[Bricked] Odif's Build Guides for Newbies: Skeleton Mage Necro

It looks like our end game build lost some dps, with the nerf to anomalous faster projectiles support. This should not kill the build, but dps will be lower.
We replace anomalous faster projectiles with the new returning projectiles support.
The new tattoos SHOULD replace this loss of dps, time will tell. In any case there is still plenty of dps for t16 content.

On the plus side we do better on low gear skel mages, as returning projectiles is a vendor gem, and anomalous faster projectiles was expensive league start, not usually obtained until late. We can do returning projectiles as soon as we transition to skel mages.

I have tested the new guardian ascendency.
It appears stronger than the Necro version but....BUT
It is a LOT more button pushing, a LOT more micro managing, and harder to get res capped.

For that reason, I still recommend Necromancer for new players.
If you are an experienced player, and enjoy lots of button pushing and micro managing, go for Guardian.

Over the years, with new league content continually added to the game, it has gotten harder and harder for newbies to get deep into endgame, it's all just too overwhelming.

So, I made this build, a simple and cheap build, with lots of details for newbies, that will allow newbies to get deep into endgame.

All my focus is to make this build the best possible build for newbies in the game.

Experienced users can use it also, of course.

We start off as Melee Skeletons, then transition to Skeleton Mages after we get Dead Reckoning unique jewel.

This build is a newbie friendly, super low cost, league starter build.
It will get you deep into t16 red maps with just the currency you get on the way.)
It scales with currency.

It is NOT the strongest minion build with high end currency investment.
But you can easily transition into any other necromancer minion build, if you want to sink a ton of currency into a toon.
I am crushing t16 red maps with this build. Look at the 4th post in this thread to see the gear I am using to do it, nothing expensive.



It's a minion build, so if you don't like minion builds this is not for you.



Our main damage dealer are Skeletons doing melee physical damage at first, then later doing elemental damage after we transition to Skeleton Mages.

We use Zombies as meat shields.

We use Carnage Chieftains to generate Frenzy Charges for allies..

We use an Animated Guardian to provide buffs.

We use Vaal Summon Skeletons for Bosses and non moving events like Ritual, Blight, and Breach.

Vaal Summon Skeleton is one of the best "I WIN" buttons in the game. It is absurdly strong.

We use Sniper's Mark for extra single target dps.

We use Tempest Shield to get more Spell Block and to be immune to shock

We use Determination Aura to have lots of Armor.

We use a Pantheon Power to be immune to Freeze.
We use a combo of Pantheon Power, ring crafts, and points on the skill tree to get 100% reduced effect of curses on us, making us effectively curse immune.

We use a Stone Golem to buff our life regen.

For more block we use Bone Offering with Mistress of Sacrifice, And with a good shield can get max spell block and near max attack block..

SSF (Solo Self Found)
You can do this build SSF.
The starter mapping gear is all rares.
The unique jewel to transition to Skeleton Mages is obtained via a vendor recipe, so easy to do SSF.
The gear I am using to dominate t16 uses one additional unique, but it is not required, any chest with + to socketed gems will do t16.

Pros:
Very newbie friendly, lots of details for first time players.
Very good for "stay in place" encounters like, Breach, Blight, Rituals, etc.
Very Low currency to go deep into red maps.
Very few buttons to press.
Scales with currency.
Relaxed minion play style.
Decently tanky, minions absorb a LOT of hits, high block chance (attack and spell), good life pool, good life regen.

Cons:
You will have to play melee skels until you get Dead Reckoning, which allows Skel mages.
Can't do No Regen Maps.
Avoid Elemental Reflect maps.
Minion play style is not for everybody.
At very high wealth investment, other minion builds do significantly better. (To make it newbie friendly, I compromised a bit on DPS)
(You can always transition, use this build until you are absurdly wealthy, then transition to another build.)
Can choke your computer. 70+ minions when you pop Vaal Skeleton, can lag you, depending on your computer's strength.

This jewel transforms melee skeletons into skeleton mages when socketed into your tree with at least 40 intelligence near it. (any of top 3 slots this build uses.)

Skelton Mages use a spell, a single bolt of either cold/lightning/fire damage.
It can be supported by any spell or projectile support.

It does not effect the number of skels summoned, only the type.
The 15 limit refers to Vaal Summon skeleton, which summons more than 15 warrior skels, so only 15 are transformed.
Vaal Skel also naturally summons some skel mages, so you wind up getting more than 15 skel mages.

Dead Reckoning is made via a VENDOR REDCIPE
a 20% quality Summon Skeleton gem.
a normal, magic, rare, and unique wand.
The wands must all be of the same base type.

The PoB's do not have tattoos, which can improve it even more (+1 all intelligence skill gems.)

Level 73, Melee Skels, Stater mapping gear, cheap AG gear, Spectres, gems level 18
https://pobb.in/H9IFVFWlmwSM
Note the over 1.9 million dps when vaal skels are up! On junk gear.

Skel Mage Endgame
Level 95, spectres, AG, decent jewels, +2 duration tabula
https://pobb.in/G61YQDPHuKVk
Note the 6.5 mill dps, when Vaal Skels are up.

NOTE: If you want leveling trees, see the below section for poeplanner.com links.

er...What is PoB?

Necromancer Ascendancy order
Commander of Darkness --> Mistress of Sacrifice --> Mindless Agression --> Bone Barrier

Bandits
Kill All

Pantheon
Major: Soul of the Brine King
(Make sure to capture the boss that gives you immunity to freezing)
Minor: Soul of Yugul
(Make sure to capture the boss that gives 30% reduced effect of curses)
(Which boss to capture changes every league.)

Anoint Deaths Attunement on your amulet, as soon as you have a valuable enough amulet to justify the expense of the anoint. (Costs a clear, crimson and silver oil.)
See the Gear Upgrades section for what to look for in an amulet.

What is Anointing?

poeplanner.com links
Updated to 3.22!

43 points
https://poeplanner.com/b/jc3
(assumes melee skels)

83 points
https://poeplanner.com/b/jc5
(assumes melee skels)

117 points
https://poeplanner.com/b/jcc
(assumes skel mages)

Melee Skels


SKel Mages

Helmet with +1 to all minion gems
Even with life and resists, these are crazy cheap, 2-3 chaos early league.
If it has a free prefix, you can benchcraft +1 max skeletons on it.
That benchcraft is unlocked via Syndicate missions.
It can also be purchased if you don't have it yet.

6l chest
Any 6 link chest with the right colors.
We use 4B/2G (Mages) or 4R/2B (melee skels) neither of which is popular, so even at league start, corrupted chests with these colors are cheap. If possible, life and resists.

Weapon
After you get your chest, buy a weapon that has some of the following:

"+1 all spell skill gems" or "+1 all minion skill gems"
Minion Damage
Minion attack/cast speed.

+1 gem levels is most important, but may be too expensive when you first hit maps.
Buy what you can afford.

Convoking wands have an intelligence requirement of 242, which is more than you will have, so look for Convening wands.

Optional benchcraft for weapon, that is a HUGE quality of life increase


Shield
A minion sheild with chance to block attacks and some minion damage.
Ideally with +1 all minion skill gems, but these are expensive, so not starter gear.

Rings
Bone rings!
These can have minion mods on them, minion damage and minion attack/cast speed. These are the 2 mods we like. Get what you can afford.

Everything else is rares with life and resists.
You will need dex on at least one item.

Optionally get 20% reduced effect of curses on BOTH ring (its a bench craft)
While this is optional, it is SO nice to be immune to curses.

Chaos resist is very nice, but not necessary. Try and get as much as possible, but its a lower priority than elemental resist capping and life.

It's preferable to get a stygian vice belt, it's a great place to socket in a jewel with minion damage mods on it.

If possible, get gear with armor, the more the better.
NOTE:
Sniper's Mark needs 155 dex at level 20, so you will need dex on your gear, somewhere.

What order should I prioritize for getting the above gear?

This build uses high block, both attack and spell, OK life gain on block, a good life pool, high life regen and decent armor, and defensive flasks.

Block Explained:
Note:
Bone Offering effects you at 50% effectiveness only AFTER you get Mistress of Sacrifice.
We have a Mastery that gives a 20% bonus to offerings.
Bone offering benefits from gem levels.
With a few gem levels, it is enough to get 36% attack and spell block on minions, boosted to 43% with mastery, 50% of which effects you, so 21% spell and attack block.
Bone Offering also gives you 2.4% life regen for 4 seconds on block.

Minions will absorb a lot of hits, so the defenses are fine, unless you are doing something crazy dangerous like Uber Bosses.

Keep Bone Offering up at all times, it's crucial to your defense.

Keep moving. Movement is a key defense

Life flask with anti bleed/corrupted blood
Quicksilver flask (+% movespeed is nice here)
Granite flask (+% armor is nice here)
Quartz flask
5th flask can be your choice, life flask, mana flask, or another utility flask.
I like Jade for some evasion.

Flasks can be crafted with Instilling Orbs which let you automate their use.
I like putting the granite and quartz flasks with "use when full".
This can be expensive depending on the price of Instilling Orbs, so probably not something you do right away.
Instilling orbs get very cheap later in a league.

Cast skeletons on each monster pack.

Cast Curse on any Rare on Boss.
(Vulnerability with melee skels, Sniper's Mark with Skel Mages)

Quicksilver flask is your friend.

Use Vaal Summon Skeleton on Bosses and other encounters that stay in one place, Rituals, Breaches, Blights, etc.

Keep Bone Offering up at all times, it's key to defense.

Keep moving. Flame Dash to avoid danger. Defensive flasks as needed.

We get Bone Barrier as a free spell with our 4th Lab, you can put this on left click to auto cast as you move, a nice defense.

I advise turning on allied health bars.
When you see your minions start taking a lot of damage, cast Skels a few times.
We have a mastery that heals minions for 5% of their life on minion death.
Overwriting a minion when summoning counts as a minion death.
At high level we cast 4 skels at a time, that's 20% heal each cast, for each minion.

This is how we keep Vaal Summon Skeletons alive during boss fights....casting regular skels to heal the Vaal ones.

NOTE!
The spectres I recommend are not necessarily the best, but they are the easiest to get.
If you want to use harder to get, stronger spectres, go for it.

We get +1 spectre from annointing.
At spectre gem level 25, we get base 3 spectres
So 4 spectres when fully geared.

We use Carnage Chieftains as all of our spectres.
They generate Frenzy Charges for allies.
Frenzy Charges give 4% more damage, and 4% attack/cast speed per charge.
Carnage Chieftains can be found in the Old Fields in Act 2.


Some advanced spectres you MAY want to try, but are not found in the campaign: Pale Seraphim and Arena Master.
Spectre info for Newbies

Animated Guardians are made from gear you give them.
The gear can never be recovered.
If the AG dies, ALL GEAR IS LOST FOREVER!!!

The goal is to give the AG gear that buffs our other minions AND that make the AG very tanky, as AG death is expensive.

FYI: Gear that the AG has is locked to your toon. Swapping AG gems does not effect the gear. I.E. if you later on get a 21/20 AG gem, you can safely swap it in.

My AG gear recommendation


There are many opinions on what high end gear to get for your AG
Feel free to look at other's opinions on how to gear an AG.

Link to a Video Guide for the Animated Guardian by Ghazzy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SOX9WNAjTM

Get a Dead Reckoning

The swap over to Skel Mages will require recoloring your chest, and/or buying a new one.

Then upgrade your amulet
+1 all skill gems with as much life and resists as you can afford.
Your ammy should be your first upgrade, so you can justify spending the currency to anoint it with Death Attunement
Eventually you want a Replica Dragonflame's Flight ammy, with +3 to all summon skeleton gems.
These are quite expensive early league. In week three they went down to 4 divines


Then upgrade your body armor
Get a 6l chest with + to gem levels. I like Skin of the Loyal, but it is super expensive. A tabula with +2 duration gems, or +2 minion gems is very cheap. I bought one for 23c on day 6 of the league.

A moderate cost option, but time consuming, is to buy 6 link chests with ES/Evasion bases. Get the right colors with chromatics. Craft them up a bit with essence crafting/harvest crafting/bench crafting. Then throw a vaal orb on them. It will take many many tries, but eventually you will get a +2 minion gem or +2 duration gems corruption.

Another super expensive option is a corrupted Lioneye's Vision, corrupted to +1 socketed gems. It has the mod "socketed gems are supported by level 15 pierce" so we drop pierce as a support and use empower instead. We would then need 4b-1g-r sockets, but this item is a pure armor item, so very difficult to get the desired colors. It's a chase item if you want to throw currency at the build, in NO way needed. I was farming t16 maps with ease on a +2 duration tabby, and they are cheap after the 1st week of a league.

Then upgrade your shield
Get +1 all minion skill gems, minion damage, chance to block attacks, and anything else you can afford.

Then upgrade your weapon
Get a minion wand with (+1 all skill gems AND/OR +1 all minion skill gems) AND (% minion damage AND/OR minion attack/cast speed)
Get the best one you can afford.
Remember: It HAS to have a free suffix to craft the "trigger socketed spells when you use a skill."
If you want to put mega currency into your build, you can get a wand with BOTH +1 all skill gems AND +1 all minion skill gems, along with minion damage, and minion attack speed and a free suffix. These are hideously expensive.

Also, Convoking wands need 242 intelligence. Convening are better for us.


Helmet
Get +2 to all minion skill gems, life and resists.
Free prefix to craft +1 to number of skels and zombies.

Level 21 Vaal Summon Skeleton

Jewels:

Desired jewel mods
Life
Minion damage if you have used a minion skill recently
Minion attack and cast speed
Flat minion fire/lightning/cold damage
These can get VERY expensive, the more good mods it has, so buy what you can afford.
(Jewels need at least 2 good mods to justify spending 2 passive points to get the socket in the tree.)


Awakened gems
Only get if they are not very expensive.

NOTE:
Upgrades beyond the above mentioned might not be optimal.
Instead of investing massive currency into this build you might be better off transitioning into a minion build designed for high investment.
Like...
Kay's minion builds
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3179145
or
Ghazzy's list of minion builds
https://www.poe-vault.com/guides/ghazzy-guide-hub

There are lots of good Eater of Worlds and Searing Exarch Implicits that can help this build.
The only one that I would say is near mandatory, is "increased mana reservation efficiency" on helms, with a eldritch Ichor.

For a complete list of what can go on what item slot see:
https://poedb.tw/us/Modifiers

I am confused, what are you talking about?

3.22 league mechanic SEEMS like it will be good for skeleton mages, as it is one of many "stay in one place" kind of league mechanics that skel mages excel at. I have not taken the build very far in Tota, but at low reputation the skels are good. I hear at high reputation the skels are too squishy.

As far as rewards...
This league offers tattoos, among other things.
There is one tattoo that turns a +30 intelligence node in the passive tree into +1 all intelligence skill gems.
I don't know how rare/valuable this is, but it would be great for this build.
It would not be hard to fit the +30 int node "Ancestral Knowledge" into the passive tree.
There are also tattos that give Chaos resist, and tattos that give attack block, both can be good.

Take Freezing Pulse as your first reward.
Get rid of Fireball, link Freezing Pulse to the Arcane Surge you got on the way to Hillock.
Buy Raise Zombie from the vendor (nessa)
Head out into Act 1. (remember to check the vendors)

In acts 1-4, the vendor that sells wands and flasks also sells gems (tab 2)
They sell all gems that are offered to you as quest rewards PLUS some others.
These gems are sold PARTIALLY LEVELED, so when you can buy from them do so. They do not sell all gems, which ones they sell are class dependent. I.E. if you are a Witch they sell mostly caster gems.

In act 3 there is a side quest in the Library. When you do this, you unlock a gem vendor in the library that sells all Acts 1-3 gems in the game except the few that are drop only.
Notes:
This vendor sells all gems at level 1.
this vendor requires you have the currency in your inventory, which can be annoying.

In act 6, after you do some quests, a in town gem vendor is unlocked, She sells all gems in the game that are not drop only. She sells them at level 1.

You will need wisdom scrolls to buy the first few skill gems.
Later you will need transmutation orbs to buy skill gems.
Still later you will need alteration orbs to buy gems.
Transmutation orbs are a bit scarce early on so...

Sell unidentified blue items for transmutation scraps.
Sell identified yellow items for alteration scraps.
You need several transmutation orbs, so sell LOTS of unidentified blue items early on.
I recommend picking up ALL blue items in Act 1 and selling them unidentified.
Once you have a surplus of transmutation orbs, stop picking up blue items.

Sell armor scraps and blacksmiths whetstones to get more wisdom scrolls.

Later in the game you will get more transmutation orbs and wisdom scrolls than you can deal with, so the above only applies to the first few acts of the game. Later on, save your armor scraps and blacksmith whetstones, and stop picking up blue items.

You will always need Alteration orbs.
(crafting good flasks at high level can take hundreds of alteration orbs for each flask)
So make a habit of picking up yellow items, identifying them, and vendoring them.
To make for less trips to town, you can choose to only pick up the smaller items, gloves, helms, boots, daggers, wands, rings, amulets, and belts.

Goals for Act 1
Summon Raging Spirit linked to Infernal Legion and Minion Damage.
Transition to Skeletons linked to Infernal Legion and Minion Damage.
Raise Zombie linked to Summon Phantasm and Added Lightning Damage
Movement: Frost Blink transition to Flame Dash
Auras: Vitality
Flesh Offering
Details

Minion Gear can start dropping as soon as act 2.
Minion gear can have increased minion damage, increased minion attack/cast speed, minion resists, etc.

It's very important to look for this gear, even buying white versions and essence crafting them.
If the implicit gives a bonus to minions, the item can roll minion mods.

Shields can drop as low as ilvl 15
Wands as low as ilvl 20 (can buy from act 2 vendor if you over level 20)
Rings as low as ilvl 25 (can buy from act 3 vendor if you over level 25)

Goals for Act 2
Raise Zombie linked to Minion Speed, Summon Phantasm
Skeleton linked to Minion Speed, Melee Physical, (Melee Splash)
Auras: Vitality, Summon Skitterbot linked to Infernal Legion and Minion Damage.
Movement: Flame Dash
Desecrate level 1
Flesh Offering

NOTE:
Binding orbs can be found as early as Act 2.
When used on a white item, they turn it yelllow, and FORCE 4 linked sockets on it.
If you should find some, use on a hybrid Armor/ES chest, for your Skeletons. It may be worth using chromes early on, on a 4 link, to get desired colors, BUT only if the item is the proper base. I.E. Armor/ES base items are more likely to get red and blue colors.

Details

Goals for Act 3
Raise Zombie linked to Meat Shield, Feeding Frenzy , and (Minion Speed)
Skeleton Linked to Minion Speed, Melee Physical, (Ruthless).
Raise Spectre
Movement: Flame Dash
Auras: Vitality, Skitterbots linked to Infernal Legion and Minion Damage.
Desecrate level 1
Convocation
Flesh Offering
Vulnerability

4 links start dropping in Act 3 and can sometimes be found in a Vendor. Keep your eye out for the right colors, Supports in parenthesis are the 4th gem for a 4 link.

Details

Goals for Act 4
Zombie and Stone Golem both linked to Meat Shield, Feeding Frenzy
Raise Spectre. Carnage Chieftains, no link is needed.
Skeleton linked to Multistrike, Minion Speed, Melee Physical
Movement: Flame Dash
Auras: Vitality, Skitterbots linked to Infernal Legion and Minion Damage.
Desecrate level 1
Convocation
Flesh Offering
Vulnerability

Details

At some point you will need more defense.

At that point, remove Minion Damage and Infernal Legion from Skitterbots.
Drop Vitality.
Along with some aura nodes on the tree, this should give you enough free mana
to run Determination and Tempest Shield.
Buy Determination from Library in Act 3 and Tempest Shield in Act 2.


You now have your base leveling skills, and its time to focus on life and resists on gear.
Killing Kitava at the end of act 5 will give you a permanent -30% to all resists, and Killing Kitava at the end of act 10 will give another permanent -30% to all resists, so you need to start looking for gear with the right sockets that also has life and resists on it. Elemental resists are more important than chaos resist.

The other thing is to start looking for is flasks with good mods, like a life flask with anti bleeding or an enduring mana flask.

You should do the rest of the campaign without difficulty, as minions will kill all enemies with ease.

Save up your currency, so you can gear up after act 10

Do the questline that gives you access to maps.
Do some SHOPPING

Start Mapping!

PoE has an EXTENSIVE in game help system.
There is a little yellowish icon just to the left of your left click skill button.
Press it, read everything.
More stuff unlocks in the help as you progress, so keep referring back to it.
It has video explanations and is amazing.

For Newbies, and I emphasize for Newbies, I can only recommend the play styles, Minion and Damage over Time, totems and brands.
You CAN play a "hit" build, but it will be much much much harder.
Just know what you are getting into.
(Hit builds mean you scale the damage of hits you do yourself.)

Why are Minion , brands, totems, and DoT builds better for newbies?
Simple: Damage while moving.
Hit builds only do damage while you are standing still.
Minion, totems, brands, and Dot builds do damage while moving.
Standing still in this game is dangerous, even more so for newbies who are still figuring out defenses and boss fights.

Cast and move, cast and move. With minions and DoT builds, this is what you can do.

Loot filters are fully supported by Path of Exile.
You NEED a loot filter to play this game
You NEED a loot filter to play this game
You NEED a loot filter to play this game, really.
I recommend Neversink's loot filters.
https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/NeverSink/item-filters
(There are many others you can use, but Neversink is best for newbies, IMO)

You can click "follow" to one of his filters, then it will show up in your list of possible filters in game.

Start with NeverSink-1regular-softcore
As you get more wealthy and want to filter more stuff out, you can go to level 2, 3, 4, etc.

A common newbie mistake is to wear all the unique items you find, as in most games, uniques are better than rares.
In PoE, most uniques you find are garbage.
They lack life and resists.
Life-resist-linked sockets
That is the trifecta of leveling gear, and most uniques you find can only have the linked sockets.
There are a small number of useful leveling uniques, but out side of those, you are better off wearing rare items (yellows)
The three most valuable and useful leveling uniques are:
Tabula Rasa https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Tabula_Rasa
Wanderlust https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Wanderlust
Goldrim https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Goldrim

In PoE almost all damage dealing abilities are either SPELLS or ATTACKS.
These are distinct.
Increased Spell damage will NOT help attacks.
Faster Attack Speed will NOT help spells.

Know what your main damage dealer is, ATTACK or SPELL, and buff it accordingly, with gear bonuses, passive skill tree bonuses, and support gems.

Most Attacks use weapon damage as their base damage. A better weapon means more base damage.
Spells use the spell gem level as their base damage. A higher gem level means more base damage.

If you are going to play PoE alot, you will need to buy stash tabs.
Free to Play, really means Free to Play for hours, but not days.
If you play PoE alot, you will NEED a currency tab and at least one premium tab.
Map tab is highly recommended.
Divination, Fragment and Essence tabs are recommended.
At least one quad tab is recommended.

One weekend a month, there is a sale on stash tabs.

Path of Exile is balanced around Trading.
As a newbie, you will need to sell stuff as you level through the campaign to have enough currency to buy the gear you need to start mapping.
Yes, you CAN play without trading, but it requires an expert level knowledge of crafting, something I doubt newbies have.

While you CAN sell stuff without a premium stash tab, its hard.
You have to make a post in the trading forums, format it so GGG's trade bot picks it up and lists it in their browswer based trading search function.

Or you can buy a premium stash tab, set it to public, and set prices on each item in the tab.

Knowing what is valuable is hard at first.
Most people use 3rd party software to price items.
Such software is NOT supported by GGG, but if the software is used ONLY to price things, it does not violate the ToS.

I used Awakened PoE Trade to price things.
(Remember, it only tells you the price things are LISTED at, not what they SELL at.)

Trading specifics:
The buyer should go to the sellers hide out, and wait for the seller to initiate a trade request.

There is no gold in this game.
There is a barter system, both when selling to NPC vendors, and for trading with other players.

The currency that is used to trade with other players, what is used to buy things from vendors, what vendors give you when you sell stuff, is CRAFTING MATERIALS.

So you can craft with your currency, or use it to buy stuff.

What should you do with all the currency you find?

Well...

Chaos orbs are the main trading currency in the game for most purchases from players.
You will likely find several as you level up.
Save them to buy gear when you are about to start mapping.

Divine Orbs are the trading currency for high end expensive gear. In league, divine orb prices vary, but are often worth over 200 chaos.
You will be lucky if you find one while leveling, but if you do, jackpot.

Save your currency when leveling.
Seriously, save it for mapping and/or gearing up for mappping.
Some exceptions:

The game has certain vendor recipies, things you sell to a vendor, that give you back something valuable.
These are hidden, but luckily, there is a handy list of all known vendor recipies in the Wiki
https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Vendor_recipe_system

The two most useful beginning recipies are:

Sell 3 flasks of the same type, and get back 1 of a higher type.
I.E. sell 3 small life flasks, and get back 1 medium life flask.

Sell an item that has a blue, red, and green socket linked together and get back a chromatic orb.
Your loot filter will highlight RGB linked items.

In Act 2 you will be given a quest to get a Hideout.
This is player housing.
Inside your hideout, you will be given a quest to install and use a CRAFTING BENCH!

Using the crafting bench will GREATLY help you leveling.

You can add an affix to a rare item with the crafting bench.
(As long as it does not have 6 affixes already.)
(A rare item can have at most 3 prefixes and 3 suffixes.)

The most common use of this while leveling is to add life or a resist to an item.

This is how you can cheaply and easily cap your elemental resists.

Be careful
Don't use expensive crafts on leveling items, I.E. if it costs a chaos orb.
Best use crafts that cost transmutes or chance orbs on low level items.

Note the level requirements.
Don't put a craft that has a level 24 requirement on an item when you are level 23. It will make the item unusable for you until you level up.

You will find more recipes as you progress through the campaign, and more recipies in maps.
Often recipies are found at major boss fights. Keep an eye out in your mini map for recipies, they are IMPORTANT.

In later acts and in mapping you will meet Jun, who will send on you Syndicate missions. These yield "veiled items"
When you unveil an item, you gain more recipes.

In Act 2 you will meet Einhar, who will give you a quest.
After doing that quest, he will give you a quest to go to the beast area, and do one beast craft.
After that, he will randomly pop up in zones, helping you, and capturing beasts.

Do these quests, capture as many beasts as you can while leveling.

Why?

At some point in the campaign, and opinions differ as to when, but certainly by mapping, you will NEED a flask with anti bleed, and a flask with anti freeze.

You can easily beast craft such flasks, assuming you have enough beasts captured.

Any non unique flask with a free suffix can be beast crafted to have anti bleed or anti freeze. (Also you can get anti poison, anti curse, and anti ignite.)

Anti bleed is called "of Sealing" or "Lizard"
Anti freeze is called "of Convection" or "Deer"

There are many other very nice beast crafting recipes, but getting anti bleed and anti freeze flasks is HUGE for late campaign. And in mapping you will want anti curse too.

Here is a link to a reddit list of TONS of newbie info.
https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/wiki/fga

Sell Unidentified blue and yellow items in early Act 1 to get transmution orbs.
You will likely need transmutes to buy skill gems.

Also in early Act 1, sell Armor Scraps an/or Blacksmith Whetstones to get Wisdom Scrolls.

Sell identified yellow items to get Alteration Orbs.
You will need a LOT of them later in the game, or you can sell them. They are always in demand.

There is a search bar in the passive skill tree.

You can sell a level 20 gem, with a gemcutter's prism, to a vendor and get back the same gem at level 1 with 20 quality. This is worth doing!

Trading up currency

The gear:


A PoB of what I used to kill Kitava 10 (Melee Skels)
https://pastebin.com/fFQjC0H9

Note how pathetic the gear is, most of it was gathered in act 2 and 3, yet the journey through the campaign was SUPER smooth, act bosses dying super fast, ez mode. (not fast, but smooth and easy, skels are a bit slow moving)

The gear:


This gear might be a bit too much to expect just starting maps, but could easily be obtained after a few hours of white maps.
It's hard to judge exactly what i could have afforded at league start, but nothing other than the shield is any good.
Perhaps it has more chaos resist than i could realistically afforded right away.

I used this gear until t12 maps.
I could have gone higher, but it was slowing down, so I bought some upgrades, see below.