Vaal Skill Gem Retrospective
|
Personally I always felt Vaal Gems were kind of a poor design decision. No matter how and when you are going to use them it feels like they don't really fit. A lot of them are totally overpowered at low levels (vs. Bosses or Strongboxes) but also useless at high level ones. I understand that not everything can be perfectly balanced so this isn't my biggest concern.
My issue is that most of them have pretty boring effects and seem like they could be done in 2 minutes of coding. E.g. Vaal Fireball. It could have been an awesome nova effect instead of shooting ~30 fireballs in a loop. An then there are those that would be quite useful if they were working properly. Vaal Lightning strike would be a lot better if the effect stayed active once the targetet monster dies. Vaal Cyclone would be a lot better if it wouldn't sometimes get stuck, cause no hits, and make you die a lot of times. So I guess it's a bit late for that anyway but imho Vaal gems were a good idea, but poorly executed, in terms of design, balance and visuals. EDIT: I forgot to mention that a lot of those Vaal gems randomly don't work or get stuck on use, while still losing all your souls. Last edited by TheStalker#3306 on Jun 19, 2014, 2:38:00 AM
|
|
" Cold to fire and avatar of fire and you got a fire nova. Vaal fireball wouldnt be vaal fire ball if it was a nova. |
|
|
here is my question if vaal curses existed would hex master make them last forever cause if lets say they made a vaal temp chains and it would have some crazy ultimate curse effect wouldn't it be broken against bosses and such and it would also make it seem like anyone who didn't have perm curse and didn't run like 3 of them would be losing out i just think hex masters is going to need to be considered in that statement
|
|
|
The earlier design sounds better to me than the final version. Yes, you get punished for using it, but that's better than just having the gem be completely inert most of the time. A common pool of Vaal stacks also means it becomes an interesting resource, because you have to decide which skill to unleash - do you fire off a cheap one on a semi-regular basis, or do you take a bigger risk by saving up more debuff stacks in order to fire the really powerful gems?
|
|
" I think they would state on the gem that hex master doesnt apply. Could be due to vaal's influence or something to explain it lore wise. |
|
|
Was it ever considered to disable Vaal gems in Coward's Trial map?
Or was the design of this map ever considered when making Vaal gems? It seems, to me, that these two designs completely contradict each other. The whole point of the Coward's Trial map is lost with Vaal gems. Casually casual.
|
|
|
always love to read these articles
|
|
|
Imho some Vaal Gems are ok ( Summon skeletons, cyclone, auras), some should be reworked to be more interesting/viable, but they should not function as the normal version until fully charged, no.
Instead they should not lose their souls upon entering a new area, though. That's my main issue with Vaal skills, sometimes I use them, just before exiting an area, on trash mobs or even nothing, and it sucks big time. "Metas rotate all the time, eventually the developers will buff melee"
PoE 2013-2018 |
|
" If they don't lose souls, you could cheese bosses pretty hard. Just TP, go to the coast and fill up, then go back and unleash the Vaal Skill again. “Demons run when a good man goes to war"
|
|
" Yeah, there is that angle. Even the pro Vaal Gem people usually only hold up a few as being good. Most people on the forum probably don't like kicking puppies either. |
|
