Can you enjoy this game and experience a significant portion of its content without using guides?

Hello all, I have been playing a bunch of D4 lately and have a few years of experience in D3 and earlier this year a good amount of time in Last Epoch. I’ve tried to play POE once in the past but we’ll before my years of playing the ARPGs I just mentioned so I was overwhelmed. D4 has been awesome but, I think I’d like to see what all the hype of POE being the top APRG game is all about now that I have a better understanding of the genre as a whole, so basically just looking for some insight on my question above.

Absolutely but it requires a lot of reading, trying/testing stuff out yourself and possibly consulting the wiki on a decent amount of mechanics. However, the most important thing is you need to be fine with making mistakes and learning from them.

Yes but its a time commitment, there is alot to learn and quite frankly most players approach the game without any intent to learn anything.

Nothing wrong with that btw but you obviously won't get better if you don't actually do anything to get better :p

Some players get a massive amount out of games where they can make progressive iterative improvements for hours and hours and PoE is one of those, guides let you skip that but following guides comes at a price, sometimes a steep one.

Yes, there is however a lot of information built up outside of the game that is practically impossible to know without using online resources. It is certainly possible to play and learn the game without these recourses, especially if you have played arpg's before, and may well be a more enjoyable experience if you are not getting stuck progressing. If instead you want to play optimally/efficiently, you will save time using the available resources and knowledge that other players have created. The same could be said for most games, diablo included, though it is particularly relevant in this game.

Yes you can.
You need pick the right mechanic to make a build around tough.
By right I mean, good. OP.
Right now explosive totens, vengeant cascade, reduced reflected damage (used in regen), curse mastery (recover life on end of curse+ring with less -1 curse+curses on hit) are nice.
Every league has this. Some item, mechanic, that's just great and more safe to make a build around it and not risk make no damage whatsoever.
My point is, yes, you can play without a guide and don't suck. But that doens't mean you can do it, without understanding a bit of what you doing, and what is working in the current meta.

Campaign: yes. Basically every half thought through build you can come up with can beat the campaign.

Just make a character with 105% to all elemental resists and 30% chaos resist before you meet Kitava for the first time and all is good. Tried it myself, even the oddest of ideas can bring you through the campaign.

If you are exclusively after finishing the campaign then help Alira.

Issues start afterwards. ;-)

Your gonna need this website. the official wiki hosted by GGG written
by fans.

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Path_of_Exile_Wiki

there are other websites and wikis, but this one is OURS.

I dont expect the link to get edited out.

if it does get edited out google:
"official Path of Exile wiki, maintained by the community and hosted by Grinding Gear Games. "

Realistically, you need a guide to go deep into endgame.
You can theoretically go deep into endgame without one, but no...not gonna happen.

That being said, it is reasonable to get to maps and even red maps on a first playthough without a guide, but most people dont make it that far on their own.

I HIGHLY recommend some sort of guide.




I write build guides for newbies, because most build guides assume too much game knowledge.

My current guide is for Skeleton Mage Necromancer.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3351307

Even if you dont use my guide, the 3rd post in the thread has an extensive newbie help section that is worth reading for ANY newbie.

Can you? Sure. But if you have no game knowledge I'd still recommend a "guide" on the resources that are out there.

Likewise much of the game content might be confusing without at least a cursory guide, but you can peacemeal extra content after you get a firm grasp on maps. I've played most leagues for the past 6 years and still often learn a ton from content specific guides.

I haven't followed a build guide in probably 2+ years. But many of those are rubbish anyways, meant to showcase mirror tier builds. Every build I make is designed to go from league start to end game. I simply don't play enough and am too slow to level multiple characters per league.

I'll just outright say No, cause that is the most realistic answer.

If you go into this game totally blind and with no guide or reddit or whatever to help you out, you are not going to have a good time. Yes, there may be two people in the history of POE who have done it, but these are extreme outliers and/or "professional" gamers new to POE but not the genre.