Act 1
Did you know? The choice of your class is permanent and can’t be changed, but you can change your Ascendancy class (which comes with opportunity costs).
Did you know? Don’t go back to town every time you don’t have any space left in your inventory in order to sell stuff (it’s not worth the time, normally). Instead, just sell them when the game wants you to return to town for completing quests anyway – unless it’s an item this guide wants you to pick up. Then, pick it put.
Did you know? Dying in the very first areas – especially in The Mud Flats – can happen to the best players. So don’t worry if you bite the bullet early.
Did you know? If you are playing the current Necropolis league, you will meet Undertaker Arimor who will give you The Lantern of Arimor. You can use the Lantern before you enter a zone, revealing types of monsters that will appear in the zone, as well as a modifier attached to them. These modifiers causes monsters to be haunted, enhancing them in various ways, and can be rearranged to have them affect a different monster. Since I don’t know much about the league mechanic yet, it’s hard to give you any advice but to experiment with it for the time being. But note: League mechanics often tend to be overtuned at league start, so keep a cautious eye on selected modifiers.
Did you know? In this guide, the color of gems are signaled with (G) for green, (B) for blue and (R) for red.
Did you know? You can have two weapon sets: An active one (I) and an inactive one (II) – you can switch between them by clicking the respecitve option in your inventory. Crucially, gems that you put into the second weapon set will still get experience. This guide will recommend you in various places to level certain gems in the second weapon set. Therefore, it is recommended to equip two one-handed weapons with 3 sockets each in your second weapon set as soon as possible.
Did you know? In Path of Exile, a lot of enemy mechanics are signaled by sound effects. Bosses, for example, mostly have a voice line connected to their mechanics which – given that visual indicators can sometimes be hard to identifiy due to the visual clutter – can not only be a lifesaver, but a reliable source of information. So if you tend to play the game without sound, it’s recommended to at least activate ‚Dialogue‘.
Did you know? The vendors in town will regularly offer you new items. So check them out if you are looking for a specific item.
Did you know? You should always keep moving, especially during combat. Hit-and-run, baby!
Did you know? The only relevant item modifier to look out for at this stage of the campaign is ‚+# to Maximum Life‘. You will get damage from other sources. Nevertheless, additional useful modifiers are those who add damage to attacks or increase physical damage (e.g. Iron Rings provide ‚Adds 1 to 4 Physical Damage to Attacks‘), movement speed and cold resistance. That being said, having the needed links on items in the early game is way more beneficial than having good modifiers.
Did you know? There really is no need to kill all enemies in an area or to take 1v1 fights versus tanky rare enemies during the campaign. Instead, just keep moving forward to kill the next big normal or blue monster pack and finish the quests. A common mistake new players also make is that they overlevel quite often (due to the fact that they full clear areas) and somehow have problems gaining experience due to experience penalties. To avoid this, just make sure your level isn’t more than 4 levels higher than the monster level in the current area. You can see the current monster level at the top right (when pressing TAB).
Did you know? You will soon encounter the first boss of Act 1, namely Brutus. Even boss fights in the early game can be quite challenging, especially for new players. A common problem new players run into is that they run out of flasks due to the length of the fight or due to using them too frequently.
Here, a little trick can help: You can use a Portal Scroll before or during the battle and go through the portal in dicey situations which gives you the following two benefits:
- All your flasks refill in town
- When you re-enter the boss fight through the portal, you are invulnerable for one minute as long as you don’t do any action – this affects any incoming damage, including boss mechanics.
You can repeat this as often as you want as long as you have Portal Scrolls. And: The boss’s life does not reset when you use this trick.
Did you know? Completing all available trials will allow you to access The Lord’s Labyrinth in Act 3 which – once completed – enable you to choose strong powers. You will learn more regarding this later on – for now, you can complete or skip the trials (but keep in mind that you have to do them later anyway – so you might just complete them when you discover them).