Path of Exile

Loot every skill gem and every currency items. And every map once these drop. No reason to ever skip those, besides maybe skillgems but you can convert them later into onyx amulets anyway.

White Items(normal):
Loot stuff to equip yourself at lvl 1-2 obviously.
Loot superior quality flasks for the recipe, see next section
Loot whites with good sockets for your build, you can make them into magic or rare items
Loot whites which have RGB sockets LINKED. These will sell for a Chromatic, see details in next section
Loot whites with 6 sockets, for the recipe, see next section
Loot whites boots/gloves/helms with 4L( 4 linked sockets) and chests/2H with 5L or 6L. 6L whites are worth more than almost anything else in the game(you won't see 6sockets until lvl 50 though)
Loot perfect rolled Leather Belts(+40health), Coral Rings(+30health), Resist rings(+30% resist), Prismatic Rings(+12% all resists) and Onyx Amulets(+20all stats). You can chance or alchemy those for good loots. The others aren't really worth it but you might try them too if you want.
Loot Iron rings if you want to try the Paua/Coral recipe(see next section)
Ignore everything else.

Blue items(magic):
Loot stuff to equip yourself at low level IF it has good sockets. Don't bother IDing blues with shit sockets unless your white is really terrible in comparison.
Loot all blue boots early in the game to try to find movement speed% boots. These are very nice.
Loot all blue rings/amulets/belts, or at least the one with semi decent rolls, they might end up being pretty good for certain specific stuff(for example double cold resist ring for resist fights).
Possibly loot blue boots/gloves/helm that are at least lvl 32 for a chance at IIQ/IIR mods(increased item quantity/rarity) as well as flasks for Surgeon mods. These sell for Alchemy shards however they're fairly rare to get so don't do it unless you have a decent buffer of wisdom scrolls to burn.
Follow the same rules as white for socket specific stuff(6sockets, RGB 3L, 4-5-6L stuff).

Yellow items(rare):
Loot everything, ID everything.
If it doesn't have stats you need, you can try to keep them to match items. This requires A LOT of stash tab to do efficiently and is fairly tedious. However if you match 2 item with the same name(for example Dreadful Visage helm), you get one orb of chance. With 8 orbs of chance, you get an alchemy. This is very boring to do and you need additional stash however, and the gain is limited so that's probably not worth doing.
You could instead keep them to make sets for Chaos Orbs(one item that goes in each slot, like 2rings 1amulet 1chest 1 2H weapon etc) and other weird recipes, see next section.

- 1 Iron Ring + 1 Skill gem= 1 Resist ring(the resist is based on the color of the gem, blue gem is cold, red is fire, green is lightning)
- 7 Iron Rings + 1 Rare Paua/Coral ring= 1 Rare Paua/Coral Amulet. This is mostly useful for Paua as Coral amulets are pretty crappy, however if it's a crappy coral ring might as well convert it
- 1 Item with RGB Linked= 1 Chromatic Orb
- 1 Item with 6 sockets= 7 Jeweller's Orbs
- 1 20% quality Flask or a combination of flasks which quality is equal or greater to 40%= 1 Glassblower Bauble
- Items with a high IIR/IIQ modifier or Surgeon Flasks= Alchemy shards(20 make an Alchemy Orb which is valuable)
- 1 Armorer Scrap= 2 Scrolls of Wisdom(ID)
- 1 Whetstone= 4 Scrolls of Wisdom
- 1 Skill Gem + 1 Scouring Orb= Same skill gem but one level lower, useful for delvling gems but very expensive, often not worth it if you need to delvl more than 2 or 3 times

Make sure you keep all your quality flasks in your stash and every once in a while, grab a few that sum up to 40% total quality and sell them in sets(don't sell 80%, seems to not work). These will give you the items to increase the quality of flasks, Glassblower Baubbles, which is useful to use on your endgame flasks and is pretty much "free". Also selling Armor Scraps or Whetstones early game is a good idea if you're low on Id scrolls, as these don't have a big value anyway and are mostly worthless until later in the game when you start crafting whites.

I find other recipes to be not so useful, but here is a link to the complete list in case you want to check it out:
Recipes List

It's not that bad. The first rule is to grab some health nodes, always. Doesn't matter if playing hardcore or not, you'll want some life. How much depends on wether or not you're ranged and wether or not you're playing hardcore, but you'll still need a fair amount. Most good builds will end with between 150% to 200% additional life, and some go up to 300%. In general, find the nearest health nodes for your starting class and go towards it, taking whatever's good on the way. I'd say for a solid build, you'll want to do this process for the first 30 or 40 levels, just going for the next health node, taking stuff on the way as you see fit but not spending too much side points doing so. If you run past a 2points +25%dmg increase then do take it, but if you need to invest 6points for a 30% increase on the way it's probably not worth taking now. Basically take the efficient damage increases but otherwise focus on life. Do take mana regen related stuff if you need them, as well as various mitigation stuff if your build is gonna use that type of defense(like 50% armor nodes if you plan on using armor and such). Damage stuff is best left until you're safe to survive, you literally don't need any damage passives to kill stuff anyway as the scaling on items and spells is high enough to begin with, and damage stuff is more a convenience.

You will get respec points, but they're in limited amount and the currency to get more is fairly expensive, so you should try to make a fairly balanced build to begin with if you don't want to reroll. Glass canons suck(unless you absolutely know what you're doing). An average build should have about 50% of his points spent on defense. An HC or melee build should have up to 75% of the points spent on defense, even more in certain cases.

Questing is very linear in this game. Act 1 is entirely linear and you should just keep going. There are sidequests areas that are optional and that you probably should do just to see them anyway but you can't go the wrong way. Quest objectives are green on the minimap. In Act2, you are given a choice on where to go once you reach the city, you can go left or right. You will have to go both ways eventually, so just pick whatever. You will also have a quest that requires you to deal with the bandits. There are 3 bandits in 3 different zones(you unlock a waypoint next to their camp). One of the 3 bandits is actually further in the story and can only be accessed once you have done both side and unlocked the final area(you need the Weaver's and the Chamber of Sins's quest items to destroy the Tree roots which block the way). You are given the choice to help or kill the bandits and at the end you will either have to side with one of the bandits and kill the other 2, or kill all 3. The rewards differ based on your choices. Killing all 3 rewards a skill point, while helping each one gives a different reward:
Helping Oak: Normal 45hp ; Cruel 12%physical damage increase ; Merciless +1 Max Endurance charge
Helping Alira: Normal 45mana(I think) ; Cruel 4% cast speed ; Merciless +1 Max Power charge
Helping Kraitlyn: Normal 8% all resist ; Cruel 4% attack speed ; Merciless +1 Max Frenzy charge
Oh and the bandit quest is not optional, you need to do it. The rewards are also currently not refundable, so you need to make sure you're picking the right stuff. Don't pick charges if you don't plan on using charge generating abilities, the 4%attackspeed is fairly weak and 1skill point should give you a better damage increase in a lot of cases, 45mana and 8% resists are both generally regarded as worse than 45hp or 1skill point(45hp is the best reward for most builds unless you plan on going Chaos Innoculation build which makes your health 1).

I have no idea what happens in Act 3 ^^.

For a list of quests I recommend the wiki:Quests list

Brutus: Only does physical damage. Uses a hook to pull you in melee range when you're too far from him. Also does a "blood wave" attack that has a medium range and does quite a lot of damage. Mostly, exploit his terrible AI, he likes to stand still a lot. If ranged, simply run back and forth and when he starts arming his hook, stop and cast a spell or attack him ONCE, then resume moving. While you might be able to land 2 hits inbetween hooks, you open yourself to getting hooked by the next one. Also he hooks where you were when he starts the animation, which is why stopping right away is fine since you'll probably be further away. If you are melee, hit him hard a few times then break melee to regen to full. Don't stay at half hp or lower in melee range as he might be able to crush you really hard. Abuse ground effects when possible, such as Fire Trap or Poison Arrow. He's a simple boss but he can be deadly if you underestimate his damage potential.

Merveil: The key to this fight is to get Cold resist % as high as possible. Your best bet on normal is to buy Sapphire rings from Nessa in town. If she doesn't have Sapphire Rings when you check and you're already at the boss, then buy Iron Rings from her, and sell them back along with a blue gem for a Sapphire ring. You can get 2 blue gems easily by making a witch and running to town asap, you will get a blue reward for killing Hillock and you start with one. Once you have the right amount of resists(50+ is highly recommended, 75% is best), make sure you have a couple of TP scrolls and preferably a non cold based damage skill. Don't stand too far away from her so her Ice Spear doesn't benefit from the high % crit(you can tell you're at the right range if the spear goes through you, if it doesn't it has 42% more chance to crit) and simply spam spells/attacks. Once you're out of flask charges, open a TP and go to town then go back in right away so her Energy Shield doesn't regenerate. In phase 2, she becomes one of the mobs you've already fought before that do those foggy water waves attacks, very easy to dodge. She also summons adds. Just keep doing dmg and use a TP again if you need.

Fidelitas: Get maxed lightning resist(same way you got cold resist rings). Avoid standing in melee range if you can. Pull him away from the adds especially if there's a necromancer in there. Simply kite/face tank him, he's not that hard, but he can hit very very hard if you're not maxed on resist.

Vaal: The hardest current boss in the game. He has multiple patterns and does A LOT of damage if you get hit, however most of the damage is avoidable. He summons adds that you want to kill asap and let you recharge flasks/summon zombies/spectres out of. He will make the ground shake and have rocks fall from the ceiling, this attack is very hard to avoid but doesn't do a whole lot of damage. Close to him is safe against this, however it makes you very susceptible to get hit by his massive smash. The smash is a fire/physical "melee" attack(it has a very large area though) that does insane damage. You will want to avoid this, even if you're capped on fire resist with a good amount of armor and health. It has a windup and only hits in a form of "cone" or something like this so you can just go through him or around him and it should be fine. He uses a cold ground attack that does no dmg but 100% chills you while standing in it. Finally, he has a lazer attack where he will fire 3 times in a row, each hit will put a shock-like stacking debuff on you that increases damage taken. This attack is lightning based so you will want maxed lightning, generally you might be hit by the first one but if that's the case, simply run in one direction around him and he will miss the next 2 hits. If you stop however, you might absolutely die on the 2nd hit due to the debuff. Each of his attacks come from a specific arm, so paying close attention to his arms will tell you what attacks he can do. Lazer and Ice are the same arm(triangle one), Rocks and Smash seem to be the same arm too(ball one).

- To reset a zone, hold Ctrl and click the zone, it'll bring the menu to reset it.
- To sell stuff quickly or move to your stash, use Ctrl+click.
- To link stuff in the chat, use Ctrl+Alt+Click while the chat is open.
- For general chat, use #. For trade chat, use $. For tells, use @name. For party chat, use %.
- You can also turn on Trade chat by clicking the Hide/show tradechat in the chat window.
- To send PMs and stuff, you can click on the name of the player but you need to open the chat to do so.
- To meet/trade with people, you need to be in the same group and the same town. Use the group menu(S) to invite or click on the name to invite, then meet up, most trades tend to take place in Act1 town. If you're already in town when you group with someone, you will have to rezone to make sure you're in the same instance of the town.
- To check the item level of an item, click on it to "hold it" then type /itemlevel
- Typing /oos should try to force sync your character in case you're desynced. Logging off is generally faster if it's a dangerous desync though.
- To change the tabs in a vendor window or in your stash, as well as move the map, use the Arrow keys(you know, the ones you haven't used since the 90s)
- To display your ping and FPS, press F1.
- The default to toggle Always show all items is Z. You can also turn it on/off in the settings.
- Ctrl+Enter opens a "reply" chat to reply to tells. Shift+Enter opens the chat with a # for General chat.
- Iirc Tab lets you change the @names to send tell to people you msged before, but I forgot if it's just tab or if it's arrow keys or what.
- You cannot rebind middle mouse button. (hopefully fixed for OB). Cannot rebind any mouse button really.
- To remove a gem from your gear, simply right click on it.
- You can hide the gem leveling up notification with a Right click. This is useful if you don't want to level a specific gem and don't want to click it by accident. You can still level it from your inventory window.

- Loot in groups is FFA. You sometimes get reserved loot for people, but this only lasts for about 4-5seconds so loot quickly.

- To find a pub group, click on the Notice Board in town, or open your Social menu(N). Ask politely for a TP to get directly where people are as it can be hard finding them otherwise

- Early game, try to buy 2 coral rings and 1 leather belt from Nessa(item vendor in Act1). These will cost you about 10 Wisdom Scrolls but will increase your survivability a lot. Try to aim for good rolls but not really necessary, Coral Rings are 20-30health and Leather Belt is 20-40.

- It might also be worth it to create a 2nd char and simply run him to town. Then drop your flasks in the stash as well as the spell rewards you don't need and the ID scrolls you started with. That's a quick way to get 5 minor flasks on your main, a couple more abilities and a few more ID scrolls in about 2mins of time.

- If you need Wisdom scrolls, sell a Whetstone or an Armorer's Scrap. These have low value but give respectively 4 and 2 ID scrolls so they're very useful to sell early game. You can also sell Orbs of Alteration and Transmutation but they have more value.

- Open all chests and corpses. For destructibles, use an aoe ability to break them but otherwise they take a while to break so not necessarily worth it, up to you. Everything can drop everything however(in the correct level range), so it's possible to get an Exalted Orb(very valuable currency) or even a Mirror(most valuable currency) from a corpse on the beach you start on. Possible but unlikely.

- Your chest piece and your shield reduce your overall movement speed. These penalties are dependant on the type of defense those provide. For a pure armor shield(only gives armor, not evasion, not ES, has Str req only), you lose -6% move speed. For other shields, it's only -3%. For Dual wielding, which provides 15%block or Staff which provides 12-13% block generally, you don't lose any speed. For the chest piece, a pure armor or an armor/es chest piece will reduce your movement speed by 8%. Other chest pieces(pure ES, pure Evasion, Eva/Armor and Eva/ES) only reduce it by 4%. Assassin's Garb(high level evasion armor) will actually INCREASE your movement speed by 3%.

- You can actually dual log clients without any tricks(at least in CB, probably in OB too). This lets you create an alt account for free then dual log a new character to quickly run him through the various quests to grab quest rewards. The required quests to progress are Glyph Wall quest, Brutus quest(you need to be in the instance to get credit for the kill), Merveil kill to unlock Act2. In Act2, you need to kill Fidelitas, kill Weaver, click the ball in the Vaal ruins(possibly click the tree roots too not entirely sure), complete the bandit quest and kill Vaal. Doing act1 rewards only takes about 5mins, run to town, TP to Mud Flats, do glyph quest, TP to Brutus room, kill Brutus, TP to Cavern of Wrath, done. Most of the time is spent running to Brutus on the higher level from the Prison waypoint.

- Your flasks refill by killing monsters. Each monster gives 1charge, blue monsters give 3charges, rare monsters give 10charges. Using a flask uses a certain amount of charges and each flask has a certain amount of max charges(both of which can be modified with item mods). If you however are dry and feel it's too risky to continue, flasks recharge instantly to full when going to town, so simply TP back to town for a second.

- Using Alt F4/logging out will teleport you to town for free. You won't have a portal to go back but if you have a waypoint on your way and you're done with a side quest, this saves you a TP.

- If for some reason, you do not get credit for a kill quest(it can be bugged at times), simply reset the instance and kill the boss again. Might mean you have to reclear an area so that sucks but nothing is ever broken so much that resetting it won't work.

- Beware the Flicker. Flickerstrike is an ability that teleports you to your target and does massive physical damage. Some mobs have flicker strike, and are common newb deathtraps. Make sure you don't rush when in the Pirate's Cove cave thing or in the Weaver's Den. Pull carefully and deal with the mobs without moving if possible. Moving away from them will let them Flicker you again, but standing still in melee range they will not flicker. If you have to run, cut line of sight asap.

- On a similar note, be extremely careful when dealing with Hailrake for the Medecine Chest quest(it's a low lvl quest). He has a very limited mana pool but if he hits you with an Ice Spear at max range and you're not high level enough, he might actually kill you during the freeze, which is pretty sad since he's like lvl 3 ^^.

- In act 2, in Western Forest if you follow the road, you can open the way to Act1. Return to Act1 town to receive your reward(a skill point).

- While the maps are randomly generated, the roads often go from one zone to another, so following them to make sure you go the right way is a good idea.

- To find the Tree Roots in River's Crossing, follow the road until you see an old dirt and paved road splitting off, it is not on the map and isn't very obvious however there are also 2 statues kind of markers around that old road. Follow this dirt road to find the Tree Roots and Vaal Ruins entrance.

- The Ledge, Fellshrine Ruins and Western Forest are generally considered the easiest zones to farm in. If you need to grind a few levels and these zones are not too far from your level range, you should consider them. The Coves in Act1 and Waterfall level 2 in Act2 are also the "easiest highest level" zones before the boss at the end of their act and the next act.