Vaal Molten Shell

For the non-Vaal counterpart, see Molten Shell.

Vaal Molten Shell is a vaal spell that temporarily grants the player extra armour and causes them to deal a burst of fire damage for each hit they take.

Skill functions and interactions

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

• Critical Strike 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 Diamond FlaskDiamond FlaskLasts 4.00 Seconds
  Consumes 20 of 40 Charges on use
  100% increased Global Critical Strike ChanceRequires Level 27Right click to drink. Can only hold charges while in belt. Refills as you kill monsters. the most effective flask to consume before casting the spell.

• 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 casted Molten Shell. This will happen both ways (when Vaal Molten Shell is casted while Molten Shell is active). This makes it unfavorable to use both skills in conjunction with one another.

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:

• Scold's BridleScold's Bridle
  Mind CageQuality: +20%
  Energy Shield: 82Requires Level 65, 138 Int(80-100)% increased Spell Damage
  15% reduced Cast Speed
  +(30-60) to maximum Mana
  Your Skills deal you 400% of Mana Spent on Skill Mana Costs as Physical Damage"The sharper the pain, the sharper the mind.
  A curious paradox."
  - Shavronne of Umbra when using any skill

Gem level progression

Level			Fire Damage	Armour	Exp.	Total Exp.
1	4	16	N/A	N/A	0	0
2	6	20	N/A	N/A	841	841
3	9	27	N/A	N/A	3099	3940
4	12	33	N/A	N/A	7433	11373
5	16	41	N/A	N/A	22895	34268
6	20	50	N/A	N/A	49725	83993
7	24	58	N/A	N/A	95714	179707
8	28	67	N/A	N/A	169595	349302
9	32	75	N/A	N/A	283759	633061
10	36	83	N/A	N/A	453996	1087057
11	40	92	N/A	N/A	703128	1790185
12	44	100	N/A	N/A	1061223	2851408
13	48	109	N/A	N/A	2065870	4917278
14	52	117	N/A	N/A	2507110	7424388
15	55	123	N/A	N/A	2573731	9998119
16	58	130	N/A	N/A	7611351	17609470
17	61	136	N/A	N/A	13437908	31047378
18	64	142	N/A	N/A	25052147	56099525
19	67	148	N/A	N/A	43869436	99968961
20	70	155	N/A	N/A	242081178	342050139
21	72	159	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
22	74	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
23	76	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
24	78	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
25	80	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
26	82	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
27	84	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
28	86	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
29	88	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
30	90	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
31	91	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
32	92	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
33	93	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
34	94	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
35	95	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
36	96	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
37	97	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
38	98	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
39	99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
40	100	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Version history

Version	Changes
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 shield 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.