Empower

Frankly, the issue about righteous fire and blood rage isn't even a drawback. There are potions that can remove the effect already, and it's not even a base potion it's a mod, meaning you are free to roll that on any potion that can carry the mod. That's also ignoring the fact that you can portal (which is actually essentially free if you have the gem) and in the case of blood rage you can have CI which removes the drawback altogether.
And there's the weapon swap with blood rage...

So yeah... the drawback point isn't really holding up to the evidence, there have always been numerous ways around it.
Example for RF: Lvl 20 Purity + elemental adaptation + rise of the phoenix = 99% resistance to fire damage. This is before using the potion which gives you another 10% putting you at 109% fire resistance (9% overcap on complete immunity). Grab the Life regeneration node and the damage RF deals is completely negated (read:immunity to RF), even without any ruby potions.

Disclaimer: before curses obviously

Also to the guys who were talking about the level 26 gems (which I think would be awesome), I heard from general that there is a cap of 25 on all gems by design. No conclusive evidence but that's the word.

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Legatus1982 wrote:

Frankly, the issue about righteous fire and blood rage isn't even a drawback. There are potions that can remove the effect already, and it's not even a base potion it's a mod, meaning you are free to roll that on any potion that can carry the mod. That's also ignoring the fact that you can portal (which is actually essentially free if you have the gem) and in the case of blood rage you can have CI which removes the drawback altogether.
And there's the weapon swap with blood rage...

So yeah... the drawback point isn't really holding up to the evidence, there have always been numerous ways around it.
Example for RF: Lvl 20 Purity + elemental adaptation + rise of the phoenix = 99% resistance to fire damage. This is before using the potion which gives you another 10% putting you at 109% fire resistance (9% overcap on complete immunity). Grab the Life regeneration node and the damage RF deals is completely negated (read:immunity to RF), even without any ruby potions.

Disclaimer: before curses obviously

Also to the guys who were talking about the level 26 gems (which I think would be awesome), I heard from general that there is a cap of 25 on all gems by design. No conclusive evidence but that's the word.

]
Did i miss something?
Base maximum resistance is 75%. Purity adds 4%. Elemental Adaptation adds 2%. Rise of the Phoenix adds 8%. 75+4+2+8 = 89, not 99, lol. Only when you drink a potion, you get 99% resistance.

winner.
anyways purity can provide 5% via inner force but RF would also deal more self damage. negligible for es based rf users but important for hp based (which no one runs anymore). the rest is made up via regen from passives, uniques, vitality, and endurance charges.

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soul4hdwn wrote:

winner.
anyways purity can provide 5% via inner force but RF would also deal more self damage. negligible for es based rf users but important for hp based (which no one runs anymore). the rest is made up via regen from passives, uniques, vitality, and endurance charges.

Actually, now you can get 6% from purity w/IF. Level 23 purity (achieved through a +1 to all gems item w/empower) gives +5 to all max resists, IF gives 21% to all buff effects. 21% of 5 is over 1, so boom, 6% all res, meaning this gem increased the potential max resists w/purity by 2%. That in itself is massive!

There are some other crazy uses for this gem I can't wait to try out in my build, which just happens to use arctic armour, molten shell, fire trap, purity, and raise zombie. It's an extremely powerful support and the difficulty of leveling it is there to offset that (also gives people something to grind towards while we wait for 1.0).

Personally, I think it's awesome. I'm surprised by how small-minded some people can be (well, perhaps not) to criticize it because it doesn't help their build. It's unreasonable to expect every new support gem to help every type of build. For that matter, it's unreasonable to expect to get the most out of this game playing only one build. I have 2 melee characters, 2 casters, and 1 ranged at end-game so I can find uses for any sort of support/active skill gem they wish to release.

While I understand melees can feel left out from time to time, their most recent support gem additions were melee splash and multistrike IIRC. And while some types of melee builds are still struggling, people have started converging on how to create truly spectacular melee builds. The situation is not near as dire as it once was, I think we're past the stage where all their balancing efforts need to go towards buffing melee characters.

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Jihoko wrote:

Personally, I think it's awesome. I'm surprised by how small-minded some people can be (well, perhaps not) to criticize it because it doesn't help their build.

And because it works with Wrath and Anger, let's be serial here: it works with virtually every build.

In fact, it's probably better than another Added Fire Damage equivalent for your Heavy/Dual Strikes and such. Finite supports, and all.

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LimitedRooster wrote:

In fact, it's probably better than another Added Fire Damage equivalent for your Heavy/Dual Strikes and such. Finite supports, and all.

*

I disagree with that.. Empower is shit with Heavy/Dual Strike.

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Malone wrote:

I disagree with that..

oooook. 5 to 25% more total damage for a gem slot completely unlinked to your attacks, perhaps even crammed into some random crap 3L, is apparently crummy now.

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LimitedRooster wrote:

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Malone wrote:

I disagree with that..

oooook. 5 to 25% more total damage for a gem slot completely unlinked to your attacks, perhaps even crammed into some random crap 3L, is apparently crummy now.

Empower only buffs the skill, not the supports. And even if it did i don't think 10% increased phys damage, 2% of phys damage added as fire and +2% to any other melee support gems you might have socketed would even come close to added fire levels (heck even level 1 culling is better :])

+ with max lvl empower and Explosive Arrow maxed should give as a result Explosive Arrow 26.

My question are devs prepared for 26 lvl gems ?

(PS Lower the 18% reflect modifier i beg u :)