Even though standard sounds like the default mode, it isn't. Path of Exile players generally concentrate on the
poe currency buy challenge league. Thus, you'll want to consider how important difficulty, multiplayer features, and the economy (item trading, etc.) are to you when selecting a league.
To gain new skills in Path of Exile, you'll usually need to equip gems into sockets in your gear. Any class can use any skill, but gems do have stat and level requirements. Gems can only be equipped in slots of the same color.
Equipped gems also level up as you earn XP, receiving ten percent of the base XP awarded from monster kills. Your character experiences an XP penalty when revisiting lower level areas, but that penalty doesn't apply to gems. Thus you can quickly level gems by replaying areas that are a few levels lower than your current level.
Every piece of loot you acquire takes up varying amounts of space in your bag. To carry as many possible things at once, you have to move
poe buy items around and squeeze things into the allotted spaces. Even then, your bag is bound to fill up quickly if you pick up every single item you encounter.
You can pretty much ignore white items unless you're about to head back to town and have the room to spare for them. Rarer items are usually worth picking up and selling, even if you have to hold onto them for a while. And of course, any item that looks better than your current gear is worth grabbing – even if you have to drop something else temporarily while you equip it.
By default, characters don't regenerate life but they do regenerate a tiny amount of mana every second. You can manually refill life and mana by using the appropriate type of flask. Flask charges automatically refill when visiting a town or hideout. They also gain charges from killing enemies. Equipping better flasks increases the amount of life or mana regained, and can have other effects as well.
Still, you'll have a hard time if you only rely on flasks for life and mana. Gear and passive skills can increase regeneration for either stat or even steal life and mana from hits and kills. Considering the life and mana restoring properties of gear is important to keeping your health and mana pool up. At bare minimum, you want to have some life regeneration so you can recover health between battles.