Points are the constraint, not the plan
Path of Exile 2 gives you roughly one passive point per level plus a few from quests. The tree is enormous by comparison, so the real question is never “what is best” but “what can I reach”.
Plan around reach. The best node in the game is worthless if it costs nine points of travel through nothing.
The two-pass method
Do not plan the whole tree on a first character. Take two passes and stop.
Pass one: damage and life. Follow the nodes closest to your start. Take anything that increases your skill’s damage, your life, or your resistances. Ignore everything clever.
Pass two: multipliers. Once your skill is settled, take the nodes that multiply what that skill already does. This is where the tree starts paying properly.
Pathing cost
Every point you spend travelling is a point not spent on stats. Before you commit to a distant notable, count the nodes in between.
A rough test: if more than half the nodes on the path do nothing for your build, the notable is probably not worth it yet.
Life before damage, after a point
The order that works is a small amount of damage first, then life, then back to damage.
Pure damage characters die before their damage matters. Pure life characters take too long to kill anything. The split is roughly two damage nodes for every life node early on.
Keystone points
Keystones are the large nodes that change how your build works. They are powerful and they are trade-offs by design.
Do not take one until you have read what it costs. A keystone that removes your leech is not a damage upgrade for a character that relies on leech to survive.
Ascendancy is separate
Ascendancy points are not passive points. They come from trials, and they are spent on the ascendancy tree. Do not plan them into your ordinary passive route.
A respec-friendly habit
Because passive points can be refunded, treat early allocations as experiments. The expensive mistake is not taking a bad node, it is refusing to move points because you spent them.
Respec freely while levelling. Stop when the cost starts to feel real, which is roughly when you are mapping.