Vaal Gems - Half-Assed Design

I made a suggestion regarding Ultimate skills a while before Vaal Skills were introduced:
Awakening (Ultimate Skills)

GGG did a lovely job introducing the concept of Ultimate skills in a way that fits Wraeclast perfectly.

However, building Souls solely through kills is an extremely stupid, frustrating design.
There should be some sort of reward over a dragged fight against a single powerful enemy or in areas with few enemies, and currently Vaal Skills feel too gimmicky due to that.

There could be various ways to approach this, including:
a) By default you have low value on all forms of gaining Souls, but have skills/keystones/item properties that improve or change that
b) By default you only gain Souls from Attacking, based on the damage you would deal (even if dodged/evaded/blocked) or Being Attacked, based on the damage you would suffer (even if you dodge/evade/block) - which means attacking thin air gives nothing - then you have skills/keystones/item properties that grant bonus X% Soul gain from specific events, like critting, stunning, hitting more than X enemies, being crit, being stunned, etc.

I prefer option B, as they give you a simple and intuitive baseline Soul generation, while allowing you to specialize into certain ways of building Souls by investing some of your gear/skills/etc on it.

Then, you would have many modifiers to the way you build Souls without requiring Uniques:
1 - Per Kill - more from harder enemies (bosses, etc)
2 - On Attack/Cast (not On Hit) - modified by base spell/weapon speed (faster = less), but scaling with attack/cast speed modifiers
3 - On Crit - self-descriptive, but same scaling/restrictions as On Attack
4 - Per X% of enemy Health dealt as damage - requires less % from harder enemies (bosses, etc)
5 - Per X% of Health lost
6 - On Stun - self-descriptive
7 - Totems
8 - Minions
9 - Curses
10 - Blood Magic
11 - AoE
12 - Mana

While there might be new Keystones/Notables designed specifically for Vaal Skill builds, some existing Keystones/Notables could have additional bonus(es) affecting Soul Generation.
Examples:

• Totemic Mastery - X% increased Soul generation from Totem actions
• Shamanistic Fury - Same as 4, but for Totems
• Totemic Zeal - Same as 1, but for Totems
• Ironwood - Same as 5, but for Totems
• Ancestral Bond - X Per Second per active Totem
• Lord of the Dead - X Per Second based on Number & Type of Minions active
• Hex Master - X% increased Soul generation from actions against Cursed enemies
• Whispers of Doom - X Souls Per Second based on Number of Curses active on nearby enemies.
• Blood Magic (Keystone) - 1 Soul per X% Life spent (not damage taken or life loss).
• Blast Radius / Amplify - X% increased Soul generated from actions that affect more than Y enemies with a single attack/cast.
• Mana Battery - 1 Soul per X% Mana Spent (from using / maintaining skills)
• Mind Over Matter - 1 Soul per X% Mana Lost (from damage taken / life loss)

They have a great concept and are worth keeping.
It's just the way Souls are built that sucks balls - it greatly restricts the gameplay value/depth behind Vaal Skills.

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Nurvus wrote:

There should be MANY more ways to build Souls without requiring Uniques:
1 - Per Kill - more from harder enemies (bosses, etc)
2 - On Attack (not On Hit) - modified by base spell/weapon speed (faster = less), but scaling with attack speed modifiers
3 - On Crit - self-descriptive, but same scaling/restrictions as On Attack
4 - Per X% of enemy Health dealt as damage - requires less % from harder enemies (bosses, etc)
5 - Per X% of Health lost
6 - On Stun - self-descriptive

#1, #3, and something similar to #6 — specifically, when you receive a Critical Strike — could all be done with a single new item: a flask which gives you Souls when consumed. Such an item would also allow the use of Vaal skills earlier in an instance than is currently possible.

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DirkAustin wrote:

The more i read about these vaal gem suggestions the more i am for removing them completely. No one is happy with their gimmicky one off nature and theyre just crap for many players except for me.

Except that anyone that uses utility skills often can't use them. Vaal gems simply require too many souls.

"

Nurvus wrote:

They have a great concept and are worth keeping.
It's just the way Souls are built that sucks balls - it greatly restricts the gameplay value/depth behind Vaal Skills.

...and I wonder why that is.

Oh, I've been saying it since they came out:

Vaal skills need to act as regular skill gems while not charged, and the method to charge them most likely needs to change.

I'm trying to understand how GGG came up with this idea and thought that it would work. Players either totally love vaal gems, and usually only some of them, or players like me outright hate them all and can't find a use for them.

"

Natharias wrote:

Vaal skills need to act as regular skill gems while not charged

While we're at it, why don't we remove the "You cannot Cast Supported Spells directly" from CWDT and COC?

Sorry for getting off topic, but maybe if vaal gems consumed a single soule per use if you use them as normal skills?
That would mean you'd need normal gems (to get a soul in the first place), vaal gems would still have an inherent downside, but the socket cost for vaal gems would be reduced somewhat

"

DirkAustin wrote:

Do you understand that when they do act like regular gems until charged you get rid of the normal versions entirely?

Is that not obvious? Didn't think I had to say everything including what I was saying between the lines.

Vaal gems aren't even worthy to wipe my ass right now. That's how useless they are.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

"

Natharias wrote:

Vaal skills need to act as regular skill gems while not charged

While we're at it, why don't we remove the "You cannot Cast Supported Spells directly" from CWDT and COC?

Why? I'm talking about Vaal gems, not proc gems.