tier bonuses are also great, increasing the number of daggers from 9 to 15 and giving you temporary buffs for every struck enemy (bonus move speed, crit chance and damage). Why would you ever NOT want to max this skill?

Vortex Hex


You summon a fetish which draws nearby foes toward it and has a chance to stun them.


Kind of the opposite of Repulsion Hex. Even when maxed, the effects of Vortex Hex are horribly underwhelming. Feel free to skip it entirely.

Shattering Glaive

You hurl a throwing glaive, which shatters on impact, damaging and slowing all foes withing 4.5 meters.


The single most damaging skill in the Outlander's arsenal, but only after the Tier III bonus. The biggest drawbacks of Shattering Glaive are the fact that it doesn't generate any charge and doesn't benefit from Master of the Elements. On the plus side, however, it has synergy with Blade Pact, can smartly traverse inclines, and possesses HUGE range, being capable of killing enemies off-screen. The Tier III bonus adds four fire splinters (like the Engineer's Flame Hammer skill), which greatly improve its overall damage output.

Venomous Hail

You fire a flurry of poisonous bolts skyward, which streak to earth in a four-meter radius around the target location. The hail hits with eight waves per flurry.


Fantastic skill for both gunlanders and glaivelanders, because it uses a high percentage of weapon DPS (benefits Strength-based builds) and converts the damage to poison (benefits Focus-based builds). It can even be used against enemies that you can see but can't otherwise reach (either on higher or lower elevation, behind walls or doors, etc.). Just point and click. What's truly great about Venomous Hail, though, is the fact that it can proc weapon effects (like armor reduction, chance to cast spells, etc.) per EACH wave. It also builds charge so effectively that my level 100 Outlander literally fills the entire charge bar with a single Venomous Hail cast on a single target.

Long Range Mastery (Passive)

Your expertise increases damage with all ranged weapons. Bows, crossbows, pistols and wands have increased firing distance.


Looks like a no-brainer. Extra damage is always good, right? First off, the range bonus only applies to auto-attacks, not skills. Second, even when Long Range Mastery is maxed, the 30% damage bonus is only equivalent to 60 Strength in terms of damage, so it's not all that impressive and doesn't apply to pure elemental skills (Glaive Throw, Shattering Glaive, etc.). However, if you're playing a gunlander and need a skill to dump excess points into, look no further.

Shotgonne Mastery (Passive)

Your expertise with shotgonnes increases the chance that your blasts shock and disorient your targets.


Unlike Long Range Mastery, this here is a fantastic passive for gunlanders. While it forces you to use a shotgonne, it also gives you a HUGE knockback bonus and the ability to basically blind-lock or stun-lock enemies with Rapid Fire – including champions and bosses. This skill is what makes shotgonne builds viable even on higher difficulties and new game plus.

Akimbo (Passive)

Your skill with pistols enables you to deal more damage when wielding two at once and occasionally fire both simultaneously... to deadly effect.


This is basically Long Range Mastery 2.0, because it's equally as useless. The execution chance bonus obviously only applies to auto-attacks, while the max damage bonus is once again only equivalent to 60 Strength. Dual-wielding pistols is really only ever worthwhile for the extra weapon sockets, and even then a shield would likely be more preferable, especially on higher difficulties.

Lore

Glaive Throw

You hurl a throwing glaive, slicing through your target, rebounding once to strike additional foes, and generating extra charge.


The starting skill of Outlanders and one of the best Outlander skills overall. The core of all glaivelander builds, although it loses its potenty in late game when Shattering Glaive surpasses it in terms of sheer damage. Although the tier bonuses greatly improve its effectiveness, the mana cost also scales really fast (only 14 mana at rank 5/15, but 42 mana at rank 15/15). Since the actual damage increase per rank isn't that great (it mainly improves with player level), glaivelanders should only consider leveling this skill above rank 5 if they can cope with the huge mana requirements.

Glaive Throw vs. Shattering Glaive

Let's assume an Outlander who has both glaive skills maxed at rank 15/15. The Outlander has 1000 Focus (+500% elemental damage), maxed Master of the Elements (+60% poison damage, +30% fire damage) and an extra 100% poison damage from other damage bonuses.

15/15 Glaive Throw

3163-6010 + 500% + 60% + 100% = 24039-45676

15/15 Shattering Glaive

3163-6326 (main) + 500% = 18978-37956
1898-4745 (secondary) + 500% = 11388-28470
3163-4112 (fire) + 500% + 30% = 19927-25906 (per splinter, four in total)
Total damage = 110k-170k

Overall, while Shattering Glaive is certainly superior in terms of damage, Glaive Throw is still a staple skill for glaivelanders for multiple reasons. First, it's available right at the start and will carry you through the entire game before you can even unlock Shattering Glaive. Second, it's faster to cast and seeks out targets, making it easy to spam at enemies without ever needing to aim properly. It also builds charge by itself, negating the need to use a secondary skill for generating charge. The bounce is also a semi-decent replacement to Shattering Glaive's AOE and deals full damage to secondary targets.

Bottom Line, use a rank 5/15 Glaive Throw during your first playthrough and switch to Shattering Glaive as your main damage-dealing skill later as you progress to new game plus.

Tangling Shot

You fire a cursed projectile that binds and immobilizes your target. Enemies within a 3.5 meter radius of your target have a secondary chance of also being entangled. Entangled foes are slowly crushed, taking damage over time.

So this is a skill that seems to have a lot of promise but fails even as a one-point-wonder. The 100% chance to immobilize enemies doesn't always work, because many enemies (especially champions and bosses) are resistant or altogether immune to it. The poison damage is negligible even when the skill is maxed, and the fact that you have to accurately aim the shot for it to work makes the skill even more impractical.

Glaive Sweep

You sweep your glaive in a 360 degree arc, knocking back and stunning foes within four meters, while generating additional charge for each enemy struck.


As the only Outlander skill that works at melee range, it's hard to find any real use for Glaive Sweep. The damage is sub-par and Rune Vault is a far better panic button for escaping enemies.

Sandstorm

You hurl your glaive, generating a whirlwind that cuts through foes and saps their health. The sandstorm travels 20 meters and generates 1.5% of your charge bar for every enemy hit.

DUDUDUDUDUDUDUDU okay I'm done. In all seriousness, though, Sandstorm is a great skill for glaivelanders, matching Glaive Throw in terms of damage. You can cast Sandstorm as quickly as Glaive Throw, and after acquiring the Tier I bonus of plague flies, the carnage and chaos that unfolds when spamming Sandstorm is truly a sight to behold. However, the sad reality is that you can only use one left-click attack at a time, and a maxed Shattering Glaive simply outperforms Sandstorm in late game.

Bramble Wall


You call forth a wall of thorned vines that prevent foes from approaching.


Your basic roadblock to help keep distance from enemies. Has very little use in late game, because glaivelanders will be clearing rooms in a matter of seconds anyway and gunlanders have their knockback, stun and blind from Shotgonne Mastery to stave off any enemies that get too close. However, it's worth mentioning that each section of the wall counts as an enemy, so attacking them builds charge, triggers most weapon effects and can even summon Shadowlings when the walls are destroyed.

Burning Leap

You execute a fiery, spinning leap, up to 7 meters forward. Any foes hit along the way are knocked back and set aflame.


In theory, Burning Leap is an escape skill, but it has one huge drawback – the mana cost. Even on rank 1/15, it's pretty unfeasible to use Burning Leap over Rune Vault. Although the jump range and cast speed are markedly improved with tier bonuses, the mana cost also scales accordingly. Plus, the whole point of an escape skill is a cheap one-point investment for a quick getaway, which Burning Leap sadly does not provide. Stick to Rune Vault.

Flaming Glaives

You hurl two flaming glaives that circle outward in concentric rings, slashing all foes in range and setting them alight.


Flaming Glaives is the only spammable left-click Outlander skill that relies on both weapon DPS (Strength) and elemental damage (Focus). The glaives initially circle in melee-range, after which they fly off in random directions. In short, Flaming Glaives is a horrible mess of a skill that doesn't suit any build.

Dodge Mastery (Passive)


Your acrobatic training increases your odds of dodging a blow.


Straight dodge chance bonus of +2% per rank (+4% at rank 1/15). Honestly, you only ever need a few points into this skill. It's reasonable to expect having around 200-300 Dexterity with late game gear (+32-42% dodge), and the maxed Outlander charge bar adds 23% dodge if you've also maxed the Share the Wealth passive. Since dodge caps at 75%, make sure you don't end up spending too many points on Dodge Mastery.

Poison Burst (Passive)

You coat your weapons with a venomous agent. If an enemy is killed, there is a chance it will explode in a six-meter cloud of poison, damaging enemies that come into contact with it.

The damage and the chance to proc both improve with skill rank (up to 68% chance at rank 15/15). This passive only works with auto-attacks and DPS-based skills, such as Rapid Fire, but not with skills like Glaive Throw, Sandstorm, etc. Useful for gunlanders as a one-point-wonder.

Share the Wealth (Passive)

You share a percentage of your charge benefits with all pets and allies within 16 meters, and you gain the same percentage as an additional bonus to your own benefits.


Worth maxing for any Outlander build. It improves the effectiveness of your charge bar, up to 76% at max rank. So if your charge bar is maxed, you'll gain an extra 7,6% to cast speed, attack speed, dodge chance and critical hit chance. All other nearby players will also receive a +7,6% bonus to those stats.

Sigil

Blade Pact

You invoke an ancient curse that slows your foes and undermines their defenses. The Blade Pact lasts for seven seconds, and any enemy passing through the pact's area suffers the effects for the listed duration.

Blade Pact is an AOE debuff that slows and weakens enemies. The physical armor reduction has nice synergy with Shattering Glaive and Sandstorm for glaivelanders, although gunlanders will likely be content with the armor reduction from Rapid Fire and not really need Blade Pact unless they're playing on hardcore and want to be extra careful.

Shadowshot

You curse your ammunition, causing it to split into three shards upon impact, which seek additional targets.


Shadowshot is an alternative main AOE attack for gunlanders who don't want to use Chaos Burst. It has roughly the same range as Chaos Burst, similar mana cost and higher potential damage output, but unlike Chaos Burst, it actually requires aiming and hitting a target before the damaging AOE kicks in. I personally prefer the fire-and-forget approach of Chaos Burst.

Bane Breath

A blast of cursed breath poisons enemies. If they are killed, they are converted into Shadowling Fiends that fight for you for ten seconds.


Bane Breath is a strange skill that's only really suited to summoners, which is an experimental build at best. Bane Breath ignores all enemy armor, but also has a heavily reduced inherent chance to crit (even with 75% listed crit chance, Bane Breath only scored 1 crit out of 50+ attacks while testing). If you want to make a summoner, stack Focus and +% poison damage and use Bane Breath on groups of weaker enemies to quickly get yourself a large Shadowling army. Otherwise don't bother with this skill.

Repulsion Hex


You summon a floating hex avatar, which repulses enemies who draw too near.


The first thing to mention about Repulsion Hex is the fact that it's bugged. It often sticks around past its summon duration, essentially becoming a permanent companion. Repulsion Hex helps knock back enemies, which can occasionally be useful in hardcore, but not really something that would justify putting more than 1-5 points into the skill.

Stone Pact

You invoke an ancient curse that protects you and your allies from damage and reflects some damage back on your attackers. The Stone Pact lasts for twenty seconds, and any ally passing through the pact's area benefits from its effects for the listed duration.

Creates a "safe zone" that provides armor and healing to you, your pet and other players. Since the cooldown is shorter than the duration, you can place multiple Stone Pacts at once and hop between them. Stone Pact allows you to tank enemies a bit better and it's also the only real way for Outlanders to heal themselves outside of using potions.

Shadowmantle

You call forth a shadow hex protecting you from ranged attackers. The shadowmantle can reflect damage back to the attackers, and it has a chance to blind them for six seconds.


Shadowmantle is a poor imitation of the Berserker's Iceshield. While the Iceshield grants 100% missile reflection at rank 10/15 and has a short cooldown which enables you to constantly keep the shield up, Shadowmantle at rank 10/15 only grants 60% missile reflection and has a lengthy cooldown which prevents you from maintaining the shield. Also, the bonus stacks with your existing missile reflection bonuses multiplicatively, so if you have 20% missile reflection from items, a rank 10/15 Shadowmantle will only give you extra 48% reflection, not the listed 60%.

Shadowling Brute

You call forth a terrifying Shadowling Brute at the target location, which lays waste to your enemies.


Summons a hulking companion for all of ten seconds. Useless without the maxed Death Ritual passive, which increases the summon duration above 30 seconds, allowing you to recast the skill and always have a Brute shadowing you. The skill is only useful for minion-focused summoner builds.

Master of the Elements (Passive)

Your expertise with the elements allows you to deal more damage with them. Poison receives twice the benefit of the other elements.


Straight bonus to all elemental damage, up to +30% at rank 15/15 (+60% for poison damage). In terms of damage, having a rank 15/15 Master of the Elements is equivalent to having an extra 60 Focus (or 120 for poison damage). Great passive for glaivelanders, but only useful for gunlanders if they're using weapons with high base elemental damage.

Shadowling Ammo (Passive)

You curse your projectiles with shadow magic that has a chance of converting slain enemies into Shadowling bats that fight for you for ten seonds.


Useful for minion-focused builds. The damage of summoned Shadowlings improves with player level and the chance to spawn Shadowlings improves with skill rank (up to 68% chance at rank 15/15). This passive only works with auto-attacks and DPS-based skills, such as Rapid Fire, but not with skills like Glaive Throw, Sandstorm, etc.

Death Ritual (Passive)


Your Shadowling allies last longer and deal more damage.


If you plan on using Shadowling Ammo, Bane Breath and Shadowling Brute, max this skill. If not, then... well, don't. Note that the damage of all summoned Shadowlings is only increased by the Death Ritual passive and "+% minion damage" bonuses from equipment and socketables, not by Focus, Strength or any other "+% damage" bonuses.

Conclusion

Hopefully this guide has been of some help.

If you want to check out other class-specific skill guides, the links are below:

Berserker Skill Guide
Embermage Skill Guide
Engineer Skill Guide

I've also written two other guides for Torchlight II, found here:

Ultimate Torchlight II Guide
Achievement Guide

Good luck and have fun playing!

[artez]

also may be helpful to know that the maximum amount of shadowling bats you can have concurrently is 4. quite underwhelming

[Foshi]

From my experience, Rapid fire has piercing on its shots, making it great for handling crowds as well as doing single target damage.
It was essentially the only damaging active skill i used on my solo normal playthrough, paired with passives.

[Hominilupoid]

The glaive throw vs. shattering glaive data is confusing at the least, misleading and misinformed at the worst.

Glaive throw damage is given as 25k–46k, while shattering glaive total damage is 110k–170k.

Shattering glaive secondary damage affects ALL enemies within 6 meters, not only one. This puts the shattering glaive damage higher, limited only by the number of enemies nearby.

Glaive throw rebounds 4 times with full damage -- mentioned but not included in the calculations. This puts the glaive throw maximum damage up to 228k -- without a 6-meter limit.

And then there is sandstorm passing through all damaged enemies for 20/40/50 meters.

This guide fails to properly analyze the damage capabilities of glaive throw, shattering glaive, and sandstorm. The calculations give a wrong picture, with sandstorm even being completely ignored in the comparison.

Other than this major issue, I find this guide very helpful -- and maybe the best outlander skill guide I have seen so far.

[Verily]

Stone Pact allowed me to tank the darkness in that one dungeon with the moving light, allowing me to collect every last gold.
It is probably the best skill in the entire game.

[JewelryStar]

- Flaming Glaives suite for all Outlander build that relying on Poison/Fire build, it increase Fire/Poison dmg that enemies taken.

[The Architect]

This is the only guide where I see Long Range Mastery and Akimbo being worthless due to them not affecting skills and just auto attacks. Every other guide im reading is telling me otherwise, and are saying it's worth it.
I need more confirmation!

[February Amber]

@BastienRoy
When you hover the cursor over Glaive, it'll only show the base damage. Focus and %poison damage won't change that (the base), they only scale off the base damage. For example, at lvl 100, lv1 Glaive has like 3.1k base damage. 200 Focus will give you 100% increase damage, which is another 3.1k. So your glaive will hit for 6.2k

[Bastienroy]

I have a question. Im raising focus to raise glaive dmg, but it wont raise dmg. I tryed putting 50 points in focus but laying cursor over glaive spell, dmg stay the same. Can you tell me if the dmg raises but dont show? Having poison boost dmg eont do better neither

[Kardfogu]

Impressive.

[cuma.elp]

@Levia
+1 for that 100% crit chance tips.