Play the league (fate of the vaal). Don’t play solo self found (can’t trade), or of the hardcore versions (can’t die). Every league lets you play the story. In fact, unlike in D4, you have to play the story with every league and new character.

Play any class that looks fun. They all naturally kind of play exactly as they look. Ranger does arrows, Witch does necromancy and blood, Sorc uses elemental magic, etc.

One of the major differences between D4 and POE2 is any classes clan play in the style of any of any other classes, this leads to interesting interactions.

If you want to see the meta its on poe.ninja, but its mostly about the endgame. All classes can beat all endgame content.

melee has a marginally harder time in the story then ranged characters, but just marginal.

Also, you can’t really brick your character in poe2. Anything can be respecced except for base class, but like I said, even that can be worked into any playstyle.

Don’t be afraid to ask future questions here, plenty of helpful people.

Play standard vaal league and pick whichever class you want

You cant really brick/fail. Relax. Enjoy the ride, test all skills, find something you enjoy playing. Dont follow guides. Treat the character progression as a sandbox. You’ll be given tools every once in a while to mix and match them, the point is doing whatever you want with them.

IMO a safe bet for newbies is Witch summoner/necromancer. It’s a little more hands-free with a couple of spells you can use to buff them like offerings or do additional damage like unearth. It’s not super gear dependent either. You just want to keep your scepter up to date with a decently high spirit roll so you can have more minions summoned. Your skeletal warrior level is based on the level of the scepter.

There are a ton of guides out there for a necro build. It can take you through the whole campaign pretty comfortably. And consider that throughout the journey, you’ll be accruing currency and items that you can use to boost your next character for when you want to try something new.

a preferred class for newbies

Not really, but they introduced the Druid this league so that’s what I chose.

About mid-20s you chose between 2 ascendancies, each of which provide different extra skills / capabilities. I usually create a new character and finish the campaign, then create another and chose the other ascendency to see the differences between the 2.

I had a lot of fun playing a shapeshifting druid, but the Oracle (plant) druid was easier to play - and either I found better items or it was also more powerful.

For the tree, look for nodes that buff your skills and defences.

The most powerful class in the campaign is without a doubt Mercenary, so that’s what I would recommend for a new player.

Lol, I played POE2 when it first came out for 2-3months and stopped. Coming back now after 1 year, I’m equally lost. As someone who played minions Infernalist then switched to demon form back then, coming back to see that Lich is better for minions or even something like a Titan, is just crazy.

Be patient, it’s another game than d4. I play them both actively. Poe2 is more compel and more punishing but also more rewarding. It will take several seasons to get good, unless you spend time reading up on the game

I prefer stormweaver sorc, build is straight forward and reasonable tanky and strong. And it’s simple but very different from d4 sorc it feels really slow for a long time. No perma-teleoort in poe2

Honestly my advice is to avoid guides as much as possible for your first playthrough. You will definitely get overwhelmed at some points but figuring shit out in this complex game when starting out is so fun, to me at least.

If you’re a total newbie pick something that looks fun then go read a guide. It will help you understand how it works. Theres a lot of layers.

My first time through the game i bricked my character… but it worked out in the end, now I mainly follow builds. If you need someone to help you run through a few things and play with DM me and I’ll help when I can! Im always looking for people to play with!

Pick Druid, it’s the new class for this season and can complete the campaign with very little invested in expense gear. Check out build guides (filter for campaign and not end-game as those usually require rare and expensive gear) to make efficient use of your time. The passive tree can be intimidating but just follow the guides for your first play through. There are also several “stat check” bosses, so if you keep dying it’s likely due to either low resistances or DPS. Check the NPC vendors after each level-up for better gear.

Thank you! Are the leagues like seasons?

The only things your class determines are which weapon drops during the tutorial, where you start on the passive tree and which ascendencies (class specific mini passive tree with game-warping nodes) you can choose. Any class can use any skill or weapon if you’re creative enough! That being said, the recommended setups are actually pretty decent for the most part, just pick a skill that looks cool and add the recommended support gems that look like they will boost your damage. On the tree, its generally good to path towards the cluster on the outside of the tree that looks like your weapon, or to a specific keystone (the really big nodes with a downside) that enables your build, grabbing anything that boosts your damage along the way.

You can mostly ignore defense for most of the campaign, but in general you want to focus on life and elemental resistances on your gear. Between the 3 major defenses (armor, evasion, energy shield), energy shield or hybrid es/evasion is generally the way to go, armor doesnt scale well into the endgame unfortunately