Curse

Curse

Curse is a Primary Stat that was added with the Abyssal Terrors DLC. When you have Curse, enemies will have a chance to spawn with the cursed buff. This gives them enhanced health, damage, and speed. Cursed enemies drop 33% additional materials on death.

Curse also gives weapons and items in the Shop and Loot Crates a chance to spawn as a cursed version. Cursed weapons and items have their stats increased, and any downsides decreased. However they also give an amount of curse stat depending on their price.

Unlike most other stats, Curse isn't a purely positive thing to have, but instead it is a tradeoff. Enemies become stronger, but you'll gain additional materials and have access to more powerful items and weapons.

The Curse Buff

If you have at least 1 Curse stat or higher, enemies have a chance to spawn with the curse buff. Cursed enemies can be identified by the purple outline around them as seen on the picture.

 Cursed enemies have +25% Damage, +15% Speed, and +150% HP +2% * Curse stat.

This means that Sailor with their starting 25 Curse stat will face cursed enemies with +25% Damage, +15% Speed, and +200% HP. (150 + 25 * 2)

• Cursed enemies cannot be boosted by buffing enemies such as Lionfish or buffer. A Cursed Stargazer can still become enraged if you kill its Iron Lung.
• Elites and Bosses cannot gain the cursed buff.
• There is a Maximum of 300 Curse stats for the + HP part of the Curse Buff. That means they can't be buffed by more than +750% HP.

Curse in Co-op

In Co-op, the strength of the curse buff's HP bonus is the sum of all players' curse stat. So if you have 2 Sailor players with 25 curse each, the HP buff will be:

Curse HP Buff: 150% + 2% * (25 + 25) = 250% HP.

The Chance to curse enemies in Co-op:

 Co-op Curse Chance = Sum of all players' curse chance / number of players. 

So if you're playing with a Sailor, which starts with 25 Curse and another character with 0 Curse, the spawn chance will be:

 Co-op Curse Chance = (16.67% + 0% ) / 2 = 8.3%

Cursed items and weapons are handled individually

Generally speaking Co-op mode makes curse quite a bit more punishing, due to how the HP stacks.

Curse in Endless mode

In Endless Mode Curse is affected in several ways.

First of all, you're likely to reach the maximum power for the curse buff at 300 Curse stat, giving cursed enemies:

Curse HP Buff: 150% + 2% * 300 = 750% HP.

Secondly, the chance of enemies spawning as curse is multiplied by the Endless Factor

Curse Chance * (1 + (Endless Factor / 2))

The Table below showcases how your odds at 100 Curse stat increases with the endless factor. Note that you're very likely to have much more than 100 Curse stat when you're in Endless Mode.

Wave	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40
Endless Factor	0.00	0.02	0.06	0.12	0.20	0.30	0.42	0.56	0.72	0.90	1.10	1.32	1.56	1.82	2.10	2.40	2.99	3.67	4.45	5.32	6.30
Curse chance (100 Curse)	33.33%	33.67%	34.33%	35.33%	36.67%	38.33%	40.33%	42.67%	45.33%	48.33%	51.67%	55.33%	59.33%	63.67%	68.33%	73.33%	83.20%	94.53%	100%	100%	100%

So while the Curse Chance can't go above 50% for regular waves, you can expect it to reach 100% in Endless Mode quite quickly.

Endless Curse Factor

Finally, Endless mode introduces the Endless Curse Factor, which is a HP and Damage multiplier that is applied to all enemies on top of everything else. It is separate from the Curse Buff

Curse Factor Damage = SQRT(Average Curse stat of all players)/25

Curse Factor HP = SQRT(Average Curse stat of all players)/10

This affects all enemies, including elites and bosses and is multiplicative with the additional stats from the Curse Buff.

Here is a table of the HP and Damage bonus for different Curse values.

Curse Stat	0	25	50	100	200	300	400	500	600	700	800	900	1000	1250	1500	2000	2500	3000	4000	5000	10000
Endless Curse Factor HP	100%	150%	171%	200%	241%	273%	300%	324%	345%	365%	383%	400%	416%	454%	487%	547%	600%	648%	732%	807%	1100%
Endless Curse Factor Damage	100%	120%	128%	140%	157%	169%	180%	189%	198%	206%	213%	220%	226%	241%	255%	279%	300%	319%	353%	383%	500%

Let's take an example.

In Co-op with 2 players, the Endless Curse Factor uses the average curse stat of all the players for the value used. So for 2 player, if one player has 400 Curse, and the other has 0 Curse, the Endless curse factor will take the Square root of 200, which is 14.1. The Curse Factor Damage is then 14.1/25 = 0.57, which means enemies will deal 57% more damage. And for HP it will be 14.1/10 = 1.41, meaning they will have 141% more HP. Or as put in the table, they would be at 157% Damage and 241% HP.

Items

Some items give curse stat by default and have effects related to the curse stat. They offer you a way to get deeper into Curse.

Name	Rarity	Effects	Base Price	Limit	Unlocked By	Tags
Barnacle(DLC)	Tier 3	+35% stats gained from level upgrades +1 Curse when you level up	80	1	Win a run with Creature	Curse, XP Gain
Black Flag(DLC)	Tier 3	+1 material when you kill a cursed enemy +10% Enemies +10 % Enemy health +10 % Enemy damage +5 Curse	60	1		Curse, More Enemies
Corrupted Shard(DLC)	Tier 1	+3 % Damage +1 Curse	12			Damage, Curse
Fish Hook(DLC)	Tier 2	Locked items and weapons have a 20% chance to become cursed when leaving the shop +1 Curse	35	3		Curse, Lock (Item Tag)
Kraken's Eye(DLC)	Tier 4	You have a 50% chance to explode for 10 (+500%) damage when you get hit +10 Max HP +10 Curse	110	1		Explosive, Max HP, Curse

Characters

Some Characters get extra curse stats, and gain bonuses for having Curse stat, while others are punished for having it.

Name	Stats	Unlocked By	Unlocks	Item Tags
Sailor(DLC)	+200% damage with Naval weapons against cursed enemies +25 Curse -25 % Damage You can only equip tier II weapons or above Dodge is capped at 20% Harvesting modifications are reduced by 100%	Unlocked by default	Treasure Map	Curse
Creature(DLC)	Weapon damage additionally scales with 35% Curse You start with 1 cursed Fish Hook +1 Curse when you level up -10 Range at the end of a wave -5 % XP Gain at the end of a wave	Unlocked by default	Barnacle	Curse, XP Gain
Romantic(DLC)	Hitting an enemy that has less than 25% health has a 5% (50%) chance to charm it for 8 seconds +50 Range with melee weapons -3 % Damage for every 5 Curse you have -1 Armor for every 5 Curse you have +1 Curse at the end of a wave	Finish a run with 0 Curse	Flute	None

Weapons

Along with the Curse stat's release came a matching weapon class: Naval Weapons. The weapon class bonus gives Curse, and several of the weapons in the set scale with your Curse stat.

Name	Class	Damage	Attack Speed	DPS	Crit Damage/Chance	Range	Knockback	Lifesteal	Special Effects	Base price	Unlocked by
Anchor(DLC)	Naval, Heavy	- 45(+100%+65%) 70(+125%+90%) 110(+150%+125%)	- 1.92s 1.86s 1.81s	-- 23.4(52.1%33.9%)/s 37.6(67.2%48.4%)/s 60.8(82.9%69.1%)/s	- x1.5 (3% chance) x1.5 (3% chance) x1.5 (3% chance)	- 175 200 225	- 10 10 10	- 0 0 0	-	- 51 95 190	Default
Captain's Sword(DLC)	Naval, Blade	- - 50(+100%+100%) 80(+125%+125%)	- - 1.03s 0.95s	-- -- 48.5(97%97%)/s 84.4(131.9%131.9%)/s	- - x2 (3% chance) x2 (3% chance)	- - 200 200	- - 5 5	- - 0 0	Alternates between thrusting and sweeping attacks Deals +25/+50 Damage for every free weapon slot you have.	- - 110 210	Win a run with Captain
Trident(DLC)	Naval, Medieval	- 30(+100%+15%) 50(+100%+30%) 80(+100%+50%)	- 1.58s 1.5s 1.41s	-- 19(63.2%9.5%)/s 33.4(66.7%20%)/s 56.5(70.7%35.3%)/s	- x2 (3% chance) x2 (3% chance) x2 (3% chance)	- 325 325 325	- 0 0 0	- 0 0 0	+30%/+40%/+50% damage against targets above 80% health	- 52 96 200	Default