Torchlight 2 Tank Engineer General Grell with build NG+++

So this is some play on the NG+++ rank on Veteran with my tank specced Engineer.
I will go over the basic build if someone is interested in trying it. Turned out to be a pretty good one, and works great without über gear.
For skills I use:
Heal Bot 15/15 of course. Mandatory.
Force Field 15/15 for tankiness.
Emberquake 15/15 for pretty massive damage output.
Dynamo 15/15 for quickly pumping up charge, which I in turn use for Force Field.
Fire and Spark 15/15 of course, to maximize damage output.
Bulwark 15/15 for extra tankiness, as I put Vitality on a low stat.
Immobilization Copter 15/15. It turns out it's actually really good when maxed.
Heavy Lifting 15/15, mostly for fun, so I can choose say a cannon if I get bored.
I also have some points to spend left, but I haven't decided. The first would be an escape skill, but there are two one-pointers to choose from.
For weapon, I use a quick onehander with high mana leech, and a shield.
Because this is a melee build I can top off my mana in no time with a quick onehander. Damage is not important on the weapon, the only time I swing it is to fill my empty mana, so look for a really quick one with mana leech, and sock it for mana leech too.
For stats:
Strength is not needed, but I have put points to be able to use some gear earlier.
Dexterity, not a point. Leave at base.
Focus is my main. Put most of your points here.
Vitality is debated, but you are going to get hit occasionally before you get your Force Field up so definately put some points here. If I did it again I would put somewhere around 1 point in Vitality for every 3 I put in Focus, maybe even 1 for every 4.
For sockets / enchants / gear:
This is an easy build to find loot for, look for +%Firedamage, +Focus, +Life. In that order. Others that will help are +Electricaldamage, Resistances, Armor and Block. As I said, sometimes your bubble will burst and you will take a hit or two before you can pop it up again, but 99.9% of the time you will be covered by your bubble, so spend as little Vitality stat points as you can. You can always sock life skulls later if needed. You could also sock some Mana Regen if you wanted, but I dont recommend it. The bot will not be able to keep up with your Ember Quake spamming on bosses. I chose to leech mana with the one hander when needed instead, so I think it would be a waste of sockets. Takes not even 2 seconds to fill your mana from empty with a decent leech. Also I do not recommend Life Regen. If you take damage, it's because they burst your bubble and the damage needed for that is _massive_. If you die you die, and if you survive the bot will top you off pretty quickly when maxed.
For play rotation:
Of course your 2 bots are always running. Don't forget, they make a difference. You will have to repop them again every time you zone.
The rotation is pretty much the same for both trash and bosses. First fill your charge bar with Dynamo on trash. Then bring up the bubble. Then spam Ember Quake. Keep an eye on the timer for your bubble, and when it gets low, like maybe between 5 and 10, you switch to Dynamo to fill your bar, you refresh the bubble and start all over again. When mana gets low, you obviously switch to leech with your sword or whatever you have.
The only problem is when you encounter a single boss with no adds, it can be tricky to get that first bubble up fully charged with no trash to fill your bar on. Just one mob makes that take longer time than when the Dynamo hits many at the same time. I usually just put up an empty bubble before those bosses, and charge in and fill my bar as quick as I can on him and refresh it with a fully charged bubble. You could also easily kite a single boss and Dynamo up the bar a little slower if you were worried. The Dynamo has pretty decent range.
The most important thing is to always have the bubble up, and always be fully charged when you recast it. The fully charged bit is important, so don't neglect it. If you do it will burst and you will die. When you get a hang of that rotation you will have no problem surviving
What made me do this build is that it's a tank build that maximizes in Focus, and leave Vitality Strength and Dex as low as possible. And don't even use a weapon for damage. Not the traditional tank build. You could easily play this build with an empty right hand if you had some mana regen on top of the bot. But don't do that. You would look retarded.
One thing on Veteran is it can get a little boring because it's a bit too easy to never die, and progress pretty fast. Not as fast as a Mage but they have other issues. I am clearing level 110 dungeons now, and trash packs rarely takes more than one Ember Quake, and bosses melt in no time also.

[@rosselur]

Also, starting out with an engineer on elite was brutal. Especially that desert area with the "circle of light" dungeon you have to stay in (don't remember the name). You have to be way over leveled to make it through some of the spots.

[@spadehatesscrewtube]

I did it just fine at the recommended level in elite, im playing elite now and just starting to have problems, but i barely know what im doing. I spammed emberquake until all tiny mobs died then spammed forcefield to take out champions no problem. You can also run around outside the light with forcefield up and take exactly 0 damage. The blades are a problem because they ignore forcefield, but trial and error should get it right, just avoid the blades by stepping to one side. Took me two tries

[@wichardkemp7139]

To level this build how to distribute the attribute points ? I would assume focus will have to increase as well for emberquake skill ?

[@rewish0]

A couple questions. Is this still viable? And if so, how would I go about leveling? I assume it would take a while until you get high enough to use Ember quake.

[@rosselur]

I really don't know if it's still viable. The endgame in TorchLight kind of sucked, so I stopped playing after I got the gear I wanted. The bulk of the endgame consisted mainly of farming like 20-30 mill gold to get 2 good über enchants or so on each item. You get the übers like in 1 of 4 tries, so to get the first two enchants über, you will have to try on average about 16 times. Per item. Maybe they changed all this. I will have to check some day. I will be sure to fraps it when I do.

[@Ninjaspyfan]

well I imagine you could start a veteran or elite character and then play an LAN game at a lower difficulty until you had those techniques