Complete newbie to Grim Dawn. What builds are pretty forgiving and good to familiarize myself with the game? Found some youtube videos but they’re pretty old so unsure if they’re still relevant. Usually prefer melee so likely going to go with soldier, but Summoner also seems interesting.
Thanks in advance!
Death Knight is great for beginners cuz it utilises Krieg’s set that is dropped from certain bosses.
Tactitian, Warder, Vindicator, Warlord are wery nice choice too.
Yes, DK can be pretty nice. It’s good defensively and have cheap end game options. Warlord is perhaps the most forgiving class. For melee I can recommend Infiltrator, have beginners guide for it and much more, so you can ask specific questions about build 
For Summonner Conjurers are tough, Familiar build is newbie friendly.
Thank you guys for the suggestions! I’ve seen in some gameplay videos a 2-hand melee character doing an attack that kind of looks like the 'ol whirlwind barbarian from Diablo 2. What class/build is that? Is it a decent newbie build? Thanks!
Hey Nery thank you!
Not sure for Diablo 2, but whirlwind skill is called Eye of reckoning, which is Oathkeeper skill. Here’s beginners guide by @malawiglenn ☄ Collection of malawiglenn's Beginner Friendly builds
Rock on, thank you! I’ll research all these and figure out which way I want to go. Thanks again!
That must be either Tenebris chaos sentinel (oath+occu) or some Gutsmasher bleed or Death’s Reach vitality gimmicks. Not recommended.
As for your op question you can never go wrong with a physical warlord (sold+oath) It has one of the strongest EoR (the spinning) builds and you can make a variety of builds all of which are pretty immortal throughout the game.
Or a pet conjurer (shaman+occu) if such oddities interest you. 
If you like fast, up close and personal anything with nightblade preferably infiltrator (inq), dervish (oath), blademaster (sold) or trickster (sham).
For a first build I’d not choose pure casters. One of the most important things for survivablility in GD is adcth which is healing as you deal dmg, and melee is best for that.
As for being forgiving it’s more about knowing what you’re doing. Keep you res(instances) up is number one noob advice.