You can respec passives if you mess up, i would advice to sell a lot of blue/gold items you loot to stack gold for it This way when you become too bad to continue you can always rspec to something good 

You don’t need to follow a build guide, but it helps. There’s SO much to learn with the game in builds, a guide helps teach that if you pay attention to what the build does and why, etc.

If you don’t want to follow a guide, all good - to gauge if you’re doing well, you shouldn’t need someone to carry you in campaign boss fights. Folks will gladly help, but the help shouldn’t be needed. If you need help, it’s because the build is struggling, whether your DPS output is too low or your res is too low. OR, it’s a tougher boss in general and you just don’t know the mechanics yet. All of which are fine and fixable.

you dont need to worry about it that much. druid is particularly strong levelling so it’s hard to brick and you’ve already done your research. Just try to enjoy your first time playing without minmaxing imo. It is very easy to respec.

virtually nothing is set in stone on a character. There are very few choice quest rewards that cannot be changed, but those are things like some mana regen vs. stun threshold, or 5 attributes vs a bit of resistance.

there’s no harm in experimenting, you’ll just need to play some and get a bit of gold to respec. You’ll be able to do that early in act 1 after reviving the hooded one.

your weapon determines the skills you can use, but there’s no correlation between your skills and your class in POE2 outside of what you start with. You can play a druid, equip a bow and its skills and pick dexterity as your attribute if you want. So yes, for talisman skills you need str/int, but you don’t have to play talisman just because you’re a druid.

You can just have a crack at it mate. You’ll always be able to respec. I would recommend following a leveling for the best possible experience, since your knowledge about the game is limited right now.
I can link you some leveling build if you want.

Campaign? Easy to respec just need gold. Also, don’t have to remove points down the tree to respec the points that give int/str/dex. They can be changed anytime

I would surely be following a build guide in your position. This game is very complicated and having that laid out for you will allow you to see WHY someone figured out it was the best approach. Otherwise, you don’t know what you don’t know. Right!

Start buying items from the shop early. Skill and Support gems are worth a ton to sell if you find yourself having too many.

I waited to buy things way too long.

You can respec your passive tree anytime if u got the currecy after unlocking the hooded one from act 1.

If you’re following a build thats viable from the get go, then Knowing where you’re headed is good. If not then I recommend you experiment as much as possible. But since you said you don’t have much time at the moment, I recommend following a guide. Good ones will be thorough about what you need to do from act 1 to endgame. You can get attributes on most gear and naturally accumulate them while pathing to different nodes on the tree.

Not all builds are as attributes hungry and some uniques negate the requirement altogether.

P.S. Some builds are just way easier and much less convoluted and overwhelming than others.

Just in case if you reach maps and you realize you need to respec the whole tree and don’t have gold, you can ask in global chat for a Castaway map carry. It is very likely someone will help you. If none do, you can message me and I will help you. You will get millions of gold in a matter of minutes enough for few respecs.

If you try to respec after 80, make sure to have at least 1.5mil gold. It is not much but you can run out if you change a lot and radical builds.

I always recommend to just play the game your first time around and then when you feel overwhelmed or stuck then you can look out for solutions outside the game. To answer your questions. The stats requirements depend on your skills and weapons and the gear you equip. You can respec but it requires some gold to do so. Early on the gold cost is low but as you level up the cost start to increase. Good luck and have fun.

Why do folks tell new players to not follow any guides? New players should be checking out guides to find out how stuff works in the game.

I think it’s perfectly fine to play your first campaign playthrough somewhat blind and just try things out, accepting that you probably won’t be the the most effective player out there. Then learn new things one at a time.

How you pick what you play effectively is that you’d choose the skill you’re going for, and even the class and ascension only after that. You just won’t know if you like a skill without trying it out first.

You can respec most things, but there are some choices during the campaign that impact player power that are NOT changeable once you make them. So if you’re going for a specific build, it’s usually best to plan it out in advance, regardless whether you use a build guide or create your own.

Also, respeccing costs gold, and by the time you reach endgame, it can be A LOT of gold. You can make a lot of easy gold in the endgame by selling rares to the vendors, but be mindful of this.

Good approach is to check what skill you want to use as main dps/clear, what looks good for you and you won’t get tired spamming/seeing. Only then select ascendency that benefits that skill most.

You should follow a guide or it won’t be very funny

You don’t need to know what build you want, but it will help a lot to have a general direction you’d like to go.

A rule of thumb is that minor passive skill points (+5 to an attribute) should be minimized. Find clusters of more specialized passive points that relate to what you want to be doing. Path toward those, picking up defensive stuff along the way

You can always respec, but you’ll enjoy the game more if you can at least pick a skill or a couple skills you like using early-ish (totally fine to swap as you go), and then work toward passive clusters that sound like they buff that skill.

Stats are mostly just to help you wear the gear you want and meet the minimum requirements of your chosen skill gems as they level up. I usually default to strength while leveling, because it provides a small bump to hp, which is marginally more noticeable than dex/int. But the priority is always the skill gem/gear unlock side.

You can always respec I enjoy the games with build guides because they help me learn so much but also some of us on the sub come from Poe 1 so we have a lot knowledge in the game. Take you’re time , do research if you ever have questions you can dm me good luck

You can respec but I’d have a general idea. Respeccing can cost a lot and if you’re just starting it may be expensive. Don’t have to follow a guide to a T but you don’t want to have to scrap everything and start over at high levels with little currency.

I don’t generally start fine tuning or crafting my build until probably Act 4.

The first 3 acts you can kinda get through without a problem.

And by Act 4 I’ve usually spent enough time in the skill tree to have an idea of what I’m gonna go for.

I don’t usually use guides or follow builds.

And I’m doing t16 maps without an issue.
I’m not a die hard poe2 guy. I’m genuinely just a casual. If I can get by, so can you.

Depends what you want and if you have previous experience with arpgs. My first char was rooooough. Id recommend playing and finding something you like, and them looking up a build for that specific skill / class. Dont have to follow it completely, i never do. Just have a gander through the build. Check what stats are important on gear. Check what kind of stats are good in the passive tree. Check the skills they’re using. You can always do some more research if you ever feel stuck.

No. Just go for it. Check out guides/builds only if you feel hard stuck. Otherwise turn the internet off and play

No. Best thing about PoE2 is that you can make most builds work one way or another