A little bit about the game: In Diablo 3, you play a hero type, drawn to the troubled town of New Tristram by a falling star. Arriving in town, you soon discover evil afoot. And off you go, spouting exclamations while slashing, shooting, or blowing up the Legions of Hell.
By Legions of Hell, I mean pinatas, that explode with gold, weapons, and new duds.
During my time, whacking away with my stick to get at all the virtual shinies, I came across some observations which might be of use to those who follow in my well worn path.
Clothes Make the Man
One of the things you'll find out after about the first hour is that how powerful a character is, isn't so much based on his level, but rather the quality of his equipment.Success in Diablo 3 can easily be summed up with, kill things, don't die.
To find happiness and success in killing things, which you will be doing a lot of, basically boils down to the DPS of your weapon multiplied by your primary stat. This means that the most important thing to get is the highest DPS weapon you can get your hands on and lots of your primary stat on various pieces of equipment. The primary stat is Strength for Barbarians, Dexterity for Monks and Demon Hunters, and Intelligence for Wizards and Witchdoctors.
Personally, at the very least, I would look at getting a new weapon every two acts.
Working on the second part, don't die, the best way is to have lots and lots of vitality. Later on, other things are necessary, but for the most part, more vitality means more health, which means less dying on your part.
As you start getting into Hell and Inferno difficulty, other stats start getting important. Keep an eye out for things like resist all, movement speed, attack speed, critical hit, and life%.
Sold! To the Man in the Fancy Hat
During your travels in beating up demonic pinatas, you'll find lots of things that would be great for another class, or would have been great about 10 levels ago. This is everyone's experience. The best way of getting something that is nice is the Auction House. You can sell those items that would be great for that other class, or for someone a few levels lower than you for gold. More importantly, you can buy gear that is appropriate for both your class and level. Even better is that in a few levels, you can sell that old but awesome pair of pants as a hand-me-down, and pick up the latest model.One big tip for the auction house is to search by Minimum Buyout. Set that to a value of around 10k to 50k for a weapon, or 5k to 25k for a piece of equipment. For all of the non-inferno difficulty levels, you'll always find something really good for you at these price ranges.
Don't Gorge that Forge
Haedrig and Shen might sound like fun people, and you are undoubtedly tempted to pour your hard earned gold into making them the best blacksmith and jeweler they can be. But don't fall for their tricks! They are not only expensive to train, but don't give you anything good! Wait until you are level 60, and in inferno difficulty before spending your hard earned gold in upgrading them. Until then, you will get much better stuff in the Auction House.More the Merrier
After you get acquainted with Diablo on the easiest difficulty level, I highly recommend that you don't go at the higher difficulty levels alone.The way that Multiplayer works is that for each player, up to four, the various beasties get a bonus to health and damage based on the number of people playing. But the bonuses aren't exactly a full multiplier of the number of people playing. For instance, if four people are playing, they monsters might do 2x the damage, and have 3.5x the HP.
What this means is that a full party of people, all playing together, will be able to whack more things much faster than if people were each going at it alone. Not only that, but different characters can cover each others weaknesses. The wizard can blow up that annoying fly that always keeps just outside of reach, while the monk can deal with the legion of swarming little goblins.
In short
Get a good weapon...Everything else get Str/Dex/Int and Vitality...
Abuse the Auction House...
Don't bother upgrading the Blacksmith or Jeweler...
Play with your friends...
