Armor is physical Protection, the higher the Armor rating, the more Damage Reduction you will have, Damage Reduction is your friend here - especially if you are playing a build with a lot of melee.

Evasion is pretty much avoiding damage at all, eg. Dodging attacks, this is influenced by Dexterity, there are some builds which also rely on high evasion.

Energy Shield is a kind of second skin, that has to be worn off by Attacks, the Energy shield protects pretty good, and there are a couple of builds that heavily rely solely on Energy Shield.

With those three basics set aside, there is much to be said, how this can influence leveling.

There is one Item that is a pretty good starting unique... "Tabula Rasa" but don't rely on that one too much, it will come back to you and bite you into your sorry behind - especially if you don't keep the aforementioned three things into the back of your mind.

Another thing related to those three basics that cause people to squish, is to much looking into a build that heavily relies on one or two of the attributes, and then mixing in a third or second one.

Yes, items with the "ideal" set-up are pretty "Rare" - hence the moniker, rarity is pretty much also a slapp up term, if you start to craft. But that is another topic.

Often the character death was caused by a suddenly appearing "on death" effect like toxic clouds, lightning traps or pyroclastic balls.

And that is pretty bad, your level in Resistance got worsened after the 10th chapter, and you pretty much have to add up Resistances again (hopefully beyond the cap of 75 % - keep that in mind please).

There are a lot of Atributes that are important in the game, but you have to deal with elemental and chaos damage all the time, therefore it is pretty bad to not giving them a second thought and raising them to the limit.

And Chaos damage is pretty special in here too... toxic ground for example, acid spots and so on, can circumvent the energy shield, in the game so much is going on that at times you don't notice that you are standing on something... volatile... and that's it... dead again... another crappy run through the empty halls of shame.

Always keep track on your resistances, they are as important as life itself.

Wrong! Sadly Immunities are sometimes pretty much a nice thing to have, they actually can be overvalued.

It is nice not to get frozen up with your nifty "Wanderlust" shoes. Or to become immune for a short time with one of your flasks... but then again. If you die because a Strongbox froze you for a short ammount of time - you have not kept track of the above attributes.

As long as you are low Level up to a certain threshold, those uniques can be helpful, raise your survivability, but later on they don't.

Oh yes, freezing is pretty evil here... but you can also freeze, with one of my most "favored" build, most of the time my enemies can't even act, because they are frozen solid, and again, and again, and again... it is nice to see the Health counter of some Boss, dwindle into nothingness and... oh wait, he hit me again... Why am I so damn stupid to always forget to put up the portal right in front of the arena... argh!

Again, don't rely too much on those Imunities too, a higher movement rate is always superior to some limited immunity. Put Immunities on your flasks! Well, if they can be enchanted at all, that is... Uniques again...

This said, there are some uniques that even at high levels make a lot of sense, especially if you don't have either the rares to make a build work out fine, or if you have kind of "I am a budget-guy" mindset. Your Body Armor or Long-Bow is not yet six linked? Four might suffice, I dare say. Wait for a later Opportunity to set up your envisioned build. Use the other two slots for Minions or Auras.

Oh Wow, we are nearing the end of this drab.

As I mentioned Mobility is pretty important, so have set up at least one "Last resort" mobility Skill with Second wind and some other nifty utility. Dash, Flame Dash, whatever.

Sometimes it is better too outrun a foe, that to get clobbered into pieces.

Items with bonus Level or build in Skill gems are of course superior to most other Items for some builds, the bonus in Damage is an added benefit and can go a long, long way.

That said, some build in skills are outright crap because at one point or another, that given skill got nerved into the ground.

It is pretty... well, no, not pretty really - let's talk about a bit about gambling and corruption, okay?

You can go lucky and with a single Vaal Orb generate some very, very good Item with "eight" Mods.

But then again... you can also end with one ring, for the dung heap outside.

Aside of that, you can also go lucky with quality with your Vaal-Orb... and though Implicits are sometimes... "Meh"... At least the quality of a gem can get pretty important because of the added bonus Mod there...

But still, very, very risky... an added bonus of 1 to 10 % on a mod can do a lot... but haven already risen a gem into level 20... then giving it a quality of 20 % Starting anew with the same gem, only to have it crap out... oh hell... I think that's what you might call "Throwing Pearls before Swine"...

It's gambling - it's risky.

Egad, that is done and worn out. I might pretty much add some more wisdom to you whippersnappers.

"This game is to RNG based!" - Sorry, that isn't even an argument. Look at those cherrished games like Diablo or Diablo II (NO - DIABLO III is not cherrished at all! End of Line!) they all had RNG in there - and RND has been a basis for all RPG's from the begining. Look at the even more cherrished Pen and Paper games... aside some pretty crappy stuff like the Narutto Pen and Paper RPG... (Bleach, I need Bleach, I need to rinse my trotters in it... I actually wrote that Weabo stuff).

"It is too hard!" - That is part of the fun, gaming with consequences - either you learn, or you die.

"I am always out farming because I can't get my six link..." - Well, no offense but, how about trying to wait till you unlocked six linking on yer damn werkbank? It's pretty early in the Mapping process... so, no, not really an offense. Farm yourself some Currencies, swap them, swap through trading - if you like (i am not really the kind of trading guy at all, so I am out farming all the time... and trying out new builds, now and then)...

"**whine and whimper** I die all the time, and I can't even get beyond Act five!" - well, another one who fell for the dark side.