Vanquisher is my personal favourite of the three classes in Torchlight. The Vanquisher is similar to Diablo's rogue or D2's amazon. Her trees are focused on ranged weapon attacks (Marksman), attacks that do not require a ranged weapon or are melee based (Rogue) and traps (Arbiter).

Torchlight's skill system is pretty simple and basic. There are a number of shared passives that everybody has and there are a number of unique attack skills for the class that scale based off DPS.

My take on the character is that if you want to play a melee based build, then you should play a Destroyer instead. A ranged vanquisher is just better imo (especially in very hard). As a ranged vanquisher you have the choice of using dual wielding pistols or using a 2 handed bow / gun. I personally lean towards using a 2 hander over dual wielding. The ranged vanquisher supplements their damage with traps from the Arbiter tree.

Ranged Weapons Expertise


Passive ability that boosts ranged weapon damage and lower ranged equipment requirements. A good passive early on to max.


Ricochet


The starting skill of the Vanquisher. This and Explosive Shot are the best spammable ranged skills available. The skill launches a ricocheting projectile that bounces off the walls. Good for tight areas and corridors. DPS scales well, not bad mana wise, can hit multiple targets and its available right away.

You should either max out this skill or Explosive Shot. Both are viable for very hard. If you go with Ricochet, put points into your passives then drop free points into the skill. If you want to go with Explosive Shot then you will leave Ricochet at 1/10 and use that as your main skill until you can drop a few points into Explosive Shot. Explosive Shot is not available until level 15 and it needs a few points into it to be useful.


Critical Strikes


Passive ability that boosts bonus to critical damage and critical hit chance. One of the best passives available, max it ASAP.


Frost Pilum


Never bothered using it. Ricochet and Explosive Shot are both much better imo.


Adventurer


Passive ability that boosts potions effectiveness, experience / fame gain and reduces resurrection penalties. The extra exp / fame gain will make it easier to level up and buff your skills faster. The potion boost is most important later in the game as your health pool will outstrip what the highest level potion can heal without the passive. Long term should be maxxed.


Seeking Shot


Fires three projectiles that seek out nearby foes. Individual projectiles do meh damage but good damage when you count all three projectiles together. I prefer Ricochet and Explosive Shot over it through as you can use them to snipe, prioritise targets and / or clear corridors and large groups.


Offensive Spell Mastery


Passive ability that boosts the level of all offensive magic spells. I find offensive spells 'meh' so I would leave this alone.


Explosive Shot


Fire a projectile from any equipped ranged weapon that detonates on impact, dealing damage to foes within its range. Again, if you went Ricochet, leave this at 0/10 otherwise max it out.

DPS is not quite as high as Ricochet but has a great AOE. Unlike pierce it can't pierce through so if there's some weak enemies in front of a bigger one you'll have to blast the weak ones away first. The arrow will explode when it hits a target, a wall or reaches max distance. Ricochet is better in close corridors while Explosive Shot is better in open areas where the AOE can hit targets better.

Either is viable in very hard so it's up to you which attack you want to use.


Block and Parry


Passive ability that improves your chance to block with or without shield. Extra survivability is always nice. Worth dropping a few points into, 5-10 depending on how much you like it.


Arrow Hail


Pretty expensive mana wise to use but doesn't require a LOS to use. Good for shooting people on hills, behind walls, etc. Unlike other attacks damage is flat and not based on weapon DPS. As such it won't scale as well late. Drop at least one point into the skill and more when you have free points.

Needle Arc / Stab / Venomous Dirks / Hamstring


Melee or close ranged attacks. Skipped in favour of ranged attacks. If you want to play a melee class then Destroyer is a much better option.


Martial Weapons Expertise


Passive that buffs melee weapons. As the build is built around ranged attacks this is useless.


Armor Expertise


Passive ability that boosts armour % and reduces amour equipment requirements. Early on can help you equip better gear faster. Worth dropping a few points into, 5-10 depending on how much you like it.


Wind of Justice


One point wonder ability that knocks back enemies away from you and has a chance to stun. This is not used for damage but for its utility. Min 1 point, you can put more points into it if you want to increase the knock back and stun chance.


Defensive Spell Mastery


Passive ability that boosts the level of all defensive magic spells. Much more useful than Offensive Spell Mastery as it buffs the 'Haste' spell. Drop at least one point ASAP as it will make haste last an extra 4 seconds. Each upgrade afterwords will only boost it by 2 seconds. 5-10 points depending on how much you like it.


Barter


Passive ability that reduces vendor prices and increases the value of your goods. You'll basically be broke throughout the game (enchanting and gambling costs a ton of gold) so a bit of extra cash is always helpful. 5-10 points depending on how much you like it.


Treasure Hunter


Passive ability to boost your gold / magic find chances. More gold is always useful and extra magic find is always useful considering the lack of farmable hot spots for loot. Max it out.

Lightning Bomb


Flat damage, doesn't scale with weapon DPS, just shoot them with Ricochet / Explosive shot instead.


Dual Wielding


Passive ability that boosts damage while dual wielding. 10/10 if you are dual wielding pistols, 0/10 otherwise.


Flame Trap


One point wonder ability. Somewhat limited range but does not good damage to targets within reach. I usually only drop one point here so I can save points for passives and then specialise in the later traps.


Charm Spell Mastery


Passive that increases the level of all charm magic spells. If you're using summon spells then max 10/10 otherwise 0/10.


Flechette Trap


My favourite trap. Shreds everything to pieces. Toss ahead of you into a room and kill anything that comes through the door. I find it quite useful for dealing with annoying enemies like dark zealot while staying out of their line of sight. 10/10 as soon as you can.


Pet Mastery


Passive that boosts your pet and minion's damage and armour and decreases your pet's travel time. 10/10 if you're using summon spells, otherwise 0/10. On very hard difficulty your default pet is a basically just a mule.


Magic Weapons Expertise


Passive that boosts damage from wands and staves, and reduces requirements for rings and amulets. 0/10


Devouring Trap


Drains armour of nearby enemies. Can be comboed with Flechette Trap. 1-10 points depending on how much you like it.


Shock Trap


Not as good as Flechette Trap imo. Drop a single point at least to unlock it through as you can have both out as the same time. 1/10 - 10/10 depending on how much you like it.


Advanced Spellcasting


Passive that boosts mana recharge rate and reduces the level requirements of all spells. Personally, other passives are more useful imo.

Dexterity is your primary stat. It's needed to equip your ranged weapons and buffs your offensive damage.

Defence is every class' secondary stat. It buffs your armour and resistances.

One easier difficulties or non-hardcore characters you can go heavier into DEX than DEF ~ 4:1 or 3:2 at most.

On hardcore characters staying survivabilty is much more important than raw damage. A ~3:2 ratio is the min and ~2:3 is more likely. Depending on your preferences you may even go super heavy into Defense in a very hard hardcore character.

Your spells should be Haste (for the big speed boost to help you kite), summons if you're going that way (Archers, Skeleton, Zombies, etc.), heals (self or heal all) or crowd control utility like Web. I find offensive spells useless so skip through. Your pet should be given utility spells (Heal all, a summon, Web, etc.)

Over level everything. Previous content will respawn over time and you can farm it again for extra exp and loot. Torchlight has a very generous experience system and you can level even off low level mobs. Never go into a phase portal, everything will be at your level and you can't portal out.

Enchant all your gear up. It's expensive and has the risk of failure so keep backup gear ready. Gamble at the gambler for a chance to get better weapons. Upgrade your weapon as much as possible or your DPS will take a noticeable dip.

Staying alive in hardcore is most important. So bulk up your Defence stat and boost your health pool via gear so you have more leeway. Use Winds Of Justice to knock back any melee mobs that get too close.

Keep haste up 24/7. You want to be able zip around and kite. If you have summons place them in the most appropriate areas (personally I mostly use traps on my vanquishers and used pet build with alchemist). Archers, for example, are stationary so you want to place them somewhere they can hit things and soak up damage from you.

The most dangerous enemies are those that have charges or do magic damage. Charge will quickly close the gap between an enemy and you and does a ton of damage. Magic damage has terrible damage scaling, resistances simply can't keep up. Dark Zealots are the worst offenders as their dark lightning attack can practically one shot you and if all their poison projectiles hit you will die. God help you if they crit. Resistances are not percent based but remove a flat amount of damage. When stuff crits you for an insane amount taking a tiny bit of flat damage off it does not help. Another enemy to watch out for is anything that drops an aoe on the ground. Stay out of the aoe range.

When dealing with charge mobs run away from them and wait for them to charge in your direction then after they burned their charge burn them down fast. For Dark Zealots (and other annoying casters) try to LOS them down. Toss traps ahead of you into a room or use arrow hail. If you're not in their LOS they can't nuke you. For enemies that drop AOEs keep an eye out for them and stay out of the blast zone.