In response to the Path of Exile mail. You are expected to do a bit of research prior to starting. An they give you all the tools you need on either there wiki or the website itself.
They also want you to have to make the choice, they dont want you to freely totally respec for free. They want every point to matter cause every point does matter so you have to think about the choice you make.. The game is about trial and error your first toon or two might be terrible but you will learn.

A few tips with the passive tree i would say are.
1. figure out whether you are gonna be life, energy shield (CI or otherwise) or mana based.
2. Figure out what your resource is gonna be. Are you gonna spend mana for your spells? if so eldrich battery might be a good choice or maybe just a lot of mana regen (Keep in mind aura's withhold mana from your total when used)
Or are you gonna use life for skills?
Maybe you wanna use 2 gem slots for blood magic gems and use life for skills while using mana for aura's.

Figuring those 2 things out while in the planning phase helps a lot. After that you need a good amount of hp (Unless you are using a CI build) and capped resists but you can do that in both the tree and gear. (Don't forget to upgrade those pots)

They also give you in game tools to learn the game in the form of the race seasons especially the 1 hour endless/decent/12 minute types.

The examples in the tips are just a few choices you can make, there are plenty of other choices you can make in the tree and on gear to accomplish whatever you need to accomplish for your toon defensively or offensively.

Bahska, excellent response to my email. I totally commend you for your explanation and tips on the Skill Tree system of Path of Exile. It's enough for me to consider on coming back to POE. However, you should know that I wasn't directly attacking Path of Exile and saying that it wasn't worth playing (if I made it sound like that, I apologize). I was simply responding to Rob's comment from the previous week that placed POE over Diablo 3. Grant it, Diablo 3 is not without it's flaws (which there are many). However, I would not go as far as to say that POE is greater than Diablo 3.

My argument was that POE's greatest strength (the Skill Tree) was also it's greatest weakness. Your response has supported that argument. Time is a large factor in regards to POE. One must spend time to research (which is a significant barrier to entry for new players). BTW researching and planning is one thing, but experience is another. The question is: When does one realize that he/she made a mistake in his/her character build and has to start over (lvl 20? or lvl 80?!)? By being unforgiving to players, and saying that they wasted their time with a character can very easily put off a player. Time is precious to gamers, and they should not have to feel that they wasted it because they made a single major mistake 20 levels ago in which they have to start over. To quote Travis Donovan from Under Sedation Live (which you can listen to live every Saturday night at 10pm EST here on vognetwork.com), AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR DAT!!

I totally agree with you and it is frustrating but I kinda like that to. I like that the game teaches by trial and error, some may not and that's fine. Everyone likes different stuff.
This game is very hardcore like once you hit 80 it takes 7+ hours to reach 81 farming maps all day. The player that is willing to do that is also likely the player who would restart if need be however I have found that you are more likely to restart cause there is a new cool build than a mistake.
I wasn't attacking you or anything just giving some tips. Hope you have a time with the game now. :)

ZiggyDstarcraft on youtube is also a great place for tips or build suggestions if you need/want to know more.

It's all good, I just love debating. You made some good points, and I'll definitely consider your tips if I find the time to come back to the game again :)

Great episode this week, Nice to hear Blackwolf talk about the old days of online gaming.

Great hearing Bobbys stories about the old days of MMO's. I never played EverQuest or even knew that there was a MMO type of game on the C64. Great talk

Almost caught up on podacsts! Thanks for answering my tweet. I know you guys probably get that question every few months, but I really wanted to hear what could get Bobby to try another MMO since he seems to be pretty choosy about his MMOs. But great answers all around.

And making fun of Ni no Kuni never gets old!