I just can't decide on a class

[Quadsword]

I've tried out Monk, Warrior, Mercenary, and Sorceress. Gotten each to around level 15.

I didn't like sorceress at all. Normally I really enjoy playing pyromaniac style spellcasters, but the spells just didn't have any kind of satisfying impact. Mercenary was cool, but his play style feels a bit one note. Warrior felt awful until I lucked out getting a legendary two-handed mace from the burrower. Now he feels unstoppable, but I recognize that's entirely because of an extremely lucky early game loot drop. I like monk's faster paced melee gameplay, but I have no idea how to build him properly.

Plus, when I'm allocating passive tree points, I can never shake the feeling I'm doing it all wrong and that I've essentially screwed myself. I'm trying not to use build guides at the moment and just trying different stuff to see what I like.

Any advice? I keep getting stuck in act 1 because I just get terrible choice paralysis.

[Outsider]

Wait for the entire classes cast?
I'm not touching this until they release my Duelist.
I only ever played Duelist in POE1, and am not gonna play anything different in POE2 either.

[Mr.Suitss]

Problem is they are missing tons of weapons as well. So you can't even try different builds at the moment.

[Pandorian]

I think you might have fallen into the trap that a class has to use a certain weapon and thus certain skills. It's hard to correctly identify the issue you're having if you're just saying a class since all classes can use all weapons so then all we can do is make simple inferences on what you were using.

It also depends on how you build your skills. A Bleed X-Bow Merc won't feel as good as a Bleed Bow or an Elemental X-Bow. Typically I suggest people just build what they find fun but you might benefit more from looking up videos on builds and seeing which of those looks fun to you. You'll want to look at their ascendancy and not the base class.

Once you have a general idea of what looks fun you can then either choose to follow a guide, modify a guide, or freeform it with your final goal in mind. Most builds are "viable" to take you to maps but once you start endgame you really need to have something that synergizes well, which is where the guides typically shine.

[Nightskies]

I think: stick with the monk. It keeps feeling fluid. Alternatively, go Ice Sorceress instead for the explosive punch you're looking for. Fire is more about burning instead of exploding.

Pick an element. Lightning, ice, or chaos. Focus on that for now. Don't skip survivability passives.

Instead of looking deeper in the tree, just look at the closer areas. As you grow, reassess the effectiveness of your old points with what you can then get from where you are.

Respeccing is not at all a big deal. Redistribute them willy-nilly. Take it easy, don't worry about making mistakes!

Rather than worrying if your not getting the most out of everything as if you're a main tank in World of Warcraft, only reassess your build and gear if you feel that something is too much for the build as it is.

Don't worry about what everyone else says. Only look for advice if you need it.

Is this advice is just what you needed?

[DarkFenix]

Merc feels quite good right out of the box. Your early skills feel punchy, impactful. This does lead to some disappointment when the skills you get for the next 20 levels feel meh, but out of the box it does feel good. Grab yourself fragmentation rounds and explosive grenade, congratulations, you're fantasy Doomguy.

Regarding sorceress, fire is easily the worst element and electric's spells don't feel very good early on, cold sorc is the one that is the most satisfying out of the box, you get some pretty satisfying skills very early.

Ranger is another class that feels good in act 1. Lightning arrow and lightning rod make a good combination and both are lvl 1 skill gems. Stick scattershot in rod and chain in arrow, seed a whole area with lightning rods and go to town on them.

Monk takes a good while to bloom, not until late act 2 when you start to pick up some real synergy in your skills. And warrior is generally just pretty bad, an uphill struggle from start to finish.

[Prince-Nyan]

Monk is your good in between, can go melee, ranged or caster as those nodes are avaliable at the starting point so you wouldn't need to keep re-rolling a new character.

[Ghostlight]

Pick the one you found least boring on the way to level 15.

[Obergruppenführer]

I love my level 15 sorc, i found a that Taryn's Shiver Gelid Staff and stacked gems on frost bomb, started stacking spell damage items and got frost bomb to 700 damage with instant freeze and can cast frost bomb 3 times instantly, i currently erase all bosses i find, unless they have a immune or a hiding phase, who needs witch hahaha

[SidneyBoo]

just keep playing monk, monk is solid, but don't choose chayula ascendency thats trash. invoker is strong.

[Knavenformed]

I'm feeling a lot of the same
I'm slowly playing each class one by one, I now have 3 characters in Act 3 where you start to unlock majority of your tools

And when I do it always feels a bit meh in one way or another.

I know I could powergame as a Witchhunter Double Herald Bow, but that seems like a random assortment of tools and it's fail RP in an ARPG.

[FDru]

I have only played monk and merc, but I can say one thing for certain: they are SO MUCH DIFFERENT at 50 than at 15. Actually I think classes are designed to be generally weak and limited at low levels in this game, so you really aren't getting the proper experience if you're stopping so early.

Anyway, I'd suggest merc for the simple fact that it's very versatile and so if you end up not really liking the playstyle you can change it up easily without much change in passives or gear. You can go short range shotgun, long range machine gun, or grenades for huge AOE. I tried several different builds and eventually settled on a galvanic shards (with electrocute focused gems to stun the entire screen pretty much instantly), then rapid shot for single targets. It went from varying degrees of "meh" to really fun once I figured out the build I liked.

[Operation40]

monk: ice strike + bell

[Floppa]

Originally posted by Outsider:

Wait for the entire classes cast?
I'm not touching this until they release my Duelist.
I only ever played Duelist in POE1, and am not gonna play anything different in POE2 either.

he aint comin back

[Wild]

Monk is well rounded and really powerful. Sorceress right now only has 1 strong build and it's one of the most boring spells, she desperately needs buffs on other spells. Warrior I only played totems from act 2 all the way to level 88, it's fun and easy and decently powerful. Mercenary is severely underpowered unless you do very niche builds like the stat stacking one.

It sounds you're liking monk and it's a really decent character right now, try following a guide to know how you need to optimize gems and gear.

[donut32]

the best class is none because the game is terrible no matter which class you are on. youll be running the same passives. just pick one at random or play a better game