Torchlight II Build Guide, Part One: The Engineer

Today marks the first instalment of our Torchlight II build guides, beginning with the editor-in-chief’s personal favourite — the Engineer. In this guide we’ll explore two different possible builds, describe the sort of gear you’ll need, where to put your points, and how to play. Let’s kick it off.

The Tanker

The Tanker (Armory link here) is all about taking the most amount of hits possible, while still dishing out a respectable amount of damage. It’s great in a team environment where you want someone up front tackling monsters head on with minimal fear of death, but he is perfectly capable of dealing with the game solo… albeit slowly.

On the stats side of things you want to hit around 100 Dexterity before you encounter the severe diminishing returns it has. Then you want a 2:1 split between Vitality and Strength, as this will enable you to still output some damage and equip better gear, while still having great survivability.

You want a one-hand weapon and a shield for this build. It is important that you try to get a little bit of Strength on your equipment to make sure you can stay up to date with new weapons and armor. In your sockets you can choose from things that increase your armor value, health, health recovery, and even missile reflection. Stun chance or negative armor on hit are both viable weapon choices, especially in a team environment.

Skills

The most important skill for this entire build is Supercharge. While you don’t get it right away, the ability for it to generate charge with relative ease is important, especially with a fast 1 hander. This skill is absolutely required, and should be kept at its maximum level at all times.

Other ‘necessary’ abilities for this build are Healing Bot, Forcefield and Bulwark. All are designed to keep you alive, and Forcefield is particularly good at doing so, capable of taking a tonne of damage from bosses and trash alike. All should be kept fairly high and eventually maxed, starting with Forcefield.

Onslaught, Seismic Slam and Shield Bash are important utility skills that should not be overlooked. Onslaught only needs a single point to be useful, and it is the perfect escape skill, allowing you to jump out of combat with relative ease. Seismic Slam and Shield Bash are also important to debilitate foes that are getting out of hand. Push these both to at least Tier 2.

Charge Reconstitution or Aegis of Fate is hotly debated. Charge Reconstitution gives you heals when you cast Forcefield, and usually you are getting a bit beat up before you use it, so it works wonders there. On the other hand, this is the only build that is perfect for Aegis, and it will help to prevent damage during those times when your forcefield is down. Pick one, and max it.

Sword and Board, Spider Mines and Tremor are all damaging skills that work well with this particular build. Sword and Board is a given, since you will be using a shield at all times. Spider Mines are a great way to increase initial DPS in a fight without having to take up time you could be using to attack. Tremor only needs a single point, as its sole purpose is to chew up a charge to trigger Charge Reconstitution if you need it while Forcefield is on cooldown.

As far as dropped skills go, Blocking and Armor Expertise should be primary concerns. Willpower is also good if in a team environment, otherwise just go with whatever you like.

Bots, Bots and More Bots

Why kill things yourself when what you’ve created can do that for you? The Engineer has a wealth of gadgets and gizmos at his (or her) beck and call. Bots, Bots and More Bots (Armory Link here) is all about getting the most out of these incredible destroyers, and it does so wonderfully. A little weak early on, but an absolute blast to play in the late game.

Statistically speaking your survivability doesn’t matter quite as much in this build. Your minions will be taking fire away from you, causing status problems, and generally wreaking havoc while you sit safe, protected by a forcefield. As such, you want to max Strength with this build, and pretty much nothing else.

You’re after a cannon with this build, which allows you to enjoy Blast Cannon, one of the best DPS skills in the game. Minion Damage, Minion Health, Mana Regeneration are all viable socket options for this build. Weapons should have negative armor on hit, which will further increase the damage your bots do.

Forcefield and Healbot are your lifesavers this time around, so make sure you keep them high, and eventually upgrade them. While survivability isn’t as important as most Engineer classes, you want enough for when you need to get in the thick of things, like when you’re low on mana and need to use Storm Burst to get in there and get some mana back. You only need one point in Storm Burst, by the way.

Blast Cannon and Spider Mines are both amazing choices for DPS skills, and I suggest using both. Which you max first will only be dependent on if you’re getting a lot of Minion Damage socketables or Mana Regeneration. If you’re getting Mana Regeneration, Blast Cannon will be the skill for you.

Gunbot and Sledgebot are next, and both are important. Gunbot is unfortunately pretty poor until he reaches max skill, when he becomes an unstoppable destroyer of all enemies. Sledgebot is a tank, and is amazing at drawing fire away from you. When you max these is purely dependent on your playstyle, since you can’t max Gunbot until lvl 95, it might be worth leaving it alone till 82 or so, and then spend those levels pumping stats into it.

Tremor and Immobilization Copter will be the utility skills, with the later keeping pesky casters unable to do anything because they are being interrupted again and again. Tremor is perfect in just about any situation, and deals a nice amount of damage to boot. Max both.

Heavy Lifting synergises with Blast Cannon fairly effectively. It might be worth taking skillpoints away from Spider Mines to max this if you aren’t going too heavily down the minion damage path. Finally you should put one point in both Onslaught and Coup de Grace — the former will keep you out of trouble and the later will devastate trash through the entire game.

Animal Handling (Pet Mastery) and Concentration are both perfect choices for this build on the dropped skills front. A good heal will also keep your bots up when they would otherwise be destroyed.

Click here to see all our Torchlight II build guides.

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