Vaaling gems

so i'm a solo/self found only guy..so far now i have vaal'd about 8 or 9 20/20 gems and seen no change in the gem in all but 1 which dropped it down to lvl 19. is this the status quo? wondering if i'm just unlucky so far and what kind of streaks ya'll have gone on with vaaling gems

That's about right. I've had more bad results than good. Losing a level sucks but can be recovered. Losing 10 quality bites the big one (happened to me twice). I usually have a backup gem and hope the first one doesn't get worse so I can try the second.