What do you wish you had known as a new player?

-turn off global chat
-never buy anything from trade chat
-learn about itemlevel and tiers
-use poetrade to shop for best deals
-stop id'ing every damn thing
-use a loot filter asap
-stop trying to 100% clear maps
-backtracking kills your currency per/hr
-dont play a claw+shield high block scion as your 1st build

Lots of good suggestions and wish-I-knew topics. :-)

My top six...

1.) You can ID strongboxes (seriously, I did not know this at first)

2.) When you ID a strongbox and before you open it, look for dangerous mods. Will it freeze you, do you need to pop a flask? Does it spawn an exile? Does it detonate corpses around it, and are you standing on a pile of corpses?

3.) Use trasmute and alteration orbs on life flasks. You want to at least have the ability to remove bleed with one and freeze with another.

4.) There are no rare flasks, only normal, magic, and unique.

5.) Research item filters and vendor recipes. Don't wait too long to start with an item filter to remove trash from the screen while looking to collect flasks and gems with quality to vendor for worthwhile currency later.

6.) Don't waste your currency yet. Just hoard it for now. You'll be turning over equipment like mad when you level. The only currency I'd bother wasting is transmute and alteration orbs. Near the end of normal you can start using a few chromatic orbs, and very sparingly use jeweller's and fuses for when you really need them.

And...

"

-stop trying to 100% clear maps
-backtracking kills your currency per/hr

Don't listen to them. ;-) Have fun in the game and play however you like. So that would be my #7 to add to this list...

7.) Take everything end-game players say with a grain of salt. Some of them have forgotten what made PoE fun when they first played it: discovering something new for yourself.

Group played together again last night, minus the Ranger who was sick. Got through Brutus and the Prison, ended after returning the Allflame. The summoner Witch and my trapper Shadow are the only ones who haven't died at least once, the melee-based Templar and Marauder should prolly be a tad more careful before rushing ahead!

Been playing a solo summoner Witch off and on in the meantime, it's been fun throwing flaming skulls around while my zombies keep bad stuff from getting to me. I keep reading on the forum, though, that you should level as a caster and spec into summoner later. Is this because some fights later on become impossible to win with a summoner, or just because casters level faster? Leveling speed isn't really a big deal for me on my first soloist as I experience the game for the first time, but being unable to get past a boss fight because my minions die instantly would kill the fun pretty hard!

"

cipher_nemo wrote:

1.) You can ID strongboxes (seriously, I did not know this at first)

2.) When you ID a strongbox and before you open it, look for dangerous mods. Will it freeze you, do you need to pop a flask? Does it spawn an exile? Does it detonate corpses around it, and are you standing on a pile of corpses?

I would add to this that you can use alteration orbs (or most currencies, really) on those strongboxes.

Don't want corpse explosions and freezing? Alt that bad boy and hope for something better.

Edit: I suppose I should add... if it is a yellow strongbox... it is probably not worth spending chaos orbs to reroll those boxes. Just move on. Or if you are playing softcore, just go for it. Dying to challenging content can be fun... especially when you start surviving the difficult encounters :D

"

ManySplinters wrote:

Is this because some fights later on become impossible to win with a summoner, or just because casters level faster?

I think it is the leveling speed.

Zombies specifically really suck hard for me until gem level 12 or 14 or so. Supported with minion life and resists they still just run up and get one-shotted, thus dealing a grand total of zero damage and not protecting me for more than a second or two.

But for me it is only zombies that are poorly balanced on low levels. Literally everything else levels just fine. Skeletons, animated weapons, flaming skulls... I usually enjoy leveling a summoner more than leveling a caster. My casters feel squishy because they need mana nodes early instead of survival nodes. Mana usage feels concentrated, timewise, on my summoner and I never feel the pinch in the middle of a boss fight until I'm in late Merciless.

Group has reached Act II (we've only been able to play one evening a week lately), and my off-and-on solo summoner got to Act III last night. Been a great play so far, trapper shadow seems to work well in a party (using lightning traps now, looking forward to ice traps later), and soloist keeps a wall of bodies (and flaming skulls) between herself and anything trying to get to her. Gotten to the point where I rarely need to resummon a zombie, and my skeleton totem experiment has worked out incredibly well!

Enjoying taking my time and exploring every map this first play though. Finding random pockets of story, talking to all the NPCs, figuring out how this cataclysm happened and Wraeclast became... what it is. Breaking all the things, moving all the boulders. Amused that the Loremaster, whom I keep running into, calls me an "Agent of God" as I summon endless abominations to protect his holy relics. Only found one unique item so far (well, two if you include the jewel you get as part of a quest): a headpiece that luckily greatly boosts energy shield. Was also very lucky (I assume it was luck) that my first Vaal gem was the skeleton summoning one! Keeping that one slotted, great for boss fights especially with all the passive minion boosts I have.

Giving thought to my next character, would want to try a meleer. Different style, different challenge. Have always enjoyed dual-wielders over two-handers or sword-and-board. Keep hoping that some game makes sword-dagger viable (like a rapier and main-gauche), but the stats on the two here suggests it's better to go either double-sword or double-dagger. Any suggestions for either style?

Wish I had known how insanely rare Chaos Orbs would be for me. Have been around since OB & I STILL only have 43 of them. Have never been able to afford to buy gear!

Many Thanks to those kind souls who have donated gear to me over the years!

Everything I didn't know resulted in a valuable lesson oder pleasant surprise later on. So, there's absolutely nothing I wish I had already known when I started.

Vendor recipes. They're useful, most importantly the chaos recipe!
I also wish I had know how amazing blood rage is, at least later on. Don't be scared by things that have a downside. They usually bring the greatest benefits!
Quote on that matter from the item "Prism Guardian": "When blood is paid, the weak think twice."
Everything is possible in wraeclast. I wish I had known that not even half of it is useful.
I wish I had known how hilarious some of the useless stuff can be though... *giggles* flame dash totems... xD
Enjoy the leveling. You'll do a lot of it, so learn to like it!
And finally, one thing that doesn't apply to everyone: non-meta builds around underrated uniques are surprisingly fun... and satisfying if you manage to pull them off! Recently got my first solo atziri kill after over 1000 hours of playing thi game using a physical reflect immune cyclone slayer and it felt so damn good!

I wish I knew that leagues are not such a waste of time like standard.