Loving Letter #2 Support Gems weird ideas

The following suggestions are ideas for support gems that alter the basic behavior of skills, giving players greater freedom to create builds, mix archetypes, and explore new ways to tackle the game's challenges. The concept of socketing supports directly into skills is brilliant, but in its current form, I feel it plays a bit too safe—often just increasing damage and making things feel a little monotonous.

Name: Ritual Cast
Requirements: +5 Int
Supports: Spells
Effect: +70% to spell damage and ailment effects. -70% to mana cost. Cast speed is reduced by 1.5% per mana cost of the spell.
Casting the spell requires and consumes 1 Orb of Transmutation from your inventory.
Comment: Support gems can introduce unusual costs, like consuming fragments, temporarily reserving energy shield, or even experience.

Name: Mystic Arms
Requirements: +5 Int
Supports: Attack
Effect: -30% to damage. 60% of all bonus to spell damage and cast speed also apply to this attack.
Comment: Supports can blend builds, making it viable for a spellcaster to use something like Rolling Slam.

Name: Stalker
Requirements: +5 Str
Supports: Melee Basic Attacks Only
Effect: While holding the attack button, after a kill, you dash up to 3m to the nearest target and strike. +30% damage to the first attack after dashing. AOE bonuses apply to dash range.
Comment: Supports can add interesting behaviors to basic attacks, making them more strategic and viable.

Name: Heavy Step
Requirements: +5 Str
Supports: Attack
Effect: Canceling a skill with a roll generates an aftershock, dealing 70% of the canceled skill’s damage (as physical) in a 2m radius. The roll animation becomes a short hop that emits the shockwave. Cannot support skills with cooldowns.
Comment: Supports can give skills alternate functions—canceling to evade while still hitting back adds a new offensive layer to defensive movement.

Name: Pustule
Requirements: +5 Dex
Supports: Attack/Spells
Effect: Poison damage is delayed and only applied when the target is heavily stunned. At that moment, the target takes 130% of all accumulated poison damage. 20% of poison magnitude is also applied as stun damage.
Comment: Ailments can have their behavior and themes altered by support gems.

Name: Splintering
Requirements: +5 Str
Supports: Melee Attacks (without AOE)
Effect: The skill can target and break objects on the ground (even your own), dealing double damage to breakable objects with HP and causing AOE damage afterward.
Damage, cost, and radius vary by object type:
* Common items, vases, boxes, ice shards, rocks: +25% damage, 2m radius, -50% mana cost
* Magic items: +35% damage, 3m radius, -70% mana cost
Does not affect currency, rare, or unique items.
Comment: Allowing attacks to interact with items and objects opens up wild gameplay—like breaking your own ice wall or totem for a big blast.

Name: Glyphic
Requirements: +5 Int
Cost: +100%
Supports: Area-targeting spells (Orb of Thunder, Wall of Flame, etc.)
Effect: The spell is cast around the caster as an aura for its full duration.
Comment: Like Blasphemy, this changes the form of a spell, greatly increasing its versatility without needing more spells.

Name: Cross-Finisher
Requirements: +5 Dex
Supports: Attack
Effect: The skill can only be used if a different skill was used within 1s. It jumps directly to the final hit and inherits 10% of the damage, type, and ailment from the previous skill.
Comment: Turns a skill into a finisher, enabling cool combos—start with a basic hit or Shield Charge and finish with the final blow of Rolling Slam.

Name: Living Blood
Requirements: +5 Int
Supports: Attacks/Spells
Effect: 15% chance on hit vs rare/unique enemies (9% vs blue/white) to create a Blood Puddle. Blood Puddles are treated as corpses and pin enemies for 0.4s on contact. 1m radius, lasts 3s.
Comment: Supports can set up conditions for other skills or synergize with them.

Name: Mirrored
Requirements: +5 Int
Supports: Skills that create objects
Effect: Objects with HP (like totems, ice shards, stone walls) reflect projectiles that hit them back at the attacker. Add a percentage of the object's HP as damage to the reflected projectile.
Comment: Makes defensive objects into offensive threats—barriers that bite back.

Name: Beast Nemesis
Requirements: +5 Dex
Supports: Attack
Effect: Penetrates 15% of a Beast-type enemy's resistances. +15% damage to Beasts. +10% exp when killing Beasts exclusively with this skill.
Comment: Each creature type could have a specific nemesis support. Would be interesting having skills that interact with enemy type.

Name: Branding
Requirements: +5 Int
Supports: Attacks/Spells
Effect: Marks a target for 3s on hit. The next ally to damage that target deals +30% damage and removes the mark. Minions prioritize marked targets. The skill coolsdown for 1s.
Comment: Supports can create tactical coordination with allies, turning a skill into a temporary buff trigger.

Name: Migration
Requirements: +5 Int
Supports: Skills with a limit of 1 (cannot be changed)
Effect: Recasting the same skill doesn't remove the previous one—it travels to the new location, dealing 120% Int as damage to enemies in its path.
Comment: Similar to Hydrosphere, this changes a spell’s behavior. Even totems could become moving damage zones with this.

Name: Vortex
Requirements: +5 Int
Supports: Stationary point-targeting skills
Effect: Enemies moving away from the center of the skill have -40% move speed. Enemies moving toward the center take +10% damage.
Comment: Think Flame Wall as a vortex of flame. It both traps and punishes enemies, enhancing control builds.

Name: Retaliation
Requirements: +5 Str
Supports: Melee Attack
Effect: Cannot be activated manually. Activates within 1.5s after an auto-block with alterations: -30% mana cost; -45% damage; Block chance becomes damage bonus; +20% speed; Goes straight to final hit if the skill has multiple types; Charge time (if has) is 50% faster; Can’t activate during another animation; Halves damage taken during the animation; 3s cooldown.
Comment: Another example of how supports can totally transform a skill. This one turns a melee hit into a reactive counter similar to poe 1.

Name: Simplicity
Requirements: +5 Str
Supports: Attacks/Spells
Effect: +5% to damage, speed, range, and crit chance for each unused support gem slot.
Comment: Great for when you can’t use more supports—turns simplicity into a strength.

Name: Avarice
Requirements: +5 Int
Supports: Attacks/Spells
Effect: 10% of your Magic Find becomes extra crit chance. If you land a crit kill with this skill, the enemy drops gold.
Comment: Turns normally non-combat stats like Magic Find into combat tools. Encourages unusual, creative builds.

Name: Afterimage
Requirements: +5 Dex
Supports: Movement
Effect: The movement skill creates a gray double that performs the movement instead of you—you stay in place.
If holding the button, you teleport to where the double landed, even during cooldown, and cooldown resumes normally.
Comment: Makes movement skills less about gap-closing and more tactical—great for ranged builds or skill combos.

Name: Earthbound
Requirements: +5 Str
Supports: Slam
Effect: The slam becomes chargeable (2s). Perfect timing adds +15% damage and creates an Earth Wall that lasts 4s with your HP (limit 1).
Comment: Skills that build terrain or obstacles diversify gameplay and enable new strategies.

Name: Painful
Requirements: +5 Int
Supports: Attacks/Spells
Effect: On kill, creates a minion that deals 25% weapon damage to a random target within 5m before fading. 10% chance to trigger on hit vs rare/unique enemies.
Comment: Opens indirect minion creation, easing hybridization and expanding build potential.


Well, that's it. This is the second thread in my series of ideas (which, oddly enough, go by the name 'Loving Letter'). I hope something useful comes out of it, and that Poe 2 reaches its full potential