Is anyone actually using Vaal Gems?

It takes really too much time to charge them

I disagree with the "noob trap" diagnosis. You can try a vaal gem and then disregard it later at no cost to your character... so it's not really a trap.

I agree though that I find very little use for them. Space is far too limited on my character to have a gem which is charging up for 95%+ of the content.

Best thing I can think of for Vaal Skill gems is to greatly buff most of their effects and/or greatly decreasing the amount of souls required but making them impossible to use with Support Gems.

Sure, they'd be dumbed down in a way but people would probably use them, either by sacrificing a single link slot somewhere or using an unset ring. Besides, them being Vaal gems does set a precedence of them not being modifiable.

If you review how people have been playing Diablo 3 you will see that the ultimate goal of every build is to spam a cooldown skill or a costly one non-stopping, and PoE players are not so different.

There might be few useful ones, such as detonate dead and molten shell, but no one in his right mind would use the rests that activate for 5 seconds once every minute if not for fooling around.

Just like non-Vaal gems, some of them seem lackluster but some of them are insanely good.

I've been using 1 in particular to 1-shot the unique invader of each zone. I'm sure it will work on map bosses too. Very convenient.

If they carried charges between zones, or worked the same as the normal version of the gem until charged, or any number of other "fixes" people have suggested, they would be way too strong.

I would use them x1000000 times if they had some kind of visual effect on the character or something when charged, because let's admite it, sucks to look at the right bottom corner of the screen to check...

By the way I notticed My vaal fireball went from 64 charges to 48 when going Normal-Cruel, so I assume they are a lot more "usable" on merciless....if you remember it's ready.

Found a vaal cold snap, and I'm using that on my Mara. Can't level it past 2nd level, because he's a bit dumb, but it still freezes a whole screen of stuff, which is useful enough to have a spot on my bar for now. May not be as I level higher.

Do you even stash Vaal Gems? Will they sell?

I lost interest in the gems the second I realized that they just perform the Vaal version of the skill, and not the normal one.

We're limited enough in socket choices as it is, so this just ends up as worthless, taking up ultra valuable space that could be used on a 4L that is integral to our build.

For the gems to be used by people, they need to:

1) Be easier to charge up
2) Hold the normal versions of the skills. Just hold ctrl or something while using them to fire off the Vaal version

been using vaal double strike, doublebro is a bro