3.20 Balance Manifesto: Curses

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU AND I MADE A POST AND ASKED THEM TO REVIST MANA TOO THE COST ALOT THE GEMS ARE TOO HIGH TO USE LIKE SOME SUPPORTS COSTING 130 TO 150 MANA ON TOP OF THE SKILL GEMS OUTRAGEOUS COST.

THEY PROMISED BALANCE BUT IT STILL AINT THERE ... BUT THE NERFS ARE THERE.

Nice

VOC sheds a tear ...

Would like to know how this effect curses applied on our characters.

Interesting changes, awesome unique ring, looks good.

Yesh. Let's give everyone stronger curses, but make sure occultists get the least benefit (or actually a nerf, malediction is a big thing) from the change because logic

POE enthusiast #1:Do you want to play a character that specializes in curses?
POE Enthusiast #2: Yes!
POE Enthusiast #1: Play occultist!
POE Enthusiast #2: Why?
POE Enthusiast #1: Because as occultist you have access to an extra incentive that no other ascendancy has!

Overall, the changes to curses make sense. The change to malediction is unnecessary and nonsensical with the other goals set out by GGG. When GGG did the massive overhaul of ascedancies, the rationel was to make them unique. All of the generic things that could be found elsewhere in the tree or on gear were more or less removed (ie +% generic damage, +% generic defense, + generic stats, ect). Malediction, in its current form, is a unique debuff that distinguishes a certain type of playstyle for the occultist.

If these changes go through, the unique choice of why to choose occultist is severely diminished if not eliminated as it relates to curses. "The massive buff to hexes especially applies to Occultists because they have access to more Hexes than other Ascendancies". By removing the malediction debuff, GGG is limiting the "uniqueness" of occultist to +1 curse. There is nothing unique about +1 curse especially at the cost of 2 ascendancy points. This same "uniqueness" can be obtained from the passive tree and on gear with the same effect. And now enter Ananthema. With the addition of this new ring which has a minimum of +3 curses, this "access to more hexes than other Ascendancies" seems quite trivial for the occultist. While technically it is correct because the occultist can get one additional curse, it doesn't set itself apart in a unique way from any other ascendancy when considering the availability of that single stat in the rest of the game. Keeping malediction in its current form gives occultist that uniqueness that sets it apart from other Ascendancies for the curse archetype.

POE enthusiast #1: Do you want to play a character that specializes in curses?
POE Enthusiast #2: Yes!
POE Enthusiast #1: Play occultist!
POE Enthusiast #2: Why?
POE Enthusiast #1: Because as occultist you have access to an extra +1 to curses.
POE Enthusiast #2: Couldn't you get that from the passive tree or a single piece of gear? Or even get multiple times that from a single ring slot?
POE Enthusiast #1: ...yes
POE Enthusiast #2: so why are we going occultist for curses again?
POE Enthusiast #1: GGG?

So what Occultist will get, since will lose so much, to be desired as a class for curse application?
Will it be less reservation for blasphemy since it will be less effective?

Interested to to see what the exact changes to Hexblast are. I quite liked that skill before. Since we don't have to wait on doom anymore, that makes me think CoC or CwC setups will have some serious power.

Dose bane deal triple damage?