[Megathread] Path of Exile

[Bugg]

Where can a new/potential player check the possible builds? Browse the official class forums?
Thanks.

[solinari6]

Where can a new/potential player check the possible builds? Browse the official class forums?
Thanks.

I use this site for builds: https://www.poe-vault.com/guides

[kaminaris]

Where can a new/potential player check the possible builds? Browse the official class forums?
Thanks.

I would say a new player shouldn't use guides and go wild for their first build. Try to do something yourself while learning what links are, what supports are doing by themselves. It's fine to google stuff tho. When you find yourself in situation where dps/survi is lacking, start checking out poe.ninja and see what players are picking with your skill.

PoE isn't really a game you will be satisfied just following guides. It's not D3.

[Vespian]

I would say a new player shouldn't use guides and go wild for their first build. Try to do something yourself while learning what links are, what supports are doing by themselves. It's fine to google stuff tho. When you find yourself in situation where dps/survi is lacking, start checking out poe.ninja and see what players are picking with your skill.

PoE isn't really a game you will be satisfied just following guides. It's not D3.

You might want to read up on the noobkillers along the way though. Some of them are absolutely not obvious and you will die if you don't know about them.

[Edge-]

PoE isn't really a game you will be satisfied just following guides. It's not D3.

Hard disagree here, if it weren't for guides early on I'd be making garbage builds and having no clue what I was doing. I still look to other builds for overall guidance, and while I could build my own from scratch usually the work is done better by someone else and I can take that build and tweak it to better fit with what I want to get out of it.

Hell, getting my solo dominating blow aurabot going was purely a guide-build minus a few tweaks and that was satisfying as all hell to get working. When I'm back to playing PoE I still periodically go back to that dude since it still blows my mind how strong he is for an aurabot (without like 50ex in gear) and he's pretty darned fun.

@Bugg - If you feel ambitious, try out your own build and explore the hell outta the game. But do know that it's not all the most intuitive/straightforward until you learn what's what. I highly recommend looking up some basic new player guides (no clue where those reside, but probably tons of videos from recent leagues that are still applicable) if you want to bone up on the basics, and if you're looking for an easier start to the game I'd look to something like poebuilds.cc. It's not the best site for builds, but if you're looking for some good starter builds that link directly to the respective guides that'll do the trick. Note that the currency item icons imply popularity of the build, I'd usually go for something that was a "chaos" or "exalt" status build. Something cheap and easy to start with that doesn't require much in the way of specific gearing (outside of maybe some cheap uniques) and can carry you through some early mapping as you figure out the endgame.

[StillMcfuu]

I'm enjoying the community kinda blowing up over this.

POE players have been joining Last Epoch in droves the past couple of days, and now I know why.

[Edge-]

POE players have been joining Last Epoch in droves the past couple of days, and now I know why.

My brother picked it up and for how long it's been in EA it still looks kinda rough. Looks fun, don't get me wrong I dig a LOT of what I was seeing (skill upgrade trees, class/advanced class trees etc.) and a lot of the combat looks pretty good. But until they do anything with multiplayer and get closer to an actual launch I'll keep sitting it out.

If nothing else being salty about PoE has given me time to start working on my backlog, so that's nice!

[kaminaris]

You might want to read up on the noobkillers along the way though. Some of them are absolutely not obvious and you will die if you don't know about them.

Dying is a part of PoE, part of learning process. And this game is all about learning.

[Gorsameth]

I would say a new player shouldn't use guides and go wild for their first build. Try to do something yourself while learning what links are, what supports are doing by themselves. It's fine to google stuff tho. When you find yourself in situation where dps/survi is lacking, start checking out poe.ninja and see what players are picking with your skill.

PoE isn't really a game you will be satisfied just following guides. It's not D3.

Yeah no, I would 100% advise to find a new player friendly guide and follow that.
Nothing is going to turn off a new player like fitting together a completely jank build (and your first build without any clue at all will be janky) and run into a wall where the game just repeatedly shits on them for having a 'bad' build and bad mechanics (because they are new).

Trying stuff for yourself in a complex game as PoE just leads to frustration and frustration leads to quitting.

[Edge-]

Dying is a part of PoE, part of learning process. And this game is all about learning.

Sure, to a point. But the game doesn't tell you anything when you die, so if you're coming in with minimal knowledge you're not always gonna know why it is you're getting rekt.

Alternatively, starting a game and smashing your face against a wall because you're making noob mistakes without realizing it and dying to early mobs frequently without learning much from those deaths is probably gonna turn a lot of players off, too. I get it, "HARDCORE" game etc. etc. etc. but it's not really anymore, at least not until endgame.

The game is in a weird place that I'd liken to EQ2 a bit, where it was very much originally designed with the "HARDCORE" mentality and has slowly moved away from that over time so the older/newer designs frequently clash pretty hard. Doesn't help that they keep letting power creep get out of control (Why even Maven Orbs?) : /

[bloodwulf]

Yeah no, I would 100% advise to find a new player friendly guide and follow that.
Nothing is going to turn off a new player like fitting together a completely jank build (and your first build without any clue at all will be janky) and run into a wall where the game just repeatedly shits on them for having a 'bad' build and bad mechanics (because they are new).

Trying stuff for yourself in a complex game as PoE just leads to frustration and frustration leads to quitting.

This entirely. This game is obtuse and unfriendly to new players. A good guide will give someone a chance to get to endgame and see what the game as to offer. There is a reason why the New Player Arc build is so popular. Get used to the campaign and the beginning of end game, then try a harder build. I was 2000 hours in before i felt i could freely spec a build from scratch, and even then that is smashing trees from POENinja together and making it work. Telling a new player to just log in, do what you want, and then die over and over, is literally the fastest way to drive a new player away.

[kaminaris]

Yeah no, I would 100% advise to find a new player friendly guide and follow that.
Nothing is going to turn off a new player like fitting together a completely jank build (and your first build without any clue at all will be janky) and run into a wall where the game just repeatedly shits on them for having a 'bad' build and bad mechanics (because they are new).

Trying stuff for yourself in a complex game as PoE just leads to frustration and frustration leads to quitting.

I already said it couple times, PoE is not a game designed for braindead button mashing. If you are unwilling to learn, no guide will help you.
Heck, even reading guides may not help you if you dont learn basics. And by "basics" i mean tons of complex systems of PoE.

So recommending guide builds for completely new player will only hurt him as he will end up with trying to copy some build, wondering why it doesn't work or why its way worse than advertised.

As contrary to learning the fundamentals, understanding them, preferably by experience. There are some guides on fundamentals on PoE, prolly made by Ziz but I don't remember and those are ok. But starting right off by copying some build without knowing a single thing about game mechanics is going to end up in catastrophic failure.

I still remember people donating tons to aura stacker streamers with "ELP my build isn't working!". Sure aura stacker is outliner but even most basic builds in PoE require some learning time.

[Gorsameth]

I already said it couple times, PoE is not a game designed for braindead button mashing. If you are unwilling to learn, no guide will help you.
Heck, even reading guides may not help you if you dont learn basics. And by "basics" i mean tons of complex systems of PoE.

So recommending guide builds for completely new player will only hurt him as he will end up with trying to copy some build, wondering why it doesn't work or why its way worse than advertised.

As contrary to learning the fundamentals, understanding them, preferably by experience. There are some guides on fundamentals on PoE, prolly made by Ziz but I don't remember and those are ok. But starting right off by copying some build without knowing a single thing about game mechanics is going to end up in catastrophic failure.

I still remember people donating tons to aura stacker streamers with "ELP my build isn't working!". Sure aura stacker is outliner but even most basic builds in PoE require some learning time.

Note the 4 words in my post.
New
Player
Friendly
Guide

No decent guide is going to end in anywhere remotely near the catastrophic failure of someone with 0 clue trying to work the PoE skill tree. Heck even a completely shit guide is probably going to have better results.

Your also ignoring the basics of human nature. Most people are not going to keep running into the wall when their first attempt is broken and not fun because they don't know what they are doing. They gave it their one shot and they go away to some other game.

[Edge-]

I already said it couple times, PoE is not a game designed for braindead button mashing. If you are unwilling to learn, no guide will help you.

Reading guides is how some folks learn. Smashing their heads against a wall in a game that provides no meaningful feedback to you isn't the best way for a lot of folks to learn. The game provides remarkably poor feedback in terms of anything you're doing wrong or doing right outside of "things are dying". Maybe they're dying now but you're fucking yourself over in another 5-10 levels? Maybe you've taken a wrong turn and there's nothing in-game indicating how you can self-correct?

So recommending guide builds for completely new player will only hurt him as he will end up with trying to copy some build, wondering why it doesn't work or why its way worse than advertised.

Sure, if you're telling them to look at some big boi 100ex+ builds that require hyper-specific gear to work. But there are tons of beginner/new player friendly guides that will provide directions for folks as they first start playing so they can better understand the systems in the game.

[kaminaris]

Note the 4 words in my post.
New
Player
Friendly
Guide

No decent guide is going to end in anywhere remotely near the catastrophic failure of someone with 0 clue trying to work the PoE skill tree. Heck even a completely shit guide is probably going to have better results.

Your also ignoring the basics of human nature. Most people are not going to keep running into the wall when their first attempt is broken and not fun because they don't know what they are doing. They gave it their one shot and they go away to some other game.

There is no such thing as new player friendly guide. And this is the reason why PoE university came to be in first place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRy50Og8lDM

Because even "Beginner friendly enki arc witch" assumes you know the fundamentals.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1147951

I am not ignoring human nature, you are simply talking about people outside of target audience for this game. Game is literally designed for people that take fun in learning by their own, gaining knowledge, getting better by trail and error.

There is no easy way here. If you want easy way you are going to be disappointed as even if you manage to somehow copy build without learning, you will be smashed with the league mechanics and thousand other things to learn.

[Tojara]

I mean that's what I did several leagues ago. My friends who play a lot recommended a couple guides to me and I basically followed them to a tee.

The thing is, even after 5 leagues and over a thousand hours played, I still follow guides as a baseline. Now, I don't follow them exactly anymore because I sort of understand the logic about why I want certain items or why you path certain ways, but I still follow them on league start. While I have a pretty good knowledge of the game now, I'm not well versed enough to create my own builds, but I am good enough to create my own variants from that baseline (if that makes sense). Not exactly sure to be honest if I'd want to make my own build from scratch, considering the time investment outside of the game and mucking around with PoB wouldn't be worth it to me.

This game is just created for a more hardcore audience. Generally, from all the games I've played, most hardcore audiences want to play meta builds and learn everything they can from others. The amount that want to blindly go in and 'flourish', while figuring everything out on their own can't be all that high. People gravitate towards the strongest builds, it's going to be what's recommended to them, and people want to learn quickly. Nobody wants to go into PoE which has a billion mechanics just stumbling around at this point not knowing what to do. Almost exactly the same as somebody who is new to MOBA trying to flail around not knowing jack shit.

All I learned from the game is from guides linked to me from friends, while cross referencing with those very friends on the inner workings if I was confused about anything. It's absolutely fun to throw yourself against the wall in a new game or semi-new game where everybody is still learning. It's not as fun being thrown into a world with a billion different overlapping league mechanics when the games been out for what, 7-8 years now?

If I had advice for anybody trying to play this game for the first time? Research the fundamentals (mapping, gems), get a guide to follow that's both strong and cheap (usually ones that have low cost unique items), and primarily focus on the league mechanic that you're starting in (while adding more as you go). This game is incredibly bloated, but you don't have to do every single league mechanic (I generally ignore a few of them just because they suck as is). If you're digging the game you will naturally be interested in understanding why your build is setup the way it is, and why it works. If you're still hooked at that point you'll likely fuck around with PoB and things should come naturally with each and every season.

Finally I'd still say this game still boils down to braindead button mashing. Most builds activate some auras, use a mobility skill and either spam right, or well, hold it down in the case of cyclone lol.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Wouldn't you want a game to be at least new player friendly since well you still want your game to grow and such. I dunno, being user friendly won't kill any "Hardcore appeal" Imo. Never was a fan of games being vague just for its own sake.

[kaminaris]

I mean that's what I did several leagues ago. My friends who play a lot recommended a couple guides to me and I basically followed them to a tee.

This literally could not happen or you are a oracle, let me tell you why. When you first time open up any guide, no matter how beginner friendly, you are getting overwhelmed by new information: POB, ascendancy, sockets, links, supports, pantheon, bandits, flasks, enchants, mana reservation, auras, loot filter and so on.

this is a reality for a NEW player that just heard about PoE for the first time.

So. Either you asked your friends a thousand questions (like my friend asked me when he started playing) when you started playing or googled it up.

There is no way "you just followed guide" for the first time without fundamental knowledge. This is why I always recommend trying it yourself without getting too much information at once, it's ok to fail, its ok to google things up. And its better if you actually try to fiddle around with stuff yourself and gain practical knowledge.

- - - Updated - - -

Wouldn't you want a game to be at least new player friendly since well you still want your game to grow and such. I dunno, being user friendly won't kill any "Hardcore appeal" Imo. Never was a fan of games being vague just for its own sake.

But it is beginner friendly, the fact you can shoot yourself in foot doesn't mean it's hardcore only, it's just a part of learning experience. Also casual players doesn't mean stupid players.

PoE is simply embodiment of "knowledge is power".

[cago]

POE players have been joining Last Epoch in droves the past couple of days, and now I know why.

Because the league is 2 months in and ppl want to play something else untill the next one?

[Vespian]

Dying is a part of PoE, part of learning process. And this game is all about learning.

There is no reason why you should lose a character over badly designed fights.