Melee is mostly bound to weapons and the actual level of your character doesn't matter
Well, if progression is the only thing you care about, spell casters will give you the best experience as a new player because they literally scale as you level up. In fact, the only thing that will give you significant damage boost is going to be the level of your main spell. Difference in damage between a level 20 and 21 spell gem is going to be around ~15% increase. Level 20 vs 24(so a lvl 21 gem with a lvl 4 empower support) would almost double your damage.
Melee is mostly bound to weapons and the actual level of your character doesn't matter. If your weapon is bad, so will your character. There are hundreds of leveling unique weapons and most of them are going to be better than whatever you can get from a spell. Melee doesn't require constant increase in links, either. Just change your crap weapon for a better one and you're set to continue your journey.
Dec
poe4orbs:[3.9]PoE Metamorph Templar Builds (PC,PS4,Xbox,Mobile)
Welcome to the best PoE 3.9 Templar Builds brought by R4PG. Choose your favorite ascendant from Guardian, Hierophant, Inquisitor and start your Metamorph journey
Dec
Path of Exile Useful Tips 10 - How Prevent Others From Using Portals In Your Hideout
Path of Exile Useful Tips 10 - How Prevent Others From Using Portals In Your Hideout
Aug
poe4orbs:[Lake of Kalandra] PoE 3.19 Shadow Reap & Exsanguinate Trapper Saboteur Beginner Build
This PoE 3.19 Shadow Reap & Exsanguinate Trapper Beginner Saboteur is a good league starter build that can easy run all maps and mods.
Oct
Chaos Damage doesn't bypass Energy Shield
The way I see it, unique items are bad design. They put build-enablers into a terrible binary: not enabled, or best-in-slot. There's no room for gear progression in that gear slot under such itemization.