What if Vaal Skills worked like this?! - A fix to the problem.

Here's my perceived notion of the problem.
Vaal Gems in their current incarnation:
- Occupy a gem slot (and up to 4-6 links of support gems) on their own, this is steep for something only used seldomly
- Require charging and lose charges when leaving the zone, this makes it that the player feels that they are a chore and not very impactful.
- Occupy a button on your bar (which you could use for Immortal Call, Enduring Cry, movement spell, etc)
- Are powerful when used but when you can't use them drag you down because of all the above.

Let's assume Vaal Fireball for the discussion, but it applies to all skills really:

What if Vaal Fireball would still be a Fireball skill gem? Therefore:
- If you spam right click with the Vaal Fireball you will spam Fireballs just like the normal gem.
- If you have not obtained the number of souls it casts just like a normal Fireball
- If you have obtained the number of souls, and you press its hotkey, it still casts like a normal Fireball.
- However, if you have obtained the number of souls, you can Press CONTROL and the hotkey and it will launch the Ultimate version of the Vaal Fireball and charges are lost, etc

So basically the new Vaal Fireball behaves like Fireball when the normal hotkey is pressed and like Vaal Fireball when you use the ctrl+hotkey.

Also, to fix the charging problem, make it such that when you first log into a New Instance (and only the first time you enter it) either:
a) All your Vaal gems get charged to Full.
or
b) All your Vaal gems retain the values of the previous area.

So basically instead of initializing them to Zero, you either initialise them at 100% (the OP version) or at whatever value they had in the last non-town zone you were in (the moderate version).

I think these two changes will fix the following:

- Gemslot/Link necessity: you will now have a linked Fireball to use whenever you want so it does not feed that you lost 4L worth of gems only to cast the spell once every 2 minutes.
- Button on the hotbar necessity: another limitation is the buttons on the hotbar. By having Vaal Fireball also be your Fireball Button we minimize this issue as well.
- Charges problem: makes the gems usable a bit quicker, it will feel better and more responsive
- Charge Abuse problem: this cannot be abused as you cannot repeatedly go out of an area to charge up your gems.

So? I think this is a good one!

Discuss and comment please.

This is how I originally thought they were gonna work. I am baffled as to how they could have designed it otherwise, considering that we're constantly at a lack for sockets to put skills on due to all the support gems needed.

Sadly... I don't see them changing the system, not at this point. You have to imagine that they considered the thought of having them be used this way, and for some reason decided against it.

They will just keep adding new Vaal gems every two weeks until the next league, wasting time and resources since hardly anyone is interested in using them.

I feel that they pretty much solved the charging issue by having it scale with difficulty. I run 2 vaal gems, and in docks/maps I am able to use both of them 2-3 times each. Both of them require 64 souls each, so it's not like they are the lowest requirement. If I was only running 1 gem, it would charge even faster then the 2 sharing the souls.

I also don't really notice a problem with the gem taking up a spot on my bar. My enduring cry, immortal call, molten shell and curse are all automated so I can remove them from the bar. My auras only take up a single spot while I am casting them and then I can remove them from my bar. That leaves me with my attack, single target, and movement skill. I've got plenty of space for extra skills and I'm glad that Vaal gems are able to take this up. Perhaps those that aren't running CwDT or CwS for their supports are going to have issues, but there are available workarounds to free up bar space for most people.

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Marquoz wrote:

I feel that they pretty much solved the charging issue by having it scale with difficulty. I run 2 vaal gems, and in docks/maps I am able to use both of them 2-3 times each. Both of them require 64 souls each, so it's not like they are the lowest requirement. If I was only running 1 gem, it would charge even faster then the 2 sharing the souls.

I also don't really notice a problem with the gem taking up a spot on my bar. My enduring cry, immortal call, molten shell and curse are all automated so I can remove them from the bar. My auras only take up a single spot while I am casting them and then I can remove them from my bar. That leaves me with my attack, single target, and movement skill. I've got plenty of space for extra skills and I'm glad that Vaal gems are able to take this up. Perhaps those that aren't running CwDT or CwS for their supports are going to have issues, but there are available workarounds to free up bar space for most people.

Not everyone affords automation (at least not on low level characters). Also it's reasonable to think of the following setup:
- Single Target Skill
- AOE Skill
- Defensive Curse
- Offensive Curse
- Movement Skill
- Defensive Skill (w/0 automation such as skele totem)
- Aura / Arctic Armor

This makes 7 buttons. We currently have 8 buttons at our disposal but one of them is also the Move command so most people will just bind move on it.

Not that flexible imo...

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Or just use them as a once in a while fun to see the effect going off skill.

Or just vendor them: gotta make those ID scrolls.

I think the reason they did not have them work as you suggested is because that would make all the non-Vaal skill gems obsolete and worthless. If Vaal gems did work like you suggested they should, no one would use just a vanilla fireball or spectral throw, etc.

Kind of makes all other skill gems moot.

I agree and think Vaal gems need to be looked at. I also think you're idea sounds like a fun mechanic that could fit into the game nicely.

I guess I'm conflicted. :/ I tried to use one but there's so few hot keys already and I need to sacrifice a few sockets for it. I'm all about creative choice, and consequences for those choices, but it's not really worth the space because I can seldom use it anyways.

There needs to be more utility to them.

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Soldier_X wrote:

I think the reason they did not have them work as you suggested is because that would make all the non-Vaal skill gems obsolete and worthless. If Vaal gems did work like you suggested they should, no one would use just a vanilla fireball or spectral throw, etc.

Given that Normal Gems can be upgraded to Vaal Gems with a Vaal Orb I dont believe this is an issue.

Just like 20% Quality gems make 0% Quality Gems obsolete and worthless. You have GCPs and recipes in order to upgrade the first into the latter.

With some tweaks to the Vaal Gems drops to make them rarer this would work perfectly and everyone would start with normal gems and upgrade their way to a 20/20 Vaal Gem.

Also keep in mind that because of the soul mechanic you will be pressed not to carry too many Vaal Gems as this will severely limit their availability for use.

So I think there aren't any worries there.

i agree with this. maybe add that vaal gems cannot ever have quality. so if you choose tho use the vaal version you will never have access to the quality bonus but a powerful alternate skill.