Active skills in Path of Exile are itemised as gems that can be placed into your equipment to grant abilities. Support gems allow you to augment those skills by modifying how they behave.
In addition to active skill gems, another type of gem exists – support gems. These are placed in special, linked sockets and grant additional properties to other gems they are linked with. They do not grant active skills themselves.
These linked sockets start to occur in groups on items as the player explores further into Wraeclast. Larger groups of linked sockets occur infrequently but offer greater opportunities for augmentation.
For example, linking a ‘Multiple Projectiles’ support gem to a fireball skill gem causes the fireball skill to launch multiple fireballs when used. Linking an ‘Added Lightning Damage’ support gem to an ice nova skill gem causes the ice nova to also deal lightning damage in addition to its normal cold damage.
Support gems gain experience and level up in the same way that skill gems do. Their effects increase in power as they reach higher levels. A high level ‘Multiple Projectiles’ support gem adds significantly more projectile damage than a low level one.
Any skill can be augmented by any support gems where it makes sense. For example, an ‘Increased Area of Effect’ support gem would modify:
- The size of an ice nova
- The splash radius of a fireball
- The proximity of nearby allies affected by an Aura.
- ‘Pierce’, ‘Multiple Projectiles’ and various other support gems affect all skills that have a projectile component.
There are dozens of support gems and active skill gems available at launch. Many more will be added after release.
Rather than designing specific behavior for each augmentation, designers have made their system extremely versatile, so that there are thousands of combinations of skills and augmentations.
I hope this information is provided to help you understand the support gems in-depth. If you need Path of Exile currency in the game, please enter the Gm2v Gamer Online Store, it’s our pleasure to help you!
