If you’re starting out playing Diablo 3, you might find yourself a bit frustrated at times because of the way the drop system works. Essentially, you will quickly depend upon the Auction House to handle all your upgrades. However, the Auction House tends to be horribly overpriced at all times. So what can you do to improve your ability to make money without having to buy gold?
The big gold comes only in later stages in the game when you have high magic find and are capable of farming out areas and selling them at similar outrageous prices on the Auction House. At lower levels though, gold is very hard to farm out just in repeating acts the way you would do things at later stages in the game. Instead, what you need to focus on is saving all your low level rares and possibly legendaries as you move up in levels.
I believe the lowest level rare that you can equip requires level 4. But most rares from levels 4 through roughly 30 can sell for some decent coin. You can sell most from between 5-20k. The reason this occurs is that other people are looking to level their guys fast, especially those with deeper pockets. So 5-20k for a single item may not feel like much for advanced players.
Usually, as I level new characters up, I try to ensure that my equipment’s required level, especially my items below level 30, matches my level as much as possible. The problem is that as you level, your equipment’s capabilities degrade quite quickly and you’ll need better stats so that you can one shot monsters. If you find yourself struggling to defeat mobs, that simply means you’ll need better gear immediately.
One major issue in leveling is that the gear that you find is quite bad. In fact, the gear you find tends to be a few levels behind where you are. While at lower levels this shouldn’t make too great of a difference, as you get into Acts 2 and 3, you’ll find yourself struggling with the drops. However, you can sell your left over gear on the Auction House and try to find better gear (especially weapons).
If you still encounter issues where you’re just not plowing through things fast enough, you might have to re-run areas to try and get rares that you can sell on the Auction House. I prefer saving my gear for my alts in case I want to level new guys (well, this isn’t the case anymore since I have 5 60’s), but for at least your first character, you should definitely sell your old gear on the Auction House.
Lastly, you probably should avoid spending money on upgrading the blacksmith and jewelcrafter initially. While the jewelcrafter is necessary down the road, when you start out, gems really won’t make much of a difference.
Once you hit level 30, if you haven’t beaten normal mode and find yourself having a lot of difficulty still, the one item I would suggest buying with real money (if you still lack gold) is a Spectrum. A well rolled Spectrum perhaps is one of the best investments you can make into Diablo 3. At 300-400 DPS, these items will allow you to faceroll the end of Act 4 (if you haven’t already), Nightmare and the beginning of Hell. On top of that, you can hand this item down to your other characters as they level. But doing this will allow you to not just plow through these acts, but allow you to farm them with ease and pick up rares that you can sell on the Auction House. I would suggest farming normal mode a bit just to make enough gold to get better upgrades down the road.