A fully beginner-friendly build guide?

So I've tried going in blindly and just playing the game and learning as I go, but sadly I failed spectacularly and didn't even get into Act 2.

So I decided to create another character and follow the build guide found on https://poe-beginner-guide.com and it's exactly the kind of guide I want, with a checklist of things in the Acts to set up my build, a dedicated loot filter and no assumption that you know how to use the PoB software (which is most likely quite robust and great but really not beginner-friendly).

Sadly this guide isn't being updated for new leagues anymore and is most likely to get outdated in a while.

Any recommendations for places as to where you can find more of these beginner-friendly build guides where you learn the mechanics as you go? It's a great guide and apparently it still works in Settlers or Phrecia, but with no more updates to it, it'll be outdated.

One thing that you may or may not want to do, is unprivate. This way people are able to give advice specifically to you. Understandable if you do not wish to do this though.

Yes, POB is a lot of information for a beginner, however is very useful. It sounds like you have done most of the hard work getting this up and running and loot filters etc, and just need a little bit of help with your build.

Yes, POE has lots of content coming and going, so guides become outdated. It sounds like you probably want to focus on just completing the campaign, and largely ignoring the side leagues and content currently.

By the way, act 1 is relatively hard. In some ways it is the hardest area of the game currently, before you are geared. Don't get too discouraged. If there is a particular part of the act that is causing you trouble, someone will be able to help with advice. If you are getting stuck near the end of the act, cold resistance starts to become useful and movement skills to not get exploded on in the last section. Some fire res can be useful as well.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4aZrsY9M5qAP6P6vcrqU7XedCJi3mQTE

This series from ZiggyD is pretty dated now and may not contain all relevant information, some layouts and acts have been changed, but he plays through to atleast act 3 and very slowly explains basic mechanics of the game. There is still some useful information in there. It may be too slow for you though. In which case you probably want some advice specific to your character.

There is a section on the forum, Classes/Builds, that might be a useful area to look if you are looking for upto date builds for your class. The type of build you want, is probably a league starter build, that does not need a lot of investment for it to work. With non league start builds, you might find you get stuck at some point without gear being available.

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One thing that you may or may not want to do, is unprivate. This way people are able to give advice specifically to you. Understandable if you do not wish to do this though.

OK, I unprivated my profile. By the way, the character without the "Phrecia" suffix is the one that got stuck in Act 1, the second one is made using the build guide I mentioned in the OP.

So with Phrecia, it is really fun, I'm playing it currently, but it is a bit whacky. There may not be a whole lot of build guides available, since the ascendancies are all different. You probably can find a build guide for it, but it is probably more prone to running into roadblocks. For example if you are trying to make a fishing rod build, it is not easy to get a fishing rod. Also the league is only scheduled to run about 3 more weeks, so don't get too attached to the ascendancies because it will be migrated and changed to settlers league and regular ascendancies.

With your other character, it looks like a pretty good start. Witch is probably a decent character for levelling and learning the game. Minions are good, but can be a bit clunky until you get them to the point where they stay alive. Particularly the zombies, because they need a corpse to raise them, which is difficult in some area in act 1. Summon raging spirit might also be useful, combined with your summon phantasm support, if you are planning on doing a minions build. You don't need corpse and can spam the skill even if your zombies die.

The amulet you have is useful, so using fireball might work, given it is a projectile, but you want to try and start getting support gems linked that with help your skills, depending what you are trying to achieve.

You need to be careful with your tree, because it looks like you are starting to go in 2 directions. You typically want to focus on spells or minions, and not both. Not always the case, but it gets difficult if your tree and skills aren't focusing on the same thing. This is why people often use a build guide, because respeccing the tree is sometimes difficult.

Your weapon won't be helping your build much for either minions of spells. Probably at this point you want something with elemental damage or spell damage, like a sceptre or a wand.

You have a 3 link on your chest, there will be some red skill gems at the vendor that will be useful. Just be careful on wasting currency, it can be tight at the start.

If not already, pick up things that drop and sell them at the vendor. It will help with getting wisdom scrolls and transmute/alteration shards. The vendor recipies page can be useful on the wiki if you are not aware of it. Check the vendors occasionally for items as well. If you find boots with movement speed on them or items with 3 links and the colours you want, it can be helpful. B-B-B is probably going to be useful for the minions.

For the other character, it looks like you've made a good start and you might find that is is easier for you. You might find the amulet you have on your Witch is pretty useful for your splitting steel levelling. You can swap it over using the stash when needed since they are in the same league. (Looks to me like both characters are in Phrecia, which is good, you can share the loot).

If you feel you need to farm some items or currency to progress, the ledge is a decent area. It's fairly safe area and has decent density. You can reset the zone on the entrance or waypoint by opening a new instance if you want to repeatedly farm the same area. I'm not sure the exact key, it is either ctrl or shift click, and you just make a new instance when the box comes up.

Thanks for the advice! Didn't know that about the stash, probably going to swap the amulet over to the new character.

No worries. Yeah it is a good one to have, movement speed, accuracy and projectile damage, all good to have on splitting steel.

Splitting steel is a pretty good skill to learn. Just be aware, that guide may be using ascendancies that are not available in Phrecia. Champion is very good for splitting steel, but I don't know how good it is with the current Phrecia ascendancies.

Lightning strike is pretty powerful at the moment, might be an option once you get close to ascending if you go for paladin. Or smite, with the elemental damage buffs.

Go with RF from Pohx.