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Path of Exile Beginners Guide – How To Find Your Footing In This Sprawling World

If you have the internet then you’ve probably heard of Path of Exile. If you don’t have the internet but are still reading this then colour us impressed. This Path of Exile guide will introduce you to the basic concepts you will need to make it through the game. Be aware, the builds end up being super specific so make the most of the multiple character slots from the outset. Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that this is very much a Diablo clone, not in a bad lazy way, it is absolutely excellent, it just has a lot in common. So, if you know Diablo, then following this Path of Exile beginner guide will be easy.

Starting Off

Path of Exile has a few classes to choose from initially, plus one that you unlock later on in the game. Picking a class isn’t that big of a deal because there are a bunch of character slots. On top of this, you will find that you like the idea of a different build or different character as you get to grips with the game anyway, so don’t stress about this too much. The classes are:

Duelist: A melee fighter who can summon help.

Templar: Uses projectile attacks like lightning.

Witch: A high damage spellcaster.

Ranger: A long-range fighter who can also dual wield swords.

Marauder: An incredibly strong melee fighter.

Shadow: Basically a ninja.

Scion: The unlockable class and a jack of all trades.

The fun advice in any Path of Exile new player guide is to just follow your heart and have fun. Experiment a little bit and have fun for a few hours. You can always aim for a completely unique character instead of following a Path of Exile beginner build guide, but we have one just in case you’d rather do so.

League of Extraordinary People

Next up is choosing your League. These are basically game variations; they change the way you play the game. Standard is your normal one and is probably the best one for new players. Hardcore is similar but tasks you with not dying. It is much harder to do, and if you die you get bumped down to Standard. Challenge leagues offer special prizes for accomplishing certain things; they tend to be around for three months. The last one is Solo Self Found, which turns the game into a single-player affair, thus bumping up the difficulty by removing co-op. Most veteran players go for Challenge, but see what you make of them and follow your heart.  

Diamond in The Rough

Gaining new skills in Path of Exile is a bit odd. There is a skill grid—just the one. Each class starts in a different place on this grid and can take skills that are around the starting point or follow a certain path. You can unlock skills using one of two types of gems. Skill gems are for new attacks, spells and whatnot. Support gems are for support skills like buffs or skill variants. Any class can use any gem, though there are stat requirements for each one. You can level them up by grinding enemies and through quests, and there is no penalty for repeating quests.

Loot comes in four colours and goes in order of rarity: white, blue, yellow, orange. Unless you are about to sell stuff or you have literally just started, then don’t worry about white items. You only have so much inventory space and you need to be able to pick up the best items.

Beegees

The last bit of advice in this Path of Exile guide is that staying alive and staying strong are both incredibly important. The default is that your health won’t regen but your mana will, just very slowly. You can change the way this works as you get stronger and start customising your build. To begin with, you will want to keep an eye on your life and mana flasks. These recharge whenever you go to a town or hideout, and can be refilled by killing enemies too. The better your flask is, the larger this effect will be. Just keep an eye on them when you are travelling around or you will end up dead. Dead is bad. Alive is good.