Vaal Molten Shell

Vaal Molten Shell is a vaal skill that temporarily grants you extra armour and causes you to deal a burst of fire damage for each hit you take, for a short duration.

Skill Functions and Interactions

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

Spell Echo: When supported by , Vaal Molten Shell will apply its buff once (the additional armour is not applied twice), but will detonate twice per hit, so the damage output is effectively doubled.

Crit Chance: Vaal Molten Shell's chance to crit is decided when the user initially casts the spell. It uses the user's crit chance to determine if all Vaal Molten Shell procs will crit or not crit. This means that the spell will either crit for every proc of the duration or none of them, making a the most effective flask to consume before casting the spell.

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 mob 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 armor offered during Vaal Molten Shell's duration is first-rate, it may cause conflicts with Cast When Damage Taken.

Gem level progression

Template:GemLevelTable |- ! 1 | 4 | 16 | 9–14 | 17 | 0 | 0 |- ! 2 | 6 | 20 | 12–18 | 20 | 841 | 841 |- ! 3 | 9 | 27 | 16–25 | 26 | 3,099 | 3,940 |- ! 4 | 12 | 33 | 22–33 | 33 | 7,433 | 11,373 |- ! 5 | 16 | 41 | 32–48 | 44 | 22,895 | 34,268 |- ! 6 | 20 | 50 | 45–67 | 58 | 49,725 | 83,993 |- ! 7 | 24 | 58 | 62–92 | 75 | 95,714 | 179,707 |- ! 8 | 28 | 67 | 84–126 | 97 | 169,595 | 349,302 |- ! 9 | 32 | 75 | 113–169 | 123 | 283,759 | 633,061 |- ! 10 | 36 | 83 | 150–225 | 156 | 453,996 | 1,087,057 |- ! 11 | 40 | 92 | 198–297 | 196 | 703,128 | 1,790,185 |- ! 12 | 44 | 100 | 260–391 | 245 | 1,061,223 | 2,851,408 |- ! 13 | 48 | 109 | 340–510 | 304 | 2,065,870 | 4,917,278 |- ! 14 | 52 | 117 | 442–663 | 376 | 2,507,110 | 7,424,388 |- ! 15 | 55 | 123 | 536–805 | 440 | 2,573,731 | 9,998,119 |- ! 16 | 58 | 130 | 650–975 | 515 | 7,611,351 | 17,609,470 |- ! 17 | 61 | 136 | 785–1178 | 600 | 13,437,908 | 31,047,378 |- ! 18 | 64 | 142 | 948–1422 | 698 | 25,052,147 | 56,099,525 |- ! 19 | 67 | 148 | 1142–1713 | 812 | 43,869,436 | 99,968,961 |- ! 20 | 70 | 155 | 1373–2060 | 943 | 242,081,178 | 342,050,139 |- ! 21 | 72 | 159 | 1552–2328 | 1040 | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A |- ! 22 | 74 | | 1753–2629 | 1148 | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A |- ! 23 | 76 | | 1979–2968 | 1265 | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A |- ! 24 | 78 | | 2232–3349 | 1394 | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A |- ! 25 | 80 | | 2517–3776 | 1536 | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A |- ! 26 | 82 | | 2837–4256 | 1691 | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A |- ! 27 | 84 | | 3196–4794 | 1861 | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A |- ! 28 | 86 | | 3599–5398 | 2047 | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A |- ! 29 | 88 | | 4051–6076 | 2251 | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A |- ! 30 | 90 | | 4557–6836 | 2474 | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A | class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A |}

Video Demonstration

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Version History

Version	Changes
1.1.0d	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).
1.1.0b	Fixed a bug with damage feedback on .
1.1.0	Introduced to the game.