How to Enhance the Quality of Gems in Path of Exile: A Comprehensive Guide
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The quality of your skill and support gems in Path of Exile (PoE) plays a crucial role in the effectiveness of your builds. Improving gem quality can significantly boost damage, increase utility, or provide other beneficial effects, making it a vital aspect of character progression. This article will detail how to enhance gem quality in PoE and address common questions surrounding this mechanic.
Enhancing Gem Quality: The Core Mechanics
The most direct method to improve the quality of your gems is through the use of Gemcutter’s Prisms (GCPs). Each GCP used on a gem will increase its quality by 1%. This is the primary way players steadily increase the quality of their gems over time.
However, there are some other crucial strategies to enhance your gem quality. Namely:
- Vendor Recipe: A level 20 gem, when sold to a vendor along with a GCP, yields a level 1 gem with 20% quality. This method is used to quickly raise the quality of gems as opposed to using a GCP every 1% of quality.
- Corruption: When a gem is corrupted via a Vaal Orb, there is a small chance that it will gain 2% quality (alongside other potential outcomes).
These methods are the cornerstones of gem quality enhancement in Path of Exile, and understanding how each works will allow you to maximize your gems’ potential.
The Importance of Gem Quality
The benefits of improving gem quality vary depending on the specific gem. In the base skill or support gem, quality will affect a static increase to it’s damage, duration, or effect of the skill. For example, a skill gem like Fireball might gain increased projectile speed with each percentage of quality, while a support gem like Increased Duration will receive increased skill duration. These seemingly small increments can compound, turning a good build into an exceptional one. It’s particularly vital to invest in gem quality, especially as a character’s build matures.
The Level 20/20 Goal
In Path of Exile, the ultimate goal with most gems is to reach Level 20 with 20% quality. The level of a gem is gained by gaining experience from killing monsters. Once the level cap of 20 has been reached for the gem, it stops gaining experience. This is often achieved by leveling the gem, using the vendor recipe to get a 20% quality version of the gem, and then leveling that 20% quality gem to 20 again. Achieving a gem with Level 20 and 20% quality will significantly increase the value of the gem, and in most cases it’s worth doing this at the earliest convenience.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Gem Quality
1. Can Corrupted Gems Be Improved?
Yes and no. Corrupted gems can still level up as normal. However, you cannot directly use Gemcutter’s Prisms (GCPs) on corrupted gems. Once a gem is corrupted using a Vaal Orb, it’s considered “corrupted” and can’t be altered with most currency, including GCPs. The only way to add quality to a corrupted gem is through the Vaal Orb corruption outcome.
2. How Can I Get a Gem to Level 21?
To reach level 21, a gem must be corrupted by a Vaal Orb. Corrupting a gem has a chance to increase its level by 1, potentially pushing it above the level 20 cap. The chance is not very high, so often players will level many gems up to 20, corrupt them, and hope that one of them hits level 21. After this, the level 21 can be leveled up to 20% quality using the vendor recipe.
3. What is the Maximum Gem Level in PoE?
For most gems, the base maximum level is 20. However, through corruption, a gem can be increased to level 21. Various items and stats can further increase the effective level of the gem, sometimes up to a maximum of level 40 through the use of items with ‘+ levels to socketed gems’ modifiers, or support gems like Empower.
4. Why Would You Ever Stop Leveling a Gem?
Some support gems, like Arcane Surge or Cast When Damage Taken, function better at lower levels. Arcane Surge requires less mana at lower levels to activate, and Cast When Damage Taken needs to be a low level to ensure the linked skill is below the necessary damage threshold to activate. If a skill gem is too high, it can be too powerful and not cast at the right time. You can also disable gem experience by pressing Y when your mouse is hovering over it to stop it from leveling further.
5. Can Support Gems Stack in PoE?
No, you cannot stack multiple copies of the same support gem on a single active skill. If two copies of the same support gem are linked, only the higher-level one takes precedence, although both will gain experience and increase the mana cost of the skill.
6. How Do I Corrupt Gems?
Gems are corrupted by using a Vaal Orb. Upon corruption, a gem could receive any of the following outcomes:
- Nothing Happens: The gem remains unchanged, but is corrupted.
- Gem is turned into a Vaal Gem: The gem will turn into a Vaal version of the skill.
- Increase or decrease gem quality: The gem’s quality will change.
- Increase or decrease gem level: The gem’s level will change.
Vaal Orbs can be found in various locations, such as from monster drops, chests, or Strongboxes.
7. What are Alternate Quality Gems?
Introduced in the Heist league, alternate quality gems offer different quality bonuses from their standard counterparts. They can be acquired in the Curio Display Rooms in Grand Heists. These gems provide unique ways to customize a skill’s power based on specific builds, and are often required to make the most powerful builds.
8. What is a Double Corrupted Gem?
Some areas in the Temple of Atzoatl contain a Lapidary Lens. This device corrupts a gem twice, successively. This opens up the possibility of reaching +2 level or +4 quality, or some other combination of modifiers for the gem.
9. What is the Chance of Gem Corruption Outcomes?
Each outcome from a Vaal Orb, such as level change, quality change, Vaal Gem conversion, and no change, is weighted at 25% base. The game then checks whether the outcome has sub-outcomes, like level increases or decreases, which are split by a 50% chance.
10. Where Can I Upgrade My Gems?
You can increase the quality of a gem by using a Gemcutter’s Prism at any point in the game. To get a level 1 20% quality gem, you need to level your gem to level 20 and use the vendor recipe, selling the gem with a Gemcutter’s Prism to any vendor.
11. How Can I Upgrade Gems Quickly?
You cannot typically upgrade gem quality quickly outside of trading for gems that already have quality or using the level 20 recipe. As Gems level passively from killing monsters, the only way to level them faster is to go to a map that has more monsters in it.
12. Should You Always Level Up Gems?
No, not always. As mentioned previously, there are certain gems that are more effective at lower levels, and it’s often beneficial to lock the level of these gems. Leveling gems also increases the requirement to use the gem, as well as increasing the mana cost of skills, which can create additional issues.
13. Is it Worth Selling Gems?
Gems are typically in abundance, and they can be traded with other players for other items that you need for your build. Most players will eventually find that they have more gems than they have a need for, so they can be sold for currency. However, many support gems and skill gems are used to make powerful build, and can be quite valuable to keep and upgrade. It’s often more valuable to level your own gems and use them for future builds, or use them for the vendor recipe to get 20% quality gems.
14. What is an Anomalous Gem?
Anomalous gems are a type of alternate quality gem that provide unique quality bonuses. For example, an Anomalous Portal gem may have a quality effect that increases your chance to travel to a different location when using a Ley Line.
15. How Do I Get the Vaal Version of a Gem?
Vaal Skill Gems can be obtained from Vaal Vessels, Strongboxes, specific Divination Cards, and bosses of corrupted maps. They can also be found from corrupting regular gems with a Vaal Orb.
By understanding these core mechanics and addressing these common questions, you’ll be well-equipped to enhance your gems and unlock your full potential in Path of Exile. Remember, a well-optimized gem setup is key to creating a powerful character. Good luck, Exile!