You link impending doom to a curse you have to selfcast.
If that curse "expires" it will deal damage - practically removing it.
You can force that curse to "expire" by overwriting it with more curses,
This is where the Vixen comes in.
The Vixen procs all curses socketed in it, whenever you use a curse skill.
This will then immediately overwrite your Impending doom curse.
With the vixen equipped and whispers of doom allocated on the skill tree you'll have
a maximum curse limit of 3 curses.
So you have to socket 3 curses in your vixen, to be able to overwrite your
Impending doom curse
Two interactions you need to be aware of:
1) Spell cascade should be both in your main Link as well as linked to your curses in your Vixens
It will make it so your impending doom will trigger immediately on one cast,
as well as give you one additional impending doom explosion (overlap) single target
2) Only 3 curses actually effect the boss, since poison dmg doesn't snapshot.
-> you'll want Tempchains and Despair and can decide between enfeeble (defense)
and Punishment (offense)
Here is where it gets tricky:
Since the Impending Doom curse has Cast time the vixen curses apply first.
Due to some weird interaction, the curses remaining on the target, will be the
Impending doom curse as well as 2 curses from the vixen.
-> conclusion: Make sure to put the "filler curse" as the very first socket
in the Vixen. This is the one that won’t apply.
Normal Spell Cascade linked as mentioned above in both your Body Armour as well as your gloves, will overlap one additional time if you place your cursor properly
The best placement for your curses is slightly behind the boss usually.
You can very clearly hear her if Impending doom hits multiple times, cause you will hear two explosions.
If you use Awakened spell cascade it will overlap one additional time, for a total of 3 explosions.
-> Socketing one awakened spell cascade in gloves might already be enough to get 3 overlaps, Ruetoo using it though in both the body Armour and the gloves, which seems to be the best for Clear coverage.
+1 chaos on amulet and wand, does not work, since impending doom is not an active Skill but rather a Support Gem.
Same goes for Woke Added chaos / Void Manip
What will work though is +2 aoe corruptions on Body Armour as well as Skin of the lords / loyal or Bows (and other socketed gems stuff)
For Mapping you could go with Skittering Runes, it gives you 50% addition AOE for your Curses, which makes it feel even better, both in terms of Clear and easier Overlaps. For Single Target your best anoint will be Corruption
Yes, a well rolled Apep’s Rage is a good weapon. Faster Poisons shine in particular in mapping content and short boss encounters / burst phases.
In General i would go with a Well crafted Wand or Dagger though, since it provides more generic power that, and works better with longer encounters / bossfights.
The most important stat of your helmet is the Ailment duration focus unveil.
With a Devouring Diadem you will be able to slot in an additional Auro. This could be Skitterbots, which doesn’t provide too much value, since Shock has diminishing returns with Wither and we already have Temp chains for reduced action speed - it’s but is still okay though.
Defensively you could run with tempest shield or Artic Armour which is nice QoL and defense for either Freeze immunity or Shock.
Another benefit of a diadem is the amount of ES it provides, which will take care of most of your EB mana cost needs.
The rare helmet in comparison makes it easier to cap spell suppression and Resistance and it will be a more dps variant with the right Eldritch implicit.
-> Temp Chains / Despair curse effect as well as Ailment duration
Cooldown recovery is a very important stat.
It affects both your Vixen cooldown as well as the cooldown of your Impending Doom blasts which is set at 1.5 base cooldown.
That means that without cooldown recovery you can have a maximum amount of 1/0,15 = 6.7~ Hits per seconds.
That means by gearing for CDR you will be able to increase the amount of hits per second you can do.
Assuming you have 50 CDR you would end up with 1/0,1 = 10 hits per second which is a massive Damage increase.
It is still important to balance your cast speed, so you can make the most use of your hits per second.
Assuming we are using non awakened spell cascade , we get 2 overlaps.
That means with 50% CDR you will have to have 5 casts per second to be able to deal max damage.
there is a google document which shows the perfect cast speed / CDR relations: credits to
silenth
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1J-yVLmDhKqKNE8QecsPnZgNR2TDGDm41f-1tdC_BxQA/edit#gid=1230763965
Discussion about Breakpoints:
There has been a lot of talk about breakpoints of CDR and their existence.
My current understanding is that there are no breakpoints. So every bit of CDR matters and is worth investing in.
The Important part is still balancing your cast speed, getting enough to actually be able to use all impending Doom charges but not getting too much to brick your Vixen curse removal interaction.
This is where the above listed google doc comes in.
-> is awakened spell cascade worth it?
Yes, very much so,
Awakened Spell cascade will give you a reliable 3 overlaps instead of 2.
- using it not only increases your clear coverage it also increases the speed in which you apply poison and makes you more mobile in Boss fights, while being able to deal your maximum amount of dps
As a result, you will also have to invest less into cast speed.
CDR 50+ is mostly for min maxing the character, you will have to get a a otof cast speed to make use of it.
That being said, getting some easy cdr, for example on your Belt or the unique Jewel “Balance of Terror” or Boot implicit is heavily recommended an will boost damage significantly
Your character will have enough Damage to deal with most content in the Game without / or with just a bit of CDR
This character doesn't really have any Sustain besides a huge amount of life% on kill.
If you want to get life recovery for bosses, I recommend replacing deadly ailments with added Chaos, and getting a source of chaos leech. It could be either on a Ring or an Amulet, or divergent Void manipulation.
I use blasphemy only for the reason of having Profane Boom Booms while only using Plague bearer
either you:
don't have enough Mana, triggering 3 curses will cost a butload of mana, so make sure you have EB and
"Regenerate 150 energy per second while rare or unique monster nearby" Belt modifier as well as
"Soul thief" (Notable on tree - Energy shield on kill)
or you lack cast speed, try linking faster casting to your impending doom setup, until you get enough.
accidentally you specced additional curse from the Occultist ascendancy, and have 4 curse limit instead of 3
Because of the fact that we are using Vile Bastion, we get Stun immunity. This opens up our choice of the Major pantheon and we don't have to use Soul of the Brine King.
I personally really like Soul of Solaris, since it provides you with a lot of Damage reduction and near Crit immunity in maps if you fully upgrade it.
By Not taking Brine King though, you gotta make sure to have a source of freeze Immunity.
Small Pantheon i exclusively map with Soul of Ralakesh because Bleeds are evil, and for Bosses I use Soul of Ryslatha
Impending doom still works, damage will be dealt. You will lose all the effect of your curses though, meaning no increased dmg from despair, duration from temp chains, and defensive benefits from enfeeble etc…
They are appearing infrequent enough, that it never bothered me.
I have not played in the league mechanic yet, it is probably good, though it is lacking sustain in form of regeneration.
Maybe also hard due to visual clutter of curse spamming.
Will try it in the future and report back.
I do personally recommend leveling with Poisonous Concoction / Hexblast or Armageddon Brand / cremation and doing a bigger respec.
There is a Zizaran Video of him leveling with arma and the respec here: I leveled to Blood Aqueducts in 2 HOURS with this setup! - Arma Brand Full leveling
You can equip the Vixens at lvl 36, but EB / Mana sustain early on is annoying to fix.
If you really have to level with impending doom, using discipline with EB will help early.
Starting from lvl 48, you can craft “Regenerate 90 energy per second while rare or unique monster nearby" on a belt, and if you pick up "Soul thief" (Notable on tree - Energy shield on kill), you should be fine
Ascendancies order:
Single Target route: Void Beacon, Withering Presence, Profane Bloom, Vile Bastion
Boom Booms now route: Profane Bloom, Void Beacon, Withering Presence, Vile Bastion
Short answer you can’t. It’s a random unique glove drop that cannot be target farmed. There are specific methods to increase your odds though:
This build does work without the Vixen gloves, it is still a very solid and fast mapper.
It has two main downsides though:
→ This will lead to you having to self cast one curse and automate the other, ideally the unique ring “Mark of submission” or alternatively “Asenath’s gentle touch”
You will also have to invest into more AoE (skittering runes) so the last cursed ground will stay on top of the boss, and you lose the ascendancy “Vile Bastion” (stun immunity) for picking up a third curse with “Unholy Authority”
Pobs can be found in my discord.