Path of Exile 2: A Comprehensive Guide to Support Gems and Currency Optimization

As the excitement surrounding Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2) builds towards its official release, players are already deep in the process of theory-crafting their ideal builds. With new mechanics and a revamped passive skill tree, there's an incredible amount of customization in POE2 Currency how characters can be developed. One of the most dynamic and influential systems in shaping your build’s potential is the support gem system. These deceptively simple gems, which augment your skills, can dramatically elevate your effectiveness in combat and help you fine-tune your character’s strengths.

In this guide, we’ll dive into the world of support gems in Path of Exile 2, exploring how they function, how to optimize them with PoE 2 currency, and how they can be used to enhance your builds. Whether you're a newcomer or an experienced player, understanding the role of support gems is essential for crafting the ultimate character.

What Are Support Gems in Path of Exile 2?

Support gems are an iconic feature of the Path of Exile series and serve as an integral part of PoE 2’s build optimization system. These gems are collectible items that you can equip in the sockets of your gear to enhance your active skills with powerful additional effects. Rather than modifying your basic attacks or spells directly, they augment or support your abilities, granting bonus damage, elemental effects, additional projectiles, or even entirely new effects like bleed or freezing capabilities.

Each support gem corresponds to a specific type of modification, and depending on your playstyle and build, the right support gem can amplify your combat abilities in crucial ways. For instance, a gem like Added Fire Damage can increase the fire damage dealt by your skills, while a Piercing Shot gem can make your arrows pierce through multiple enemies, dealing damage across a wider area.

Support gems are versatile, offering a unique level of customization for your character. They allow you to tailor your abilities to meet specific combat scenarios, whether you're facing a single boss or hordes of enemies in a dungeon.

How Do Support Gems Work?

In PoE 2, support gems function by linking to your active skill gems within your equipment. When placed into a socket, support gems modify the properties of the skill gem they’re linked to, based on the type of effect they provide.

Basic Mechanism of Support Gems:

Socketing: A support gem must be inserted into a piece of gear that has a matching socket. Sockets are color-coded based on the skill gem type: red for strength skills, green for dexterity skills, and blue for intelligence skills. Only matching-colored gems can be inserted into a socket, but some items come with multi-colored sockets, allowing for greater flexibility.

Linking: Support gems work by linking to a skill gem within the same socket chain. When you place a support gem in a linked socket, it will modify the properties of the skill gem, enhancing it with specific effects such as added damage, elemental properties, or other benefits. For example, you can link a Multiple Projectiles support gem to a skill like Fireball, causing the fireballs to be fired in multiple directions, increasing your damage potential and area of effect.

Restrictions: It’s important to note that while support gems can significantly boost your abilities, each skill can only be linked to one instance of a particular type of support gem. For example, you cannot stack multiple Multiple Projectiles gems to further increase the number of projectiles for a single skill. However, you can link different types of support gems (such as Multiple Projectiles and Elemental Penetration) to achieve a synergistic effect.

Socket Color and Requirements: Some support gems may require higher-level equipment or more complex socket configurations, so you’ll need to focus on obtaining the right gear to maximize your gem combinations.

Types of Support Gems in Path of Exile 2

Support gems in PoE 2 come in three distinct tiers, each with its own set of effects and upgrades. These tiers unlock progressively as you level up and gain access to better gear and abilities. The gems in each tier offer increasingly potent and complex augmentations for your skills.

Tier I Support Gems

The Tier I support gems are the foundational support gems that can be used at early levels. These gems typically provide straightforward enhancements, such as adding elemental damage or increasing projectile speed.

Added Fire Damage: Adds a flat amount of fire damage to your skill.

Added Lightning Damage: Adds lightning damage to your skill, increasing elemental damage output.

Added Cold Damage: Adds cold damage to your attacks or spells.

Multiple Projectiles: Causes your projectiles to be fired in multiple directions, expanding your area of effect.

Bleed Chance: Adds a chance for your attacks to inflict bleed damage, causing enemies to take damage over time.

Energy Barrier: Increases your energy shield, providing additional defense for spellcasting builds.

Faster Projectiles: Increases the speed at which your projectiles travel, improving their reach and effectiveness.

Poison Chance: Adds a chance to inflict poison, dealing damage over time and reducing enemy vitality.

Tier II Support Gems

Tier II support gems unlock at higher levels, offering more specialized and powerful effects. These gems enhance your build further by adding new mechanics, like elemental penetration or shock effects.

Auto Reload: Automatically reloads your ranged weapon after each shot, perfect for projectile-based builds.

Fire Penetration: Increases the amount of fire damage that ignores enemy fire resistance, improving your ability to deal fire damage to tough foes.

Lightning Penetration: Similar to Fire Penetration, but for lightning-based skills.

Momentum: Grants bonus damage after continuously moving, rewarding agile, fast-paced combat.

Blind: Causes enemies hit by your attacks or spells to become blinded, reducing their accuracy and effectiveness.

Maim: Increases the damage enemies take after being hit, perfect for making your attacks more deadly.

Exploit Weakness: Increases your damage against enemies that are afflicted by a specific debuff.

Weapon Elemental Damage: Boosts the elemental damage dealt by weapon-based attacks.

Tier III Support Gems

The Tier III support gems are the most powerful, offering unique and game-changing effects that can completely alter how a skill works. These gems unlock at high levels and are best suited for players looking to fine-tune their builds with advanced mechanics.

Added Chaos Damage: Adds chaos damage to your attacks or spells, a damage type that bypasses both armor and resistances.

Critical Damage: Increases the damage of your critical strikes, boosting the potency of critical hits.

Culling Strike: Grants the ability to instantly kill enemies below a certain health threshold, useful for finishing off weakened foes.

Deadly Poison: Amplifies the damage of poison effects, increasing the damage over time caused by poison.

Fire Mastery: Provides mastery over fire skills, improving your fire damage and fire-related debuffs.

Fork: Causes projectiles to split and hit multiple targets, enhancing your AoE potential.

Frostfire: Combines fire and cold damage into a hybrid effect, allowing you to deal both types of elemental damage at once.

Overcharge: Increases the power of your spells or attacks but at the cost of mana consumption.

Rageforged: Increases your damage as your rage builds, turning rage into a potent power source for physical builds.

Optimizing Support Gems with PoE 2 Currency

While acquiring support gems is essential, maximizing their potential often requires PoE 2 currency. PoE 2’s currency system functions as a barter economy, where each type of currency serves a specific purpose. Understanding how to use currency to enhance your support gems and gear is crucial for building a successful character.

Orb of Fusing: This currency item is used to link sockets on your gear. With the right combination of Orbs, you can create perfect gear setups for your support gems.

Chaos Orbs: These can be used to re-roll the properties of items and gems, ensuring that your support gems get the perfect modifications for your build.

Divine Orbs: These are used to enhance the quality of your gems, improving their effectiveness.

Trade and Farm: The player-driven economy in PoE 2 makes currency management key. Trade with other players to acquire rare or specific support gems, and farm the right zones to maximize your currency.

Conclusion

Support gems in Path of Exile 2 are one of the most important aspects of character customization. They provide players with the ability to enhance their skills in unique and game-changing ways, turning an ordinary attack into an overwhelming force. Coupled with the robust PoE 2 currency system, support gems offer virtually limitless potential for building powerful and specialized characters.

By experimenting with different gem combinations and cheap POE 2 Currency leveraging the currency system, you’ll be able to craft a build that suits your preferred playstyle, whether you’re an elemental mage, a projectile archer, or a critical-damage powerhouse. Start theory-crafting, farming currency, and optimizing your gem combinations—your ultimate build