Torchlight Infinite Carry Run

Torchlight: Infinite SS14 Tartarus introduces Follower system, which shares some similarities with Mercenary system in Path of Exile 1 but is much less complicated. You can equip your followers with skills that complement your build.

Followers have different rarity tiers, but they cannot be traded directly, although related items can be traded. The system is exclusive to the current League. Here's how to obtain followers and choose the best Mercenaries for your build.

How to Obtain Followers?

Followers are exclusive drops from SS14 mechanics. Once you enter the relevant Tartarus content, you can obtain Recommendation Letters through its dedicated drop system rather than relying solely on farming regular maps.

You need to capture prisoners and use an auto-battler-style devouring mechanic to increase their rarity. Once a prisoner evolves to the highest quality, you have a chance to obtain the corresponding Recommendation Letter during the final suppression settlement, allowing you to recruit that prisoner as a follower.

You can inspect a follower's details through its Recommendation Letter, including its type, rarity, and starting skill. Every follower can have up to three skills. One starting skill is fixed and cannot be replaced, while the other two skill slots can accommodate additional skills.

Follower Skills

Follower skills are obtained through a similar drop system and can have up to three Supports. For example, Level 3 Frigid Transmission comes with three Supports, while Level 2 versions may have two and Level 1 versions may have one.

Some Supports are unavailable to players themselves, and certain skills can only be used by specific followers. There are currently four basic follower species: Lion Queen, Lone Wolf, Mammoth, and Witch Rat. Each species has its own skill pool, although some skills overlap between different species.

Tartarus Skills are special skills that can only be equipped by followers. They can deal damage directly, grant buffs to players and allies, or inflict debuffs on enemies. They are generally variations of existing player skills with modified effects.

Origin Tartarus Skills are rarer variants of Tartarus Skills. They often feature more distinctive and exclusive effects, giving them the potential to define an entire build. Followers with Origin Tartarus Skills are therefore more valuable.

Follower Categories

Followers fall into four main categories, each representing a different playstyle:

• Lion Queen: Elemental spells and area damage
• Lone Wolf: War Cries, mobility, and defensive support
• Mammoth: Melee combat, War Cries, and recovery
• Witch Rat: Spells, area attacks, and debuffs

Lion Queen and Witch Rat primarily use spell-based skills, including Black Hole, Blazing Meteor, Blink, Swift Shadow Raid, and Tide Well.

Swift Shadow Raid, in particular, is exclusive to Witch Rat and focuses on projectiles. After casting it, the follower and player gain Projectile Speed for four seconds, and the skill has no cooldown. As a result, Witch Rats starting with this skill worth more Torchlight Infinite FE.

Lone Wolf and Mammoth focus more on melee combat and War Cries, while Blink is available to all follower types. Mammoth-exclusive Origin skills include Berserking Blade, Focused Slash, Raging War Cry, and Thunder Slash. Lone Wolf, meanwhile, has Fearless War Cry, Frost Spike, Shadow Dash, and Spiral Strike.

Powerful Origin Skills

Frost Shield has a 100% chance, when taking damage, to treat your maximum Elemental and Erosion Resistances as your effective resistances. Even if your resistance is at -1,000, it is treated as capped, although your maximum resistance is reduced by 10%.

Its Ultimate Mod allows other follower skills to grant the corresponding maximum resistance and damage reduction. For example, it can provide up to approximately 70% Fire Resistance alongside an additional 10% reduction in Fire Damage taken, eliminating the need to stack resistances through gear. The effect lasts four seconds and has a six-second cooldown, but certain Supports can double its duration, bringing it close to permanent uptime.

Ice Shot is well suited to projectile builds. The more projectiles Witch Rat fires, the higher its projectile damage becomes. Its Ultimate Mod grants additional Cold Damage based on buff stacks, up to 40 stacks, with the bonuses multiplying with each other to provide substantial damage gains.

Shadow Dash causes enemies at the starting point, along the path, and at the destination to take 6% additional damage. Stacking this effect five times provides approximately a 30% damage multiplier. Each other Movement Skill used recently also grants Cooldown Recovery Speed for the skill. Its Ultimate Mod can additionally inflict Frail.

Focus Slash grants Fortify stacks, Physique, and Maximum Elemental Resistances. At 10 stacks, it provides 10% Maximum Resistance and 50% Physique. Its Ultimate Mod prevents Fortify stacks from being lost and grants 1% Skill Area for every 1% Physique, up to 100%.

Deep Space Followers

Deep Space can drop top-tier followers with Level 95 Ultimate Skills and their own unique Implicit modifiers.

For example, Lone Wolf ULT Follower Blade of the Silver Moon teleports to enemies when using Attack Skills and executes enemies with less than 12% Life when they are hit by Melee Skills.

Among Implicit modifiers, Rampaging Rat provides additional projectiles and Projectile Speed, while causing enemies to take additional damage after being critically hit by projectile skills. This makes it a strong fit for Ice Shot builds.

Scion of Light, a top-tier Lion Queen, grants the player an Elemental Shield that absorbs up to 2,500 points of Elemental Damage. Once the shield is broken, it recharges after eight seconds. Chant of Conquest can also guarantee Spell Aggression for both the player and the follower.

Iron Curtain, a Mammoth follower, has Cheat Death. When you would otherwise die, it restores 100% of your Maximum Life and causes you to take only half damage for five seconds. With a 60scooldown, this effect could be worth tens of thousands of Torchlight: Infinite Flame Elementium in Hardcore mode.

You should prioritize finding the best Origin Skill, then choose a follower capable of using it, select the most suitable Implicit modifier, and finally fill the remaining skill slots to strengthen your build. Unlike Torchlight: Infinite SS13, where you could simply stack attributes and skill levels, this system requires more trading and careful skill combinations.

Tartarus season of Torchlight Infinite introduces a new Hero Trait: The Ultimate One, commonly referred to by the community as Youga 3.

Typically, new Hero Traits require a period of adjustment, so it is usually not recommended to jump into one immediately at the start of a new season. Youga 3, however, is an exception; it feels great to play right from the get-go in Season 14!

In this guide, we will walk you through the process of crafting a starter build for Youga 3, allowing you to experience the fresh content of Torchlight: Infinite with an entirely new playstyle.

Advantages of Youga 3 starter build

For any Torchlight: Infinite season, a good starter build should be accessible: it shouldn't require excessive resources, it shouldn't rely on high-end gear, and it should have a manageable learning curve.

The core crafting strategy for Youga 3 starter build centers on Clockwork Core mechanic as the primary source of damage. You then amplify this output by stacking modifiers such as projectile count, projectile speed, critical strike stats, and damage bonuses triggered by movement skills.

Unlike traditional Torchlight: Infinite starter builds, which often require frequent manual skill casting and careful rhythm management, a Youga 3 build focuses on the synergy between skills.

Once you have set up your key talents and supporting skills, many of your abilities can remain active for extended periods, while Clockwork Core handles the bulk of the damage automatically.

Your main tasks are to stay in motion, use movement skills to trigger damage buffs, and adjust your positioning based on the battlefield to ensure consistent enemy clearance.

Furthermore, this build does not require BiS gear; you can begin by crafting with items obtained during the main campaign. Of course, if you have the budget, you can always buy Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium to further upgrade your existing equipment.

Keep in mind that your performance will depend on factors like how frequently you use movement skills and whether you can keep your key abilities active.

As such, you will need to strike a balance between offensive output, mobility, and survivability based on the situation at hand.

Talent tree setup

The talent tree for Youga 3 league-start build relies primarily on Goddess of Hunting, God of War, Marksman, and Lich trees.

These provide bonuses to attack and cast speed, convert projectile speed into projectile damage, and offer support through mana compensation and skill effect duration.

Goddess of Hunting

When configuring this talent tree in Torchlight: Infinite, your primary goal is to boost your character's attack/cast speed, mobility, and critical hit frequency.

The Third Time's a Charm node is a high priority; it grants Hasten status, which provides attack and cast speed bonuses and creates synergies with other skills.

God of War

The value of this tree lies in improving mapping efficiency and pack-clearing speed, both of which are crucial during the season-start phase.

Even if your individual attacks deal significant damage, your overall map-clearing speed will suffer if your projectiles lack sufficient coverage or if your skills are inefficient at clearing groups of enemies.

Therefore, once the core damage mechanics of your Youga 3 build are established, it is highly recommended to invest in God of War tree to enhance your clearing experience.

Of course, the exact number of points to invest here should be determined by your current mapping efficiency and the total number of talent points you have available.

If your character currently requires more survivability or longer skill effect durations, there is no need to over-invest in God of War solely for the sake of clearing speed.

Marksman and Lich

Unlocking Gale node within Marksman tree converts 60% of your projectile speed into a projectile damage bonus, which is why we previously emphasized the importance of increasing projectile speed.

As for Lich tree, it is chosen primarily for Mana Compensation, though its most critical benefit is the skill effect duration bonus.

Key mechanic Clockwork Core

Serving as the primary source of damage for this build, Clockwork Core can be summoned to attack automatically based on its own internal mechanics. This spares you from the need for manual casting, allowing you to focus more on positioning and maintaining your skill buffs.

Additionally, if you have invested in Recall related talent nodes, a halo will be generated around enemies, which then follows the movement of Clockwork Core.

You can even have Clockwork Core move alongside you, and its attacks can ricochet off walls. If an attack bounces off a wall and heads back into the play area, it can often clear out many enemies at once.

Furthermore, Youga 3 features 12 exclusive trait nodes. One of these, I Meet the Selves, provides a bonus to skill effect duration, be sure to unlock it.

However, take note: this node replaces the skill in your fourth active skill slot with Selves of All Realms. If you have an essential skill in that slot, make sure to move it elsewhere so it doesn't get overwritten.

Another crucial node is I Am the Measure of All Time. This node changes how cooldown recovery speed bonuses function for Selves of All Realms: instead of reducing its cooldown, these bonuses now extend its duration.

In Torchlight Infinite, duration bonuses apply to Selves of All Realms at 200% effectiveness. This means that the talent points you invest can significantly extend its duration, allowing for near-constant uptime.

Ultimately, these nodes are what enable the automation of your skills. Regardless of the situation, if Selves of All Realms or Clockwork Core is not currently active near you, the skill will be cast automatically.

If you enjoy experimenting with new Hero Traits in Torchlight Infinite, this guide should help you have a fantastic experience in Season 14! Go ahead and put this build to the test to see its true potential!