Vaal Ground Slam

I haven't toyed with support skills with this Vaal, but from what I can see so far, it is a pretty much useless gem in it's current state. Same damage, same chance to hit (90%+ builds that make use of Ground Slam pick up Resolute Technique). With the large number of souls required, most players will save the ability for boss battles, where the Stun will be very ineffective due to lower stun duration on bosses.

The only use I have found for it currently is when surrounded by enemies and getting low on HP to punch them back with the knockback and provide an out.

Since currently the soul charges don't carry over between zone changes, don't seem to recharge off boss enemy summons, and the quantity required is fairly large (1-5 uses in a zone depending on area), there is almost no point in adding support gems to this skill. The ability would have to do way more damage base for me to justify using a 4 socket to support an ability that could just as well be on a 45-90 second cooldown for how many casts it will actually achieve.

I figure if the number of souls will be that high and prohibitive, the best place for these skills would be in the socketed jewelry. However, if they are to be placed in solo sockets they should be able to stand on their own. I think these Vaal skill gems could easily become infrequent use "Ultimate" style abilities. Some of the other Vaal gems I have encountered (Cold Snap, Fireball, Detonate Dead, Spectral Throw), achieve a better feel by adding a more persistent effect though continuous sprays, chains and spirals. A persistent effect could fairly easily be achieved with this skill by adding a "rumbling ground" or earthquake repeating effect and removal of the knockback so enemies will be forced to stay in the effected area, especially with the chain of mini-stuns while inside.

(Low level character in Ambush league, purely comparing ability with it's normal counterpart. Resolute Technique/Blood Magic, Heavy Strike/Ground Slam 2h mace marauder)

Yeah, this gem seems to be quite bad. Drastically improved range & guaranteed hit%, stun, and knockback but it requires a ton of souls to activate and doesn't actually deal any additional damage (and in practical use probably deals a lot less damage since you can't afford to link up a skill you might not even be able to use once per area). With a lower soul count or some other way to activate it, it could potentially be useful as an emergency defensive ability, but as it is, bleh.

What is even the purpose of this gem?

Why would anyone use it over standard Ground Slam?

Who would be dumb enough to waste a gem slot on this, compared to the original?

I could understand the purpose of this gem if it had something like 500-1000% more stun duration and the knockback distance made into a 500-1000% more modifier (20-40 on most chars, 30-60 with fending cluster). It would then have a place as being a very strong form of crowd control that you'd save for bad situations.

Either that or the soul cost brought way, way down and the max charges brought up to be like VST. In which case the skill will just be a slightly stronger version of the base skill that you could use in place of the base if you'd rather not build around stun threshold, used as a secondary to a main attack.

Right now though, this skill has almost no draw to it that makes me think "I want to use this!".

You need to spam GS to make it useful, This gem is not useful because of the fact you can only use it once per zone.

It does not enough damage to count as a single blow attack, and needs too many souls to work. Maybe make it 16 or something.

This gem brings very little to the table that a regular ground slam doesn't. No increase damage, no extra stun. Overall it is very lackluster and not worth the slot. The knockback is nice, but it is very small. It either needs a massive damage boost, or a huge change to the knockback/stun modifies. I would prefer the latter as it then offers a more defensive option to a traditional ground slam.

Agree with others that this might be the least interesting Vaal gem so far...

totally useless.
needs to be able to hold like 3 charges for anyone to even CONSIDER trying to use

If at least soul gathering was steady it could be of some use but even in large zone you are lucky if you can use it twice in a zone in merciless...
And in corrupted zone, you have no chance to even use it once

Compared to Vaal Detonate dead which is OP the gem is pointless as it is.

Should decrease the soul requirement by a lot or hold more charges