A Beginner's Guide to Path of Exile
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Hey guys, at the request of several new players from my stream, I've decided to write a complete guide on how to start playing PoE as a completely new player and hopefully at the end of this guide, many of you will learn something new that would make it easier to understand and navigate the game.
To start off, I would like to talk about some of the core fundamental understandings that I believe every new player in PoE should know before starting to play the game. Path of Exile is an extremely complex game with many interlocking systems that would often discourage new players to continue playing as they are unable to make much progress after certain point in the game. Passive Tree
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Perhaps one of the most complicated section of the game is the infamous skill tree with over 1200 different nodes spanning all over. Players often take one look at the skill tree and are completely overwhelmed instantly as they have no idea what to do.  But before I dive further into breaking down the skill tree, it is important to know the tree core attributes in this game. Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence and each of these attributes have their own respective color of red green and blue. All attributes give different stats and benefits.  And if we go back to the passive tree and if we were to split the tree up based on the attributes, this is how the passive tree is generally split up.  Every time you level your character or complete certain quest in the acts, u gain passive skill points that you can allocate into the tree starting from your class's starting point. Every class has a different starting point on the tree based on the class' core attributes.  and if we implement that into the skill tree, this is generally how it looks like  Last but not least, weapon type passive points as well as defence passive points are, too, found mostly based on their attribute type in the skill tree.   Gems
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There are 3 different kind of gems in path of exile, skill gems, support gems, and aura gems. Skill gems are the abilities of Path of Exile. When a skill gem is socketed into your gears, this enables the player to be able to use the skill. All gems have attribute requirements and the color of the gem are similarly divided based on their required attributes. All gems must be placed on a matching socket color on your gears in order to be slotted in. As u gain experience points for your character, so will your gems that are socketed into your gears. Levelling up your gems will increase their power and effectiveness but so will the attribute requirement. Support gems generally empowers or changes the way skill gem works in unique ways. For example, by itself, tornado shot will only have 3 projectile being fired, however if the tornado shot arrow skill gem is supported by a greater multiple projectile support gem, tornado shot will have the number of projectiles being fired increased by 4. Take note that certain support gem can only support certain skill gems. For example, greater multiple projectile can only support projectile skill gems. these tags can be found by mouse-ing over your skill gem and the tags can be found at the top of the skill.  Lastly, we have aura gems that generally just boosts your damage output, or adding layers of defenses or causing nearby enemies to have certain debuffs applied on them. Aura gems require you to reserve your mana, therefore choose your auras wisely as you often are only able to run one or 2 for most builds. Typically, the game revolves around one or two main skills and having up to 5 support gems supporting the skill of your choice. The upside of playing Path of Exile is customization, you are free to do whatever you want and play your character however you want, so feel free to explore and experiment different skill gems with the many different support gems! Sockets
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Sockets are found on all your gears and each pieces of gear have their own maximum number of sockets. blob:https://imgur.com/00d3bd05-e976-4d15-93a7-a37d8b706019 The number of socket on any gear can be reforged using jeweller's orb.  Additionally, the color of the sockets can be recolored using chromatic orbs. Based on the base type, its easier to get certain color whilst its harder to get others. For example, it is easier to roll green socket on dexterity based gears whilst getting red and blue is a lot harder. Socket links are what enables players to be able to connect support gems together with spell skill gems or aura gems. The lines connecting the sockets are your links and the more socket you want to link, the harder it gets. Players are able to reforge the links between the sockets by using orb of fusings.  Picking your first build
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Beginners often make the mistake of searching for high end builds with tags like "all-content viable" or "insane damage" or even "gg builds" without realizing that such builds are often crazy expensive or insanely hard to level and require a lot of experience in the game to truly understand. When they decide to play such builds, most new players often have a really hard time levelling or even getting to maps, which is overall a terrible experience causing them to be discouraged to further continue playing the game. Keywords that beginners and new players should be using while searching for builds are words like "budget-friendly" or "league starter" or "beginner friendly". typically such builds are more suited for newer players who has limited understanding of the game as they don't require much investment and are often easy to understand and play. Helpful websites to search for builds: https://www.poebuilds.cc/ https://www.poe-vault.com/guides/builds-for-path-of-exile Cruising through the acts
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For most players, they would already know what the acts are and almost all players of these players manages to finish the acts and progress to mapping in the atlas. However I would like to point out a few key points to progress thru the acts faster, or perhaps make it easier to progress through the acts. Pick up everything
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I cannot stress enough on how important picking up rare items to further improve your build is when you are levelling your character. Increased damage, increased life, increased defenses, increased amount of resist. All these eventually makes your life just that much easier when you are levelling. Trust me. Logging out
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Conserving portal scrolls at the start of act 1-2 makes the difference between an experienced player and a newbie. The amount of portal scrolls dropping at starting acts are so limited, players should be using them not to "go back to town", but as saving points in the event that they die and they can respawn in town and take the portal back to the saving point, saving players that much time to walk all the way back. If you are levelling on league launch, it is important that you click "Exit to Character Selection" and not "Exit to Login Screen" or "Exit Path of Exile" as you would have to rejoin the queue to log into the game again. Making 2 characters
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At the start, it is extremely helpful to level 2 characters. On your first character, kill hillock and enter lioneye's watch and purchase 3 linked items from Tarkleigh for your 2nd character and proceed to rush to the coast to grab the quicksilver flask. Now, create your 2nd character and do the same thing so your 2nd character would now have 2 quicksilver flasks and multiple 3 linked items, making levelling slightly easier and of course, faster. Labyrinth
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At act 3, you will gain access to the labyrinth after completing all the trials in the Lower Prison, the Crypt, the Chamber of Sins, the Crematorium, the Catacombs and the Imperial Gardens. This will be a huge power spike for your character and based on your character strength and damage, you should get it done as soon as possible. Vendor recipes
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There are a few vendor recipe to help gain better gears in every act which can help a lot for most builds. Here are some examples Making a magic weapon with % physical damage Weapon (any rarity) + rare rustic sash + 1x blacksmith whetstones Making a added elemental damage to spells (any of the 3 elemental/chaos) skill gem wand Wand (magic) + 1 alteration orb + topaz ring(for lightning)/ ruby ring (for fire)/ Sapphire ring(for cold) Wand (magic) + chaos skill gem (for chaos) Making a Spell Damage dagger Dagger (any rarity) + rare chain belt + 1x blacksmith whetstones Skippable quests
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Newer players often make the mistake of doing every quests while running all over the place, and in the process, waste lots of precious time. Here are the optional quests that I personally feel are a complete waste of time and shouldn't be bothered with. Act 2 -The Great White Beasts -Through Sacred Ground -Safe and Sound Act 3 -A Swig of Hope -A Fixture of Fate Act 5 -The King's Feast Act 6 -Bestel's Epic Act 7 -The Silver Locket -In memory of Greust Act 9 -Fastis Fortuna Act 10 -Map to Tsoatha Getting Help
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If you have friends or guild mates playing the game with you, and are ahead of you, don't be shy, ask them for help. Killing bosses, giving you way points around the acts these will SAVE you so much time. Helpful link to guide you through the acts Atlas Progression
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Congratulations! You have finished your acts and you are ready to finally begin the end game! Labyrinth
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Before you proceed to work on the atlas, ensure that you finish your cruel and merciless Labs for that juicy power spike. To gain access to the eternal Labyrinth, you are required to finish all 6 labyrinth trials found randomly in maps. Tip: use global chat channel 820 and trade chat channel 820 to aid u in getting the trials completed. The Atlas
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After finishing the 3 quests in the epilogue chapter, you will gain access to the atlas and will be given a map. As the atlas is constantly changing, I will be uploading videos made by others on how to progress that atlas. I will upload a new link every league. Video for 3.13 (Updated with maven witnessing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rR0Ffk72sQ Extremely Useful Tips in Overall
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Here are some tips that would aid you in your Path of Exile Journey towards the end game. Resistance
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Most new players make the mistake of not capping out their resistance and this is probably the number 1 reason most player die so easily. by capping out their natural max resist of 75%, we are NEGATING 75% of the elemental damage that we take. That's INSANELY huge for your character's survivability. Do take note as you progress through the acts, your character's resist will be reduced. After act 5, your resist will be reduced by 30% and after act 10, your resist will be reduced by a further 30%, totaling to 60% reduction in you resistance, therefore in order to cap all 3 resistance, u will need to have 135% resistance on each of your elemental resist in order to cap it at 75%. Tip: the best gears and ways to get your resists capped are your belt, boots, jewelries and your passive tree. Loot Filter
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Thousands of items drops every map and without filtering them out, it will cause a drop in game performance and players will waste time figuring out what is worth picking up, useless or valuable. Installing a loot filter saves player the time by filtering out the useless stuffs while highlighting the best and rarest drops. Path of Exile has a default loot filter that is still helpful while levelling though the acts, however once you hit the atlas, the default loot filter will be insufficient and you will require a custom filter. To download and install a basic custom loot filter, hop on to https://www.filterblade.xyz/ Step 1: Set your options. "semi-strict" is recommended at league start.  Step 2: Name and download your filter  Step 3: Copy and paste your downloaded filter file in your Documents/My Games/Path of Exile folder.  Step 4: Log in to Path of Exile. Press Escape, select Options, and navigate to the UI tab. The last option on the page will allow you to select the loot filter with the same name as the file that you dropped into the folder in step 3.  As you progress to higher tier maps and you are wealthy enough, getting a stricter loot filter is recommended to save the time picking up worthless items. Currency
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 Path of Exile has a variety of currency items, called Orbs, within the game and these items have a practical usage, but they can also be used to purchase gears off trading sites from other players. Chaos orb is the main currency used to measure all other orbs' value and is the most commonly used currency to trade with other players alongside exalted orbs.  The value of orbs are not set in stone and are constantly rising and dropping in value throughout the course of the league depending on demand and supply. Tip: To track orbs and item value in real time, use https://poe.ninja/ Use the official Path of Exile trade site to trade others for gears. https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Ritual Don't Die
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There is experience penalty in Path of Exile as you progress through the atlas. After act 5, you will have a 5% experience penalty every time you take fatal damage and after act 10, it will increase to 10% experience penalty. In short, do your best to not die. Alternative layers of defense
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There are alternative layers of defense that can aid you in your character's survivability that most newer players have no clue about Defences Energy Shield (Intelligence)
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Energy shield is a form of defence that acts as an additional hit point pool on top of life. Unlike life, energy shield will recharge naturally after the character has not taken any damage for 2 seconds. This can be improved by mods such as "faster start of energy shield recharge" or "increased energy shield recharge rate"  Armour (Strength)
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Armour is a form of defence that mitigates incoming physical damage from hits. Physical Damage reduction mitigates the amount of physical damage your character takes from hits up to 90%. This makes your character extremely tanky after being paired with capped resistance. Another way to get physical damage reduction is endurance charges Evasion (Dexterity)
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Evasion is the first layer of defence that increases a character's chance to evade incoming attacks. Evasion is opposed by the attacker's accuracy. A character's capped chanced to evade attacks is set at 95%. Charges
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There are three different kind of charges that your character can generate. Every character can naturally generate a maximum of 3 per unique charges, however this can be increased or decreased based on your gears and your passive tree point allocation. These charges require certain condition for your character to generate. Endurance Charge
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Endurance charges are associated with Strength and they represent a temporary increase to the ability to endure pain during combat. They are visualized as glowing red orbs surrounding the character. The physical damage reduction is effective against hits and non-hits such as bleeding. When reducing damage from hits, it stacks with the damage reduction from armour, so that they are both applied at the same time. Endurance charges naturally grants +4% to all elemental resistance and 4% additional physical damage reduction per endurance charge.  For more information on endurance charge generation, how to get more endurance charges and how to change the buffs that endurance charges gives, refer to https://pathofexile.fandom.com/wiki/Endurance_charge Power Charge
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Power Charges are associated with intelligence and they represent an increase to concentration and arcane energies during combat. They are visualized as glowing blue orbs surrounding the character. Power charges naturally grants 40% increased critical strike chance per power charge.  For more information on power charge generation, how to get more power charges and how to change the buffs that power charges gives, refer to https://pathofexile.fandom.com/wiki/Power_charge Frenzy Charge
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Frenzy Charges are associated with Dexterity and they represent a temporary increase to swiftness and fervor during combat. The charges are visualized as glowing green orbs surrounding the character. Power charges naturally grants 4% increased attack speed, 4% increased cast speed and 4% more damage per Frenzy charge.  For more information on Frenzy charge generation, how to get more Frenzy charges and how to change the buffs that Frenzy charges gives, refer to https://pathofexile.fandom.com/wiki/Frenzy_charge Stash Tabs
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Path of Exile is a Free to Play game, and nobody likes spending money on games. But Stash Tabs are WAY too good and important for quality of gameplay. Having multiple stash tabs will aid u in the game in more ways than one, be it selling items or needing more inventory slots or even keeping your tabs clean by getting map tabs and fragment tabs. those are simply way too good to pass up on. Tip: Get at least 1 premium tabs to sell your item on trade sites Useful Sites to aid you
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economy checker/ build checker https://poe.ninja/ labyrinth layout, syndicate layout, boss guides https://www.poelab.com/ build searching poebuilds.cc https://www.poe-vault.com/guides/builds-for-path-of-exile Trade sites https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Ritual Loot Filter Generation https://www.filterblade.xyz/ https://filterblast.xyz/ If you think I've helped you understand the game a little better, please do support my stream and feel free to ask me any further question you have. https://www.twitch.tv/panicah| Join my discord channel for more guides and help as well as an awesome community https://discord.com/invite/8RNUAJ8kFq Last edited by panicah#2549 on Apr 8, 2021, 9:46:33 AM Last bumped on Apr 8, 2021, 6:11:52 AM
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Awesome guide!! Super in depth and beginner friendly!
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Finally a guide for newbies!! Awesome information very helpful! Thank you.
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