Help after 3 year hiatus

So I haven't been able play for 3 years due to moving and not being able to hook up my gaming computer. I got it back up and running but I see that a LOT has changed. I've been trying to catch myself up on what's all new, what I need to do to be caught back up and anything else I should know but I'm struggling from information overload. I lost all of my skill spheres and I think my armor is outdated with the current setups. Anyone out there want to share any highlights, tips or metas that could help out with getting my characters current again so I don't have to spin my wheels too much at lower levels?

I have a Squire, Apprentice and Huntress all around level 43. I'm thinking about about getting a new one as well, so any recommendations as I'm not familiar with the new ones.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks 

The best way to catch up with all the changes would be Mr. Juicebags' channel on youtube / asking on the official discord

-Spheres have been replaced by shards, which you can drop by completing a map (the list is available on the wiki for example), the most useful being destruction (+atk for towers, chaos 1 shard), fortification (+health tower, campaign shard), rate  and range for towers, and so on.

-Player trade is now a thing (item for gold)
-Materials have been added and are required to upgrade and tinker equipment (transferring mods from a piece of equipment to another).

-Mods can be seen on weapons, the quality (from 1 to 10 / red to green) affecting its stats (the closer it is to 10, the better), they provide a variety of bonuses
To upgrade a mod (for example from campaign level to chaos1) you need gold and materials.
To increase the mod quality (for example from1 to 10) you need reroll tokens (that drop from  drakenfrost maps) and gold but its not a priority if you're "starting" the game.

-After you've reached level 50, you'll start gaining ascension levels => spend points to increase stats

-once you're done with campaign, do expeditions to improve your gear. There are 7 tier of expeditions (chaos 1 to 7), each introducing a new special enemy

-Mastery mode has specific winning conditions to clear a map, and you get very good rewards (like hyper shards)

-the "endgame" (after you've completed expeditions) is onslaught, where you 'll be climbing floors (the difficulty increases depending on how high your floor is), and mobs have mutators (for example magic dmg resistance or immune to stuns)

-After having climbed  enough floors, you'll be able to access ancient power ("prestige") : resets all your gear to campaign level  (so you have to upgrade it all over again) but you gett a permanent buff everytime you do.

 

 

this is so good and thorough, that I think I'll just copy and paste to help out future new-comers. god, MEA's too helpful everywhere. 

DANG! I was hoping for a little direction, but Mea Culpa CRUSHED it. Thanks so much. That's exactly what I was looking for. Turns out I've got 3 level 50's already and completed the campaign so we'll see how expeditions go. Thanks again! You ROCK!