Path of Exile 2's Support Gem rule change in 0.3 is a big buff to all builds

Path of Exile 2's new League, The Third Edict (0.3.0), is lifting a major restriction on Support Gems. Namely, you can now use as many duplicates of a Support Gem as you want - all at the same time. You'll no longer need to ration your Martial Tempos and your Clarities for just one Skill Gem, you can now use multiple copies on multiple Skills to make your life much easier.

This alone is a big game-changer in how much virtually any build can scale in Path of Exile 2; but GGG has even more fresh tricks up their sleeves.

What's changing with Support Gems in Path of Exile 2 The Third Edict?

Compared to the first game, one big change that Path of Exile 2 made was de-coupling Gems from item sockets. This would mean you don't need to find or hold on to gear purely as a slab to stick the Gem-links into, but there were other restrictions put in place.

Namely, it was hard to get anything beyond three-links throughout the first half of the campaign, and harder still to get five-links afterwards (because higher-rarity Jeweller's Orbs dropped so rarely in League 0.2). This problem is being alleviated somewhat by adding guaranteed Jeweller's Orb drops to some places in the campaign in 0.3.

No more duplicate restrictions on Support Gems means Path of Exile 2 will have an excitingly diverse meta in 0.3

However, the much bigger change is that you can now use as many copies of a specific Support Gem as you want, as we mentioned before. This means Skills that were previously a tad cumbersome to use due to cast time has a ready-made solution.

The application of this change alone is massive. The most obivous example is that you can augment all of your Skills with a preferred Element or Ailment, such as Shock, Freeze, or - most importantly, perhasp - Chaos. This will massively open up the build possibilities, and the meta will be much more diverse in 0.3.

Previously, only the Gemling Legionnaire had the allowance of using a single duplicate of a Support Gem. Now that the whole bar is being lifted, it will be interesting to see what extra pair of wings the Gemling is growing to retain his edge.

Support Gem progression is becoming distinctly tiered in Path of Exile 2

A lot of Support Gems are now getting upgraded versions from tier I to III, e.g. you start with Rapid Casting I, and then Rapid Casting II and Rapid Casting III are available through higher level Uncut Support Gems.

In Some cases, the third or final tier will actually modify what the Support does. As opposed to a straight cast speed buff, Rapid Casting III makes it so that you get 10% casting speed boost for each spell you've cast in the last 8 seconds. This way, the increase in numbers of Support Gems is more exciting than just staight stat-padding.

Linage Support: Path of Exile 2 is doing Vaal Gems 2.0, but with Support Gems

Finally, Vaal Support Gems (Image via GGG)

Those Tier-III Support Gems aren't the end of progression. Like the first Path of Exile did Vaal Gems as interesting twists on legacy Skills, Path of Exile 2 is going to introduced Lineage Supports.

These are Unique-rarity Support Gems that are (by definition) much harder to get, but they're much more build-defining, or at the very least, enable a unique min-maxing opportunity. Dialla's Desire, for example, add +1 Level and +10% Quality to the supported Skill, on top of reducing its Mana/Reservation cost. Meanwhile, more unique ones add some caveat for its given power - Zarokh's Retribution, for example, gives you 2x Spell Echo, but imposes a cooldown on the Skill.

All in all, there will be 40 Unique Lineage Supports added to Path of Exile 2 with its 0.3.0 patch. Goes without saying - these cannot be gained with Gemcutting, but only found as gorunded drops.

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About the author

Sambit Pal is an esports Journalist on Gaming and MMO at Sportskeeda. He has Master's degree in English Literature. In his spare time, he is an amateur sleuth trying to trace the Riven Mafia in Warframe, and a recovering Bethesda modding addict. He also secretly enjoys action Roguelites, a severe lack of gitting gud notwithstanding.

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Edited by Sambit Pal