Patch 1.0.5 is live and has introduced 3 new support gems!
Multistrike
Skills supported by this gem will have their damage per hit reduced, but attack speed multiplied. Both the damage penalty and the attack speed increase favor attacks that have a damage base from additive elemental damage. The attack speed multiplier makes the Faster Attacks support gem have a greater weight, as well as attack speed in general. Since Faster Attacks is almost neccessary when used with Multistrike, it further makes physical based melee disadvantageous because there will not be enough room to use Increased Melee Damage, Added Fire, and Weapon Elemental as well. Each attack will be delivered as sets of three, but cost mana as if the set was one attack. The set of three attacks will either all crit, or all non crit. This mechanic discourages Multistrike users to spec into crit because of the overkill factor of the mechanic. Elemental users should be very careful with crit against reflect, as shock stacking 3 successive crits may result in an instant death against reflect.
Melee Splash
The splash effect does not do much damage but offers users amazing uptime from on hit triggers like Infernal Blow and Dominating Blow. The main benefit of the gem is the added efficiency of single targeting a rare monster and having the nearby white mobs die around the same time. The huge damage penalty for the AoE portion of the skill again encourages users to stack elemental based additive damage. Linking an ability with Melee Splash causes the base skill to be given the AoE tag for other skills. For instance, linking Heavy Strike with Increased Area of Effect will do nothing, but linking it further with Melee Splash will increase the splash radius. Area based damage bonuses only apply to the AoE portion of the skill, not the single target. This support is disabled with abilities that already have the AoE tag, Viper Strike, Whirling Blades, and Shield Charge.
Power Charge on Critical
Power Charges will no longer be so scarce with this support. Each power charge increases the critical chance of the player by 50%. As a result, keeping power charges is easier than building them up with this support gem. The trigger only applies once to abilities that hit more than one target. For instance, critting a dozen monsters with Ice Nova will only roll the power charge chance one time. This support is good for characters that already have a lot of crit, and are able to cast or attack quickly. Totems and minions cannot generate charges for the player. For those who use the dual totem passive and thus do no damage themselves, they are still able to trigger critical hits through spells or attacks. For example, using Power Charge on Critical linked with Ice Spear and Increased Critical Strike Chance, will result in an easy method of obtaining power charges that will then boost the crit rate of both totems.
