Putting cobalt jewels in Path of Exile can be a bit confusing for new players. Cobalt jewels are a type of jewel that provides bonuses to spell damage. Understanding where to socket them depends on your build and passive tree.
What are cobalt jewels?
Cobalt jewels are a type of jewel that provides bonuses to spell damage in Path of Exile. The main stats they provide include:
- Increased spell damage
- Increased area damage
- Increased elemental damage
- Increased critical strike chance for spells
They can roll a variety of useful mods for boosting your spell damage. The implicits can provide spell damage, area damage, cast speed, critical strike chance, and more. The explicits can also provide damage, critical strikes, elemental damage, mana, and other mods.
Cobalt jewels are best used by spell-focused builds that deal damage primarily through spells. They help scale your spell damage, critical strikes, and other key offensive stats. Popular builds that use them include:
- Freeze pulse builds
- Arc builds
- Ball lightning builds
- Flameblast builds
- Arc mines/traps
- Lightning tendrils
- Storm call
- And many more spell-focused builds
Overall, cobalt jewels help provide a big boost to your spell damage potential. Placing them effectively is key to maximizing your damage.
Where to socket cobalt jewels
There are a few main options for where to socket your cobalt jewels:
1. Passive tree jewel sockets
One of the best places to put cobalt jewels is in jewel sockets on the passive skill tree. Look for sockets that are located near key spell damage nodes. This allows the cobalt jewel implicits and explicits to boost your main spell damage passives.
For example, on a Templar you may path to the Amplify notable. Putting a cobalt jewel in this socket makes the most of the increased area damage. For a Shadow, the Fangs of the Viper notable provides spell damage – again, a great spot for a cobalt jewel.
In general, look for sockets near:
- Elemental damage
- Area damage
- Spell damage
- Critical strikes
- Cast speed
- Specific elements like fire, cold, lightning
Placing your cobalt jewels near these nodes will boost your overall damage substantially.
2. Gear jewel sockets
Jewel sockets on gear like body armours and helmets are also decent spots. This is especially true if the sockets are close to other spell damage or elemental mods on the item.
For example, a 6-link body armour with +X% to fire damage would be a great item to put a fire-themed cobalt jewel into. This boosts your main skill links with the jewel.
Some key gear to look for sockets on:
- Body armours
- Helmets
- Shields
This allows the cobalt jewel to apply its bonuses to your main skills, supports, and auras in those items.
3. Abyssal sockets
Abyss jewels with cobalt-like mods can also be placed into Abyssal sockets from items like belts, amulets, rings and more. These provide easy sockets that apply to all your skills.
The added flat damage from Abyss jewels complements % increased modifiers well too. This makes abyss sockets decent options if you have them on gear.
Optimizing your cobalt jewels
To optimize your cobalt jewels, there are a few things to focus on:
- Your main skill: Tailor the jewel mods to your main spell. Prioritize elemental damage, AoE, cast speed, crit, etc. based on your skill.
- Implicits: The implicit mods are very powerful, so try to find jewels with spell damage, area damage, crit multiplier, or cast speed implicits.
- Explicits: Look for damage, penetration, crit, multiplier, and utility mods like mana and area of effect.
- Rarity: Higher rarity jewels can roll higher values for their mods. Prioritize rare jewels when possible.
Tracking down well-rolled cobalt jewels can take some investment. But they are one of the most efficient ways to scale damage for spell casters.
Cobalt jewel farming
If you need to farm some cobalt jewels, here are some tips:
- Farm Zana’s maps – her personal maps can drop a lot of jewels.
- Delve for jewels – look for jewel reward nodes in the Azurite Mines.
- Legion encounters drop a lot of jewels from the reward chests.
- Heist and unique maps are other options too.
Then you can either trade for cobalt jewels or try alterations/regals to roll your own. Using harvest crafting to target spell mods is also very effective.
Example Cobalt Jewel
Here is an example of a well-rolled cobalt jewel:
| Rarity | Name | Type | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rare | Cobalt Jewel | Cobalt Jewel | 78 |
| Item Level: 83 | |||
| Implicits: 12% increased Spell Damage | |||
| Explicit: +16% to Critical Strike Multiplier for Spells +10% to Area Damage 14% increased maximum Mana +15% to Cold and Lightning Damage |
|||
This jewel has a high item level of 83 allowing top tier mods. The 12% increased spell damage implicit boosts all spell damage. The explicits provide crit multi, area damage, mana, and cold/lightning damage for scaling specific elements.
Overall this jewel provides a powerful damage boost for any cold or lightning spell build. With good implicit and explicits, it is an ideal cobalt jewel.
Summary
Here are some key tips for using cobalt jewels effectively:
- Socket them in the passive tree near spell damage and elemental nodes.
- Place them in gear sockets near other damage mods.
- Abyssal jewels work well in abyss sockets.
- Tailor the mods to your main spell or element.
- Prioritize high rarity jewels with good implicits.
- Farm, trade, craft to obtain great cobalt jewels.
With the right cobalt jewels socketed in optimal locations, you can massively scale your spell damage and clear speed. They provide an efficient way to max out offensive potential for any spell caster.
