Path of Exile

Tabula is 3 white now.

Amod can we merge the 2 PoE threads?

The gem system seems pretty obvious to me?

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but basically, you have a set amount of sockets per item types. Weapons have 2, 4 for 2H, chest has 2, helm/boots/gloves have 1, total of 9(they keep saying total of 8 though so not sure what's up with that). The color of the socket is based on the armor type, armor is red, ES is blue and so on, hybrid armor gives hybrid sockets(so can be red/blue gem in it). You can chrom as needed, just early game you're limited. These sockets are for skills only, not supports. So you can have up to 9 core skills(8 they say though, and you can have more with uniques, for example Tabula Rasa gives 3sockets instead of 2).

Then you have gems, which have their own sockets for supports on them. For example you do the quest early and get Ground Slam and it has 2 red sockets. That means you can put 2 supports with your Ground Slam. The sockets are always all linked. You can then slot that into any piece of armor with a red socket in the new window. You can chrom the gem itself for the colors for the supports, and you can jeweller to get more or less. If you find a better socketed gem, you can dump your current gem xp into the new one(probably via vendor recipe not sure). If you change the item, you have to resocket the gem in the new gear(if it's the same type, it's done automatically) but unlike before where you'd need to resocket your skill+3supports and have the right colors on the gear, now you just need a socket the right color for your skill, and the supports are automatically socketed together.

They also have meta skill gems, which are basically skills that lets you socket more skills into them, to emulate the current systems where you drop say 3 auras+enhance in a 4L, so you get Enhance as a meta skill(for example) and you can drop your auras in there, but up to 5 now so you can actually fit even more skills. Stuff like cast on crit and spell totem are also meta skills, you drop more skills and/or support into them, then have one button to cast everything.

AladainAF said:

Additionally, abyss sockets will stay on the gear (thats amazing), and for gear that has things like "Socketed gems are supported by X level skill" they will have their own sockets too.

So in reality, you can have more than 9 skills equipped, technically.

Click to expand...

I said "core skills" to denote like specifically skills that go in the first slot, but you can have uniques that give more slots(tabula, prismatic edge are 2 example, I'm sure some of the unique unset rings will keep their sockets too), as you said skills on gear have their own line, same for skills from ascendancies which they've shown a few of(Flare for example, as well as the 2 version with GMP/Barrage from the archer stuff) and meta skills can let you use more than one skill like the Proficiency metaskill they've shown which lets you slot in auras in it so you can still retain the old functionality of having a bunch of skills. Hell it'd be pretty rough for summoners if you were capped to just the 9. So it's not a hard limit, just the base if you have all gear equipped(and it's not Kaom stuff obviously).

It's a very interesting system though cause you get to design a shit ton more stuff for your build versus now. You will probably run a cast on crit setup on pretty much every build that can crit(even not fully crit oriented builds), because why not, 6L cast on crit can just dump some utility skills in there. You might also want to run minions on a lot of builds, because you can actually support them so they stay alive now with minion life+fortify+elemental army+meat shield(maybe stacking too many but you get the point), so you can have spectres for various stuff or just golems. Same for totems, hell the new tech for spelltotem they've shown is cool, if you link more than one spell to spell totem, it casts them all, rather than having one spell totem per cast. So you can drop a curse on there and some utility spells and it'll do it all. They've shown Despair+Wither totem and the totem first curses everything in range and then Wither spam until curse is needed again, that's gonna be so good for bosses and stuff. Plenty of options really, it's so many more "sockets" than before.

Main downside is they better nerf the cost of supports cause dear fuck are you gonna be poor early game if you have buy 2-3 supports for your 9 skills. This is a ton more gems to buy than currently when leveling where you'll often have shitty 1-2socket items with decent stats and only really carry the one 4L or a 3L wand for your main skill and you just throw supports in your alt weapon sets to lvl them early or just don't buy them until later cause you can't use them anymore.