PoE 3.20: The Occultist ascendancy class has had some stats removed and moved around to counteract some of the power gain from the above changes.
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. The ‘Your Hexes can affect Hexproof Enemies’ stat has been moved from Profane Bloom to the Malediction notable. We will be renaming this notable passive as it no longer causes you to apply Malediction to enemies you Curse.
Due to the significant increase in the power of hexes against tougher monsters, the effects of this notable are still very strong, as the removal of the hex penalty cannot be understated. The massive buff to hexes especially applies to Occultists because they have access to more Hexes than other Ascendancies.
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.