In case you want to enjoy game without other people builds, just remember few points:

• do not invest much points in Armor/Evasion (unless these comes with inc % life)

• invest a lot of points in life (sweet point in every build is to have between 160-230 inc % life)

• do not use crit (you can after few characters or you can reroll your first character with a lot of orb of regret)

• find skill you like here https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Active_skill_gem and try to play with it most of time (most players in this game use one skill for damage, other are supporting spells), if skill you choose was not that nice there are usually few replacements, worth to find them before and level them up in swap weapons.

• do not forget to trade in poe.trade (unless you do not want to) as this will help you a lot, in armors search for life and resists (always have capped resist or close to capped from 5th act up) in case of weapons it depends, if you use Spell then search for inc spell damage, inc fire damage (in case of fire skill), etc and added x to y fire/cold/lightning damage to spells and cast speed. In weapons simply look at DPS that is shown when you hover skill in right bottom corner (mostly increased damage, added damage (without Spell word) and attack speed).

• in case of attack skills remeber to check if your hit chance is good, if not invest in Accuracy rating in Tree or/and in rings.

• do not make energy shield character until you are familiar with game.