malmutate like what an orb of fire has is just not good, it gives you so many debuffs that unless you have enough mutation potions you just have to deal with it so I think it should be more temporary mutations like a wretched star instead
-sorry if this seems rant like
Obs of fire are end-of-game enemies that you’re forced to rush down with consumables before their permanent debuffs get too significant. You also can’t afford to reset the fight often, unless you reset it very early.
I kinda hate fighting them too, but I do think it’s nice game design, which makes the end of the game significantly different from the rest of the game.
TBH I wonder to what degree it counts as “design” when it’s just that almost everything else got Malmutate taken away (to the OP, it used to be much more common).
We went down Gooncrawl’s route of making everything give wretched star tempmuts as the OP suggests, but they’re way too easy to work off - sometimes killing the OOF or even a lousy shining eye clears them right away. They could be a bit less temporary.