Are Ember's Hexes worthless after Act III?

[Optimistic Cynic]

So I have her Hexes at a save DC of around 22 (I'm using the Hoarfrost Hex as my example), and am facing monsters they have that as their bonus amount, if not more. She is indeed wearing eq that buffs her Hex Save DCs by one or two.

For her Hexes to really still be usable, I'd need the Save DC to be around 30 here in the beginning of Act IV to even have a shot at working. Is there anything I can really do? Or is she just an AOE caster at this point?

[Frostfeather]

Enemies could have saves in the hundreds and her Evil Eye would still be extremely useful because it always lasts at least one round (assuming they're not immune) and you can Cackle to extend it if needed.

Protective Luck continues to be useful regardless of enemy saves as well. And these both stack with the Shaman version of them, resulting in some really strong (de)buffing power.

You're right that some of the available Hexes with saves become less useful as time goes on, but you can always lower saves before you attempt them. The better approach is to use Evil Eye to lower saves for other spells/abilities, though.

[Optimistic Cynic]

Looking at it deeper, should I be buffing her Charisma rather than her Int? It does say that for Blackened Witch they use their personality rather than their Wit, so maybe I didn't catch on they meant to use CHA instead of INT? But honestly, I have her int at +5 and her CHA at +4, even if I increased her CHA a few points, it would only add one or two points to the Save DCs, right?

[Frostfeather]

Yeah Stigmatized Witch uses Charisma for all Witch-related things like spells and Hexes.

[atm]

I have mixed feelings about hexes. When I first started playing unfair, it was kind of the received wisdom that you needed to have hexes to survive. It is true that protective luck and evil eye are pretty darn sweet, after my first couple of unfair runs using them I have dropped hexes and never looked back.

My problem with hexes is that they consume your most (or all) of your turn to apply/ refresh, for what turns out to be a fairly weak effect in the final accounting, and which can be obtained better, stronger, or faster via other means. Protective luck is the one exception, and if you can find a way to not need it, then you don't even need that.

For example, the fortune hex is great for what it is, but it takes up an entire character's move to use and refresh, and can only be used on a character once per day. Compare this to the cleric's luck domain abilities, which can be applied as a swift action, so don't consume your turn, and can be applied a lot more times per day (for one round at a time for the short version, up to 10 for the long version), meaning you can benefit from it in a lot more fights.

Likewise, evil eye can lower enemy saves or AC by -2 or -4, which is not bad by any means, but when you consider that this is basically ALL your character is realistically doing, without some complicated shenanigans, it feels like a wasted character slot. Other classes can achieve similar effects - rogues debuff AC, the cleric madness domain can debuff saves or attack by *-10* with a swift action touch attack, and so on. The difference is that those classes are also doing stuff that actually helps progress the encounter, like attacking or casting, since they still have their full move or their debuff applies from their attack.

Protective luck is an interesting one, but I have stopped using it and really don't miss it. The place you get the most benefit from it is the first half of unfair, but by the second half your abilities kind of overtake the need for it. You go from being able to take 0 hits, to having enough stats to take quite a few hits before going down (especially once you pick up Last Stand). Even if you have it, you won't really need to be using it by the end of the game.

Then there is the problem that hexes are *very* tough to use in real-time, since they require refreshing every single round, and very RSI-inducing to use in turn-based, since they require refreshing every single round. If owlcat added a 'cast repeatedly on this target' to protective luck/ cackle, I would be back on the hex boat, but until then I can do without.

So in summary, hexes are nice for what they are, but you can absolutely do fine on unfair without them..

[Player#2201]

Never used hexes except as a novelty in my first run. It's too much micro management unless you're fine with a turn based 200hr run. And if you eliminate hexes from your arsenal, then Ember becomes a very subpar caster.

[Rich1770]

Honestly I use Ember as my healer and fire damage caster there are a few spells she doesn't get like restoration but with scrolls it's fine and give her the healing hexes you're set

[Babbles]

I play Unfair and don't use hostile hexes at all, except maybe Slumber when you first find Ember.

Pretty sure there are some decent builds around Hellfire Ray that make more sense for her.

[tiamats4esgares]

Originally posted by night4:

Enemies could have saves in the hundreds and her Evil Eye would still be extremely useful because it always lasts at least one round (assuming they're not immune) and you can Cackle to extend it if needed.

Protective Luck continues to be useful regardless of enemy saves as well. And these both stack with the Shaman version of them, resulting in some really strong (de)buffing power.

You're right that some of the available Hexes with saves become less useful as time goes on, but you can always lower saves before you attempt them. The better approach is to use Evil Eye to lower saves for other spells/abilities, though.

Yeah this. I use her for the Evil Eye, and the Protective Luck (I think it's called, the one that lasts only like 6 seconds but is amazing) and just have her running around on Bismuth casting cackle and using fire spells. If you dual-class her as a Crossblooded Sorcerer with the dragon bloodline, I think it's called (been a while since I played this game ha) she can be pretty good as a fire mage too.

[FunkyMonkey]

What others have said, I only use Slumber offensively, all the rest don't allow any save and can be extended with Cackle. Hexes are the closest you can come to cheating without actually cheating, they are amazing.