when is a jewel socket worth the passive points?

I've been getting jewel sockets if they cost 2 or less points to spec into. Is this ideal for most builds? I've been guessing so, but I don't know.

Any socket that costs just two point is usaly considered good choice. Buy in fact it's up to your build and jewells etc. What excatly do you want to use? Post that jewel, it'll be easy to answer your questiom.

A generic Jewel with at least 2 beneficial rolls are usually stronger than any normal passive node, and can rival Notables.

In short, a Jewel Socket is very worth it.

Just look what a jewel does and compare it to what you could get if you invested the passive points into something else in your tree.

That's simple math:
7% life - worth close to 2 skillpoints.
16% damage - worth a skillpoint.
8% attackspeed - worth a skillpoint.
~> a jewel with these combined stats is worth about 4 skillpoints, you definetly profit from putting it into a 3 point socket.

Also, if you need a bunch of build-enabling jewels or have access to gg jewels (like "7% life +3x fitting damage/attack speed/crit"), they are worth a lot of passives.
I've seen a viedo recently with a guy taking nothing but jewel sockets, 14 or so, exploiting this one. That's 14*14*4% = close to 800% increased elemental damage. Definetly worth it, even though there's pretty much nothing else in his skilltree. ;)

yeah, the grand spectrum. I'm trying to make a budget build though, and my math says 2 nodes is all I should spare. Just wondering if I'm missing something.

Link us the tree and build idea. We might be able to expand on it.

http://poeplanner.com/AAUAAQkjAwCC37CCEI-mRKtVriycEFiHZa-3MjQfAgQHg9tVxjbF2CSnCJ2uGmw26SSqFm_javrSogDwH2jycqlVqZe0agHE9q-nHM4rUA3N_lTGrjwtg8y3PoNf_grYvTWS9zLqGHasz36tjfjr891oZbXybqpKyIqvkBF7wz8nKk1H4iLipDkUcdl8ggfyQdIhah4c5_IvGj58uCkuXz8UIO8Or2wLYR0UEmkXHHF5X5hZbc8y6-4c3I8auJMo-pitVkj2SIzPPfxYY8bYgsf56EGH8kU64f6PTeOmVw48OlK8nxiR_EsUTQHnG_ol37YspBna3VBHOlgEs9QH3I2Q-t9tTIvvSxekEzUAAAAAAA==

The build is, as I said, hopefully a budget build. That is typically what I aim for. And it's pure Scorching Ray with Orb of Storms to proc Equilibrium. Also the build is homemade. I don't like getting builds from other people, but if you have guidelines I should follow or some tips that is okay.

Oh and I plan on using this jewel: http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Hidden_Potential

Hidden Potential will decrease your performance severely. Rare and Uniques offer much more stats and utility than blues. 15-25% Increased Damage is actually a lot weaker than you think it is. It's fine for leveling, but once you hit endgame, it's really not worth it at all.

You have some weird pathing choices. You can immediately change the pathing from Elemental Overload to Holy Fire via the top path and save yourself a point right off the bat. You should also never plan a tree to lvl 100. Most people wont even bother past 90-92.

Elementalist's Paragon of Calamity is half wasted on you. Scorching Ray doesn't "hit", which means you dont take reflect damage from it, except from your Orb of Storms. And you want to avoid getting hit as much as possible, so dont rely on the secondary part of that passive.

I dont see a need for the Soul of Steel cluster. Nor do you need the Sentinel (under Scion) and everything attached to it. The Diamond Skin node and the resistances next to them also aren't necessary. (it's fine to use Diamond Skin while leveling). You can get resistances just fine through gear.

It looks like you're trying to stack Armour, but do note that Elementalist + Spells does not mix well with pure Armour pieces. It'll be rough to get the colors you need for your links, and your Ascendancy doesn't have any interaction for you to go tanky via armour. If you were a Chieftain or Juggernaut, that'd be a different story. I also see that you have a decent amount of Life regen in the tree. You might want to consider getting Endurance Charges and manually cast Enduring Cry (with CWDT Immortal Call) to generate EC.

IMO Chieftain will come out better (bit tankier than Elementalist, a bit more interaction focused on Fire damage).

But that's my view.

Thanks a bunch for the tips.

The resistance nodes are there because I was planning on using magic gear, and was going to go for life and + armour on most of the gear pieces. I know I could also get resistance in addition to those, but I think those pieces would be exceedingly hard to craft, and also hard to buy. Anyway what do you think of Kripp's use of the jewel in his latest PoE video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9ZJtDxUe8w That is what inspired me to use it, as he says that magic items can be almost as good as great rares, or something like that. He talks about it at 3:45, but apparently the damage from the jewel double dips for him too, so, I dunno. And thinking about it now it is a lot of nodes wasted for that jewel.

I was going to stack armour because I like a flat phys reduction in theory better than evasion or ES, but indeed I forgot about the links. Also, Elementalists don't have any defensive stats besides +resists it looks like, so I am not seeing the difference if I went for ES or something. Like, how does the typical Elementalist stack defense then, I'm wondering?

Say I got Shaper of Desolation. Does Scorching Ray benefit from it very much? Not sure how that would work. And does Beacon of Ruin spread all Scorching Ray's damage then?

I tried Enduring Cry once. It was kind of painful to keep track of my charges, having to look at the top left of the screen all the time. I wish you could display them in the middle, by your character. Anyways, I'm going to need some QoL changes before I touch that skill again.

On the subject of links again, maybe I'll get a 5 or 6-linked staff, and just use Kaom's. I think that would be okay.