News Tag: Poe Skill Gems

Here, I am going to talk about the Uncarved Gemstone and how acquiring skill gems works in POE 3.22 Ruthless.

A lot of players have misconceptions, and they lead their characters to ruin. And I’ve got to be honest here, if I sound critical and negative regarding how the current system works, it’s because I am.

This system is one of two reasons I tell people to consider Ruthless as though it were in an open beta that will experience significant revisions. The Uncarved Gemstone system is a good start, but setting up your skill gems in Ruthless is complicated and counter-intuitive.

Uncarved Gemstones 

When Standard players hear about Ruthless, they hear that in Ruthless each character gets 3 Uncarved Gemstones. They hear that these are wildcards that can be traded to Siosa for any skill gem. Since you get three of them, many players will assume you can easily trade these Uncarved Gemstones to complete whatever build you wish.

What many do not hear is that you do not receive these Uncarved Gemstones until finishing quests, one each in Act 3, Act 5 and Act 10. That means that if you intend to use an Uncarved Gemstone to get a core damage skill, at best your build will need to function without it through 3 acts.

Imagine the first 3 acts as a non-Marauder melee without heavy strike, a non-Witch caster without Fireball, or a bow Shadow without literally any bow skill.

In a bizarre and convoluted way, the worst possible way to start playing POE 3.22 Ruthless is by creating the character that you want to play.

Also Read: Minion Life Stacking SRS Guardian Build For POE 3.22

Mule/Farm Characters 

Instead, how you should start is by deciding which core damage skills you’re going to be using and then creating mule characters to obtain all of those skill gems.

The most obnoxious example I can provide is the character that I’m leveling up right now. He’s going to be my deep map pusher. It’s basically Toxic Rain except I want to try it with Rain of Arrows instead. And to be honest, the builds are so similar that if it doesn’t work out, I’ll just flip him back over to Toxic Rain and I’ve got the extra skill gem to make it work.

But this build is strictly superior as a Shadow. But Shadows do not receive any bow skills as quest rewards. In order to play this, build a character that makes perfect thematic sense. It’s a poisonous Rogue bow user. Why wouldn’t a Shadow be able to do that?

In order to play this character, you have to create a Ranger and take her all the way to The Cavern of Wrath. It took me about 40 minutes just to farm up the skill gems required before I could start my real character. What’s even more ridiculous is that after you do farm all those skill gems on this build and transfer them over to your Shadow, every single Act 1 quest reward gem is meaningless for you.

When you start a character in POE 3.22 Ruthless, you need to know exactly which skill gems you’re going to be using and, more importantly, which classes naturally receive those skill gems as quest rewards.

The good news is that for the vast majority of builds, you’re going to get most of your skills from your main class and you’ll only have to farm one or two other essential skills on a mule. That means you usually only have to complete one or two quests and you only end up spending about five minutes farming skill gems instead of nearly an hour finishing all of Act 1.

Notes

Anyone looking to try out Ruthless needs to know that those Uncarved Gemstones should not be used to pick up core damage skills if any skill gem starts at level 12 or lower. You should farm that skill gem with a mule character instead.

The Uncarved Gemstones are best used for later skills, ones that are normally given in Act 3 and Act 4.

Auras 

Another big point of confusion is knowing which auras are available in POE 3.22 Ruthless.

The good news is that it’s a very short list: Blood And Sand, Clarity, Precision, and Vitality. That’s it. In addition, all four of Clarity, Precision, Vitality, as well as Enduring Cry are offered as potential rewards for the exact same quest, ‘Killing Brutus’.

In Ruthless, a whole lot of different builds are going to want at least two, maybe more of these four skills and Uncarved Gemstones work really well to obtain up to all four. 

Conclusion 

In short, all players looking to try POE 3.22 Ruthless Mode should know that you usually have to start with a bit of homework.

Playing a build in Ruthless typically requires that you farm some skill gems on a character first. So, if you’re playing a Golem switch, you can end up with all four Golems because of the Uncarved Gemstones.

Poacher’s Mark is great for anyone dealing physical damage, but it only gets offered directly to Duelists and Rangers as a quest reward. With an Uncarved Gemstone, anyone can get it in Act 3. 

Your Aurabot Guardian would greatly benefit from having Vitality, Clarity and Precision. And with the Uncarved Gemstones, you can put that together pretty easily. But please do not start Ruthless Mode with the intention of using Uncarved Gemstones to obtain low-level damage skills.