Newbie overwhelmed with the complexity of PoE

Hey everyone!

I just started PoE about two weeks ago and I'm starting to get lost. After reading some guides i decided to make an Arc Witch and leveled her to lvl67. I managed to get to Act 3 merciless and so far i'm doing okay I guess.

I've played D2 for years and d3 for as long as I could stand what blizzard has done to the franchise (a couple of months at best). So I'm not completely new to this genre. Yet PoE is extremely complex and, as I feel i should start to make some real progress, I begin to get confused.
I found my first exalted today and coupled with the few chaos, fusing, scouring, regret and so on I get the feeling that I could get into the trade of trading. But how do I start?
I really would like to get my Witch to a point where I can use her to farm the late game content, yet I can't really seem to figure out what to look out for.
I don't really get how to determine the worth of an item and I also dont completely get, what my own char needs to survive the later on.

If anyone of you veterans could give me some advice how to get into this game, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks alot!

Hey man, you should check out ZiggyD and LiftingNerdBro on youtube. They have a bunch of generally helpful videos and some to help you with pricing items as well.

Other than that, I usually check poe.trade for similar items if I ever think I might've found something interesting. It'll just start making more and more sense as you do that.

Another thing to note is that a LOT of people use "Procurement" to trade and ZiggyD has a video on how to get it and set it up as well.

Hi there,

To begin with trading you should go into trade channel 1 and look for orb ratios.

For example -> when you try to sell your fusings to exalted orbs, how many of them? is it 35 fusings to 1 exalted or 42 fusings? Go and study the orb ratios

Another important thing is this trading website
http://poe.xyz.is

There you can type in an items name and look what those sell for (there is an quick guide on the website how to do)

You should also download Procurement. This tool create a shop for you. (If you successful created a shop your items also will be listed at poe.xyz.is)
https://code.google.com/p/procurement/

I hope i could help out a little bit.

Good luck, exile!

Thanks guys, great advice so far!

poe.trade really seems to be useful and i will check out procurement as soon as i get around to do so.

For nor i struggle a bit to see, which mods actually make an item good/expensive and am not sure which skillgems are worthwhile. For example; I found a couple of quality gems on my way to merciless, yet I can't really see, which ones are good and which ones can be vendored. I guess quality on Portal doesn't do alot?

What about blessed orbs? I kinda got mixed opinions and information on them. They are pretty high up, but are the worth anything?

Anyways, you already helped me a lot. Thanks again!

"

BundesHeinz wrote:

Thanks guys, great advice so far!

poe.trade really seems to be useful and i will check out procurement as soon as i get around to do so.

For nor i struggle a bit to see, which mods actually make an item good/expensive and am not sure which skillgems are worthwhile. For example; I found a couple of quality gems on my way to merciless, yet I can't really see, which ones are good and which ones can be vendored. I guess quality on Portal doesn't do alot?

What about blessed orbs? I kinda got mixed opinions and information on them. They are pretty high up, but are the worth anything?

Anyways, you already helped me a lot. Thanks again!

For Quality gems usually is -> all under 15% Quality use for gcp recipe (Vendor quality gems to vendor with a total amount of 40% quality is 1 gcp, like 5x 8% quality or 4x 10%)
Over 15% Quality gems keep and sell at your shop!

For mods, you first hit /itemlevel on your item. Now, when you know its itemlevel, check out
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Item_Affix
for the possible mods on it. Per item are 3 Prefix and 3 Suffix

For example You got an itemlevel 72 Chestarmor. Go on the website and check out which Resistance this itemlevel 72 Chestarmor could get. The highest possible roll for this is:
"of the Ice" 42–45% Cold resistance
"of the Magma" 42–45% Fire resistance
"of the Lightning" 42–45% Lightning resistance

The next tier under it is:
"of the Maelstrom" 36–41% Lightning resistance
"of the Volcano" 36–41% Fire resistance
"of the Polar Bear" 36–41% Cold resistance

So you see, when your Chestarmor roll "Of the Ice 42-45% Cold resistance" it is more worth as when it got "Of the Polar Bear 36-41% Cold resistance"

Edit: Blessed orbs are useful but common, the ratio should be around 2 blessed orbs: 1 chaos orb

Hope it help you a bit

Good luck, Exile!

For uniques you can consult prices on xyz, prices for specific unique do not vary all that much, mostly depending on the roll or number of links. Most uniques are never worth anything because they just aren't very useful, then there are those that are useful but very common so they're worth something only early in the league while the economy is fresh, a good example is Stone of Lazwhar or Goldrim. Of course, there are those that are useful enough and rare enough to keep above minimal price, like Cloak of Defiance or Lightning Coil. And you got uber tier that are expensive no matter when and where you're selling, like Myolner or Shavronne's Wrappings.

For rares the situation is somewhat trickier. Weapons are typically worth anything only if they got decent dps rolled, which usually means percentage, flat damage and attack speed, for crit weapons like daggers or wands also crit and global crit multi. One-handed weapons and bows over 250dps can be sold for a chaos or two and those over 300dps are worth decent cash, for 2h weapons it's 400-450dps typically. There are also some specific weapons that can be sold, like high attack speed elemental damage rapiers, those are needed for elemental attacker builds, and thare are also daggers and wands with spell damage, crit and attack speed rolls, those are used for CoC builds.

For defensive items a good life roll is required and as much resists as possible, high defenses are a bonus but not a selling point. The exception for this are items with high energy shield rolls, over 200 for headgear and shields and over 500 for chest, they should also have some resists. Boots without movement speed are typically worthless but mana/life leech on gloves is a nice bonus, items with high chaos resist roll are bit more expensive too. Quivers with life and high crit rolls can also be sold easily.

Jewelry is a mixed bag but you can always try to sell ring with high resists and life rolls, I guess the pattern is beginnig to emerge. High mana regen or flat physical damage is also required for a few builds so for jewelry that also has those you can ask a bit more. Crit is also much sought after.

Quality gem price varies greatly, depending on usefulness of quality bonus. For instance quality cyclone is expensive but quality reduced mana isn't, even though non-quality cyclone is worthless and reduced mana isn't. Quality auras are generally not worth much except to summoners and prices reflect that. In any case, not many people sell gems with quality below 10% and the highest demand is for those with 14-15% and above.

Very helpful stuff, all of you. Thanks alot!

I guess I'll just get it going very, very slowly and try to get a real grasp of the mechanics and economy before doing something prematurely.

Just one more thing: as an Arc Witch with pretty much no equipment besides a Tabula Rasa and Rainbowstrides, what stats should I look out for to make my life in merciless easier?

"

BundesHeinz wrote:

Very helpful stuff, all of you. Thanks alot!

I guess I'll just get it going very, very slowly and try to get a real grasp of the mechanics and economy before doing something prematurely.

Just one more thing: as an Arc Witch with pretty much no equipment besides a Tabula Rasa and Rainbowstrides, what stats should I look out for to make my life in merciless easier?

With low amount of currency you are looking for health base, not ES.

Mean you have to change your Tabula rasa to a 4-5L Chestarmor with at best 80+ life and some decent elemental resists. For arc you don't really need a 6L since you do Arc + Spell echo + Lightning penetration + faster casting + (if 5L) Empower

Link it in a +1 gem equipment piece for example Geofris helmet ->
http://poe.trade/search/kusagugorimako

You also should exchange your raindbowstrides to boots with life and resists, additional movement speed on it.

On the Skilltree you pick "Increased life" nodes and more Spell damage or more Lightning damage.

Hope it helps a little bit

Good luck, exile!

Welcome to POE! Rawr, greatest game eva! I don't have any advice, these guys were thorough.