Old Player Trying Return After Several Years - Need Advice

Hey everyone, it has been several years since I last played this game but I would like to give it a go again. The problem is it seems quite a lot has changed and I hardly remember what my characters were originally designed to do. What I am looking for is a little guidance as to what type of Shadow I should try to create. I have two shadows one level 87 and one level 83 in the standard league. I guess I will post the "decent" gear I have in my stash so people know what I am dealing with. I will say I used to play on exclusively life based characters so if CI is still a thing it probably won't be realistic for me to play.



Those are the items that I had on my characters or in my stash labeled "keepers" I have much more gear but I am going to assume that's the "good" stuff I thought I had. Skill gems I have a lot of stuff but I am sure they have added many since I last played so I probably don't have everything I might need. Also, I am completely open to selling stuff off if I need to buy better gear. If I can gear one character I would be happy but I would imagine my stuff in next to worthless in standard league by now.

I have about 90chaos, 30 alch, 13 gcp in my stash with some other random currencies but that too may be worthless these days but hopefully I can buy some gear with it.

Here is what I am looking for:

Life based shadow
Good damage but still good survivablity as I don't like dying all the time
I used many characters in the past. EK caster, Elemental split arrow, Crit spectral throw so I like at least semi ranged attacks but I am open to ideas
Fairly easy to use cause I am not great on a keyboard

Any help would be awesome cause I am a bit overwhelmed with the builds on the forum, my gear choices, and the changes that I probably don't know about yet within the game. Thanks in advance guys!

I would highly recommend a fresh start. Trying to come back to a game like this after an extended leave would be...daunting. If I may suggest it, jump into the temp league (Prophecy currently) and start a new character. Learn as you go. You'll probably find the process to be a little less jarring that way.

If you don't want to play "blind," so to speak, there are quite a few guides in the class-specific forum sections that outline suggested trees, gear, etc.

Maybe you're right and should start from scratch but that feels even more daunting then having a stash full of gear and currency with a full respec available! But maybe I am so out of date that nothing is any good any more.

The main reason I suggest it is when I respec my characters in Standard to try things out, it often feels suboptimal. I can theorycraft as much as I want, but very rarely do my plans work out -exactly- as I intended. Usually I find things to change while I'm leveling and get a better feel for the character. If I just respec a level 80+ character and try to start playing, it feels very off. Maybe that's just a personal thing though.

Definitely start out with a fresh character first to get the hang of the changes. If you don't want to make a new character in prophecy, just make it in Standard so you have lots of orbs and gear to use.

Then, once you know what's going on, you can go back to your other character and it will be much better.

You have some legacy items there. Make sure you inform yourself before you try and sell anything.

Aye.
Looking up poe.trade, the Lightning Coil and Bringer of Rain have a combined value of like 50 Exalts.

Starting a new character is a good way to get used to things you'll have to plan out anyways, like the new Ascendancy subclasses.

As for general gameplay: More options, like new supports, to scale damage, so the "endgame" is apparently a lot faster.