Just started playing 2 weeks ago, I have a lightning witch and frost archer - both around lvl 40 and at this point I'm just pissing around on the passive skill tree hovering over stuff to see if it'd be relevant on my character.
Well, I did follow a guide for my first builds, but after that, what I do mostly is looking at several guides for the skill I want to use, and check which path/nodes are used, which uniques item interaction etc. After that I build my own, sure it's often quite close, but it allows you to tweak a few things. So it's not really following a build, and that's a good way to understand why people take this path rather than this one, and will give you a good general understanding. Note however that there are a lot of things to learn in PoE, so reading guides, even if not following them, can be beneficial.
But overall, think defenses in your tree. For life based build ou wont go very far without at least 120% life on the tree, for pure ES builds I don't know. If you want a few guidelines of how to build a tree :
- Focus on one main skill. Think Clearing vs. Single Target. All others skill are only here to help you.
- Choose which Keystones you'll want
- Choose your hp pool, get a lot of nodes for it
- If going crit, take a few crit nodes
- Look for the best value per point nodes for dps, but don't take too much
- Choose your class/ascendancy according to all of this.
- Note that taking resistances on the tree can be completely avoided as it will be covered by your gear.
- Don't neglect primary stats, but don't focus on them too much.
- Have fun trying to optimize your pathing.
- Do not take any auras related nodes unless you use a lot of aura. These nodes are a lot less interesting than there were in the past.
- Plan your build for level 80-85 max, really. This means something like 100 points. The last ones should be pure bonus and not necessary.
I hope this can help a bit, please exiles be free to correct or add anything! Do you want to poe buy items? If you do, you can visit U4GM to have more guides and methods about this.
