E2 SS9 Guide by Miakitten: Erika 2 Timemark 8 Build

E2 SS9 Guide by Miakitten

Campaign progression
Skill link setup
Treasure troves and leveling
Gearing and crafting
Slates and Kismets
Pact Spirits
Hero memories
Talent Trees and Focus
End-game damage math
Aura stacking
Conclusion

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Our priority for the campaign is to skip all monsters along the way and just travel from objective to objective. The only time I would stop to kill a pack of monsters is if its a pack with 4+ magic monsters (the monsters covered in blue). Outside of magic monsters the most efficient way to gain exp in TLI is to overlevel in the treasure troves which I'll go over more in this section.

Skill link setup

Main skill setup Thunder Spike

Level 3 Haunt
Level 7 Hardened (Use High Voltage until you can equip hardened) After Thunder Spike - Haunt - Hardened, as we get more energy and unlock more support skills we'll add supports in the following order in the last 3 slots Electric Punishment - Added Lightning Damage - High Voltage
As soon as we can fit in added lightning damage, replace whatever support that isn't haunt and equip it. It's extremely powerful early on.

For healing we can just use Compound source until we have -12 skill cost on talent tree, then we can replace it with life source. Link it with Residues once you can.

For mobility you can choose between spiral strike and leap slam (I prefer spiral strike). Once you unlock your 4th skill slot use blink and combine both spiral strike/leap slam and blink for extra mobility. Once you reach level 27 swap your skill gems around so you can equip a support to blink, and equip Magic Dash to blink and quick mobility to spiral strike.

For our last skill slot we can just use Burst of Anger or any other empower skill/warcry you prefer.

Once we unloack our aura slots we'll run thunder focus until we can run a 50% aura instead. We'll try to fit in Thunder Focus, Summon Thunder Magus, Electric Conversion and Swiftness. I still need to test acuteness focus, but potentially it may be better than a 50% aura early on, and later on we'd run it + thunder focus. You ideally want phys to lightning convert for acuteness focus.

All treasure troves are amazing for exp, you want to run directly to the boss but kill all enemies along the way and overlevel in these troves to make you strong enough to reach the next treasure trove. For gearing we will use two one handed weapons during the campaign for maximum damage (Claws/Swords/Daggers) and we want to prioritize dexterity on gear but just equip items if the tooltip shows an increase in survival or damage.

For all treasure troves you can go a few extra levels higher than I suggest until your exp penalty goes into the 50-65%.

First trove: Level 7

We can use the Lizard Rock Helm that drops from this first trove.
If you happen to drop a pentagram astrolobe with 3+ flat attack rolls or a lonesome these are extremely powerful uniques that will carry your damage throughout the early game but its not worth staying to try and farm them out. We will stay in this treasure trove until we reach level 12.

Both Born in Fire and Desire of Survival are very nice early game survival uniques that you can use, the ring especially gives a lot of life regen when your life pool is still very small. We will stay in this treasure trove until we reach level 22.

Starting from this trove we're becoming powerful enough where we don't have to majorly overlevel in them anymore. That being said you can still do this until you reach exp penalty or just stop somewhere between 30-32. The Feline gloves will be very good for our build and its our source of agility blessing generation. Despised shadow will be an extremely strong early to mid game pick up from this trove. As long as you're playing Thunder Spike you'll want to use it.

Imploration is quite strong for quite a few levels, you'll only really replace it when you find weapons that around about a 20-25% damage increase.

If the eternal moon is an upgrade over your current weapons you can use it.

Scarlet degree is a really strong upgrade for us. Steel lament is a good defensive belt and you can consider swapping one of your supports out for a warcry. We can level here until we reach exp penalty or stop at around level 47-50/when you get your scarlet degree.

Once you reach Lion's Heart (level 47) the final boss King Lionheart will drop you a hero memory. You need to equip this to unlock your first hero trait. Both options are good, I would recommend Electroplated Motif

Just finish this trove once and go finish campaign.

I will be testing out Focus skills on leaguestart, they seem extremely powerful and worth investing into. I won't add them to the guide until I've tested it. For our trees we want to prioritize getting 24 talent points in each tree and taking the notables. Goddes of Hunting (1st) Assassin (2nd) Ranger (3rd) Ronin (4th) Focus Focus 50% aura 50% aura 10% aura

Final skill setup:

Use Acuteness Focus once you have phys to lightning convert
Can run life regain on tree and use a 2nd empower skill instead of life source.
For mapping we want to use these options, you can choose either or between 45.1 and 45.2 but generally you'll be spiral striking around and the movement speed is not that important vs. more damage.

For bossing we want want to swap to 75.2 to allow us to reapply our feline figure on bosses to let us reach 10 numb stacks more consistently.

For stat priority we want to get the following sub stats on our hero memories: Trait level, Crit rating, Crit damage, Movement speed are the best options. TLI has a very cool feature where when you scrap a hero memory you get ALL of the crafting materials used back, which means you can level up "bad" hero memories without losing any materials.

Level 45/Origin - Dex > Damage%

Level 60/Discipline - All except mana are great, Armour especially gives a lot of flat DR%

Level 75/Progress - Attack speed or Movement speed.

Slates

Slates are very important to gain us the damage to push into timemark 8 and I'd highly recommend using a bunch of 4-slates with at least 1 good mod on them and then later get slates with 2-3+ good mods. Pedigrees are quite finicky and often not very good unless you have a very good one, I'll be focusing on 4-slates exclusively but there are many pedigree mods that give additional damage I'd only use that over x2 4-slates if it has at least 2 good mods.

God of Might:

+1 to attack skill level

Goddess of Hunting:

12% additional damage for 4s after using Mobility Skill
Numb effect (max 1)
15% Dexterity
15% additional Max Damage

Goddess of Knowledge

+1 Lightning Skill level

God of War (Only really good after we have fervor in build)

Shadow Quantity +1
25% Fervor Effect
Critical Strike Damage per Fervor Rating
12% additional damage taken by enemies in Proximity

Goddess of Deception

10% Additional damage against cursed enemies
+1 to all skills (max divinity 1)
10% additional damage applied to Life
12% additional damage when having both sealed mana and life (only after we swap to ES)
20% chance to mark enemies on hit

Don't use god of machines

If you are struggling with getting 10 numb stacks get this slate, reaching 10 numb stacks should be your number one priority when playing Erika

Candles

Eventually we want to solve our blessing generation through candles. But just equipping candles with even 1 mod on them can make a massive difference for the strength of the build early on. Some good candle mods to start off with are Shadow strike damage, additional shadow strike damage, shadow damage Numb effect, additional lightning damage

Additional damage made for every 8m of movement Later on we'll want to run +1 curse and blessing generation through candles combined with other strong modifiers.

Gearing

Everything here is subject to change going into the new season, we have no information about drop rates and they might change from season to season as the devs have done in the past. This will be my suggestions for uniques assuming the devs don't change the drop rates for anything, but the most important thing for gearing is getting good rares/crafted items.

Crafting: You want to farm T7 for high energy bases then craft them up until they are full tier 2 (which is the highest tier you can roll on timemark 7 gear) this is the most important step for any build to get into timemark 8.

Uniques: (Uniques should be supplement to your crafted gear, you should always be res capped and should drop uniques for more items with res on it if needed)

Helm: Opening heart

Chest: Void Embarkment

Heavyware

Gloves:

Boots: There are no exceptionally good unique rings we'd want to use over crafted ones.

Weapon Frantic Shadow

Farewell Desire

Shield Electricy Amplifier

Neck Despised Shadow

Ring There are no exceptionally good unique rings we'd want to use over crafted ones.

Belt There are no exceptionally good unique belts we'd want to use over crafted ones. (early on) Belt Blend: Any additional damage main talent is good

-Transition

-Ambition (Generates fervor)

-Queer Angle

-Impermanence

-Peculiar Vibe

-Impending

-Hair-trigger (requires fervor)

-Knowledgeable Crafting "guide"

I will be swapping to INT bases and doing an energy setup at this point. I'll show below the life based setups and you can use my build codes for the energy shield setups as well as look at the notes.

Rares are extremely important and powerful in TLI the different between a T2 and T1 mod is as big as 50%, you want to farm bases in Timemark 7 with high energy and craft them until they're full T2 it will make reaching T8 a lot easier. Flame Sand drops like candy if you keep mapping in T7

If you stay with a life setup you will want to get armour/STR based rares early on to help get you into timemark 8, the flat armour is extremely valuable and we similarly can go for an armour based hero memory in our 2nd slot.

Belt We ideally want to use Dawn Break but its expensive Ring We prefer rare rings Necklace We prefer a unique necklace until ultimate mods.

Block for defence, crit damage for offence. For Life: For ES: Dex Dex Dex Dex Life/ES Life/ES

Life ES Damage%/Block Damage%

Damage Damage/Defenses Crit rating Crit damage Res Res Res Res Crit damage/More Res

Helm Use opening heart if you don't have Dawn Break Chest Unique chest options are also quite strong Gloves Thunder manips are a strong boss drop option

Life based: ES Based: Life based: ES Based: Dex Dex Dex Life ES

Life/ES Life ES Damage% Damage%

Damage%/Gear ES% %Life/block %Gear ES/Block Gear Armour %Gear ES/Block

Boots Ralph's journey is our first major upgrade to aim for. Shield We always use Electrivity Amplifier in early game Claw A full t2 claw should perform slightly worse than a Frantic Shadow but full T1 is better.

Block Dex

If you take block on rings instead of crit dmg, I'd suggest crit damage. Dex %Gear Phys Damage

Life Based: ES Based: Life/ES Flat Lightning or Phys (I think lightning is slightly better) Block Block Attack speed/crit dmg %Phys dmg Damage%/Gear Armour Gear ES% Res %Ele dmg

Life ES %Gear Attack Speed Crit dmg/Attack speed Crit dmg/Attack speed Crit rating Crit rating Res Res

Pact Spirit

For pact spirits you want to prioritize Attack speed, attack crit rating and flat damage

However, often if you have access to legendaries you'll pick legendaries based off of their big nodes.

If you don't have access to any pact spirits you'll slowly unlock them overtime and can just use whatever looks good. We can also use movement speed, lightning damage and attack speed.

Erika 2 has a lot of synergy with back-up power battery and if you are able to choose a legendary that is a very strong contender. Otherwise just prioritize things that fix your build.

If you need ele res, use one that gives ele res, if you're trying to go fast use movement speed. If you're trying to level use XP balance/boost.

Kismets

Run x9 micro dexterity and x4 medium dexterity kismets early on. These will cost a bit of FE but will be a substantial upgrade to look at once you're already farming t8s

Talent Trees

We are so extremely tight on points if the "maximum" amount of points we can have stays the same as in Sandlord, that you should just use the campaign point setup since you won't finish it by the end of campaign

Currently the max amount of points you can have with PoP completed is 115 points, realistically by the time you'd fight trav 7 you'll only have around 100 points roughly, so just mix and match between attack speed, damage% and life for whatever feels best

Fastest layouts

Glacial Abyss: Deserted District Blistering Lava Sea: Timemark 2 - Twisted Valley, maybe Dragonrest Plateau // Timemark 3+ - Confession Chapel Steel Forge: Alleys of the Lost Thunder Wastes: Prayer Sanctuary // Alternative: Grove of Calamity for fully linear Voidland: Filthy Forest

Skill setup

Passive Setup We have OTB + 21.5% sealed mana from lich. Whirlwind (3 Link) Can consider going ronin + fervor here? Focus

-Guard Then get 100% steep strike chance instead of increased area for massive area? Focus

-Hardened 50% Electric Conversion

-Increased area 50% Cruelty?

Might need quick decision for attack speed to feel better 10% Swiftness

Thunder Focus (5 link) We don't know yet what supports we can use, assuming its the same as imbues you'd use

-Electric Overload

-Focus Acceleration

-Thunder Focus Quickstep

-Increased Area/Electric Punishment

-Thunder Focus: Tremor

Acuteness Focus (5 link) Need to convert phys to lightning to utilize this, might need to build str + dex too.

-Added phys/Tendon Slicer/Crit

-Focus Acceleration

-Acuteness Focus: Piercing Agony

-Increased Area

-Acuteness Focus: Remaining Strength

Blink

-Magic Dash

-Quick Mobility

Blurry steps

-CDR

-Extended duration

Infusion = Penetration = Intensified = Focus

You get 25 focus per hit on acuteness focus, we need 380% focus speed to proc acuteness focus every single hit then (or 300% without the canvas support)

Focus Acceleration 75% Sources of focus speed other than gear: Helm 36%

Ring 36% Tree 40.50%

Ring 36% Mortal Reverie30-40% additional Belt 36% Focus Acceleration 75%

Sword 54% Candles 10-40% (T1 = 26-30) Sword 54% Micro Kismets 7-9

Tree 40.50% Medium Kismets14-18

368% 380% is the breakpoint for acuteness focus with the canvas support (which is easily doable with mortal reverie)

Talents (See the campaign page to see how I'd allocate the points)

Goddes of Hunting Assassin Steel Vanguard

Lich

Gear Trav 7 is dead we are respeccing to this, how are we doing it? Helm INT Amulet (or False Gods) Belt INT Ring Sword

Dex/Str (A) Prefix Str (A) Prefix Dex/Str (A) Prefix Dex/Str (A) Prefix Dex to gear Prefix ES Prefix Dex (A) Prefix ES Prefix ES Prefix Lightning to gear Prefix ES% Prefix ES Prefix damage% Prefix damage%

Prefix

Focus speed (A) Suffix Res Suffix Focus speed (A) Suffix Focus speed (A) Suffix Focus speed (A) Suffix Res/Crit Suffix Res Suffix Res Suffix Res/Crit Suffix cDMG/Crit (A) Suffix Res/Crit Suffix Res Suffix Res Suffix Res/Crit Suffix Elemental damage% Suffix

-Heavyware -> Void Embarkment Tyrant's Smoldering Hold Boots INT Ring Sword

-ES Prefix Dex/Str (A) Prefix Phys to gear Prefix ES% Prefix ES Prefix Lightning to gear Prefix ES% Prefix ES Prefix Damage%

-Prefix cDMG (A) Prefix cDMG/Crit (A) Suffix Res/Crit Suffix Res/Crit Suffix ES Regain Suffix

How do you reach end-game in TLI? How to choose your next upgrade. To best understand the gear progression in torchlight its important to understand how numbers/multipliers interact with eachother. I'll do this with a very basic example

Imagine you have an item that has 25% additional damage on it and you deal 100 damage per hit. With this item equipped you will now deal 125 damage right? So what is better. Getting a 2nd item with 25% additional damage on it, or upgrading that initial item from 25% additional to 50% additional?

If we upgrade the item from 25% additional to 50% additional our 100 damage hit will then hit for 150 so we gained 25 damage!

If you instead get a 2nd item with 25% additional damage on it, our 100 damage will now hit for 156.25 damage!? Why is it 156.25 damage?!? That's because the way we calculate that hit, is we take our 25% additional multiplied with our 25% additional (1.25*1.25) which gives us 56.25% additional (1.5625)! The way that multipliers work in torchlight, it is extremely extremely beneficial to "spread" your currency out and get a lot of small multipliers from multiple sources rather than concentrating them all in one space. This is because each multiplier is multiplying with the other multipliers which means that the more multipliers you have, the more "value" all of the others would have.

So why is this all relevant for us? When upgrading your character in torchlight, its extremely important that you don't "neglect" any parts of the character.

I'm going to give a comprehensive list of every potential upgrade you can make, and your job is to scout out and determine which upgrade is the cheapest. What that means is, before you start upgrading your tier 1 modifiers to tier 0, you should first take that orange hero memory with two tier 2 modifiers on it, and upgrade it to Red and try rolling it for better tier 1/tier 0 modifiers. What are slots that give us power? Gear - High tier modifiers (Timemark 8 = Tier 1, Timemark 7 = Tier 2)

Uniques that outperform a crafted rare at the relative investment level (70% Additional from thunder manipulators is hard to beat on a ilvl 86 rare gloves)
Keeping resistances capped and increasing defence
Getting strong base affixes for the build, not just equipping random ones that do nothing for you.
Upgrading uniques to corroded versions.
Having a strong belt blend such as a main talent.
Having 3 dream affixes that are strong for the build.
Candles - Getting 2 modded candles that are strong for the build
Fixing blessing generation, curse limit, main talents etc. on Candles
Later on you can get supports that link to your main skill for incredible power increases
Hero Memories- Getting good memory bases (Red memories, Strong base affixes such as crit rating)
Rolling them for powerful high tier modifiers (Crit damage is VERY high value on memories, crit rating if you aren't capped etc.)
Kismets - Always having at least 9 micros and 4 mediums in.
Getting some form of undetermined and eventually upgrading them to mediums/lots of smalls
Getting strong dual kismets for your build (or fixing immunities)
Setting up a star trail pact if you're playing some sort of stacker
Skills - Leveling canvas supports to level 5 (And getting better rolled supports)
Getting level 21 base skills + level 21 supports
Testing your skill setup to ensure its the most optimal for your gear
Optimising passives to fit in the most amount of auras/maguses and modifiers that your mana allows
Swap to precise versions of skills and passives
Pact Spirits - Using strong pact spirits for your build that actually make sense. (Don't use red umbrella on a spell burst build etc.)
Using free pact spirits and pulls to try and upgrade your pact spirits
Slates - Always have your slates filled out with AT LEAST 1 mod on them
Upgrading to 2 modded slates with legendary branded notes early on (don't neglect your slates they are EXTREME bang for buck, you don't need moths and prairies to get a lot of value out of them)
Eventually buying good 2 modded corners and at least 1 modded starlights (A well rolled 4 slate will be better than a corner especially if its only a 1 mod corner)
Not having a moth/prairie touch any slates that have a max divinity 1 mod at the bottom of the slate.
Deciding between Rift Slate or Pedigree of the gods. If your pedigree isn't build enabling or has at least 2 very strong main talents on it, you should be using a rift slate almost always.
Try to waste 0 space on the slates, rather have a fallen starlight + corner than a 4 slate that leaves 1 mod open etc.

Talent Tree - Optimise your tree, don't have "wasteful" points in them and don't miss out on additional damage multipliers where possible

Make sure you aren't missing points for no reason, look at the path of progression and work on progressing it to unlock more skill points
Focus on leveling, don't get stuck at a low level get to 95+ you're missing a lot of power not being high level

Explaining "additional" damage vs. "increased" damage/% damage

The last important piece of info to be able to put all of this to use is understanding the fundamental concept of increased damage% vs. additional/more damage in TLI Any sources of increased damage% all go in the same "multiplier" which means they are additive with each other. What this means is if you have 30% lightning damage and 30% damage you will then have 60% increased damage on a lightning hit. What does that mean exactly? Lets use the 100 damage from before, when calculating your damage on that hit it will take ALL of your % damage and throw it into 1 bucket which counts as 1 source of additional damage. Meaning if we have our 60% increased damage, 25% additional, 25% additional we'll then have 1001.61.25*1.25 = 250

What that means is that we can see all forms of increased damage as being essentially additional damage, but instead of it multiplying with other forms of additional its all just getting thrown together into that one big additional damage multiplier. But as we discussed at the start, thats not very good for us because we want multiple multipliers to feed off of each other and exponentially increase our damage.

So how do we put that in practice? Well We want to get a decent amount of icnreased damage% but also never priotiize it over any form of additional damage. We also very often would not prioritize it over attack/cast speed. The mathematical way to see that is, going from 200% to 300% increased damage% is a 50% increase to our more multiplier. But going from 800% to 900% is only a 12% increase to our more multiplier which is relatively speaking quite weak. What does a 50% and 12% increase to the more multiplier mean? If we instead of going from 800% to 900% increased damage got another source of 15% additional, that would give us more damage than the 100% damage gained. You can apply to similar logic to %attack/cast speed when determining their value, especially if you consider how it affects your attacks/casts per second. On the topic of % damage increase, its always important to consider the tags of your % damage increase. If you are converting 100% of your physical damage to lightning with an attack skill (Such as thunder spike) Then %increased physical, lightning, attack, melee etc. will all work. But on a skill like acuteness focus that doesn't have the melee tag, the melee increased% dmg won't work.

The last piece of the puzzle

The last aspect that comes into play when your hit is being calculated is where do we get that "100" from that I was using as an example. All of these multipliers are multiplying the "flat" damage thats coming from your skill. For attack skills this comes from your weapon damage, for spell skills this comes from the spells flat damage/innate damage. We can influence the amount of flat damage that is being multiplied by have our own added flat damage rolls. The way this is calculated is using the effectiveness of added damage line on the skills. Essentially this line is taking all of your flat as well as the innate flat on a spell/the flat on your weapon and its multiplying that with the effectiveness of added damage on the skill. So if you have exactly 100 flat, with 277% effectiveness of added damage it will instead deal 277 damage which then gets multiplied by all of our multipliers. This is why its very important to not only have a lot of multipliers to have a massive multiplier at the end, but to then also have a very large amount of flat damage which is getting multiplied. This is how we reach trillions of damage. Other important interactions (will add more as I think of them) Penetration Penetration (Both elemental and armour) essentially work as an additional multiplier. Enemies have a base amount of armour and resistance (This isn't 100% known but generally people say 30% Res for elemental dmg in both armour and elemental/50% for physical damage)

If the enemy has 30% elemental resistance and 0% armour resistance and we do an elemental hit for 100 damage, the enemy will only take 70 damage

If instead we had 30% ele pen, the enemy would take the full 100. But it keeps scaling beyond that. If we have 70% ele pen then the enemy would take 140 damage and are dealing 100% more damage than if we had 0 penetration. Does armour penetration matter at all for elemental damage??? Armour in this game has a 60% effectiveness rate against elemental damage, which means that if the enemy has 50% armour they also have 30% resistance against elemental damage. Thats why on elemental builds we need BOTH armour and ele pen. But in a similar way, these two penetrations to multiply with each other. Going back to the 100 hit example lets assuming the enemy has the assumed standard 30% armour 30% elemental resistance.

If we have 70% armour pen and 70% elemental pen we would then be dealing 196 damage per hit instead of 180 damage that you might expect, because the -40% pen from both would be multiplied as 40% additionals (1.4*1.4)

Damage Conversion When you convert your damage, any multiplier that works on the damage before converting, also works after it is converted. So if you have 30% additional physical damage, and you convert your physical damage to lightning, that 30% additional physical will still "count" in the final hits calculation That's why we say that gemma 1 triple dips because she converts from phys to lightning to fire to cold. So any multipliers to any of those 4 will count in her final damage calculation which is why translucent is so strong on her.

It's also important to note, if you're converting from phys to lightning, only the phys being converted will get increased by phys damage increases if you have any flat lightning for example, it won't receive those increases too.

Lucky crits

Lucky crits in this game work differently from PoE, it just gives you a flat amount of crit based on your crit without lucky crits. It doesn't actually calculate lucky crits. Also lucky crit doesn't stack with other sources of lucky crit, and lucky + unlucky crit cancels each other out (and even if you have multiple sources and only 1 unlucky crit, its completely cancelled out)

Curse Limit

Curses have a limit of 1 by default. If you have 2 sources of curse and no source of additional curse limit, you will alternate bewteen those two curses but never have both applied which is really bad. For each additional curse beyond 1, you need a unique source of +1 curse (Such as candle, poised omen, pedigree/tree talent)

Putting it all together

Don't slack on any aspect of your build. You should be spending currency on every single aspect of your character and not just go all in on one thing. Instead of saving up for that "big" upgrade thats going to push you over the edge, you can probably obtain more damage than that upgrade by just putting the same amount of FE into multiple upgrades. The best example of this would be the ralph items, where I've had a friend push his build to multiple trillions before even getting a ralph's burial by just being very smart and effient with his upgrades. You are fully capable of calculating how much damage you are gaining from anything in your build. Remember +1 level is 8% additional, if your slates are only giving you 5 x 10% additional, there is a TON of room for improvement there by upping that to 15 mods Similarly if your only getting 40% increased damage from your hero memory which then takes you from 500% to 540% thats only 8% additional damage, while instead getting 40% crit damage to go from 300% to 340% is significantly more impactful (Crit damage is harder to come by)

If you just follow very strict basics and slowly Upgrade everything, making sure you're not missing out on multipliers, not wasting slots on "less" effecient multipliers you'll end up with a very strong character for very cheap and then those "big" upgrades can push you over the edge to 15 trillion This type of logic can be used for everything in the game, its not just limited to damage% and %additional damage.

If you're hitting 10 times a second and get enough attack speed to instead hit 11 times per second, you are essentially getting 10% more attack speed, which is just a multiplier to your overall damage. Same thing with crit. If you have 80% chance to crit and have 400% crit damage you can average out the amount of damage each hit does.

If we do 100 damage in 1 hit and we crit, that hit instead deals 500 damage. So if 80% of hits deal 500 damage and 20% of hits deal 100 damage we can average that out to 420 damage per hit ((0.8500)+(0.2100))

If we then increase our crit chance to 100% we will deal 500 damage every hit. So that 20% crit is essentially a 19% more multiplier.

Thank you for reading and I hope this has been helpful <3 If you have any suggestions or notice any errors please let me know and I'll add/fix them.

This section is not a guide, but its just a very well theorycrafted probably amazing build

Focus spells seem very very very strong, lets try scaling them? We can either get focus acceleration or focus speed on shield Theoritcal max focus setup for thunder focus (Savage charge like trailer?) Helm STR Mortal ReverieINT Belt STR Ring Sword Focus speed: We only need 400% Block: 211.5 Kismet (Star Trail with 4 undetermined smalls Setup) Erosion ConvertImplicit Implicit Implicit Pen Implicit Sword 20% Shield 27 Small Kismets (Leaving larges for dual kismets) Erosion Convertdream KnowledgeableBlend Shield 18% attack Tree 140 Weapons 120% X2 Ring 36% Spell BlockTree 120 Rings 60% Helm 10% Tree 60 Helm

Erosion Convert (U) Prefix Prefix Life Prefix Life Prefix Pen/Levels (U)Prefix Tree 39% Sword 40.5 Tree

Life Prefix Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Block (A) Prefix 75% Focus Acceleration 15% attack blockMemory 79.5 Focus Acceleration (Level 25) Dex (A) Prefix Prefix -% dmg taken at low mana (U) Prefix Pen (U) Prefix Flat lightning Prefix 60% Belt 60 Belt Crit/Res Suffix Suffix Res Suffix Crit/Res Suffix Life Regain Suffix 315% Both blocks capped 40 Candle Numb effect (U)Suffix Suffix Focus Speed (A) Suffix DD (U) Suffix Crit Rating (A)Suffix 30-40% additional 40 Candle Focus speed (A) Suffix Suffix DD (U) Suffix Focus speed (A) Suffix Focus DMG (U)Suffix 409.5 30% roll 96 Max roll memories 441 40% roll 914.5 40% additional from mortal reverie

1280.3 Ralph's Burial DEX Gloves STR Ralph's JourneyDEX Ring Shield STR We get fervor from Focused Slash So without also giving up medium fates, the max amount of focus speed we can get is 1280%

Max Res Implicit Timid on Hit Implicit Max res Implicit Max Res Dream Max Res Dream Whirlwind (3 link) Thunder Focus (5 link) Thunder Focus has a breakpoint at: Acuteness Focu (5 link) 50% 2m in 2000% focus speed Focused Slash 50% 4m in 1000% focus speed

Life Prefix Life Prefix Block Prefix Blurry Steps 10% Thus we only need 715% focus speed before mortal reverie to reach the 4m breakpoint. Active level (U)Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Life Prefix Electrocute Armour Prefix Pen (U) Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Add% dmg fervor (U) Suffix Crit/Res Suffix Max Res (U) Suffix This setup defensively has: cDMG (A) Suffix DD (U) Suffix Focus DMG (U)Suffix 70% block ratio + block cap Crit/Res Suffix Focus speed (A) Suffix Crit/cDMG/Focus speed (A) Suffix 90% max res 80% DR from armour For damage scaling we need to scale crit + crit damage on hero memories

(We can also go INT based items for ES, I want to test out new Armour effectiveness mods since I believe they'll be quite OP) Ember armour on pedigree Goddess of hunting (25) Assassin (34) 119/115 points need to cut 5

Sentinel (26) Lich (34)

Instead of sentinel we can go a damage focused talent page, then get full defense on a candle mod + cap the bit of block we need on hero memories.

This section is not a guide, but its just a very well theorycrafted probably amazing build

Aura stacking 2Hander setup (Probably the strongest build I've theorycrafted) Aura stacking seems extremely strong, you can scale damage with death's touch and run pretty much any skill setup with it. Catgirl power Helm STR Amulet Belt/Light Hunter Belt INT Ring Weapon 2H Can we scale damage with a shield + weapon instead somehow? Shield has foundation which is insanely strong for us. Armor Effectiveness Implicit Curse on hit Implicit Sealed mana Implicit Adds phys as extra dmg Implicit Phys % Implicit Shield has 80% max res Erosion ConvertImplicit Gale/Knowledgeable Craft Adds phys as extra dmg Dream Flat Phys Implicit Lucky Crit Dream Blurry steps Armour aura Blink/Swift Shadow Raid Damage aura Proj speed (A)Prefix ES Prefix -Additional dmg at low mana/Max channeled stacks (U) Prefix ES Prefix Phys Prefix Empower Skill Damage aura Dex (A) Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Phys Prefix Damage aura Sealed (U) Prefix Defense (A) Prefix Defense (A) Prefix Pen (U) Prefix Phys Prefix Res/Crit Suffix Sealed (U) Suffix DD (U) Suffix Res/crit Suffix ASPD Suffix

Aura Effect (U)Suffix Res Suffix Weapon DMG (U) Suffix Crit Dmg Suffix Damage aura Precise Proj Support Skill Level (MAYBE numb on erika seems too weak in comparison) (U) Suffix Proj Speed Suffix Res Suffix Crit Dmg Suffix Max Sentry (U)Suffix We won't be playing thunder focus in this setup, we need Thunder Spike to get 10 numb We can easily reach 200%+ movement speed with this setup We have gale scaling for arrow + insane amount of flat Chest STR Death's Touch Lone walkers Ring Armor Effectiveness Implicit Curse on hit Implicit Erosion ConvertImplicit Erosion ConvertDream

Proj speed (A)Prefix ES Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Sealed (U) Prefix Pen (U) Prefix Res/Crit Suffix Res/crit Suffix Res/Crit Suffix Weapon DMG (U) Suffix Aura Effect (U)Suffix Crit Dmg Suffix

This is just taking that same build idea and using a sentry:

Support Skill Level (MAYBE numb on erika seems too weak in comparison) (U) Suffix Proj Speed Suffix Res Suffix Crit Dmg Suffix Max Sentry (U)Suffix
We won't be playing thunder focus in this setup, we need Thunder Spike to get 10 numb
We can easily reach 200%+ movement speed with this setup
We have gale scaling for arrow + insane amount of flat

Goddess of Hunting (26) Assassin (35)

This totals out to 120/115 points so we have to shave off 5 God of War instead of Goddess of Hunting seems extremely solid too

God of War (39)

Sentinel (29) Lich (30)

This section is not a guide, but its just a very well theorycrafted probably amazing build

With the changes to Erica's passive not removing numb on hit anymore, we are able to try out sentry builds again as in the past they simply shot too fast that we couldn't maintain 10 numb on bosses. Helm STR Amulet Belt/Light Hunter Belt INT Ring Weapon 2H

Armor Effectiveness Implicit Curse on hit Implicit Sealed mana Implicit Adds phys as extra dmg Implicit Phys % Implicit Arrow Einherjar (5 link) Auras Erosion ConvertImplicit Gale Blend Adds phys as extra dmg Dream Flat Phys Implicit Thunder Spike (5 link) Energy Fortress Lucky Crit Dream Blurry steps Armour aura Blink/Swift Shadow Raid Damage aura Proj speed (A)Prefix ES Prefix -Additional dmg at low mana/Max channeled stacks (U) Prefix ES Prefix Phys Prefix Empower Skill Damage aura Dex (A) Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Phys Prefix Damage aura Sealed (U) Prefix Defense (A) Prefix Defense (A) Prefix Pen (U) Prefix Phys Prefix Res/Crit Suffix Sealed (U) Suffix DD (U) Suffix Res/crit Suffix ASPD Suffix Please cross reference the aurastacker page Res/Crit Suffix Aura Effect (U)Suffix Res Suffix Weapon DMG (U) Suffix Crit Dmg Suffix This is just taking that same build idea and using a sentry Support Skill Level (MAYBE numb on erika seems too weak in comparison) (U) Suffix Proj Speed Suffix Res Suffix Crit Dmg Suffix Max Sentry (U)Suffix

We won't be playing thunder focus in this setup, we need Thunder Spike to get 10 numb

We can easily reach 200%+ movement speed with this setup

We have gale scaling for arrow + insane amount of flat

Chest STR Death's Touch Lone walkers Ring Armor Effectiveness Implicit Curse on hit Implicit Erosion ConvertImplicit Erosion ConvertDream

Goddess of Hunting (30) Assassin (30)

We are at 117/115 points and need to cut 2 points if the cap is still 115

Lich (30) Alchemist (27)

This section is not a guide, but its just a very well theorycrafted probably amazing build

Aura stacking 2H setup 2H allows scaling with a shield and weapon. We can potentially run aura stacking with a focus on lightning conversion and multiple auras for maximum damage. Various images below illustrate examples of final layouts, memories, kismets and slates for this approach. In practice you would mix and match gear, auras, and supports to fit your playstyle and gear availability.

This section is not a guide, but its just a very well theorycrafted probably amazing build

Aura stacking 2Hander setup (continuation)

Goddess of Hunting (33) Assassin (29)
With the new trees this totals out to 118 points, so we need to drop 3 points somewhere
In sandlord the max amount of points you can have is 115
Lich (30) Steel Vanguard (26)
Rain of Arrow is probably best, you have a few options for sequence
Just get blind immune/Reduced blind effect on kismets
(This is an alternative option to order stacking)

Perfect slates order stacking setup: If you do this setup you 100% have to go rain of arrows, rain of arrows also opens up other skill options too

You can also run a 4 slate setup it's technically slightly better since we have 4 good order mods we can roll on the slate, but rolling order 4 slates is quite awful and painful.

Legless seems extremely strong this season with a free way to convert it with the shield, most likely going to play something like rain of arrows with it? I played RoA last league with a 0.3 track its EXTREMELY strong

Legless Bird's Lament INT Amulet DEX Belt INT Ring Cane 90% max res Electrocute Implicit MS/ImmunitiesImplicit Timid Implicit % additional proj dmg Implicit 100% of erosion taken as elemental damage can ignore erosion res Gale Blend % additional proj dmg Dream No good ways to convert phys to elemental AND get 90% max res?

Rain of arrows Thunder Focus Blurry Steps ES Prefix ES/Block chancePrefix ES/Block chancePrefix Armor Pen (U)Prefix -Rhythm (0.3) -Support Blink Dex (A) Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Dex (A) Prefix -Electric Punishment -Focus Acceleration Focused slash + Levels (U) Prefix - %additional damage at low mana (U) Prefix Armor Pen (U)Prefix +2 levels (U) Prefix -RoA: Swift Flight -Thunder Focus: Tremor Proj speed Suffix Res Suffix Crit Dmg/Res Suffix cDMG/Crit (A) Suffix

(can run this as an aura without knowledgeable and run another empower skill) Legless convert (Might need to run a TSpike setup instead of thunder focus and only run a 3 link thunder focus) Ralph's Burial DEX Gloves INT Ralph's JourneyDEX Ring Shield INT Max Res Implicit Immunities Implicit Max res Implicit Max Res Dream Max Res Dream 396.2 515.06 Rock Magus -50.43 Then rock magus is capped out too :3 ES Prefix ES Prefix Pen (U) Prefix ES Prefix Dex (A) Prefix ES Prefix Levels (U) Prefix Armour Pen (U)Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Fervor/Jumps (U) Suffix DD (U) Suffix Max Res (U) Suffix

cDMG (A) Suffix cDMG (A) Suffix Res Suffix Res/Crit Suffix Res/Crit Suffix Crit damage (A)Suffix Goddess of Hunting (30) Assassin (30) We are at 117/115 points and need to cut 2 points if the cap is still 115

Lich (30) Alchemist (27)

This section is not a guide, but its just a very well theorycrafted probably amazing build

With the changes to Erika's passive not removing numb on hit anymore, we are able to try out sentry builds again as in the past they simply shot too fast that we couldn't maintain 10 numb on bosses. Helm STR Amulet Belt/Light Hunter Belt INT Ring Weapon 2H

This is just taking that same build idea and using a sentry Support Skill Level (MAYBE numb on erika seems too weak in comparison) (U) Suffix Proj Speed Suffix Res Suffix Crit Dmg Suffix Max Sentry (U)Suffix

We won't be playing thunder focus in this setup, we need Thunder Spike to get 10 numb

We can easily reach 200%+ movement speed with this setup

We have gale scaling for arrow + insane amount of flat

Goddess of Hunting (33) Assassin (29)

With the new trees this totals out to 118 points, so we need to drop 3 points somewhere

(In sandlord the max amount of points you can have is 115)

Lich (30) Steel Vanguard (26)

Rain of Arrow is probably best, you have a few options for sequence

< Just get blind immune/Reduced blind effect on kismets

(This is an alternative option to order stacking)

Perfect slates order stacking setup: If you do this setup you 100% have to go rain of arrows, rain of arrows also opens up other skill options too

You can also run a 4 slate setup it's technically slightly better since we have 4 good order mods we can roll on the slate, but rolling order 4 slates is quite awful and painful.

(can run this as an aura without knowledgeable and run another empower skill) Legless convert (Might need to run a TSpike setup instead of thunder focus and only run a 3 link thunder focus) Ralph's Burial DEX Gloves Ralph's JourneyDEX Ring Shield INT Max Res Implicit Immunities Implicit Max res Implicit Max Res Dream Max Res Dream 396.2 515.06 Rock Magus -50.43 Then rock magus is capped out too :3 ES Prefix ES Prefix Pen (U) Prefix ES Prefix Dex (A) Prefix ES Prefix Levels (U) Prefix Armour Pen (U)Prefix Dex (A) Prefix Fervor/Jumps (U) Suffix DD (U) Suffix Max Res (U) Suffix

Lich (30) Alchemist (27)

This section is not a guide, but its just a very well theorycrafted probably amazing build

We won't be playing thunder focus in this setup, we need Thunder Spike to get 10 numb

We can easily reach 200%+ movement speed with this setup

We have gale scaling for arrow + insane amount of flat

Goddess of Hunting (33) Assassin (29)

With the new trees this totals out to 118 points, so we need to drop 3 points somewhere

(In sandlord the max amount of points you can have is 115)

Lich (30) Steel Vanguard (26)

This section is not a guide, but its just a very well theorycrafted probably amazing build

Aura stacking 2Hander setup (Again, many variants) The approach involves substantial synergy between auras, magus supports, and weapon/shield combos to maximize DPS and survivability. The images included illustrate hierarchy of components: hero memories, kismets, slates, and pedrigrees. This is a high-level representation of how a finalized aura-stack build would be arranged in Timemark 8.

Hero Memories

For mapping we want to use these options, you can choose either or between 45.1 and 45.2 but generally you'll be spiral striking around and the movement speed is not that important vs. more damage.

For bossing we want want to swap to 75.2 to allow us to reapply our feline figure on bosses to let us reach 10 numb stacks more consistently.

Talent Trees

End-game damage math

To best understand the gear progression in Torchlight, its important to understand how numbers and multipliers interact. The guide explains the difference between increased damage% versus additional damage and demonstrates why spreading upgrades across multiple sources yields greater end damage due to multiplicative effects between sources. It covers how to value attack speed, crit chance, crit damage, and how penetration and damage conversion influence final damage calculations. It emphasizes ensuring resistance caps, leveraging flat damage, and how to read and apply memory, slate, and kismet bonuses to maximize end-game damage, potentially reaching trillions of damage.

Aura stacking (final notes)

Aura stacking is described as a very strong end-game concept with 2H builds that use a shield and weapon in tandem. The section lists potential components, memories, kismets, aura sources, and possible gangplank combinations for maximizing aura effects, with a focus on timing and synergy among nodes, auras, and supports. It includes a variety of example layouts and emphasizes practical iteration: test and adjust gear and talents to fit your playstyle and available items.

Conclusion

This guide is a highly theorycrafted, long-form expression of Miakitten's Erika 2 Timemark 8 strategy. It outlines mid-game progression, gear and stat prioritization, as well as end-game theorycrafting approaches and meme-worthy high-damage ambitions. It invites readers to join live streams for daily build codes and further discussion, and it emphasizes experimentation and continuous improvement. If you want to push the absolute ceiling of damage in Erika 2, this guide provides the scaffolding to explore that space, with the reminder that sharing feedback helps improve the community knowledge base.

Hero Memories

For mapping we want to use these options, you can choose either or between 45.1 and 45.2 but generally you'll be spiral striking around and the movement speed is not that important vs. more damage.

Talent Trees and Focus

See the campaign page for exact allocations. The root idea is maximizing auras, magus, and related support skills while balancing stat lines like dex, crit rating, crit damage, and movement speed. The final build often includes 24 talent points in each tree and notable notables.

End-game damage math

A detailed explanation of how increased damage, added damage, penetration, and damage conversion interact to scale final damage, including examples and practical upgrade strategies.

Aura stacking

This section provides guidance on how to build, equip, and optimize aura stacking for a 2H setup, including list of supports, auras, and potential layouts. It also discusses how to optimize aura uptime with Mortal Reverie, and how to arrange kinetic synergies for maximum output.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading this theorycrafted guide. If you have suggestions or notice any errors, please share and I will update accordingly. This guide is intended as a data-rich, modular, end-to-end plan for Erika 2 Timemark 8 progression and ultimate endgame theorycrafting. If you want to watch live and grab build codes, follow Miakitten on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/miakitten_