A serious ambush here... it nearly kills me and i'm forced to take a step back.



Hey look at that! I haven't gotten my first rare item yet and i have already found a unique - it's an epic spear unfortunately. I could still use it, but it has a high level requirement... i prefer swords, maces or axes for this character anyway, so i'd rather take a juicy 10 000 gold by selling this spear.





I guess i should explain the color coding of items in the game.

Grey Items are broken items, they're filtered out by default and you'll never see them, unless you want to highlight them from the item filters. White item are common and at this point of the game i will remove them from the filters, as they're completely useless now that i'm finding magical loot.
Next is magical loot... they are yellow and can have up to 2 affixes.
Rare items are green and they can have up to 2 higher level affixes from their own affix table. Rare items come in 3 variants. The regular rares that can drop anywhere, the monster rares, that have an additional predetermined stat and can drop from specific monster groups. And then there's the monster infrequent rares - that have an olive green color to differentiate them from the other rares and are the most powerful of the bunch. They have a predetermined unique stats and most of the time even unique art design and names. They can get up to 2 affixes (from both magic and rare affix tables) on top of their regular stats and with a lucky dice roll, can be the best items in the game. I have to note that some MI's are way more useful than other's... it all depends on the character you want to build. I'll be hunting a lot of MI's in this project. MI's also drop only from specific monster groups. For example, satyrs can drop a decent early game bow called Brigand's Bow, while satyr brutes can drop the Stone Hammer - a powerful but slow mace that can be really useful early on, if it drops with additional attack speed affix. Sekeltons can drop an OP throwing weapon called the Skeletal Dart. There's a ton of MI items in the game that can be found in the different acts.
Unique items come in two types - Epics and Legendaries. Epics are blue, have more stats than rares, but their stats are predetermined and may variate slightly. There's above 700 epic items in the game
Legendaries are purple, have a ton of predetermined stats, but cannot drop in Normal difficulty. There's above 400 legendary items.

This post was edited by KillingIsMyBusiness on Oct 21 2020 09:53am

I arrive at the camp to speak with king Leonidas, but his guards won't let me in unless i kill Nessus - the Centaur Chieftain, who has set camp in the nearby valley. This would be my first real boss encounter and i'm planning to farm here for around 1 or 2 levels. It's not necessary, but centaurs can drop some really good stuff for the early game. They have a bunch of Monster Infrequent items, including one of the best shields in act 1 - the Outrider's Buckler. I really want that shield and you'll see why when i get it.



There's a slightly better sword at the vendor here. I will take it to make the boss fight faster. I'll be using this vendor to quip myself for the journey ahead, mostly with regeneration gear... more on that later.



The first centaurs, (this is not Nessus). We'll be seeing a lot from these guys during the act... later on they have some very dangerous elite versions, including trappers - these guys are no joke.

Another level up - 1 point in the skill tree, 1 in Armor Handling. Also i put 1 point in the skill Shield Smash - this is the first of 3 passive-offensive shield skills that use the shield as a weapon to inflict damage an cause disabling effects. The 3 passive shield skills are the bread and butter of every shield base build in the game, they're awesome. I'll be maxing them as soon as i reach the top skill - Pulverize.



There's the big boy! The red lettering in his name indicates that this is a boss enemy. His aura is once again just for show and has no effects. I'll kill his minions first before i deal with him.



The fight is actually quite dangerous until the minions are dealt with

Once they are down, i can effectively tank him with a few potion chugs



He's down and i get a disappointing first drop



He also guards a majestic boss chest as most of the bosses in this game will. These are the second best lootable objects in the game (behind act bosses' loot orbs). There are also randomly spawned majestic chests that can be found around the world, more often in caves at specific spots. These random majestic chests are slightly different than the boss ones, but can also drop solid loot.



This post was edited by KillingIsMyBusiness on Oct 21 2020 01:01pm

...however, the drop from this boss chest is complete trash. I'm level six now, on my way to level 7. I'll farm Nessus until level 8, which will take me around 30 minutes. You can see my death counter on that screen. I'll be showing it at the end of each act as part of the rules of this challenge.



For killing Nessus i'm allowed to meet Leonidas, who grants me a free skill point (i spent it in the skill tree) and sends me on a long journey to meet the oracle of Delphi. But i'm not done yet, not until i get what i want from the centaurs. I guess i should say a few words about the story. The truth is, i'm playing this game for like 10 years and to this day i have never followed the entire story of the game... When it comes to hack'n'slash Diablo clones, i just can't get invested in the story, because they are presented entirely in the form of exposition and they lack character for the most part. If it was a story driven RPG then sure i will follow it, but here i'm not gonna recap the story or try to explained it, because i just can't.



On run 3 i get a very useful relic shard drop. Valor of Achiles is the best physical damage based weapon upgrade in the game. It can get large variety of completion bonuses when 3 Valor of Achiles shards are combined to get the complete relic... but there's more to it than that, i'll explain in the following post...

There's a trick that works with weapon upgrades and will always grant you the best completion bonus (more attack speed) if i upgrade the weapon shard by shard instead of waiting for the whole realic to be completed before adding it to the weapon. I have tested this before with Valor of Achiles and it works flawlessly, never tested it with other weapon upgrades, but i think that rule applies to them as well.



Moving on with the grind, i get an interesting drop at run 3, but both of these items have too high of a requirement. I'm really mad about that defender's preffix, i want to get it on an Outrider's Buckler, but chances are low.



The epic one is not impressive at all, with the exception of its high armor rating. There's also no dangerous demons at this stage of the game... i can definitely find something much better by the time i reach level 13 - the grind continues...



This post was edited by KillingIsMyBusiness on Oct 21 2020 12:56pm

On run 4 he drops my first rare item - a ring with bonus to strength and health. I'll keep it for when i reach level 11, if i don't find anything better by then



His chest drops another epic item in the same run. This time a very nice pair greaves. I'll be keeping those as well

Run number 5 is the lucky one - see that shield Nessus is holding? That's the Outrider's buckler! I can recognize it by its unique design. When an enemy spawns with a magic, rare, epic or legendary piece of gear, it will always drop it. And you can see the monster actually wielding the piece... that's one of my favorite aspects of this game.



And there it is! You can see the different shade of green that separates Monster Infrequent items from the regular rare items. Also the affixes don't show in the name of MI items, but they can still generate randomly on them... For example, if an MI weapon spawns with +30-40% attack speed, it means it has the Alacrity suffix on it. Of course we're not gonna be seeing that suffix soon, it's one of the higher level ones and it's quite rare.



You can see why i wanted to get my hands on that shield. They're quite common and Nessus here is probably the best place to get it, because quest monsters and bosses have better drop chances for rare gear.

Wearing recovery gear is very overpowered in early to mid act 1. I'll be looking to buy such gear for each of my armor slots, except the shield



Level up - 1 point in the tree, 1 point in Armor Handling and one point in the skill Shield Charge. This is a charge attack skill and i'm only taking it for mobility, to be able to quickly cut distances to enemy archers and mages. Its synergy is quite good and i'll be maxing it when the time is right - it has the ability to hit multiple enemies in an arc and to disrupt their skills.



A rare item spawns at the vendor. This one is not useful for my character, but i wanted to show it. Farming vendors is another layer of gearing up... i will have to do it at some point later on, in search for a particular rare preffix on a helmet - the Hollowed preffix - it grants 50% vitality resistance and +1 to all skills, it can also get a suffix. Maxing Vitality Resistance before the middle of act 3 is essential for surviving the brutality of the second half of the game. I will also have to grind for the charm Demon's Blood - it can upgrade rings and amulets with vitality resistance.

A few runs later, he continues to be very generous... normally i don't get so much epics from his chest. In fact, i don't even get a single epic most of the times when i farm Nessus on normal. This shield will replace the Outrider's Buckler when i reach the requirement for it. It's a more defensive shield and it will slow my attacks a little bit, but it has better damage output that will make my shield attacks more powerful as a compensation





All safely stashed for when i reach the level needs