LF simple build, novice

Hey, haven't played for a year.

What should I play?

Something cheap and easy?

Doesn't really matter if it's melee or range, I would however prefer something with less spell effects.

Does it make sense to start season now? Or whatever those are called in POE ;)

For a build, Enki's Arc Witch is a long-time classic. https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1147951

For melee, I used this Bladestorm guide in SSF and it was plenty strong. https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2529202

Or, go over to the Witch forum and pick any summoner build you find there, all necro builds are extremely strong this league.

Any totem, trap and minion builds are easiest to level and play for beginners in my opinion.

If you are starting from scratch, then you should always play in the current league/season, since you have nothing in standard anyways and you get to enjoy the new league mechanics. Your characters get transferred to standard at the end of league, so you can just continue play there if you like.

Plenty of time left in Blight, and you can always continue your toon in Standard if you really get into it.

There are a ton of builds that are viable SSF, which means they can also be a cheap league starter, even if you play in trade.

In addition to totems/traps/mines, necromancer is "easy" in the sense of being quite OP. High end gear will be more expensive because it's meta, but you don't need high-end gear to have a lot of fun with it. And there are plenty of flavors to choose from.

Anything Cyclone will still be solid this league. (That was meta last league.) And you can use Cyclone as a secondary movement and trigger skill in other builds.

If you want something non-meta, there are things like Vortex/Cold Snap (Occultist or Trickster); Caustic or Scourge Arrow (Trickster is very solid by other ascendancies work); on the melee front, I still enjoy my Consecrated Path Chieftain (but a Jugg would work fine too); and my Cleave Champion (see Hank the Tank).

Any of those (and many more) would make great choices depending on your play style preferences.

Welcome back