Skill gem Diversity - Support gems lacking

There are currently not enough associated support gems for skill gems to be able to support diversity in builds / diversity in choices.

There are not enough varied gems / available support gems to be able to allow for freedom of choice(or even illusion of choice). A lot of the skill gems seem to be heavily nerfed due to their edge cases or abuse cases. The fear of these edge cases should not be a good reason to introduce skill gems in an heavily restricted sense. Ideally, these changes would be to address for those edge cases only, and not used as reasoning to kill the idea behind a build.

A big example looks to be around how the Herald gems were updated in PoE2. These heralds skills look to already have been "restricted" due to whatever edge cases exist or were found throughout the game's alpha stage. It does not make sense that certain support gems work with Herald of Ice/Thunder, but will not work with Plague/Ash. If that's the case, maybe they should be added under different Aura-type skill gems rather than be called Heralds. I feel like the inconsistency here will harm new player interaction with the game.

The issue I feel is that there are very specialized builds that essentially revolve around specific skill gems. If you want to adjust these types of skills, it feels like it should be aimed towards specific niches rather than hitting the skill gem entirely. I believe when the skill gem itself is nerfed/restricted further, it closes off specialization/diversity in how those gems are used. I think part of the reason so many people play the game is to find those niche/interactions they want to enjoy.


One more comment for this:

Support gems are heavily lacking in the current stage of POE2 in general. Due to this, it somewhat funnels players into specific choices because of the lack of other viable choices. This is especially observed in the newer weapon classes such as the Mercenary with the Crossbow builds. One easy way to see the difference is to compare Ranger+Bow skill gem diversity compared to Merc+Crossbow. As it currently stands, there does not seem to be a good reason to use the Crossbow as there is very little benefit to doing so. Why is there an ammo system if it conflicts with mana costs for the same reasons? What's the point for a player to add on to further resource costs without any benefit? Why aren't there more weapon-specific support gems that work to enhance your weapon of choice? I believe this is proof of the lack of support gems / availability. Players are essentially funneled into specific builds because there are not many choices for them in general.

There is no where near enough support gems for all the skills in the game currently which makes it very difficult to test out various skills/items/builds/weapons.

I understand this is early access, and that more skill gems/support gems will eventually be introduced. I still feel the above needs to be said even if it is repeated by other people.

the skill gem system in poe2 is a complete failure imo.

poe1: skill gems have level requirement, leveling up freely with xp
poe2: skill gems have level requirement, leveling up is gated behind acts, then gated behind levels, then gated by drop rng

poe1: i can put together whatever i want
poe2: restrictions everywhere, every support only 1time usable

for what? because they dont want people to socket the same supports for every skill?
lemme check

poe1: i had a 6link for single target, maybe a 6 or 4+2 link for clear with some different supports for ae etc, a 4link for my movement skill with different supports, maybe a 3 link for my cwdt-setup with again different supports, or a setup for a banner with different supports, or a 4 link for aura with different supports, or i used a curse setup with some different supports.

poe2: i can only use a support 1 time, so i push the best 5 dmg supports onto my main skill, 2nd utility skill gets the best of the rest. done.

how is that better in any way? its heavily restricted and gated everywhere, no freedom, nothing