In Path of Exile 2, you acquire different kinds of skills throughout the course of the leveling process. However, leveling up your character only grants access to a passive ability skill tree, where you can spend points to buff various stats. The actual skills you use in combat can’t be acquired via leveling up. Instead, Path of Exile 2 requires you to find Uncut Skill Gems and create a Skill Gem to be used for different available skills depending on your character’s level.
Naturally, Uncut Skill Gems are quite the commodity in Path of Exile 2, as they allow you to take advantage of new and powerful combat skills. Unfortunately, these commodities aren’t too common to find across any of the game’s locations.
How Uncut Skill Gems work in Path of Exile 2
First and foremost, you need to understand how Uncut Skill Gems work in Path of Exile 2. When you find one of these gems, it will have a number on it. This number equates to the level of the Skill Gem, which determines what skills you can socket it into. For example, if you find a Level 5 Uncut Skill Gem, you can use that to create a Skill Gem for a Level 5 skill on your character.
Alternatively, Uncut Skill Gems can also be used to upgrade an existing Skill Gem to the Uncut Skill Gem’s level. An example of this is if your Sorceress has the Flame Wall skill unlocked, you can use a higher level Uncut Skill Gem to upgrade Flame Wall to a new level. This increases the skill’s power and other stats depending on what the skill is.
The skill you’re upgrading needs to be at a lower level than the Uncut Skill Gem you’re trying to use to be able to upgrade it. So if all your high-priority skills are at the same level as the Uncut Skill Gem you just received, it’s better to use it to create a Skill Gem for a new skill.
As you progress in levels and the story, the Uncut Skill Gems you receive will be at higher levels. To start, you’ll only see Level 1 and Level 2 Uncut Skill Gems but the levels will steadily increase as Act 1 goes on. By the end of Act 1, you should see around Level 5 Uncut Skill Gems. However, the higher-level Uncut Skill Gems will always be rarer than their lower-level counterparts.
Finding Uncut Skill Gems in Path of Exile 2
With the explanation out of the way, you’re likely trying to figure out how to farm Uncut Skill Gems. Well, the short answer is Uncut Skill Gems are mainly a loot drop like any other item in Path of Exile 2. The early vendors you’ll find in the game don’t sell Uncut Skill Gems, so you won’t be able to purchase them.
As you might expect, higher-tier enemies such as bosses have a higher chance of dropping Uncut Skill Gems, especially high-level gems, but the item can drop from any enemy in Path of Exile 2. As you’re proceeding through a dungeon, killing the final enemy in a wave might drop a random Uncut Skill Gem for you to pick up. For the most part, though, you’ll have to rely on RNG and killing bosses to secure a majority of your Uncut Skill Gems.
The only other way we’ve found to get Uncut Skill Gems is through completing quests. Sometimes, quest-givers will offer an Uncut Skill Gem as a reward upon a quest’s completion. One of the final quests in Act 1 of Path of Exile 2, Trail of Corruption, rewards you with a Level 5 Uncut Skill Gem. Not every quest offers a gem, though, so they come by sparingly.
To make your gem searching truly lucrative, however, you want to fight as many side bosses as possible. As we’ve mentioned, bosses have a higher chance to drop Uncut Skill Gems than regular enemies. While story bosses can be a solid source of gems, there are more side bosses to go around.
If you look on the world map, you can see if an area has a boss available by searching for a skull icon. The icons will be next to the area’s fast travel Waypoint on the map. If an area has a boss available, it will show a fully-colored skull on either side of the Waypoint. A grayed-out skull means you’ve already defeated that boss.
At the moment in Path of Exile 2 early access, those are the best ways to go about adding Uncut Skill Gems to your inventory.
