3.20 Balance Manifesto: Curses

They didn't mention Doedre's Skin. They nerfed it in scourge... is it getting removed from the loot pool / getting giga nerfed?

Problem: People like to automate curses to smooth out gameplay
"Solution: We greatly nerfed automated curses. You WILL Click manually and you WILL LIKE it.

Amazing changes!!

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hmcg020 wrote:

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neuroguy wrote:

Maybe I'm alone on this, but I don't find the application of curses very fun gameplay. I'd rather you lean in harder on automating curses and give us different tools on how to automate them. I think the battle for self-cast viability is a righteous one, but nobody asked for it when it comes to... curses? Or maybe I'm just wrong.

You're in alignment with most of who play the game imo. Well, you're definitely in alignment with me on this. Self-casting is something I haven't done since the moment automation became a thing. Why would anyone, especially melee risk pausing in a battle for roughly 1 second to apply a curse? Think about stopping for a second when facing uber sirus? Are you crazy?

Is the perception from GGG that we'll sacrifice gem slots and critical survivability to get the benefits of self-cast? I need to hold 4 buttons just to use my skill already! Then I have totems, movement skills, flasks, vaal skills, alternating stances, placing banner... do you really want to make me have to add 1-2 more steps? I'd rather go without curses and invest in other implicits on rings, amulets and on the passive tree than ever self-cast a single curse. The game's about speed because that's how you more efficiently achieve pretty much every goal you could have in PoE, outside of experiencing new content.

I think you might have exposed a point here, which is that the intention of GGG is likely to limit the efficacy of complex interactions of game elements on the part of the player. The more of those elements are automated, the more of them a player can utilize in such complex combinations, since automated elements require zero (or much less) real-time player-with-game interaction, and the player is able to focus on the ones which do require attention / interaction / analysis / input...As a result, X complex game-element combination may render game challenges trivial. On the other hand if, in being automated, game elements are toned down (rendered less effective), the same combination of elements might not render game challenges trivial.

GGG has created a many-headed monster, the complexity of which has not been even remotely approached by any other ARPG. That is truly awesome for players, but an ever-increasing challenge for developers to stay on top of the whack-a-mole outlier combinations of abilities and items which "break the game".

This consideration is likely at least partial motivation for the "Path of Nerfs" we are forced to endure as one of the costs of playing such a wonderful game...and developers aren't always going to get the nerf-to-balance effort right the first time in order to make room for new elements or to fix things which have been exposed as "broken".

Looks like a massive nerf to self curse HH and Boneshatter builds but everything else reads imo as a buff.
Wait. Maybe the Ocvcultist part is a bit too much.

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The curse effect removed from the notable previously known as Malediction has been moved to the passive skill tree, where it's available for everyone. This is important, because while the Occultist is still the strongest overall Ascendancy for someone who wants to specialise in applying many hexes, it's not mandatory to play for someone who merely wants to apply really strong hexes.

It loses some identity here now that every character can make the strongest singular curses and i expect the reworked notable will only have one line of a mod i guess.

Anyways. Guess it's now a Hexblast league in 3.0. I'm already having fun with Hexblast Ignite Trickster and it feels good with Blasphemy + Curse for trash mobs and self cast Doomsday for thougher enemies.

Now that the ramping doom mechanic dont exists anymore you can replace blasphemy with a defensive aura and spam selfcast curses for instant max effect, to sacrifice a little bit of QoL for an important defensive aura like Tempest shield.

I mean you could already spam curses (kinda) if you wanted but needed to invest 6+ skill points for doom gain rate and still had to wait for a second to get max effects. Now self casting is in a good spot vs blasphemy curse.

Is this a part of The Vision? Making ascendancies not relevant anymore? You nerfed necro so bad that inquisitor is a far better choice for most minion builds (if you are dumb enough to still play a minion build).

Now any char you chose will be a far better "occultist" using that uberOP ring and a 1c unique to get of profane bloom. So why would anyone chose to invest in occultist? Seems like elementalist it's the only witch with an identity.

As an casual player with a chaotic schedule i have little to none access to team play, so all the nerfs to single player and buffs to party play are slaps on the face. And you really feel the need to encourage bot parties with actual bots? Is that part of The Vision?

What about your so much promoted care for player? You put the means to automate the flasks in game in order to reduce the incidence of carpal tunnel syndrome, or at least thats what you said. Now everything must be self cast or your skills and buffs/debuffs are nerfed to the ground or so costly that you cant use them. Oh, you want all of us to be piano players? Sorry, i didn't know that ... When will you introduce the third row of buttons then?

Seems very reasonable. Thanks ggg.

Wanted to play hexblast this league u guess not anymore ty Ggg

nice

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lowlowlowererer wrote:

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NoIguanaForZ wrote:

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We have removed the '15% increased Effect of your Curses' and 'Enemies you Curse have Malediction' stats from the Malediction notable in the Occultist's Ascendancy.

Mmph. I can live with it; losing the +1 curse from Malediction would have been quite inconvenient since my little-engine-that-could build in standard needs a hex and a mark to feel good, and prying loose the skill points to path to Whispers of Doom would have been moderately inconvenient.

Malediction's reduced damage *dealt* was a nice bit of defense though, and I'm gonna miss the fact that it applied to hexproof enemies even if the hex didn't.

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The 'Your Hexes can affect Hexproof Enemies' stat has been moved from Profane Bloom to the Malediction notable.

Oh. Never mind.

Profane Bloom: chaos on-kill explosion only

Malediction(will be renamed): +1 curse, your curse can apply to hexproof enemies.

15% curse effect will be moved into passive tree so we could invest more passives to get them back lol.

Right.

And The Notable Formerly Known As Malediction will no longer cause curses to apply a debuff by the same name, to cursed enemies, which grants the aforementioned cursed enemies 1) 10% Increased Damage Taken and 2) 10% Reduced Damage, which A) I've experimentally observed still gets applied to hexproof enemies even if the hex doesn't, meaning hexing them still helps a little and B) the second part helped a little with my character's survivability generally.

However, TNFKAM I) doesn't lose the +1 curse, which I was mildly worried, before the manifesto came out, might be one of the planned changes - hence the "would have been" in "would have been inconvenient" - and II) now has Curses Apply to Hexproof Enemies, which more than makes up for losing the +10% Damage Taken part of the debuff it no longer applies in that specific use case, and is nice across the board.

Yeah, that's what I reacting to.

(Curse effect wasn't a make-or-break for anything I was doing and it sounds like hexes fully applying to rare and unique enemies will more than compensate).