Hello there,

Thanks for giving this a read. I decided to write this little walkthrough for 2 reasons:
1) No one else has bothered yet.
2) I saw a few comments about how hard the game was for some people.

So I thought, maybe by sharing my observations, I can help encourage others to write (more in-depth) guides while also helping newer players get over the initial learning curve. Two birds, one stone.

I've managed to beat the game on each of the 4 occupations solo, so I can confirm that they're all viable. That being said, some are definitely much easier than others. Keeping on top of your weapon and armour upgrades seemed to have a much bigger impact on the difficulty than Attributes, while the special effects provided by some talents and jewellery were complete game-changers.

For the purpose of the guide, I'll divide my observations in 3 main parts. In part 1, I'll be sharing tips that are occupation-agnostic. For part 2, I'll get into occupation-specific details. Finally for part 3, I'll give an overview of each stage, it's boss, notable enemies, and puzzles.

If that sounds useful, please read on.

1) Don't be afraid to spread your Attribute points around a bit while you level.

• When it comes to the 'combat' Attributes (Str/Agi/Int), you should pick just 1 depending on the nature of your build (melee, range, or skills), but the other Attributes are useful across occupations.
  
• The highest you can invest in a single attribute is 20, while the levelling cap is 30, so even if you wanted to invest exclusively into a single Attribute, you wouldn't be able to after a while.
  
• Because of Stamina consumption from wearing heavier armour, even if you manage your Stamina bar very carefully, you'll want to invest at least a few points there so you can chain more than a single attack/roll together.
  
• While it's obviously useful for Int-based builds, a bit of Spirit can even help Str/Agi builds out, since physical occupations have access to utility skills to augment their attacks.
  
• Endurance lets you make more mistakes before dying. I've managed to play without levelling my health, but I can tell you that it doesn't feel good even if it's viable.
  
• Respecs are a flat 100 gold, not affected by your level or the number of times you used it. In the early game it feels punishing, but you can farm that easily from a single run later on.

2) Drops are your main way to progress, which means RNG can be a big roadblock.

• Past act 1, the increase in damage output from getting new weapons and upgrading them is normally higher than the increase from an additional point in your chosen Attribute. For example: a simple act 1 weapon has 3 base damage, and can be upgraded 5 times to have 8 total. A basic act 3 weapon can start at 15, and cap at 30.
  
• You can technically get through maps without taking any damage by memorising attack patterns and managing your Stamina, but it feels awful to fight bosses when your damage output falls behind.
  
• If you find even the basic enemies of the current stage too difficult, consider going back an act and focusing on mining metals to max out your weapon.
  
• If the bosses are the problem, but enemies are manageable, try to stay on the current act and gather resources. If you're lucky, basic enemies will give you gear upgrades while you gather materials, and you can sell the trash to afford blacksmithing costs.

3) I found the game's difficulty curve quite manageable by doing each stage twice.

• First run was to explore fully, search for puzzles, do quests, and pop open chests. Second run was to double down on minerals and kill the boss again, less focus on exploration unless I was working on a fetch-quest.
  
• It helped me build a surplus of upgrade materials, a puddle of gold, and improved my odds of having useful drops.
  
• Bosses give higher-quality loot than the trash mobs, so it might even be worth it to farm the first stage's boss until you get an act-appropriate weapon to make subsequent stages feel less torturous (it's night and day to 7-shot trash with bad gear vs 2-shotting them with good ones)
  
• As a rule-of-thumb, Act 1 felt like it should be completed by around level 10, Act 2 around level 20, and Act 3 well before level 30. The level 25 Talents are sharp spikes in most occupations.

4) (Spoiler): There are a couple of RNG-dependent quests that require lots of materials. Best not sell those materials.

• The cook will ask you to get him 10 piece of meat and 10 pieces of fish. Later on, the witch asks for 5 yellow herbs. Doing both those quests gets you 1,200 gold coins, which is a HUGE help while you're leveling. I recommend you don't sell or use those ingredients until after you complete those quests.
  
• You don't HAVE to farm them in any specific map since those 3 ingredients exist across every act, but I found it worthwhile to just take a break from advancing and farm for them around the start of act 2 to get a bit of a lead on my XP and money situation before tackling the boss.
  
• The meat has a chance to drop from most animals, and there's a guaranteed piece of meat on the 3rd level of Act 1. A deer corpse can be found with a bear nearby.
  
• The fish can be picked up from most bodies of water, but there's also a piece of fish on the 1st level of Act 2. A group of skeletons can be found in a room with a fish on the table.
  
• Yellow herbs are uncommon gathers across the game. The plant they come from looks like a Cattail plant (so a long, skinny grass with a kinda hotdog-looking thing near the tip).

5) Rings and Necklaces can have very meaningful effects, and are worth stashing even if you don't have an immediate use for them.

• In act 1 for example, you can get a ring that adds 5 to your weapon attacks. Later on that's a pretty minor benefit, but at that stage of the game it can potentially double your damage.
  
• Another act 1 item to keep an eye out for is a necklace that increases your attack speed by 10%. Some occupations have different ways to boost their speed on top of that, and it all stacks.
  
• Act 2 introduces the Ring of Meditation, which is one of the very few ways to passively gain mana. If your occupation makes infrequent use of healing skills, or frequent use of cheap skills, this thing saves you SO many blue potions over the course of a run! It's a Quality-of-Life benefit, even if it doesn't help with DPS. I farmed it for both my Knight and Ranger.
  
• The cook can very rarely offer a ring for sale that gives you a stacking speed buff (I think it caps at 15% with 5 stacks?), once again this stacks with other sources too.
  
• Unlike with weapons and armour, you don't get 'upgraded' versions of rings and jewels in later acts. Their effects are fixed, and their drop rates seem to depend on the Act.

As of the time I'm writing this guide, there are 4 occupations available: Knight, Mage, Ranger, and Warrior. Each occupation has a unique type of weapon, so you can't use a bow on a Knight for example. They also each have their own skills. That said, the playstyle overlaps quite a bit across the board. Regardless of your chosen class, you're going to want to dodge out of attacks and punish when the enemy recovers.

In terms of difficulty while leveling, I found Mage with an Int focus easiest, followed by Agi Ranger, Str Knight, and Str Warrior last. Once level 25 was reached, Endurance-based Knight became my easiest pick by a huge margin, while the others remained more or less the same. I had not tried Int on the other characters, so I can't comment on skill-based builds outside the Mage. Maybe I'll give those a try when the itch to play gets me again.

(I had to split this into 4 parts due to character limits... apologies.)

The Knight:

Your humble sword-and-boarder. If you've played Soulslikes, Zelda, Elder Scrolls, or any other fantasy action RPG, you'll understand this occupation. They use one-handed weapons for their left-click, and carry shields off-hand for their right-click. There's a "Perfect Block" mechanic from timing your right-click where you don't lose stamina upon blocking, but I found the delay between raising your shield too inconvenient to rely on it.

Thanks to their level 1 talent, they aren't as starved for Stamina as other classes. That said, you'll probably want to invest a few Attribute points as you level. I found having 20 points of stamina (the green bar that goes down when you dodge and attack, not the attribute with the same name that you can invest points into...) to be far more than enough, but less than 10 felt like torture.

Most of your damage is going to come from your left-click light attacks. Skills tend to leave you vulnerable from the wind-up and recovery animations, while regular attacks are fast and easy to roll out of. I spent my mana on defensive skills, like "Energy Shield" and "Blessing." I also had "Block" on my Q button, which costs 0 mana to use and acts as a parry button. Getting good at timing the "Block" skill is worth it, since you stun enemies with it and get some immunity after. So you can parry the charge, mash your light attacks, and have the enemy staggered before they can recover out of their stun.

If you're lucky enough to get a Meditation Ring and Cat's Eye Pendant to drop, I would slot both in and never replace them. Early on, this gives you infinite healing from Blessing. Later on, you can combine the Energy Shield skill with the Shield Strike talent for massive damage against everything. Without them, you burn through many more mana potions, but you don't really need them.

Attributes were simple enough: leveling up, I took a few points of Endurance, Spirit, and Stamina whenever I found the resources hard to manage, and dumped the rest into Strength. The damage gain from Strength didn't really feel all that noticeable as the game went on though, maybe it was a mistake to level it. At level 25, I respecced 20 points into Endurance, 12 into Stamina, and 3 into spirit. This left me with over 200 hp, 20 mana, and 33 stamina. Why all that health? It synergizes with Shield gain, which synergizes with your level 25 talent.

For Talents, either one of the level 5 talents are fine; I'd probably take Ore Refining over Blacksmith Apprentice though.
For level 10, Strong ends up being more useful than Ruling with my endgame build, but again take either one while leveling.
At level 15, I thought Offense and Defense Balance was much stronger than Divine Blessing, even while leveling. The damage buff is very small, while the shield can keep stacking as long as you have things to hit. It applies per target, not per swing, so you can get multiple procs from a crowd of enemies (or smacking a stack of boxes).
Level 20's buff is very minor but free healing. It won't change your playstyle much, but it saves you from topping off when you get scratched.
At level 25, your Knight shoots up in power by a massive amount if you take Shield Strike and focus on shielding. I feel like Reset Properties might be bugged -- I only saw an increase of 10 Melee Attack when I took it.

Once I unlocked Shield Strike, the goal became to avoid damage and keep the Energy Shield buff going. If the buff runs out, you lose all the Shield it provides, but if you refresh it before it runs out, it can keep building. By the time I reach the boss of an act, I can have 202 points of Shield on top of my 202 points of Health. This converts into 202 points of damage with EACH swing! Before getting to the boss, I hew through trash enemies fairly easily thanks to the smaller gains I get from Offense and Defense balance. So yeah, that's how I build Knight. A serviceable sword-and-boarder until level 25, then an unkillable angel of death afterwards.

The Mage:

Typical caster with an emphasis on spamming skills and kiting opponents. The main way to build mage is for offensive magic, but you can also play a support role if that's your preference. Their mainhand weapons are staves (you want the RANGED ones), while their offhand books give you a 0-cost shield on right-click. Feel free to use the shield on cooldown, it lasts about as long as it takes to recharge.

Their level 1 talent means they can top-off their mana pools by sprinkling staff attacks into their rotation. The gains are incredibly slow, but it gives you something to do while you wait on cooldowns! This also saves you from needing to invest heavily into Spirit; you can get away with a smallish mana pool as long as you emphasize replenishing through other means.

I found Fireball and Cone of Ice quite spammable and strong throughout the run; you can take either one, or take both of them like I did. Black Hole and Hellfire both filled a niche of AoE damage over time, though their cooldowns made them a bit less appealing later on (I stuck with Hellfire until act 3, then swapped to Cone of Ice). Thunder Chain and Frost Storm were not impressive, but usable. Flash felt like GARBAGE, I never found a good use for it. As for buffs, Spontaneous Combustion didn't feel worthy of a slot, but Resume and Wake Up were easily worth juggling between in the third slot (depending on whether I needed healing or mana recovery).

I had bad luck on Ring and Amulet drops on my run, but I imagine the various crit ones might synergize with level 15 and 25 talents. I wound up using Frost Necklace (my attacks were Cone of Ice, Fireball, and a fire staff) and Light and Dark Ring, both from Act 3. Meditation Ring didn't drop for me, but I didn't really miss it on this character thanks to alternate ways to replenish.

For Attributes, I started by sprinkling a few points in Stamina and Spirit, then went hard on Intelligence. The ranged nature of all your abilities and the free shield on your rmb makes it safer to neglect health, but I died a lot when I'd get reckless. Intelligence felt particularly strong to spam because of the level 15 talent, Magic Weapons. If I ever ran out of mana due to neglecting Spirit, I could still trounce enemies with my left-clicks. Stamina ends up serving a secondary purpose on the Mage: Wake Up converts your stamina into mana, so you need at least a few points of stamina to top off your mana pool.

Talents felt pretty flexible. Here's what I went for though:
A Botanist at level 5 seemed far more useful than Alchemist, especially since I had ways to manage my health and mana outside of potions.
For level 10, I found Energy Saving really good. Magic Blood probably isn't bad, but I think focusing on dodging is better in general.
For level 15, Magic Weapons seemed like a no-brainer for my style. It makes your skills a bit stronger while also making your left-clicks scale off Int. Harmony of Elements would probably be more appealing if the Mage had easy access to crit-gains, like Ranger does from its built-in Agi dependence. Maybe taking crit buffs on your ring and amulet slot makes Harmony of Elements better.
Meditate at level 20 is a small, constant trickle of mana. You have other ways to recover mana alraedy, but it's nice that it works while you're walking. No complaints.
I don't think I really understand what the level 25 talents do, and neither one felt very impactful. Elemental Precision is probably worth it if you stack crit through other means, but I didn't so I took Magic Damage. I think it basically just makes your skills trigger the little +Damage effects from weapons and rings? Disappointing capstones.

The Mage got 'online' pretty quickly for me, requiring no respec or specific gear to play. My encounters consisted of throwing a Fireball, and if anything survived, executing it with a left click. On tougher enemies, I'd cycle between Fireball and Cone of Ice, dodging and waiting for the cooldown if I didn't want to use my staff. If something nicked me (and I didn't get 1shot), I'd hit Resume and top myself off. Sometimes I'd switch from Cone to Hellfire before a group encounter, and if my mana ever went low I'd swap Resume to Wake Up. Ezpz.

The Ranger:

If you ever played a bow-only challenge in a Soulslike, or tried to play an archer in the earlier Elder Scrolls games where bows sucked, you'll know what to expect from this occupation. The damage starts off pretty pathetic, gets decent, and never really seems to become amazing if you do an Agi build like I did. Maybe there's an argument to be made for Int build, so I'll have to give it another go in the future. Your bow activates on left-click to attack from range, while your quiver lets you go into 3rd-person Aim mode when you right-click. Aim mode doesn't hit much harder, but takes a lot longer between shots. You can dodge very quickly while in Aim mode, though you have to "Aim" again after the dodges.

The 1st-level talent alleviates your need to invest too heavily into Stamina for spamming out attacks, but I still recommend taking a few points for the sake of dodging and sprinting. This suggested a focus on weapon attacks over skills to me, which I tried to lean into by taking more attack speed wherever it was found. In the end, crit probably would have done me better.

The ranger's damage mostly comes from mashing left-mouse attacks downrange. Thanks to Agi's secondary effect of increasing your crit by 1% per point, bow Rangers crit a lot. You can take the Keen talent and a Blood Ring to provide even more crit (10% each), leaving you with a minimum of 40% if you dump 20 points into Agile.

As far as skills go, Summon Beast can serve as a very unreliable tank that lasts forever and follows you around, while Hunting Instinct and Slam Arrow both buff your weapon damage. I think Freezing Trap is a very good and reliable kiting tool, and Back Jump Shot is a very unreliable but serviceable positioning tool with a bit of damage. The various elemental arrows don't do enough damage to feel worth it on an Agi build, but maybe there's an alternate playstyle there if you stack enough Skill modifiers. You don't have easy access to replenishment like a Mage does, so I just don't see the point.

Rings and Amulets that boost crit chance seem like natural fits, as well as things that boost attack speed. Again I got a Meditation Ring on my playthrough, and again I kept that baby on throughout the run for its QoL benefits. A late-game Light and Dark Ring from Act 3 adds flat elemental damage to every attack you do, which might be worth it if you stack speed over crit chance.

For attributes, I don't think it'll be a surprise to hear that I went pretty heavy into Agile throughout the run. Spirit, and Endurance felt even less necessary than on the previous 2 occupations, since I hardly used skills and never got hit (having beaten the game twice by this point, my dodges were on point). A bit of Stamina was very worthwhile early on to make sure I could dodge everything. If you're feeling less confident in your kiting skills, put some points in Endurance to survive a few mistakes.

Talents were minor boosts throughout, with a couple of outstanding selections.
At level 5, I chose Master of Survival over Cooker since I didn't use cooking very much. More gathers means more chaff to sell, was my mentality.
For level 10, both are quite good. Keen brings your crit chance up by 10% and your crit damage up by 20%, while Corrosive Arrow gives you 10% Penetration. While levelling I took Keen, and when I had my 5-piece Gladiator set, I swapped to Corrosive Arrow. What you take probably depends on your ring/amulet drops.
For level 15, Short Bow seemed much more viable than Sniper. While Aimed attacks are a bit harder-hitting, the huge delay after dodging and when switching into the stance make it so unwieldy in a solo run. Maybe the multiplayer meta is to use Sniper? Feel free to comment if you've got insight on this. The speed effect is not very noticeable.
A Rapid March was a minor-at-best (and a placebo at worse...) benefit to your movespeed.
For level 25, I think an argument could be made for Bone-Piercing if you have very bad luck on weapon drops, since it adds a solid amount of damage against Act 3 bosses. Against trash you won't notice the tiny bonus damage though. Continuous Attack is effectively a 33% dps boost to your left-clicks, and felt much more noticable against everything to me.

That sums it up. While clearing acts, I spent an unhealthy amount of time back-dodging and plinking away with wet noodles my arrows. Dangerous enemies got the freeze trap, and sometimes my wolf would actually distract stuff long enough to be killed. By the time I had an upgraded bow, quiver, decent ring and amulet, and my level 25 talents, I kind of snowballed into something that killed fast enough to no longer die from reckless impatience, and instead I died to smug carelessness as I tried to finish mobs off before they forced me to reposition. It wasn't a hard character to play, but it was my least favourite of the 3 I had played by this point.

The Warrior:

Pain. Pain! The Warrior is supposed to be a more dps-focused melee option when compared to the defence-oriented Knight, but in practice I found it weaker at everything. Left clicks are nothing special, just a melee strike with a different hitbox depending on your weapon type. Your armguard's right-clicks however give you a weak attack that doubles as a gap-closer, seems to grant i-frames, and seems to stagger enemies easier than your weapon hits. Early on, you can rely a lot on that armguard to set up attacks, but later on you won't break trash mobs out of their attacks consistently enough to follow-through with your own swing.

Rage replaces mana for this character, which grants it a totally different resource-management experience. I didn't get a Meditation Ring on mine, but I don't expect it would synergize since mana potions don't grant rage (if anyone knows better, please leave a comment). The 1st-level talent Anger is what enables you to build rage on attacks. Fun fact: breaking boxes and other clutter gives you rage, which helps a ton in some stages of the game. Before a big fight, you can whack a pile of crates and be ready to spam abilities right away.

I went for a light attack build, taking Strength for my damage. Again, maybe there's an argument to be made for Int builds, but I found Warrior skills took too long to wind up and recover from. Also, the whole Rage mechanic meant you'd be forced to melee anyways if you wanted to use skills. Warrior has a few Talent synergies to make crits stronger and more frequent, so I wonder if an Agile Warrior might out-dps a Strength Warrior thanks to the 20% additional crit? By Act 3, I found my weapon's Impact Force to be iffy anyways... so it bears considering.

For Skills, Warrior has slashes, gap-closers, healing abilities, pretty much what you'd expect from the 'fantasy barbarian' archetype. Throwing Axe is a useful finisher early on, giving a weak ranged attack. Sharpening seemed like an obvious choice, but the flat +damage is so weak that it becomes forgettable. In the end, I settled on 3 skills: Anger (converts hp to rage and does AoE damage), An Eruption of Anger (converts rage to HP and does a bit of damage), and Demon Form (a short-duration buff that makes you faster and lets you heal by attacking).

As far as gear goes, you're so reliant on drops to stay viable compared to the other classes. Light attacks don't stagger reliably by Act 2, which means you eat a lot of attacks that ranged classes would avoid. The warrior's lack of parry compared to the Knight means you can't reliably stagger enemies, and the cooldown on your right-click prevents you from using the i-frames and Impact force as much as you'd like. I felt like rings and amulets that increased Crit were obvious picks for my Talent selection (in my case the Blood Ring and Assassin Pendant), but stuff that increases attack speed or adds flat damage would also be good.

For Attributes, the Warrior needs a minimum amount of Spirit more than any other build (at LEAST 7 spirit total for 65 Rage). Ensure you can cast Demon Form, it's what keeps you alive. Get some Stamina to counteract your armor penalty, dump points into Endurance to make up for your squishiness, and pile on Strength to try and make fights shorter. In theory, Strength should be how you force attack openings (it makes Impact Force stronger), but from my experience it became so unreliable that I gave up on stunning enemies by Act 3.

(The +1 damage gain per Strength is way more noticeable early game, which leaves me wondering again if maybe Int or Agi is the way to go?)

Talents synergize quite well thoughout the tree, but nothing really shoots you up in power like the Knight or Ranger's 25 talents or the Mage's level 15 talent.
For level 5, I took Wilderness Survival Master to make it easier to get my yellow herbs. Blacksmith apprentice is probably a solid pick though, given Warrior's massive reliance on gear throughout the run.
For level 10, I took Brutal for the +30% crit damage. At first, it does very little, but just 5 more levels gets you its synergy. Weapon Specialization grants a small boost of +6, so it can be good while leveling if you don't mind respeccing by ~level 20.
Anger Control at level 15 seems counterproductive (you'll DIE if you get hit; Warrior is not tanky). Fury, meanwhile, has a weird anti-synergy with the playstyle (you lose DPS by spending rage, since full rage grants 30% crit chance) but is the obvious choice to me. It scales on the % of Rage you have, not the amount, so there's no additional benefits to putting all your points in spirit.
Level 25 leaves you wishing you could steal talents from the other occupations. The Last Stand seems good in theory, but it's too risky to build for. The unnamed right-side talent makes your Rage decay quicker, in exchange for free sustain. I think it's worth taking, given that all my skills are geared towards healing.

I wish I could cap this off with a blurb about the endgame build and playstyle, but I'll have to end this section on a sour note instead. Out of all 4 playthroughs, the Warrior was by far my most difficult and least rewarding one. I died to the final Act 2 boss so many times that I think I entered Act 3 at level 23! Throughout the run, I emphasized trying to carefully space myself and use charged attacks when trash mobs aggro'd me. Rolling through their attacks to use a light attack often ended in me getting whacked by their followup, and when more than 2 enemies were in a room I'd have a 50/50 chance of dying to their combined staggered attacks. Right-click was my favourite ability on this occupation, since it cost 0 rage to use and gave me full immunity to poise through enemy attacks. The problem with rage is that it would often deteriorate between mob packs, so I couldn't open with an axe throw or a leap. Additionally, the fancy skills didn't hit very hard or come out fast enough to use safely. By level 25, I settled on a crit-focused light attack build that regenerated through Demon Form when I'd inevitably get chunked for like half my health-bar. Again, fully viable but not fun.

If the right-click worked more like Knight's Parry skill (so, no cooldown or rage cost, but it keeps the immunity and stun), I think Warrior would be far easier to play without being overpowered. The (short, to be fair) cooldown is what kills it for me.

(Spoilers on puzzles and bosses, obviously)

I'll split this section into 3 parts, though I could probably get away with just 2 segments.

Generally, Act 1 should be a breeze to get through up to the end boss. He's a bit of a wake-up call compared to the rest of the act; if you find him too difficult, go farm some upgrades on your weapon and try again. Act 2 feels like a bit of a slump for my playthroughs, where i don't have enough Attributes invested in my health and stamina to avoid being gear-checked. Once upgades are available though, it mellows out. The 3rd boss feels much more difficult for melee than ranged, but I think that might just be because I kept losing track of the boss while dealing with his summons. Act 3 felt like another big gear-check at first, but unlike Acts 1 and 2, hitting level 25 was a pretty nice way to mellow out the difficulty curve before better weapons dropped. The first boss of the act felt like the hardest of the 3, unlike in the previous 2 acts.

0.5) Tutorial Beach

It's a very short level that teaches you about movement, gear, potions, locking-on, and all that basic stuff. 2 things to kill, and a smattering of drops to gather.

I don't have much to say about the layout except this 1 thing: If you break the boxes on either side of the tavern, you can find a chest behind the building. It contains a very crappy Defence Ring that gives you a minor boost early on. I don't think you can get the ring after the tutorial's over, but it's not worth resetting your run for.

1-1) Suburbs

A very easy first level. You won't have to fight more than 2 enemies at a time, and they should go down in 2 to 3 hits. There's a combination puzzle that unlocks a chest, and the boss is a big boy with a sharp stick and very telegraphed attacks.

Make sure you keep your eyes peeled for fish in each body of water. The small pond with a bridge has a fish, but it's sometimes hard to spot. The one with the slime and the runestone is much easier to spot.

To solve the puzzle, you have to observe the 3 runes atop the locked chest, and interact with the nearby runestones in the same order. The order is randomised each time, but the shapes are easy enough to distinguish and memorise that you shouldn't need to jot them down. Chests tend to have better loot than enemies drop, but they can only be opened once per character.

The boss can be beaten by rolling past his attack and smacking his butt, just like any old-fashioned Soulslike boss. He has one combo attack that feels really hard to avoid, so make sure you're topped up in case he uses that one. The other attacks are easy to dodge, and you can get through it hitless with some patience. Hopefully he drops something good for your class.

1-2) Woodland

A gentle difficulty curve here. Enemies are a little tankier, you can fight an optional miniboss that guards a chest, and there's a mission to find a missing merchant here. Don't waste your Copper Keys on the door in this stage unless you've got 3 of them; it unlocks a very small shortcut here and isn't worth missing out on future locked doors.

Again, you can find a fish in the little pond here, and you can get lucky with meat drops from the various animals that dot the map. Same as before, keep your eyes peeled for materials and chests while you push through.

Beside a small goblin camp is a Copper deposit and a fog gate. If you go through there, you'll find a big golem. You can technically run past him and loot the chest without having to kill him, but he's quite slow and only has 2 different moves. The first move is a kick (either foot) that comes out faster and weaker than the second move. His other move is a big slam that has an awkward dodge timing, chances are you'll get roll-caught out of your early dodge for a huge chunk of your HP. In the next level he gets demoted to a regular field monster, poor thing.

Also beside the goblin camp is a side-path that leads to the merchant. You can eat his dinner for some free healing. He wants your help getting his supplies back in exchange for 100 gold, which means backtracking once you've killed the boss...

To solve the puzzle, you have to push the blocks so they cover the glowing floor tiles. Since you cannot PULL them, only PUSH them, you can screw up and make it unwinnable. While you can't push the blocks outside their little 4x4 puzzle area, you can freely exit without them resetting; use this to your advantage.

The boss is a big spider. She's got some mobility, but as long as you don't stand in front of her
or in her poison pools, she's very easy to punish. She'll hop out of bounds when injured and summon 3 cocoons a couple of times throughout the fight, they can either be killed before they hatch or you'll have to fight smaller spiders. Once again, hopefully she drops something good.

1-3 Deep

I found this one's boss a bit steeper of a curve than the first two zones. No puzzle; instead you have a chest in an area locked behind a door. It takes a copper key to open. It feels like the easiest area to farm Meat on, due to both the guaranteed meat drop from a deer, and the large number of beasts. The boss is brutal: hits hard, has lots of health, mobility, and often attacks in wide sweeping double- or triple-hits.

Bears have an attack that feels hard to read for me. I don't know if the windup is too short, or if the 'tell' is too subtle, but the little forward boop attack they throw feels unreadable. Best to try and keep yourself away from their front altogether, and only attack when they're in a swipe animation. Aside from bears, the rest of the enemies are familiar and simple.

The mushroom field can be a real pain to get through. Mushrooms don't grant xp or drop loot, so I found the best course of action was to try and sprint/roll past them. I'd get clipped by their AoE more often than I'd like, but that's mostly because my stamina bar was so low at that point in the game.

When you reach the cyclops, be prepared for a tough fight. Stock up on healing potions, and/or consider farming a weapon and some upgrades. Take it slow at first, and expect his attacks to have follow-ups. Once you get the hang of his tells, he becomes as easy to handle as the previous two, just with much more health and a much harder punishment for mis-reading. Hopefully he drops something nice; if you still haven't upgraded your mainhand and offhand yet, I strongly recommend you do so before Act 2.

2-1) Upper Layer

The first time you step into Act 2 feels less like a difficulty bump and more like jumping off a sheer cliff. Trash mobs can 2-shot you if you've neglected your HP, and they regularly come at you in packs of 2 or 3 now. There's a puzzle here (you have to find and activate 3 pillars), but the treasure can only be accessed after killing the boss. There are also several traps that either activate on a pressure plate or swing on a timer. No notable enemies, just an overall harder pack of trash than the Act 1 mobs.

The pillars appear in the same place each time. One is in a prison cell that you have to open by hitting a button, one is in a small cell found in a hallway filled with spike traps, and one is found in a crumbling hallway with humanoid enemies. Shame you have to actually kill the boss to access the loot, because you're really starving for upgrades this early on.

If you have a copper key, there's a small optional shortcut that can be unlocked with a hellhound-type enemy and a treasure chest. Also, the leftmost cell in that hallway with the spikes and the pillar has a small path that leads to another chest.

The boss for this area is a dual-enemy fight. One guy swings a fire hammer, the other shoots an ice bow. You can use the pillars to break line-of-sight; I recommend killing the hammerer first. The attacks tend to be very easy to read and react to, but cover wide areas. The hardest part of the fight is just avoiding the 2v1: the archer moves around, and the pillars can be broken.

2-2) Middle Level

More of the same, but with a couple of really deadly rooms and some really annoying enemies. There's a light-based puzzle that relies on rotating pieces of a circle by using 3 buttons. I believe the solution is the same each time. There are also 3 notable enemies that suck marginally more than the rest of them.

For the puzzle (left button =1, middle button = 2, right button = 3): If you don't want to try it yourself, and assuming the solution is the same each time: 1, 3, 2, 3, 1, 2

The first of the new annoying enemies you encounter will probably be the dual-scythe knight. it's tanky, has a lot of fast attack strings, and seems difficult to stagger. The second of the new guys is a big two-handed hammer knight. It's got strangely disjointed attacks that I found hard to dodge. The third is a floating caster that teleports, and has several different attack types. As long as you don't treat them like the generic trash mobs you fought earlier, they won't catch you off guard. There's a bit of randomness to the order of some areas, so maybe your order will vary.

As for the boss, she's really hard if you neglected your stamina bar. She does several attack strings before giving you an opening, which means you'll have to roll through more than just 1 or 2 attacks. Additionally, she's got different timings in her attack chains, with some delayed rollcatches and some fast spins. Finally, she has 2 different spells that are positional. The first is a lightning spell that makes a ring around her, followed by a closer ring around her. The second one is a roomwide AoE where she makes 2 circles on the ground you need to run into for safety. Her health is inconveniently high, but she can be staggered reliably for damage windows. I'd call her the first major 'patience test' though.

2-3) Lower Level

A new type of skeleton enemy lurks here, but it's honestly not tough compared to the new guys introduced in 2-2. He's got a leap that might catch you off guard the first time. No puzzles here, but there are quite a few chests and a door that requires an Iron Key to open. Behind that locked door, you'll find several iron deposits to mine, a chest, and a merchant. The boss reminds me of Cyclops, being a big melee guy with an enrage mechanic and lots of melee AoE swings.

There are a couple of rooms here that are crammed with 3 or more enemies. You'll want to use choke points like doorways to thin the crowd, or risk getting ganked by the sheer volume of chaff. Getting to the boss takes a bit of time, but it isn't difficult; a lot of the more dangerous rooms are guarding chests that you don't need to open on subsequent attempts. The boss himself can be a skill check, thanks to the variety of attacks he has. There's not much else to say about the zone.

But my god, that boss. When you reach him, you'll probably have enough health to survive a single attack at best. If you get hit and try to pop a health potion recklessly, he'll punish your heal before you can get out of the animation. He's got several sweeping attacks that shoot projectiles, and a big slam with a delayed AoE. He summons skeletons throughout the battle that walk over to him and heal him; you can kill them to deprive him of their benefit. Sometimes I find him manageable after getting through 2-2's boss, but other times I get stuck real hard on this dude and have to do 2-3 runs before I can succeed. Go figure. Be patient, read his moves, and don't fall for the delayed AoE bait. Hope he drops something good; Act 3 is another big step up.

3-1) Gobi

Aside from how much HP everything has, I really like the enemies in this region. There's a variety of different attack types from both the animals and the humanoids. Spitters and archers give some ranged threats, bulls and 2-handed fighters give some mobile tanky melee fighters, and then there's fun stuff like crocs, flail-users, and twin-dagger fighters. Also, another area puzzle.

Throughout the Gobi you'll find 3 pressure-plates with conveniently placed stone blocks near them. One's in a dry area around a corner, one's submerged in water, and one's in a random L-shaped intersection. Open all 3, and a room opens near the boss gate/statue with a chest.

Another fog gate presents a miniboss-turned-regular-enemy-guarding-a-chest, like the one in Act 1. In this case, he's a big green punchy fellow that moves way faster than his bulk suggests. You might consider skipping the fight until you get a better weapon.

This area's boss is (in my opinion) the hardest boss in the game. He doesn't have that much HP, but he has so many different types of attacks and skills that can chain together in inconvenient ways. He's a caster with access to fire magic, lightning spells, ice shards, and water tornadoes. When he teleports, he leaves behind delayed exposives. And he sometimes shrouds himself in a lightning shield that hurts you when you attack him. The individual moves are pretty easy to read and understand, but sometimes you lose sight of him for a moment and get shredded by another spell before you see it coming. If you find yourself getting rocked by the guy, just remember that there's no enrage timer and take things super slow.

He's the only source for the level 25 set pants, so he's worth farming as soon as you feel you can.

3-2) Dune

That big green miniboss guy becomes a regular enemy here, but otherwise there's not too much to report on. There's another miniboss-chest fog wall that introduces a trash mob from the following zone, one that I found a lot easier to fight. Finally, there's a puzzle room with a chest.

This miniboss is a big tan lizard. Most of its attacks are simple frontal swipes and bites that you can punish by rolling towards his side. The ONLY dangerous attack that you should worry about is a big AoE roar he does; when you see the wind-up, you have to give him space to scream. Melee builds can't really punish him for that one, but ranged characters can use it as a damage window.

The puzzle is basic geometry. You have to rotate mirrors so that a beam of light bounces from its source lantern to a glowy destination lantern. The mirrors can be rotated as much as you'd like, and it causes no harm when you pass through it, so don't be afraid of getting stuck and having to reset.

The boss is a bit of a breather after the last one. He's slow-moving, easy to read, and can be reaction-rolled without trouble. He summons tentacles occasionally which you can kill in a couple of hits, spits acid either all around him in a short AoE or forward in a fan, and swings with his hands. As long as you don't get careless (he hits hard and has a lot of health), you should find this one easy.

He drops the level 25 set chest and helmet, so again try to farm him when you're able to. I'd probably farm this guy's gear before the elemental mage from 3-1, and hope for weapon drops at the same time.

3-3) Desert

The final zone. Lots of enemies in groups of 3 or 4, usually with 1 ranged character mixed in. Those tan lizards are here in force, but there's no puzzle or secret to worry about. Dead ends usually have a treasure chest or silver vein, so it's worth exploring. Finally, if you find Silver Keys, there are 2 doors close to one another that each require one. The rightmost door opens to another Merchant room, while the leftmost door is an optional shortcut.

Getting to the boss can be rough if you're bad against multiple enemies. I find the humanoids with large weapons to be the most deceptively dangerous foes here, but everything hits hard. I guess I tend to assume they'll stagger faster than they do. As for the boss? The big green dragon you fight at the end of the game feels worthy of Act 3, but not worthy of its finale. Mechanically it seems closer to the spider from act 1 than anything else: the only dangerous part is directly in front of it, and it's got some repositioning moves to worry about.

When it's on the ground, it either does 1 or 2 claw attacks forward, or breathes fire. Both are super easy to dodge and punish (if you're unsure of the window of opportunity, just attack once). It's your fight to lose, basically. When airborn, the dragon either shoots a cone of fireballs that you can iframe through, or does a big wide breath attack that you can sprint sideways to avoid. I find the aerial attacks harder to deal with, but not by much.

He drops the level 25 set gloves and boots, so again try to farm him when you're able to.

Thanks again for reading, hopefully this guide helps anyone who's struggling with the sudden difficulty spikes that can occur throughout the latter part of the game. Once I cleared it my first time around, subsequent playthroughs felt much easier.

If there are 2 things you take away from this big wall of text, I hope it's the following:

- Just learning the dodge timings and attack windows is a much bigger boon to your survival than your gear and build choices would be, since every attack is avoidable and there are no timers.
- Damage output is gear-dependent throughout most of the game, which means kill-speed is out of your control. Even crafting weapons requires you to get lucky with blueprint drops!

With those 2 things in mind, you should consider the decision to push into the next stage as a balancing act between time spent farming lower-risk areas for small gains and time spent whittling away at big health bars for larger gains. Nothing's stopping you from getting +5 weapons and armours before progressing to the next act, but I found it unnecessary.

If you have any feedback, feel free to leave a comment. And if you think you can write a better guide, I definitely encourage you to do so! There are a few things I want to add later, but I've played enough of this game to sate myself for the time being. Maybe down the line when a new patch drops I'll do a fresh run and take note of those things.