This guide is intended for Nightmare/Adventure and lower.
I DO have an Insane clear, which you can look at below, but I'm only truly confident about this guide on difficulties easier than Insane.Hey, I'm back, came to re-write this guide.
Oh no.Oh yes.
Why play Cursed?With the changes to Repel and the Predator tree, Cursed's ability to survive went up by several orders of magnitude. Combined with its pre-existing escapes/disengages, its naturally high damage that gives even its bump attacks teeth, and its other ways of mitigating damage, and if you play the class correctly then you should pretty much NEVER die on Nightmare or below.
Then why do you have so many deaths on this class?I don't always play this class correctly.
Do you ever?Eh. I've been told to kms due to how incredibly bad the 1.4.x version of this guide was, so believe me, I'm keenly aware of how bad I am at this game. Hopefully this version is a little bit better, and I'm always open to suggestions on how to fix it.
Gameplay OverviewYour openers are either Reckless Charge or Blindside, followed by trying to get Harass Prey off ASAP. This means your opener is typically followed by Dominate and/or Slash. Once Harass Prey is down, use Frenzy to take down a chunk of your opponent's health or outright annihilate them.
Once you get strong enough, a single Frenzy will sometimes destroy opponents without anything else, which is key for taking out squishy enemies like Orc magic-users.
Exceptions to this would be using Ruined Earth (if you choose to level it) as an opener if you are either out of hate or NEED to stop the initial big attacks, especially if you think Harass Prey would take a while to proc or you have 0 Hate.
If you have Cursed Sentry, you can also place it into the view of enemies to shoot them while you yourself remain hidden-- "corner sniping" as it's called. Cursed Sentry can cheese encounters by itself outright, but this oftentimes stops being a viable strategy mid/late game. However, if you can make sure it doesn't get targeted (difficult with Blindside), it can remain a very good damage supplement more most of one's playthrough. Additionally, Cursed Sentry is another 0 Hate move that you can consider using in an encounter (not necessarily as an opener) if it comes to that.
Know when to run. Chance of Rampage is literally built in to you, and if it's up and you think you're going to die soon, just walking away while Rampage is up is often effective to GTFO.
Which Races?Most anything works.
Cornac, Krog, Thalore, and Ogre are safe picks.
Ghoul is a spicy meme but I personally don't enjoy it.
Which Prodigies?ICCTW + Superpower - The idea behind this combo isn't simply the damage boosts; those are nice, sure. However, what you're actually here for is the massive Mindpower boost. You can often reliably get to 85-90 with not much effort thanks to this, which should be enough to land Dominate on even the final bosses. You would essentially never to need to worry about having more than a minor amount of respen on your gear thanks to this, if you're only after a Win. You'll definitely still need to work a bit to increase your Mindpower further against postgame bosses.
Flexible Combat - This is perhaps the actual meta choice for Cursed. Due to the fact that you can reaosnably rely on Damage (Melee) procs and get a ton of multiple attack talents, it isn't unreasonable to say that Flexible Combat can reliably double your damage (at LEAST), making ICCTW + Superpower's combined damage boosts look paltry in comparison.
Core TalentsCursed / SlaughterSlash is a fairly basic but high damage burst. 1 core.
Frenzy is oftentimes your biggest damage dealer against a single target. Ironically, it will hit multiple targets (and thus its damage isn’t so great) UNLESS there is only one target available, or the target you’re after is Stalk-marked. So open up with other talents first to proc Stalk. 1 core.
Reckless Charge is both an opener and an escape. Unlike Rush you don't need a target; exploit this to get into and out of danger. 3 early, 5 later when you can spare it.
Cleave isn't good enough in my opinion, especially as it does nothing in 1v1, but some people like it. 0-1 luxury.
Cursed / Endless HuntStalk keeps enemies on the map even when they're not in your line of sight, and helps turn Frenzy into an insane damage burst by making sure all hits go to the enemy stalked. However, it doesn't need more than one point. 1 core.
Harass Prey is one of your primary survivability talents. The person you're focusing is often the most dangerous, and if they're doing less damage and temporarily have their talents shut down, the better for you. 1 early, 3 or 5 luxury.
Beckon you can use to force enemies into more favorable engagements, and also to get Stair Guardians off the stairs in order to ascend High Peak. Honestly I will go the whole game not using it before High Peak, but it does have great tactical uses. 1 whenever.
Surge used to be king amongst the three sustains it's competing with. Nowadays movement speed is more plentiful, Defense still isn't up to par with other stats, and Repel is just better. Some people do like having it as an option though. 0-1 luxury.
Cursed / StrifeDominate is an important opener because of the respen. Before you get other forms of respen online, this is what will allow you to push damage. I like early points in it as a personal preference, though others prefer to delay points. 4 early.
Preternatural Senses is important because information is king. I like to max it at some point. 1 early, 2-5 early/midgame, 5 lategame.
Blindside is usually your opener-from-a-distance, with Reckless Charge typically being the other option. Blindside counts also as a teleport; this enables Out of Phase, which is an interesting defensive option you can get from gear. Additionally, Blindside combined with Preternatural Senses allows you to get out of sticky situations as you can target enemies that are outside of your current combat using it. 1 early, 4 later (if you want), 5 if going OoP.
Repel allows you to gain a flat 20+% chance to avoid an enemy melee attack that cannot be mitigated short of someone using sustain removal on you, so long as you're using a Shield. Even without a Shield you get a respectable amount of evasion so long as you pick ICCTW as a prodigy. The scaling doesn't justify putting more points in it, though. 1 core.
Cursed / GloomGloom provides control on its own, and then all the other stuff from the rest of the talents in this category as a Sustain. Very important, but can be left at a small amount of points at the start. 1-2 early/midgame, 3-5 lategame.
Weakness is pretty good when it goes off, providing additional survivability against close range enemies as a possibility. Will proc more and more often as you level up, and becomes fairly reliable once Superpower is online. 1-2 early/midgame, 3-5 lategame.
Mindrot doesn't look like it does much, but the amount it's capable of doing is dependent on mindpower and number of actions. It takes a big upward hike in damage the moment you get Superpower. If you ever get stuff like Duathedlen Heart and Black Light Emitter, you will be pumping out steady damage via this talent. 1 early to get to Sanctuary, 5 lategame.
Sanctuary blunts the damage of ranged attacks tremendously. 1-2 early/midgame, 3+ lategame.
Cursed / Rampage (Unlock ASAP)Rampage is the original signature Cursed skill. Big movement speed, boost to survivability, boost to attack speed, and big damage. When you don't have enough Gold to buy an infusion starting out, the fact that it doubles as a pseudo-Movement Infusion is incredibly important. So long as you aren't surrounded, it's oftentimes the most reliable escape. When fighting something, let it trigger on its own. Save the actual manual use of the talent for fleeing, unless you believe you absolutely must push damage in (this isn't a scenario that happens often). 3 early, 4-5 lategame.
Brutality adds quite a bit of damage, but so do the other talents. Great place to put luxury points though. 1+.
Tenacity can be left at a minimum amount, you're just here to extend Rampage duration. 1.
Slam is cute but there's too much Stun Immunity going around. I don't often use it. 0 core, 1-2 luxury.
Cursed / PredatorPredator provides accuracy and armor penetration, and a whole heaping load of it. You can often get both on gear, but as a talent this provides a lot. Level it to your tastes. 1 early, 2 core, 3+ luxury.
Savage Hunter is the new defining skill for Cursed. It provides you cover and survivability via directing attacks to other enemies on the battlefield. It is a whole new method of engineering chaos on the battlefield, and all you need to do is having enough Hate and get a crit off. However, you may not be able to muster enough crit to do so in the early game. But all you would need to do is find it, and physical crit chance is surprisingly plentiful especially on Nightmare. Additionally, Razor Edge is an option if you got lucky enough to get Tinkers. 1 early, 2-3 midgame, 5 lategame.
Shrouded Hunter allows Savage Hunter to additionally give physical power and stealth. Both are good and get even better once you have Superpower. 1 early, 2+ midgame, 5 lategame.
Mark Prey gives not only a virtual +18% resistance to the most dangerous things on the floor but it also gives you information. Information is king. 5 core.
Technique / Combat TrainingThick Skin is a key survival skill for any class. Once you have CON-boosting gear and you feel the rest of your build is online, get points in this when you can. 3+ core.
Combat Accuracy isn't too necessary but I like putting some points in it. 1-2 to taste.
Heavy Armor Training lets you equip a lot of the good body armors. 3+ core if you're going heavy.
Light Armor Training is worth looking at especially since Robes are so good now and there's some good Light Armor choices to begin with. 2 core if you're going Light, but oftentimes heavier armors will be superior so this is often 0.
Weapons Mastery isn't as good in 1.6.x so I don't really recommend putting points in this unless you really, REALLY think you don't have anywhere else to put them. 1-2 core.
Dagger Mastery might be cute but you're probably picking CON and not DEX as your fifth stat so eh. 0-1 depending on how your equipment ends up.
Cursed / Cursed FormUnnatural Body is more of an innate detriment than anything. 1.
Cursed Form means statuses affect you less, but you can get a lot of status immunity off of gear. 2 early, 0-5 lategame.
Seethe is cute but not worth talking about. 0 core, 1 luxury to get to Grim Resolve.
Grim Resolve is also cute but honestly, even if you're a Cornac drowning in points you can probably still find use for those points elsewhere. 0 core, 2+ luxury.
Cursed / Cursed Aura (Optional but uses no cat point if you opt in)For this tree, ask yourself these questions:
"
Do I want the Cursed Aura category or can I go without it?"
There are actually people who don't bother with it, and honestly Cursed is so broken this is actually a perfectly viable course of action. That said, losing 2 Willpower and having a minor detriment is completely worth using literally anything in this tree.
"
Do I want to level Ruined Earth and/or Cursed Sentry?"
If you're a newbie, I absolutely recommend using these two. Cursed Sentry trivializes encounters on its own and remains a solid source of damage lategame. On Normal, use of Ruined Earth means there isn't a single thing on a regular playthrough of the game (i.e. no vaults, no ridiculous problem dungeons like Dark Crypt, etc.) that can kill you.
"
Do I want to level Defiling Touch and Dark Gifts?"
If you're not a newbie and have a solid handle of itemization, then you want these two talents. Look at the Nightmare and the Shroud line of effects. Both of these are absolutely obnoxious! In fact they're so good that many people will tell you that you don't need either Ruined Earth or Cursed Sentry, and can just opt to level these two talents.
Defiling Touch... Man, seriously, take a look at what Curse of Nightmares and Curse of Shrouds do. 0, 1 (as prereq), or 5.
Dark Gifts is either 0, 1 (as prereq), or 5.
Ruined Earth is a symmetrical effect reducing damage done by 50% at talent level 5 across a huge radius. This looks terrible until you realize it means you'll often survive stuff you otherwise wouldn't at the start of (or maybe during) a fight, and you get to watch in glee as the idiots you're fighting blow talents and resources while Ruined Earth is up and then you just kill them in response because you're inputting an insane amount of damage regardless of whether the Weakness from Ruined Earth is on you or not. Despite the ridiculously long cooldown, it is a premier panic button for Cursed, and I can confidently say you will survive 100% of encounters in Normal and like 95% of encounters on Nightmare with proper use of it. 0, 1 (as prereq), or 5.
Cursed Sentry hits hard, and starting from 3+ it hits fast. I wasn't joking when I said it trivializes encounters (in Halfling Complex you in fact trivialize the entire dungeon as the only difficult part of it are Skeleton Master Archers, which Sentry hard counters).If f you can keep it from dying through proper placement, it will also do plenty of damage lategame. 0 or 5.
Extra TalentsIn here, we'll talk mostly about generic talents (including racials) not covered above.
Many races will serve as excellent Cursed, but
Krog in particular is one of the best races in the game and this is clearer than ever on Cursed. I personally prefer Cornac, but Krogwielding alone can make early/midgame very smooth.
Thalore synergizes well with Cursed due to its talents being reliant on Willpower. Healmod is critical on Cursed, and their Treants in particular can smash stuff all on their own.
Antimagic is the most optimal way to play Cursed. I say this as someone who literally does nothing but play Cursed characters that utilize Arcane items. Cursed is such a strong class that you can just waltz up to and kill most of the field, and the parts of the field you might have problems with-- Magic-- can be dealt with just by going this path. Personally, with the advent of Rune of Dissipation I haven't felt the sting of not going Antimagic nearly as much, but to each his own
Tinkers provide a smorgasboard of everything. EVERYTHING. Damage, immunities, resistances, and even niche uses like Air Recyler for underwater segments. I prefer taking it early as I'll often go the whole game not seeing certain schematics, and this can be mitigated if you see the Tinker escort closer to the start. From here you want Ablative Armor, Grounding Strap, Razor Edge (to better enable Savage Hunter), select weapon tinkers on off-hand (or maybe even mainhand?) to make use of stuff like Winterchill Edge, Iron Grip, etc.
Mindstar Mastery is neat. Mindstars offer a bevy of exciting effects and Leaves Tide is pretty good as a surivval talent.
Survival is often a safe pick for a cat point due to how good Device Mastery is. Even after all this time, you can still get great effects from items. Also, Track is in this tree, and while it's not amazing when you have Preternatural Senses, it still has better reach. Note also that if you're going Tinkers, then Device Mastery has a beautiful interactoin with Injectors.
Harmony is a mediocre choice unless you can enable the best of its effects with some consistency.
Augmented Mobility is great. More disengages and more speed, what's not to love?
Scoundrel is an interesting combat option as you are most likely going CUN in order to smooth out your usage of Savage Hunter. Messing up your opponent's attack pattern even further meshes wonderfully with the rest of Cursed's kit. Pile on Gloom effects, slow effects, and Scoundrel, and watch as bosses like Elandar struggle to do ANYTHING meaningful.
Feedback is a cute trick on Normal but frankly terrible on Nightmare or higher. You'll note that I kept taking it regardless on the grand majority of my Cursed characters; I did so to prove a point on how good Cursed is as a class, that it can throw away cat points and still do fine. That said, barely anything OHKO's you on Normal, so the effective HP off of the shield and the extra cure talent will feel especially meaningful on that difficulty. Note that you can get the shielding talent by itself from a Defiler escort, and that single talent point will pay off on its own much more than actual investment to the level of a cat point would.
Fears are actually quite amazing now that they've been tweaked, though I personally prefer just hitting opponents in the face. In the first place, your Mindpower won't be as good as a Doomed so you probably won't get nearly as much mileage out of it.
Stats and Talent LevelingSTR and enough WIL to make sure you get Harass Prey as soon as you meet its level requirement, then STR > WIL > CUN > a fourth stat (usually CON). You can optionally do for Sanctuary what you did with Harass Prey, but for me it's not a big deal getting Sanctuary.
Some people will tell you to pump Rampage (and to an extent Brutality) early. That does work, but from personal experience Rampage doesn't need to be 5. In fact it can be 3 for a while.
For talent leveling, here's a brief guide if you're a Cornac who has opted in for Ruined Earth and Cursed Sentry.
CLASS Points -
Early game (T1) priorities:
Rampage to 3.
Dominate to 4.
Reckless Charge to 3.
Repel to 1 ASAP.
Harass Prey to 1 ASAP.
1 in everything else except Cleave, Surge, Slam, and the latter three Predator skills which can't really go off yet in early game.
After early game:
Predator skills you haven't unlocked yet to 1.
Mark Prey to 5.
Blindside to 5 ONLY IF you are doing Out of Phase memes.
Savage Hunter to 2-3 once you have enough crit going to proc it with consistency.
Mid-game:
Reckless Charge to 5.
Preternatural Senses to 2+.
Gloom category talents except Mindrot to 2+.
Rampage to 4-5 maybe.
Late-game:
Mindrot to 5 ASAP when you unlock Superpower as your second prodigy.
Shourded Hunter to 5 ASAP when you unlock Superpower as your second prdoigy.
Gloom category talents to 3+.
Rampage to 5 if you haven't already.
Savage Hunter to 5 if you haven't already.
Preternatural Sense to 5.
Blindside to 4-5 if you haven't already.
Luxury points in Brutality, Harass Prey, Predator (the talent itself), Gloom category talents.
GENERIC points -
Earlygame:
Ruined Earth to 5 ASAP.
Cursed Sentry to 5 ASAP.
Everything else to taste per above sections.
CATEGORY points -
Rampage -> Generic Talent Tree -> Inscription -> Inscription -> Generic Talent Tree
InscriptionsFirst off, whatever you pick, remember to check the shops especially at the start. Shops also add new inventory at Level 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50.
As primarily a Cornac player with a predilection for Tinkers and Arcane Items, I like doing one Regen, two Injectors, Dissipation, and then a fifth slot for cute tricks (like Steam Generator to enable steamsaw offhands and Rocket Boots as an alternate escape).
The Injectors can be replaced with a combination of Healing, Wild Infusions selected based on what statuses you have the most problem with, and/or Shatter Afflictions. If you are leaning on Shatter Afflictions for status removal though, you will want a Silence torque. Heroism is also still pretty cool as a panic button even though it no longer boosts stats.
Escape options are also worth looking at.
You can probably safely ignore damage options (Acid Wave, Rune of the Rift, etc.).
Which Acorn?Cold Iron Acorn (Evil) is probably the meta option for the extra damage.
Iron Acorn (Good) if you want physical resistance; even +8% resistance can be boosted by Thick Skin and OoP by a lot. The life is also pretty nice.
Alchemist Quests?If you want maximum rewards and are feeling plucky, I like to go...
Elixir of Foundations = Elixir of Focus -> Elixir of Precision -> Lifebinding Emerald -> Anything Else
I actually find Lifebinding Emerald to be very good, so I often beeline to it without bothering with Foundations and Focus, if you can believe it.
What equipment should I be looking for?This isn't ordered by priority, but you'll want...
+Life (Early on)
Physical Crit Chance(!!).
Crit Multiplier.
Reduced Critical Damage done to you.
Stun Immunity.
Confusion Immunity.
Damage (Melee) boosts because of all your multi-hit talents.
Debilitating melee procs (slow on melee hit, reduced damage dealt on melee hit, etc.)
High Armor value.
Resists.
Silence-clearing Torque is a maybe depending on your Inscription choices.
For early fixedarts, Summertide Phial is a massive damage boost and pretty much usable for the entire game.
For weapons, you can use 2H effectively, but 1H+Shield is the safer option due to the Repel bonus and the fact that many of your damaging talents not only extra hits, but also a shield bash which often does great damage. Of course if you're going Mindstars, you know what weapons you need to be looking for.
There are some interesting offhands you can use. Kinetic Spike's damage might be awful but the respen is nice even though you already have Dominate. Hell, steamsaws might do awful damage but with the right procs even they can do cool stuff especially since unlike daggers they use STR instead of DEX.
I am personally a big advocate for OoP (Out of Phase) as it provides defenses and extra resists off of a teleport effect, and Blindside at 5 can allow OoP to go off with only a 1 turn downtime. If you have Aetherwalk and Device Mastery, you can havE OoP up for the grand majority of most encounters.
Zone Order GuideConsult Cathbald's guide
here.
On Normal, if you're doing 1200+ damage off of a Frenzy you're probably winning that run.
On Nightmare, that number needs to be closer to 1500+ but because of the way itemization works on Nightmare you can accomplish muuuuch higher than that.
Example Character SheetsClear playthroughs where I tried to play the game at least semi-seriously.
Insane:
W(Curse of Nightmares, Curse of Corpses, Blade of Distorted Time + Mandible of Ungolmor, Tinkers/Survival)
Interesting to note about this Insane clear is that while I did level Curses, I wasted a life on fighting the final boss fight and forgot to reactivate Curse of Nightmares and Curse of Corpses. While Curse of Nightmares was indeed OP, I think I could have cleared the entire playthrough without it. Corpses, by comparison, felt like hardly an impact.
Nightmare:
W(Wintertide + Kinetic Spike, Tinkers/Survival)
I think I could have geared with better weapons, but frankly capping phys respen for the entirety of lategame was really nice.
Normal:
W(Malediction + Summertide, Tinkers/Survival)
I think this Normal playthrough was my favorite. Wish I'd managed to pull a setup like this for my Insane playthrough, personally, but it wasn't in the cards.
Playthroughs where I was just taking it easy and took deliberately suboptimal choices in building/gearing.
Normal:
W1(Anmalice + Dethzaw, Tinkers/Feedback)
Normal:
W2(Anmalice + Steamsaw Randart, Tinkers/Feedback)
Normal:
W3 (Everpyre Blade + Steamsaw Randart, Tinkers/Feedback)
Normal:
W4 (Anmalice + Steamsaw Randart, Tinkers/Feedback)
Normal:
W5(Punae's Blade + Temporal Rift, Tinkers/Feedback)
Feedback is an awful choice for a cat point investment. Only kept taking it to demonstrate that on Normal you pretty much don't need your last cat point. This isn't to say that it sucks to see a Defiler escort though; just take the single free point in Resonance Field, which will do plenty on its own.
Also, I really love Anmalice even though it's a genuinely awful weapon compared to the alternatives.
Changelog5/18/2020 - Tweaked sections, added playthroughs.
5/9/2020 - Updated this guide for 1.6.7.
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