Path of Exile free to play in about six hours.

[kandrathe]

I gotta say, I'm not real excited about the barter system. If only because I have yet to be able to find anyone who is willing to barter with me, so I've ended up vendoring most of my rares now, and trying to find good socketed pieces that I can try and build up.

You should... and I'm saying this because I should too... get more familiar with the Vendor alchemy so that when you do trade in good gear, like rares, you get a just return.

http://en.pathofexilewiki.com/wiki/Vendor_Recipes

Since there isn't another place to do this, Allow me to ask some questions here. I'm currently level 26. The skills I normally use are:

Q- Leap Slam (with a Level 4 Life Gain on Hit Support Gem)
W- Ground Slam (with a Level 5 Life Gain on Hit Support)
E- Infernal Blow (With a level 5 Life Gain on Hit Support)
R- Cold Snap (Aoe Freeze)
T- Glacial Hammer (Shatters a frozen Enemy)
I have autoattack on my left click, but rarely use it (is that bad?)
I have Raize Zombie on my Right Click

I also have Lightning Strike (I'll use that from time to time, not sure if I like it)
Decoy Totem (Will use this in place of Raise Zombie in dungeons)
Wrath (A Lightning Aura) I used for a bit, but don't care much for right now. (I actually have two of these. One in my Stash, and one in my gear)

My Marauder is 23, so we're nearly the same.

I think there is great variability in skills based upon weapon choices. I happened to get an awesome rare axe, so I've added sockets to it and linked them. On my chest I've got a life leech support gem linked to a sweep (aoe) gem, so every swing (middle click) brings my life bar up to full (for now). I use normal attack on left click, and use it when it will kill the target. For right click, I have the elemental attack Lightening Strike (linked to a support gem (weapon elemental dmg +63%). When I swap ('X') I have a shield and a 1 hander for more tank, less damage. I use shield charge, glacial hammer, and others* in the strength tree. I'm mostly shunning dex and int gems.

*I also have cleave, decoy totem, ground slam, heavy strike, leap slam, wrath, and a couple other defensive gems(on shield) -- but, I like what I see of purity so I might make an exception for it.

So my questions:
1) How long should gear last?
I have a blue 2h'd mace it's pretty sweet. It allows me to support ground slam and infernal blow off the same gem. But, it feels like it's falling a bit behind in weapon damage. Do I care about weapon damage as much as I do my skills?

I have a rare helm, It's been lagging.

I have a blue chest, It's a little old.

My necklace requires level 10. I haven't really seen any good neckalces drop, but I've stashed some, just not sure what I should do with them.

I have a Gold, Lapis, Amber, and Coral I haven't done anything with.

2.) What about Rings?
I have a rare ring that I made (I was just using the orbs to see how they worked, and make a rare ring. I've been wearing it forever.) And I have a level 7 ring on the other finger.

Again, I have a bunch of unused rings in the bank. nothing that is Better than what I have unless I use orbs to try and make one. Is that worth it?

I've been really careful crafting my gear so that I can make sure that I keep my gems together, and my skills moving. I'm afraid that I might be letting my gear lag behind because of it.

I dont' feel like my deaths are because I'm undergeared. They are normally "Walk into crowded room, not realize there's a boss, lag, DIE." OR..... OH HEY! WHAT'S LEAP SLAM DO! And Leap Slam across a zone, and finally dying from everything I've aggro'd.

I let the vendors be more of a guide on what type of normal gear should be for my level. When I find stellar white item I might want to use, I'll use Transmutation to see if I can make it into a stellar blue item. I do this more on rings, necks and belts.

3.) Should I bother upgrading nifty flasks? Shoudl I keep them all?
I've stashed almost every flask I've gotten. I may have sold some of the small ones, that weren't "special"

I sell them -- I find too many normal ones -- even some of the blue ones sometimes the upgrades are less desirable (less healing over shorter time). Also, vendor recipes...

4.) How often should I use my orbs? Should I buy gear from Vendors? I haven't yet purchased any gear, but I've used my orbs. Right now I'm sitting on

14x Orb of Transmutation
5x Augmentation
18x Alteration
10x Armourer's scrap
2x fusing
4x Whetstone
1x Chromatic

I don't use them unless I need to use them. Me? 40xPortal scolls, 3 Augmentation, 23 transmutation, 19 Alteration, 21 whetstone, 3 fusing, 1 regret, 4 alchemy, 3 chromatic, 28 armorers, 1 blessed, 3 glassblowers, 3 chaos, 6 chance, 1 jewellers, 1 scouring.

5.) Am I poor?
I like the game, and I'm getting by, I just have this feeling that I'm doing something woefully wrong.

Compared to me, you seem more ok. I found out early it paid off to run a zone repeatedly, and hit the zone bosses a few times to get "currency" and possible gems. I'm sporting more gems (15 or so) perhaps (with a couple dupe strength ones just level them up).

6.) Weapons. Does this sound as good as I think it does?
Back on items for a tick. I have this sword. I think it's AWESOME It's a 1h'er. It's rare. It req's 15.

It's 13-19 Weapon Damage
6-11 Cold Damage
2-23 Lightning Damage
5% crit
1.3 Attacks Per Second
1% Physical Attack Leeched back as Mana.

The Problem? The Sockets If I use it (with either of my shields) I don't have enough sockets for my spells. Should I mess with it, and see if I can make the sockets better? I have a Killer Rare Shield, a Decent Unique Shield (They are both good in their owns ways) that I could pair it with, Or, I have another sword I could pair it with. It would allow me to have all three gems in the same weapon, but it doesn't have all three linked the way the mace does. This would actually give me some flexibility, but here comes the next question.

Sounds like my aging rare 2H axe -- Quality +12%, 42% inc PD (35-55) ED, +3-11 Fire, +5-10 Cold, +30 accuracy, CS 5% APS 1.0 -- 2 sockets linked -- I'm looking for an upgrade now, normal mobs are taking 2 or 3 hits. :-)

7.) Stats. Should I only be using Str based weapons? I'm confuzzled. The Weapon I linked in #6 req's Str and Dex. The one the I allude to, just reqs Dex. Does this matter to me as long as I can equip it?

You can go that way, although I suspect focusing on Strength first, with enough of the other to get accuracy and use spells will be the better first build. I figure I'll make a mess at first, delete it and try again with more experience the 2nd, or 3rd or 4th try. Which is why for this game -- hardcore even makes MORE sense than in Diablo. It doesn't take 200 hours to get reasonably far into the tree to know if you've made a mistake.

Here is mine.I'm headed now for Reaver by way of Lava Lash and am contemplating Blood Drinker.