Complete Breakdown of Vaal and Support Gem Updates in the Latest Patch
Introduction
In the latest update, the developers focused on rebalancing combat skills, spells, minion mechanics, and utility abilities. Players will see notable buffs for chaos/DoT builds and Divine Ire, alongside significant nerfs to popular Ice Blades and Detonate Dead. The patch shifts the balance between different archetypes, opening up new opportunities for experimentation and build diversity.
General System Changes
Animate Guardian: Now retains its items on death. However, it can't be resummoned in the same area (except hideouts). This makes gearing less punishing, though requires safer gameplay.
Attack Skills
Buffs:
Blade Flurry / Blade Flurry of Incision: Notable boosts in damage scaling and crit potential; better quality scaling.
Cyclone & Cyclone of Tumult: Higher effectiveness, better scaling, and attack speed per stage increased. Also less movement speed penalty at higher levels.
Ice Crash of Cadence: More attack speed and better cold conversion with quality.
Nerfs or Reworks:
Frost Blades & Frost Blades of Katabasis: Projectile damage nerfed heavily (30% less) and overall scaling significantly reduced.
Blade Trap of Laceration: Loses "more Bleeding damage" but now deals bleeding damage faster—shifting it from raw damage to a faster-DoT style.
Spell Skills
Buffs:
Blight / Contagion / Essence Drain (and variants): All received significant DoT scaling buffs — signaling a return to chaos/DoT meta viability.
Divine Ire & variants: Big damage increases, especially for beam scaling and ailments. Quality-of-life buffs too.
Cold Snap: Much higher top-end damage scaling.
Discharge of Misery: Stronger charge-scaling and AoE.
Nerfs or Reworks:
Hexblast of Havoc: Reduced radius (from 2.8m to 2.5m), though damage is buffed — slightly less coverage but more burst.
Ice Nova of Frostbolts: Can now only expand from 2 Frostbolts (previously 4) — a major AoE nerf.
Fire Skills
Firestorm of Meteors / Flame Surge of Combusting / Flame Dash of Return: All received notable damage buffs — especially in added effectiveness and ignite mechanics.
Bodyswap of Sacrifice: Buffed to do more life-based fire explosion damage.
Incinerate of Expanse: Faster casting and more consistent mana costs.
Lightning Skills
Galvanic Field of Intensity: Better damage and faster beam rate, increasing its clear speed.
Crackling Lance of Branching/Disintegration: Notable effectiveness buffs across the board.
Chaos & DoT Heavyweights
Essence Drain (all variants), Blight (and Atrophy/Contagion variants), Contagion of Subsiding/Transference, Exsanguinate/Transmission: Substantial increases in DoT damage, base damage, and added scaling — clear winners of the patch.
Melee / Bleed
Boneshatter of Carnage: Larger AoE scaling based on stun duration.
Blade Trap variants: Various buffs in base effectiveness and utility.
Bleed-focused skills shift toward faster Bleed application rather than multiplicative damage.
Minions
Carrion Golem of Scavenging: Their Leap and Multistrike skills deal 20–25% more damage, and minion regen from quality is buffed — a solid buff for physical minion builds.
Utility Skills
Holy Flame Totem / Totem of Ire: Now targets enemies from farther away, matching spell totem behavior. Projectile speed and quality scaling also improved.
Detonation / Explosions
Detonate Dead of Chain Reaction: Damage reduced significantly, added damage effectiveness reduced to 65% — likely to curb its high burst capabilities.
Death Aura (Death’s Oath): Damage increased from 1000 to 1250 at level 20 — strong QoL boost for Death's Oath users.
Cold Skills
Eye of Winter variants: Massive scaling buffs, more shard projectiles, and better cast times/mana efficiency. Clear reinvestment in Eye of Winter's potential.
Ice Nova of Deep Freeze: Significantly improved Freeze effectiveness and area.
Key Takeaways
Winners:
Chaos/DoT Casters: Blight, Essence Drain, Contagion, Exsanguinate all up.
Divine Ire variants: Strong scaling buffs for hit and ailment builds.
Cyclone & Blade Flurry: Stronger stage-based builds.
Minion Guardians: Now safer to gear and use, plus golem buffs.
Losers:
Frost Blades builds: Nerfed hard on projectiles.
Detonate Dead: Significantly toned down.
Ice Nova of Frostbolts: Less AoE and effectiveness on Frostbolt setup.
Vaal Skill Adjustments
Vaal Blight:
The damage-over-time has been updated to now deal 6.5 to 778.8 base chaos damage per second from levels 1 to 20 (up from 6.5 to 651.1 previously).
Vaal Cold Snap:
Effectiveness of added damage has been modified to 290–420% from levels 1 to 20 (previously fixed at 350%). It now inflicts 45 to 68 cold damage at level 1 (previously 46 to 69), and reaches 1872 to 2807 at level 20 (previously 1571 to 2356). Base cold damage per second now ranges from 37.6 to 2924.2 through gem levels 1–20 (previously 37.8 to 2454.5).
Vaal Cyclone:
Now benefits from a 15% increased area of effect per 0.1 meter of extra melee strike range (previously 10%). Quality bonuses are adjusted to provide 0–5% increased area per 0.1 meter additional range (formerly 0–10%).
Vaal Lightning Strike:
The effectiveness of both base and added damage now starts at 75% at level 1 (down from 114%), and scales to 177% at level 20 (previously 237%).
Vaal Reap:
Updated effectiveness of added damage ranges from 300–480% at gem levels 1 to 20 (previously 310–420%). Base physical damage is now 114 to 171 at level 1 (previously 115 to 172), scaling up to 2160 to 3240 at level 20 (formerly 1186 to 2828). Damage-over-time now falls between 178.4 to 3375.2 from level 1 to 20 (previously 179.1 to 2946.2).
Support Gem Adjustments
Arcane Surge:
Now grants supported skills 14–35% more spell damage while Arcane Surge is active at levels 1–20 (previously 10–25%). It consistently provides 30% increased mana regeneration rate and 20% increased cast speed at all levels (previously scaled between 30–58% and 10–20% respectively).
Archmage:
Supported skills now gain added lightning damage equal to 10–16% of unreserved maximum mana (reduced from 10–19%).
Awakened Spell Echo:
Now has a cost and reservation multiplier of 140% (reduced from 150%). It no longer imposes a 10% damage penalty on supported skills.
Awakened Unleash:
The cost and reservation multiplier is now 140% (previously 150%). Supported skills now deal 35–33% less damage when reoccurring at gem levels 1–5 (improved from the prior 40–38%).
Decay Support:
Now causes supported skills to inflict decay, dealing 162 to 1230 chaos damage per second over 8 seconds (previously 163 to 1034).
Greater Spell Echo:
The cost and reservation multiplier has been lowered to 140% (down from 150%).
Infused Channelling:
While channelling, supported skills now reduce damage taken from hits by 12% (previously 8%).
Intensify:
The cost and reservation multiplier is now 130% (previously 140%). Supported skills now deal 12–16% more area damage with hits per intensity at gem levels 1–20 (up from 10–14%).
Pinpoint:
This support now has a cost and reservation multiplier of 130% (previously 140%). Supported skills now deal 19–10% less projectile damage at gem levels 1–20 (reduced from 25–16%).
Returning Projectiles:
Projectiles from supported skills now deal 70–66% less damage with hits and ailments while returning at gem levels 1–20 (slightly adjusted from 70–61%).
Sacrifice:
Now causes supported spells to sacrifice 20% of your current life on cast, gaining added chaos damage equal to 35–54% of the sacrificed life at levels 1–20 (previously 25–44%).
Spell Echo:
The cost and reservation multiplier is now 140% (down from 150%), and it no longer causes supported skills to deal 10% less damage.
Unleash:
Now features a cost and reservation multiplier of 140% (reduced from 150%). Supported skills now deal 45–36% less damage when reoccurring at gem levels 1–20 (previously 50–41%).