1. correct, now there are 10 basic acts ( while you will start of from the layout point of view 1-5 and 6-10 are basically the same, but different quests ). End of 5 you kill kitava and get -30 all res, same as end of 10 kill him again, -30 more - this basically is ( besides of stronger monsters ) the difficultiy progression ). If you are in epiloque after act 10 you can start mapping, yes
2. Well ... not sure currently what is best ascendency for facebreaker since meanwhile there are new nice "startoff" builds like arc totem hierophant or even arc selfcast elementalist ... for eternal ( = "Uber" or 4th ) lab you need to get all 6 trials, yes they spam randomly on maps. Or go to public channel 820 and join the missing labs, people offer it there
3., yes, do maps for leveling / progress and drops. bosses are not the best for maximizing drops, this goes over several map mods ( increased monster pack size usually is good to have "more" drops ) ... i´d suggest to run yellow maps generally with alch orb on it to make drops better ( maybe even put 4 chisel on it to improve the maps even further -> more drops, but BEFORE you alch them )
however, there are multiple new mechanics which are really a tl;dr if i would write em down ( shaper, zana map progression, as well as current leagues delve or incursions ... )
just go on and progress through maps. if zana appears, do her questions, if "alva" appears, do the incursions opened.
a hard mechanic is betrayals leagues "syndicate", but this is well to much for now if you did not play for such a long time i think ^^
... hope i could help a little ^^
This post was edited by 0x00 on Jan 4 2019 03:06pm