PoE Guide for Diablo players

Title: PoE Guide for Diablo players

This is not an in-depth guide for new players, it's for ARPG fans who are familiar with the genre and want to get jumpstarted into PoE.
I've played >300 h D3 and something like a tenfold amount of D2 and I'll assume that you've played at least a quarter of that.

**Paymodel**

Game is in closed beta with an open weekend *right now*. You can get a beta key for 10$ for after this weekend. Open beta is supposed to start sometimes this year (september maybe). After release, it's going to be free to play. Characters and items from open beta will remain into the release!

**Active Skills**

The skills in PoE aren't fixed for the class you play, but come in the form of gems which you socket into items. You'll mainly get gems as quest rewards early on and they also drop as loot. There are (red, green, blue) = (str, dex, int) skill gems.
Gems can level up, they get 10% of your combat XP (even if you don't get any because you outlevel the enemies). They have level- and attribute-requirements for leveling up (hence the colors). The leveling up of gems is optional, you may want to keep one down to have it's mana cost low.
You can use **any** gem in **any** class.
There are currently something like 75 skill gems. Check them out [here](http://en.pathofexilewiki.com/wiki/Support_Gems#Sorted_By_Attribute).
There are also support gems which alter the behaviour of the active skill gems if you put them into linked sockets.
As an example, you put the *Life Gain on Hit* support gem next to a *Cleave* gem and you'll regain life for every enemy hit with your AoE attack.
Another example: combine *Detonate Dead* (active) with *Totem* (support) to have a totem which casts the spell for you so you can focus on other things. *Ice Spear* (active) with *Greater Multiple Projectiles* (support) with *Elemental Proliferation* (support) to fire multiple ice projectiles which freeze enemies and have the freeze effect jump over to nearby foes. The maximum number of possible linked sockets is 6 and it's hard to come by such an item. Every support gem raises the mana cost of the active skill.

For future reference: some big passive skills are also available as support gems if you want their effect for only some of your skills.

**Classes**

The classes in PoE are very liquid.
The only differences are: how your hero looks, what his starting attributes are and his position in the passive skill tree (more on that next up).
For now:

* INT - Witch
* STR - Marauder
* DEX - Ranger
* STR/INT - Templar
* DEX/INT - Shadow
* STR/DEX - Duelist

Each levelup gives some stats and a passive skill point. Maxlvl is 100

**Passive Skills**

Check out the [passive skill tree](http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQEB)

I know, I know, it seems ridiculously huge at first sight.
The witch's starting position is to the north, the marauder to the south west and the templar, you guessed it, in between, etc.
Actually fairly straightforward, just try it out, go ahead and skill a *Marauder* before you continue reading.
You'll notice that there are small thematical groups of passives with pure stats as ways between them. More significant boosts are the larger circles. You'll notice the very large circles at the edge of the skill tree, like *Resolute Technique* which makes all of your swings hit (there's hitchance like in D2) for the cost of you never critting anymore. They are designed to vastly change the way your character plays.
You'll get a few respec points from quests which each allow you to remove a single skill point, so you can try out big nodes and make little mistakes, but still have to plan and pay attention. It's possible to get respec points from items but they are rare and it's probably faster to level a new char. So there are no full respecs.

Here's how I'd skill my *[Marauder](http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQEBADZkywDU5OYBzjiLAmUqhgWSIXoHa5TVCy826A70lhEQwpUzENcouBIhjyMXFRfWH4jICSD-_o4iQnuXKAw15ymGwI8q6vOPK83HQzGTSfc0NrVqNKgBeTeXCEQ3xCN_N-joTT0kALU9Kr74Qz3GrFDjAjBRYZ0tU09swlR55wBZfOmhWekyAWFxNlNhimooaA1hmWibpftvKk8acpXop3KfVtR1nRrEeE0BunrfWBB924kuojeodqgveomodrQ9tOqHW7uv36DL1RfPzRKsjs2xIFfRND3X0z_we9SLxKvUucAg1YyD9Nuhx-njK2hF5pCkcPBu5y_xbfum98twGZpYCVChVEy3voN84aoOCjDRSC0o6Z7_ZZp2mVyJg5Mkt6LQaptvQkrw3Uh0oeaENZ-p2LOt_M_s07pwPPMmJuy8R97gpBGAxfTSnUmW1QR6y-sHTJMz87f9qWI_r2fz6dEJxAKieQXziRvt3Oo7bj_Y2cavtmUF4uOYnJnXzKP5jakY_6pIAfP39JsowSqz1MoBrn3WKw-4hAn-KcuQDfDfAxXUqHgte5m3V7KLyQQPwOZYb4qFdD30NCX0)*  and here are some really cool and extreme builds ([funky tank](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqvE66YFRO4&feature=plcp), [extreme witch](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE1t9oCA9MQ&feature=plcp)).

**Resource management**

There are flasks which are refillable potions which you can drink from a couple of times before they are empty. The come in all colors and sizes and have their own affixes (e.g. double armor while the flask fills you up). They refill when you kill enemies.
There's also regular mana and life regeneration, life on hit, life on kill, life leech, mana leech etc.

**Currency Items**

There's no gold in PoE. You buy items from NPCs by trading for e.g. a *Scroll of Wisdom* (identi).
You can vendor white items for different amounts of scroll fragments (5 make a scroll). You can vendor unidentified blue items for fragments of *Orbs of Alteration* which make a white item blue (20 make an orb) and you can vendor identified blue items for fragments of *Orb of Alteration* which rerolls a blue item's affixes!
All currency items drop as loot as well.
There are also: *Orb of Augmentation*, adds another affix in case it doesn't have max; *Orb of Chance*, white to random (blue,yellow,unique); *Chromatic Orb*, change color of sockets; *Jeweler's Orb*, change number of sockets etc. you get the drift, you can reroll almost anything on an item.

The best weapons I've been able to get my hands on are made that way: find high base quality type white weapon, heighten quality to the max of +20% with *Blacksmith's Whetstone*, make rare with *Orb of Alchemy*, BAM high dps weapon.
Orbs of Alchemy are rare and so are Blacksmith's Whetstones, but it's doable and you don't have to rely on RNG as much as in D3.

**Game modes and endgame content**

There are currently 2 acts with 3 difficulty types (like: normal, nightmare, hell) in the beta and a 3rd act is coming soon.
There's regular hardcore like in Diablo and there are hardcore ladder races in the length of 1-2 week and 2 hours.
There are also map items (drop as loot) which open a high level map with rare mobs. You can even make them harder with currency items.
PvP is coming in the next patch. There will be dueling as well as tournaments etc.

**Further reading and resources**

Check the sidebar ;)