I see a lot of people do this, and I don't know why.

I've been browsing through a bunch of different builds and I see a couple things pop up with regularity but I don't understand the reason for it.

The first is linking things like the Herald buffs and the Golem summons with Cast when damage taken. Why link auras and summons to this skill?

The second is using Immortal Call with seemingly no way to gain endurance charges. Wouldn't this skill be useless without the charges to proc the invuln?

Could someone explain why people do this?

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Vipermagi wrote:

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Axetwin wrote:

The first is linking things like the Herald buffs and the Golem summons with Cast when damage taken. Why link auras and summons to this skill?

Golems can and will die in high-level content. The CwDT setup allows it to be around more often. The Herald/Aura needs to be socketed somewhere, and does not benefit from Triggers - the CwDT setup is the perfect place, because those sockets are wasted otherwise :)
The item could simply not be a 4L, with the Herald/Aura in a separate socket, and nothing would change.

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Axetwin wrote:

The second is using Immortal Call with seemingly no way to gain endurance charges. Wouldn't this skill be useless without the charges to proc the invuln?

Immortal Call still has a duration with zero Endurance Charges. I personally don't see the point, but it does matter some times, which is good enough for a lot of people.

I see. Thanks!

CWDT Immortal Call is generally held to be a Burst Mitigation option - you get ~0.4s oh phys invulnerability and also a loud and impossible to miss animation whenever Immortal Call goes off, which is supposed to be your "O DAM" warning to start slapping flask buttons or get repositioned. It also helps with killing large packs of Quillbeasts all at once, which otherwise gets extremely rippy, and it can help to some extent with physical reflect, as well - while you're phys-immune you're not taking reflected damage, which can help rapid-attacking physical characters (as opposed to people who instagib themselves with a 1.5M damage single hit on Reflect) better deal with unanticipated Reflect rares.

Cast When Damage Taken set-ups are honestly almost entirely personal style and preference. Immortal Call is popular mostly because it's already popular and has a sort of self-sustaining thing going on because it's in so many build guides. I prefer playing with it to playing without it, but playing without it is certainly doable.

As for golems - like Viper said, some folks prefer to let their CWDT set-up keep their golem up. I actually do not - Golem buffs are intensely mediocre at low, CWDT-viable levels, and having better uptime on a 7% increased damage modifier or whatever isn't worth the hassle to me. I prefer to level the golem for a stronger buff and simply keep an eye on recasting it in those builds where golems are useful at all.

I would honestly recommend checking out a number of CWDT options for your specific build. Immortal Call is a generic Useful Thing - the number of times I've seen CWDT > I-Call > Inc. Duration > Vaal Haste specified in build guides is slightly nauseating - but a lot of different builds can get much better use out of CWDT with a little creativity. Vortex is popular for defense, some folks still use CWDT curses. Specific builds can also use it for specific things - I've got a Necromancer that uses CWDT Desecrate to ensure I've got a steady supply of corpses to Offering or resummon zomboids with during boss encounters, that works pretty great for her.

CWDT is a super useful tool once you grok its mechanics properly, but until then it can be a little confusing, yeah. Good luck with it, man.

Even with no endurance charges, immortal call lasts long enough to survive killing a bunch of porcupines simultaneously or other things that hit fast and can stunlock you.

Heralds and Auras with CWDT is because they don't get affected by trigger gems. This can be especially notable if your only other non-4L are stuff like your mobility skill that might use a support that affects the auras and thus increase its reservation cost for little to no benefit.

Golem with CWDT is mostly because it can get annoying to constantly resummon a golem. Especially if you just use it for its passive buff rather than have it with some decent stats and health nodes and the like. So slap a CWDT on it and you no longer need to think about it.

Immortal Call with CWDT is popular because at base it's still 0.4s of physical immunity. With the major upside being that levels on it only scale the endurance charge consuming duration. So you can really easily slap in a rank 1 CWDT to have it proc a TON (Since lower level CWDT = more procs due to the lower health threshold. The usual cost is weaker skills as a result. Well, IC bypasses that)

0.4 seconds of physical damage immunity every so often is pretty nifty. It's a fairly cheap way to boost up your physical defences as opposed to investing in Endurance Charges (Since, you rarely will use both CWDT IC and EC unless you're a class that gets EC by the boatload)

That's pretty much the core of CWDT. Use it when you have a spell that you're not too concerned about the level of, but don't want to have to actively manage.

Additional examples I use:

- Tempest Shield. So I don't care about streaks where I don't block, or prebuffing before every engagement. I just slap in a CWDT and I'll pretty much 100% uptime on it for free 3% block.

- Shock Nova. For my RF build, I need to hit things with non-Fire damage to proc Elemental Equilibrium. So slap in a CWDT and I'll continuously fire off a blast of Lightning damage to maintain the debuff, conveniently in the same area as my Righteous Fire will deal damage in.

All the Smart People said most of what you need to know, I'd just add

- many people also use CWdT to proc curses (either directly or via Curse on Hit mechanics linked to a frequently-hitting spell, such as Ball Lightning); there are even a few CWDT builds, "afk" builds that function almost entirely around CWDT proccing to activate damage-dealers and leeching effects. There is quite a lot of nifty things you can do with CWDT, also combined further with support gems such as Culling Strike and other helpful tools.
- personal preference: some builds just have lots of sockets to spare, might as well fill them with CwDT; some people want to activate as few skills as possible because they prefer that, others believe that activating skills slows them down too much
- more personal preference: Some golems yield a very substantially weaker bonus at lower levels than higher levels (e.g. Stone Golem), while other golems have much more comparable bonuses (Lightning golem). 1453R already explained his preference nicely, and many people agree with him, but contexts and preferences will vary: There are a few times when I am hungry for slots and the addition of a golem (even a higher level one) just does not seem "worth it" to me since the bonus is just not substantial enough, but there are other times when I have one slot free in 1 CWDT setup and a Lightning Golem fits in quite nicely, and an always-on no-hassle (low-level CWDT proc) 6% bonus is more valuable to me than a less reliable 9% bonus.

Another cwdt setup that used to be popular was cwdt-blade vortex-power charge on crit.
I also see cwdt-arctic breath-gmp quite frequently.
One of the weirder ones would be cwdt frost wall, but even that has its uses.

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FCK42 wrote:

Another cwdt setup that used to be popular was cwdt-blade vortex-power charge on crit.
I also see cwdt-arctic breath-gmp quite frequently.
One of the weirder ones would be cwdt frost wall, but even that has its uses.

There's also that Hiltless + Cyclone + a billion things linked to CWDT build.

Which sounds fun since Hiltless will hit you whenever you hit with it, proccing the CWDT and so let you be a furious storm of spells. Provided you can sustain both the self damage and enemy damage that is.

I sense a small amount of confusion about my question about CWDT. It wasn't about why players use it period. I get why you would want to use it for certain skills, like curses. I was just confused specifically about why with Golem and Herald. That question has been answered.

I understand the idea of why you would use it with Immortal Call. I was just confused about why players would use it with no way to build Endurance charges. I mistakenly thought nothing would happen if you had none when the skill proc'd. I haven't had a chance to use the skill yet, so I won't weigh an opinion on a proc that lasts .4 of a second.