5 Awesome Starter Builds For Path of Exile 3.0 - Fall of Oriath

5. Frost Blade Raider

Simplest build ever, keeping in mind that you can start with frost blades from the beginning. The build is very straightforward, easy and fast to level up with and is also late game viable and can do pretty high damage. It can take on pretty much everything when geared well. The build is good for fast clearing and farming maps but can be a bit difficult to kill shaper and uber atziri with. You don't want to run uber lab with this character. This build focuses on high attack speed and cold penetration, high critical chance and critical multiplier, killing everything around in a second. The weapon range is melee but once you hit something the frost blades spread around and hit all monsters in range, releasing multiple projectiles. You will have to position well to avoid hard hits from monsters. If you position well there is nothing that can kill you when clearing maps because everything falls down immediately and can't reach you. The build deals elemental damage therefore elemental damage reflect maps will be its drawback. You want your frenzy charges from the ascendancy tree. This is an example of a passive tree you can follow. Gearing can vary depending on the weapons you want to use but that will change the passive tree too. You want to dual wield for best results and damage. Regarding bandits you can pretty much decide on your own where getting some additional mana regen will be alright and helpful or better get a skill point to put in somewhere else.

4. Scion Elementalist Wander

Wanders have great clear speed and are very good in late game with potential to kill pretty much everything without any problem in literary seconds. You want to use kinetic blast and barrage but first you will need to start with frost blades (best option for quick clearing) and switch to barrage at level 12. At that point you can buy 2 Storm Prison wands and level up with them. They are pretty easy to afford. One costs about 1 alchemy orb. As a whole the build is really cheap and easy to gear up. At late game you might consider spending some more for items like 6 link Belly of the Beast and some of the expensive but highly effective flasks such as the Dying Sun Ruby Flask. As a whole even without buying expensive stuff like that the build should work pretty well. What you want to look for when gearing is elemental damage, spell damage, critical rate and multiplier, life, accuracy, resistances and attack speed. You can use kinetic blast for clearing maps fast and barrage for bosses. You can do both in 6 links but you will have to spend additional poe currency for a second armor which you can switch on with the other. The need for another one comes from the different colors of the gems that will be used with each of the skills. You want your barrage to be focused for single targets and kinetic blast for clearing maps. This is an example of a passive tree you can follow. In your ascendancy you want to go for the elementalist talent which will reduce reflected elemental damage and give you some descent elemental penetration percent and the ability to summon one additional golem. The golems you want to use are lightning and cold – one for additional speed and one for more critical damage.

3. Spark/Frost Spark Inquisitor

Another awesome fast clearing build. Actually, the greatest farming build ever. It's easy and cheap to level up and map with and is very pleasant and fast to run around with. You can get spark pretty much right away at the start of the game and use it throughout the whole game while building on it. The build is late game viable but will demand more expensive items later on. However, that shouldn't be a big problem. Another drawback is maps with elemental damage reflect but you can always avoid them. The build revolves around spell and elemental damage, life and additional projectiles as well as critical strike and critical strike multiplier and attack speed. You want to have a decent amount of armor and maximize your resistances. Instead of using items for additional projectiles it is recommended to use 2 Hazardous Research cobalt jewels. Later on you can get a helm enchant in the Lab with 2-3 additional projectiles or just buy a helm that already has the enchant. This allows you to not use greater multiple projectiles support and give you free space for more damage or pierce or critical. An example of a passive tree you can find here. A good unique weapon to use will be Doryani's Scepter which is now already significantly cheaper than the first couple of weeks of the league.

2. Ancestral Warchief Totems Chieftain

One of the builds I've leveled up with the fastest ever. There is nothing this build can't kill. Simple and easy to play, it is a real pleasure and your nerves won't be stretched. The one thing you shouldn't do is rush into the boss or in big crowds of strong creeps but this is obvious. Let your totems do the work and lead the way. You can't start using totems right away and is recommended to use sunder or something else with physical damage while you get the Ancestral Bond skill point when you can switch to ancestral totems and when you won't be able to attack with your hero anymore. This should happen somewhere between levels 30-40 before which you have already picked up the ancestral totem gem and leveled it up together with your current skills. The build requires only one expensive unique (Tukohama's Fortress) which can be obtained in late game and is not absolutely necessary at first. Before that you can substitute it with skirmish (very cheap) for an extra totem or just get the Old Great One buckler for extra physical damage and some life. Tukohama's Fortress really makes a difference, it gives you a lot of damage, armor and life. It also gives blood magic but it is recommended that you get it from the passive tree and also the life points after it. You should focus on getting items that give a lot of physical damage such as the Facebreakers and Abyssus. You want to get a lot of jewel sockets in your passive tree (4-5) to socket with physical damage increase, physical damage increase while holding a shield and resistances. You will need to get some resistance talent points and some jewels with resistances in order to be able to maximize them and at the same time deal a high amount of damage. Example of passive tree here. Good flasks increasing your damage are also recommendable with this build. Taste of hate and Atziri's promise will significantly boost your damage. However, getting a Taste of hate is not the cheapest thing in any league but you shouldn't worry as it is absolutely not needed for the build to work extremely well. You can get it later on for a significant boost.

1. Hierophant Frostbolt totem

Absolutely satisfying and incredibly easy to play. Great clear speed and late game viable. Cheap and easy to level up. This build is absolutely amazing and beginners friendly. The build doesn't really require any overpriced unique items to work well and doesn't really have many drawbacks thus making it really easy and fun to play when starting a new league and throughout the whole game. There might be some difficulties when doing elemental reflect maps because your totems will be destroying themselves but that isn't that much of a drawback, even if you do, the bosses are still manageable, but of course, more difficult. Apparently at first you can't get frostbolt cast by totems right away. You will have to level up until you will be able to do that. You can start leveling up with anything you want but preferably something that deals spell damage. What you want to focus on getting on the passive tree is: spell damage, life, mana and you want to get "Mind over matter" and Ancestral bond by level 30-35. Don't forget to level up your main gems you are going to switch to later if you are able to obtain them earlier. It is important to get a jewel socket early so you can use Frozen Trail Cobalt Jewel for more projectiles and projectile speed. Once you've gotten Ancestral bond and a Frozen Trail jewel (which is extremely cheap – 1 poe orb of fusing max) you can switch to frostbolt totems. You have to keep in mind that once you've taken Ancestral Bond talent from the passive tree you won't be able to do damage with anything else but your totems. You will want to get an additional Frozen Trail socket as soon as possible for greater clear speed. You can rush for Rise of Awakening (ascendancy talent) and get it by level 60. This will allow you to use 4 totems in total (together with Ancestral bond) and will significantly boost your damage and clear speed. What you want to look for when gearing is life, mana, elemental resistances, armor, elemental damage, spell damage, cold damage, cast speed, critical strike chance and critical strike multiplier. Example of passive tree here.