Curse +level not working properly, curse not effecting monsters it should

My curses weren't working and I dug into it a bit. My Temporal Chains on Blasphemy didn't work which was expected because it wasn't levelled enough (level 17 in a level 79 zone).

My manual Despair curse was the same actual level, but because it is a chaos gem and slotted into manual it benefits from +# level of all chaos spell skills on my wand, thus it's effectively level 21. Its text indicates no level restriction on what monsters it will effect while equipped, but it still cuts out when Temporal Chains does as if it were level 17 and not receiving any +level.