Pushing through the fog
The biggest problem I had when first trying to play Path of Exile was feeling paralyzed with freedom POE currency trade . Where Diablo 3 offers structured character classes, Path of Exile's classes are almost inconsequential. Sure, you can start as a Witch, but nothing is stopping you from investing all your points into strength and turning her into a sledgehammer-wielding melee maniac.

Veterans will tell you to just wing it the first time, but I'm not fond of the idea of investing 20 hours into some rickety-shit build only to have to undo those mistakes later. But looking at various build guides, they're often steeped in lingo that can be impossible to interpret. Here's an excerpt from a popular build I found on Google.

"THIS BUILD IS MADE FOR BOSSING, NOT VSPARK SPEED MAPPING, SO KEEP THAT IN MIND."

General guides aimed straight at newbies can be a huge help, but even those feel a bit overwhelming. Here's a fantastic guide by Zizaran that clocks in at a whopping 43 minutes. But surely there must be a quick set of tips for new players who just want to kill monsters and not spend hours researching? There is. Sort of.

One of the great things about Fall of Oriath's launch (which brings Path of Exile up to version 3.0) is that sweeping balance changes and new skills means the entire metagame has been thrown out. The community has created a ton of new builds to play with. After doing some searching, I came across YouTuber Engineering Eternity who has fantastic beginner build guides. Though there's still some jargon to learn, Engineering Eternity solves one of the biggest problems with many guides I read by walking you through the leveling process. Instead of just showing you what the build will look like in the endgame, he breaks the guide into major leveling milestones, giving you smaller POE currency for sale , more digestible goals to work toward.