I hit a wall in Arms of God at Act 4. Not a skill wall — an economy wall. I was carrying 210,000 Gold I couldn't spend, zero Blood Crystals, and a main weapon stuck at +9 because I'd dumped Iron Shards into three swords I replaced an hour later.
The fix wasn't grinding. It was buying in the right order from the start.
The five currencies, and which two are traps:
- Gold — common early, useless late. You'll have 200k you can't spend by Act 4. Spend it like it's free.
- Iron Shards — the real bottleneck. Needed for weapon upgrades 11-15 and the Cathedral. Bottlenecked by drop rates, not farmable.
- Divine Essence — rare throughout. Every wrong spend costs you a respec.
- Blood Crystals — extremely rare. Limited supply, gone forever if wasted.
- Soul Fragments — boss drops only. Don't spend on non-meta upgrades.
The rule: spend Gold like it's free, hoard Divine Essence and Blood Crystals like they're going out of style.
I wrote up the full act-by-act purchase order, including the Shrine discount timing most people miss: what to buy first in Arms of God
Took me about 50 hours to figure this out the hard way. Hope it saves you the Act 4 wall.
