What gear should I invest in?

[Breidr]

Currently stockpiling points and grinding my eyeballs out (read: playing a lot, and dying a lot, but having fun!)

I wanted to start investing my wealth into gear but I'm not sure what I should look for on the marketplace.  The two character types I'm interested in playing are one-handed shield and two-handed/polearm. 

I was curious what the community thought would be the best investment for a new player.  Currently I have Lordly Mail Gauntlets and am coming up on another 2 points, so I will be in the market to make another purchase.

[Switchtense]

A weapon definitely since you already have gauntlets.

Which is totally up to you.

Respec your STF to 1h, 2h and polearm for a day each and see which suits you best. For polearm you can actually go 2 days, since you can try 4 directional polearms and stabby polearms seperately. (I personally prefer pokey polearms over swinging ones)

Which weapon you should go for totally depends on your build and playstyle.

[Noodlenrice]

1. Do what switch said.

2. For which ever on that you prefer, find a good deal for that weapon. Never overpay because you want the weapon bad. You can check how a weapon has been selling in statistics by the way. Good luck jewing.

[Switchtense]

Oh and never accept an offer on the marektplace. Be patient, put up your own offer and wait for it to be accepted.
Might take a while but you save a lot of gold that way.

[WITCHCRAFT]

Gloves are the most versastile, good to get them first. I'd get a weapon next - killing faster is more fun than dieing slower. And weapons are (in my experience) much easier to trade and swap around than armor is. Will change your playstyle much more than swapping armors as well.

[Rico]

With 2LP and 50k gold, you can demand almost every +3 weapon, and someone will accept it if you wait a bit. If waiting is fine, you can save a lot of gold this way.

[Joseph Porta]

To everyone his own, though I have always looked upon looms a little differently.

I have always favoured to loom items that give a direct change to the gameplay, like horses - go faster, shields - massive durability increase. And that kind of stuff. Items that directly influence gameplay mechanics always felt more rewarding to me compared to your characters survivability.

Just felt like sharing this, but what the previous people mentioned is probably way smarter to do..