Announcement: Curse (715) review

The official GemStone IV encyclopedia.
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Category: Development
Subject: Curse (715) review
Author: GS4-TAGO
Date: 2024-08-31

Curse (715) has received the rest of its spell disabler review update, as well as the update specified in the sorcerer review proposal (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vFQcOJVAVCMLnXD8UksBBxgFJDJE4xMVXCdVmxXPFBk/edit).

Spell Disabler Review

Curse's mana cost had already been reduced to 3 mana, and its cast roundtime reduced to 2 seconds, earlier in the spell disabler review. The latest round of changes align it with the rest of the spell disabler review:

  • Duration of all 715 curses is now 30 seconds against players and 60 seconds against creatures (reduced with survival ranks and kroderine soul.)
  • All hard roundtime is replaced with stagger (cannot stack, can refresh).
  • The TD pushdown for self-casting is removed.

Previously, many curse effects were a slow burn, and so the new duration had more impact on them than many other disablers. To balance this change, all curses that previously had a chance to trigger every 5 seconds now have a chance to trigger every 3 seconds (clumsy, weakness, itch, and pox), and individual curses received additional changes as follows: Clumsy

  • The first check after a successful cast always triggers clumsiness.
  • Creatures' chances of stumbling now more closely match players', and there is a minor messaging fix relating to clumsy creatures.

Weakness

  • Slight boost to probability to do a crit.

Itch

  • The chance of triggering itchiness has been reduced such that the average number of item drop events will remain about the same (per 30 seconds of itchiness) as before.

Pox

  • The first check after a successful cast always triggers the pox.
  • Boost to probability to trigger the pox on all other checks.

Nightmare

  • The time from successful cast to first combat-relevant effect is substantially reduced.

Sorcerer review

  • Curse of the star no longer has a warding check. (The target still has to die for the caster to get the bolt AS boost.)

tldr

Curses act faster, and are bit stronger in some places, but they don't last extra-long any more.