Beginner Guide to Path of Exile: Learning Skill Gems (2024)

Skills Gems

Path of Exile builds typically revolve around one or two main skill gems (Abilities), augmented by multiple support gems in a link. In the end game, your goal will be to have a chest or 2-handed weapon with 6 linked sockets. In such an instance, you will always have a single skill gem supported by 5 support gems. The result is that your main skill will become exponentially more powerful than if was not linked to support gems. Here is an example 6-Link a player might use in the end-game of Path of Exile:

Firestorm

Concentrated Effect Support

Fire Penetration Support

Elemental Focus Support

Spell Echo Support

Controlled Destruction Support

As you should be able to piece together from reading the tooltips, Firestorm is the skill gem in this link. By adding these support gems, we are reducing the area of effect of the skill but increasing its damage using Concentrated Effect Support. Elemental Focus Support and Controlled Destruction Support both increase the elemental damage of the skill, while Fire Penetration Support grants the skill the ability to punch through monsters with Fire resistance more easily. Finally, Spell Echo Support allows you to cast multiple instances of the spell rapidly. The damage difference between this setup and Firestorm on its own is absolutely enormous. Hopefully, you are starting to understand how important it is to link your skill gem to support gems.

Additional gem links, such as in Boots or Gloves (that have a maximum of 4 Links), are typically used for defence or mobility. Every build in Path of Exile incorporates at least one mobility skill, such as Whirling Blades.

Here is an example mobility link used in some builds:

Whirling Blades

Faster Attacks Support

Fortify Support

Lifetap Support

Whirling Blades is the skill gem in this link, and we link it to Faster Attacks Support to increase the speed of the skill. This allows us to travel quicker through areas in the game. By linking it to Fortify Support, we will gain a nice damage reduction when we dash into a pack of monsters, granting additional defence. Finally, Lifetap Support makes the skill cost Life instead of Mana, which can be helpful for Mana-hungry builds.

Support Gems

Perhaps even more important then skill gems themselves are support gems augment that empower existing abilities in unique and interesting ways. For a support gem to take effect, however, it must be linked to the skill gem in a gem socket chain, as described in the section above. Support Gems do nothing on their own, or if they are not linked to an active skill gem.

There are a massive variety of support gems in Path of Exile, and they vary extremely greatly in effect. Certain support gems will not work with active skill gems; for example, Greater Multiple Projectiles Support will only support Projectile skill gems, as you might expect. Here is an example of the skill gem Elemental Hit be used with and without Greater Multiple Projectiles Support.

Support gems are subject to the same restrictions as Skill Gems; they must match the colour of the socket and have attribute requirements based on the colour of the skill gem. Support gems do not have to match the skill gem colour.

Aura Gems

Aura gems are technically considered skill gems, but instead of granting a combat skill, they provide a buff that lasts until cancelled in exchange for a portion of your maximum Mana pool.

There are a variety of Aura gems in Path of Exile. Some are focused on enhancing damage, while others bolster the player’s defences.

Vaal Gems

Vaal gems are a special class of gem, as they can be both Skill Gems and Auras. Vaal gems only exist for specific skills and abilities, and provide empowered versions of the base skill gem. When using a Vaal gem, the player gains the use of both the base skill gem and the empowered Vaal ability. For example, if Reave was your main ability, you could use the Vaal Reave gem instead, and still be able to use the normal Reave ability. To activate the Vaal version of them, a fixed amount of “souls”, or enemy kills, are necessary. Here is an example of a player using the Fireball skill, and then activating Vaal Fireball.

Acquiring the Links You Need to Level

No one starts the league with a 6 link Tabula Rasa hidden in their back pocket. How does one put together a functioning build without any items or links? Without Jeweller's Orbs or Orb of Fusings, crafting the item yourself is not even an option.

A Loot Filter can help with this immensely as 3-Link and 4-Link items will be automatically highlighted at lower levels to help you obtain the links needed as soon as possible. For installing a loot filter please check this page.

Checking the vendors in town is also a highly recommended option. You could obtain a 3-Link at level 1, if you are lucky, by talking to Tarkleigh or Nessa in Lioneye’s Watch.

Gem sockets are only found in certain items. While there are a few esoteric exceptions to this rule, gem sockets can typically only be found in the following types of equipment:

Players can attempt to reforge the number of sockets on a piece of gear using Jeweller's Orbs, but not above the maximum listed above. The likelihood of achieving higher numbers of sockets in an item is reduced at an almost exponential rate for each additional socket (e.g. getting 5 sockets on a Chest item is significantly more likely than 6). An item with a higher Quality bonus has a greater chance of receiving a higher number of sockets.

Sockets can also be recoloured using Chromatic Orbs.

Additionally, there are restrictions on how many sockets a piece of gear can have based on its item level. This means that a 2-handed weapon you find near the beginning of the game will not be able to have 6 sockets, no matter how many Jeweller's Orbs are used. The easiest way to see the item level is to hold the ALT key and hover your cursor over an item. The item level restrictions on sockets are as follows:

Colouring Your Sockets

Now that you have the links necessary, you have to ensure they are the right colours for the gems you will require. Items will need to be correctly re-coloured using the currency of Chromatic Orbs.

Items have a base type that assigns them preferred colours:

• Evasion-based items prefer Green sockets
• Energy Shield-based items prefer Blue sockets
• Armor-based items prefer red sockets

This follows for weapons, in a logical fashion. Daggers and Swords are Dexterity, Wands are Intelligence, and so forth.

Therefore, it is easiest to start with an item you can realistically color with only a small number of Chromatic Orbs. If you are trying to get 4 Blue sockets on an Armor item, you are very likely going to need hundreds of Chromatic Orbs, and this simply is not realistic while leveling.

Acquiring Chromatic Orbs

Chromatic Orbs are most consistently obtained through a simple recipe. Trading any item to a vendor that has at least 1 blue, 1 green, and 1 red socket linked together will result in a Chromatic Orb.

The Loot Filter is very helpful for this purpose, as it will automatically highlight “Chromatic Pieces” that can be traded for these orbs. Keep an eye out for these items, as they are very valuable to your personal progress when starting a league or the game for the first time. While the orbs themselves do not have a great financial value, they have a practical necessity that gives your character a lot of freedom to change gear pieces at a whim and instantly re-color them as needed.

Acquiring the Gems You Need

Many classes will receive core skill gems as quest rewards throughout the game. Worth noting, however, is that the rewards are variable based on your class. Strength-based classes, like the Marauder, will receive more Red gems, while Intelligence-heavy classes, such as the Witch, will see a lot more Blue gems.

Muling is a technique used early in the league to receive gems you need in Act I. This is done by creating a different class than the one you intend to play, in order to receive gems from the opening quests. Since these quests usually only take a few minutes, you can have some of the gems you need already in your stash within minutes of a league launching.

Some gems can not be obtained as quest rewards by your class, but can be purchased from a specific vendor after completing the quest that would have rewarded it to another class. The only hard and fast way to check the availability of gems and their source is using the Path of Exile Wiki

Siosa, found in the Library in Act III, carries virtually every gem available up until that point in the game and can be used to supplement any missing pieces once you arrive there. When you reach Act VI, Lily Roth sells every gem available, excluding the very rare drop gems like Empower Support and Enlighten Support.

I’m Using a Leveling Skill – How Do I Level My End-Game Skill?

If you are not using your main skill to level, there is a way to level another set of gems simultaneously. You can equip a second set of weapons by opening your inventory and clicking on the ”II” near the weapon slot. You can also press “X” at any time to swap to your secondary weapons.

When leveling, you can simply equip two 1-handed weapons of any type, ensuring they have three sockets each. Even if these weapons are not your active set, the gems will still gain experience, allowing you to level 6 additional gems for no cost.

The 20 Quality Gem Recipe

Leveling gems in your weapon swap can be used for another valuable purpose – the quality gem recipe. If you trade a vendor a Level 20 Gem and 1 Gemcutter's Prism, they will give you back the same gem, at Level 1, with 20% Quality. If you are not clear on what quality does for you gem(s), this can be found on our database.

Typically, “20/20 gems” (Level 20 Gems with 20% Quality) are very expensive early in the league. This is a cheap way of obtaining 20% Quality gems, although they will need to be leveled up a second time.

Many players have different strategies for their off-hand gems. Some will level 6 of their main skill, trade them in for quality gems, level them again, then corrupt them all with Vaal Orbs in the hopes of obtaining a Level 21 gem with 20% quality. This is a rare result, but extremely valuable. Others will level one of each of the gems in their final build’s 6-Link, then use them when they are eventually at-level. Finally, certain gems are worth significantly more than others due to supply and demand, and some players will opt to level gems for the pure goal of profit itself.

Why Do Certain Guides Recommend Low Level Gems?

In many of our guides, you will notice certain gems have specified levels that you should not level them past. The most prolific examples are Cast when Damage Taken Support and Arcane Surge Support, as many builds incorporate one or both of these gems. The main reason for this is that leveling up these gems increases their threshold for activation, so depending on what you have them linked to, this may actually be a detriment.

Cast when Damage Taken Support, for example, will activate linked skill gems when a certain threshold of damage is taken. By leveling the gem, you increase the amount of damage your character must take before the linked gems are triggered. Since this is most often linked to Immortal Call, which provides Physical damage immunity for a short time, most players generally prefer that this triggers more consistently.

In the case of CWDT (Cast When Damage Taken), however, leveling the gem does have benefits. The level requirement to use CWDT is Level 38 at gem level 1, and part of the caveat of the gem is that it will only support gems that have the same level requirement (38) or lower. That means that using a level 1 CWDT will only allow you to use low level gems (usually 1-5) when linked with it. If you level the gem, however, you can have proportionally stronger gems linked with it, which may be advantageous if you want to link it to curses like Temporal Chains or Warlord's Mark.

The logic behind certain gem levels is usually specific to the gem and build itself, but trust that the reasoning for it is sound.

How to Prevent Gems From Gaining Experience

Normally, when a gem is ready to level up, it appears on the right side of the screen flanked by a “+” symbol to let you know that you can send to it the next level. If you want the gem to remain at the current level, however, you can opt to simply ignore it. It can get a little annoying having several gem alerts on the side of the screen, however, and there is a way to make them disappear.

If you want to stop leveling a gem, simply right click on the “+” symbol (where you would normally left click to level it up). This will dispel the alert on the side of the screen, clearing up some real estate for you.

Should you wish to level the gem in the future, open your inventory pane (I) and you will find the gems, ready to be leveled, beneath your inventory slots.

De-Leveling Gems

It is not uncommon for a player aiming to get their Arcane Surge Support to Level 7, for example, to unconsciously click “+” on the gem and send it to Level 8 by accident. Fortunately, gems can be easily and cheaply de-leveled.

Simply trade any vendor your gem of choice along with an Orb of Scouring, and they will provide you with a gem one level lower in return.