I miss the days when Blood Mana was often casted by Baal and his minions. This was because at time it was not necessarily optimal to max life as opposed to mana in various caster builds.
As it is, I’d really like it if Blood Mana was just casted with 50% frequency vs. the defense reduction curse (or some other fix that causes it to be frequently used.)
Even if it was just split such that Harpies use the Defense curse and Hell Witches use Blood Mana; I miss that this was an interesting punish-mechanic.
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The issue with those curses is a prime example that the game design is worthless without actual gameplay tests.
My guess is that the original designers thought that defense will be an essential stat (like it was in DnD - on which all early cRPGs were based on) and that casters will invest heavily into Energy.
It turned out that virtually all builds ignore defense, and the only build maxing energy is “mana tank” ES sorc - making Defense Curse harmless and Blood Mana not being used at all.
Then you also most probably miss Iron Maiden in Chaos Sanctuary as well… 