I'm a man of art...



I go all the way down to the 5th level of the catacombs where i finally reach Alastor - the Scourge of Acheron. This is the first boss in the game that deals serious vitality damage... i have to be careful as my vit resistance is still at 0%. He also has both the undead and ghost mods, which makes him extremely resistant to physical and piercing damage...



This post was edited by KillingIsMyBusiness on Oct 23 2020 12:00pm

It's safe to say that this is my slowest boss fight so far...



Wow! What a drop! None of these items are useful for my guy unfortunately. Two are intelligence based, the third one is a bow



Mr. Phaedrus here finally brings the plot into the game... through a few walls of exposition of course. In short - the game is about the good old rivalry between the greek gods and the titans. Three lesser titans, called Telkines, have somehow escaped their prisons and are now trying to disrupt the connection of the gods with the mortal realm. The first Telkine, called Megalesios, went to Knossos to destroy a mysterious artifact, called The Conduit, which allows the ancient priests to speak with the gods. I must take a ship and sail directly to Knossos, where i must chase and kill Megalesios through the Minoan Labyrinth, before he destroys the conduit.

Time to sail away...



The village of Herakleion is the last friendly place here. I'm approaching the end of Act 1



Oh NO! I have failed to manage my gold resources and now i can't buy this rare beuty... and i'm in need for a body armor upgrade. Damn it! What a missed opportunity... even the Veteran's preffix alone would have been great.



This post was edited by KillingIsMyBusiness on Oct 23 2020 11:53am

Level up - All points go into Adrenaline and its synergies - this skill triggers upon getting his. The 5% chance to activate might seem small, but it's not... in late game, when i lower the recharge it will be active almost all the time when there are enemies around... It offers great bonuses.







That style of development, with only 1 point in the primary skills until i reach the top of the tree, might seem bizarre at first, but it's totally viable for normal difficulty. It also gives me more survivability, due to the bonus health and attributes i receive from bumping the trees. I'm only going to climb the trees to level 32, then the real build development begins. The level 40 trees and the tier 7 skills where added by the Atlantis expansion... in the original game the trees where maxed with 32 points in them - that's how i'm used to and that's how i like it. The new tier 7 skills are not that great anyway.

This post was edited by KillingIsMyBusiness on Oct 23 2020 12:25pm

Knossos Palace





Just before the entrance to the labyrinth, i get double automatoi hero spawn. In epic and legendary difficulty, this area will spawn Talos the Master Automatoi - a giant construct boss with a decent loot table. I'll definitely be farming him on epic.

Labyrinth time...



Level 18 - all points in the defense tree



Just before the end of Act 1 and the fight with Megalesios, i reach what is considered to be the best farming spot for the Stonebinder's Cuffs. See where my character is on the map? This is the last rebirth fountain in Act 1. Going forward leads to Megalesios, while the 4 green X's mark the rooms where the gorgons should spawn. It's a short 20-30 second farming run. However, i got only skeleton spawns, so i had to exit the game all the way to desktop and restart, to reset the seed and get the gorgon spawns. On average i get between 4 and 8 Geomancers and Profaners per run, so unless i'm extremely unlucky, the Cuffs should drop within the next 20-30 minutes.
If i complete the act now and leave for act 2, i will lose this rebirth fountain and won't be able to farm Megalesios for the Shroud of Eternal Night or to hunt for the Stonebinder's Cuffs. The only way i can go back here, would be to take the waypoint portal back to Herakleion, but then i have to go all the way through Herakleion Highlands, Knossos Palace and the Minoan Labyrinth - that's a long walk. So i need to do my farming right now!

Damn it! Almost immediately i get the wrong MI item.



But it's still better than my lame armor, so i'll use it for now, i also swapped the Heracle's Might relic on it.



I can't believe i still have only one Valor of Achiles shard from the beginning of the game.... that's another reason to run Megalesios - act bosses drop shards more often

Thankfully, another one drops a few runs later, only one more to complete the relic...



Damn you game! Monster Infrequent and formula in a single run... just not the ones i want!

Level up - All 3 points in the defensive tree.



Yes! I knew i didn't have to wait long.... this took around 20 runs. So as you can see, they're not hard to get at all. Getting them with the godly affixes... now that's a different story.



Yeah... that's lame! What a terrible affix - 10 Armor? I think that's the Hardened prefix. I lose some attack speed and DPS when i equip them, but the resistances and the +skills will make up for it for now. Damn it, let's to Magelesios...



This post was edited by KillingIsMyBusiness on Oct 23 2020 03:02pm

The Minotaur Lord that guards the path to Megalesios is much more scarier. He uses the Onslaught skill from the warrior's tree. It's a frenzy like skill, that builds charges with each hit, increasing its damage, along with other offensive bonuses. I'll be maxing the entire Onslaught skill and its synergies, when i focus on the developing my Warfare Mastery.



Megalesios is a very weak act boss (at least on Normal), The Scourge of Acheron and the Minotaur are the real bosses of act 1.



The loot orbs are the best lootable objects in the game. Megalesios also has the best loot table in act 1, so he's definitely worth farming.



This post was edited by KillingIsMyBusiness on Oct 23 2020 03:18pm