A Guide to Help New Players Understand & Enjoy Path of Exile

Sharing my comprehensive guide on everything I think new players need to know to have a good time in Path of Exile as well as make their life easier!

Introduction

Hello! I wanted to share information I think is useful and helpful to get new players started with Path of Exile. This is everything I could think of that I wish I'd known when I started playing this game last year; if you feel I am missing any important information or you'd like to see an existing section updated with more detailed information regarding a particular system or mechanic, please let me know in the comments!

*This guide was first created during Affliction League 3.23 version

Selecting a game mode

When first creating a character, you have 3 main options presented here in this screen:


Standard league is a permanent mode, but not recommended as usually you want to play in whatever the current "seasonal" league is to earn extra rewards such as free cosmetics. In this image, our current seasonal league is called "Affliction."

During a seasonal league, you will complete challenges to earn cosmetics as well compete on leaderboards if that's something you're into. An example of the challenges is below:


You have to complete a certain number of these challenges (easily accessible by hotkey "H" on PC) to earn the base cosmetic set and then further challenges will make the set fancier in appearance.

Now let's cover the rest of the info on the creation screen:

Hardcore is a mode during the seasonal league that means if your character dies, that death is permanent and you will have to start over. I recommend if you are a beginner you avoid this game mode until at least completing the campaign and uber bosses once on a regular character.

Solo Self-Found means you cannot trade with other players. Some players enjoy the extra challenge of not relying on others and only relying on their own luck to get the equipment they need at end-game levels. This is perfectly fine to do as a beginner and shouldn't really hinder your experiences as long as you play often. If you are a more casual player, it would most likely be best to be able to trade. If you are able to trade, then we often refer to the regular season as a "trade league."

Lastly, Ruthless is a game mode where items rarely drop and is even more challenging than normal. I would advise you to avoid this game mode if you're new.

Generally, just select the default option, the seasonal league, with no extra options checked in order to have the best experience as a new player.

General tips for your first playthrough

Now that you've selected a mode, you can then select a character. That brings me to my first tip:

1. Most characters feel the same at early levels. The only real differences is where they start on the skill tree, and their ascendancies. Strength based classes start on the left side, dexterity starts on the right, and intelligence on the top. These positions rotate a bit based on which character you selected, with the exception being the scion who starts in the middle. You will not be able to select the scion on your first playthrough until you rescue her as a playable option in the campaign. Below I will show an example of the skill tree:


While this does look pretty intimidating, I assure you this is not nearly as bad as it looks. That brings me to my 2nd tip:

2. Follow a build guide for your first playthrough. If you try to YOLO this, you're going to have a bad time and won't be able to clear end game content. There are a few ways to find builds, but I recommend Googling "Best leaguestart builds PoE." This will usually bring up some written guides as well as videos, such as Rhykker's video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAVPASYvreA

For written guides, there are a few resources I would recommend:

https://www.poe-vault.com/guides/tag/league-starter-builds-for-path-of-exile

This above link is for PoE Vault, one of the main resources out there. Alternatively, there is also Maxroll.gg, although I find PoE vault to have more options vs. Maxroll. Below is a link for Maxroll:

https://maxroll.gg/poe/category/build-guides?filter[build_guide_type][taxonomy]=taxonomies.build_guide_type&filter[build_guide_type][value]=archive&filter[build_guide_type][operation]=!%3D

It's important you focus on a build that is for "leaguestart," as these are builds that don't require heavy gear investment in the early end game in order to perform well. Make sure to watch the YouTube videos for any builds you're interested in to get a good idea of the gameplay style.

Besides looking for "leaguestart," you also want to consider a well-rounded build for your first playthrough. Some builds will be tagged as either "mapping (clears maps fast & efficiently)," or "bossing (able to kill uber bosses fast & efficiently)." You need a build that is moderately able to do both. Once you get an idea of what kind of game content you prefer, then you can focus on one or the other in the future.

3. Avoid hardcore on your first playthrough. I know I've said it previously, but I don't feel like I can emphasize this enough. As you will be unfamiliar with the game, you will likely die a lot. Unless you really enjoy starting over and potentially wasting your own time, please do a regular playthrough once before attempting hardcore.

4. Don't rush on your first playthrough. There's a lot of great lore in this game, and seeing all the boss fights your first time will be pretty special and unique. Take the time to really enjoy the story and the setting, as by your 3rd or 4th playthrough it'll seem more like a chore than the experience it is. The campaign is quite long as well, and you will usually be about level 70 or so by the time you complete it- more skill points are better than less.

5. Select a different class and build for each subsequent playthrough- this will help you progress the achievements where you need to defeat the boss Dominus as each class.

Skill reset penalties

Now that we've covered some basics, our next topic to look at is skill reset penalties. Path of Exile can feel pretty penalizing towards new players, as during the campaign you earn only a set amount of free passive skill reset points. What this essentially means is, if you're trying a build out and really, honestly hate it, it is usually easier to start completely over with a new character than to try to reset it. Unfortunately, this is the case if you feel this way and you're not at level 70.

There is something called "Orb of Regret" that grants passive skill refund points, but they are rare drops during the low levels, and if you are just starting out you won't have the currency to trade other players for them.


The amount of free skill resets you've earned from the campaign will be shown at the top of your skill tree when you open it:


If you are at or over 70 and can farm low-level maps with your current build to obtain currency to trade with, then doing a full build reset might not be impossible, although it will take a considerable time investment. So, try to pick out something you can see yourself playing, and if you really hate it change early.

Path of Building

Something you see often mentioned in build guides is usually a link to a "Path of Building." This is an app that allows users to plan out builds in a simulation as well as save their builds for others to view. The main link for the app and its download can be found at:

https://pathofbuilding.community/

You do not need to download this to be able to see and view a Path of Building if the build guide you are looking at is already filled out; however, many build guides will have a "pastebin" link where you copy the string and then paste it directly into Path of Building to load the build information.

Personally, I only use Path of Building links in build guides that don't use the pastebin, as there's already enough to keep track of in this game and the less complicated the better. If you are a person who doesn't mind the extra work, then by all means that opens more options for you if you put the time into downloading the app and importing the strings found in build guides.

Once you have a better understanding of the game, you can use the Path of Building to try out various combos and even create unique builds of your own. For your first time, just follow a guide until you get more familiarized with the game.

How to use support gems

One of the main concepts of Path of Exile is having support skill gems that modify the active skill being used. You will see links between sockets to indicate that these can be used for skill gem links:


How to socket and use the support gems is shown in the tutorial at the start of the game, but I do want to expand on a few things here; first, you can use multiple active skill gems in a linked piece with no penalty. You may need to do this in order to fit all the skills you need into your items. You can change the color of sockets using chromatic orbs, and you can add and change links using jeweller's orbs and orbs of fusing. Please note that it may be easier to use the crafting bench to get the number of linked sockets and colors that you need on an item.

Second, when leveling in the campaign, it is more important that you look at the color and number of sockets as well as links that an item has rather than its stats. Being able to use your skills effectively will ultimately make your leveling easier than having more stats. On a side note, getting 6-link chestpieces is very rare and most often you will need to craft the sockets onto the item using the crafting bench. You will normally only use 4 or 5-link chests as you level.

Third, skill gems (both active and support) grow in power as they level up. The maximum level a gem can reach is 20, at which point you can choose to reset the gem but gain quality which will increase the overall power of the gem but require you to level it again. There are two ways to do this:

1) Use gemcutter's prisms directly on the gem to gain +20% quality; you will not have to re-level this.
2) Trade a gemcutter's prism and the level 20 gem to a vendor to receive a level 1 +20% quality gem that then needs leveled.


The main reason I wanted to talk about the quality of gems is, once you cap your gems at level 20, it is a huge power increase; also in the following support gem images you'll see I have my gems at +20% quality.

Finally, I want to show here an example of the active gem with support gems linked on my necromancer's wand:




That final image is in the 3rd socket on the item, but the item description panel took over the screen space when I tried to get a good image of it. Anyway, as you can see, both supports modify the effect of the active gem, which is the raise spectre.

How to have more active skills than the amount of buttons shown

In most builds and build guides, you will notice there is a greater amount of active skills listed than you have spaces for on the skill bar. In order to fit everything, read the gems to identify which are "auras," as these are a cast-once-only or "set it and forget it" type of skill unless you die. If you die, you'll need to recast these.

When you click on a skill slot, you'll get a menu that shows you all the options you can place there based on what gems you have equipped:


The footprint option indicates that a button is "move-only;" I recommend doing this for whichever mouse button you prefer to move with as Path of Exile is a point-to-move game. Path of Exile 2, when it release, will have WASD movement support, but until then, we have to work with what we have.

Now, on this image where I show the button options, the ones with repeating circle symbols are auras:


This indicates the skill is active after being cast. Any time you cast an aura, you will reserve some of your mana:


It will tell you how much mana you have, and how much is reserved. The visual for how much is reserved is shown by the amount of greyed-out space on your mana bubble.

In addition to auras, many minions are a cast-once type of deal, unless they die and need to be re-cast. The total amount of active auras and "permanent" minions I have is displayed on the upper left corner of my screen here:


It's good to know the total count of your minions if you are playing a minion build, so you know if you need to cycle in a skill to do a re-cast.

Another important thing to note in the action bar is if you are using any "Vaal" skill gems. A Vaal skill gem will have 2 skills; 1 that is your regular cast (in my example below, the summon skeletons), as well as the empowered Vaal cast ("Vaal summon skeletons"):


The Vaal skill requires you to kill a set number of enemies to obtain their souls, which are then used to cast the empowered Vaal skill.

I recommend to keep your three most-used active skills on the "Q, W, E" where you can press them easily while playing, such as your main damage spell and your movement ability (I am using Dash in these examples). I also suggest that after casting an aura, you replace it with something else if available on the action bars, so you don't press it accidentally and either lose the buff or lose mana by needing to re-cast it again.

In summary, while you may feel intimidated by the number of active skill gems a build has listed, it often is not as complicated as it may first appear, as many of these skills are a cast-once skill that can be hidden on your action bars.

Flask basics

Flask management is pretty important at all levels in the game; generally, the build guide you are following will also show you which flasks to use in end game after the campaign. Some important notes about your flasks:

1. You can trade 3 of the same named flask of either life or mana to a vendor to receive a flask that is of the next highest tier up:


This increases the amount of life or mana restored. I recommend doing this periodically throughout the campaign so you don't fall behind if you get in a pinch and need to use these regularly.

2. There is a crafting recipe that adds the following affix onto a flask, "Used when charges reach full." This means as long as you have charges, the flask will auto-refresh when it runs out. This is very important when doing a variety of content. You generally want this on all of your flasks when you hit end game and aren't constantly changing out your flasks anymore.


The crafting recipe looks like this:


These recipes all require instilling orbs and glassblower's orbs, which drop in end game maps and you can also trade for them.

3. You can increase quality of flasks to +20% using glassblower's baubles, which further empowers the flask:



In some other builds and/or situations, you may end up using some of the other recipes, but your build guide will let you know if there is anything special you need to add to the flasks.

Lootfilters

Lootfilters are important, especially when you reach end game content. Otherwise, you're not gonna be able to see the ground, and you're gonna have a bad time. While leveling, the filters can also highlight important drops such as items with a high number of sockets, or items with 3 linked sockets of different colors than can be vendored to obtain chromatic orbs. I'm going to show you how to create and implement the loot filters in game.

1. Go to Pathofexile.com and log into your account. Then, hover over the tab "Game," and select "Item Filters."


2. Click on "Create new item filter."

3. Fill out the empty fields:



And then click "Submit." Please note there is a help link that takes you to a FAQ page that will have copy/paste and explanations for all the things you can include in your filter.

You can also use someone else's already-generated filter if you check out the item filters page:


For this example, we're going to copy a basic filter:


This takes us to the filter creation screen, except everything is already filled out:


We're going to click "Submit" after checking the validate current version box. That will then give us a filter that appears in our list:


4. Now, go to your game and hit "O" to bring up the options panel, or manually go there by clicking the menu, and select "Game."

5. Select the created loot filter from the drop-down list:


6. Then hit "Save" at the bottom to close. Congratulations! Your new loot filter will then be enabled.

In the past, this process used to be a lot easier with just checkboxes, but it seems to have grown over the years to where we have this new system. Therefore, I just recommend copying an already created loot filter after reading the descriptions and finding one that serves your purposes.

Trade overview

When playing in a trade league, you can trade with other players for the equipment or currency you need. The most commonly used currency in trading are chaos orbs; "1c" refers to 1 chaos orb.

To access the trade website, log into your account at Pathofexile.com and click on the trade tab:


That brings us to this screen here, where we can search:


Please note the tab named "bulk item exchange," as this tab allows you to trade items in bulk with other players:


For an example, I'm going to use the bulk item exchange and select that I want chromatic orbs in exchange for chaos orbs. That will bring us to a page like this:


So, it will show us the current seasonal league currency conversion rate, players who have the items in stock, their online status, and their language. If you click on contact, it will populate a message in that player's language for you to copy or you can click "direct whisper."

A good rule of trade etiquette is that you have the specified amount of orbs ready (you can shift-click to unstack an item in your inventory), and that you go to that player's hideout to trade. Basically, the person requesting the trade goes to the trader's location (generally the hideout). There will be a button you can click that will allow you to teleport to them. You also want to thank the player. If you don't know their language, just a simple "Thank you!" in English will suffice, as most of them still understand what you mean (and also it's the most commonly taught 2nd language that most people will know).

If you need to trade for an item such as a unique or specific piece of gear, you can use the regular search funtion I first showed you. There are some videos on YouTube you can look for that further explain how to perform in-depth searches, so to get there you would visit YouTube and search "how to search in trade in path of exile;" please avoid any currency buying videos and just look at ones that explain trade basics. I will not link any specifics here, as there are many great creators with lots of videos on this subject out there.

Chaos conversion for trading

The best way to gather chaos orbs when you are just starting out is to farm complete sets of unidentified gear and then trade them to a vendor. Here is an example of pre-farmed sets to be converted:


I like to dedicate a specified tab to these sets and organize them horizontally.

When converting a set, make sure the chaos orbs show in the vendor offer tab before accepting:


Keep in mind the items all need to be higher than level 60 (level 70 preferrably), so you will not be able to start doing this method until after you complete the campaign and have started mapping. If the items are identified, you will only get 1 chaos orb instead of 2; therefore, use only unidentified items. Additionally, the armor type and weapon types do not matter; all that matters is that it is a complete gear set. You can look at your own slots for reference on which pieces are needed.

Hideout overview

You will first unlock your hideout during Act 2, and you will only have 1 layout available at the beginning until you unlock more hideouts. You get 1 hideout layout per campaign chapter after Act 2, as long as you find and clear them to unlock them. You can also purchase layouts from the store, although with so many free options this is not needed. Lastly, there are some special maps that have layout unlocks hidden in them.

Talk to Helena to change hideout layouts:


She can be found in your hideout as well as in town. You can edit where she is placed in your hideout. Helena will then show you your available options:


Besides a waypoint, you can also place your stash, crafting bench, map device, and much more in your hideout! There are TONS of free furnishings you can place as well. To enter edit mode, select this button when in your hideout:


This will give us the following options:


In Edit mode, the name of each individual item as well as effects will be shown. If you click on "Decorations," you can see a panel with all the available items. It is quite substantial, so I encourage you to scroll through it and check it out on your own. You can rotate and place various items as well decide where you want the NPCs placed. Once you create and save your hideout layout, it will stay even through season changes unless you decide to redecorate.

Mapping and the Atlas

Once you complete the campaign, you will get a mission to "explore the Atlas of worlds." You will be led to a map device (you can also place one of these in your hideout to alleviate having to be in town), and this is the panel you will see:


I have labeled some components here so I don't have to spam this section with images:

1. Here you can select map buffs that will affect your map. Hovering over them will give you a brief description of each one. Your first time using each buff is free unless otherwise noted; after that, they normally cost chaos orbs to apply.

2. These are uber boss symbols. Selecting one will mean that map will be influenced by the uber you selected. Hovering over each symbol will let you know how many map bosses and in what tier of maps you need to kill in order to receive an invitation to fight that uber boss. The higher a map tier, the more difficult it is.

3. These buttons indicate a specific activity which will occur in your map; you can pick from Einhar beasts, Alva temples, Niko's mining, or Immortal Syndicate. You don't have to select one; you can leave these be if desired.

4. These are Kirac missions, or "free" maps. You can select one and activate it same as you would for a map. I advise you to check these daily, as unique maps can turn up here.

5. This shows you your overall Atlas progress, and will let you know on what tier and color difficulty (white, yellow, red) you need to complete a map to obtain the skill point for it. You will scket any voidstones you obtain from defeating uber bosses here to raise the overall tier your maps will drop at.

6. This is where you insert maps, boss invitations, or sacrifice fragments to open the instance.

Next, let's take a look at the Atlas skill tree:


While this does look just as scary and intimidating as the regular skill tree, it is not so bad either. Generally, you're going to go through the middle of the tree and take essence and strongbox options, as well as the basic connecting nodes that increase maps found. The skill nodes on this tree are related to different types of activities you may encounter in maps. You can customize it to increase the chances of getting your preferred activity, or completely eliminate the chances of encounters you dislike. I recommend looking at YouTube for more in-depth guides about the best beginner paths or suggestions on easy activities to select. Just like the regular skill tree, you will get passive refund points here and can use orbs of regret if you want to reset something. It will take some trial and exploration for you to learn which activities you like and dislike.

Stash tabs & Sales

While Path of Exile is a completely free to play game, you will be limited in the tabs you have and amount of items you can store. If you choose to get any items from the microtransaction store ("M"), I suggest quality of life stash tabs such as the currency tab, the divination tab, and the maps tab. Wait for a stash tab sale; these happen quite often and are worth it to save yourself a bit. I would also like to emphasize that you don't need to spend any money at all to have a good time in this game; you'll just need to be more careful with your inventory management.

You will need to configure your stash tabs every new season reset; you can do this by right-clicking on the name of the tab at the top to open this panel:


You can customize the name, color, and affinities of the tab this way. Drag and move the tabs in the list to the right to re-order them (you can also drag the names of the tabs themselves at the top instead of the side). Make sure to check the affinity box, otherwise items might go to the wrong spot. You can fast-deposit items by using control + left click when hovering over items in your inventory.