News Tag: Torchlight Infinite SS11

The main cycle in the late game of Torchlight Infinite revolves around farming Flame Ember, upgrading gear, and then farming Flame Ember more efficiently. This cycle can sound a bit tedious, and if you want to escape it sooner, you'll need to find a farming strategy that suits you.

The recommended farming strategy is SS 11 God of Might Ember Farming. This strategy doesn't require any Compass and is extremely friendly to free-to-play players because it doesn't require any Pactspirits.

Profits

Without using Pactspirits, the expected profit is around 500 Flame Ember per hour. If you have some rare quality Pactspirits, the profit can reach around 750 Flame Ember. You can craft them into Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium.

The core of this strategy is very simple: you just place Beacons to clear the map as quickly as possible and then immediately move on to the next map. The profits it provides easily surpass those of Boss Rushing. It's comparable to, and may even be better than, most other strategies currently available in Timemark 8.

Prerequisites

This strategy isn't without its requirements. To utilize it effectively, your survivability and DPS must be at least adequate.

DPS Requirements

The numerical boost from God of Might mechanic is extremely significant, so you'll need a correspondingly high DPS.

• To implement this strategy in Timemark 80, you'll need at least approximately 10 billion DPS.
• To reach Timemark 8-1, you'll need approximately 20 to 40 billion DPS.
• To reach Timemark 8-2, you'll need over 1 trillion DPS; otherwise, it's not recommended.
• To attempt this on Profound difficulty, your DPS will need to reach at least 250 billion, or even higher.

Survivability Requirements

During God of Might event, there will be a persistent pulse fire AoE that you must withstand. Energy Shield builds will struggle to withstand this damage, but for Life or Mana builds, it shouldn't be a problem.

Void Chart

This section won't go into detail about each node in Void Chart. Basically, you just need to allocate all the necessary God of Might-related talent points, and then invest the remaining points into Commodity talent tree to maximize Drop Quantity bonuses.

Might Talent

The most basic requirement for Might Talent is a 100% chance of encountering God of Might, so you don't need to use Compass.

All Ember-related talent points at the top need to be selected, as this is the core of the entire strategy. Note that you can choose the node that converts all Ultimate Ember into Flame Sand, which provides a 140% Ember drop rate. Don't choose the node that adds 3.5% to converting regular Ember into Ultimate Ember.

The bottom left path allows you to spawn more monsters, thus progressing events faster and obtaining more loot. The right path provides some drop quantity bonuses; you can decide how to allocate these points.

Map Strategy

The strategy itself is very simple: you just need to use Netherrealm Resonances on Beacon to get a 75% drop rate bonus. Stacking the bonus to 100% isn't cost-effective, as additional Resonances will cost you money. Of course, you can use fewer Resonances, but the benefits will decrease accordingly.

Then you need to traverse the map as quickly as possible, find God of Might mechanic event, and complete it. Afterward, a large amount of Embers will drop. You just need to find the map boss as quickly as possible, defeat it, and leave the map.

You don't need to completely clear the map. Ideally, you should be able to clear it if you're fast enough. However, if you're using a slower build, prioritizing completing more God of Might events per hour is more important than completely clearing the map each time.

God of Might Mechanic

God of Might is a mechanic that increases in power over time. You'll face waves of Elite enemies, each wave becoming stronger and more deadly. There are a total of 15 waves. The goal is to have enough DPS to complete the 15th wave before the timer expires to maximize total loot.

In addition, you need to stay within the circle of God of Might. While the entire screen may be filled with fire, making the circle difficult to see, ideally you should stay in the center of the area, otherwise you'll be penalized, and the event may end prematurely.

Pactspirit Selection

For this strategy, the ideal pet selection is:

• Captain Shadow
• Cloudgatherer - Sky
• Chalk Spirit

Captain Shadow and Cloudgatherer - Sky are Ember Pactspirits, while Chalk Spirit is a very powerful general-purpose pet because and the primary goal of this strategy is to farm Ember, so you'll need to enhance them as much as possible.

Of course, not everyone will have these Pactspirits. Some good alternatives include:

• Cloudgatherer - Surging Gold replaces Chalk Spirit for extra Flame Fuel drops.
• Idling Weasel - Cherry Blossom replaces Captain Shadow, a slightly weaker Ember-dropping Pactspirit.

If you don't have any of the above Pactspirits, you can simply use the loot Pactspirit you have that provides the highest drop bonus; this will still increase the amount of Ember you acquire on the map.

Overall, this strategy performs exceptionally well. Compared to strategies like Boss Rushing or Cube, this strategy yields significantly more Flame Ember per hour, and another advantage is its simplicity. If you don't want to engage in extra minigames and just want to fight, then this strategy is perfect for you.

Today, we're sharing a super-powerful free farming strategy: Deep Space Beacon, allowing you to easily earn over 3000 FE per hour! This guide is especially suitable for free-to-play players because it doesn't require any specific pets and works perfectly with other mechanics like Blacksail, Nightmare, and Sandlord, meaning you can earn money while completing other tasks! If you're currently in dire need of Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium, then you absolutely can't miss this fast and easy farming method!

Before You Get Started

First, before we begin, we want to emphasize that this strategy works best on Profound Timemark 8 to maximize your earnings. Please remember one thing: never try this strategy on lower difficulties, or you'll get nothing.

Another important point is that to consistently execute this strategy and achieve fast map clearing, you need to ensure your build has at least one trillion DPS! Since monsters in T8 are typically quite tough, your rewards may be lower if you can't guarantee a high clearing speed and effectiveness.

Talent Constellations

For Star Talents setup, there are many options, and you can combine them with other talents.

For Profound Talent Constellations, simply choose the 30% drop quantity bonus and Confusion Card modifiers. This has the potential to increase the drop rate of Rainbow and Legendary cards, with Rainbow cards worth 1,000 FE and Legendary cards worth approximately 100 FE per map.

To complement this strategy, you also need to invest as much as possible in Beacon tree nodes, which is crucial for map sustainability in high-tier content, especially T8 maps. Using a full Beacon tree, combined with War Compass talent, allows for efficient farming of deep, high-tier maps.

In addition, you'll need to allocate points to God of War talent tree. You should pay particular attention to the branches on the right and bottom to maximize damage output and survivability. However, you can completely abandon the left branch if your build speed is fast enough.

Allocate the remaining points to Commodities Talent Constellation as much as possible, especially Netherrealm Resonance node, which is crucial. These significantly increase map difficulty and potential loot rewards, and can also be exchanged for beacons, especially in higher-level Timemarks.

Additionally, you can combine it with skills like Sandlord if you wish. However, this requires sacrificing some of the nodes we just mentioned to achieve a 100% Sandlord chance. You can easily adjust the strategy to perfectly suit your needs.

Pets

As mentioned before, this farming strategy doesn't require any specific pets, so just choose any pet you have that provides the most resources.

Clearly, Chalk Spirit is perfect for this strategy, as it gives defeated monsters a 1% chance to drop an additional set of random Flame Fuel. Because we need to kill a large number of monsters and complete a large number of maps every hour, we can obtain a large amount of free Flame Fuel. This means you can continue to increase your income on top of your existing earnings.

In addition, Cloudgatherer - Surging Gold also applies, as it can increase the drop rate of Flame Fuel.

If you don't have these pets, just use the one with the highest drop rate, because we don't need anything else; we just want to maximize the drop rate of beacons.

Which map to choose?

Regarding map selection, we recommend prioritizing Glacial Abyss. This map usually appears in higher Timemarks and is known for its specific boss drops. Therefore, Glacial Abyss is often considered one of the best maps for fast clearing and farming specific powerful items. However, its unique boss mechanics require players to play cautiously.

If you prefer the map layout of Blistering Lava Sea, you can also choose that map. This map is known for its linear layout, making it very efficient at clearing monsters, especially certain maps like Dragonrest Canyon, which can be cleared in about 44 seconds.

Overall, Glacial Abyss offers slightly higher returns because it drops more beacons, and the beacons sell for a higher price.

Compasses

Regarding map setup, we'll use three specific compasses.

First is Valiant War Compass, which increases our chances of encountering God of War. Furthermore, with each level increase in God of War Trial, it generates a large number of God of War Followers. This is why you need approximately 1 trillion DPS, as it makes those magical monsters extremely durable.

Next, we'll use a Progressing Beacon Compass in conjunction with it. This gives you a 10% chance to upgrade your beacons. All Deep Space Beacons will originate from here.

Then, we'll leverage these beacons, along with an Unrivaled Veteran Compass, to summon more magical monsters and have them drop additional beacons. This synergizes perfectly with God of War Trial, as it spawns a large number of magical monsters.

For your fourth compass slot, we recommend using Beacon Compass, as it's the best choice if you want to focus on farming as many beacons as possible and maximizing your rewards. However, you can replace it with Sandlord Compass, Nightmare Compass, Blacksail Compass, or other strategies you choose to combine. These are very cost-effective and provide a considerable additional benefit to your strategy.

Since these Vorax monsters will account for a large portion of our profits, we strongly recommend using at least Pig Iron Scalpel on every map. Adding it to Netherrealm Compass slot will increase the loot drop rate per Netherrealm stage.

Running the Strategy

Now, let's talk about how to clear the map quickly. Essentially, you just need to click on God of War statue at the beginning of the map and then dash across the map as fast as possible. Try to complete the entire process within one minute, but don't skip too many monsters; clear at least 90% to 95% of the map each time, since our goal is to kill as many monsters as possible to obtain beacons.

Initially, you'll level up quickly, so there's no rush. You can occasionally stop to kill all God of War Followers spawned from Valiant War Compass; these followers will continuously level you up. This way, you can eliminate most followers early in the game, and afterwards, you won't need to worry about levels, just focus on clearing the map.

Profits

Finally, we ran this strategy for nearly 3 hours, farming over 200 maps, and obtained approximately 10,000 Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium. This means you can reliably earn 3000 FE per hour using this strategy! Of course, your profits are also related to your map clearing speed; if you're slow, your profits will be lower.

In short, this Deep Space Beacon farming strategy works in most situations and can be done without high-level pets, making it suitable for most free-to-play players. If you're interested, give it a try!

Torchlight Infinite features numerous characters, and developing a suitable build is a common goal for TLI players to achieve victory smoothly and quickly. Among them, Thea 1 Deathless Build has attracted widespread attention due to its high survivability and fast completion speed.

Thea 1 Deathless Build Introduction

Thea 1 Deathless Build is a very practical build that can fully utilize its advantages even without particularly good gear. The core idea of ​​this build is Lightning to Cold chain current, combined with Tangle skill.

If you craft a Vorax item from Old Grudge and Frozen Lightning legendary gear sets and add it to Thea 1 Deathless Build, you can increase Lightning to Cold damage by 50%.

However, since Old Grudge and Frozen Lightning are not easy to obtain, for most players, a more recommended combination is a Focus Blessing and Trickster's Tread's haste effect. This way, when Agility Blessing is stacked to its maximum, it can still increase Lightning to Cold damage.

Blessing

Thea is a character in Torchlight Infinite whose gameplay is mainly related to blessings. However, there are several different versions of Thea, and their gameplay and skills differ.

Thea 1's main skill is Focus Blessing; Thea 2's main skills are Tenacity Blessing and Agility Blessing; Thea 3's main skill is removing blessings, but the player automatically gains a blessing every two seconds. Once the player has Focus Blessing, Tenacity Blessing, and Agility Blessing, the blessing effect can be easily maintained.

After acquiring these blessings, we can unleash Gods' Boon ability, which consumes our blessings and grants Divine Punishment. While Divine Punishment consumes all Focus Blessings, it also provides a buff.

In fact, each stack of Focus Blessing grants a 6% bonus to damage, lasting 10 seconds and stacking up to 8 times; each stack also grants more Cooldown.

At the maximum Focus Blessing stack, players gain an additional 20% bonus damage, and each stack grants 4% double damage, currently stacking up to 7 times. This means players can gain a total of 28% double damage. These are the effects achievable by Thea 1 Deathless Build at level 1, demonstrating its strong damage output in the early game.

Talent Tree

For Talent Tree, we can add Peculiar Vibe from Goddess of Knowledge. This provides players with additional Tangles, spell skill levels, Tenacity Blessing, and Focus Blessing.

This is the most basic part of Talent Tree setup. To truly complete Talent Tree setup for Thea 1 Deathless Build, more skills need to be added.

First, players need to add Insight to Talent Tree. In the initial stages, it provides additional spell damage. As skills are upgraded, Burning Touch will better suit the needs of Thea 1 Deathless Build, offering smoother gameplay.

Secondly, Extreme Coldness is also essential. It works in conjunction with Frostbite to inflict continuous damage on enemies.

To maximize damage, players need to level up Frostbite to level 100. Players can choose the following methods to increase Frostbite's level.

One method is to combine Ice Puppet with Ring of Ice to increase Frostbite level. If you don't have Ring of Ice, it's not a big deal; another relatively simple method is to use equipment like Vorax Belt to increase Frostbite level.

In addition, you'll need Frozen Lightning. If you haven't obtained this equipment, you need to go to Assassin tree, where there are nodes that help you convert to Lightning. After selecting Lightning, you only gain 50% of your Frost damage converted to Lightning damage; the remaining 50% needs to be compensated for with Support Skills.

Finally, you'll need to add some Dexterity nodes. You need to unlock as many Dexterity skills as possible in Talent tree before adding Intelligence.

As for whether other nodes need to be added to the Talent tree, my opinion is: not necessary, because even if you add them, they won't provide much of a benefit.

While this Talent Tree setup isn't perfect, it provides increased attack and casting speed, spell damage, and Energy Shield. Most importantly, it maximizes Focus Blessing.

How to Obtain Mana Buffs?

Finally, players can choose auras to gain mana buffs. For example, Frigid Domain deals extra damage to nearby enemies with a very high multiplier. You can also place Support Skills to reduce your mana consumption.

Some skill switching requires players to monitor their character's stats. For instance, as Energy Shield accumulates, when Freeze reaches level 100, players should immediately switch Freeze to Frigid Transmission.

Of course, Mana is also crucial in the game. To avoid low Mana, players need to acquire automatic Mana from the start. Simply obtaining Seal compensation from Talent Tree isn't enough; players can also obtain it through Pactspirits.

However, Pactspirits shouldn't be chosen blindly; remember the requirement of reaching Frostbite level 100.

Finally, when unleashing a skill, you can try holding down the skill button. This increases damage by 50%. The reason for this is currently unknown; it could be intentional on the part of the developers, or it could be a bug.

That concludes our overview of Thea 1 Deathless Build. Overall, this build is relatively safe and suitable for dealing damage to enemies from a distance, making it ideal for players who want to complete the game quickly. Good luck with your game!

Hello everyone, today we're bringing you a very efficient and practical build in Torchlight: Infinite SS11: Armor Stacking Gemma 2. This is a top-tier choice that combines both survivability and damage output.

Because of the rework of Gemma 2 and the changes to Frostbite in Vorax season, she has become a powerful and versatile character choice this season. The reworked character skill set, combined with armor-based defensive mechanisms, allows her to build a very resilient tank character, capable of handling high-difficulty endgame content.

Furthermore, this season encourages players to invest in defensive attributes, and the armor stacking build provides both strong defensive capabilities and considerable damage output.

Currently, this build's DPS has reached approximately 500 billion, which should be more than enough to easily handle any Profound (T8) farming strategy. But we're not satisfied with that; in this guide, we will further increase this build's DPS to trillions through various techniques and skill settings! This means that whether you're trying to map to earn Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium, or want to challenge Proof of the Brave IV or even stronger Tier 2 bosses, you'll have more than enough power. Let's take a look!

Gear

First, the quickest way to further improve this Gemma 2 build's performance is to acquire and equip endgame gear, so you don't have to worry about them later.

The two pieces of equipment we recommend are Eternity and Lone Walker's Boots. We spent 50,000 FE to acquire them, but believe me, it's absolutely worth it.

For Eternity, this equipment is the foundation of high armor and is crucial to the build's growth mechanism; while Lone Walker's Boots provides a free aura, increasing the total number of active auras and converting stacked armor into attack power, thereby improving the build's DPS and survivability without consuming mana. This equipment combination allows the build to reach high-end damage levels.

Of course, if your budget is limited, you can still progress with this build even without these two items.

Ethereal Prism Upgrade

Now that the equipment issue is resolved, let's talk about upgrades. The first thing we need to do is upgrade our existing Ethereal Prism to a more powerful version.

We should try to find an Unwavering Fortress Prism with a legendary mod, which can be installed in a non-core talent slot, overwriting the original effect.

Finally, let's choose one of the buff nodes. In this case, if you haven't unlocked Frostbite yet, don't hesitate to choose it. But if you already have it, then you should choose Extreme Coldness, because ideally we want to have both of these talent nodes. Having both talents will significantly increase your DPS. However, even if you only get Frostbite, its effect is still very powerful.

Next, we need to pay special attention to ensuring that each micro-node has 2% Mana Compensation. Note that it must be a micro-node, not a medium node! This is because our goal is to find at least three micro-nodes within a given rectangular area to obtain a total of 18% Mana Compensation. This will play a crucial role in gear building as we invest a higher budget.

Slate Optimization

Doing this will provide a huge DPS increase, but it will also lead to some changes in our build setup.

First, since you now have Frostbite, applying a freezing effect every time you deal frost damage, it means we no longer need to use that Slate mod and can look for other alternatives. Another change is that we need to manually pick up Focus Blessing when applying the freezing effect to enemies.

This means we need to spend three extra skill nodes to light up the previous micro-talents. To balance the current talent tree, it is recommended that you simply give up the critical strike nodes in the gains section, and then go to The Brave and give up one of the armor nodes there.

To get those passive points back, we can replace the "Inflicts Frostbite when dealing Cold Hit Damage" node on the previous Slate with "grant Focus Blessings when inflicting Frostbite," achieving a one-to-one replacement and getting those four passive points back.

If you feel that this requires too many Slate adjustments, then keep things as they are and accept the fact that you lose four passive points. But remember, this is a worthwhile optimization to try. After these adjustments, your damage should increase by approximately 30% to 40%. 

Activation Medium: Rhythm

Next, we will make a major adjustment to the skill, upgrading the previously used Activation Medium: Trac to Activation Medium: Rhythm. This will significantly increase single-target damage.

Activation Medium: Rhythm continuously casts skills. Its advantage is that the trigger interval can be shortened to once every 0.3 seconds, instead of the previous 0.5 seconds of Trac, increasing our attack speed from 4 times/second to 6.2 times/second, equivalent to a damage increase of over 50%. If you can obtain two of these effects, the improvement will be even more significant.

Combined with the changes to Frostbite, your damage output should easily reach approximately 1.5 trillion. Frankly, this will significantly improve monster clearing efficiency, as you can now easily one-shot enemies. And the faster trigger speed will lead to a better gaming experience.

How to improve immunity?

Next, and the final step in optimizing our Armor Stacking Gemma 2 build, we will focus on improving its immunity capabilities so that you can successfully enter Deep Space and handle some high-difficulty content.

As we all know, Deep Space not only requires your build to be very resilient and have high damage, but it also has an additional requirement that no other content in the game has: immunity to a series of very dangerous modifiers. If you don't plan to use this build to enter Deep Space, you can skip this part, but if you do want to enter, I strongly recommend that you make these changes now.

To deal with Elemental Ailments, we need to obtain two Dual Kismet: Fish in a Cage. These items grant immunity to all elemental ailments, but the downside is that they reduce some corrosion resistance.

For curse resistance improvement, we need to upgrade our Memories. This requires us to find at least two Memories that both have the attribute of reducing curse effects by 55% or more. This will make you completely immune to curses. I recommend that you look for this attribute on Memory of Progress and Memory of Discipline.

Finally, to be immune to Wilt and Trauma, our only option is to find a Slate with both Trauma immunity and Wilt immunity attributes. These slates may be expensive. However, you can combine them with any of your nodes in any order to make all effects active. If you're overwhelmed and need to drop one of these two options, then drop Trauma Immunity, because without Wilt Immunity, you will absolutely die from Rot and won't even be able to attempt Deep Space exploration.

In short, with these optimizations, your Armor Stacking Gemma 2 build will receive a massive DPS boost. It's incredibly fast mapping speed, extremely high damage output, and strong survivability (with sufficient resource investment) all indicate that this build will easily lead the endgame meta in the later stages of SS11!

Vorax, the new season mechanic in Torchlight Infinite SS11, is currently the juiciest farming strategy, but its mechanics are somewhat complex. Essentially, it's a mini-game that blends card strategy with monster wave battles, ultimately rewarding players with rich loot.

The difficulty lies in obtaining the optimal card combinations, requiring you to understand the functions of each card and then employ appropriate strategies.

How to Start Vorax?

During map progression, you'll encounter special Vorax monsters. Defeating them will reward you with items called Antidote Vials. You need to collect 12 Vials to start a new game, and you can store a maximum of 48 Vials.

Surgical Instrument

In Surgical Preparation, you might see the option for Surgical Instruments. These instruments only drop from bosses. If you possess an Instrument, you'll gain a special effect at the start of the game. Otherwise, the game will start normally.

Vorax's Goal

After the game starts, you'll enter a card selection screen similar to Slay the Spire, with rounds displayed on the left. Your objective is to increase your Reward Overview Points at the top, aiming for 1 million or higher.

On this screen, you'll see six incubation tanks, each representing a Group of Monsters. These will appear in the final battle phase. The stronger you develop them during the card phase, the more Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium you'll receive after the final battle.

Monster Attributes

You can click on the incubation tanks to view the monster's specific attributes. There are four monster archetypes:

• Pests
• Bone Sentry
• Agitos
• Amberon

You can also see other data:

• Total Activity: This value is the primary basis for calculating points.
• Activity: Can be seen as a multiplier.
• Quantity: Can be seen as a base.

The point calculation rule is Total Activity = Activity × Quantity. Almost all your actions revolve around increasing these two values, and you need to find a good balance between them.

Monster Rarity

Monsters are divided into different rarities:

• Normal, White
• Magic, Blue
• Rare, Yellow
• Boss, Red

Monsters of different rarities have different initial Activity and Quantity values. At the start of the game, the monsters in Surgical Preparation screen are completely random unless you use a Surgical Instrument obtained by defeating a Boss.

How to Increase Rewards?

Reward Upgrades

Through the reward preview, you can see that as your points increase, the rewards will gradually upgrade, from ordinary purple to red, and finally to Rainbow Reward.

In the early stages of the game, the two most important point breakthroughs are at 8,000 points and 28,000 points. At these two milestones, you can obtain a Surgical Instrument. Instruments.

These instruments provide powerful global effects and are key to boosting rewards. You can acquire a maximum of 3 instruments.

Game Phases

For the first 10 card rounds, each round you choose one of three cards to influence a Group of Monsters on the board, improving its attributes or changing its state.

The final three rounds are Reward Rounds, where you choose 3 cards to add extra challenges to the final battle phase. Successfully completing these challenges earns bonus points, helping you reach higher reward tiers.

Cards to Note

Among your chosen cards, pay attention to those containing the following effects, as they significantly impact the outcome:

• Mutate: Transforms the target Group of Monsters into a random type and rarity of monster, but its current Activity and Quantity remain unchanged. This is a high-risk operation and may disrupt card builds.
• Awaken: Increases the rarity of the target Group of Monsters and significantly increases its Activity. This effect can significantly boost rewards.
• Remove: Eliminates a Group of Monsters. Monsters: This isn't necessarily a bad effect; it can eliminate unwanted monsters.
• Fuse: Merges two or more Groups of Monsters into one. The new group's attributes are significantly increased based on the original values ​​(also considered removal).
• Red Cards: These are very rare cards with significantly enhanced effects compared to regular cards, but you need to carefully read their effects.

Pests Build

There is one of the optional Surgical Instruments at the start of the game. Its effect is that at the end of each turn, each Pests group you own adds 8 Quantity to a random group. If you have Pests in your starting breeding tank and you selected Croalis Specimen, you can execute this build.

Your goal is to increase the number of Pests groups as much as possible. Each additional Plague Worm triggers the free quantity bonus at the end of each turn an additional time, increasing the reward very quickly.

While the quantity increases rapidly, be careful to simultaneously increase activity, therefore, when choosing instruments at 8,000 and 28,000 points, prioritize instruments that provide an Activity bonus. Two optimal choices are:

• Tanned Leather Restraint: When Normal, Magic, and Rare monsters (or Boss) are present on your board simultaneously, grant all monsters 20 Activity each turn.
• Foul Scraper: At the end of each turn, grant 20 Activity to monster groups with a Quantity greater than 275.

Contracted Claws Build

This is also one of the available Surgical Instruments at the start of the game. Its effect is that when you remove a non-Bone Sentry monster group, a random monster group gains 150 Quantity.

You need to use Remove cards to trigger Contracted Claws effect, increasing the Quantity of other monsters. Fuse effect also counts as Remove. Therefore, the core of these builds is to continuously fuse monsters.

When your score reaches 8000 and 28000 points respectively, you need to prioritize the following Surgical Instruments:

• Black Goat Cut Suture: At the end of each turn, fuse three monster groups of the same rarity (non-Boss).
• Tanned Leather Restraint: Primarily increases Activity; other cards with similar effects are also possible.

Note that you should avoid Remove Bone Sentry, as it will not trigger the effect of Contracted Claws, and Mutate cards will not trigger removal effects.

Vorax's custom monster gameplay is very fun. The above two are just recommended strategies; you can also specialize in other monster archetypes depending on your build.

Torchlight Infinite SS11 not only updated Erika 3 but also reworked some builds. In addition, there are new mechanics and enhancements to old ones.

Therefore, the rankings of SS11 builds have changed significantly. If you want to know which builds are the strongest, or where your favorite builds stand, the following rankings can be used as a reference.

Tier C Builds

Rehan Anger (Rehan 1)

Rehan 1's Rage generation is slow and awkward, and the coverage of high-damage bursts is inconsistent. Even when successfully activated, the damage return is too low. Season 11 favors builds that can provide sustained damage pressure or high burst damage on demand, and Rehan 1 does neither.

Rehan 1's excessively long output preparation time makes the experience poor in mapping and boss fights. Furthermore, the current defensive system favors stacked energy shields and mixed damage reduction, which doesn't mesh well with this system, resulting in insufficient survivability.

Order Calling Moto (Moto 1)

While Season 11's buffs to summon survivability did benefit some pet builds, Moto 1 benefited only slightly. Its summons are slow, its AI remains unsatisfactory, and its single-target damage is heavily reliant on gear. Both its map clearing speed and boss fight experience feel outdated and cumbersome, especially compared to Iris 2.

Blast Nova Bing (Bing 1)

Bing 1's C-tier ranking is primarily due to Bing 2. SS11's significant buffs to Explosive Chain Reaction, Energy Regeneration, and Detonation speed were almost entirely absorbed by Bing 2, while Bing 1 received virtually no buffs. This resulted in inconsistent damage, significantly slower map clearing speed, and greater survivability.

Youga 1 & 2

Season 11 slightly improved Youga's damage coverage and skill clarity, but its burst damage remains insufficient. It struggles to maintain high DPS against fast-moving bosses or those with high frontal damage reduction.

Wisdom of the Gods / Incarnation of the Gods (Thea 1 / 2)

These two builds heavily rely on control and Freeze mechanics. While Season 11 slightly enhances their effectiveness, damage is paramount in the current meta. They are decent for clearing lower-tier maps, but become weak against bosses, making them unsuitable for endgame play.

Tier B Builds

Growing Breeze Iris (Iris 1)

Iris 1 is decent for a summoner build, but Iris 2 in Season 11 completely surpasses it. While summons in Season 11 have improved damage and survivability, the Iris 1 version lacks the damage boost and automatic energy clearing capabilities of Iris 2 version. This may result in fewer players choosing Iris 1 in SS11.

Lethal Flash Carino (Carino 2)

The buffs in Season 11 benefit Carino, but Carino 2 is less efficient at utilizing these changes than Carino 1. While its damage and map clearing efficiency are decent, it performs poorly in boss fights.

Selena

Selena is a hero focused on damage over time, excelling at clearing large groups of monsters. Season 11's improvements to elemental stacking make her damage more consistent. However, her lack of burst damage leads to excessively long boss fights.

Tier A Builds

Rosa 1 & 2

Season 11's changes to projectile damage scaling, critical hit consistency, and attack speed benefit Rosa 1. This allows for good map clearing, with damage reaching the endgame effectively, and the gameplay is very smooth. However, her lack of flashy graphics results in fewer players choosing her.

Rosa 2 takes Rosa 1 a step further, boasting higher burst potential and stronger scaling. Season 11 Projectile buffs are practically tailor-made for it. Its A-tier status is primarily due to its survivability, requiring careful player control; however, its damage is comparable to top-tier builds.

Ranger of Glory Carino (Carino 1)

Season 11 Frost scaling buffs significantly enhanced Carino 1's map-clearing speed, but its weakness remains survivability; a single mistake can lead to death, preventing it from reaching higher tiers.

Lightning Shadow Erika (Erika 2)

Erika 2 is a build focused on speed, critical hit scaling, and mobility. Season 11 Projectile speed changes improved her map clearing speed. While her boss-fighting ability is slightly weaker than higher-tier builds, her overall strength is extremely high.

Blasphemer Thea (Thea 3)

Thea 3 benefits greatly from the energy regeneration mechanics changes and Lightning buffs in Season 11. Both its damage and map clearing speed are excellent. Its only reason for not reaching Tier S is its slightly lower mobility, making it slower than ranged builds.

Zealot of War Carino (Carino 3)

Carino 3 no longer needs to worry about Heat Up generation in SS11. Its skills have a wide range and amazing burst damage. It performs well in both map clearing and boss fights. Its only lack is the pure automated farming ability found in other Tier S builds.

Flame of Pleasure Gemma (Gemma 1)

This build excels thanks to the enhanced elemental stacking in Season 11. Its damage can melt groups of monsters, and it can use Freeze and Burn to control bosses. Its rotation is more complex than most builds, but also deals more damage.

Creative Genius Bing (Bing 2)

SS11 buffs make Bing 2 more survivable and smoother to play. It has certain requirements for gear and positioning, which prevents it from reaching S tier, but its damage is definitely sufficient.

Tier S Builds

Wind Stalker/Vendetta's Sting Erika (Erika 1 & 3)

Season 11's projectile speed bonus makes it clear a wider area faster, while changes to critical hit coverage make damage output more consistent.

Erika 3 is one of the strongest ranged builds in SS11. Its damage is extremely high, even bosses struggle to withstand it, while Erika 1 is smoother for farming maps. Furthermore, both builds effectively utilize defense stacking mechanics, so their survivability is not weak either.

Seething Silhouette Rehan (Rehan 2)

Rehan 2 is both very tanky and deals significant damage, performing exceptionally well across all game content. Rehan 2 also eliminates concerns about damage output, consistently delivering high damage, making boss fights much easier.

Vigilant Breeze Iris (Iris 2)

Iris 2 is the best summoner build in SS11, allowing your summons to automatically clear maps and bosses. Let your summons handle everything, while you focus on positioning and survival. The more Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium you invest in, the higher your damage will be, and you can smoothly reach the endgame with virtually no bottlenecks.

Spacetime Illusion Youga (Youga 1)

The buffs in Season 11 have made Youga 1's DPS astonishing, allowing for a smooth endgame progression and fast farming speed. After optimizing the energy shield rotation, Youga 1 achieves extremely high DPS in boss fights.

Frostbitten Heart Gemma (Gemma 2)

Gemma 2's strength lies in its map clearing and efficiency. Season 11 makes the timing of explosions clearer and more reliable, making this build almost effortless to play. You simply move, and everything around you explodes, clearing out all the monsters.

The above is a ranking of Torchlight Infinite SS11 builds. It's recommended to choose from builds in Tier A or higher.

In Torchlight Infinite SS11, the most noteworthy build is Erika 3. Its core gameplay utilizes Flicker Strike skill for high-speed movement and map clearing. Essentially, it's a Strength-stacking melee build, using high-frequency attacks to trigger effects like freezing to control the battlefield and deal massive damage.

In the late game, especially on Time Mark 8 maps, this build provides a smooth map-clearing experience. You basically only need to hold down the right mouse button to use Flicker Strike. However, be aware that since Flicker Strike forcibly teleports your character to the enemy's side, you'll always be in melee range, making survival a concern. But Flicker Strike is still a very satisfying playstyle in most ARPGs, and let's see how to upgrade and equip Erika 3.

Equipment Selection

The strength of this build largely depends on key equipment. If you're unsure how to choose, we'll introduce them below in order of priority.

Unique Equipment

Helmet: Opening Heart

It provides Fervor state, increasing critical strike-related attributes and bonus damage. It's currently not worth much lame Elementium, so it should be a priority core damage-boosting helmet.

Necklace: Vortex Heart

This necklace provides critical strike damage, critical strike chance, and increased Focused Strike damage. Its value has decreased, and it should now be worth less than 60 Flame Elementium.

Chest plate: Undying Faith

It allows the character to remain in a low-life state and provides an Aura Effect, bonus damage, Mana Reservation Efficiency, and passive skill levels. It's more valuable than the other two unique items, but you can use other equipment first and trade with other players after accumulating enough Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium.

Rare Equipment

Some of these items can be used with rare equipment, but this requires certain affixes. The overall strategy is to stack strength, damage, energy shield, and resistance.

Rings

The core affix for rings is max Frostbite rating. Each Frostbite stack provides additional damage (approximately 1%-2% more damage), a significant source of damage amplification. Stacking Frostbite to 100 stacks freezes enemies, and additional damage against frozen enemies is gained through the talent tree.

Main Hand Weapon

Main hand weapons require the attack speed affix. Prefixes should prioritize cold damage, or melee damage, while suffixes should include attack speed and critical strike chance-related affixes.

Off-Hand Weapon

Off-hand weapons do not require attack speed affixes. Because it's a Stat Stick, its attack speed doesn't participate in the actual attack calculation. This stems from Blade Runner talent. When dual-wielding, the off-hand weapon doesn't participate in the attack, but its damage is added to the main-hand weapon's final damage. Therefore, your off-hand weapon should prioritize high-damage attributes such as magic damage, cold damage, strength, or percentage damage.

Crafting

During the transition from Tier 1 to Tier 7, don't rush to trade equipment from the auction house, and prioritize looting ground drops. As you approach Tier 7 and need to increase damage, start crafting equipment strategically.

Base items can be traded at the auction house or looted. Weapon bases with item levels between 82 and 85 are preferable, and higher item levels mean higher-tier affixes can be rolled. Then go to the crafting table, select the desired affix type, and set your target as Tier 2 affixes.

Utilize the game's auto-crafting function, inputting materials until you roll all Tier 2 affixes. This is the first step in upgrading your equipment. Don't focus on advanced affixes early on. Affixes), such as attack critical strike chance and critical strike damage (T1 affixes), can be considered later.

Other Resources

Divinity Slate

Divinity Slates provide a significant damage boost. You need to look for Divinity Slates with the affix Crit Strike Damage per Fervor Rating. Combined with the permanent 100 Fervor stacks, this provides up to 50% critical strike damage. The secondary talent nodes on Divinity Slates are also extremely powerful, significantly stacking damage.

Hero Memory

You upgrade using Memory Scraps obtained through Black Sail mechanic.

• First Memory: Base attribute should be Strength, primary attribute should focus on damage (critical strike damage or attack speed).
• Second Memory: Focus on Energy Shield.
• Third Memory: Focus on Attack Speed.

Talent Tree And Elemental Conversion

For the talent tree, refer to the community guide. The core focus is on stacking strength and dealing cold damage. The cold tree provides crowd control through freezing.

You can obtain a 100% conversion of Magic damage to Cold damage using Divine Tablet, or unlock Extreme Coldness node in the talent tree, which will restrict you to dealing only Cold damage.

Alternatively, you can choose the Llghtning variant and then switch to the cold tree in T7 or upon entering T8 using a node in the talent tree.

Skil Selection

• Spectral Slash
• Spiral Strike
• Frost Shield
• Vendetta
• Bull's Rage

Vendetta's linked support skills need to stack as much speed as possible. Recklessness provides a significant amount of attack speed but consumes health, and use it cautiously or avoid it altogether in the early game when survivability is limited.

Frost Shield is an excellent defensive skill, providing numerous defensive layers and protecting your energy shield regeneration from interruption.

The above is just a configuration for the upgrade phase. You can check the in-game leaderboards to learn from advanced players' builds to improve. However, be sure to carefully select your players, ensuring they are using the same playstyle and have the corresponding key talents, to avoid referencing incorrect configurations.

At the start of Vorax season, you're probably looking for a suitable money-making strategy. Here, we offer an option besides rushing bosses: farming Cubes of Rapacity. This strategy is very fun, and more importantly, it can bring you incredibly high returns, even potentially earning thousands of FE in just one map.

If you're also a fan of Path of Exile, we can explain Cube mechanic in a different way, which might be easier to understand. It's somewhat similar to Ritual in PoE, but with the addition of Pactspirit Shop elements, which are optional and entirely up to you.

Before we begin this guide, we must state that this strategy strongly recommends using legendary cube pets. If you don't have them, your returns may be somewhat reduced. Now let's begin!

Talent Constellations

First, let's look at Talent Constellation settings for this Cube strategy. It's quite simple; just pick up all the cube nodes, as they are all very useful. However, if you wish, it's best to start using this strategy at Timemark 7.

Beacon Talent Constellation

Once you reach Timemark 7, head to Beacon Talent Constellation and collect all the nodes in the bottom left corner, along with Resonances node and commodities. This will significantly increase your Beacon drops.

At Timemark 9, we'll continue investing in Beacon nodes, meaning we need to prioritize putting all points into Beacon tree and fill it up as quickly as possible. However, this strategy still works even if you don't have enough talent points to light up all the nodes.

However, you still have opportunities to gain some extra income while leveling up and acquiring all the points to fill Beacon tree. The only node worth mentioning here is the boss node in the top right corner, but I don't recommend collecting it if you don't have a cube pet. These pets provide bonuses such as increased drop rates and doubled rewards, making it too inefficient!

Profound Talent Constellation

Finally, for Profound Talent Constellation, you can choose major node in the upper right corner. This node's main function is to reduce the probability of drawing Confusion Cards when Netherrealm Chaos Invasion begins.

Alternatively, you can choose the node that increases Drop Quantity by 30%. However, please note that this has a drawback: it limits you to only two deaths per map, which depends on your character's survivability.

Running Strategy

Now start exploring the map. There will be quite a few bosses waiting for you to kill, as Cube likes to spawn them in every map you explore.

As for strategy settings, there's not much to consider. You should just add as many modifiers as possible to the map, as drop quantity does affect the cube, but don't overdo it. Just choose what feels comfortable. However, we recommend setting at least 45% drop quantity; if you feel you can tolerate more, that's entirely up to you.

Regarding map exploration itself, there's not much to say; you just need to clear the entire map. During your exploration, you'll notice the map is dotted with small red dots; these represent cube monsters. Make sure to kill all of these cube-affected monsters, as they drop Desire Crystals, which can be used in the shop after defeating the boss.

As for the shop itself, you can't do anything about it. You can interact with Cube of Rapacity and spend Desire Crystals to draw a reward from the cube. Note that the ultimate reward sometimes includes a Covet option, which can either double your loot or leave you with nothing. Therefore, unless you enjoy gambling, there's no reason to click it.

In my opinion, it's best to accept the loot directly each time, as it's frustrating to have a reward slip away, especially if you have high-value items.

How to Choose Pets?

Next, we'd like to quickly discuss pet strategies, as the final rewards will certainly vary depending on the pets you own.

Obviously, if you have the legendary cube pet, you absolutely must use it and keep it active at all times, as this grants a 20% Desire Crystal bonus, the primary currency you'll use to unlock the final cube rewards.

The same logic applies to the cube epic pet, Hell Cavalry Sea. You need to keep it active, as it also provides more Desire Crystals for cube refreshes and yields more loot.

As for other available pets, if you don't have better options, we recommend Chalk Spirit, as it provides more Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium per map run on average; another option is the Cloudgatherer - Surging Gold, which grants additional Flame Fuel or Embers.

Apart from that, use the pet with the highest drop quantity, as this affects the amount of Desire Crystals you gain, thus increasing your final rewards.

Rewards & Profits

There are four main types of loot drops from opening the final cube.

• The first type is Transcendence Wedge, which you can directly take to the auction house and sell quickly.
• The second type is Divinity Stone. This is the main currency for trading items at Spacetime Wanderer in town. There, you can exchange Divinity Stone for various currencies, including Flame Elementium, the rare Transcendence Wedge, and the occasional Ultimate Ember. If you don't want to participate in these, you can also sell Divinity Stone directly at the auction house; someone will always need it.
• The third type is some basic currencies, and sometimes boss items drop, but again, just sell them directly at the auction house.
• The fourth type, Divinity Slates, is incredibly abundant, but its value is extremely polarized. Some might be valuable, while others are completely worthless.

Finally, let's talk about the hourly earnings of this strategy. Without a pet, you can expect to earn around 150 FE. However, since it's early Torchlight Infinite SS11, prices are fluctuating greatly, making it difficult to give an exact figure. However, if you have a pet, the profit will probably exceed 150, even approaching 200 FE. It's important to note, however, that this isn't a fixed number, as pet usage also introduces considerable randomness to the strategy.

In any case, this strategy can be used almost throughout the entire season. Try it out now to reliably and quickly accumulate a Flame Elementium advantage!

Torchlight Infinite SS11 has finally kicked off! Are you ready to break through the siege of these Vorax Syndrome-infected monsters?

However, before you face more difficult monsters and dungeons, you must prepare a large amount of currency, because whether it's the powerful Vorax Season-exclusive items or the essential consumables to ensure your survival, sufficient Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium is a prerequisite for obtaining them. This is also key for new and returning players to quickly catch up in the early season, making up for lost time.

Getting out of poverty in the early season is not easy, but with this guide, everything will be fine, because we're going to share a reliable currency farming strategy: Boss Rush.

Boss Rushing, as the name suggests, simply involves entering a map, heading straight for the boss, and killing it. Since you can pick up various nodes during this process, the boss becomes a continuous source of resources, allowing you to quickly accumulate considerable wealth. This is definitely one of the most effective money-making strategies in the early game, and it requires no investment – ​​it's completely free! The effect is even better if you have specific pets.

It's worth mentioning that this method works for various builds, with a very high success rate and return on investment. Therefore, we recommend that all new players try this strategy. Even if you're not a beginner, Boss Rush is the best way to earn the most FE before unlocking Timemark system and starting other strategies.

Next, we will detail everything you need to know to help you accumulate enough funds in the early season and unlock all the equipment and upgrades you want.

Reaching Timemark 7

First, we must remind you that this strategy will only truly work when you reach at least Timemark 5/6, because before that, you will have almost no VoidChart points (Star Talents), so you won't get much currency. However, you can still collect some valuable items and sell them; these items are very sought after in the early season. Therefore, if you need some legendary equipment to improve your character, it shouldn't be difficult to achieve.

That said, this Boss Rush operation will begin at Timemark 7. Our goal is to kill Traveler, the last boss of Netherrealm, as quickly as possible, because this will unlock a key node that doubles the amount of currency you receive. 

Talent Constellations

Next, our goal is to go to Commodities Talent Constellation and unlock three main branches, which are your source of a large amount of currency.

• Netherrealm Resonance Branch
• Ember Branch
• Energy Core Branch

After that, you need to go to Beacon Talent Constellation. Here, we want to quickly unlock the node in the lower left corner. This way, all Resonances dropped by bosses have a chance to be converted into Beacons, thus improving your sustainability, speeding up progress, and providing you with a large amount of extra currency later on.

It's worth mentioning that there are two nodes here that increase your chances of obtaining Glacial Abyss Beacons. However, if you want to earn currency as quickly as possible, we recommend that you ignore them before entering T7, as they will make subsequent progress more difficult.

Next, you can return to Commodities Talent Constellation and pick up Boss Branch, which will cause more bosses to appear on your map. However, please do not pick up the last Medium node, as it is useless and will even completely destroy your ability to obtain any currency in all maps.

Another point to note is that this node doubles the boss's health. So, if you find it difficult to handle, you can remove it first and add it back when your damage output is high enough to handle bosses with double health. This will also significantly increase your earnings.

Around this time, you should be around Timemark 7.

Next, we will go to Frozen Canvas Talent Constellation and unlock all nodes that provide extra Snowpaper Fragments, because these fragments become very valuable once players start rushing Canvas.

As for your last few VoidChart points, I personally recommend unlocking Star Shard node, so you can challenge Plane Watcher more frequently, and this boss will definitely drop Timemark 8 Beacons, which you can sell for a good price.

In addition, you should also consider obtaining Winding Key and Elixir of Oblivion nodes, as they will become very valuable after about a day. After all, players need Winding Keys to reset VoidChart, and they need Elixir of Oblivion to reset Talent points, especially after reaching level 90.

Of course, you can also adjust your strategy and replace nodes according to your own play style. However, if you simply want to focus on killing bosses and earning Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium, then the nodes mentioned above are definitely your best choice!

Increasing Boss Spawn Rate

As we mentioned before, we need to do everything we can to reach Timemark 7 as quickly as possible and defeat Traveler there. Afterward, you will receive two Profound Constellation points. With these extra points, you can unlock the node we mentioned earlier, which has a 45% chance of causing you to encounter two extra bosses randomly during your farming runs.

On average, this will give you at least one extra initial boss, so your total earnings per map run will almost double. This node has a huge multiplier effect, and you should do everything you can to get it as quickly as possible, but even without it, you can still earn a considerable amount of money.

Additionally, if you choose to consistently challenge bosses for extended periods, you can also activate Compass node on the left. When this node is active, if you don't insert any legendary or higher-level Compasses when starting a Netherrealm stage, it will be considered as if no Compass was inserted. This means you can use a purple Boss Compass simultaneously, encountering more bosses and obtaining more loot.

Pets

Regarding pets, while you don't actually need any loot-boosting pets to make this strategy very powerful in the initial days, it's still necessary to discuss them just in case.

The best pet for this strategy is Captain Shadow, which has a 60% chance of making bosses drop extra Embers, perfectly aligning with all our strategies. This guy can significantly boost your earnings.

If you don't have him in your team, you can try his alternative: Cloudgatherer - Sky's Dome, which multiplies your Embers overall, still providing a decent effect.

Alternatively, Chalk Spirit is also useful, giving defeated monsters a 1% chance to drop an extra set of random Flame Fuel.

If you have Cloudgatherer - Surging Gold, you can also use him. However, his effect isn't very noticeable before T7-8, as he doesn't drop much Flame Elementium at that point, and the multiplier effect is limited.

In any case, you can use any pet you have, as they all have drop quantity multiplier effects. Even if you don't have any pets at all, it's perfectly fine, because you don't need any pets to make this strategy very effective. 

Farming Strategy

Finally, let's talk about the specific method for boss rushing. It's actually quite simple; you just need to place beacons and use some Netherrealm resonance to buff yourself, which will grant you more loot. Then, simply rush through the map as quickly as possible to the end, because the more maps you rush per hour, the more money this strategy will earn you.

We're not yet sure how powerful Vorax Syndrome mechanic is, but it's worth trying on every map. If you happen to encounter other mechanics, you can also stop and complete them to get some extra loot.

Selling

After completing your farming cycle, you can sell all the loot you've obtained. Since the items dropped by bosses are usually raw currency that players highly demand at the beginning of the season, you can easily sell them all.

However, we don't recommend selling everything at once, as players might not have enough currency to buy hundreds or thousands of FE, Embers, etc. Therefore, it's best to sell them in smaller batches so you can recoup your investment faster.

In short, once you master the technique, this strategy should allow you to earn a significant amount of money per hour and can be sustained for a long time. You can choose to do this for the first two weeks or so of Vorax Season to earn a lot of money. However, as players improve their game skills, the demand for many items will gradually decrease, and your profit margin will also decrease. Even so, for most players, this should be enough to allow them to have a lot of fun at the beginning of the season.

Torchlight Infinite SS11 Vorax has begun, and this is likely the most content-rich season yet, featuring updated gear crafting, a new Hero Trait, and a reworked Hero Trait.

Torchlight Infinite's new content is often the most powerful. Besides these, SS11 offers many excellent starting options, and let's take a look at how to play them.

New Choice

Vendetta's Sting Erika (Erika 3)

Erika 3 employs a fast-paced combat style similar to Flicker Strike, which many players might choose as their first choice. If you've played other ARPGs, such as Path of Exile 2, you'll find it hard to choose another playstyle because you know how satisfying this is.

Its biggest advantage is its high movement speed, allowing you to clear the map as quickly as The Flash. While Erika 3's advantages in the new season's mechanics might not be immediately apparent, it works very well with Overrealm mechanics of SS10.

The development team has added a new camera mode to improve the dizziness caused by Flicker Strike, which should help many players adapt. If you're unsure whether you'll like it, you can observe other players' experiences first. Erika 3's map clearing experience should be excellent, and if built properly, her solo combat capabilities could also be very strong.

For skills, you can choose Berserking Blade, any combo skill, or the new skills added this season. Note that gale-type skills are not applicable, but squall-type skills are. You can also choose traditional powerful melee skills, such as Icy Blade, Frost Spike, Thunders Spike, etc.

Frostfire Gemma (Gemma 2)

The status ailments and Frostbite mechanics in SS11 have been completely reworked. Frostbite now provides an independent bonus damage per stack. Gemma 2 is a hero specializing in Frostbite, making her seem like a hero with immense potential. Her damage scaling is considerable, and her freezing effect is powerful, so she's expected to be very popular in SS11.

Gemma 2's skill selection is also very flexible; you only need to deal Frost damage. This means you can use any of the three skill types: Frost, Lightning, and Physical, as Lightning and Physical damage can be easily converted to Frost damage.

Gemma 2 is also well-suited to the new Tangle mechanic, which is incompatible with Spellburst. Its gameplay is similar to Brands in Path of Exile; you need to place support skills on the ground, and they automatically attack attached enemies. You can increase the number of Tangles that can exist simultaneously and the maximum number of Tangles that can be attached to a single enemy through talents, offering diverse gameplay options.

Even if the Tangle mechanic ultimately doesn't perform as expected, you can still revert to the traditional Spellburst playstyle. With the powerful bonuses from Frostbite and Gemma 2, any Frost damage build will be very strong.

Classic Choice

Blast Nova Bing (Bing 1)

Hammer of Ash Bing 1 performs exceptionally well in SS 10. While it might struggle a bit when transitioning from T7 to T8, similar to Demolisher Bing, the transition from T8 to Profound is one of the smoothest in the game. You only need Leap Slam and right-click to throw bombs; almost no other actions are required.

Currently, Bing 1 build path is relatively fixed: use Hammer of Ash early on, then switch to Ruinous Star and Deterioration later. Before that, you have a pure fire build. Alternatively, you can later switch to Speed Phantom Bing build for further improved map clearing smoothness.

Creative Genius Bing (Bing 2)

Bing 2 was also very popular in SS10 because any skill that synergizes well with Spellburst can be played with Bing 2, allowing for a smooth transition from T7 maps to T8.

Bing 2 received a slight nerf in SS11, but he remains in an excellent position. Furthermore, the value of traditional Spellburst gear might decrease due to the potential popularity of the new Tangle mechanic, which is also good news for Bing 2.

Wind Stalker Erika (Erika 1)

Erika 1 is always a reliable starting choice. There are plenty of well-established guides and experience available, and the transition from T7 to T8 is very smooth. However, you'll need to adapt to her fast-paced playstyle and she can be relatively vulnerable early on.

Erika 1's typical route is Thunder Spike to Thunder Slash. However, you can also choose Corrosive Throw, Crescent Slash, or other combo skills. Any attack skill that synergizes well with Multistrike will be highly effective on Erika 1.

Selena

Selena received some very good buffs in SS11, especially for Frost build players. After Frostbite mechanic was reworked, each Frostbite stack will cause enemies to take an additional 1% Frost damage. For non-Gemma 2 heroes, the normal cap is 100 stacks, which translates to 100% extra damage, and can even reach 150% extra damage with core talents. This is a huge boost for any Frost build.

Selena herself and her main skill, Howling Gale, were not nerfed. While her transition from T7 to T8 might have been a bit challenging in the past, the buffs may solve that problem. Furthermore, the current talent tree provides a significant amount of critical strike chance and damage, so Selena's early game experience is expected to be much better than in previous seasons.

Spacetime Elapse Youga (Youga 2)

Youga 2 received significant buffs in SS11, and now Mind Control Youga 2 will be extremely strong.

Any damage-over-time ability becomes incredibly powerful with Youga 2. Besides Mind Control, you can also try builds focused on abilities like Flame Focus or Haunting Abomination.

These are some recommended early-game builds based on SS11 changes and SS10 performance. They remain strong in the early game, although the transition experience in T7 and T8 differs slightly.

While these builds are relatively stress-free in the early game, the endgame will be a test of your skill combinations and gear. If you feel the endgame transition isn't smooth enough, you can buy cheap Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium from IGGM. Making some investments at the beginning of the season will quickly recoup all your consumption.