Path of Exile 2: How to Get More Support Gems PoE 2
21.01.2025 - 01:56:09
Game Guides , Path of Exile 2
Skills in Path of Exile 2 come in the form of gems that you can equip and change at any time. Each skill gem can be enhanced in several ways by inserting items aptly called support gems.
With how powerful the support gems are in terms of improving your character, you would think that they are easy to find, right? Well, not until you know what to do, that is!
So today, we are going to give you everything you need to know about support gems—what they are, how to obtain them, and the best ones you can slot into your skills. Also, stick around to learn some practical tips on how to get more support gems in PoE 2!
What Are Support Gems?
Support gems in Path of Exile 2 enhance skill gems in various ways. For instance, the support gem “Overcharge” increases the potency of Shock on enemies at the cost of having its duration reduced considerably.
Another function of a support gem is that it provides you with buffs when certain conditions are met. Arcane Surge is one of the most popular examples of this. When you spend mana equal to 100% of your maximum, you gain Arcane Surge—a temporary buff that grants 10% more cast speed and 20% more mana regeneration rate for eight seconds.
Now, if you’ve played PoE 1 before, there is one important thing that you have to keep in mind regarding support gems in Path of Exile 2. You see, you can only use a single copy of a support gem in the sequel. So, if you already have Overcharge enhancing one of your active skills, you can no longer use that particular support gem on your other abilities.
There are exceptions, of course. Gem Studded, which is an ascendancy node available to the Gemling Legionnaire, enables you to use another copy of a support gem for a total of two. A similar effect can be gained by wearing the unique item, Solus Ipse.
Anyway, an active skill can have up to five support gems. You start with only a couple of slots opened by default, and the rest of the slots can be unlocked by using the three different Jeweller’s Orbs (Lesser, Greater, and Perfect).
Lesser Jeweller’s Orbs are easy to come by. However, if you are struggling to get Greater Jeweller’s Orbs for some reason, you could add another slot by using a Vaal Orb. Using the Vaal Orb is based on RNG, so it may take some time before you get the desired outcome.
How to Obtain Support Gems in PoE 2
You’ve learned what support gems are in Path of Exile 2 and how valuable they can be in improving your PoE 2 build. However, you are probably wondering how you can get your hands on them. Well, to obtain one, you must use an Uncut Support Gem.
The Uncut Support Gem has three different tiers. Each tier presents you with a number of support gems, and the more powerful ones can only be yours when you have the Level 3 Uncut Support Gem.
Right-clicking on an Uncut Support Gem brings up the Gemcutting UI. When you click on an active skill on the left side of the interface, you can select the different support gems for that particular skill. Once you’ve selected your favorite, click on that gem, and engrave it.
From the image above, you can see a bunch of support gems that you can engrave for Bow Shot—the default attack of the Ranger class in Path of Exile 2. If you’ve engraved a support gem without clicking on a skill, that skill gem will be placed wherever you’ve right-clicked on the Uncut Support Gem.
So for instance, if you’ve right-clicked on the Uncut Support Gem from your inventory, the resulting support gem will be placed inside your inventory as well. If you’ve done this from your stash, then the engraved gem is going to be found in your stash.
You can change support gems any time you want. Just remember that each gem has a certain attribute requirement that you must satisfy. A red support gem, for example, needs five STR to equip.
Where to Get Uncut Support Gems
Uncut Support Gems in Path of Exile 2 can be acquired in several ways. They are:
Random Drop
You can get an Uncut Support Gem by defeating monsters. It is important to note that the level of the enemies you kill influences the level of Uncut Support Gem you get.
For instance, low-level monsters (below level 35) can only drop a Level 1 Uncut Support Gem. This means that the earliest you can get the next tier of this item is Act 3 Normal Difficulty. If you want to get your hands on the highest tier, you have to play PoE 2 in Cruel Difficulty, specifically in areas where you battle level 54 monsters and higher.
Opening Chests
You should never overlook chests in Path of Exile 2 because they can sometimes contain valuable items, such as the Uncut Support Gem. The next time you see magic or rare chests during the campaign, be sure to open them without hesitation!
Quest Reward
Completing certain quests in the campaign rewards you with an Uncut Support Gem for your efforts. For example, you will get a Level 1 Uncut Support Gem after completing The City of Seven Waters quest in Act 2.
Trade
Other players may sell their extra Uncut Support Gems on the trade website. When you arrive at the platform, type “Uncut Support Gem” in the large text box. After that, set the buyout price under trade filters to PoE 2 Exalted Orbs or “Exalted Orb Equivalent.” This helps narrow down the options to those that you can afford.
Best Support Gems
There is a wide variety of support gems in Path of Exile 2. However, there are certainly those that stand out above the rest. If you are a beginner and would like to know the support gems that are worth looking at, then read further to learn some of the most popular ones!
Primal Armament
This support gem enhances attack skills, giving them 25% more weapon elemental damage. Take note that this damage buff is calculated multiplicatively due to the word “more” being used here. In other words, you’re getting more bang for the buck compared to “increased” elemental damage mods (which, in contrast, is calculated additively).
Ice Strike, Lightning Arrow, and Galvanic Shards are just a few active skills that can greatly benefit from Primal Armament.
Infusion Gems
Support gems that have “Infusion” on their names give attacks more oomph depending on the type that was used. Lightning Infusion provides 25% extra lightning damage at the cost of dealing 50% less fire or cold damage.
While you can certainly use the infusion gems to support their native elemental damage skills (ex. Lightning Infusion on Lightning Arrow), there are some clever ways to utilize them.
For example, some Ice Strike Monk builds in PoE 2 put Cold Infusion in Herald of Thunder and Lightning Infusion in Herald of Ice to activate their effects without doing anything out of the ordinary.
Conduction
A Galvanic Shards Witchhunter’s best friend, Conduction is a support gem that you will use on lightning-based skills to greatly increase your chance of inflicting the elemental ailment, Shock.
Shock enables two things for the Witchhunter. First, it allows the Witchhunter to deal huge amounts of damage. Second, it unlocks the true power of the Shockburst Rounds, enabling the Witchhunter to make quick work of bosses, especially after the changes made in Patch 0.1.1.
Elemental Focus
By default, all skills in Path of Exile 2 that deal elemental damage have a chance to inflict elemental ailments, including Freeze, Shock, Ignite, and Chill. However, some do not require the ability to apply those debuffs on enemies. Instead, you want them to hit as hard as they can in order to decimate monsters like they’re nothing.
Well, that is the main purpose of Elemental Focus. It has a relatively huge downside in that elemental skills cannot inflict the aforementioned ailments. However, this is compensated by its huge 25% more elemental damage boost.
In a Galvanic Shards Witchhunter build, the one that applies Shock to enemies is the titular skill gem, Galvanic Shards. Once the monster is affected by said ailment, you then follow that up with a barrage of Shockburst Rounds until they’re dead.
Heft
Do you want your physical damage skills to become more devastating? If so, you’d want to include Heft as part of their support gems. This gem has no compromises and just straight-up grants 30% more physical damage to a particular skill.
Even though it is not explicitly stated in the description, Heft just enhances physical damage attacks, not spells. It is unclear whether this is intentional or not, but whatever the case may be, only use Heft on attack skills for now.
Arcane Tempo
Spark has been the most popular recipient of this next support gem. Unlike other support gems, Arcane Tempo does not come with any downside whatsoever. It grants the enhanced skill 25% more cast speed without any strings attached. So, if you want to cast Spark like there’s no tomorrow, then add Arcane Tempo without hesitation!
Martial Tempo
If Arcane Tempo is for spells, Martial Tempo is for attacks. This gem allows you to hit enemies much faster than without it. Use it on attack skills, such as Tempest Flurry, Ice Strike, Lightning Arrow, and Galvanic Shards, among others.
Mastery Support
There are six different “mastery” support gems in Path of Exile 2. They are Fire Mastery, Cold Mastery, Lightning Mastery, Physical Mastery, Chaos Mastery, and Minion Mastery. All these support gems increase the level of a supported skill by one.
The Invoker’s “...and I Shall Rage” ascendancy node can be supported by all the elemental mastery gems. So, if you put all three, the level of the Unbound Avatar is increased by the same amount, making it more potent.
Another popular use for the mastery supports is to enhance spells. Unlike attacks, spells in PoE 2 gain more power per level. Thus, if you are going to use any of the mastery support gems, insert them into spells for maximum benefit.
Glaciation
Do you want to have an easier time freezing enemies? If so, Glaciation is your best friend! This gem causes 50% more freeze build-up, which means that it takes far fewer hits to freeze enemies in place compared to using skills without this particular support gem equipped.
Arcane Surge
As mentioned earlier, Arcane Surge grants a buff that boosts your cast speed and mana regeneration rate for a brief period after spending a lot of mana. This is best used on builds that have Archmage enabled. Archmage is needed to increase the mana cost of your non-channeling spells, allowing you to enjoy the benefits of Arcane Surge sooner rather than later.
Ingenuity
This next support gem is not to be confused with the unique item bearing the same name. Ingenuity is awesome because it reduces the cooldown of supported skills.
Emergency Reload—a buff that instantly reloads the currently equipped crossbow skill and empowers all the bolts in that clip to hit harder—has a cooldown of 45 seconds. With Ingenuity, Emergency Reload will be available 13.5 seconds sooner after use!
Scattershot
When you look at its effects, you might think that Scattershot brings more harm than good. However, in actuality, that is not the case! Explosive Shot, for example, fires a single bolt by default. When you have Scattershot, you unleash three total projectiles by using the same skill!
Use Scattershot on skills that perform better with more projectiles than one.
Persistence
As you can tell by its name, Persistence allows skills to last longer by about 40%. This can be used on temporary buffs and active abilities. Do you want Orb of Storms to last longer while you concentrate on using Lightning Rod? Then Persistence is of great help to you in this scenario.
Impetus
Meta Skills like Cast on Shock and Cast on Critical require a resource called “Energy” before they activate the skills socketed in them. That said, Impetus is a commonly used support gem specifically for increasing the energy you gain by 40%, allowing your equipped Meta Skills to trigger more frequently.
Magnified Effect
If you want your damaging abilities to cover a larger area, then you will find Magnified Effect to be of great use! Magnified Effect does exactly what it says—granting support skills 40% more area of effect. It doesn’t boost damage, but it does enable you to hit more enemies at once due to the increased coverage.
Concentrated Effect
The previous support gem is devoid of any damage-boosting effects, except for this last one on the list. Concentrated Effect makes supported abilities deal more area damage, though at the cost of considerably smaller AoE. You can address this by taking some increased area of effect nodes on the passive tree if the downside is bothering you too much.
How to Get More Support Gems
If you are struggling to obtain enough support gems to make your PoE 2 build better, then here are some tips to help you:
Revisit Areas in the Campaign
As you have learned, you can get Uncut Support Gems through monster drops. If you need to populate all the slots of your active skills, then you might want to revisit certain areas in the campaign where monster density is good.
Here are some of the areas we recommend:
Act 1
- Clearfell
- Mausoleum of the Praetor
- Hunting Grounds
Act 2
- Keth
- The Lost City
- The Dreadnought
- Dreadnought Vanguard
Act 3
- Jungle Ruins
- Infested Barrens
- The Drowned City
In case you don’t know, you can “reset” the area after getting rid of all the monsters by bringing up the Instance Manager. To do this, simply go to a Waypoint, hold the Ctrl Key, and then click on the area you want to farm again. This will open up the Instance Manager, where you can press “New” to teleport you to a fresh instance full of enemies to slay.
Concentrate on Rare Enemies
Have you seen those enemies that have a yellow name and border? Those are considered “rare monsters.” They are considerably more challenging to defeat than your regular mob, but that’s a good thing because killing them actually yields better rewards.
On most occasions, you will get more valuable loot than your run-of-the-mill monsters that you can kill in one blow. This, of course, also includes Uncut Support Gems. So, the next time you’re out there, make sure to set your eyes on the rare enemies in an area if your goal is to get more support gems in Path of Exile 2.
Put on Gear with Item Rarity
Certain items in Path of Exile 2 can roll with a modifier called item rarity. You see this as “Increased Rarity of Items Found” when inspecting gear on the trade website and similar platforms.
What it does is it affects both the value and the quantity of an item that drops. This includes not only Uncut Support Gems, but also more lucrative stuff that you want to keep for yourself.
Having said that, invest in gear that has item rarity on it. Equip at least three of these items and see a stark improvement in the amount of Uncut Gems you’re getting while farming.
Buy Support Gems
Whether you are a complete beginner or an esteemed veteran in Path of Exile 2, having no support gems to enhance your skills early on sucks. If you want to acquire Uncut Support Gems without manually farming them, head to our PoE 2 Store now and fill your supply!