Same skill gems no longer combine effect if shared on multiple items.

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Ugm wrote:

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KrapnoV wrote:

I thought that the astronomical mana increase resulting from linking multiple support gems was sufficient to maintain game balance, so why this modification?

To have e.g. fireball ward and normal fireball at the same time from 2 different skillgems.

Yeah, this lets you have multiple versions of the same skill supported differently.
At the moment, this means you can do things like make a fireball witch, using no other active skills - you can have one with concentrate area of effect for single target, one with increased area and multiple projectiles as AoE, one with faster casts for spamming, an uber onw for bosses, etc.

This will be even more important in future when we implement some planned support gems which change how skills operate. If there's a 'trap' support gem that changes the skill into placing a trap that casts that skill at whichever enemy triggers the trap, then under the old system having a fireball trap would mean you couldn't also have a fireball you could just cast.