Can also get headstriker sword from Andy. Are you running bosses for farming p8 too? If so, I’d recommend getting some cb gear asap. Blood gloves, try for gtoes, open wounds belt (another blood craft), maybe black in a flail for speed killing bosses. They will break fast but the cb is well worth. Can also make strength runeword in weapon instead. Give merc some cb as well, as cb is best friend esp early game farming. Since melee damage is so piss bad.

You probably wont find a 5os naga .. shits hard to find and you’ll probably out-level it by the time you actually find one

Use real weapons.

Tir el in flails > shit ele dmg flails

use all your points into frenzy synergies and mastery > diversity. you dont need to stat shit like find item before hell anyways

Save gems and cube them. With a little luck an amn rune will drop in Act IV or V in normal and you can upgrade a rare weapon to exceptional to speed things up. A blood craft exceptional axe can sometimes be worthwile. Cubing chipped gems and a weapon sometimes gets you a nice roll, especially because it can be socketed with some much needed skulls early on.

Actually the nightmare Griswold and the nightmare smith can drop elite weapons. It's rare but a quirky source of early weaponry if you feel like it. Even if the item is weak in itself it's a potential base for a craft. In terms of pure efficiency the countess or Andariel may be better to head on to but think of the wacky fun factor of crushing through early nightmare with a crafted or cube-rerolled elite weapon.