Vaal Orb: Unleashing Chaos and Power in Path of Exile

A Vaal Orb in Path of Exile is a currency item that applies a corruption effect to an item. This corruption process is unpredictable, with outcomes ranging from incredibly beneficial to completely detrimental. Once an item is corrupted by a Vaal Orb, its implicit and explicit modifiers become permanently altered and can no longer be modified by most standard currency items. This makes using a Vaal Orb a high-risk, high-reward gamble, often employed by players seeking to push their gear to its absolute limit.

Understanding the Vaal Orb’s Impact

The Vaal Orb fundamentally alters an item, potentially changing its properties in several ways:

• No Change: Sometimes, the Vaal Orb has no visible effect. The item remains corrupted, but its stats and properties are unchanged. This is perhaps the most frustrating outcome.
• Changing Implicits: The item’s implicit modifier, the property listed above the explicit modifiers, can be replaced with a Vaal-exclusive implicit. These can be incredibly powerful or, in some cases, detrimental.
• Adding a White Socket: On a non-unique item, one of the sockets can be converted into a white socket. White sockets can accept any gem, regardless of its attribute requirements, offering great flexibility.
• Transforming into a Rare: The item can be transformed into a rare item with completely new, randomly generated modifiers. This outcome can be extremely powerful if the new modifiers synergize well with your build, but often results in the item becoming unusable.
• For Gems: When used on a gem, a Vaal Orb can:
  • Increase or Decrease Gem Level: The gem’s level can randomly increase or decrease by one.
  • Increase or Decrease Gem Quality: The gem’s quality can randomly increase or decrease by up to 10%.
  • Transform into a Vaal Gem: The gem may transform into its Vaal skill counterpart (if one exists). Vaal skills are powerful alternative versions of regular skills that require soul charges to use.
  • No Change: Similar to items, the gem might simply become corrupted without any other alteration.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Vaal Orbs

Here’s a detailed breakdown of frequently asked questions about Vaal Orbs to further clarify their usage and implications in Path of Exile:

1. Can you Vaal Orb a corrupted item?

No, generally once an item is corrupted by a Vaal Orb, it cannot be modified by most currency items, including other Vaal Orbs. The exceptions are Tainted Currency which can modify corrupted items. You can still use the Crafting Bench to add sockets and links to corrupted items, although this will require Vaal Orbs as part of the crafting recipe.

2. What happens if you Vaal Orb a Unique item?

The effects are the same as with any non-unique item. A Unique item can have its implicit modifier changed to a Vaal-exclusive implicit, gain a white socket, or simply remain unchanged while becoming corrupted. The possibility of a positive or negative outcome makes Vaal Orbing uniques a thrilling endeavor.

3. What is the chance of getting a white socket when using a Vaal Orb?

The chance of adding a white socket to an item using a Vaal Orb is dependent on the number of sockets. It’s approximately 1/4 for a one socket item but gets exponentially rarer with more sockets (e.g., 1/40 for two sockets, up to 1/400,000 for a six-socket item).

4. How do you get Vaal Skill Gems?

Vaal Skill Gems can be obtained in several ways:

• Corrupting Normal Gems: Using a Vaal Orb on a normal skill gem has a chance to transform it into its Vaal counterpart (e.g., Flicker Strike to Vaal Flicker Strike).
• Vaal Side Areas: They can drop from Vaal Vessels found in Vaal side areas.
• Gem Rewards: They can be obtained from sources that give gem rewards.
• The Cheater Divination Card: Exchanging a set of three “The Cheater” Divination Cards will grant you a random corrupted level 6 Awakened Support Gem with 20% quality.

5. What are Vaal Skills?

Vaal Skills are powerful alternative versions of regular skills in Path of Exile. They are fueled by souls collected from slain enemies. When enough souls are gathered, the Vaal Skill can be activated, unleashing a devastating effect.

6. How do you charge Vaal Skills?

Vaal Skills are charged by collecting souls. Souls are primarily obtained by killing enemies (1 soul per kill). Damaging Rare or Unique enemies grants a larger number of souls (1 or 6, respectively, per 2% life lost with a 1 second cooldown).

7. What are the new Vaal Skill Gems introduced in recent expansions?

While new ones are periodically introduced, the article mentions these specific Vaal Skill gems: Vaal Reap, Vaal Arctic Armour, Vaal Absolution, Vaal Lightning Arrow, Vaal Animate Weapon, Vaal Domination, Vaal Ice Shot, Vaal Rejuvenation Totem, and Vaal Firestorm.

8. Can you use an Eternal Orb to revert an item after using a Vaal Orb?

No, once an item has been corrupted by a Vaal Orb, the imprints created by Eternal Orbs cannot be used to restore the item to its pre-corrupted state. The corruption is permanent in this regard.

9. Where can you find Vaal Orbs?

Vaal Orbs are uncommon currency items that can be found by:

• Slaying monsters.
• Breaking containers.
• Opening chests.
• Dropping from Arcanist’s Strongboxes.
• They have an increased drop rate in Vaal side areas.

10. What other currencies are important in Path of Exile?

Besides Vaal Orbs, other crucial currencies include:

• Chaos Orbs: Used to re-roll modifiers on rare items.
• Exalted Orbs: Used to add a new affix to a rare item. Highly valuable.
• Divine Orbs: Used to randomly re-roll values of mods on items.
• Mirror of Kalandra: The rarest and most valuable currency, used to create an exact copy of an item.

11. Is buying Path of Exile currency allowed?

Buying Path of Exile currency from third-party sellers is against the game’s Terms of Service and can lead to account bans. It’s best to earn currency through legitimate gameplay.

12. What is the most expensive currency in Path of Exile?

The Mirror of Kalandra is the most expensive currency in Path of Exile. One Mirror can cost over 150 Exalted Orbs or even much higher, depending on the league.

13. How does Vaal Cold Snap work?

Vaal Cold Snap is a Vaal spell that causes an initial burst of ice, freezing enemies. After the burst, an area of damage over time releases from the player, chilling enemies and awarding Frenzy charges for each enemy within the area.

14. What are the odds of getting a specific outcome when corrupting a gem?

The exact odds of each outcome are not publicly disclosed by Grinding Gear Games, but anecdotal evidence and community testing suggest a roughly equal chance for each of the possible outcomes (level up, level down, quality up, quality down, Vaal gem transformation, no change). This is, however, an approximation.

15. What impact does gaming have on learning?

The world of gaming, including Path of Exile, offers much more than just entertainment. There’s valuable learning and skills development happening within these virtual worlds. To learn more about the intersection of games and education, explore the Games Learning Society at https://www.gameslearningsociety.org/, a community dedicated to advancing knowledge about games and learning. GamesLearningSociety.org is a great resource for understanding how gaming can be a positive force in education.

Conclusion

The Vaal Orb remains a thrilling, albeit risky, tool for players seeking to maximize their item potential in Path of Exile. Its unpredictable nature keeps the gameplay exciting and reinforces the game’s core philosophy of risk versus reward. Understanding the potential outcomes and weighing the gamble is crucial for any player looking to wield the power of corruption effectively.