Here is a list with the most important game mechanics from Path of Exile.
Press “z” to enable the display of all the item names from the ground, the name of the npcs, chests etc. The display will remain on.
To “read” chat items, use “click and enter”.
To link items, control + alt and click on the item.
There are two UI maps in Path of Exile. You can press “tab” to display the map that will appear similar to the one from Diablo 2, transparent, in the middle of the screen. And the mini-map, from “options”, enable “show corner map”.
There is no gold in Path of Exile. You can exchange with vendors, the items that you don’t need, for different scrolls and artifacts.
Keybinding. You can keybind abilities to any keys. Notice the right bottom side of the UI. By default, you can assign abilities to left click, scroll click, right click, q, w, e, r and t.
You can assign other keys for these default keybinds from “options”. You can assign any ability to any of the keybinds. For example, if you don’t want to have to keep left mouse click pressed when auto-attacking, you can assign the primary attack to “space” or other key that is more comfortable to press.
Potions
The potions are keybinded by default to “1-5″.
Abilities. Abilities are gained from orbs (gems that will be insterted into gear sockets) (remember the materia system from Final Fantasy 7). You can get gems from quest rewards or from world drops.
There are active and passive gems. An active gem is a gem that provides an ability. For example: “double strike”, you attack twice. If you put a passive gem that is linked into the gear, for example “improved attack speed”, you will get that bonus and your “double strike” will be faster. If the gear doesn’t have the orbs linked, you won’t benefit from the passive “improved attack speed”.
If you put the “improved attack speed” not related to any active gem, your character won’t attack faster, the gem will be useless.
Once you understand the system, you will love the game even more.
The skill system is similar to the one from Final Fantasy X. You need to assign the points carefully and try to get the skills that will benefit your play style the most in the future. For example, if you either want to use a 2 handed weapon or a 1 handed weapon and shield.
Complete all the quests. Sometimes they reward one skill point besides orbs.
If you have any useful tips to share, leave in the comments.