As you know, most large-scale MMORPGs have complicated mechanics, and Path of Exile 2 is no exception. In the early access of POE 2, which was launched on December 6, you will find that the skill system can be a bit confusing at first.
Most role-playing games will give you a simple system of skills that can be unlocked during the game, but in POE 2, skills are divided into items and you need to equip them yourself. In fact, there are many skills in POE 2, you can vist POECurrency.com to learn specific skills content through relevant information to ensure that you can get started as soon as you enter the game.
And this time, we will mainly introduce you to the relationship between skill gems and their supported variants and character skills, as well as their specific mechanics. In fact, if you can use skill gems properly in actual combat, you will play a stronger skill power.
What Are Skill Gems?
As you play the game, you will occasionally find skill gems on the map. They can be equipped with your game character, granting you the right to use the skill corresponding to the gem, provided that you meet the attribute requirements and any weapon restrictions of the skill.
Therefore, you will find that because of the mechanical characteristics of POE 2, skill gems are actually the materialization of skills. It is worth noting that any Path of Exile 2 class can use any skill in the game, except for skills unlocked through class Ascendancy.
What Do Skill Gems Represent?
At present, skills in POE 2 can be divided into three categories according to color:
- Red-Strength: Mainly includes slowing melee skills, slams, totems, and fire-type buffs.
- Green-Dexterity: Mainly includes ranged skills, fast melee skills, ballistas, grenades, traps, and ice-type buffs.
- Blue-Intelligence: Mainly includes spells, most minions, and lightning-type buffs.
Red skills, or red skill gems, tend to focus on melee attacks, which include typical melee swings or heavy slam attacks. In addition, it also allows you to taunt nearby enemies through totems, or exchange POE2 Currency for some more advanced weapons, and use the phantom of the weapon to attack the enemy’s minions.
Green skill gems represent fast, low-damage melee skills, which are a key part of POE 2’s skill distribution. They allow you to spawn ballista turrets, create traps, and modify the ammo type of ranged weapons, while also using ice buffs.
Blue skill gems cover almost every spell type in POE 2, including meteor showers, chain lightning, ice blizzards, necromancy, and chaos-themed effects. If you cast your character as a spellcaster, you’ll probably use quite a few blue skill gems. Non-casters can also use blue skill gems to get lightning-themed buffs.
What Are Support Gems?
Support gems are another type of gem item that can modify your skill gems to have new effects, whether it’s adding damage buffs or getting a completely new mechanic. For example, if you put Multiple Projectiles’ support gem on Grenade skill gem, then every time you cast the skill, you’ll throw three grenades in a fan pattern, greatly increasing the skill’s AOE damage.
Even in the early stages, support gems can help you deal most of the damage to enemies, so it’s best to install as many support gems as possible in your skills. A skill can have up to 5 support gems installed at a time, but you can use certain POE 2 Items and Ascendancy to bypass this limit.
What Skill Gem Slots Do?
Each skill gem dropped in POE 2 will have support gem slots for you to install support gems. For example, the first few skills you get in Act I have two support slots, which means they can be equipped with two support gems. If you want more slots, you need to find a better copy of that skill gem.
So you should keep an eye out for better skill gems as you level up. The more slots and links a skill gem has, the better. Also, the level of the gem doesn’t matter, as you can cut higher level gems.
How Do You Equip Gems?
Once you enter the game, you’ll see a menu button above your flask and amulet, tap that to access the skill tab. You’ll then see a grid of slots you can insert gems into, with skill gems placed in the leftmost column and support gems in the remaining columns.
Take inserting an Essence Drain gem, for example. Once inserted, two smaller gem slots will appear next to the skill, which means you have two support gem slots available to modify or improve the corresponding skill of Essence Drain gem.
Currently, each single character can insert up to nine skills (skill gems). However, you can cleverly bypass this limit by consuming Path Of Exile 2 Currency to obtain useful weapons, or using the characteristics of sub-classes obtained through Ascendancy.
How To Get New Gems?
In the early acts, you can not only get POE 2 Exalted Orb through quest rewards but also most skill gems and support gems. And many quests in the first two acts will reward uncut gems, which you can carve into any skill you want in your inventory.
The skill gem and support gem options you currently have in the game are marked by class, giving you a general idea of which skills are best suited to the class you play. But this is just to help you choose a more suitable gem, not to represent a class restriction, so you are also free to develop skills that can be used by other classes. What you really need to pay attention to is the attribute requirements of the skills.
I believe that after the above introduction, you should have understood how to fight in Path of Exile 2 through the power provided by skill gems and the additional gains brought by support gems. I hope you can have a pleasant journey in the game!