Some other things: definitely stack up on various potions and elixirs, especially protection elixirs from King's Fort. City of Dead can drop Resurrection consumables which can revive a dead character to full health. For stat results during combinations; damage, health, and lifesteal will all remain full strength on the first item no matter what else you combine; attack speed, movement speed, and critical damage will gradually drop to 0 if you don't include items with at least 2/3 the value of the stat on the first item; crit chance will always decay in a combination, so reserve an item to be your dedicated crit chance giver and never involve it in a combination. Sorry for misspelling your username before gwindon
Grindon, I'd recommend taking whatever soulbound equipment you've got and combining it with drops giving high damage and health. Aim for items from Hell's Gate itself, and if that's not feasible use the equipment in City of Dead, where you might even get lucky enough for a Resurrection consumable. If you don't have enough combination charges, just keep exploring dungeons until you get Charge Stones, because they become available as loot starting at Ascension Level 3. Try to incorporate some lifesteal for the extra sustain, and if you're not already I'd recommend using the Archer since he's capable of the highest DPS in the game. I think some decent stat benchmarks to aim for would be at least 5 million damage, 60 million health, and 1.5-2 attack speed. It should help you to last longer in Hell's Gate, and if you've got some decent DPS with a decent amount of lifesteal, you should be able to get through. Hope this helps a bit
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