Stat requirements keep increasing for support gems in POE2

I'm playing a monk that primarily uses dex/int. I only allocate the minimum amount of str needed to use support gems. When my character was lower level, the str gem requirements were lower (I remember as far back as 20 str). But now even the tier 1 str gems need 40 str to use.

Strength support gems I could use before, I can no longer use without swapping more points into str. It's not a gear issue. I haven't changed my gear in many levels. I tried crafting brand new t1 str gems. But they all say that I need 40 strength. I'm afraid to remove or swap out the gems that are already allocated as I may not be able to socket them back in again.

Support gems use a different approach to stat requirements.

Support gems don't have inherent stat requirements attached to them. Instead, the number of support gems you can equip is determined by your stats. For every 5 points of Strength, you can equip 1 additional red support gem.

At lower levels, you have fewer skill gems that you can use, and fewer support slots in the ones you do have.

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Jadian#0111 wrote:

Support gems use a different approach to stat requirements.

Support gems don't have inherent stat requirements attached to them. Instead, the number of support gems you can equip is determined by your stats. For every 5 points of Strength, you can equip 1 additional red support gem.

At lower levels, you have fewer skill gems that you can use, and fewer support slots in the ones you do have.

Thank you for explaining how this works. It was not intuitive to me in the game.