Vaal Orb problems

There are two main issues with Vaal Orbs:

1. Some implicit mods define items.

2. A lot of the time Vaal Orbs fizzle and do nothing.

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1. Daggers, claws, and axes are defined by their implicit mods. Daggers have high crit, claws have innate life leech, and axes have a free implicit mod slot (and have higher base damage to boot).

You can make do with a staff that can't block or a wand without spell damage... And swords and clubs are happy to disown their crappy implicit mods for most builds. But almost any build that uses a dagger, spell or attack, wants that global crit. Any build that uses a claw wants that life leech. Any build that uses an axe has no problems whatsoever, they've got a free mod if their Vaal Orb lands on anything at all.

For daggers, you might be happy with a frenzy or power charge increase, but the chances of that are super slim, and it's more than likely you'll just junk your item - replacing crit with +2% chaos resistance.

Of course, this goes for other item base types too. Even after the nerf to angel kite shields, who would vaal orb one of these? 12% elemental resistance is pretty much better than almost any mod seen so far from the orb.

There's an imbalance of mods here - you can't Vaal orb a dagger and expect any pleasant result. This really skews Vaal Orb use and hurts crafting in my opinion.

2. This is just unfun. We play PoE because we enjoy using and finding items. For an item to do nothing, good or bad, is just a bad feeling. It's a let down.

Please remove the chance for a Vaal Orb to do nothing. I would rather it have a higher chance to do something awful than it do nothing. At least you get a laugh out of this situation.

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But to solve to problems with one solution...

1. Please remove the chance for a Vaal Orb to do nothing.
2. Take this chance and divide it by 3.
3. Create this "Negative Implicit Mod" table in-game:

+X% increased attribute requirement
-X% elemental resistances
-X% mana regeneration
-X% movement speed
-X% reduced projectile speed
-X% reduced skill effect duration
Cannot Evade Attacks
Cannot Block Attacks
Energy Shield recharges X% slower
-X% accuracy rating
Cannot Deal Damage With This Weapon
Never Crit
Never Hit
et cetera

(some of these stats might not be bad for some builds, like reduced skill effect duraiton in conjunciton with lw, but are likely to be considered bad by most, but could still be used creatively by some to make these items still usable)
4. Apply 66% of the "Fizzle" chance to instead create a negative implicit mod for the item.
5. Apply 34% of the "Fizzle" chance to instead create a new positive implicit mod for the item, stuff like (just some ideas):

Gems socketed in this item are supported by level 15 increased critical strike chance.
Adder's Touch
Critical Strikes w/ this weapon Leech 10% of their physical damage as life
+100% increased global critical strike chance while on low life (weapons only)
+increased mana 20% leech speed
Your mana leech with this weapon applies instantly
+2% mana leech from physical/fire/lightning/cold damage

These new implicit mods should be design-conscious of daggers, claws and other such weapons - mods that when rolled would improve the base item they rolled on, like implicit +aoe or cast speed on a staff, or an effect on a critical hit, or even something interesting like, "Light Radius Increases also increase physical damage".

The net effect is that the chance to brick your item has increased, but the potential reward has also increased. I think this is more desirable to "fizzing".

bamp

I disagree with removing the potential for Vaal Orbs to do nothing. Even if they do nothing, they still do something--prevent further crafting, and remove potential for other corruption, good or bad. They are their own reward and drawback--the item didn't get worse, but that's all it is now. Given the amount of "did nothing" I've seen, though, I would say the chances of this happening could be reduced. If I'm going to orb something, it's because I want to see something happen.. good or bad.

I hadn't really considered it yet, but I do agree there is too much disparity between desirable crafting targets. Wands, Daggers, and Claws specifically, generally always want need their implicit mods; without them they are, in many ways, just less effective versions of other items (e.g. higher implicit crit, lower base damage)

I'd say, some items should have as great a chance to add a second implicit, as they do replacing their current one. i.e. the chance of this happening on an 80% implicit dagger should be greater than on a 40% implicit dagger, should me much greater than on a stun duration implicit club. (I might be recalling my base stats and their implicits improperly, but you get the idea--some items are entirely balanced around the strength of their implicit, while others are not.)

your suggestion is good and I'm ready to support it, but you are assuming Vaal Orbs are "crafting".

in the scale of 1-10 among Path Of Exile orbs, where 10 is pure crafting (GCP, Whetstone, Scraps) and 1 is pure gambling (Chance, Chaos) - Vaal Orbs are -1.

The thing you're missing, John, is that Vaal Orbs are fun and effective gambling. Largely due to the wild range of effects that can happen from just one orb. The problem perceived with other "gambling" is the sheer weight of orbs it often seems to require.

Call it crafting, call it gambling, it's really irrelevant to this thread, which is about the effect of using the orb.

People want good stuff. Give them good stuff and they get bored quickly. This is the balance that GGG has to deal with daily.

I throw these suckers on leveling gear, which is as much as I'm willing to gamble. Especially if you have several pieces of almost equivalent gear (which you do at lower levels), there is no reason to not throw a vaal orb on some.

As for high level gambling, I'm not interested and would never use vaal on GG items. This is just the ultimate gambling layer for big merchants.

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CanHasPants wrote:

I disagree with removing the potential for Vaal Orbs to do nothing. Even if they do nothing, they still do something--prevent further crafting, and remove potential for other corruption, good or bad. They are their own reward and drawback--the item didn't get worse, but that's all it is now. Given the amount of "did nothing" I've seen, though, I would say the chances of this happening could be reduced. If I'm going to orb something, it's because I want to see something happen.. good or bad.

I hadn't really considered it yet, but I do agree there is too much disparity between desirable crafting targets. Wands, Daggers, and Claws specifically, generally always want need their implicit mods; without them they are, in many ways, just less effective versions of other items (e.g. higher implicit crit, lower base damage)

I'd say, some items should have as great a chance to add a second implicit, as they do replacing their current one. i.e. the chance of this happening on an 80% implicit dagger should be greater than on a 40% implicit dagger, should me much greater than on a stun duration implicit club. (I might be recalling my base stats and their implicits improperly, but you get the idea--some items are entirely balanced around the strength of their implicit, while others are not.)

My ideal Vaal Orb would be something like the speculated "vaal orbs corrupt other orbs" mechanic. The advantage of this would be more control for players in how they want their items to improve. I'd prefer this, even if the overall risk vs reward was worse. So, a corrupt chromatic orb might have a chance of giving your item white sockets, it might just reroll the colors or worse it might give your item black sockets (which could only accept white gems). A corrupted GCP might increase the level/quality of a gem or it might lower it, or it might change the color of the gem, even to white or black (only fits in white sockets). A corrupt fusing orb might roll otherwise impossible link combinations (like the top left to bottom left socket), but obviously corrupts the item ruining any chance for further improvement. A corrupt eternal orb could add properties to rares even with 6 properties already, or it could reroll/remove properties. A corrupt blessing orb might add a corrupt implicit, reroll the implicit or remove the implicit. You can extrapolate the way in which this would work for other orbs.

The fundamental tenet is more control, even if the risk vs reward is worse.

I'm not sure I like replacing current Vaal Orb functionality with that. Part of the appeal, actually a large reason I see Vaal Orbs as so successful, is because of the cost. 1 Vaal Orb + 1 item. Lot's of win, lot's of lose. But either way, it's super, super accessible, because it only costs 1 Vaal Orb + 1 item. As opposed to.. x jewelers + y fusing + z chromatics + 1 item. I don't do that often, because x + y + z > 1. Let alone *cough* transaltregalscourrepeateternalexaltedeternalexaledmirror...

I'm not sure what considerations would need to be made, if Vaal Orbs could also corrupt other orbs. But on paper, I do like the idea. It certainly seems like a viable alternative to making exceptions for items that are more (perhaps, too) reliant upon their implicit mods.

Agreed, that's only a realistic expectation if it was a functionality added to the Vaal Orb later.