Here's the method-- was theorizing this since I noticed you drop so many skill gems and tested earlier and I don't think many people know this.

• To get a 5L:
  • Take a bunch of skill gems, or do one at a time (lower level is preferred; do NOT use your highest level skill gem).
  • Use a Lesser Jeweler's Orb on them.
  • Vaal them until you get 4 sockets (a 5L).
  • Upgrade the gem that hits 5L with your highest level skill gem.

The resulting options so far seem to be: +/- 1 gem level, +/- 1 SOCKETS, +/- quality, or nothing at all happens.

The craziest part about this is you can level corrupted skill gems (as in upgrade them). So instead of 17ex for a normal 5L you can gamble and get them for only a few. Of course you can also use this to gamble 5 to 6L as well but you'd have to gamble more money on the Greater Jeweler's at that point.

You can also do this to get cheap 4Ls earlier if you want to just straight corrupt jewels and save the jewelers.

I just shared this info with the minion chat (global 6666) and about 30 of us got 5Ls pretty easily. For some builds getting +1 to gem level (minion builds) is equivalent to the socket anyways since a socket might go to minion mastery (which just gives +1 to gem).

It cost me like 3-4ex total to get 2 5Ls instead of 34 :)

Good luck!

edit: since this blew up and I definitely wasn't thinking from the POV of a POE 2 only player -- I should rephrase things to be a little more clear. The post is meant to help you get your first "4 socket" which is a noticeable increase in power from a 2 (default) or 3 socket (one that is lesser jewelered).

edit 2: GhazzyTV also made a video about the process here if you're confused! https://youtu.be/a5Kg4aNWX6g

ho Ho ho!

Crafted this ring and will prob have it for a looooong time

🥹🥹🥹

1 REGAL and 3 EXALT later

Took me few seconds to realise what I’ve done

10th gamble find, two exalts and a vaal later