{
"post": {
"title": "What are the most important guides and things to know as a potential new player coming from diablo?",
"selftext": "I had my fill of Diablo and maybe want something a little more, but PoE just seems like so much. I've always heard and been told you have to follow guides and have 30 tabs open on your second monitor at all times for hundreds of hours and multiple seasons before you even have a chance of understanding anything and even more time and seasons before you're capable of creating a build without following someone else's guide to a T.\n\nSo that raises the questions: what are the most important gear and skill systems to 'learn first?' like what's the stuff that I can basically not worry about until hundreds of hours later, and what's the stuff I have to worry about for the first hundreds of hours?\n\nWhat specifically are the best guides for onboarding players. I would really appreciate a guide that goes step by step by step with the millions of systems in the game and goes like \"okay level 1 you should do this. Level 5 you get introduced to x . Here's how x works. Level 7 you get access to Y. Here's how Y works and why Y matters. Level 9 you can combine x and y in z way. You should always be changing your gear if these stats are better, and you should always have entirely new gear equipped every Z levels you level up\" type of stuff.\n\nKeep in mind my only arpg experience so far has been diablo 4, so a lot of stuff will be massively increased in complexity to me. I've heard the gem socket system is a bazillion times more annoying and complicated than Diablo 4 where it's just pick gem, socket gem, get stats for example. I've heard PoE has colors, number links? Quality of the sockets themselves, limitations of what can go in what sockets, etc.\n\nAlso, are there any mods or overlays that are allowed that can help make sense of the information overload? I know mods and overlays are touchy subjects with different developers so I wonder what PoEs stance is. \n\nHonestly information overload is my biggest concern and trying to make sense of the quintillion stats and sockets and enchantments on things while also dealing with a million numbers and stats from 50 other gear and itemization systems and wondering what on earth justifies an upgrade or what I want on gear and gems",
"url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/14tghkq/what_are_the_most_important_guides_and_things_to/"
},
"comments": [
{
"body": "Man all these comments make me nervous that new players are getting scared away.\n\nDownload the game and play it. You don't need loot filters, you don't need guides, you don't need stash tabs. Just play the game. Your brain will tell you when you are confused or when you want more information and you can look it up then.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Tbf, I've been playing since 1.0 and introduced PoE to most of my friends. People get hooked for different things. Some love the leveling and build making side, while others ask for a meta build before creating their character...\r\n\nI do think people overestimate the PoE difficulty and had my most \"go, go, go\" friend going blind and reaching the Shaper after some help (2.4) just fine, but PoE has a lot of information to digest and someone to streamline the basics can really help the process."
},
{
"body": "Seriously, I played the game blind a couple seasons ago for the first time, started with Kalandra. It wasn’t that rough. I made it up to maps before finding that my boss DPS was absolute trash and I was squishy af, but hey I had fun that whole time",
"replies": [
{
"body": "> I made it up to maps before finding that my boss DPS was absolute trash and I was squishy af, but hey I had fun that whole time\n\nThere's two different types of player - your type, which is like \"oh well, I guess I'll just fix it/reroll and keep playing\" and the type that reacts like \"wait really? So all that was wasted? No way, I'm not gonna redo everything because I didn't do it right the first time... it costs how much to respec???? Screw this!\"\n\nPeople are trying to avoid that second type dumping the game.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I feel like the second type of player you mentioned is not really gonna stick with PoE anyway in most cases."
},
{
"body": ">People are trying to avoid that second type dumping the game.\n\nThose players will have to learn that you cant do everything right the first time you do sth. Good learning lesson for life in general."
},
{
"body": "People need to realize that everything can be respecced incredibly easy. Like 50 regrets can be farmed in 1 hour + 1 trade for some chaos orbs. Any gear acquired by mid 70s shouldn't have costed more than a chaos a slot at that point either. Ive never understood the respeccing drama.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "You have to realize where they are coming from. The concern is mostly for new players, and a decent amount of them have little to no experience in ARPGs, or got it from other games that are considerably easier to respec in.\n\nIt's not uncommon for new players to spend 15-30+ hours to get through the campaign. That is the length of a lot of AAA games. Yes, ARPGs are long, and grinding is a requirement of the genre, but you also should be having fun if you want to build up to a place where you can mentally prepare for playing for lots of hours, and it's hard to do that if your build hits a hard wall and either stops doing damage, or dies every two minutes.\n\nAdd to that real life availability, and you could be talking weeks for some people. Weeks to get through a campaign only to realize that you hit a wall and can't progress any further because you can't afford to respec, not to mention that even a full character respec probably won't be enough because it's not like failing one character is suddenly going to make you understand enough of the tree, gear, ascendencies, and general game mechanics to make the second or third time much better.\n\nThey already spent the time of an entire AAA game only to find their build is practically unsalvageable. 3 or more main skills, support gems that sometimes don't even work for the skill they have them socketed to, low resists, not enough life on the tree or gear, gear with stats that do nothing or don't scale they way they thought at first. We've seen it all and worse posted here, none of it is uncommon. Now they go back to fix things as they realize they aren't the best. New players likely aren't just swapping one cluster for another on the tree, they may need to go WAY back and pick up a health cluster over there, or unspec all those axe nodes they were using once a cool new sword dropped, or whatever. We're not talking an experienced player who wants to respec the entire character once they hit maps, we're talking someone who may need to respec large portions of the tree several times.\n\nAs for trading, that alone requires either bought stash tabs, a third party app, or figuring out how to do it through forum posts. So, \"just trade for some chaos bro\" isn't a huge help when you're still deciding if you even want to put money in the game and learn any more. And even if you did drop some early cash, now you go to the trade site and the first 10+ people aren't even responding to you. They may think it's normal for people to take a few minutes to respond, or may be trying to be courteous, maybe they're just slow at figuring things out and those 10 whispers could be thirty minutes to an hour of real life time for literally no gain.\n\nThen, just to trade those chaos you need to farm to get them, likely in acts if you're new and your build isn't working well. So not only are you farming shitty content, but you're farming them with a shitty character who either dies all the time, or does very little damage, or both. I don't know about you, but when I get to maps in about 8 hours, I generally have 5-10 chaos, sometimes more, often times less, but that's pretty average. That's still only 10-20 regrets. Add that to the 20 respec points you get from the campaign IF you did all the right side quests, and you're looking at 30-40 respec points, half of those at the cost of your entire /played time.\n\nIt comes down to really looking at what new players actually go through. The fan base often admit that after SEVERAL THOUSANDS of hours, on average they are still learning important mechanics of the game. No, you don't need all of that knowledge to make a working character, but the point is that if you want someone to transition from never played an ARPG to having to ask \"still sane, exile?\", then that likelihood increases if they are having fun, and hitting brick walls isn't fun for a lot of people.\n\nNow, ALL of that being said, I generally agree that the game is more or less fine as it is, lol. I wasn't arguing for those people necessarily, but you said you didn't understand the complaint, so there a lot of it is. The truth is that my take is that most of the game is fun, and all of those trials and tribulations can often serve to weed out a lot of players who never would have made it anyways. It's not that I don't want them playing, I want everyone to play and have fun, it's just that you can dump thousands of hours into play time and still have more to learn, and there is no possible way to have that level of complexity and still allow super casual players to be able to jump right in and succeed right away, and no amount of early respecs is going to change that. Could the game be better and more forgiving without giving up it's complexity? Sure, but it's over 10 years old or something now, and I think GGG has done their best. Quite frankly, this game is just not for everyone, so it shouldn't try to cater to people who very likely wouldn't get the most of it anyways.\n\nAnd if you think I'm being exclusive, or a dick about it, maybe you'll reconsider once you learn that I am one of the people that this game was not meant for. It took me over 7k hours to realize it, lol, but in the end, I don't enjoy the difficulty curve in crafting and farming, and I just don't want to put in the PhD level of studying to get there, and that's ok. But it's good that we have a game where that is an option. We don't need to make PoE simpler for everyone, we need more ARPGs of different difficulty levels so everyone has a game for them.\n\nSo, again, can the game be better and more inclusive without ruining it for everyone else? Absolutely. No one aspect is going to change that though, and not only are GGG trying their best, but also they need to keep moving forward for the people who already love it. There is simply no possible way to both go backwards and redesign all the aspects you would need to in order to make the game both perfect for newcomers, but still have all the complexity and more for the veterans, especially not if they still want to pump out new content on top of it.\n\nP.S. - I honestly find it's a testament to how good the game is that with PhD levels of complexity there are still so many people who just aren't the core audience that are clamoring to try and make this game fit their style more. They want to love it so bad, and that's awesome! Imagine if people were posting on academy forums to make higher level maths or science more reachable to those struggling because of just how darn fun what they can do and see is and looks. In a way, that's what GGG has done here. They took something so complex and difficult that even as imperfect as it is, people want more, and they want to go further with it, and that's why they are where they are today.\n\nEdit: at this point I'm only even half replying to your post, the other half is relatively incoherent rambling once I hit a topic I apparently have a feeling about. I didn't even realize it until I posted it and went... What the fuck did I just type?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Still sane, exile?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Clearly not! lol. Seriously, what happened to me there? I always type a lot, but even I'm like wtf?!"
}
]
},
{
"body": "Half my comments across multiple subs are getting like this 😬 \n\nI'll reply one or two lines that are a reply and then just start writing out my thoughts pretty much just for myself."
},
{
"body": " Well, this debacle could be solved by bot tying respec to a resource. I don't see how it would be a problem. Maybe disable it in non-hub areas to avoid respeccing to boss setup if that's a possibility"
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Nope,\nthe answer is not that easy.\n\nIt all depends on your gaming background, how much time you have to spend on POE and the way you like/approach games."
},
{
"body": "I always tell new players go in blind and when you hit a wall you get a guide. They will hit a wall wear they need some extra info to get farther. Weather act6 10 or maps"
}
]
},
{
"body": "100% this. \n\nThe only advise I use to give new players is - dont neglect life, take it whenever you can, and try to get max elemental resist (75%) - other than that, just play."
},
{
"body": "Exactly this. I'm two or three weeks in and this is definitely the way to go. Just play and you'll naturally come across things you want to look in to or try.\n\nJust started playing and after a few acts found out my build was rubbish. Looked in to it and found a league start skill based on what I thought looked like fun and started again.\n\nWas the EA Ballista Elementalist on maxroll which has a great guide for the levelling process.\n\nAbout the same time I came across Tytykiller and speed running. I didn't, couldn't if I wanted to, speed run the campaign but working through it and thinking about how I can make it efficient on later runs helped with motivation to roll through it.\n\nI played that through until white maps and got over the dump totems and hide Playstyle I worked myself in to.\n\nRerolled an RF Jugg from Phox, followed the EA Ballista levelling guide again and ended up clearing all the initial maps.\n\nI'm using the jugg to finance changing the elementalist in to subtractems Fire Totem (frost blink) Elementalist. \n\nAnd while I muck around with that im levelling a splitting steel champ very slowly and not following any guide because it looks fun.\n\nI looked in to setting up my atlas to farm beasts and got a couple 1 div + that I sold. I've not botheredoiking in to the pyramid game or much else, their time will come even though I'm sure I'm leaving chaos/divs on the table I'll live.\n\nI'm having the most fun I've had in a very long time learning this game. It was going to be a place holder until D4 came out but I don't see the point in spending $90aud for D4 when PoE is going to easily carry me through until the end of this season learning and trying things out and then starting next season fresh with my new knowledge.\n\nI might look at D4 after I plateau next season if I don't want to try a new skill character but I'm all honesty I'm probably more likely to move to Last Epoch before D4.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "D4 is decent fun, but honestly playing PoE kinda spoils the Diablo experience a bit since it's hard to not be thinking of how much more fun and varied stuff I could be doing in PoE instead. D4 definitely has the advantage in how easy it is to pick up and understand. Few mechanics and very little stuff in the end game. PoE does need more of an investment. Overall I kinda regret buying D4 since the biggest thing I got out of it was that it was about time to jump back into PoE.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I'm sure D4 will get good in time so I'm happy to wait.\n\nWith PoE I really love the learning part of it. And I just don't even know what I don't know yet. It's the most excited I've been about a game in a long time.\n\nMaybe once I work it out I'll move on. But it's exactly what I'm after today."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "It's different for everybody. I played this game a few times without any guides or anything beforehand over a few years but always quit around act 2. Decided to take the game abit more serious and looked into videos and guides beforehand and clocked 1k hours in 2 leagues. The game really does become more fun if you have somewhat of an idea what you are doing."
},
{
"body": "Tbh…. The best advise is that to read a little and know where you can find info. As you go.(Reddit, wiki…etc.)\n\nThen find an archetype that one gravitates to.(say melee? Archer? Magic) and start that way with the acknowledgment that you will probably throw that first character away but as a tutorial to find out what the game is like and discover if there’s an actual class / play style that one prefers and restart once one is comfortable with basics."
},
{
"body": "This is horrible advice for this game",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Why?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Not him, but I agree.\n\nYou do need a loot filter. It's that simple. Playing without one is like... driving a car with no wheels. It can be done, but just don't do it?\n\nA guide is EXTEMELY helpful and provides a player with a roadmap on what gear progression looks like so that they can have a rough idea of what gearing up should feel like on subsequent builds.\n\nYou 100% need 1 premium stash tab to trade if you ever want to make it to red maps. (Teknicklly you can kill uber uber elder with no stash tabs. Sure, after you play for 10k hours)\n\nEdit: I always see people say \"You only get 1 chance to experience the game blind!\" and it's like... yeah? I played since 3.0 I cut my teeth on this game without guides and it FUCKIN SUCKED once i got to yellow maps. It took me hundreds of hours and many new characters to actually git gud. If I had a job at the time, there is no way in hell I would've stuck with it. Most normal people aren't down to throw away \\~100hrs to \"learn\" that their build sucks ass and start over. I put learn in quotes because you barely learn shit without actually looking up the details of how to make something work.\n\nOn the other side of the token. sure, I would not recommend just accepting gear from a friend and buying exp. that would ruin the experience. But there is a balance to be hit between CnB torture and the novelty of learning a new game.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "See, you're doing exactly what I hate. This guy hasn't event started playing yet and you are telling him to buy a stash tab so he can trade during red maps. Makes no sense at all.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Exactly. The dude is in the tutorial and people are trying to explain endgame to him.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Someone said \"You don't need a loot filter, ....\" I said (not to the OP, but the reponder) you most definitely want a loot filter. That's not explaining endgame. That's shutting down shitty advice.\n\nedit: like if you want a new person to quit, just tell them not to use a loot filter, its that simple.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "> You 100% need 1 premium stash tab to trade if you ever want to make it to red maps. (Teknicklly you can kill uber uber elder with no stash tabs. Sure, after you play for 10k hours)\n\nYou mentioned an uber boss to a guy who just started. You couldn't be more out of touch.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Dude. you quoted me responding to someone who is NOT THE ORIGINAL poster. \n\nYou guys are telling me he doesn't need a stash tab or loot filter and I'm the one out of touch. \n\nLMAO",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Oh I forgot OP isn't allowed to read all the comments. You don't seem to understand what the word need means.",
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{
"body": " I started using lootfilter around tier 12-13 maps. It's definetly not a quit material"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "I did not tell the OP to buy a stash tab.\n\nI told YOU to not tell HIM that he doesn't need a loot filter.\n\nbig f'ing difference",
"replies": [
{
"body": "OP does not need a loot filter. OP does not need stash tabs.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "You are genuinely fucking delusional if you think new players shouldn't use or don't need loot filters.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I'm not saying it's not one of the first things I recommend to people, but tons of us played the game for years before they even existed.\n\nShould new players get a loot filter early on? Absolutely. Do you NEED it? Not by a longshot. Especially because we keep talking about NEW players. New players rarely make it through the entire campaign, you don't need to buy stash tabs, download loot filters, get build guides, etc just to fire up a game and see if you even like it or not. And loot filters aren't going to make all that big of a difference to whether or not you even like the game in general in the first few hours or days you've ever played it.\n\nNobody in their first 10 hours was like \"what's all this loot dropping around me? Fuck loot in an ARPG\". Even if you're experienced with ARPGs and know a lot of loot, especially early on, is garbage, having it there isn't going to turn you off from PoE before you even get to maps and start understanding why most of it is not worth your time.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "> I'm not saying it's not one of the first things I recommend to people, but tons of us played the game for years before they even existed.\n\nI did. A lot. It was miserable then and it's even worse now because loot drops have increased a LOT since then.\n\n> Nobody in their first 10 hours was like \"what's all this loot dropping around me? Fuck loot in an ARPG\".\n\nI have personally spoken to people who tried POE who literally, explicitly disliked it for exactly this reason; tons of useless crap dropping on the ground they had no idea what to do with, because the vast majority of it was useless, and they were having a hard time finding upgrades. Filters like Filterblade's automatically fixes all this by showing you good items to consider picking up."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "[removed]",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Lol okay. 90 percent of players quit before act 5 but if we can convince OP to get a loot filter he will stay!",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I've handheld at least a dozen of people from noobs to people who owned headhunters a few seasons later. Telling someone they don't need a lootfilter is straight up bad advice and I'm sure even Chris Wilson himself would agree.",
"replies": [
{}
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{
"body": "What kind of defeatist mentality is this? He will quit anyways so lets not try to help him have a better experience! \n\nFor sure dude. Keep on giving that sage advice.",
"replies": [
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{
"body": "Dude new players will never reach red maps within 10 hours lmao. \n\nLet new players play, they will hit a wall and then you can tell them to buy this and do that.\n\nNew players don't even know what elder is. Heck they don't even know what Izaro is",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Where did I say anything about 10hrs? My advice was not to the OP, but to the person telling the OP to \"not use loot filters\" and \"not get stash tabs\" which is idiotic.\n\nI went off because 1.) I had a few beers and 2.) this guys advice was F-tier",
"replies": [
{
"body": " All he said that those are not a prio for new players, and don't bother them unless you commited to the game. Nothing wrong with that\n\nTelling them to engage with a lootfilter, let alone buy a stash tab for real money before they even decided that the game is for them in the first place is the idiotic take..",
"replies": [
{
"body": "1.) I never told the OP to buy a stash tab. Also, people in this thread are saying you can trade with tools over forums, which to my knowledge is dated information because apps like acquisition have become unsupported.\n\n2.) My main sticking point was the loot filter, which strictly enhances your experience in this game. Imagine if divines dropped as grey text. You wouldn't get that dopamine hit and the game would be 5x less fun. I know divines naturally have their drop altered vs. normal loot, but just imagine if the good loot you dropped didn't give a nice sound or have a nice look. I had a significant issue with last epoc for this exact reason.\n\nEdit: People literally post signs of chinese resaurants because the white/red text slightly resembles a divine drop and gets them hyped. Do not underestimate the power of a well-put-together loot filter.\n\n3.) I was drunk and overly aggressive last night. However His take is still idiotic and mine sane by comparison.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I developed an immunity to dopamine in this sense, so no. All the loot filter does is take out the useless items out of my sigth. As a new player i was happy to have a shower of loot after playing multiple games with shit loot systems. It enchances the experience, but absolutely not a neccesity.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "you are the extreme minority. I'm talking 0.00000000000001%.\n\nFor everyone else, a loot filter is good.\n\n>It enchances the experience, but absolutely not a neccesity.\n\n​\n\nYou even agree with me but still do not recommend it?????????? \n\nAm i taking crazy pills? Why would you not recommend something that enhances a new player experience.",
"replies": [
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"body": ">The loot drops were absolutely fucked to encourage auction house use. It wasn't neccesary by the strict definition of the word, as you could complete the game, but the gameplay from a loot standpoint was so atrocious that migth as well play something else \n> \n>It was one of the numerous reasons Anthem flopped this hard: the loot was so scarce and bad that people couldn't be bothered to play the game post campaign \n> \n>A more recent example could be lost ark: good arpg gameplay, with dreadful(or non-existent) loot system and progression\n\nThis was your last post in a different thread. Like, bro, you agree with me.\n\nWhat you just described is how PoE feels without any sort of loot filter.",
"replies": [
{
"body": " The loot is there even with the filter. It takes out the clutter for endgame at least. I even turn it off for leveling as it filters items i could use orb of binding on for the sockets.\n\nTo make a comparison to the other post, getting a random yellow loot in d3 took as much time as you get a unique here and even that couldn't used by you most of the time. Or even better, it was just a blue item. \nA loot filter won't help with that. You still won't get loot. Poe provides too much loot in this sense so you hide the ones you won't need outside of very low value selling",
"replies": [
{
"body": "You are using poor filters. You don't even need to custom make them, you can subscribe to filterblade and get (free!) regularly updated lootfilers (it updates on its own - no extra work)\n\nBut you seem to have missed my whole point, which is that loot feels a lot better when the good loot is emphasized. \n\nIf you got a loud white and red divine orb or you got a grey on grey divine orb - which is more fun?",
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"body": "You 100% don't need premium stash tabs to trade away your items. Forum trade and respective trade tools still exist.\n\nNot to mention how unlikely it is that OP absolutely needs to sell items to other players to make it to red maps. Buying items is far more important, which you can do without any stash tabs.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Like I said, you don't NEED it. But it makes the experience so much better. Why handicap yourself. And using forums for trade is dated. No one does that. The tools that do that are also defunct and not updated since like a year ago. Acquisition used to be the big one and it lost it's support.\n\nI suppose a case could be made for using tft exclusively for trading, but you need stash space to sell that much anways.\n\nYou probably make like 10x as much currency just by selling 2 items per day. idk the cost-benefit ratio is so high it's hard to say it's the same game without selling stuff."
},
{
"body": "I'm curious. Have you used forum trading in the past year? Because to my understanding it is significantly more dead than it ever used to be since acquisition lost it's support from the developers."
}
]
},
{
"body": "Bad advise for new players."
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "This is bad advice, for a first time player, they most definitely need to follow a build guide and a loot filter at the very least.. otherwise they will get stuck in like act 6 and quit the game.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "The VAST majority of players don't even make it to act 6 in the first place. For someone with even the slightest bit of gaming experience, the best approach is to just jump in and play for a bit. Once you get stuck you can look for more help.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "ye they dont make it because they dont know what they doing and probably struggling to kill anything.. therefore a league starter guide is pretty much a must to get the hang of the game."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Playing first time without a loot filter is a sure fire way to get bored by act 2"
},
{
"body": "Getting scared away early is a good thing instead of playing for dozens of hours and then realizing the game isn't what you thought. The people who know this is what they want will stay.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I cannot agree with this. When I tried out for soccer for highschool I wanted to quit because my legs were sore and I could barely walk blah blah blah. But I stuck it out a few more days and it was one of the best experiences of my life.\n\nGetting through a minor period of discomfort can lead to a long-time love of a hobby. A lot of advice in this thread is absolutely terrible.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "This is only the case because you know what the sport is. And people can also easily look at videos of POE and understand what the gameplay is later on, but those who make these posts apparently can't even do that. Not to mention the people who don't even do that.",
"replies": [
{
"body": ">This is only the case because you know what the sport is.\n\nI don't see how this has any relevance to my anecdote. I was trying out for a new sport. Much how someone would try to gain interest in a new hobby.\n\nI \"knew\" the sport in the same sense someone \"knows\" about PoE before they actually play it.\n\nAlso, I don't think the videos on youtube really convey how the endgame feels. Seeing a div drop on youtube isnt the same as getting one yourself. Or optimizing builds for pushing bosses/mapping speed."
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "I understand giving guides to someone who barely plays any games and never arpgs but for someone coming from diablo? Just play is the best."
}
]
},
{
"body": "Zizaran has playlist of videos where he goes over different aspects of the game. It’s called POE university. There are also beginner leaguestart builds on his channel and he releases new ones every league. He also makes step by step videos where plays through one of his builds and shows everything. You can check him out: https://youtube.com/@Zizaran",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I'd also recommend zizaran. Let's slow down. One tip I give all new Poe player is to slow down. Poe like climbing Mt everest. Rushing will only get you killed or burned out. \n\nAsking for a random guide might overwhelm you with too much info. Okay play the game and feel it out. Try to get to act 10 on your own. Get a basic understanding of the things that make sense to you and other that just confuse you. Once you have this your ready to start asking questions. For example how to craft. How to map. How to farm stuff. Why am I dying. Etc.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "One thing to a diablo game and a Poe game are dramatically different. They approach the game from 2 different direction. So take your time with it. \n\nEmpty your mind exile. Stay sane."
}
]
},
{
"body": "Tbh as a new player (2 seasons ago) I was almost scared off by his PoE university. One must be really really interested in the game for multiple 1+ hour long videos to not scare them off. \n\nTo this date I haven't really watched any of them through, because to me personally he just isn't making them interesting enough for their length. I enjoy his shorter videos though.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I found a beginner-friendly build guide (Darkxellmc's 3.10 ED/C Trickster) for my first league, but these day's pohx RF is probably one of the best. A good guide slowly introduces game concepts as they matter to the build. For me that's easier than trying to learn a little about everything all at once.\n\n(Wow, I remember turning down Bated Breath and a couple other 1c uniques from a friend while I was working my way through the acts the first because it felt like cheating, even though I was playing trade. Hah.)"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "In relation to your question to 3rd party app. If you haven't reached act 6 you are not ready for any of those. They will just boggle you down with even more information. \n\nIn your post you are concern with overload of info. But you asked like 1000 questions. Which are not easy to answer Poe is a very deep game no such thing as a simple answer for most questions. \n\n\nPlay the game get to act 6 then you might be ready for a loot filter and using Poe trade. Get to act 10 then then your ready for the overlays and some of the other stuff out there. But again. \n\nTake your time.\n\nAlso a under utilized feature of poe it's it's community. Poe has one of the best communities around. Ask global ask trade. Someone will whisper to you and help you out."
},
{
"body": "Not sure if you’ll see my comment but here goes.\n\nFirst off, you should start the game without any guides, builds, programs whatever. Your character will fail or you will want to reroll before then, but you should start it, and the early game is more forgiving than later levels. Figure out how sockets work, how important the right colors and links are, what kind of rng you’ll be getting on gear rolls. Quests, etc etc. Maybe try getting to act 4 or so, maybe figure out how unlocking subclasses work. THEN….\n\nThen go and click on this link https://poe-beginner-guide.com/, it is the most beginner friendly guide Possible, he literally made a custom website just for it. He tells you about settings and what to expect and noob tips along every step of the way. But you really need to understand the actual basics before his explanations will make sense, or you may not realize the importance of say the linked colors he recommends etc. Otherwise it’s great and will carry you through the endgame the skill it uses it strong and the character will become tanky even if your gear is bad still. \n\nIn both cases, start by \n1-The moment you get your first skill, change your left click from Default Attack to move only (the feet icon). \n2-Go to this link (while logged in) https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/NeverSink/item-filters, click Follow on the 2nd one down; then in game go to Settings, and loot filter drop down, it’ll be in blue. Trust me, the guide also mentions it, Filters are VITAL, and that’s one that you don’t need to download directly or ever update manually. \n\nGl from there, remember the mantra for gear: Life And Resists. Lol. And if you care to see this and respond and want more help, I have a discord handle but that’s up to you."
},
{
"body": "Just play and enjoy.\nNo need for all that shit on the first playthrough."
},
{
"body": "If you played through diablo and have a bit of time I'd highly recommend playing through blind once. Poe is not as insanely difficult as most think. Look through the skill tree and get a general idea of key areas you want to path to and just start playing through the campaign. You can play on trade and just buy regrets \"respec currency\" fairly cheap"
},
{
"body": "Like others have said, you have 2 paths: \n\n\n1) If you make your own character build, it will be a fun explorative process - and you will 100% hit a wall at some point, most likely somewhere in the early to mid end game. You will then google characters playing a similar build (main skill) as you, and see what they do compared to what you do and try to fix it. This may result in you starting a brand new character, posting here on Reddit to find someone to help you out with \\~70 orbs of Regret, or buying \\~70 orbs of regret yourself. \n\n\n2) If you do not like the prospect of rerolling and want a character that is guaranteed to work, find a character guide on what main-skill you want to play. This is the equivalent of loading up Diablo for the first time and saying \"I'm playing Whirlwind or I have to make a new character\". This is good and most people do this, but it pigeonholes them because you almost always have to stick to that skill you chose. \n\n\nPersonally, I'd go with #1 - yolo your way into the game, pick damage / health / resistance nodes in the passive tree, and mess around with every skill you find to see what you like. Then when you become more adept at the game, you'll start over with everyone else and using your knowledge find a build guide of the skill you want to play."
},
{
"body": "There are two ways to approach learning Path of Exile.\n\nYou can go in blind, take your time, and try to solve problems as you encounter them, or you can read a bunch of guides and try to apply that knowledge to the best of your ability.\n\nUltimately neither one is better. Path of Exile's main element of difficulty is the amount of game knowledge it can require, and there's no universally \"optimal\" way to learn about the game.\n\nThe trick is to find a way to make that learning process fun. \n\nIf you like learning by trial and error, and don't mind abandoning a character and starting over once or twice that's a perfectly fine way to learn. If you'd prefer to watch a bunch of YouTube videos and learn that way that's also good. You just have to find a way to enjoy it.\n\nIf you want guides I recommend Maxroll.com. Their leveling guides are written by tytykiller, who is one of the best (if not just the best) campaign racers in the community.\n\nIf you're looking for builds I recommend going on YouTube and searching the current patch (3.21) and the name of a skill that sounds interesting to you. Toxic Rain and Splitting Steel are both solid in the current game, and those skills are available pretty early in the campaign so you can try them out.\n\nSpecifically for Diablo - Path of Exile's systems don't actually line up perfectly with Diablo 4's. D4's skill tree is more equivalent to Path of Exile's skill gem system, and the Path of Exile passive tree is basically a huge paragon board that every class shares. \n\nIn the same way that paragon boards are themed, so are areas of the skill tree. The Diablo 4 skill passives (\"Enhanced Poison Creeper\", etc.) are more similar to support gems.\n\nThe combat is also fairly different - Path of Exile is not really a builder/spender game. You will likely have to include some resource mechanics in your build, like a mana flask, mana leech, or mana cost reduction.\n\nSimilarly instead of a skill that grants unstoppable you'll be looking for ways to remove or ignore specific crowd control effects like stun and freeze.\n\nPath of Exile has more emphasis on opportunity cost instead of using a separate skill for these effects - instead of just using your entire passive tree to get more damage it's important to look for a mix of damage and defenses (life, evasion, elemental resistances, etc.) and effects like Unwavering Stance (A large \"keystone\" passive that provides immunity to stuns at the cost of removing your ability to evade.)\n\nThis game is more about planning ahead with your character, but it has an incredible amount of possibilities. The trick is finding just the right mix of effects to make a powerful character, and the fun part is that there's a lot of correct answers, so you can eventually come up with your own."
},
{
"body": "> from diablo\n\n> only experience so far has been diablo 4\n\nso telling you it's more like d2 isn't going to work, eh?\n\nenki's guide is pretty popular; not a great endgame build, but aimed at beginners and complete enough to be beneficial to new people. zizaran's poe university is pretty good, and he makes a lot of decent guides. pohx's rf guide is probably the most complete/simplest thing that can do ~most of the game. maxroll's stuff is also pretty alright and probably familiar to you coming from d4. ultimately there's so much going on that it's difficult for any guide/source of information to cover everything because people learn differently and veteran players/content creators take a lot of things for granted. just jump in and experience stuff and seek out help as needed. use poewiki.net (not the fandom wiki) and if you do go the guide route, stick to current patch (3.21) guides/information as much as possible."
},
{
"body": "Nothing anyone says will make sense if you don't have a rough framework in your head already. You get this by just playing the game with a \"Practice Mode\" mind-set. Just go in blind and play for fun and practice. This will set your foundations, and after that, all the help people give will make sense.\n\nA good way to categorize your build is based on weapon type. Swords and Wands can't use the same skill gems (these give you your main skills). In my mind, the hierarchy goes like this:\n\nWeapon Type > Skill Gem > Base Class > Ascendancy > Skill Tree Pathing & Gear > Farming Method > Min Maxing"
},
{
"body": "hot take: try out last epoch. its a good middle ground between d4's simplicity and path of exile overloading complexity.\n\nit is in early access right now and a bit rough around the edges. its also like 30$ or so.\n\nhowever, if you want to just jump into path of exile and understand that its going to be a bit rough at first and you will most likely not make it to the end of the campaign with out a online guide or an in-discord-friend guide then you can just start path of exile \"raw\". yes, there are about 20 different league mechanics and vets can utilize these to their full extent to become gods but you dont NEED to do all of that. you can just go \"oh hey these ice crystal monsters seem neat i am going to spec into those\" and be just fine. you arnt going to min max this game before 2-3 leagues anyways, just enjoy the marathon of learning that it can offer.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I was looking at last epoch, but it does seem rough around the edges with that early access feel. Maybe when it gets a 1.0, a few updates after, and then when a steam sale rolls around to have time to be more refined? Or would it still be worth it to get last epoch , see how I like it, and maybe move to poe after I have a good grasp of last epoch to make it less of a severe jump going from diablo4>LE->PoE?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Last Epoch is so mid it's unreal. PoE is infinitely superior"
},
{
"body": "to be quite honest exile con (path of exile big community gathering and info) is about to happen(july 30th) and they will announce the the beta date of path of exile 2, which will change up a lot of systems and be a nearly whole new game anyways.\n\nthat is also nearly a month away.\n\nat the end of the day, path of exile is free to try it out. might as well try it out right?\n\nbut i would honestly just dedicate like 30 mins to making a path of exile character and see how far you go. maybe you will like it, maybe you wont. but you will absolutely get overwhelmed if you try and learn everything there is to know about path of exile. its honestly best experienced as a slow marinate instead of a quick frying.\n\nbut as far as complexity, its diablo->last epoch->poe. i think last epoch is fine but i am also a non-visual gamer. i think d4 looks just as good as minecraft lmao. things dont bother me but they do bother other players."
},
{
"body": "Find a Zizarin build guide that looks cool. His are very detail oriented and go level by level. Follow the guide so you can free your own energy to learn the game and all it's mechanics without having to worry about if your build even works. \n\nOnce you beat act 10 find a league mechanic or two and focus on them (blight, metamorph, legion, betrayal, ritual, abyss, expedition, etc). I recommend avoiding Delve and Heist at first as they take place outside of maps. As you complete maps you can allocate points into your atlas passives to focus on those mechanics until you learn them, then pick another one or two. \n\nJust soak it all in, don't try to learn everything at once or you will be overwhelmed. Piecemeal it out and you'll learn a couple things after a few hundred hours."
},
{
"body": "Just play POE bro, its great. Jump into it."
},
{
"body": "LE and PoE are for different people.\n\nPoE is *the* character building game. After getting into it, every other combat game's character progression/customization will feel shallow.\n\nAs a computer scientist I can assure you that building the optimal PoE character is an unsolved problem. Even though it looks easy, even choosing the best path in the skill tree is very hard to do optimally. Choosing the best gear is obviously hard as almost everything can be worn together. Doing both at the same time would be bad enough but there is even gear that alters your skill tree!\n\nLE is for people who want steady character progression without too many surprises and don't want the game to spill into real life I guess.\n\nWhat I mean with the last point is that a lot of \"playing\" PoE happens outside of the game. Crafting is stategic and can be expensive, so sometimes it requires planning. Many character builds start from reading the wiki for inspiration, looking up items on trade or getting an idea and solving some equations to to find out if its viable."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "I recommend looking on youtube \"starter build for 3.21\" and see what looks fun to you. There are so many skills that most have difrent favourites.\nIf you want specific skill recommendations: Flicker strike, artilery balista, lightning arrow, boneshatter, rightious fire.\nA build guide is all you need you can really learn a lot by just reading the items you collect, ppl make it harder than it realy is.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Oh man don’t make the poor guy start flicker as his first build that sounds like a recipe for misery"
},
{
"body": "Searching that will actually get you like a thousand \"league starter\" build guides. Some may work, but many a times those leaguestarter relies on understanding cheap synergistic mechanic to farm yellow/red maps \n\nMaybe something like PoE Beginner guide would be more fitting if that category exist"
}
]
},
{
"body": "I would follow a guide such as any toxic rain just to get you through acts, that alone you'll gain tons of knowledge.\n\nYouTube is your friend and tons of beginners guides out there.\n\nTake it slow, part of the fun is learning the game.\n\nI'm still a noob even though I played like 3 or 4 seasons now.\n\n\nJust give it a try and if you like it you will naturally dive deeper. Hint don't get too discouraged by act 1 difficulty... It's a pain at times!\n\nCheers 👍"
},
{
"body": "Just like with everything else, you should just start from the most basic things and slowly build up your knowledge. Don't go delving into the deep end trying to understand betrayal boards or optimizing harvest gardens. \n\nThe very few things you need to know to start playing PoE are:\n\n1 - You have no skills. All skills come from gems, and you can use any skill as any class as long as you use the correct weapon. Two types of gems - skills and supports. You put a skill gem in your gear (colour must match) and a support gem can only support the skill if there is a link between the gem sockets. Pro tip, when you mouse over a support gem it will create a small window with a list of all your socketed skills and a green tick or a red cross indicating if that support gem can be used together with said skill.\n\n2 - Life and resist matters! Resistances here work in a very logical way. You have 40% fire resist? You take 40% less damage from fire. It caps at 75% and after you unlock your hideout (i think it was act 2) you can go to it and use something called a crafting bench to craft extra resists on your gear. This will help you survive a lot.\n\n3 - Main stats (strength, dexterity, intelligence) are only there to allow you to use certain skills. Red skill gems require strength, green - dex, blue - int. Similar concept with gear. If you choose to do your own build, when looking at the scary tree, don't put too much emphasis on stats, and try to get as much life as you can. If not, as someone else suggested, follow one of Zizaran's guides. Get Path of Building (PoB), it should be linked in literally any decent build guide on youtube."
},
{
"body": "your first few characters should not be from a guide\n\ndon't cheat yourself out of the organic experience"
},
{
"body": "you don't have to follow guides and just do your own thing but we recommend you to play on Standard Softcore league and not Hardcore/Ruthless \n\nstandard softcore is pretty fun, you just gonna die a lot but every death is a learning experience.\n\nHardcore Ruthless though, you die & there's no restart, you lose everything your character have on.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Your post can be confusing for new player.\n\nTo sum it up. NEVER go standard. Chose a crucible league and don't check any boxes (ruthless / ssf)"
}
]
},
{
"body": "dying is 90% of the game."
},
{
"body": "Your first character will suck if it's unguided, and you likely will brickwall around level 85 and fail a couple of key progression encounters (Merc Lab, Uber Lab, quest edition Black Star and Infinite hunger) multiple times.\n\nThis is fine - that playthrough will be a fun experience - but you know better than anyone else does when failing stops being fun for you. My advice is, when you hit that point, start over.\n\nIt's really normal in POE to abandon characters.\n\nOther key things:\n\n- There's a quest with 4 options in Act 2. New players should default to helping Alira. Veteran players should default to killing all bandits. You can respec your choice, but realistically not for a while. Definitely don't help Oak or Kraityn.\n- You mention mods. Loot filters are the main (100% sanctioned) one. Every million monster kills you'll get about 8 Divine Orbs and about 1-2 Voidborn Reliquary Keys (there's other ways to get them too) - loot filters will SCREAM at you if one of these items drops, and also alert you to other stuff that's very worth picking up like Chaos Orbs or Gemcutter Prisms. But more importantly, they'll entirely hide items you are (almost) certain not to want.\n- There's also other legit tools. GGG's rule is that one command sent to the server needs to be (at least) one human action at the keyboard or mouse. People who trade a lot use a number of these.\n- On systems like Heist, Abyss, Essence, Delve etc - I suggest you try them all early when their in-map events show up, and then pick your favorite one. Then research how to spec HARD into it. I would advise against Ritual as it's arguably the weakest one now.\n- As for gems - there's a tutorial on how sockets and links work in the very first zone of the game. Take that zone super, super slow.\n\nBiggest mistake I see people make in the campaign is to skip the \"optional\" quest The Lord's Labyrinth. A huge amount of character power is gated behind that quest. At around levels 33, 55, 68 and 75 (maybe higher than 75 when new) you'll get access to new versions of this quest and you will want to do them all reasonably promptly. If you haven't done the 33 Lab by the end of Act 4, or the 55 Lab by the end of Act 8, you should drop everything and ask help to find what you are missing to get into the Lab.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "> I would advise against Ritual as it's arguably the weakest one now.\n\nDid you test it lately? or have you seen any tests? Curious on your reasoning for saying this, since to my knowledge it's very strong. Just lots of trading to fully leverage it.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I could be wrong. Every person I know that's specced Ritual has dropped it, however, citing bad rewards, and the materials to run it optimally keep falling in price. \n\nBlood Filled Vessels were 3 to the exalt in some past leagues (on the old metamod standard) and now there's hundreds available at 12 to the divine on TFT and a small number at 13.\n\nThere's also very little trading of vessels too. Contrast to the huge turnover of Heist contracts for example.\n\nIt was NUTS as a way to fish for mirrors once and in that era vessels sold well."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Agree with others, Zizaran's POE university is awesome. I would recommend following POHX's guide for a Righteous Fire Juggernaut. He has multiple videos, and there is a large community of helpful players. And it's a good tanky build that will get you through to endgame play easily. Get Path of Building (he has link on all of his videos on YouTube)."
},
{
"body": "If you accept that your first build will not get past white maps, you can go in mostly blind and be fine. During the campaign things are fairly straightforward. Get life and resistance on armour, get damage on your weapon, get life on your tree, and use 1 main skill gem with as many relevant damage support gems as you can. Add a movement skill and that will probably get any build through the campaign.\n\nBTW you get access to every skill gem once you do a certain quest in the library of act 3. When you do, spend a little time looking at then and try out stuff that looks cool. There is zero chance that your first build does everything in the game, so don't worry about endgame viability and just play something that looks cool."
},
{
"body": "Zizaran has great guides for beginners. \n\nLike others have said, take your time. Make sure you READ your guides. Some builds are NOT viable for beginners, some take a lot of grinding in game to afford the end game stuff, and some just don’t work. If it is a good guide it should inform you of beginner viable, league start viable, cost, and what content it can do. Not everything that looks cool is viable. \n\nLast thing I’ll say is be careful watching random YouTube build guides. Some can be great but they can often be misleading. Stating they are OP builds on the cheap but often are very expensive and the streamer could afford it because all they do is play the game. So just be careful."
},
{
"body": "get an aoe gem.. build on from there.\nupgrade skills related to life and resistance."
},
{
"body": "Start with Gear, sockets, skill gems, and support gems. \nThen the passive tree. Yes it's huge, but it's the same for every character except where you start. \nOnce you've got that take a harder look at the affex, on your Gear and what the different currency does. \n\n You can jump in with no research, you will be ok for a while. When you hit a wall start asking questions."
},
{
"body": "People are going to say poe university and all that but thats just like saying google it.\nPick 2 league mechanics, let's say betrayal and blight and take the league to learn that mechanic thoroughly if you feel you've mastered those maybe respec your atlas tree to try 2-3 different ones. Lastly meta farming guides can take a lot of fun out of the game pick the activities you enjoy the most."
},
{
"body": "Unique doesn't mean better in PoE."
},
{
"body": "Resistances Actually matters in this game. Armor is not a catch all resistance. Skills with with a bunch of supports may sound good, but end up with terrible DPS. READ, can't stress this one hard enough."
},
{
"body": "The Maxroll guides are great.\n\nIf you want a little coaching/live question answering, I might have some free time. I'm more of a serious/efficient player so if you're looking for a more casual experience best to go at your own pace."
},
{
"body": "When I first started, it was overwhelming. I figured I would do my own thing without any guide. Hit a wall at some point and still didn't really know what I was doing.\n\n I ended up reading about \"league starters\", basically a build guide for a low investment viable character. Following this guide allowed me to better understand why they chose the things they did, gave me information, and I wasn't overwhelmed with too many decisions as the guide cut out a large part. \n\nThere are thousands of new player guides and videos by top streamers and it is even now often very confusing. Who knows if that guide you are watching will have the info you need. I doubt you want to watch hours of video just to play a game. I recommend skipping all of that and learning through playing and following a league starter guide.\n\nSomething that arpg players need to realize is the tree is a passive tree, useful for health, resists, damage etc.. but your skills are tied to your gems. If you are dying a lot, find some health nodes. Need more resists, find a good resist node."
},
{
"body": "Things I try to check off while leveling, stolen from various guides over the years:\n\n300 hp per act\n\nCapped resistances by the end of act 4. 75% cold/lightning/fire.\n\nUse the search bar on the tree or Path of Building third party tool to find different nodes that correlate with your build. \n\nIf you're going to follow a build, I think Pohx's Righteous Fire build is a nice way to learn. He provides a lot of information that helps new players understand the reasoning behind why he picks different passives/items.\n\nI didn't start buying stash tabs until I played like 3 leagues, but definitely appreciate having a maps and currency tab."
},
{
"body": "Others gave some good advice so I'll tell you one thing. Gear names only matter when it's a unique or you're looking for a specific base. Rate item names are randomly generated so look at mods on them. Also mods on the items depend on the item level."
},
{
"body": "The original, Enki's Arc Witch guide."
},
{
"body": "I usually just look at ninja for ideas. If I’m doing something complicated I’ll see if subtractem or ziz have guides. They both have really good content for learning things."
},
{
"body": "I'm going on year 3 of playing this game (off and on) and just learning as I go. Tried following a build once but I just got bored. I'm still learning, got to act 7 for the first time last weekend. Google when I get stuck. Last search was \"why am I getting one punched by everything?\" Answer was, I ignored my hp pool and put too much into my minions. But I enjoy the game and it's fun to learn on your own! Enjoy!"
},
{
"body": "Forget everything you think you know. PoE is a different beast."
},
{
"body": "First thing you should know. PoE is and will forever be infinitely better than Diablo."
},
{
"body": "It is recommended that when you are playing, you can watch some game live broadcasts in another window, and those broadcasters will be happy to answer questions, which is much easier than if you want to learn knowledge systematically."
},
{
"body": "ok, devines, mirrors, head hunter, mage blood. if you find these, you are rich. don't vendor them.\nother than that, play."
},
{
"body": "Just play. If you have time to waste (learning the game and the course of multiple characters) then go blind, if you want help then follow a league starter build guide from zizaran or palsteron on YouTube. That’s all you need to start, you’ll learn more later especially from YouTube. PoE has become probably one of my favorite games, and it’s mainly because of how much depth there is, and I haven’t played any other arpg that comes close to it in terms of fun (especially for the price point of free)."
},
{
"body": "You only need to worry about finding a league starter build guide and downloading a loot filter thats all you need for your first time. \n\nOnce you have that you can start enjoying the game and learning at your own pace without being stuck in campaign.\n\nWhen picking a League starter guide, make sure it's somewhat recent thats all.\n\n(you can look up build guides on maxroll.gg) aswell as PoE forums or youtube. \"Zizaran\" usually makes good content for new players."
},
{
"body": "I remember my first time like it was Yesterday. I jumper Blind in. And just messed around. Simple logic of more damage more HP works until like lvl 30. Then mobs start to get harder with mechanics And elemental dmg stuff that kill you. Thats like the first wall u need to overcome. Solving by capping Ur resistances to elemental dmg. Simple. Second wall would be your primary gem And support gems. Having Auras And at thé samé time being able to cast spells comfortably. Second brick wall you Will hit. And thé third Is just DPS check i think. U Will just struggle to kill things if you dont upgrade your gear. U can overcome this by playing some meta skills with Batchest scaling. I remember i couldnt beat dominus And kept dying to the bleed.its been 10years already. aware"
},
{
"body": "Increased/reduced modifiers are additive with each other. More/less modifiers are multiplicative."
},
{
"body": "DON'T SKIP RANDOM EVENT MISSIONS they are \nVery helpful like the einhar beast catching ,niko mining \n, expendation, and other missions you see when you pop into a map they are garenteed when doing campaign"
},
{
"body": "I learned most from zizarans YouTube, he got everything covered, from simple to fully detailed."
},
{
"body": "@ the OP. my bad for derailing a portion of your thread. If you get to maps and want someone to walk you through some stuff DM me on reddit.\n\nYou don't NEED a loot filter until like act 3. But really it's so easy to download there's really no excuse and it \\*enhances\\* your experience.\n\nMany people use filterblade. Google it, download it or subscribe (not pay, just link account, so it auto-updates in your game with no extra effort).\n\nI can answer questions all day. Some fools in this thread clearly have no idea what they are talking about. If anyone ever tells you that you do not need a lootfilter, immediately ignore them for they are into CnB."
},
{
"body": "You don't need the tabs, just play the game. Only search for solutions when you have a problem. The ingame guide still covers decent amount of stuff."
},
{
"body": "Start game try out skills just do whatever. Finish the story and than come back to the sub and ask questions. Or ask questions now -> grt overloaded with useless information for new players and quit. This game is basically a billion mechanics stacked on each others. If you try to learn everything before even opening the game it will just lead to burnout. Play the game, fail the game, learn, repeat."
},
{
"body": "What a lot of people seem to miss is that you don't yet know the game, and your expectations from the game and from a league will be different than theirs. Whether you follow a build guide or not (I did when I started playing) the endgame systems will be something you learn as you go. You'll find something new and feel like you'll have to google it and you'll start learning. For me it took 4 or 5 leagues before I was really efficient and knew how to farm, but before that point it didn't really worry me since I felt like I got better by each week I played.\n\nBasic tips I can give you are:\n\nLinked gems cost more mana than unlinked gems. Don't link things needlessly (like linking reduced duration with a armor skill for example). Only link stuff that you want to have linked (mostly offensive skills to start off). Auras can also link to support gems, making the auras reserve more of your mana without any benefit.\n\nWhen leveling you should use essences on white items for a potential boost (which you get from killing mobs that are frozen, press on them a few times to release them). Essences turn items in to rares with one predetermined stat. Don't get too good to use syndrome! You'll be swimming in essences at higher levels if you want to. Use essences even if they seem to have poor synergy with your build. A rare can have 6 different stats and the essence only determines one of them. Good stats while leveling are generally life, elemental resistances, flat added damage, like \"adds 5-10 fire damage to your spells\" (not good if you're playing damage over time) and additional levels to gems. Green are dexterity gems, blue are intelligence gems and red are strength.\n\nDon't use other orbs needlessly for weapon upgrades! You'll be using orbs to buy skill gems, and it sucks to be without them. Once you have 10 or 20 of an orb you can start using them. Jeweller's, fusings and chromatic orbs are generally what I use when leveling, but you don't really have to. Items with up to 4 links drop plenty when leveling.\n\nOne orb that you can use freely when leveling is the orb of binding. It turns a white item yellow while also fully linking it (maximum 4 links). It's a good boost to use while leveling.\n\nFinally, make sure you try and keep your elemental resistances maxed out as early as possible (I usually look to be capped from act 5 and onwards, but earlier is better).\n\nYou don't really need to feel like you need to understand everything with this game. Personally I feel that the strength of this game is that there's so much to learn, and it feels rewarding getting better. Improving and becoming more efficient league by league is what gives this game longevity, and the best way to learn is by dropping in. Personally I couldn't start without a build guide, but that was all I needed. Once I came upon stuff I didn't understand I googled and soon I knew a tonne about the game. There is no way to write a comprehensive guide about the game, because the information would be meaningless unless you've played it already."
},
{
"body": "Dont give up. This game has so much give but only if you let it."
},
{
"body": "The main things:\n\n1) Specialize. Don't try to do everything. Most players pick one offensive ability and try to make it as powerful as possible with support gems, equipment, and passives.\n\n2) Life (and/or Energy Shield) is key to survival. Don't neglect it on the passive tree or your equipment. You'll also want secondary defensive mechanism like armour, evasion, block, spell block, etc.\n\n3) Resists cap out at 75% and by the end of the Acts, you'll have a permanent 60% penalty so you'll need a total of +135% in each resist to max them out. Fire, Ice, and Lightning resist are all crucial and should be maxed out ASAP, otherwise you'll have trouble surviving in the later acts & post-game. Chaos resist isn't as crucial as elemental resists but makes things much easier in the post-game if it's capped or high.\n\n4) Damage from attacks is usually based on your weapon stats, whereas spells generally ignore weapon stats other than general boosts. Spells are generally easier to build around for new players."
}
]
}