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 Molten Shell 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.
Order of Operations: Guard skills happen after all other mitigation when receiving damage, so your character always takes 65-70% of damage directly to their base resources (ward, energy shield, life, mana). To reach the damage cap of a level 20 gem, the character would need to heal (.65/.35*30000=) 55714 points of the affected resource(s) over the buff's duration.
Version history
VersionChanges
3.16.0
Buff will now grant +50 Armour at gem level 1 (previously 25), up to +858 Armour at gem level 20 (previously 429). Buff no longer grants 20-29% more Armour.
Now grants 35% of Damage from Hits is taken from the Buff before your Life or Energy Shield at gem level 1 (previously 30%), up to 40% at gem level 20 (previously 35%).
3.14.0
Vaal Skill Gems can now only be obtained from a set of specific methods such as Corrupting Gems, Vaal Side Areas, Divination Cards (that specifically grant Vaal Skill Gems) and the Lapidary Lens in the Temple of Atzoatl.
3.11.0
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.
3.7.0
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).
3.4.0
Now has a Soul Gain Prevention duration of 7 seconds (up from 5).
2.6.0
Changed the explosion effect. The new one has better performance.
2.4.0
Vaal Molten Shell now causes an explosion when it prevents any physical damage, rather than when it takes any hit.
2.3.2
When switching between regular and Vaal Molten Shell, the Shields will now visually destroy and recreate itself.
Fixed a bug where Molten Shell buff effect bonuses did not apply to Vaal Molten Shell.
2.3.0
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.
2.2.0
Cast time reduced from 1 sec to 500 ms.
2.1.0
Fixed a bug where Molten Shell could be applied multiple times via Spell Echo.
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 Vaal Molten Shell.
1.1.0
Introduced to the game.