There needs to be a discussion about Torchlight

[roguebanshee]

One of the biggest things I've noticed that needs tightening is hit box issues that arrise with the jump to 3d. As a gun using Vanquisher I'm lucky if I have a 50% chance of actually hitting something with a shot even if it is standing right in front of me. Often I need to take a step back and wait till they are walking directly towards me to garauntee a hit. This is exacerbated even more when stairs are involved. Getting into a fight on stairs generally equates to 0% chance to hit anything as my shots just zoom over their heads. This is even while i'm directly targeting an enemy. The Vanquishers "ultimate" ranged attack is often completely negated on uneven terrain as if you target a group of enemies on a floor lower than your position the rain of arrows will just end up falling to a point in mid air over the enemies and stopping at your characters height instead of falling to the enemies position.

I haven't had the targeting issue you're describing for ranged attacks in melee range. Stairs can be troublesome, but they can also work beautifully with Ricochet & Explosive Shot. Anyway when fighting at a stair, target behind your intended target(s) and you should have a much higher chance to hit. For now I'd call it a quirk of the game.

As far as Arrow Hail goes, I haven't used it much but the times I have there has been no issue with hitting things regardless of elevation differences. The only issue I have had is with it is efficiency compared to Explosive Shot (aka. I-WIN!).

Despite the annoyances this game just shows how much fun there is to be had in this genre. My Vanquisher is now about level 35 and I'm trying to find information about how the retirement and heirloom items work.

An item can be heirloomed (iirc) 10 times, each time grants a percentile bonus to every effect the item has.

Note that the Shadow Vault will scale enemies to the character doing it, so you'll get level apropriate drops which may or may not work out well for your collection.