Let's talk about the 800LB gorilla, Vaal Gems

I built an HP Righteous Fire + Cyclone facebreaker character and found Vaal Cyclone in my first corrupt zone shortly after. It's a hell of a lot of fun to play, and pulling all the enemies into my otherwise small-radius abilities saves me quite a bit of time for larger groups. When I run into huge packs of things that I can oneshot, it still takes some time to clear them out since I have to actually get close to all of them. Vaal Cyclone fixes that and just about refills itself in the process. I don't even have any supports connected to it.

May just be the build I'm playing, but I've had a good experience with the Vaal gem I've been using so far. :)

I've tried to make good use of several Vaal gems on my Ambush Storm Call / Tempest Shield build... None of them has been more than marginally useful so far, and I don't see keeping it socketed once I have the gems and links to set up CwS/CwDT triggers. My build is already socket and hotkey intensive; I have 3 primary skills competing for sockets (Storm Call + Spark Totem + Tempest Shield), plus auras, triggers, and utility skills like Molten Shell or Lightning Warp. Vaal gems need to be more than not useless in a vacuum to be usable; they have to justify the opportunity cost of not being able to use something else instead.

Vaal Spark fits best into my build, because I already use lightning damage mods and Conductivity. It seems to fill mostly the same role as Vaal Fireball. Both can be okay room clearing skills if I find myself in the middle of a crowded room full of trash mobs with a fully charged Vaal skill, but those rooms are already very easy to clear for any half decent caster build.

I'm trying to use Vaal Lightning Warp now as an "oh shit" button, but the range is so small that it's pretty much useless. It has saved me once from getting path blocked in a big Strongbox pack, but most of the time it misses some or all of the mobs I was trying to warp, and the damage is barely noticeable compared to my 'real' skills. It's certainly not the kind of damage spike it would need to be to be appealing given its limitations. Regular Lightning Warp seems strictly better as an anti-surround skill, and I can actually rely on it being available when I need it.

Vaal Double Strike seems like it could be a good little DPS boost for tough mobs, assuming the double fully scales with your attack speed and weapon damage and that Inc Duration works to make it last longer. Still, the fact that you need to kill a bunch of trash mobs in the same zone makes it pointless to build around - it won't be available in a lot of fights, and it will pretty much never be sustainable in a long fight.

I feel like they balanced the skill effects around use being only moderately restricted, but then put extreme restrictions on use as if to allow them to make seemingly OP effects without breaking the game. Something's gotta give. If they want to keep the current souls mechanic to prevent it being 'abused' (read: at all useful) in boss encounters, I think the effects should be much bigger and splashier. If it's not gonna be an efficient skill choice, might as well make it a *fun* skill choice. I think the damage/effectiveness of the Vaal gems I've seen used could be ramped up quite a bit without them becoming OP for running endgame content.

Or, if they want to keep the power level in check, they should make Vaal gems more accessible and reliable to use. Limit it in a way we can build around to enable repeated Vaal gem use in boss fights (not constant spamming, but consistent use that adds appreciably to sustained DPS). With a game this big and mechanically complex, there are a ton of different ways to do that. One idea off the top of my head: put a cooldown of ~5-10s as an absolute floor, and make each cast add a stackable debuff that causes either chaos damage over time or a % of mana reserved for ~30-60s. You could build around chaos resist and life regen to tank a lot of those damage stacks, or use BM gems and sac your whole mana pool to the mana reserved stacks, but most builds would only be able to handle a couple stacks at most and would have to moderate their Vaal gem use accordingly.

A much simpler idea if they don't want to design, implement, test and balance an entirely new mechanic like that: add a new skill gem that lets players harvest Vaal gem souls somehow. An easy/powerful version of the gem could just consume corpses to grant extra souls. A slightly harder to use one could deal damage and/or cost a silly amount of mana. If they want to make people build around it to use it properly, they could have it stack a debuff. That way Vaal gems can stay as is, and most players would continue to use them as is, but players would have a more consistent alternative to recharge souls.

Hurm, I really do like the idea of a support gem building up souls (it'd have to cut damage significantly, also losing cast/attack speed like Spell Totems have would go a ways to making you feel weaker) and having builds where you just have a guy charging up his limit breaks to unleash them over and over again. He'd be the most popular guy in pug's.

It just has to be sub-par without enabling unique items. Hurm.

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

forget weapon vaal gems , the vaal spell gems are for spell casters as they are essentailly nukes.


i used 2 vaal fireballs to kill corruption bosses in normal.

vaalfireball+ lmp is amazing.



But the assessment that they are for leveling is accurate since no one in their right mind would use them as a main skill and therefore dedicate more than a 4l to them.

but a 4l vaal fireball is pretty good

lmp conc effect makes a good 3l as well

So much this, my Vaal fireball linked to lmp absolutely destroys everything in merciless already, and its only level 11 or 12. I cant wait to see the mayhem it can cause at 20

I wouldn't be surprised if they end up adding a soul flask. "You gain 32 souls. You gain double souls for every kill during the flask duration." Make it like the Diamond Flask where each flask only gets one use and it takes a while to fill up (but unlike the Vaal gems, it doesn't reset upon switching areas).

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Both can be okay room clearing skills if I find myself in the middle of a crowded room full of trash mobs with a fully charged Vaal skill, but those rooms are already very easy to clear for any half decent caster build.

Link it with lmp + added lightning(and possibly trap). You can use it to destroy bosses/any difficult rare mob/entire rooms. It's much better than your main skill, trust me.

I am suing vaal cyclone to gether all mobs around me in standard lol.Yeah with that aspect they are useful..

Most of them need buffs, some of them might need a nerf. Overall the price you pay in socket slots to make them useful is just too much for most of them, unless it's a 1 socket wonder.

My buddy logged on the other day and told me to follow him out to find a strongbox. We found one...he opened it and Vaal Ground Slam --> Vaal Detonate Dead. All exploded gloriously.

Hilarious!!! But yeah, Vaal gems suck...smh

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kasub wrote:

"

Both can be okay room clearing skills if I find myself in the middle of a crowded room full of trash mobs with a fully charged Vaal skill, but those rooms are already very easy to clear for any half decent caster build.

Link it with lmp + added lightning(and possibly trap). You can use it to destroy bosses/any difficult rare mob/entire rooms. It's much better than your main skill, trust me.

LMP doesn't just add 2 Projectiles? I thought LMP would be useless for Vaal Fireball/Spark, since who wants to add +2 Projectiles to 32, and get 70% Damage on all of them?