They should re-add the jewel sockets that were removed.

I really enjoyed the versatility in fixing problems with your build that having 7-8 jewel slots provided. It feels pretty sad to have that cut to 3-4.

I would trade a slight reduction in the power of jewels to get the versatility back.

Getting a lot of jewels with good corrupts was fun. fixing res, fixing attributes or getting extra max res outside of your gear was fun.

It also made wearing uniques less punishing because you had more ways to fix the character to get back stats you were loosing with the uniques.

It also made running the trialmaster worthless for most players with the sheild being nerfed and adorned being practically impossible to drop. It also reduced the value of the other trial because selling jewels is way down and both selling trial keys and jewels were fun ways to make currency.

I didn't hate this patch as much as most people but this 1 change I thought was a significant step backwards.

Wait you have 3-4 jewel sockets?!

I have 2 :(

PoE1 - Up to 6 sockets per item, across multiple gear pieces (up to ~155 supports)

PoE2 - Only 1 skill gem per weapon + built-in sockets (usually 5–6 total gems per character)

JEWEL sockets

and yes does seem a bit mean 4 is about the limit

I agree. The removal of jewel slots and its consequences have been a disaster for variety for poe 2.

Ultimatum was a great way for many early end game to get jumpstarted on currency gather and economic mobility. With the removal of jewels and changes to trainmaster rewards the demand for trial tokens are not quite there. This is exacerbated by changes to the soul core azcapa where it was changed from rarity to gold. To add insult to injury the rarity was returned and given to the azmiri spirit rabbit talisman. Ultimatum has been reduced to finding ticaba soul cores, 1-3 chaos orbs, and regal shards.


As for the jewels themselves:

Time lost jewels and others such as against the darkness are much less viable with jewel sockets getting removed and the remaining being placed in awkward positions. While some are still in good positions around passive many others have very little synergy or incentive for people to take those passive points.


Jewel slots in the south part of the mercenary tree are particularly awkward with jewel radius mainly encompassing shield passive and a bit of flask recovery or the one where it encompasses actions while surrounded or ailment threshold.