I love this mod. It's brought some much-needed flavor to the game, and I really love how active and responsive the mod team is -- when I've discovered bugs and reported them, they're often fixed and a new version uploaded within 24 hours.

I've put some heavy playtime into the Ninja, Kensei, and Warrior Monk and dabbled a bit in the Monster Hunter. I'll give my thoughts on each class. For the record, I play with the Synergies mod enabled, so I'm up against hordes of mobs, plus frequenty Elites, Champions, and Hero monsters.

Ninja: This is my favorite new class so far. The play style is so very unlike anything I've encountered in Torchlight 2, because it relies heavily on mobility and hit-and-run tactics. Skills like Lotus Kick and Toxic Vanish are vital for getting me out of bad situations, and I love how active the class is -- I can't just sit and tank big mobs, or I'm a dead ninja. Equipment choices have been a bit tricky, though. The class starts with dual wielding, but none of the skills actually seem to benefit from dual wielding, and I quickly found myself switching to using a shield, and sometimes a wand (because so many of the skills are Focus-based). I expect this will get better as the new item pack comes out.

Kensei: This is a really strong powerhouse class. I breezed through the early parts of Elite difficulty: the attack speed and crit bonuses coupled with the reach and splash damage of greatswords, plus the Kensei's charge bonus, pretty much means that as soon as I hit max charge, everything around me dies, and that's before activating any of the Kensei's short-term damage buffs like You Must Die. On Elite I still run into enough challenging mobs to keep things interesting, but I expect I'd be too powerful for lower difficulties.

Warrior Monk: This is a really interesting class. I've played this one less than the Ninja or Kensei, so I don't have as much to say about it. I do love the attack animations, and many of the skills synergize together very well -- almost too well, because Iron Skin and Physical Focus feel like they could produce gobs of damage combined with Perfect Weapon. That said, I haven't played this character much beyond the early parts of Act I, so I'm not certain if it results in the class being overpowered in the end -- at low levels, it seems pretty well balanced. I haven't played since Zyph made some of the most recent tweaks to the WM, though.

Monster Hunter: This class is a curious one. It has a lot of flavor, and my understanding is that it's related to a book series or something. I love the cannon passive that fires homing missiles every so often. All that said, I really have the question the inclusion of this class in this mod, because it just feels very out of place with the others. I get a very Western "Van Helsing" vibe from this class, which is neat, but doesn't seem to fit the Far East theme.

I haven't played the Grand Master or the Ronin much, so I can't really comment on them.

I really love the new item models. They look unlike anything else in Torchlight 2, and that's a good thing -- it helps break up the monotony a bit. I don't have much else to comment about items so far, since I'll reserve my feedback for the actual item pack to come out.

I do feel like this community needs a running change log. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, new versions come out pretty much daily, and it's become difficult to keep track of which bugs have been fixed, which ones are still being worked on, etc. I think it's worth modifying the mod description to clarify that yes, the mod is compatible with Synergies (since it's such a common question).

I just really want to thank Zyph and Epoch and the others for their hard work on this mod. You're all doing a fantastic job, and I want you to know your work is incredibly appreciated.

Zyph, I really apreciate for you and your team to bring us this mod, this adds a ton of fun gameplay to me. There's a lot hardwork and talent invovled, hats down to you sir. :)

I have to be honest, so bare with me.
There are my genune thoughts to the current mode:

1.skills
Too Many Pointless Skills!
I don't need every class have so much identical skill, oh so what, they do fire damage, ice damage or storm damage, what does that add to the actual gameplay?

Every skill should has its unique function, serve as a mechanic to players' skillset, that's the essential part of these games, you guys throw in too much pointless stuff, that's just feeling kinda cheep and amature.

But again, even big studio like Blizzard made the same mistake, so they trying to fix it in the diablo 3 expansion.

2.Classes
What's up with ronin and kensei? can we just have Samurai instead? Most of us in Japan don't really like duel weilding concept, that is not for the heroes but minions, you use a katana, then use it right with two hands, duel weilding was cool in the past, but we get enough of it already, cool dude don't duel wield, one sword, that's enough for kicking ass.


What's up with Monk and Grandmaster? you didn't bring any different taste to the table, can we just have one class? with more polished skill mechanics?


If I sounded too harsh or angry I apologise for that sir, because I really like this mode. This is your mode you should do whatever pleases you:)

Thanks to you and your team again for this wonderful mode.

Regards koichi.

Dual wielding may not be popular in Japan, but it is still very popular in America. ;) The concept of the Ronin is based around Mushashi's Book of 5 Rings, to not make it dual wielding would be an insult to his works.

The Kensei focuses completely on the sword, where as the Samurai would use a bow, polearm, sword, or even a war fan. Which are things you will see when the Samurai is released.

We are working now to make the WM and GM feel different from each other. When Pack 2 comes that will become much more apparent.

Best to look at this mod as a tribute to Eastern Culture and Martial Arts and not an exact cultural replica.

As for useless skills, Something to skip. :D I always appreciate that in a game, I hate absolutely having to micromanage my toons.

playing ninja , grand master and kensai at the moment and the grand master is just too over powered once he has legendary fist stance. dragon fist and hells grasp 2 shot elites on veteran.it becomes almost boring as the grand master, just activate dragon fist then go round splating things. Ninja is a little more balanced. kensai suprisingly isnt as OP as i thought but im only at early levels.

How did you get the Legendary Fist? I may need to reduce the drop rate of the item. Also there are only 10 total of that weapon in the game, 1 every 10 levels. After level 50 all of the Legendary Fist weapons are on the Legendary drop rate. So, the idea is for that weapon, and access to those skills to be very limited.

If that is not the case, I will need to change the chance to get the weapon again.

btw its still absolutly amazing mod reminds me of the unsung game blade and sword. just need combo and super moves.

i brought it at the new shop. havnt had one drop yet. it is rare, was perhaps lucky with the shop owner.was only lvl 10 when i got it

Thanks Warp! Yeah a shop should not have had that. Thank you for letting me know, I will have to figure that one out fast.

I just started playing monster hunter and it has great looking skills and some of then nice dmg and sinergies, but I found that some skills need a little more love, for example demolitionist starts with HIGH base bonuses but every point invested in that skill is almost pointless because it increses in 1 or 2% the bonus and armor reduction even less, other skills like locked 'n loaded are good but its very restrictive for the cannon (and much other skills are exclusive for shotgone or pistol), and Julie's Focus is kinda nice but the focus based stat makes it not so good for a char who should be investing points in STR and some DEX.

The class is pretty fun but in my opinion it would be much more fun if not 85% of the skills are restricted for one or other ranged weapon, I would like to use some skills that looks good in a cannon too :)

Just played entire act 1-2 with Kensai and like alot of your classes so far insanely overpowered^^not sure if there was something like that but giving a hint in descirption to consider with your classes directly higher difficultys >.> just picked normal and well like a hurrican^^

Are you playing it with Synergies?

First off, I would like to thank the team for all their hard work on this fantastic mod. It definitely adds an eastern flavor to vanilla Torchlight II. I appreciate the daily updates for bug fixes and how often Zyph and Epoch responds to the community.

Here are my thoughts to the current version of the mod (v125):

I love all the class portraits minus the Grand Master. They blend in well with the vanilla portraits. What bothers me about the Grand Master portraits are their backgrounds but more importantly, how small their heads are compared to the rest. It's a small issue however.

The class I played the most is the Warrior Monk. The attack animations are smooth and the skills feel satisfying when you use them (especially the Chi Blast and Leaping Dragon). Once you reach full charge (with Physical Focus, Iron Skin, and Perfect Weapon), you feel like an unstoppable critting machine gun. Since polearms are being integrated into WM, I would like to see new active skills (or a reworked skill tree) devoted the weapon and remind you of the Monkey King. The skills could replace (what I see are) redundant skills like Roll with the Punches, Footwork, and Storm Fists. Also, I'm not fond of having reduced item level requirements for passives because they feel redundant and cheapen the satisfaction of using a high-level weapon.

Another class I have some time playing with is the Ronin. Very tanky with Ronin Battle Standard, Defiance, and Water of Life (or any katana with lifesteal traits). Also, Get Over here to Sweeping Fire to Slash is a fun combo to use to peel enemies off your allies and help out in teamfights. While I like how the class incorporates the Book of Five Rings into its gameplay, I find the elemental stances & swords to be very gimmicky and the void tree to feel dull with just stat boosts. Perhaps that tree can incorporate spirits, magic, or spiritual attacks to its arsenal for diversity.

I haven't played much of the Ninja class but from what I played so far, it is awesome. Definitely feels like a Torchlight character with gameplay that revolves around hitting and running. The skill trees are well designed and the optimization options for this class looks very promising.

With six classes already out and more coming soon, one thing I am concerned about is uniqueness vs. quantity. The only classes that seem to stand out on its own is the Ninja and Monster Hunter (but the latter might change with Demon Hunter). The Warrior Monk and Grand Master are very similar (but I read the team is working on differentiating the two although I find the WM to be enough as a unarmed combatant). Kensei and Ronin are also similar. Looking at the skill trees of Kensei, the skill trees can be reworked to incorporate elements of the 2h sword, bow, and defense to further differentiate itself from just being a sword user. For me, the classes would be more appealing if they didn't have a lot of weapon restrictions for their abilities.

And another thing that bothers me about the classes is how the passive skills for most of the classes are just stat boosts. If these skills can target a specific stat or incorporate a unique mechanic, it would help increase the diversity of gameplay for each class.

All in all, this mod is great. The issues I have with the mod just comes down to quality vs. quantity. But the new weapons, armors, and classes fit in with Torchlight and make the game feel refreshing. Although the mod is not designed with Synergies in mind, I always have a blast playing the new classes in Synergies. I'm looking forward to future updates. Keep up the good work!

The Ronin saw a big patch today with the goal of creating a further gap between it and the Kensei. I am sure there will be even more to come.

The Grand Master and the Warrior Monk will also see changes that widen the gap between them. It is all a matter of time.

has legendary fists been removed . i found one unique mystic fist or some such. just logged in not on my hero anymore. the irony of me complaining how eeasy it is then actually finding a legit drop then having a patch take it away isnt lost on me.

I didn't remove anything, or even change any drop rates as of late. Did you switch out any other mods, or change the mod order?