Vaal Molten Shell

Vaal Molten Shell is a vaal spell that creates a shell around the user that grants extra armour and absorbs incoming hits, absorbing more damage with increased armour. Each second or when expiring, the shell deals fire damage around it based on how much damage it has absorbed.

Skill functions and interactions

 * Duration: Skill duration modifiers will increase the duration of Vaal Molten Shell.


 * Critical Strike Chance: Since Vaal Molten Shell deals reflected damage, its damage cannot critically strike.


 * Damage reflection: Vaal Molten Shell doesn't trigger on reflected damage.


 * Molten Shell: Casting while Vaal Molten Shell is active will terminate the Vaal Molten Shell buff and replace it for the cast Molten Shell. This will happen both ways (when Vaal Molten Shell is cast while Molten Shell is active). This makes it unfavorable to use both skills in conjunction with one another.

All Guard skills
Below are the skill gems with the Guard gem tag:

Strategy
Unlike its non-Vaal counterpart, Vaal Molten Shell will persist for the full duration, regardless of how many times an explosion is triggered. This unique property offers potentially vastly more utility than Molten Shell at the cost of less availability. Because of this, it is recommended that Vaal Molten Shell be saved for an occasion in which it will offer the greatest benefit, such as during an encounter with a unique monster or even a troublesome rare.

Due to the nature of Vaal Molten Shell, it has synergy with support gems that utilize the potentially frequent explosions, such as stun or life leech; however, the rather steep soul cost of Vaal Molten Shell gates the strength of the gem. In addition, while the armour offered during Vaal Molten Shell's duration is first-rate, it may cause conflicts with.

Items which deal damage to you will also trigger the explosion:
 * when using any skill
 * Eye of Innocence when igniting an enemy

Version history

 * Now grants 25 additional armour at gem level 1 (from 60), up to 429 additional armour at gem level 20 (from 1030).
 * Now grants 20% more armour at gem level 1, up to 29% more armour at gem level 20.
 * Now causes 30% of Damage taken from hits to be taken from the buff before your life or energy shield at gem level 1, up to 35% at gem level 20 (from 80% at all levels).
 * The buff can now take Damage equal to 30% of your armour (from 60%), up to a maximum of 30000.
 * Now reflects 300% of Damage taken from buff as Fire Damage each second or when the buff expires or is depleted at gem level 1 (from 100%), up to 9000% at gem level 20 (from 3000%).
 * Now removes and is removed by any other Guard skill.


 * Now has a base duration of 9 seconds at all gem levels (from 5).
 * Now grants 60 additional armour at gem level 1 (from 17), up to 1030 at gem level 20 (from 943)
 * Now creates a buff that can take damage equal to 60% of your armour.
 * Now causes 80% of damage from hits to be taken from the buff before your life or energy shield.
 * Now reflects a portion of the damage taken from the buff as fire damage every second until the buff expires or is depleted.
 * Now reflects 100% of damage taken from the buff as fire damage when the buff expires or is depleted at gem level 1, up to 3000% at gem level 20 (previously stated 1050% at gem level 20).
 * Now has a Vaal Soul generation cooldown of 14 seconds (from 7 seconds).
 * No longer has an added damage effectiveness multiplier or critical strike chance, as reflected damage cannot benefit from added damage, nor can it critically strike.
 * Shares its cooldown with other guard skills (Steelskin and Immortal Call).


 * Now has a Soul Gain Prevention duration of 7 seconds (up from 5).


 * Changed the explosion effect. The new one has better performance.


 * Vaal Molten Shell now causes an explosion when it prevents any physical damage, rather than when it takes any hit.


 * When switching between regular and Vaal Molten Shell, the shield will now visually destroy and recreate itself.
 * Fixed a bug where Molten Shell buff effect bonuses did not apply to Vaal Molten Shell.


 * 's duration has been reduced from 10 seconds to 5 seconds at all gem levels. Its damage has been reduced at high levels. It does the same damage at gem level 1, up to half the damage it previously did at gem level 20.


 * Cast time reduced from 1 sec to 500 ms.


 * Fixed a bug where could be applied multiple times via Spell Echo.


 * Vaal Skill soul counts were initially balanced for Merciless difficulty, where there are more monsters. We want them to be easier to use in Normal and Cruel difficulty. We have halved the number of souls required for each skill. In Cruel difficulty, skills require 50% more souls to uses. In Merciless difficulty, they require 100% more (which is the same as before the patch).


 * Fixed a bug with damage feedback on.


 * Introduced to the game.
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