Torchlight Infinite Currency

If you're still undecided about which hero to choose for your Torchlight Infinite SS13 Afterlight playthrough, my suggestion is to play Selena 2 directly. She's one of the smoothest heroes to play through the early game - no complicated operation required, she's an auto-bomber who can clear the screen while just walking around.

Next, I'll provide a comprehensive guide to this SS13 Selena 2 starter build for automated attacks.

Selena 2's Core Mechanism: Dance of the Deep

A Brand New Tree-Based Hero Trait System

Selena 2's biggest feature is her brand new tree-based hero trait system, instead of the fixed linear talents of traditional heroes. This means you can freely choose trait nodes according to your build direction, customizing your own gameplay.

Selena 2's trait is called Dance of the Deep, and its effect is very direct: all Core Terra Skills will be cast centered on the player and follow the player's movement. Additionally, Terra Skills gain a 20% increase in range and an additional damage bonus.

Two Main Branches of Trait Tree

Selena 2's trait tree has two main branches. The left branch focuses on sustained damage, while the right branch focuses on burst spell damage with a higher damage ceiling. However, for early game progression, the left branch is more suitable because DoT builds offer natural comfort. They don't require stacking crit chance or considering hit chance, have lower gear requirements, and can easily utilize the blur mechanic for survivability.

Key Node: Silencing Severance

This is the core node for automation in Selena 2. When you select this node, your primary skill will automatically gain Activation Medium: Terra buff. This means that your core ground skill will automatically be cast whenever there is an enemy within 25 meters.

Combined with Dance of the Deep, which makes ground skills follow you, your build is fully automated from the moment you select this node. You don't need to monitor skill cooldowns or position yourself to cast skills; you only need to move to an area with enemies.

Early Game Skill Path

Levels 1-35: Howling Gale 

Before unlocking traits, Howling Gale is recommended. It's an area-of-effect elemental spell, highly efficient at clearing mobs, and doesn't rely heavily on gear. At this stage, simply pick up gear with spell damage, elemental damage, increased mana, and mana regeneration attributes. Prioritize talents that increase damage and mana regeneration to ensure sustainability.

Levels 35-45: Switch to Nether Grasp

Once you reach level 35 and unlock the first tier trait, Dance of the Deep, immediately switch your main skill to Nether Grasp.

TLI SS13 added several active Terra skills, including Bramble Field, Tidal Spring, Falling Star, Thunderstorm Zone, and Nether Grasp.

However, during the early game, Nether Grasp is the preferred choice for DoT path. Its mechanics are: dealing continuous erosion damage to enemies within range every second, and knocking enemies back to the skill's center every 0.5 seconds; it can also instantly kill enemies with less than 10% health. In other words, you only need to activate Nether Grasp, and enemies will be pulled to the center, continuously losing health, and instantly executed when their health is low.

Level 45: Silencing Severance

At level 45, you gain a second trait point, prioritizing Silencing Severance. Combined with Nether Grasp, you no longer need to press any attack keys; they will automatically and continuously control and damage surrounding enemies. This is the most crucial turning point in the entire early game.

Late Game Transition

Time Mark 7

When you approach Time Mark 7 in Torchlight Infinite, you need to consider switching your gear to a pure Energy Shield build.

Because Psychic talent tree has a powerful node that resets your Energy Shield charge with each Reap. Combined with the high-frequency damage from Nether Grasp, you can maintain a near-permanent 20% Energy Shield regeneration per second.

Therefore, once you reach Time Mark 7, several items should be your priority:

• Time of Vow: Restores 10% of missing health and provides an energy shield per second, making it a core item in ES build.
• Chain Behind the Curtain: Automatically builds blur mechanics while moving, converting those levels into a powerful Affliction bonus.
• Eternal Sea Fog: Increases movement speed based on blur effect levels.
• Folklore of Locking Fingers: Increases defensive stats and allows blur effects to apply to your DoT.

Blur itself has a chance to dodge damage. These items will add even more powerful effects to your Blur mechanics - the higher your blur stacks, the stronger these bonuses become, improving both damage output and survivability.

Time Mark 8

Upon reaching Time Mark 8, if you want to further maximize your build's potential, consider allocating some talent points to The Cycle I Resist node. This node converts critical strike chance into a percentage of Core Terra Skill's duration, which is the duration of Nether Grasp.

Therefore, after TM8, you should focus on maximizing your critical strike chance. The common method is to use Flame Elementium to reroll the corresponding affixes onto your gear. However, this process is random. If needed, you can buy Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium from IGGM.com, and getting the critical strike chance attribute will only be a matter of time.

In short, Selena 2's auto-bombing build allows you to completely free your hands from level 45 onwards, enjoying the smoothest map clearing experience with minimal gear costs. If you're tired of tedious operations, why not follow this guide and start dancing in the deep sea? Your TLI SS13 progression will be surprisingly easy.

Torchlight Infinite SS13 Afterlight has launched, and while the new hero traits and skill reworks are quite substantial, this season does not measure up to the previous one in terms of overall appeal.

A great many players have reported that before reaching TM7, the game drops very little of any real value. Until a character has grown sufficiently, the gameplay experience can fairly be described as torturous.

Season Mechanics

The core of Torchlight Infinite SS13 Afterlight revolves around escorting coffins, but ironically, some players have tested and found that investing resources into this mechanic actually yields 25% less Flame Elementium per hour than simply skipping it. In other words, taking time to engage with the seasonal content proves less efficient than running ordinary maps.

The boss that players labor to escort often drops only 4 FE, a reward that renders the whole process utterly meaningless. Even on later high-difficulty maps such as T8, the season mechanic is frequently regarded as a burden rather than a benefit.

This is very likely a serious bug; as the flagship feature of each season, such a payoff is clearly abnormal, and there may be other underlying issues.

Beyond Afterlight mechanic itself, other activities have been nerfed to the point where their rewards are unstable and far from satisfactory.

In order to highlight the new content, some older player-favorite features such as Dream Talking have been removed. Moreover, because the new mechanic ties into slate-related systems, the upper limit of Cube Talent Constellation was cut in half, which has further hampered players' ability to earn meaningful returns in the early game.

Many complain that the development team has imposed unwarranted nerfs on a wide range of existing builds, simply to force adoption of the new hero and systems, with several once-dominant builds from previous seasons being weakened in succession.

Economy System

The season mechanic has not only affected direct drops but has also had a profound impact on the entire in-game economy.

Players commonly observe that ordinary maps barely drop any valuable equipment or currency, making it impossible to strengthen characters through the loop of farming maps and upgrading gear.

Some key legendary items have been adjusted so that they only drop on maps of tier 8 or above. This change makes it much harder for players in the early progression phase to obtain core equipment, further exacerbating the growth gap.

For those using free-to-play characters, this season will prove exceptionally harsh. Even players with top-tier pets are finding progress difficult, so one can imagine how much harder the situation is for those who have not made any monetary investment.

The general feedback indicates that the early progression difficulty in SS13 has increased notably, and the growth curve has become extremely uneven. The overall drop rate has been broadly reduced, and this is one of the root causes behind the harshness of the early game.

Because baseline drops have decreased, the acquisition speed of gear and currency needed to build characters has slowed dramatically, resulting in a significantly prolonged early progression phase.

Beyond the core drop experience, there are also issues such as poor optimization on mobile devices, overheating, and frequent bugs.

Why Is SS13 Afterlight So Poor?

Slow Pacing

It is evident that the development team has deliberately slowed down the game's progression. This is most likely because they are aware that Path of Exile 3.29 is approaching, and they want to avoid players finishing all content within three days and then leaving.

However, this design philosophy overlooks a central truth: the players of Torchlight Infinite, much like those of Path of Exile, derive their enjoyment from the dopamine rush of loot drops. Protracting the journey to the endgame in such a manner only serves to exhaust players unnecessarily.

Monotonous Gameplay

Looking back at previous seasons, especially Lunaria season, players could readily obtain enough Flame Elementium to continuously upgrade their characters. In Season 13, however, even the most basic daily map outputs are hardly guaranteed.

Ironically, this design has achieved a strange kind of balance: whether you are a free player or a whale player with fully maxed legendary Pactspirits, the actual returns are virtually indistinguishable, because everyone is equally starved of resources.

Once PoE 3.29 launches, a large number of players are very likely to switch over. Normally, when other games in the same genre - such as Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, or Hero Siege - overlap with Torchlight's season, the player count initially drops, and then some players return after about a week.

Yet given the current state of SS13, that rebound may never materialize. The only way to salvage it would be to roll back the nerfs to drops from various activities.

Using nerfs as a blunt instrument to coerce players into trying new mechanics is hardly a sophisticated tactic. Since Torchlight Infinite offers so many systems, the developers should give players more choices and let them decide which activities they prefer.

Overall, Torchlight Infinite SS13 Afterlight is a season with many ideas but poor execution. It makes active attempts at innovating in gameplay and systems, but the severe balance issues and the regression in core experience have greatly undermined players' overall reception.

If you are a player who craves novelty and powerful builds, the new hero and some strong archetypes might offer brief moments of exhilaration. However, if you have higher expectations for game balance, optimization, and a fair environment, then the numerous problems of SS13 are likely to leave you disappointed.

If you are already tired of the drop rate issues this season but still want to complete your character, you can buy Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium from IGGM. Trading directly with FE is definitely much faster than waiting for items to drop.