There are so many support gems in Path of Exile 2, it can feel overwhelming to sort through them all. If players want to work outside the limited suggested gems system, then understanding what each support gem can do, and what kind of skills it can support, are essential.
There are three tiers of support gems, but even in the first tier there are over 80 options. This can make it difficult for players to know what the best options are for their specific build and skill choices. It's made even more difficult by the limitation that players can only use each support gem once in their build, so their choices matter. The following support gems are some of the best options that work across multiple builds and skill types, from the first tier of support gems only.
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15 Brutality
Physical Damage Booster
- Category: Strength
- Cost to slot: +5 Strength requirement, 120% cost multiplier
- Effect: Skills deal 35% more physical damage, but no chaos or elemental damage
Brutality boosts physical damage at the cost of all other damage types. It can support any skill that damages enemies, but it's best used with skills and builds that focus purely on physical damage. It pairs well with some of the Witch's minion skills, like Skeletal Reavers, as they tend to do physical damage only.
Using the game's DPS calculator in the skill menu will show players at a glance whether adding this gem will benefit the skill, as some skills will allow it to be used even though they pair better with elemental gems.
14 Glaciation
Freezing Touch
- Category: Intelligence
- Cost to slot: +5 Intelligence, 120% cost multiplier
- Effect: Skills cause 50% more freeze buildup
Glaciation causes a skill to deal significantly more freeze buildup when hitting a chilled enemy. As it pairs with any skill that hits enemies, that makes it a versatile support gem. The gem obviously pairs best with skills based on cold damage, but that covers skills for the Ranger like Freezing Salvo, the witch's Skeleta l Frost Mages, the Monk's Ice Strike, and more. For players who want to use freeze as a crowd control mechanic, this is a must-have support gem.
13 Scattershot
Multiple Projectiles
- Category: Dexterity
- Cost to slot: +5 Dexterity
- Effect: Skills fire 2 additional projectiles, deal 20% less damage, have 20% less attack speed
Despite the trade-offs to damage and attack speed, Scattershot is a worthwhile support skill for any skill that's used primarily for clearing mobs. The two additional projectiles have spread and generally won't hit the same target more than once. The gem makes skills more effective at spreading damage over an area or to multiple enemies. It works well with skills like the Ranger's lightning arrow, where the objective is to trigger lightning pylons or spread chain lightning between multiple enemies, as opposed to dealing direct damage.
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12 Lacerate
If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It
- Category: Strength
- Cost to slot: +5 Strength, 120% cost multiplier
- Effect: Skills have a 50% chance of inflicting bleeding
Bleed can be an overlooked status effect in Path of Exile 2, but it's useful for any skill that deals high physical damage. Bleeding will deal 15% of the damage of a hit to a target's life, so the bigger the hit, the more damage over time.
It doesn't stack, but it will deal 100% more damage if the target moves, or if the player has passive or active skills that can aggravate the bleed. That means Lacerate can give a powerful source of damage over time if used with the right skills.
11 Bloodlust
More Damage To Bleeding Enemies
- Category: Strength
- Cost to slot: +5 Strength
- Effect: Skills deal 30% more melee physical damage to bleeding enemies, cannot cause bleed
Bloodlust can be an important support skill for melee builds that want to focus on bleeding. It increases the damage that a skill deals to bleeding enemies. This can make it easier for melee bleed builds to deal with higher health enemies. Bleed focused players need to be aware that the gem only supports melee attack skills, and it makes the skill it supports unable to deal bleed damage. This means that it can't support the same skill as Lacerate.
10 Envenom
Deadly Poisons
- Category: Dexterity
- Cost to slot: +5 Dexterity, 120% cost multiplier
- Effect: Skills have a 50% chance of inflicting poison on hit
In Path of Exile 2, poison damage over time depends on the physical or chaos damage of the hit that inflicted the poison. Poison can't be stacked by default, but certain support gems and passives will allow for additional stacks. Boosting the base physical (or chaos) damage of the skill inflicting the hit will increase the damage over time. Attaching this support gem to high damage attacks and combining it with a support gem for multiple stacks of poison can be very powerful.
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9 Martial / Arcane Tempo
Faster Caster
- Category: Dexterity / Intelligence
- Cost to slot: +5 Dexterity / Intelligence, 120% cost multiplier
- Effect: Skills have 25% more attack speed / 25% more cast speed
Despite these tier one support gems being in different categories, they're lumped together here because they essentially do the same thing; they just support different types of skill. Whether players are performing physical attacks or slinging spells, more attack speed or more cast speed are generically useful buffs. There's no downside to these support gems.
8 Fire / Lightning / Cold Infusion
Elemental Specialization
- Category: Strength / Dexterity / Intelligence
- Cost to slot: +5 Strength / Dexterity / Intelligence, 120% cost multiplier
- Effect: Skills gain 25% Fire / Lightning / Cold damage, deal 50% less with other two elements
These three support gems are all equally important for builds that specialize in one element, or for elemental skills that will always deal only one type of elemental damage. Each type of elemental damage has an associated stat, so the gems are split across the three categories accordingly. Players should be aware that if they're focusing on spreading multiple elemental types of damage, this skill might not be as useful depending on how that damage is applied.
7 Heightened Curse
Curse Their Children, And Their Children's Children
- Category: Intelligence
- Cost to slot: +5 Intelligence, 140% cost multiplier
- Effect: Curse skills gain 25% more curse effect
This support gem only works for specific builds, but it's one of the most useful curse support gems in tier one. Curses gain a magnified effect with no downside, so any curse user will want to slot this gem for more efficiency. This works well for Occult skills like Vulnerability and Enfeeble, but is also good for the Elemental curses Hypothermia and Temporal Chains.
6 Elemental Army
Minion Resistance
- Category: Intelligence
- Cost to slot: +5 Intelligence
- Effect: Minions from supported skill gain 30% all elemental resistance
Minion users will know that their summoned allies can be very squishy in Path of Exile 2, especially in the early game before the player has many passive skill nodes to buff their health. Elemental Army can help with this, by granting 30% resistance to all elements to the minions from the skill it supports. It's only useful for minion users, but it's great for keeping more valuable minions alive longer.