With the Return of the Ancients expansion landing on May 29th, dataminers have already pulled back the curtain on what may be one of the largest content drops since Path of Exile 2 entered Early Access. A massive trove of nearly 200 new gems has surfaced through POE2DB, including active skills, support gems, meta gems, and companion abilities. While some of these are tagged as DNT (Do Not Translate / unused), the sheer volume points to GGG quietly preparing new classes, new weapon types, and entirely new playstyle archetypes for 0.5.
Below is an early look at the most interesting PoE 2 0.5 New Skill Gems & Supports found in the leak, grouped by theme so you can quickly figure out what fits your next build.
PoE 2 0.5 New Active Skill Gems (Leaks)
With weapons covered, let's look at the actual skill gems players will likely be slotting in. The leak is heavy on attack skills, but spells and minion abilities also got plenty of attention.
Axe-Based Attack Skills
A whole family of axe abilities appeared in the files, most marked DNT-UNUSED but clearly polished enough to be playable:
Axe Chop / Slash / Heavy Cleave — bread-and-butter strike attacks
Axe Execute — likely a finisher scaling on low-life targets
Leaping Chop / Leaping Axe Catch — mobility slams
Axe Raised Chop — a Slam-tagged AoE attack
Axe Whirling Slash — spinning AoE for clear
The placement of axe nodes near the Marauder/Warrior region of the passive tree reinforces the idea that a strength-based axe class is incoming.
Spear, Sword, and Claw Skills
Beyond axes, several other weapon archetypes received fresh skills:
Spear Vortex — a melee AoE tornado-style attack
Spinning Throw / Spiral Throw — projectile attacks, possibly returning Whirling Throw mechanics
Claw Rake & Evasive Strike — fast melee attacks pairing well with energy shield builds
Spinning Inferno — fire-based melee strike
Shattering Spite — physical/lightning/fire AoE attack
Cast On Meta Gems Are Back
Trigger meta gems are returning in volume. Files include:
Cast on Melee Stun — store energy when stunning enemies in melee, then unleash a triggered spell
Cast when Stunned — trigger spells when you take a stun hit
Cast while Channelling — channel a skill, periodically auto-cast linked spells
Cast on Charge Use — gain meta energy when consuming a flask charge (pairs well with the new flask-charge support)
These mirror PoE 1's notorious CoC and Cast on Crit setups. If unbalanced, every build could collapse into "hold one button, trigger ten spells" — something to watch closely on May 7.
Minion and Companion Gems
Minion players got a lot of love this patch. Standout additions include:
Demon Magus — a casting companion that fires linked spells in sequence (slot any spells you want, the minion cycles through them)
Hydra Familiar — a totem-like trigger minion
Azmerian Packleader — physical/fire/chaos hybrid minion (likely Druid-related)
Spectre & Soul Crystal — confirming Spectres are coming to PoE 2
Detonate Minion — sacrificial AoE blast
His Grave Command / Foul Emergence / Vile Intrusion — a series of dark-themed minion and chaos spells, possibly tied to a new ascendancy
The Demon Magus in particular looks like it could carry hands-free builds, autocasting buffs or trigger conditions while you focus on movement.
Chaos and Cold Spell Expansion
Chaos has been underrepresented for ages, but 0.5 looks set to fix that.
His Dark Horizon — cold/storm AoE spell
His Scattering Calamity — projectile lightning AoE with duration
His Winnowing Flame — triggered fire payoff spell
His Foul Emergence — physical/chaos AoE
Witchbolt — chaos projectile spell
On the cold side, Icestorm returns as a sustained cold AoE spell with storm tags, plus a new mechanic where shattering frozen enemies generates cold DoT zones (Frost Squall). Cold-themed support gems for freeze chance and cold ailments are also in the files.
Buffs, Auras, and Utility
A few quality-of-life and build-defining auras appeared:
Unarmed lightning aura — creates a lightning bolt on unarmed melee hits, capped at 5 procs per 0.5 seconds (a clear Monk buff)
Bear companion — scales with both Strength and Dexterity stacks, possibly meant for stat-stacking builds
Wrath of the Thunder God — meta skill that builds energy from melee hits and unleashes a Zeus-like ultimate
Flame Link / Soul Link — return of the link spell category from PoE 1
Elemental Siphon — converts melee strikes into multi-element damage with duration
PoE 2 0.5 New Support Gems (TBC Leaks)
Active skills are only half the story. A wave of new support gems aims to round out builds that have been struggling, especially melee and energy-shield characters.
Defensive Supports
Energy Shield Barrier (Empower-tagged) — when your supported skill triggers a stun, ES recharge starts immediately and cannot be interrupted for 2 seconds
Empowered Recovery — recovers life or mana per quarter-second of attack/cast time on the empowered skill, scaling with damage taken (a clear push for sustain on slow melee hits)
Soul Eater on ES Shatter — consuming an enemy's energy shield triggers a chaos AoE explosion equal to 10% of their max ES
Offensive and Hybrid Supports
Charge Generation Boost — enemies killed by empowered skills grant 100% more flask charges, feeding Cast on Charge Use builds
Spell Melee — modifiers that apply to melee damage also apply to spell damage on the linked gem, opening hybrid scaling for builds like the Oracle ascendancy
Bleed Duration & Potency — multiple supports targeting bleed scaling, suggesting bleed builds will finally be viable
Cold Penetration / Freeze Chance — supports aimed at making cold a competitive element again
Chaos and Minion Supports
Chaos receives both passive tree love and gem-level reinforcement, including supports that scale chaos DoT, area-of-effect chaos hits, and minion-based chaos damage. With minion-heavy ascendancies being teased, expect supports targeting companions and triggered minion abilities as well.
New Weapon Types Confirmed by Skill Tags
One of the clearest takeaways from the gem files is the appearance of attack skills locked to weapon types that don't exist yet in PoE 2. The new weapon requirements found across leaked skills include:
One-handed and two-handed axes (multiple skills tagged Attack, Melee, Strike)
Daggers (e.g., short-range strike skills like Shadow Dash variants)
Claws (Claw Rake, Evasive Strike)
One-handed and two-handed swords
Flails / maces (a "kistень"-style weapon mentioned in multiple files)
This much new weaponry rarely arrives for a single class. Combined with the Templar-like figure from the Uncover the Truth trailer and ascendancy leaks (Wild Speaker, Arcane Archer, possible Gladiator), it strongly hints at two melee-oriented classes dropping in 0.5.
What This Means for Build Diversity
Putting it all together, 0.5 looks like the patch where PoE 2 finally moves beyond the Lightning + Spark + Comet meta. A few takeaways for theorycrafting:
Trigger builds will dominate early — Cast on Melee Stun and Cast while Channelling are too strong on paper to ignore
Melee strength characters still need help — without serious life pool buffs, axe and sword builds risk repeating Warrior's launch problems
Minion players win big — Spectres, Hydra Familiar, and Demon Magus give summoners real flexibility
Cold and Chaos builds become viable mainstream picks, not niche experiments
Hybrid builds (spell + melee scaling) open thanks to Spell Melee support
