Hello   guys! I am very new to the game and  I am looking for an excellent group to enjoy the game as a beginner. 

 

Any input is appreciated.  I don't mind spoilers. Its the journey  that makes it fun.

Hi,

the best way for a first playthrough is - in my opinion - to go with the official companions. If You pick them up one by one in the "natural" order you will quickly have a Wizard (Aloth), a Fighter (Edér), a Priest (Durance) and a Chanter (Kana Rua). From there on you can pick up a Paladin (Pallegina), a Ranger (Sagani), a Druid (Hiravias) or a Cipher (Grieving Mother). In the DLCs you can pick up a Rogue (Devil of Caroc), a Monk (Zahua) and a Barbarian (Maneha). 

Since Wizards and especially Priests are among the most powerful classes on PoE (at least once you leveled a bit - the early game is a bit rough with them) it's great that you can get them so early.

If you want to play in a party without having a class twice I would suggest Monk, Rogue or Barbarian as main character. But actually it doesn't matter much. Even two Priests in one party are great.

Good early game abilities/talents:

Wizard: Chillfog (damage and great debuff/CC), Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff (great weapon damage and spares you a lot of spell uses)

Priest: Inspiring Radiance (stacks with everything), later Devotions for the Faithful. Buffs accuracy of your party by 30 (combined) while it debuffs the enemy.

Fighter: Knockdown (good single target CC with decent damage).

Chanter: Phantom summon (it is insanely strong in the early game but takes some time to build up. Can be a life saver though).

The general rule in every encounter is:

Buff your party's accuracy (ACC), then debuff the enemies' defenses with your raised ACC (often includes CC/hard CC), then deal damage.

You will waste a lot of damage potential via spells or abilities if you just blindly attack the enemies as soon as you see them. If you follow this simple pattern "buff-debuff-damage" you will get a lot more mileage out of your abilities/spells. Nothing is more annoying than to miss with an expensive spell.