We’ve covered 3 of the 4 classes featured in Torchlight II already, and while it made me realise that I’ve been leveling the wrong class, we still have one more to go with the potential to change my mind yet again. The ‘Outlander’ is the final focus of this class breakdown series, and the one that actually interesed me the least. Surely by now you’ve noticed how Torchlight seemingly features standard RPG classes within the talent tress of each real class. They’re essentailly classes within classes, and the Outlander has its fair share.

My focus with this character would personally be the second tree, ‘Lore’. It’s essentially speedy melee combat akin to a Rogue – or maybe a Ninja would be the better way explanation. Fast attacks and lots of diving around makes for some interestingly diverse combat and lots of frantic clicking. But if you wanted a Warlock or Archer, then this is also the class for you. I’ll be sinking a lot of stat points into Focus and Strength to make every aspect of my attacks more powerful while the passives pick up the lack of my ninja reflexes. If you’d rather go into the Warlock-esque tree, ‘Sigil’, I suggest putting a 80-20 split between Focus and Dexterity.

Warfare Skills

• Rapid Fire

• A nice move to open up any battle. A flurry of shots blast out from your weapon knocking foes back and lowering their armor. Just avoid the desire to spam this and switch back to your basic attack once their armor has dipped.

• Rune Vault

• A gateway skill of sorts to trigger your other skills. This allows you to backflip away from the opposition should they get a little close for comfort. Those within a 5 meter radius of the original spot will take damage and potentially go blind in both eyes. A good skill for you wannabe shinobi.

• Chaos Burst

• A trio of wall bouncing projectives fire outward for 40% weapon damage be strike. Not a bad alternative to a regular shot if you manage to land all shots within a single enemy.

• Cursed Daggers

• You fling out 9 daggers in a wide arc to poison and damage foes. These babies can peirce targets too, so there is always the chance to hit even more!

• Vortex Hex

• This 15 second summon drags a maximum of 3 enemies into its range for you to deal with. The same point for the other classes stands true here, 3 enemies are barely even worth your auto attack, never mind a summon skill. No thank you, skill tree.

• Shattering Glaive

• the thrown weapon explodes on impact damaging all foes within 4 yards. If you get a really powerful weapon then maybe this will be worth picking up. The damage scales with your own weapon after all.

• Venomous Hail

• You can’t say no to vemon falling from the sky. A wide area AoE skill that you simple trigger and leave to do the work. Or join in the full and combo it will other AoE skills… your call.

Passive Skills

• Long Range Mastery

• If you’re really into keeping your distance then this passive will slowly increase the range of your weapons while giving a lowly 2% damage boost too. I’d focus more on increasing your skills though; they’re just more fun to use.

• Shotgonne Mastery

• Yes, it is spelt that way. Shotgunne mastery basically increases the chance for your shotgonne attacks to debuff your targets. Blindness, knockbacks and stuns are all available here. A must have if you’re using the long-barrelled blasters.

• Akimbo

• You’d better believe you just read that word. Akimbo! This version of the passive awards a 2% bonus to damage when dual-wielding pistols with another 2% per point (Maximum of 25%) with an extra 2% can to fire both shots at the same time!

Lore Skills

• Glaive Throw

• This is like playing Dark Sector again. Use this to send a glaive hurtling toward the enemy a rebounding to hit another. With each tier this skill will bounce from the heads of many more enemies with the damage scaling to your level. You start with this, and it’s a pretty fun one to have. Let’s keep it.

• Tangling Shot

• A guarenteed immobilzation skill with a nice poison damage over time effect. If that wasn’t good enough, this skill has a 50% chance to apply itself again! More stuck enemies and more poison damage on the tick.

• Glaive Sweep

• A fast 360 degree turn has you slicing through the enemies and sending them backward with a good chance to stun. If you’re looking for a rogue-type class, then this skill is probably what you’d be aiming for. It generates additional charge for each enemy too.

• Sandstorm

• A low damage AoE strike that whirlwinds around enemies quickly. Those struck by the sand will suffer from a quick stun and be sent hurtling backward as punishment for getting too close. The Tier I bonus of a swarm of flies emitting from each killed enemy makes this a nice choice if you’re planning to put the skill points into it.

• Bramble Wall

• Once you push them back with Glaive Sweep or Sandstorm why not set up the Bramble Wall to keep them at bay? Then just finish them off with your ranged weapons.

• Burning Leap

• Another skill for the aspiring rogue. This one shoots you forward 7 meters at high speed knocking enemies down and setting them aflame. Imagine using this in succession. You’ll be sprinting through hordes before they have a chance to strike.

• Flaming Glaives

• Once you’ve charged through the opposition and set them aflame, why not do it again but from afar? Send out the flaming glaives and let them chop away with their fiery blades.

Passive Skills

• Dodge Mastery

• A 4% boost to dodge chance for each blow that even references arcobatic ability. You’re a ninja/rogue with this tree, so dodge only makes more sense.

• Poison Burst

• An easy 12% to cause enemies to explode into a cloud of poisonous gas. Even if you’re not planning to do many AoE strikes, you probably will, so get this.

• Share the Wealth

• You share 20% of your charge to your allies and pets and even get the boost yourself. Considering how fast you’ll be attacking in this build, that’s not such a bad idea.

Sigil Skills

• Blade Pact

• Not something you really want to be getting at level 2 or 3 over a pure damage skill, but a pretty decent way to debuff large amounts of enemies later on. A 15% decrease in their attack speed and power with a further 8 point reduction in armor. Not bad.

• Shadowshot

• A fast shot from your gun causing shrapnel to hit 3 additional targets. It’s a shame this isn’t a passive ability. If you’re certain you’ll be using ranged weapons throughout your main adventure then this is a good skill to have. If not, Rune Vault will search you better. You do already have Glaive Throw after all.

• Bane Breath

• This poison cloud deals a small amount of posion damage but causes any killed enemies to become Shadowling Fiends to fight by you for a short period. Tie this well with enemies dragged in by Vortex Hex or bunched up by Tangling Shot and use this to finish them off. You’ll gain a few easy minions.

• Repulsion Hex

• For every second that this familiar stays by your side it’ll throw back enemies that come close to you. This is a great skill to keep the heat away from you while you set up your minion spawning poison cloud or just to make single kills a little less run n’ gun.

• Stone Pact

• If you’re playing with allies then you’re going to want to help them out. They’ll get mad if your minions are stealing kills while they’re taking all the damage. This will restore health and provide a base 16% armor boost so long as they pass through the buff field (or you pass it through them).

• Shadowmantle

• A reflecting shield against projectiles sounds logical when you’re knocking back those clsoe proximity physical attackers. You can’t send the ranged ones back so use this to just ignore them for the most part. One point will do.

• Shadowling Brute

• Now if those Shadowlings were not enough for you why not summon a hulking Shadowling Brute to do your bidding? This summon simply lays down the law with single monsters. It’s still worth a point, even if it doesn’t sound all that enjoyable.

Passive Skills

• Master of the Element

• A simple base 2% increase to elemental damage – but a 4% increase to poison. If you’re focusing on Bane Breath and the Shadowlings (is that a band name?) then you may want to throw a few points in here to make the job a bit easier.

• Shadowling Ammo

• Now you have a base 12% to turn all of your single shots into bat spawning explosions upon killing another enemy. Poison a group for Shadowlings, kill another for a bat, then summon your Brute and go for a walk. Sounds good, no?

• Death Ritual

• “Your shadowlings live longer and deal more damage” Well… that about does it.

If the jumping action of the ninja entices you over the poison summons of the Sigil build or the gun-heavy Warfare tree then Rune Vault, Cursed Daggers and Shattering Glaive from the Warfare tree will treat you well while the rest of the Lore tree will have you diving around the battlefield. Affliction specialists will likely benefit from the Venomous Hail and Vortex Hex skills or Warfare with the passive Posion Burst of ‘Lore’ adding a bit of an extra kick to your vemonous attacks. Full on gunslingers will generally want to stay within their allocated tree for maximum output (and less confusion).

That’s the last of our class breakdowns! If you missed one and can’t seem to find it through the search function then by all means go here for the Berserker, here for the Embermage or maybe here for our wrench-wielding Engineer.