In fact, the first 3 hours or so is probably the worst part of the entire game. Echtra if you ever see this, doing 1 damage to mobs with 900 HP isn’t fun. In comparison, my second character (the Forged), managed to beat Act 1 in just under 4 hours. Took 15 hours to beat Act 1, because I cleared every map and killed all the elites, too. My first character, a Sharpshooter who has an easier time to begin with. Before the HP nerf to ridiculous it was even worse.

The early game is rough. Quite painful in fact.

I ran straight to the end bosses for the quest objectives for the entirety of Act 1 and stayed at least 1 level above the different areas levels. This is in part due to the obscenely high spawn rate for mobs and the generous exp gains.

You can skip most of the trash mobs and still be over-levelled. At least at the time of writing this guide, you can not just ignore elites but about 80% of the maps mobs.

They’re also the most likely things to kill you. I mean you can really ignore these mobs for the entirety of Act 1 as the TTK versus rewards isn’t worth it at all, which is unfortunate.

At the least, until you have your Tier 1 movement skill (for this build is level 6), to make sure you can get out of harms way if needed. Avoid / ignore elite mobs and packs completely in the early game. By early game I mean the first 10 levels or so.Guide to Builds, Skill Tree (for All Levels) General Tips & Tricks

Torchlight 3 build calculator