New player could use some help

I'm looking to get into Path of Exile, and could use a bit of help.

I'm trying to create a first character, and I'm getting stuck on a build. I don't need a super competitive build... what I'm really looking for is a build that is tanky enough that I'm not constantly dying when I do dumb things, versatile enough that I can test out a bunch of different skills to see what I like and what I don't, and fun to play.

My interest is mostly in Strength / Intelligence, so I was considering going with a Templar for my first character. I was trying to map out the first 70 or so skillpoints and came up with this:

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgUAi4z53cCaCarZ_MBmRUfr7jLRES18gyycEFh2EYdlr5sFQkGW0PUEs6IA8B9o8uFzmjuCm-081absODrYJy-QVRo4WfNyD3GFRtdXKfMRsULtRKel1YtKLqcIj0YTcV6lHRSOZLb696b60hcvJLCApBVQfEuWdPnogsco-riTHNzaOrEFuNCBrwPuM4cdvg==

Again... I'm not looking for a super competitive build. Just a build that is good enough to make it through the game, get used to playing, and test out a bunch of different skills and spells.

Any advice?

Welcome to Wraeclast

Just some overall first looks.

Most builds focus on one particular skill and make their tree to work around that skill. As a new player I would encourage you to just start up the game and try out some skills to see which ones you like. Once you find a skill you like you can look on the forums and probably find some decent builds that work with that skill. A majority of people (me included) do a poor job on their first build. Don't worry if it gets difficulty this game has a lot of learning. You improve a lot after each build.

Some advice for your tree if you want to be "tanky" you need life. The more the better. Pretty much if there is life near your pathing on the tree take it.

Second thing is I wouldn't worry about crit as a new player. Focus on resistances, life, and spell damage (if you are using a spell) in that order. Crit is more of an end game thing, you can definitely do it starting out but as a new player I would focus more on staying alive. The more of the game you see the better understanding you will have of what to do in the future.

Good Luck Exile

First of all, poebuilder has an outdated skill tree you might want to use this:

http://poedb.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/

As for the build, you're spreading yourself too thin. Which i guess is ok for testing skills, so if you really want to use all 3 elements you should take Elemental Equilibrium. That way you can do more damage as you alternate between elements. After that though it'll be hard to focus on only one, even if you refund passives because you can't reset the whole tree, you can only do it one passive at a time. The game gives you enough refunds to tweak your character as you progress, so save them for later when you know what you want. It's best to focus on one thing, like lightning or fire or something. But for testing skills, it's ok to spread out. It won't make your character viable late game, but you'll see what Wraeclast has to offer. :)

As Hunt8722 said, the more HP the better. Crit is useless in the early game, skip that, and decide what gear you want to use, and take appropriate nodes to buff it. If you want to use armor gear, use armor nodes, if you want to use Armor/energy shield combo, take those, etc.

For templars, they have most access to armor and energy shield nodes. So you can take either one or combine them. I suggest armor/es combo, because that's where the most nodes along your elemental path will take you. That should be sufficient defence for your templar, especially if you take a lot of HP nodes, and the gear requires a combination of STR and INT, which is what you're going for.

If you want to use auras, generally - less mana reserved is better than aura effect (unless your entire focus is auras). Aura's are strong without that, so you want to take less mana nodes so you can run more auras, because a most of them will reserve a lot of your mana so you won't have much left for casting skills. In this case - a lot of mana regeneration helps, but again, no need to have too many auras, especially not if you're running 3 elements.

You took some physical damage nodes (with a staff), those aren't going to help you when casting spells. Each gem has a tag that explains what it is like "spell" "duration" "attack" "aura", some have more, so "spell" (most of elemental gems), benefits from spell damage and elemental damage nodes.

Here's a tweaked build that i made hastily, just to show you what i mean, maybe give you a sense of direction. So for your 3 elements build, something like this would be preferable:

Tweaks

There's of course room for improvement, but this should get you to try out all the different elemental skills so you can decide which one you can use.

So if you want to be tanky, lots of HP nodes with nodes that benefit the gear you're using.
You'll need resistances regardless of your build, but those can mostly be found on gear.
Don't take +30 stat nodes unless you have to.

I hope this wasn't overwhelming. :) Try out different things, see what works for you, fail your build (like we all did, don't worry, that's normal), make another, tweak the old one, whatever...

My first character was a Templar too, that i messed up so much that it had to retire lol. :P I was combining fire and lightning. Ultimately, when the full reset came (those come with each major patch), i respecced him to use only lightning, and now he's lvl 83 doing late game content. So don't worry about your first build that much, just experiment with what you like.

EDIT: Also, don't be afraid to venture far from your starting point, take a look at what the nodes in your direction have to offer, you could find some juicy nodes to take. :)

For example, both my chars don't exactly stay near the starting position:

Shadow chaos mage

Templar Arc lightning mage

Some builds depend on certain gear, others don't but for now, just feel free to experiment and try out different stuff, see what you like.

And have fun in Wraeclast! :)

Hunt8722:

Thanks a bunch for the advice.

I'll fire up the game and play with some of the spells and go from there then, based off what you're saying.

I think I can rebuild the first 60-70 point plan to focus on hp/armor/resists/spell damage and leave the crit and some other stuff out... and then just assume that this is a "learning build" with no endgame to it other than to figure out how the game plays so that my next one will be better.

Veprovina,

Thanks for taking the time for that reply, it helps a lot.

Yeah, a "testing" build is basically what I had in mind. See the story of the game and beat it on normal difficulty and test things out to see what I like and what I don't. That is the intent between the wide spread on elemental damage.

So it is viable to use a mix of hp% / resists / armor / energy shield to stay alive? That seems like it might also give me a feel for how the different defenses work. I'm still trying to figure out if I should go staff (seems to be the weapon designed for strength/intelligence mix... and can block too), or what type of weapon... really.

And thanks about a million for the tweaked build. This is exactly the help I was hoping for. Something that lets me get into the game and play and figure out the mechanics of skills without completely crippling myself so badly that I fail to make it through normal.

"

XetalXetal wrote:

Veprovina,

Thanks for taking the time for that reply, it helps a lot.

Yeah, a "testing" build is basically what I had in mind. See the story of the game and beat it on normal difficulty and test things out to see what I like and what I don't. That is the intent between the wide spread on elemental damage.

So it is viable to use a mix of hp% / resists / armor / energy shield to stay alive? That seems like it might also give me a feel for how the different defenses work. I'm still trying to figure out if I should go staff (seems to be the weapon designed for strength/intelligence mix... and can block too), or what type of weapon... really.

And thanks about a million for the tweaked build. This is exactly the help I was hoping for. Something that lets me get into the game and play and figure out the mechanics of skills without completely crippling myself so badly that I fail to make it through normal.

To beat normal difficulty, you can use anything really. The Act 4 boss is a bit of an asshole (you'll see), but he can be beaten without much problems. Especially since there's no penalty for dying in normal.

Resists are a must. Once you get to cruel difficulty you should work on trying to max your resistances, and they're imperative on merciless. Both cruel and merciless give you penalties for resistances, so you need to have a lot of % to max them. Max resistances is 75%, and most if not all of this can be achieved by gear. You don't really need resistances on normal, but they help. If some node happens to have resistances as well as something else you need/want then take it, otherwise, gear is where your res comes from mostly.

It's viable to mix defences yes, and HP is imperative. Look around your Templar part of the tree, you won't see a lot of evasion nodes. But you'll see a fair amount of armor/ES(energy shield) nodes, and you'll also get those, as you go towards the upper part (witch) area of the tree (energy shield), and down (marauder) where you'll see armor nodes. So for since you can't augment evasion for example on your templar it's best to use gear that you can, such as armor, energy shield or the combination of both. So try out different sets, see how something works. You'll soon see that you can't effectively use evasion, and you won't be able to use most of that gear type because it requires dexterity which you don't have as a templar.

Anything that hits you first depletes your energy shield, then HP except chaos damage. Which, if you have lots of ES and little HP you should watch for. Chaos damage bypasses energy shield, both when players use it or when monsters use it. So for example, my chaos mage can directly damage monsters that have energy shield, whereas my templar first needs to wear that shield down before he can attack HP. Same with monsters that do that to you. So... Watch out for snakes. :P

As for the tweaked build, no problem. I'd also skip aura nodes. You can test auras without them honestly, so instead of picking up those, find some more HP or defence nodes.

As for the weapon, use whatever augments your spell damage, which you'll see on magic items or rare items like " +% to fire damage or +number to lightning damage, +%spell damage, the like. Staves and wands have this mostly. The damage you see on the weapons has no effect on your elemental damage, this purely comes from mods on the gear and your passive tree.

The biggest difference between the staves and wands is sockets. Staves can have 6 sockets but are 2 handed (so you can't use a shield), and wands are 1 handed, but can have maximum 3 sockets, and you can have a shield which can also have 3 sockets. Shields have more block chance than staves, and also come in armor, energy shield or combo variety, so you might consider using that instead of a staff, because it makes no difference, and a shield will also make you more tanky because they are more likely to have defensive and resistances mods on them.

Your skills go into the weapon sockets in order for you to use them, and if they are linked, you can connect support gems to your active skills to modify them.

For example if you use fireball, and you use a support gem "lesser multiple projectiles" that's linked to it, that fireball will split into 3 projectiles. If you link "increased area of effect" to firestorm or frost nova, it'll be bigger. There's a lot of skills and gems and combinations in the game, and you won't be geting any gear that has a lot of them at first so you can slowly learn the game mechanichs without being overwhelmed. Later you'll find gear with more sockets and more links and you can make your own, but for now don't trouble yourself with that, just start by seing what different skills you can have and what supports you can use with them.

For example, it's very difficult to get a staff or anything really with 6 sockets that are all linked (6 links). Jeweller's Orbs will randomise the number, colours and links of the sockets in the piece of gear you're using them on. Orb of fusing will randomise the number of links between those sockets. Chromatic orbs will randomise the colours of those sockets based on the stat requirements of the gears (str and int gear is more likely to get red and blue sockets than green etc.).

So it's fairly easy to get the 3 linked sockets either by drops or by doing it yourself, a bit harder for a 4 link, and anything beyond that will require a LOT of orbs to get. Just for reference, there's a NPC in game that as you do his missions he gives you a crafting bench for sockets and links. You put a piece of whatever in it, and you have the option to craft sockets and links in it. 4 links will cost you 5 orbs of fusing, while 6 links will cost you 1500. That's a lot. :P So for starters, pick up anything, and later, just use 4 linked gear, it will be enough.

I also recommend to take a look at this:

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Vendor_recipe_system

It'll help you decide what to pick up and what to leave behind so you don't break your gameplay by running to town all the time for no reason. For instance, if you find something that has 3 linked sockets, all different colours, you can sell it for a Chromatic orb. Stuff like that.

So for example this:



It has 5 links, and the only active spell in that is Arc, the rest are supports that modify how arc behaves. Tha mod on that Staff is "Spell echo" which also comes in a gem variety, and makes me cast faster, and cast twice for the same mana cost. Iron will buffs damage as well as allowing me to use STR bonus for spells, there's also faster casting that makes it cast even faster, controlled destruction for more damage and culling strike that kills anything below 10% health. This is how linking with supports works.

This staff was fairly expensive, and the same one with 6 links will cost a lot LOT more, but those are all high level stuff, so you won't see something like this early. I just wanted to illustrate how hard it is to get 5 or 6 links, so for starters, it's better you focus on a wand and a shield. Or 2 wands if you don't need much defence. You can dual wield 1 handed weapons.

Another example is a 4 link which you can get on helmets, gloves and boots, which is more common and perfectly doable for any build. You'll find drops like theese and it's fairly cheap to make if you decide to craft it yourself. Weapons and shields with 3 links are also more common and even easier to make.

This one has a duration spell in it, so it benefits from "less duration" support as well as spell supports.



You can see what types spells are below their names, and consequently support gems will state which of those types they can support.

Lightning warp has "spell", "duration", "lightning" under it. So it benefits from linking any support gem that can modify those types.

Wow, thanks a bunch.

So am I reading those linked items correctly: The "modifying" gem just has to be linked somehow to the spell you're actually using... it doesn't have to be directly touching it?

So on the staff, the only gem that is directly touching your spell is Iron Will, but the other 3 (Faster Casting, Controlled Destruction, Culling Strike) all modify the spell also because they're linked to it indirectly?

"

XetalXetal wrote:

Wow, thanks a bunch.

So am I reading those linked items correctly: The "modifying" gem just has to be linked somehow to the spell you're actually using... it doesn't have to be directly touching it?

So on the staff, the only gem that is directly touching your spell is Iron Will, but the other 3 (Faster Casting, Controlled Destruction, Culling Strike) all modify the spell also because they're linked to it indirectly?

Exactly. All the supports affect the one active spell. No matter the order they're socketed.

The same applies if you have more active spells and support them by 1 support. If that support is compatible, all spells will benefit from it.

So say you have a 4 link gloves or something. You put shock nova, ice nova, firestorm actives in them, and increased area of effect support. Since all those active skills have "spell" and "aoe" tags, that the support gem can augment, all theese 3 spells will benefit from the support and will have larger radius.

That could be a fun thing for you to try out when you get elemental equilibrium.

Cast a few firestorms that rain fire in an area, then alternate between shock and frost nova. All will have increased area of you link them like that.

Ele equilibrium will make mobs gain resistance to fire when hit by it, but loose all other resistances so when you hit them with an ice nova or shock nova after that it will do more damage and possibly apply their respecfive status effects.

With elemental equilibrium you have to alternate between elements, and since you want to use all of them, its a good passive to get the most out of not specialising in only one element.

You'll also have access to different spells and conbinations to try out.

You can get a spell totem for instance that will cast the linked spell for you so you dont have to. So you can set up a totem that casts an area spell of 1 element, which will be weaker because of the totem, but will aply constant hit of that element type. Then just spam mobs with the different element because they'll constantly be under the effect of elemental equilibrium while getting hit with the spell totem's element. :)

Like get it to cast ice nova, which will slow the mobs, and then hit them with a fireball, or shock nova that will make them "shocked" increasing damage taken and hit them with an ice spell, or even a fireball.

So for your elemental equilibrium to fully work you will get what you wanted. The use of all different spells, and a good amount of damage despite not focusing one one type. Just alternate between them for full effect because once the enemies are hit with one element they will become resistant to it, so spamming it over and over won't be as efficient.

Play like "yolo" you only live once, dont worry about ur first build try and try until u find a good build for ur class and for ur taste

just enjoy the game =))