Shaper/ Elder /starting new league for casual player

Hi,
I'm looking for some advice.
I'm a casual player (spending somes hours some days, won't play for 3 days,playing only one hour another day etc)
I always follow build guides.
(Ed-contagion in standard but first chat so it doesn't really matter and a cyclone 2h-axe pure physical in abyss ).

But I never accessed to shaper /elder / endgame stuff. I'm currently doing yellow maps with the cyclone build. I lack a bit of currency to purchase many-exalted items.

I plan to play the next league but I'm wondering:
1. Can I hope to get into endgame content in a league as a casual player ?
2. Any tips that would drastically help me in early league ?
Ex: early in league price are crazy so I gave to wait a bit before purchasing interesting stuff. In the same time I have no idea on what/how much I should sell my rare items.

(Please avoid the 'play the game more' I know I'm casual player and I don't expect to get mirror/100 exalts/uber lab the second day of a league... ;) )

Not really. Maps don't drop as much as they used to. I have a level 90 character in Abyss, but only got to T13, because red maps simply didn't drop for me. Even to get to T13 I had to buy many maps on the market. And I invested more time than what you are planning.

Shaper simply isn't for casuals.

Yeah prices are crazy early league so don't focus too much on top tier gear:

1) Endgame bosses are only made for a select kind of players. I spend a LOT of time on the game but with a mediocre knowledge and I never beat the Shaper (encountered twice in Harbinger and Abyss). Those endgame bosses require so much currency in your gear. We all play with the same trees, it's the gear that makes the difference. So you need to play a lot to sell/recipe etc > to get good gear > to beat the endgame bosses. If you don't spend at least 200h in a league, you won't go very far.

2) Always play a 1st easy build like you did with ED/cont. You need a build that scale nicely and that doesn't require top gear to work. I would advise you those: AW, Sunder, Frost Blade Flurry, SRS etc. So you can do a lot of maps with mediocre gear, gathering the money. Like you, I have almost no idea how to sell rare stuff so I do the unID chaos recipe. Get 2 quad tabs : 1 drop table and 1 for chaos recipe. I only did chaos recipe and sold uniques in Abyss and I gathered 40/60ex worth of chaos (in +400h).

So don't focus too much on endgame if you don't spend the time. Path of Exile is a "no-life" game for a reason. ;)

You need a build that a) does immense single target damage and b) doesn't cost too much.
Stuff like glacial cascade miner comes to mind.
And c) you must enjoy playing cheesy builds like these. ;)

With the currency you saved by playing a cheaper build, you can now shortcut into shaper by buying the guardian maps without the slow and grindy progression through the atlas.

You would still have to invest some time into farming lower content for currency, but not nearly as much as it takes to path your way though the entire atlas.

Then you meet the Guardians and Shaper, better be prepared.
At least watch a youtube video on what these guys are capable of.
(I failed my first 3 shaper sets until I understood what I need to do, and I guess that isn't too unusual)

Either trick build with very high damage/low cost build, run the parts of the atlas that are easy for the trick build and buy the endgame maps. Run many maps in short time to generate currency.

Or tanky high damage/medium cost build and fill the entire atlas mostly without dying; you'll reach the endgame slower but can easier sustain your access to top tier maps once there this way. (In this approach, whenever you don't have any maps on hand you haven't run before and there are some maps you haven't completed on the Atlas but think you can deal with at your current level and gear, you just buy a white version cheaply and roll it so you can complete it and its bonus objectives at the same time, then do it, at least for the first 10 tiers where maps are cheap - the goal is to fill the atlas as quickly to increase the average tier of your map drops.)

Don't waste time on playing with Sextants - sell them.

Mostly don't waste time ID'ing rares to see if they are useful for sale, only to conclude that they aren't and turn them into id'd 1c vendor recipe fodder. Instead save your time and turn them directly into unid'd 2c vendor recipe fodder instead.

At the start of the league, run something dirt simple to generate a bit of currency, then start the character you want later on. (Of course, if the build you plan on using fits well into starting without currency, using that is fine, but that is possibly not the case.)

Thanks for all your advice!

I don't think I will create 2 chars (either I like the build and will play it, or don't like it and I won't play it only for currency - I may change if I really like a costly build but that sound perfect for Standard, not league :) ).

Which is not a problem anyway as I haven't explored a lot of build for now (and anyway, with regular bump/nerf, looks like thing change quickly)!

Yellow maps? You play SC so just push to hight tier.
Go something like ancestral warchief marauder. Reach 6k life buy something like doomsower for 5c or go facebreaker.
Congratulation you are official Shaper viable.