Gemling Legionare need more than buff but a rework to have its uniqueness back

I thought I'd share some of my feedback about the Gemling which I always made every league.

The ascendancy used to be called the Stat stacker ascendancy until the Ritualist did this better with having extra ring and bonus ring effect;, or the Jack of all trades ascendancy but which the Oracle also did this better.
There was also the old mechanic where only Gemling can use the same support gem on another skill until that was also taken away and the mechanic being widely available for all classes.


As such, I thought maybe give the Gemling its own uniqueness back along with some buffs. The ascendancy would still focus around gaining power using Gem mechanics like its name suggest. And I really like how Integrated efficiency and Gem studded evolved to what they are now and would like to extend getting bonus on the management of skill and support gems.

If I were to suggest changes around those changes, it would be the following:

To start, it is boosting the small node effects such boosting the left side to "5% Quality of all skills" each then reworking Crystalline Potential to another effect (my suggestion below).
As for other small nodes, I've yet to figure out what is an appropriate bonus that would complement and fit the Gemling Legionaire Ascendancy. Maybe +10% increased support gem effects or 10% decreased support gem penalties, but this approach would be more complicated to implement.


And my suggestions for each major nodes:

Gem Studded is a pretty solid skill so no changes here.

Integrated Efficiency could be buffed by changing the bonus to more (multiplicative scaling) instead of increase (additive scaling) because the bonuses are limited to the linked/connected skill itself, and the values could be adjusted afterwards.

Thaumaturgical Infusion will need an additional effect to be more enticing to get as a defensive node. At its current effect and with a balanced build, having roughly 5% max increase is underwhelming especially as an Major End Ascendancy node. As such, I would take inspiration to Crystallized Immunities passive but in a more suited way as an ascendancy node;
i.e having at least 25 red, green or blue support gems socketed to be immune to Ignite, Shock or Chill respectively.

Adaptive Capability is pretty helpful earlier on but not so much at the late stage where stat requirement is not much of a problem, which altogether felt is underwhelming as an Ascendancy Node. So I thought it would be interesting to bring back a similar old mechanic in a different form as an additional effect:
Allowing the same lineage support gem on another skill.
I do feel that there are very few use cases for this though.

Enhanced Effectiveness would provide bonus per amount of the type of support gem socketed.
My initial idea was retain the current effect in a different way, i.e:
+10% str per red support gem, +10% dex per green support gem and +10% int per blue support gem socketed.
This gives scaling bonus and should result in roughly the same effect without the 20% less penalty if roughly at start of end game content. However, I feel like only giving attributes does not fit the theme for Gemling especially when Adaptive Capability already covers attributes for the gem's attribute requirements; though this does allow more freedom to use equipments by satisfying their requirements.

Crystalline Potential would be reworked to gain an effect of opening another support gem socket, extending the max support sockets from 5 to 6, as well as either granting +30 Spirit for every skill slots used or granting +10 Spirit per any support gem socketed.
as inspired by the extra ring slot from the Ritualist Ascendancy and well-suited to Gemling Legionaire design.

Implanted Gems should be reverted to old effect of +2 Levels to all skills instead of being attribute-based, in addition to granting +3 skill slots.

And finally, Advanced Thaumaturgy should provide a skill that can hold support gems and could produce at least 1 type of charge depending on the type of support gem which are most numerous. the frequency would be adjustable as a side effect for the deterministic change where, the less numerous type would produce charges less frequently.


With the above suggested buffs and reworks, Gemling would fit its own flavor text of getting power through maximising socketing gems. There would be variety and hopefully a good balance between specialized allocation and balanced allocation.

I'm only gonna say this about Gemling:
I see the art of a guy who is infusing himself with support gems.

Where dat in the tree?

Honestly with latest updates GL is a disgrace of all Ascendancies honor. Firstly the shape is too restrictive and need to change as first priority. Second, previous GL bonuses that have been common to all classes need to be replaced with new innovative and a tone up in quality.
And third , some skills like Crystaline should go to small passive node instead of a punishing plan that doesn't balance anything.


I want to see one special node that provide animal companion. Like Raven or wardog.

I don't think the ascendancy’s power is the issue. Low ladder representation for GL is probably because the bonuses are just difficult to intuit and it's designed to shine in multi-skill and cross-weapon builds. It doesn’t slot neatly into familiar archetypes, and before even picking it, asks for planning, knowledge, experimentation, and a playstyle that's gonna go beyond 1–2 buttons.

Pretty inaccessible to an inexperienced player imo and even for experienced ones, being able to see that planning-overhead requirement can be enough to convince someone to not bother if there isn't some "cool factor" that's gonna make it seem worth it.

I mean at face value the bonuses are kinda good, that's why I don't think it's a power issue - Thaumaturgical Infusion is effectively an easy free +5 to all max res, more if you lean on unset rings. With Integrated Efficiency, that turns into roughly 300% increased damage, 90% skill speed, and 300% crit chance distributed across skills. You can even skew it too: +15 max fire res becomes 900% increased damage.

On the other side, we get free charge generation and +2 to gem levels with higher quality on skills too. Depending on your skills, that's pretty powerful.

I'm actually on the fence about whether I like that it's a boring, yet strong, ascendancy providing access to baseline stats because that leaves room for the player to come up with the archetype, or feeling like that open-endedness is just too much and suffers from the same problem Witchhunter's weapon-swap node does by putting too much on the menu that players have a hard time conceptualizing how to take advantage of it efficiently.

It's a shame it's so dissuasive at making player pick it because it seems like it's the kind of flexible ascendancy that’s one strong streamer guide away from being suddenly OP and on the nerf radar to remove some of that flexibility.

I think if they want to nudge players to pick it more often it just needs to be less esoteric in it's presentation even if the power stays roughly the same.

Someone at level 22 looking at this ascendancy isn't going to math out all of the potential support gem colours across all of their 9-13 skill slots at endgame using skills they haven't even had a chance to unlock to be able to begin to discern if they should pick this over Witchhunter or Tactician which has more clear and easier to conceptualize benefits and the nodes aren't cool enough to convince people to take a blind test drive on them like you might see on some of the other ascendancies.

Kinda reminds me of the ritualist ascendancy in that it feels like WiP experiment.

"

Evergrey#7535 wrote:

I'm only gonna say this about Gemling:
I see the art of a guy who is infusing himself with support gems.

Where dat in the tree?

I agree and I believe the closest Ascendancy node to being like that is the Gem-studded and Integrated Efficiency.

My suggested buffs and reworks works similar to those 2 passives.
TLDR; the major things I suggested:
1. 6th support gem socket
2. More skill slots and +XX Spirit per Skill or support gem.
3. Ability to use the same lineage gem on another skill.

"

Gogolitsa#6869 wrote:

Honestly with latest updates GL is a disgrace of all Ascendancies honor. Firstly the shape is too restrictive and need to change as first priority. Second, previous GL bonuses that have been common to all classes need to be replaced with new innovative and a tone up in quality.
And third , some skills like Crystaline should go to small passive node instead of a punishing plan that doesn't balance anything.


I want to see one special node that provide animal companion. Like Raven or wardog.

I agree that it is mostly underwhelming compared to other ascendancies but I havent thought of it as being restrictive in a sense.
And what you suggested about Crystalline is also the same as my suggestion.

As for animal companion, I think druid seems to be more suited for that.

"

karsey#2995 wrote:

-snip-

Fair point but if I were to point out some things on what you said:

Integrated Efficiency only works within the linked skill gem so a max value of +100% increase damage with full red supports at most, and this in itself is more than usually an inefficient combination.

Thaumaturgical Infusion as an end node is underwhelming at its max potential and will cost you to using unset rings to get more value. Would you really pick this passive to get that bonus? I dont believe so. I dont believe its been a popular pick as well to any Gemling in all leagues. It is that underwhelming.

Charge generation is nice but wonky or not as reliable as expected and is not as powerful as another end node. +2 to certain attribute skills is nice but feels more like QoL instead of an upgrade especially for an end node passive.

What you said about Witchhunter weapon swap nodes are limited by current mechanics and the way the passive tree laid out as well as its restrictions (unable to take Jewel Sockets and Keystone)

At most, the bonuses currently provided by Gemling passives are QoL that you can afford to miss out on especially with what other Ascendancies can offer.

sigh... Agreed.

Gemling's ONLY truly unique thing about it is the Charge generation and even that isn't all that spectacular.
If we were allowed to get skill effect duration reduction from the passive tree or Palm of the Dreamer, to affect that 5 second interval. Dropping it down... AT ALL... THEN it could be useful. But the charge generation every 5 seconds just isn't useful enough. The ONLY thing that it really allows is for Charge Regulation to be self sufficient.

Now someone might argue that Gemling has the +to skill based on Str/Dex/Int.
Sure its a +Level. But so is a Prism of Belief. So is Endless Blizzard. So is the +Levels on weapons, Amulets, Gloves.
Its not unique at all.

THIS is an issue. The only Unique thing about Gemling isn't something that is viable. Unless if you are Mr. Rogers and you play a Parry build... *shivers* yuck. Clunky de la Chunk Clunk at your service...

I was thinking more like a support gem socket in the Asc tree that works as a general buff or something.
6th supp gem would be completely broken :D.
More skill slots - yes, but on a standalone branch so it is completely optional.
Lineage limit increase is pretty cool too, a bit lazy, but works (ggg likes those, at least in ea)!

Replace the Crystaline with one more Ring socket. Leaders should always have one more of something!

What was unique about Gemling?

Majority of the Ascendancy options can be dumbed down to stat sticks.

The only thing Gemling did was let you use more than one support. Comically Ascendacies with actual unique features get picked the least like Time Stop, Djinn or Pyromantic Pact.

"

Xzorn#7046 wrote:

What was unique about Gemling?

Majority of the Ascendancy options can be dumbed down to stat sticks.

The only thing Gemling did was let you use more than one support. Comically Ascendacies with actual unique features get picked the least like Time Stop, Djinn or Pyromantic Pact.

Let's assume the developers hadn't removed the only thing that was matter as a significant power. Tell me a support gem that if I used it twice on a skill gem it would mess up the balance???


You see, they could implement ton of new ideas if they want to fix the unfair rules.