Is anyone actually using Vaal Gems?

With my currency character I do now use one, Vaal Summon Skeletons. I don't need anything on my shield, so I threw that in there to cause some chaos and fuck shit up in boss fights.

Vaal Fireball + trap + GMP + fire pen (or conc effect) is a fun combo to play with solo. It one-shot a lot of bosses.

If you ask me, a reaver without Vaal Reave is like a singer without a microphone.
Vaal Reave can stack up to 16, and the stacks are shared with the regular Reave skill, so a semi-melee skill is turned into a ranged skill until the stacks disappear.

I don't use them, because I find it too useless for what it does and how many monsters you need to kill before you actually can use it... once. I would use it if allow to use "normal" spell while not enough souls to cast "mega" spell.

I've been trying out Vaal Spectral Throw and Vaal Double Strike as I level my scion. Vaal ST was decent and double strike good but takes a while to get going. The cool thing about Vaal ST is it stacks up uses I've seen up to 6 stored. It's fun to let it go and then leap slam around.

But hitting Merc, it feels the recharge is way too long once again so they may go by the wayside for something more reliable and I don't have CWdt set-up yet.

Vaal Reave is quite good, you can keep that aoe going if you keep hitting or so it seems. I had it last a good long while on my reaver in a map.

I use vaal fireball with support skill cast on death.
helps when instant death occurs, opening a chest or caught in a mob.

Vaal ST with gmp+lgoh+slow proj
Vaal Haste with increased duration

Vaal Discipline is the only one I've found any use out of so far.

Vaal Skeletons is pretty fun too.

Vaal storm call is awesome. I use it as a boss clearer on my FP crit shadow. Just charges up on its own, on any challenging rare you just chuck it down and it does tons of damage. Wasn't using the 4l though, if I had a use for it would probably drop it.

Most of the problem with Vaal gems. They need to be supported, so minimum of 3l. You want them to be reasonable its really a 4l. And a 4l means it is either a boss killer or a crowd clearer. Most crowds are cleared by your spammable AoE, so getting a second AoE that is only occasional CAN be useful but generally isn't. Getting an AoE that is decent and then using it as a boss killer, it has to be significantly dangerous to a single target. That means it has to be worth taking 4 sockets up just for one target.

And then you end up with the opportunity cost of slots on your skillbar.

Things like Vaal haste are pretty good one slot wonders, two slots if you want the increased duration. So I do like Vaal haste, I actually just use it as a MS boost most of the time, since I throw traps atm

My two favorite Vaal skills are Vaal Cyclone and Vaal Molten Shell. Molten Shell just melts monsters. The more damage they do, the faster they die. Cyclone is great food hovering everything in rahge into one spot. I have them linked with Increased Duration, and Life Gain in Hit with Vaal Cyclone.