Let's talk about the 800LB gorilla, Vaal Gems
" Each projectile that is normally shot has 2 more added to it. Needless to say.. it's pretty insane with those two skills. |
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" I'm going to assume you have a problem with your eyes. Nothing to see here.
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How is this even an issue. Vaal gems aren't necessary, they are almost flavour items. Complaining about them is like getting some extra bread to your meal and start screaming 'you've ruined my dinner, bastards'. The amount of moronic complaints threads post patch is stunning.
IGN: Arrows_and_Morality
A man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man |
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My fix:
1. Make them unsupportable: As it stands, most are too weak to justify their infrequent usability, but would be risk being an easy button in too many situations if buffed and supported. Having them be unsupportable would make the unset ring more attractive and would allow GGG to tune their power more precisely. 2. Soul flask: Allows more flexibility with their use without introduce a huge new mechanic. The flask should store 2x the standard number of souls needed to use a gem, with some more powerful gems using the full flask. (There could be a unique flask with more charge capacity) 3. Cool-down: Give the flask itself a 15 second cool-down to to avoid immediate double nuking while still allowing flexibility. The other idea which I think could be cool is to have their power scale based on the number of souls they have at any point in time, with all souls consumed on use and requiring a minimum of 1 soul to use at all. It could be scaled so that it doesn't surpass the usefulness of a regular skill until it's about 1/3 charged. At least that way we wouldn't have this awkward dynamic of it only being usable at all until everything is dead -- it would be more a closer skill than an opener. |
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vaal rain of arrows follwed by lmp vaal fire arrow is awesome for doing large spike damage to bosses :3
R.I.P. my beloved P.o.E.
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" Plenty of comments about Vaal gems already. My impression is they are balanced around a co-ordinated party play game. That's why there's a lot of posts saying they are NOT very good, lots of solo enthusiasts here imo. Only reason they're not very good, you are not in a party that co-ordinates. I was partied with only ONE friend and we both used our Vaal gems in the spider lair Normal to get the spike for the quest. The boss was killed pretty much INSTANTLY, the programming for that encounter didn't have a chance to progress. Vaal Gems: Solo = utility Party = cut down on Boss kill time |
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don't see any reason to use vaal gems
I played around with a few of them and they're junk as far as I'm concerned... not worth the gem slot it takes to use them. I guess they might be cool for builds that don't use all 24 gem slots or for builds that are junk against bosses and need something to burst damage down a boss, but other than that - useless. The 352nd character to hit Level 100 in Standard
The 82nd character to hit Delve 1000 in Standard |
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I like them well enough as they are, but I think they could be dramatically improved.
A couple things I would do differently: 1: Make souls from Vaal Gems and flask charges a unified mechanic. Flask charges would be renamed soul charges, but otherwise Vaal Gems and flasks would work the same exact way. 2: The Vaal keyword should mean that that gem cannot benefit from support gems that do not also have the Vaal keyword. 3: Rebalance all the Vaal the gems with both 1 and 2 in mind. Bullshit, you get the game for free.
-Qarl |
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Total garbage. I dont know why you cant use them normally then press a modifier like shift when charged. I never use one as is. Much better to link a real gem.
Git R Dun!
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I've enjoyed leveling up with a few of them, some are quite effective at clearing a room or 1 shotting a boss. And actually given some time and experimentation I wouldn't be surprised to see some effective builds centered around one or a couple.
Noblesse oblige
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