New to beta, beginner tips?

So I just got a beta key and I'm wondering what is a pretty easy class to start with and any starter tips any of you might have? Also I'm a huge fan of hard core on Diablo is there a lot of people doing hard core here?

Hey dhise, welcome to the beta tester family! I just started a few days ago, and based on what I've both seen from others and experienced myself, I'd say the easiest character to just start out as is either the Witch or the Marauder.

The Witch when using cold-based skills is pretty amazing right now and I can't imagine will ever be much worse. They are so good right now not only because the skills are great, but also there are more cold skills than other types. If you're interested I highly recommend going to this thread (http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/6905/) to learn about how to skill an ice Witch.

As for the Marauder, I recommend one cause if you like melee characters and you wanna beat the crap out of something or perhaps be a crazy tank, he's your dude. Like the Witch, he's also quite easy to skill in terms of passives because the character is only based on a single stat.

Truthfully, you can start with any character, it's just easier to start with these ones because you only have one stat to really worry about. I've made four of the five currently available characters and even the hybrid-stat classes aren't hard to skill, so if you want to make one of those, don't be afraid.

Finally, I don't really recommend playing hardcore at the moment. I will be playing in hardcore in the future and deleting killed characters but for now I don't see a reason to as we probably just want to test stuff out in the beta. If your character dies in hardcore your stash will be different as each league has different stashes. I started all my characters hardcore and one died and it's kind of annoying to have none of my stuff from my stash so I will probably kill off my characters and bring the hardcore stuff with them to default. Save yourself the hassle. If you really want to play a hardcore character for now just start in default and delete your character if it dies. :)

Heh, I hope this information help, dude, if you wanna play sometime just pm me. Have fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsnIl2C8M-w

Very good.

EDIT: It doesn't matter what class / spec you make first. You will inevitably fuck up your passive spec and with no way to respec that character will become useless. So your first character is just to try shit out. I suggest a hybrid spec because it lets you learn and fuck up 2 trees at once. Duelist than templar, or vice versa. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Just know that you'll be forced to repeat yourself if you wanna make the same character again, but with a different spec. Oh and you need to get all new skill gems too, because they level up.

I'm pretty new to the beta myself, but I've learnt quite alot. Firstly it's alot like D2, exept theres no way to respec. I'd reccomend going with a templar first off as they are nice damage output and sorta tanky.

Hmm

I wonder if they plan on making a respec available somehow?

They could make it expensive or rare, but there has to be an option to respec I think :-|

Like in Diablo II they added a respec quest. This quest will give you the option to respec 3 times in total, and after that it gets very expensive/rare.

Oh, I found this in the "Beta Manifesto"

Passive Skill Respecs:

"Currently there is no way to respec passive skill points on demand. We are periodically resetting them if major balance changes occur, but intend to add actual functionality for this. The current intended plan is that the users accumulate “passive skill refund points” that can be used to refund passive skill points that are not required by other points (i.e. you can’t create unconnected parts of the passive skill tree).

These points will be granted from certain quests in each difficulty level (so that the user can easily accumulate a total of 4-6 or so throughout the lifetime of their character), and from a relatively rare currency item that can drop. (Note that “currency item” does not mean it is purchased with real currency. These are a type of tradeable item used as currency in game).

The purpose of this system is to allow players to fix mistakes in their build, or to do small-scale respecs. We do not want players to be able to completely respec their entire character easily. The game is designed to be fun to play, so if you want to play a Bow character rather than an Axe character, you’re meant to start a new one. Note that if you are extremely high level and very wealthy in game, it’s possibly worth trading for enough respec currency items to perform the changes rather than play to such a high level with that character again. This is a choice we want the player to have to make."

I'm still pretty new myself, but I remind myself that with each new patch they implement, we'll probably want to start characters from scratch to see how the new balancing works.

But for the record, I've been finding the ranger the easiest so far :)