Allow Vaal skills to be used without souls

I'm glad there's some discussion on this topic. But none of these suggestions address what I see as an "issue" - Vaal skills are clunky and extremely niche. If they're meant to be like that, fine, whatever. But, IMO, having things that generate from kills causes problems for ARPGs. It assumes you'll be killing a moderate amount of mobs, all the time.

But we don't need "generate on kill" for trash mobs. Life on kill, mana on kill, charging Vaal skills, etc, are mostly useful during crazy boss fights. Sure, they can speed up the killing of trash mobs, but they're not really needed. And what if you come across that crazy boss straight after you enter a map? Oh cool, that planning I put into my Vaal skill, and having it take up a skill gem slot... all useless. OH, and when I kill this boss, I don't even get rewarded by having the Vaal gem become entirely/mostly charged! So by the next boss, which could be the next mob... I still don't have access to it!

Imagine if you had to charge IIQ/IIR. While it is more useful for trash mobs than Vaal skills probably will be, how annoying would it be to get to a boss and just not have enough charges for it to have any affect?? Again, maybe it's just me, but I get this exact same feeling with Vaal skills.

Having this mechanic, especially for many different things (Vaal skills, flasks, etc) means that a boss who doesn't summon minions will probably be that much harder. So GGG must employ all bosses with the ability to summon. Why do you think the reworks of Brutus and Merveil gave them the ability to summon? So all the on-kill effects would still be useful.

I know people prefer more constant forms of "charging/replenishing" than on-kill effects, by the popularity of Surgeon's affixes on flasks, and by the lack of "life on kill" that is seen/suggested EVERYWHERE.

Nurvus talked about generating charges on Vaal gems through other means that were accessible by keystones - but again, this is extremely niche. What if Vaal gems had, say, a 10% chance to gain a soul each time you attack/make a hit? Something that doesn't rely on passives, nor on actually killing entire enemies.
Last edited by SponTen on Mar 27, 2015, 5:38:32 PM
Or. Add souls as a third resource, perhaps a shared resource between all Vaal Gems. Have it function the same way it does, where it only recharges through sacrifice, but soul level can carry over between instances.

You could also add clusters in the tree that say, add to the maximum number of carried souls and keep it to where its relatively niche, but at the expense of skill points, built into somewhat. That way, a character who specifically built into it could use an overpowered skill maybe twice instead of once, and it wouldn't be quite as radically gamebreaking, at least.
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ScrotieMcB wrote:
All of your ideas... I don't like them.

The only way I'd accept using a Vaal skill without souls was if the skill would no longer truly be under your control. Meaning Vaal Skeletons would be just as likely to attack you as to attack your enemies, Vaal Haste buffs enemies as much as it buffs you, Vaal Spark can friendly-fire and kill you, Vaal Immortal Call prevents damage to you and damage from you, etc.

Oh, and despite your lack of control over the skill, use would still reset souls down to zero.


I suppose you don't mean my ideas because I don't suggest using Vaal skill without souls.
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SponTen wrote:
Nurvus talked about generating charges on Vaal gems through other means that were accessible by keystones - but again, this is extremely niche.

Actually, Nurvus said that the BASELINE Soul generation should work off attacking/casting and being attacked/casted at, and there would also be MODIFIERS obtained from various means, such as gear and passives that CHANGE/IMPROVE upon that BASELINE.

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SponTen wrote:
What if Vaal gems had, say, a 10% chance to gain a soul each time you attack/make a hit? Something that doesn't rely on passives, nor on actually killing entire enemies.

Why the damn RNG-addiction?

It's much simpler to just change Gems to store for example 60 soul fragments instead of 6 souls.

This makes it easier for GGG to fine tune soul generation.

So your "10% chance to generate 1 soul" is just a frustrating version of "always generates 0.1 soul = 10 soul fragments".

The amount of soul generated from hitting an enemy should be based on either the Monster level.
So every X life you take from a monster level Y gives you 1 soul fragment.
Killing it gives an additional Z soul fragments.
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Last edited by Nurvus on Mar 27, 2015, 7:34:42 PM
They are fine the way they are =p

I like the fact that they don't work in as generic a fashion as say, arc, where u just pump up damage and spam them. Instead, Vaal skills invite you to use them in interesting, unexpected ways.

For example Vaal molten shell has a very interesting synergy with Scold's Bridle. It wasn't balanced for generic usage in any number of random builds. You have to fine tune what you are doing to draw the potential out.

And a lesser example is from person experience when I was making an Elemental Equilbrium character and I was looking for a good way to be able to constantly get the EE up without having to slow down my main skill's spam. And then I realized that you can keep Vaal Storm Call running almost indefinitely. So I could use it not for damage, but just to keep EE going without having to slow down my fireball spam. And no, herald of thunder could not accomplish that. So essentially I was using Vaal Storm Call as an extra curse that does a little damage over time and subtracts 50% fire resist.

Atm, I'm using Vaal Lightning Trap for it's guaranteed shock effect so that I can get more damage out of Celestial Punishment node when I need to. Not because it does tons of damage but for its utility. And I like I have to be smart with how I use them so I don't run out.

I'm sure there are more examples. I like Vaal skills the way they are.
Last edited by BearCares on Mar 27, 2015, 7:41:15 PM
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Nurvus wrote:
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ScrotieMcB wrote:
All of your ideas... I don't like them.
I suppose you don't mean my ideas because I don't suggest using Vaal skill without souls.
Sorry, yours too. Soul on crit, soul on hit, etc, would just be giving Vaal skills the Surgeon's treatment. Which is bad.
When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
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ScrotieMcB wrote:
Sorry, yours too. Soul on crit, soul on hit, etc, would just be giving Vaal skills the Surgeon's treatment. Which is bad.

It's bad? Because of reasons?

It's not Surgeon that's bad. It's the Crit builds. But that's a different matter and needs to be fixed - it has nothing to do with Vaal Skills or the concept behind Surgeon mod.

My idea of Vaal Skill is to preserve the concept and feel of "ultimate skill", so I'm definitely not interested in having people spam Vaal Skills all over the place.

There are several variables to consider, but you should take the following into account:
1 - Soul Generation can be based on the Life the Monster lost from the attack comparing to its Monster level.
2 - Can probably be a flat amount per hit based on monster level, because even if you invest a lot into attack/cast speed, even though you build Souls faster and are able to use Vaal skills more often, they will be inferior to those used by someone who invests a lot into bonus damage and crit. So it evens out.
2.1 - In this case, AoE attacks might have a lower ratio of soul generation.
3 - I haven't discussed how long it should take to fill up souls.
I did, however, suggest that Soul generation should be broken down for granularity.
Instead of building Souls 1 by 1, you would build Soul Fragments which would be 1/10 or even 1/100 of a Soul.
So if Vaal Summon Skeletons uses up 32 Souls, it could use 3200 Soul Fragments instead, and while a hit might be 1 Soul Fragment, a kill could be 100 Soul Fragments.
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Last edited by Nurvus on Mar 28, 2015, 12:48:17 AM
@Nurvus - It may feel more satisfying to think that you are gaining souls for each and every little portion of damage you deal out (or whatever) but it really doesn't change anything except increase the amount of times you can spam the vaal skill. Which is not what their effects are compatible with or meant to be compatible with, at least not during generic usage. The end result is that you're just making a complicated game even more complicated for no particular tangible benefit.

Honestly the game engine itself cannot handle a party full of people who have decided to make Vaal oriented builds. And if your changes allow Vaal oriented builds to become a possibility you can bet your bottom dollar that is exactly what you'll see. Cast on crit + Spamming vaal skills with tabula rasa.

The computers of the world don't deserve that kind of punishment.
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Nurvus wrote:
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ScrotieMcB wrote:
Sorry, yours too. Soul on crit, soul on hit, etc, would just be giving Vaal skills the Surgeon's treatment. Which is bad.
It's bad? Because of reasons?
Exactly.

...

Fine. I'll elaborate.
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Nurvus wrote:
It's not Surgeon that's bad. It's the Crit builds. But that's a different matter and needs to be fixed - it has nothing to do with Vaal Skills or the concept behind Surgeon mod.
Noop. Wrong. Stopping you there. Rest of your argument is invalid.

Surgeon's was an absolutely imbecilic design choice. Why? Because it's a cooldown bypasser.

Flasks are cooldown skills. It's not a timed cooldown, but kills - cold, hard kills - function extremely well as an alternative. I don't know if you're familiar with Demon Hunters from Diablo 3, or more specifically their Disciple resource, or even more specifically their Blood Vengeance passive... but it plays well. Very well.

Which, to continue the D3 mechanics analogies, means Surgeon's is Critical Mass. As in, definitive OP.

The only thing keeping Surgeon's from being totally gross is that PoE's defensive cooldowns - that is, flasks - are kind of weak. At least compared to really cool things, like 1 second of invulnerability. But that's the point. PoE cannot do cool things with flasks, because Surgeon's exists.

Surgeon's limits design space with its continued existence.

This is why abilities like Vaal Immortal Call and Vaal Discipline, which in all logic should be flasks and not gems, are instead gems. They made two separate death-based cooldown mechanics, because they fucked the first one up, and weren't willing to change it.

I mean, real talk, Vaal gems shouldn't even exist. It is redundant. Vaal Summon Skeletons should really be A Whole Shitload of Skeletons in a Bottle. Or something. GGG should have known no one really wants to spend gem slots on cooldown skills, and flasks could be far, far more interesting than they are now.

But the cancer that is Surgeon's is why Vaal Gems happened, and you'd completely defeat the point of them if you let the cancer spread to them.

Bottom line: Vaal gems are, and flasks should have been, the place where PoE's cooldown skills reside. Not "cooldown skill" like Flicker Strike where what they really mean is to get Frenzy charges, but true, honest, death-based cooldowns. I understand you might like non-cooldown mechanics, and that's fine, but stop trying to shove that down everyone's throat and, please, start respecting some design space where cooldown skills can properly live.
When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
Last edited by ScrotieMcB on Mar 28, 2015, 2:42:28 AM
Wrong.

1 - A crit build gets much less value out of a flask than a tank build.
2 - Crit builds invest more stats into offense and are naturally less tanky, usually depending on killing enemies before they even hit you.
3 - Surgeon isn't an extra mod, but an alternative.

Let's make a simple logical comparison:
You have Life Leech - you deal X damage, you get Y life.
The amount of Life you get is somewhat limited by the monster life.

And then we have Life on Hit - regardless of the damage you deal, if you hit VERY fast, you get insane amounts of Life.

Is either of them broken? No. Crit builds are.

Crit multiplier is too easy to obtain, but other than that, if you invest into crit + crit multiplier, you've given up a lot more than someone who just goes attack speed.
And if you for some reason get those 3 stats, then you'll be REALLY squishy.

So Surgeon isn't broken - it merely rewards a certain type of builds, just like Life on Hit does, just like Life regen is great for turtle builds while life leech is better for high damage output builds and life on hit for fast hitting builds.

Your bias against surgeon doesn't make you right.
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Last edited by Nurvus on Mar 28, 2015, 4:13:52 PM

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