[WaifuApple]

Now it's no secret that, while Hexer is a pretty powerful class already, and I'm not going to be trying to argue that it's not. But I do want to say that some of Hexer's spells and abilities pale in comparison to other parts of its' kit, and I'm looking to make a balance thread to identify which those are, explain why they're not that good, and make a suggestion on what I think could be done. Now, my suggestions would just be ideas, not me thinking that they're the only way to solve the problem... so keep that in mind. it might also inspire a little more variety in hexer builds... since a lot of them are kind of the same, at least on the magic front.

Any potential NERFS to Hexer should belong in their own thread - here I just want to focus on the ones that deserve more love. And I don't think it would be fair to leave them in such a sorry state compared to the rest of the class.

Underworld Flame

This underused spell has the same scaling as spells such as Fleeing Spectres and Black Static, with a very notable caveat compared to them. The fact that is single target is of a great detriment to it. Though burn is pretty good now, this spell probably isn't worth running most of the time because of this - and so my suggestion would be to make the target range of this spell a two-three tile diamond. If need be, to accomodate this, scaling could be dropped - but this ability would be so much more useful if it had the range to be more viable.

Eternal Darkness

Now this one is just... no good. I have never once seen it used, in part due to the fact that it's so, so situational, and probably not even good when it comes to that specific situation, either. It's another single target attack that is on equal scaling to some of the base mage abilities... but for a so much higher cost. At it's cheapest without efficiency, this spell costs 42 FP. Compare that to one of hexer's better skills, which has a good range and poisons stuff- Wretched Oil, at 40 FP. So what does it do to be worth that much? It upgrades a blind status by one - but only if that person is ALREADY blinded. I don't believe that an FP reduction would make this see use, though, either - since even with that, it's still a solo dark damage move that does nothing most of the time - so my suggestion is to have it inflict blind, but keep the current FP cost. Or maybe reduce it a little - though that depends on how impactful people think it would be to have it inflict blind. Either way, this is a woefully poor spell in need of love.

Silent Spirit

I get that this is supposedly meant to be used to make transferring curses onto someone easier and more pain free, but it doesn't feel worth it at all. It reduces the damage, sure - but you're using 3M to give someone else damage on you, when the chances are your curse will be transferred anyway, even if you don't. So my idea would be to... well, make this cost less momentum. Make it a 1M skill - and if the reduction is too much for that, bump that down. But this allows you to, barring resists, more efficiently use this. An alternate solution would be to bump the resist up higher or inflict something on them as a result (but what that would be is beyond me).

Essence Taking

I see this would be more useful for PvE - but the existence of food items makes it infinitely less valuable. So my idea would be to change it so that you gain that amount of FP on defeating the enemy, rather than at the end of the battle based on how many enemies you defeated. This means you can recover FP in PvE (where you'd be more likely to face a larger amount of enemies) and it'd be more useful. Heck, bump it up to 3-4 FP per rank and have it exclude players, making it a potent but purely PvE skill. It would still be a LOT better than it is now.

[Snake]

Underworld Flame could just leave Dark Cinders in that shape around the target. Hell no to Burn AoEs.

Eternal Darkness can easily just inflict Blind normally.

Silent Spirit could be 1M but have a cooldown, I agree.

Essence Taking could become a percentage, I don't know. Or reworked into an additional resource for Hexers that buff their Status Infliction at the cost of maybe Critical Evade.

[WaifuApple]

For underworld flame being a burn AoE, see Salamander for that. Far more range to that, though that's likely a problem in itself. I don't think it just being a dark cinder inflicting ability is a good idea. It would feel out of place when tied to the fact that all other spells have an inflict (aside from Eternal Darkness). Not to mention that removing their access to burn demeans the burn hex even more. There should be a better solution than taking away the burn.

The bottom suggestion of yours for Essence Taking sounds like a suggestion for a new skill rather than anything to do with the name. Plus, I don't want to turn it specifically into a tool for PvP, rather than what it's obviously more catered towards.

[Senna]

Hexer with AOE burn just like that? Nah. Burn at the moment is very, VERY powerful. That given the nature of Hexer? That's too powerful to add another 'open' AOE to their kit, it would become the next Oil spam. The AOE DoT would be some deadly stuff. I also don't believe it should make Dark cinder though I understand the logic behind it since it's dark and fire scaling. Perhaps increase the burn level? Or give it a splash effect whereas if you use X curse/hex skill and they're standing within a certain range, the attack can bounce to that victim as well. (Reward for actually playing the class, yeah?)

Eternal Darkness - I'm okay with it actually being able to inflict blind and Dev just makes a hex/curse to do what Eternal Darkness does at the moment. Since this skill is kinda worthless if you're not running certain classes with it. Unless he adds items that can inflict blind on people.

Silent Spirit - If it has a CD, sure.

Essence Taking - It's mainly PVE so support is support.

[WaifuApple]

Burn level alone probably wouldn't save it. There's a possibility that, like suggested, it spreads like a wildfire to people within 1-2 range, doing the damage but not the infliction on them. So you get the damage on multiple people, but can still only burn one person. Either way, so long as that's single target it's probably not going to be worth it... unless it has a scaling boost that acknowledges that unlike black static or fleeing spectres, it's only ever hitting one person the way it is now.

A cooldown on silent spirit would probably keep it in check to some extent, so I can advocate to say "let's add a cooldown to that idea."

[Autumn]

Explosion is already an AoE burn when enchanted with Nerhaven, but I think that you could probably change Underworld Flame's targetting to be more similar to Falcon Strike, and have it leave Dark Cinders along that line, dealing damage to all enemies in that line and burning them.

That way its a line AoE so you're not just putting out a huge circle of burn.

[WaifuApple]

Could be pretty cool. Inside of hexer that would give it a pretty unique identity that might make it both more viable AND more interesting all in one. I hadn't considered that, really. I just want to see the spell get love.

[Noxid]

I'm not too sure on what underworld flame should get but I agree it's a bit lackluster. I think you're spot on with eternal darkness and silent spirit. Essence Taking imo should just by a 1 rank investment. That way you can just take it for a nice little bonus in pve

[HexGirlBestGirl]

Underworld Flame is solely to stack on a DoT and is otherwise often underused or just entirely ignored. I've even seen people only get it at Level 1 recently solely for the burn and nothing else. And if you're not a Destiny Mage, you likely can't afford to put 5 points into it for the meager DoT. How would I change it? Just make the Burn LV higher or make it burst around the person it hits to inflict damage and burn LV/Duration for 25% of the level. Maybe Dark Cinders like Snake said.

Eternal Darkness? I have only ever made this work when using my Rotwood Eternal Servitude and even then it was mediocore. Especially since other options exist that give just about the same amount of value if not slightly more. Although considering the damage 'can' be good without giving up too much that's expected for a Hexer? Just making it able to blind normally and maybe lowering the FP Cost a slight bit seems fine.

Silent Spirit? I use this all the time and it makes me hate that Curses are either "You no basic hit me" or "You no basic doj me" or "haha +25 Crit Per Curse go brrrrrrrrr" since I see it as a perfectly fine skill. Stat reductions just kinda suck on them unless you stack far more stat reductions overall due to how diminishing returns work. I just see the literal only reason you have to use it within the constraints of your skill tree to be mediocore or not worth the 3m intentional investment to force an enemy to hit you.

So either make curses better, make Silent Spirit 1m with a 3 turn cooldown, Make Silent Spirit have 3 Range instead and make the opponent come to you then hit you, or make it 1m with 3*Rank Danage Reduction. Hell, i'll take it as an even inferior Spirit Pain without needing to invoc for it.

Make it have a 5 Turn CD but inflict a status effect for 3 rounds that's basically a LV*5% Chance to just stop a basic towards you and heal you for 25 HP.

Essence taking? That relic from SL1. Good ol' days. Only way to make it remotely worth it is to either change it entirely, make it give FP on enemy killed akin to the Levi Amulet, or just remove food from the game. Realistically speaking, when a player gets used to grinding then more often than not, they won't have much issues with running out of FP or can get by just fine and have food give them all the rest. I wouldn't even consider investing 1 point into it as is nor with what I suggested above due to how it doesn't feel remotely like a bonus or beneficial compared to other things I can get when food exists.