Path of Exile is a free to play action role-playing game developed by New Zealand based Grinding Gear Games. It was first released in 2013 and quickly became one of the most popular free to play games worldwide. Players must explore the cursed continent of Wraeclast, hunt for valuable items and battle deadly monsters. The game features an advanced skill system and extensive item and currency trading.

Character Creation

Choosing your character class is perhaps the first hurdle of Path of Exile for many players. The game provides numerous recommended build guides, but it’s still up to you to find a class that speaks to you.
In Path of Exile, you can choose to play as one of the seven classes available in the game. Each of the classes offer a unique play style that can be very rewarding to master. The game has a number of different currencies that players can use to purchase items and upgrade their equipment. The game’s economy is based on bartering “currency items,” which can be used to identify items, create portals to town, reroll affixes, or grant skill refund points.

The Passive Skill Tree in Path of Exile is infamous for its size and complexity. Choosing the right passives for your build will increase your damage, survivability, or both. Some nodes on the passive tree are useless, while others will boost your performance at specific times.

Leveling Up

As you level up, you gain passive points and can start to improve your gear. The best way to make your character as strong as possible is to follow a build guide and try to understand the mechanics.

Unlike other action RPGs, damage scaling in path of exile is additive rather than multiplicative. This means that a good defense can negate most of the damage you take. In fact, a good defense is more important than damage in buy path of exile currency, because if you die, you lose all your experience and progress in the game.

Leveling in path of exile is not easy and requires a lot of patience. However, the game is constantly updated with new content and mechanics that bolster its core gameplay. These new mechanics are called leagues, and they add new areas to the game and tweak its end-game systems. They also introduce a new currency that can be used to purchase items and reroll affixes.

Character Progression

Unlike many action role-playing games, killing enemies in Path of Exile grants your character experience. However, your character will only gain experience when the enemy is within your level range. This means that you should always kill enemies that are close to your character level to maximize your experience gain.

Choosing a class will give your character a specific passive skill tree and starting attributes. For example, the Marauder is a great melee damage build, while the Templar is one of the best magic damage builds.

The game also features a plethora of tradable itemized gems that can be socketed into an item, and they offer many ways to enhance your weapon and your skills. The support gems you socket into your weapon will affect its stats, while the attack gems will change the damage type that it deals. These gems can be further augmented by affixes and triggers, which are special gems that can increase their power and effects.

Trading

In a game that showers players with loot, they will eventually encounter items that aren't worth keeping or are better for someone else. Luckily, Path of Exile supports a vibrant in-game economy based on trading these items for crafting currencies.

Unlike Gold in other games, these crafting currencies are the backbone of the trading system. Traders can exchange these currencies for items from other players, or they can use them to upgrade or reroll their equipment.

The trade process in Path of Exile has some intentional road bumps that can be a bit confusing for new players. For example, when a player writes to another to buy a specific item, that player must message them back to accept the trade, then quickly travel to their hideout to initiate the swap. This etiquette helps prevent scammers from ruining the trade experience for everyone. However, the process is still fairly simple once you get the hang of it.