Utterly Lost New Player

Play standard vaal league and pick whichever class you want

a preferred class for newbies

Not really, but they introduced the Druid this league so that's what I chose.

About mid-20s you chose between 2 ascendancies, each of which provide different extra skills / capabilities. I usually create a new character and finish the campaign, then create another and chose the other ascendency to see the differences between the 2.

I had a lot of fun playing a shapeshifting druid, but the Oracle (plant) druid was easier to play - and either I found better items or it was also more powerful.

For the tree, look for nodes that buff your skills and defences.

Lol, I played POE2 when it first came out for 2-3months and stopped. Coming back now after 1 year, I'm equally lost. As someone who played minions Infernalist then switched to demon form back then, coming back to see that Lich is better for minions or even something like a Titan, is just crazy.

Be patient, it's another game than d4. I play them both actively. Poe2 is more compel and more punishing but also more rewarding. It will take several seasons to get good, unless you spend time reading up on the game

I prefer stormweaver sorc, build is straight forward and reasonable tanky and strong. And it's simple but very different from d4 sorc it feels really slow for a long time. No perma-teleoort in poe2

Honestly my advice is to avoid guides as much as possible for your first playthrough. You will definitely get overwhelmed at some points but figuring shit out in this complex game when starting out is so fun, to me at least.

The most powerful class in the campaign is without a doubt Mercenary, so that's what I would recommend for a new player.

You cant really brick/fail. Relax. Enjoy the ride, test all skills, find something you enjoy playing. Dont follow guides. Treat the character progression as a sandbox. You'll be given tools every once in a while to mix and match them, the point is doing whatever you want with them.

Just started playing last month and went with witch necromancer but also dabbled with mercenary for another character..both are very fun for newbies like me..also I followed a build guide to make it less frustrating especially with skills & passive skill tree

Play the league (fate of the vaal). Don't play solo self found (can't trade), or of the hardcore versions (can't die). Every league lets you play the story. In fact, unlike in D4, you have to play the story with every league and new character.

Play any class that looks fun. They all naturally kind of play exactly as they look. Ranger does arrows, Witch does necromancy and blood, Sorc uses elemental magic, etc.

One of the major differences between D4 and POE2 is any classes clan play in the style of any of any other classes, this leads to interesting interactions.

If you want to see the meta its on poe.ninja, but its mostly about the endgame. All classes can beat all endgame content.

melee has a marginally harder time in the story then ranged characters, but just marginal.

Also, you can't really brick your character in poe2. Anything can be respecced except for base class, but like I said, even that can be worked into any playstyle.

Don't be afraid to ask future questions here, plenty of helpful people.

POE2 is quite a step from up from D4!

Unlike other commenters, I would recommend finding a build guide for a build that looks interesting to you and following it. In my experience there’s a much larger difference between a good build and a bad build in POE2 than D4, and the campaign can be very difficult if your build is lacking.

Additionally later in the game you will probably get better gear from the marketplace than from drops or from crafting it yourself, so keep that in mind.