Dear exiles, today I will continue to share The Forbidden Sanctum balance guide, containing Eldritch Altars and Curses.
Eldritch Altars
In the Forbidden Sanctum expansion, some changes were made to Eldritch Altars, notably their rewards, the monster packs they spawn, and the incentives for rushing to map bosses before completing the rest of the map. In addition, a chance for Maven-witnessed Map Bosses to drop an Awakened Gem has been increased (including the Awakened Gems that are typically exclusive to Maven herself). The overarching goal of these changes is to try to get to a point where the choice between running Maven-witnessed Maps or Eldritch Influence Maps is closer in value while still retaining the gameplay feeling you've come to expect from Eldritch Altars.
Altar rewards now make more sense with clearer reward types and reduced extreme levels of gifts. GGG has always worked so that players aren't forced to run straight to bosses on the map in order to maximize their rewards. GGG also updated Wrath of the Cosmos keystone to make it less brutal and less rewarding. The intent is not to destroy these systems, but to slightly reduce their overall effectiveness. They should still be a valuable source of rewards.
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Curses
In today's final 3.20 manifesto, we're discussing changes to Curses (specifically, Hexes) and the goal of making their effectiveness against different rarities of monsters more balanced.
• GGG has removed Hidden monster penalties against curses.
• Hexes are now stronger against unique monsters, at least twice as strong against pinnacle bosses, but weaker against regular monsters.
• To simplify the Hex system, the Doom mechanic has been removed. Anything related to Doom has been reworked so that it's comparable to before.
• The Occultist ascendancy class has had some stats removed and moved around to counteract some of the power gain from the above changes.
• GGG has buffed Enfeeble and Temporal Chains.
• Some less-accessible sources of Curse Effect have been removed to aid the above changes. This also acts as a nerf to Hex Support builds.
• Hex gems have been re-balanced with the goal of ensuring that self-cast remains relevant compared to automatic curse application.
• GGG have buffed a bunch of Hex-related unique items and reworked unique items that previously interacted with Doom.
• GGG have also added some powerful new unique items that interact with Hexes.
Final Thoughts
• Huge buff for curses against bosses as it will become twice as effective in most cases.
• Scaling curse limit and using as many curses as possible could be viable for bossing.
• The new ring seems insane to get an easy curse limit.
• Use Asenath's Mark to cast curses without having the trigger penalty.
• Occultist receives a slight nerf as they lose Malediction.
Please note that the balance guidelines above are still subject to change prior to the release of The Forbidden Sanctum expansion. Please stay tuned to mmogah.com for more news on PoE 3.20.
