Summary
Path of Exile 2takes a slightly different approach to its skill system than the previous game. Rather than having slots in a player’s gear to combine skill and support gems, skill gems now come with slots to socket support gems into by default. That means no more hunting or rolling for gear with the right linked slots before support gems can be used.
ThePath of Exile 2approachcomes with a restriction, though, as players can only use a support gem once across all of their equipped skills. That means that knowing which support gems work best for what skills is important. There are a lot of support gems to get to know, Tier 2 alone has 56 support gems in it. These gems are some of the best in the second tier, with the most varied use cases and strongest effects.
15Splinter
Armor Breaker
Splinter is a straightforward Tier 2 support choice for any melee or physical damage-focused builds. If players are focusing on physical damage, being able to break armor is a must as players journey further intoPath of Exile 2.
Splinter can make this a lot easier as the armor break scales with the melee damage of the skill, meaning it stays relevant as long as the player keeps their base physical damage high.
14Spell Echo
Repeating Spells
Spell echo can be a powerful support gem for magic-focused characters, causing spells that affect an area to repeat their effect when cast. It also increases the area of effect for the repeated spell but increases the cast time as a trade-off.
Increased cast time is not much of a downside compared to doubling the effect of area spells, so it’s worth it. Players should be aware of the high-cost multiplier though. This means the supported skill costs more mana, so this requires high mana or mana regen to use effectively.
13Armor Explosion
Explosive Blows
One problem that melee builds can have inPath of Exile 2is a lack of ability to deal with groups of enemies. Armor Explosion can massively increase the area damage potential for any melee hitter.
It needs to be used with moves that break armor, or another support gem like Splinter, but it causes an explosion of fire damage when the player breaks an enemy’s armor. This can help with clearing mobs whose armor will break easily, causing explosions to deal with additional enemies.
12Ricochet
Chains From Terrain
Ricochet is an excellent support gem for projectile-based classes like the Ranger andMercenary. Projectiles from supported skills will essentially bounce when hitting terrain, dealing their chain effects to a nearby enemy. The gem doesn’t just support physical projectiles though; spells that are considered projectiles can also be supported.
11Fire / Lightning / Cold Penetration
Penetrate Enemy Defenses
For players who want to focus on a single element, having resistance penetration for that element is essential. These gems can be useful whether the player is focusing on one or multiple elements.
Enemy resistances creep up across the board as players progress through the game’s acts toward the end game, and resistance penetration from skill gems and passives can be very useful forkeeping a build’s damage high.
10Potential
Power Charge Critical Boost
Power charges can be a powerful mechanic inPath of Exile 2if the player can get used to how to generate and use them effectively. Potential is a support gem that makes use of this mechanic.
It will consume a charge with the supported skill to give it a 30% additional critical hit chance. It also prevents the skill from generating charges, so players will need a separate way to gain charges to spend with this support gem.
9Inevitable Critical
Ramping Critical Chance
Inevitable Critical is a support gem that increases the critical hit chance of a skill with no real downsides. The critical chance will increase by 25% every second (up to 100%) until the skill critically hits and the bonus resets. This is a good support gem for builds that want to focus on critical damage and can be very effective when combined with passive critical hit and damage bonuses.
8Heavy Swing
Big Melee Hits
Heavy Swing is another good support gem for players focusing on heavy-hitting physical damage builds. The bonus of 35% increased physical damage is well worth the trade-off of slower attack speed when used with high-damage physical skills.
This is obviously a gem that melee bruisers will want to use, but it’s also useful for minion builds, asminions that deal physical damagelike the Skeletal Reavers can also make use of this gem.
7Maim
Debilitating Hits
Maim is an effective physical debuff, and one that ranged characters will especially want to make use of. Maim gives enemies a 30% lower movement speed and a 15% reduced evasion rating. Spreading this effect around enemy mobs can make life a lot easier for aranged characterwho wants to avoid damage while dealing consistent hits from afar.
6Primal Armament
Elemental Weapon Booster
Primal Armament is a strength gem that can be used by almost any character that wants to focus on weapon-based elemental damage. The gem can support any attack skill that uses a weapon, giving the skill 25% more of the weapon’s elemental damage to its base.
If players are using a weapon with one or multiple elemental damage types, this damage is buffed 25% before being added to the damage calculation of the skill, making this a powerful buff with the right weapon.
