Vaal Double Strike

This gem has one hell of a cool concept, throw some inc duration on it an you have a buddy for some quick boss killing.

I think it's pretty useless. I tried it out on my way to Dominus. The 64 kill req per use makes it feel like you can never use the skill and a 4sec ally who has terrible AI isn't nearly worth 64 kills. Seriously, during the Dominus fight he attacks a totem four time and is gone... wow... that was... neat looking? Make it 5 kills and the gem has some real uses.

Edit: btw, I love DS and am really sad to see it's Vaal brother be so pathetic.

+1 for some of these gems just simply taking too many souls to charge.

I think GGG spent too much fun with /souls command rather than actually testing viability.

Agreed with above posts. Doesn't last long enough and too many souls to be of real use thus far. Also tooltip dps seems to be inaccurate, I don't think it's counting in the second swing.

Gems with a pathetic benefit (like this one) should have a correspondingly low soul counter.

I'm curious how this interacts with multistrike, wonder if you get multiple illusions.

I've been trying to use this (up to level 33, sword and shield melee guy). It's.....pretty awful. The first couple of times I used it, I thought it did nothing. Then I realized, it summoned, did one double strike, stopped to look around, then as it was about to swing again, the 4 seconds was up. Um, thanks, I guess?

It needs one of the following:

1) A MUCH longer duration. Start by doubling it and go from there.
2) Take FAR fewer souls to use. Start by thirding it (is that a word? you get it), and go from there.
3) Have the duplicate guy zip around at ultra speed double-striking everything, so it actually hits numerous times in those few seconds.

As is, it's useless.

leveling up should increase the skill duration.

Also + @ all less souls useage commets.

I actually find this skill very useful for taking down invading bosses. Since they reduced the souls required per difficulty, I am able to use it very frequent. In Merciless i can use 2-3 per ledge run. I have it linked with melee phys and added fire and the damage is very strong. Short but strong.

On thing ive noticed is you must attack the target you want it to attack. You can't just use this ability and run, as the AI will not continously attack your target. Im still up in the air whether i like this mechanic or not.

I wouldnt mind having the duration increase per level. As i only want to 4 link this ability. Using increased duration in that 4-link doesnt feel ideal(Unsure if it even affects the clone duration)