Support
Duration
Tier: 1
Requires: Level 1
Support Reqirements: +5 Str
Supports any skill that has a duration, making that duration shorter.
Supported Skills have 30% less Skill Effect Duration
Place into a Skill’s Support Gem socket in the Skills menu to apply its effects to that Skill. You cannot have multiple copies of the same Support Gem socketed at the same time.
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The Less Duration Support Gem in Path of Exile 2 is a unique support gem that reduces the duration of skills and effects that last for a specified time. While this gem may seem counterintuitive at first glance, it is designed to boost the overall effectiveness of certain skills that benefit from shorter durations. By decreasing the time for buffs, debuffs, or other duration-based effects, Less Duration can be a powerful choice for certain builds that need to either amplify their burst potential or optimize skill cycles.
Gem Details
Category: Support
Type: Duration
Tier: 1
Required Level: 1
Support Requirements: +5 Strength
Effect:
Supported Skills have 30% less Skill Effect Duration.
Place into a Skill’s Support Gem socket in the Skills menu to apply its effects to that skill.
You cannot have multiple copies of the same Support Gem socketed at the same time.
How Less Duration Works
The Less Duration Support Gem fundamentally changes how duration-based effects function in Path of Exile 2. Here’s a breakdown of how it works:
Decreases the Duration:
The primary effect of the gem is that it reduces the Skill Effect Duration of any skill with a duration-based effect by 30%. This affects skills that apply buffs, debuffs, or any other status effects that last for a period of time (e.g., curses, aura effects, damage over time effects, etc.).
Less Duration will apply to skills that are inherently tied to a duration mechanic. This includes both positive and negative duration effects, such as buffs, debuffs, and damage over time effects.
Potential Benefits:
For skills that benefit from faster cycling, such as damage over time (DoT) effects or buffs that need to be reapplied frequently, Less Duration can be highly beneficial. By reducing the duration of a specific effect, it allows you to reapply it faster, maximizing your uptime on those effects.
Skills that create temporary conditions (such as traps or minions) may also benefit from Less Duration as the faster cycling can lead to better overall effectiveness in certain scenarios.
Synergy with Certain Builds:
Less Duration is great for burst-based builds that want skills with a short but intense impact. These builds typically rely on frequent use of their abilities to gain burst damage or rapid debuff application.
Damage over time (DoT) builds that require high-frequency cycling of debuffs (such as poison, ignite, or bleed) will benefit from Less Duration, as it allows their DoT effects to be reapplied more frequently, leading to more damage output in the long run.
Aura-based builds or buffs that require quick refreshing of their effects might also find value in Less Duration. It can enable you to reapply your buffs or curses more often.
Advantages of Less Duration
Increased Frequency of Effects:
By reducing the duration of skills and effects, the frequency with which they are applied increases. This is particularly useful for damage over time builds or skills that need to be applied quickly for maximum effectiveness.
For example, if you’re using damage-over-time skills like Burning Arrow or Viper Strike, reducing the duration allows you to reapply the debuff more frequently, which can lead to an overall increase in total damage.
Optimized Burst Playstyle:
Builds that focus on bursting their enemies with high-damage, short-duration effects will find Less Duration helpful. It lets you maximize the burst cycle by reducing the time between reapplications of powerful skills, improving your uptime on critical effects.
Enhances Temporary Buffs and Debuffs:
If your build is buff-oriented, especially if it uses temporary buffs that can be stacked or refreshable (such as flasks or auras), Less Duration can be used to refresh these effects more frequently, ensuring that your damage output remains high during combat.
Similarly, for debuff-based builds that apply curses or damage over time debuffs (such as Bleed, Poison, or Shock), you will be able to reapply them quickly with the help of this gem.
Disadvantages and Considerations
Overall Damage Decrease in Some Cases:
The 30% reduced duration can be a double-edged sword, as it shortens the time your effects last, meaning you will lose out on total damage if your build relies on prolonged debuffs or effects that scale with duration.
If your build revolves around longer-lasting debuffs or buffs (such as Shock, Ignite, or Aura Buffs), the reduction in duration may hinder your performance, making the Less Duration gem less desirable.
Increased Reapplication Times for Some Skills:
Some skills benefit from longer duration effects, and using Less Duration on them may make it harder to benefit from long-lasting effects like aura buffs or long-term debuffs.
This gem does not work well for skills or builds that require a slow, sustained damage approach, such as those that use slow poison or long-term bleeds, where longer durations mean more total damage over time.
Ideal Skills and Builds for Less Duration
Burst Damage Builds:
Less Duration is ideal for burst damage builds that focus on quickly applying damage-dealing effects. For example, a trap-based build that applies damage over time effects but wants to apply them quickly will see a boost in performance with Less Duration.
Burst Skill Builds, where you focus on maximizing the impact of each skill in a short window, can benefit from the quick cycles of reapplied effects.
DoT Builds:
Damage over Time (DoT) builds can use Less Duration to reapply debuffs like Poison, Bleed, or Ignite at an accelerated rate. The gem is particularly useful for builds that want frequent application of effects that need to be reapplied often for maximum damage output.
Aura Builds:
Aura-based builds that rely on temporary buffs can use Less Duration to refresh their auras and buffs more frequently. The reduced duration ensures that buffs are constantly renewed, increasing the uptime of these effects.
Conclusion
The Less Duration Support Gem is a powerful choice for burst-focused builds and those that rely on short-term effects. By reducing the duration of skills that use duration-based effects, this gem allows for more frequent applications of buffs, debuffs, and damage over time, leading to potentially higher damage output in builds that need rapid cycling of effects. However, for builds that rely on long-lasting debuffs or sustained effects, Less Duration may not be the best choice. Understanding the trade-offs between shorter durations and higher frequency of effect reapplication is key to using this gem effectively.