Thoughts on support gems

I've been thinking a bit about support gem design, and what feels a lot like there is just a best thing to do for many build types (melee/range/spells) and why that is. To start the discussion I think you can separate most offensive support gems into four categories.

Mechanics changing:
These are things like greater/lesser multiple projectiles, chain, melee splash etc. They change something about the way a skill functions.

Damage
These are things like the added damage supports. They just give you damage and have nothing else attached to them.

Damage if
These are things like hypothermia and blood lust. They give you extra damage if certain conditions are met.

Damage but
These are things like controlled destruction and elemental focus. They give you damage but come with some penalty.

I feel like the damage but category is really edging out the other categories of gems by being just more powerful and really easy to overcome or just straight ignore the drawbacks, and don't really contribute to any interesting character design space. On the other hand the "mechanics changing" and "damage if" gems require you to invest some thought into using them well usually at the cost of other skill slots or skill points on your tree.

This feels problematic to me, as flat powerful mechanics edging out interesting mechanics character creation much more one dimensional.

Eh its more soo because there arent very many encounters in which one is better. In addition to that over all damage is usually just better in general because its more.

There arent really any special mechanics behind support gems right now, especially because things like Reach of the Council exists (Free GMP with none of the downsides).

The only special support that truly changes how you approach things these days is probably Melee Splash (which is severely underpowered). Positioning, Mob aggroing, all important in getting off a really nice explosion of corpses. I miss the days of going pack to pack with Infernal Blow + Splash, entire pack blowing up in to gibblets.

Ive personally never felt that most supports were mechanically interesting enough to change how the game is played, very few do as mentioned with splash. Most fall under the catagory of "more area of effect/more monster hit" rather than "interesting mechanic".

This lack of interest though could also be attributed to the fact we dont have enough gem slots to socket multiple skills to use, in addition to situations not calling for separate things to be used.

I feel like thats something GGG really needs to address in the future, right now spamming one 5/6 linked skill isnt really cutting it, its a very boring way to play the game which is probably why people are attracted to cast on crit. Yes youre spamming one skill but youre casting multiple other spells while doing so.

I think the real issue is that the "mechanics changing" support gems don't actually change the existing mechanics at all, they just add extra mechanics. And this is usually balanced by meaning they give less damage to compensate.

What would be really cool is if more of the mechanics changing support gems actually *changed* the mechanics, so they were useful in different situations. And not just single target vs AoE, some other situational uses too.

Some examples of support gems which offer a genuine mechanics change include:
- Blood Magic
- Point Blank
- Cold to Fire
- Generosity
- Blasphemy
- Ranged Attack/Spell Totem
- Trap / Remote Mine

etc... And even some of those are basically just 'damage but' gems...

"

dudiobugtron wrote:

I think the real issue is that the "mechanics changing" support gems don't actually change the existing mechanics at all, they just add extra mechanics. And this is usually balanced by meaning they give less damage to compensate.

What would be really cool is if more of the mechanics changing support gems actually *changed* the mechanics, so they were useful in different situations. And not just single target vs AoE, some other situational uses too.

Some examples of support gems which offer a genuine mechanics change include:
- Blood Magic
- Point Blank
- Cold to Fire
- Generosity
- Blasphemy
- Ranged Attack/Spell Totem
- Trap / Remote Mine

etc... And even some of those are basically just 'damage but' gems...

I'm of the opinion that spectral throw would of made a great support gem for single target melee skills.

All good points written down here. I personaly would take a more radical balancing approach to support gems and completly rebalance them to keep some of the power creep in check (don't get me wrong, there needs a lot more to be done than just rebalance some numbers on support gems!)
I also would buff some unused/barly used support gems to make them more appealing to generate more versatility and actuall choice on link setups.
Also some quality boni on supports could use some creative touch :)

Bloodlust:
While i think bloodlust is a cool support gem, it's possibilities are very limited at the moment. I would honestly rework it or better - introduce another new support gem for bleeding. Something like:
Your physical damage hits cause bleeding
%More physical damage over time
%less damage elemetal damage

Fortify:
Change the increased melee physical damage to increased melee damage so that elemental builds can also benefit from it.

Knockback:
Add a 20% more damage multiplier to it

Less Duration:
Reduce the multiplier to 20% more damage from 30%

Spell Totem:
Buff the less cast speed modiefier from 30% to 15% at level 20 and maybe ajust the less damage modifier instead if needed.

Blind:
Buff the % chance to blind and add a new modifier: Blinded Enemys deal x% reduced damage and have x% reduced crit chance

Cast on Crit:
GGG doesn't know how to nerf this abomination of an support gem... Why not simply incease the cooldown between it's procs and let every proc cost mana to cast supported spells (or life when linked to blood magic. It probably starts at "supportet spells cost 150% of mana to cast on proc" at level 1 and reduces dot 125% at level 20.

Chance to flee:
Just rework flee as a mechanic please - in it's current form it is useless.

Pierce:
lower its damage multiplier to 20% from 30% and buff the pierce chance on quality instead of projectile damage.

Poison:
The second iteration of this gem (after the nerf) made this gem really bad compared to alternatives to get poison on items. Give it a more multiplier for DoT only like rapid decay paired with a physica damage reduction so it don't gets out of hand (asuming double dipping already has been nerfed!)

Ranged Attack Totem:
Give it the same treatment as spell totem in 2.3 and reduce the attack speed penalty to 20% at level 20 from current 30% less attack speed.

Void Manipulation:
The reduced elemental damage modifier should be a less elemental damage modifier for sure - even after chaos conversion nerfs.

Blasphemy:
Add 50% less curse effectivness on it at level 1, 30% less at level 20.

Cast when stunned:
Give it a 100% proc chance and a less damage multiplier. Also add a cooldown of 4sec to not prevent stun locking.

Controlled Destruction:
The reduced critica strike chance modifier should be a 100% less critical strike multiplier - it is used in crit builds over any other damage support gem right now which isn't its intended purpose.

Increased critical damage:
Unnerf it and put it back to 150% crit multi at level 20



Just a few thoughts of mine - more ajustments in that direction would be healthy for the game i feel.

"

Less Duration:
Reduce the multiplier to 20% more damage from 30%

Disagree, this just a hidden EQ nerf which effects things like storm call and whatever else you wanna link it to. If you want EQ nerfed just say it.

"

Blind:
Buff the % chance to blind and add a new modifier: Blinded Enemys deal x% reduced damage and have x% reduced crit chance

Interesting idea.

"

Cast on Crit:
GGG doesn't know how to nerf this abomination of an support gem... Why not simply incease the cooldown between it's procs and let every proc cost mana to cast supported spells (or life when linked to blood magic. It probably starts at "supportet spells cost 150% of mana to cast on proc" at level 1 and reduces dot 125% at level 20.

The mana cost thing is interesting, but goes completely against the idea of trickster.

"

Chance to flee:
Just rework flee as a mechanic please - in it's current form it is useless.

Think this is intentional, the only good thing about flee is when they are bleeding, other then that I can't think of why you would use it.

"

Pierce:
lower its damage multiplier to 20% from 30% and buff the pierce chance on quality instead of projectile damage.

I wouldn't mind the adjustment from 30>20, but I don't like the change to having quality be pierce, you already can get pierce so many ways, having it be quality on the gem is :/

"

Void Manipulation:
The reduced elemental damage modifier should be a less elemental damage modifier for sure - even after chaos conversion nerfs.

Do people really use this gem that much?

"

Blasphemy:
Add 50% less curse effectivness on it at level 1, 30% less at level 20.

One would think the easier ways to apply curses would have less effect. IDK

"

Controlled Destruction:
The reduced critica strike chance modifier should be a 100% less critical strike multiplier - it is used in crit builds over any other damage support gem right now which isn't its intended purpose.

It isn't used in all crit builds, it perhaps is a bit too good with crit, but I dont see why it needs 100% LESS crit multi.


Overall I agree with the ones note quoted here.

I remember trying to make a puncture/flee build once and soon in I learned that it doesn't work on unique monsters, and maybe rares i don't remember.

"

goetzjam wrote:

"

Less Duration:
Reduce the multiplier to 20% more damage from 30%

Disagree, this just a hidden EQ nerf which effects things like storm call and whatever else you wanna link it to. If you want EQ nerfed just say it.

Earthquake needs an ajustment imho (but let's just talk of support gems here, skill gem balancing is a whole other topic)

Even if Earthquake wasn't a tier 1 skill at this time i think Less duration should be slightly nerfed from 30% --> 20%. The reason for this would be simply power creep. Storm Call already does enough damage, even with a 20% multiplier on less duration - it's its mechanics that can't keep up currently, otherwise Storm Call is a cool, strong skill.

Less Duration is a "general damage" multiplier. It works for all skills with a duration attached to it and double dips with DoT effects which makes it really really strong. To adress this fact i think the multiplier should be reduced, because it is just too versatile.

You don't have to agree with me on this one, i just wanted to keep power creep in check a little while not nerfing underused skills.

"

Wiesl_1404 wrote:

"

goetzjam wrote:

"

Less Duration:
Reduce the multiplier to 20% more damage from 30%

Disagree, this just a hidden EQ nerf which effects things like storm call and whatever else you wanna link it to. If you want EQ nerfed just say it.

Earthquake needs an ajustment imho (but let's just talk of support gems here, skill gem balancing is a whole other topic)

Even if Earthquake wasn't a tier 1 skill at this time i think Less duration should be slightly nerfed from 30% --> 20%. The reason for this would be simply power creep. Storm Call already does enough damage, even with a 20% multiplier on less duration - it's its mechanics that can't keep up currently, otherwise Storm Call is a cool, strong skill.

Less Duration is a "general damage" multiplier. It works for all skills with a duration attached to it and double dips with DoT effects which makes it really really strong. To adress this fact i think the multiplier should be reduced, because it is just too versatile.

You don't have to agree with me on this one, i just wanted to keep power creep in check a little while not nerfing underused skills.

30>20 isn't really slightly, its quite significant, even if EQ might be too strong for your taste, other duration skills very rarely do use it. Yes you can and should use it with storm call, but do you see it used with every duration skill now? No you don't so you are nerfing the support gem where people could use it for thing like blade vortex, totems or what have you in the process.


Less duration isn't too versatile because its ONLY good for abilities that have duration and even then its only good for ones that don't care if the duration is less, the DPS would need checked, but even at 30% it is now people still use increased duration over less duration for blade vortex.

Following that logic melee damage needs reduced because its used for every physical melee damage build of all time.

"

j33bus wrote:

I've been thinking a bit about support gem design, and what feels a lot like there is just a best thing to do for many build types (melee/range/spells) and why that is. To start the discussion I think you can separate most offensive support gems into four categories.

Mechanics changing:
These are things like greater/lesser multiple projectiles, chain, melee splash etc. They change something about the way a skill functions.

Damage
These are things like the added damage supports. They just give you damage and have nothing else attached to them.

Damage if
These are things like hypothermia and blood lust. They give you extra damage if certain conditions are met.

Damage but
These are things like controlled destruction and elemental focus. They give you damage but come with some penalty.

and then there is Pierce that is just in the Damage lol category on its own.

adding 'more damage' to Pierce gem was one of the strangest and dumbest game design decisions EVER. seriously, WTF? ('hey, we can see that LA(KB)/Pierce/FrostWall murders everything so we've decided that the more multilpier is the perfect way to balance things out..').

as for the other points - agree with them all. this is already the 'scale multiplicatively or bust' game. and these games get ridiculous pretty quickly