Woolie's Sunder Leveling (ALL ASCENDANCIES)

your weapon is BY FAR your most-important piece of gear - refer to the base type I include above for the "best" one available to you, at each point.

for the rest of the gear shown above, SIMPLY LOOK AT THEIR STATS - the base types are irrelevant (you gotta work with whatever you get!)

UPGRADING YOUR GEAR

at any point in a run, gambling for items (using gold) is the simplest and best option for acquiring easy upgrades. each Act's town has a different NPC for gambling - simply click on each of them until you see "Gamble for Items" as an option.

-- WEAPON --

ACTS 1-3
If you need a better weapon, you have two options:

1. Simply use any Essence (dropped by the "crystallized" monsters) or Alchemy Orb on any common 2h axe.
   This will upgrade it to rare and roll it with random stats (aside from the essence mod)
   I RECOMMEND YOU USE THIS METHOD
2. Go to a vendor and sell these things ALL TOGETHER:
3. • the best 2H axe basetype available (buy from your current Act's vendor; rarity doesn't matter)
   • a magic or rare Rustic Sash (a rare one will give you a better weapon!)
   • a single Blacksmith's Whetstone

This gives you an axe with a guaranteed "% increased physical damage" roll of up to 64% (based on the rarity of the Rustic Sash you used).

ACTS 4-10

• Buy the best 2H axe available to you (from your current Act's vendor; you're looking for high base damage, not necessarily attack speed)
• Use an Orb of Scouring on it (only if it's not already common-rarity)
• Apply an Essence, an Orb of Alchemy, or an Orb of Binding on it, hoping for decent "physical damage" stats (both % AND +) with some attack speed.
• If you hit something decent, use as many Blacksmith's Whetstones as necessary (1–4) to reach 20% quality.

If you landed only ONE of "% increased physical damage" OR "adds x to x physical damage" but you ALSO landed "increased attack speed", take the axe into your hideout's Crafting Bench (talk to Helena in Act 2, if you don't have a hideout) and craft whichever "phys" stat is missing, if possible (hold the "alt" key while hovering over an item to see its affixes - the max is 3 prefixes and 3 suffixes)

DO NOT SPEND YOUR CHAOS ORBS ON THIS CRAFT! CHOOSE A LOWER TIER (should cost Alteration or Transmutation orbs)

-- ARMOR & JEWELRY --

• You're simply looking for as much LIFE and RESISTANCES as possible.
• Look to equip "armor" or "armor/evasion" basetypes, as they have the highest chance at the correct-color sockets.

Again, remember to utilize your CRAFTING BENCH to fill one empty affix slot on an item!