Cast when damage taken.

Hi guys. Can someone please tell me how to use cast when damage taken gem. I want to use CWDT with vaal molten shell, enduring cry and increased duration. What lvls i need on this gems to make all this work correctly? And as i understand i cant cast, for example, enduring cry myself (i can click this skill and theres visual effect but its not healing me), so can i use 1 enduring cry with CWDT and second in another socket to use manually when i want? Thanks in advance.

1) cwdt cannot trigger vaal skills. you would get the normal molten shell, and have to manually cast the vaal version yourself.

2) cwdt casts SPELLS. enduring cry is NOT a spell (its a warcry). you can ONLY manual cast this.

2.b) increased duration only affects the resist/phys damage reduction per endurance charge portion of enduring cry, NOT the duration of the life regen.

3) cwdt + molten shell isnt a great combo, because you want a high level molten shell for the effect. this means you need a high level cwdt. you will have to take a whole bunch of damage before it can trigger, not idea.


so, tl:dr - dont do this setup. half of it is bad, the other half doesnt work.

"

Thror2k5 wrote:

3) cwdt + molten shell isnt a great combo

yes it is.

"

Thror2k5 wrote:

because you want a high level molten shell for the effect. this means you need a high level cwdt. you will have to take a whole bunch of damage before it can trigger

so?

"

reprot9x wrote:

"

Thror2k5 wrote:

3) cwdt + molten shell isnt a great combo

yes it is.

"

Thror2k5 wrote:

because you want a high level molten shell for the effect. this means you need a high level cwdt. you will have to take a whole bunch of damage before it can trigger

so?

you want to be half dead before your defensive skill triggers? i dont.

Thor is right, even though level 20 CWDT is like 3500 damage, it really screws with molten shell.
If you pop Vaal (cuz you can even though it's on CWDT) and get CWDT triggered, you revert to normal molten shell and waste your Vaal, I've done it :(
Those are best cast manually. You could still link them both to increased duration. I would use a second warcry though, instead of increased duration.
The game is favoring/rewarding lot's of button presses.

Love some similar advice from the experts:

I'm running Bonebreaker on a Slayer. Lots of damage taken. Lots of leech. Vengance procs off the hit from Bonebreaker and is pretty good at it. CWDT is more flexible. Right now I'm running immortal call and artic armor. IC is going off quite regularly. I get a few endurance charges off EC on block from the passive tree, but it's not always up.

What would you all use on your CWDT set up for this? What level gems?

"

Thror2k5 wrote:

you want to be half dead before your defensive skill triggers? i dont.

Yes i do, because its there it matters. Do you want your defensive skill to be on constant cooldown?

"

GrunkleBob wrote:

Thor is right, even though level 20 CWDT is like 3500 damage, it really screws with molten shell.
If you pop Vaal (cuz you can even though it's on CWDT) and get CWDT triggered, you revert to normal molten shell and waste your Vaal, I've done it :(

the normal version is what you use for armorstackig. there are better alternatives for a vaal defensive skill PLUS a normal vaal molten shell for the same price.

"

reprot9x wrote:

"

Thror2k5 wrote:

you want to be half dead before your defensive skill triggers? i dont.

Yes i do, because its there it matters. Do you want your defensive skill to be on constant cooldown?

Yes.

Having your defensive skill on constant cooldown has 2 main benefits:

1) You will maximise the amount of damage prevented over time because you will maximise your uptime.

2) You will be far more likely to have the guard up when you least expect damage to be hitting you, which is what most high-level endgame players die to (unexpected damage).

To the OP: In my experience, the best usage of Vaal Molten Shell is as a 2L with Increased Duration Support. No need for triggers because it's an instant cast and therefore can be used at any time, even in the middle of one of your other skills. Therefore, you can set Molten Shell to be your left click button, which will, as mentioned above, have your defensive skill on constant cooldown. The downside is that it is harder/impossible to control when it is up if you are expecting hits, but I'm guessing if you were considering a CWDT setup, you don't really care very much about that.

Guard skill on left click is the real winning strategy.

(Bonus: In response to GrunkleBob's "If you pop Vaal (cuz you can even though it's on CWDT) and get CWDT triggered, you revert to normal molten shell and waste your Vaal, I've done it :(" ---> the winning strategy is to press Vaal Molten Shell ONLY while normal Molten Shell is on cooldown. This ensures maximum uptime on your defensive skills. Optimally, you should be pressing VMS right when the cooldown on Molten Shell has recovered, because this greatly decreases the chance that you'll be losing your protection when you least expected it (because as soon as VMS expires, you're highly likely to refresh with normal MS), but any time during MS's cooldown checks the maximum uptime economic checkbox, and it's not THAT important to have the normal shell come after the vaal shell.)

"

adghar wrote:

1) You will maximise the amount of damage prevented over time because you will maximise your uptime.

except that damage is more likely to be damage that you would otherwise handle without wasting your guard skill, assuming you have sustain. a higher level gem provides better defensive stats when its more likely to matter.

"

adghar wrote:

2) You will be far more likely to have the guard up when you least expect damage to be hitting you, which is what most high-level endgame players die to (unexpected damage).

random is random. you could just as well die from that unexpected oneshot because your guard was cooling down after a wasted use.

"

reprot9x wrote:

except that damage is more likely to be damage that you would otherwise handle without wasting your guard skill, assuming you have sustain. a higher level gem provides better defensive stats when its more likely to matter.

You're free to prefer whatever damage mitigation strategies you'd like. If Path of Exile were a slower game, OR if Molten Shell had 100% damage redirection instead of 75%, I may even have found myself agreeing with you.

The problem is that the majority of POE players, myself included, find that the most threatening damage in POE is burst damage, also called "one-shots" by some. In those scenarios, it's pretty clear that left-click Guard or manually activated Guard are superior to CWDT Guard:

Suppose you have 4,200 Life, you're about to take a hit that, before Molten Shell, would deal 5,000 damage, MS's size is 4,200 damage, and MS requires 3,000 damage to trigger.

Scenario 1: CWDT + MS: You take 5,000 damage. You are dead.

• 0% chance of survival.

Scenario 2: MS + Left click + constant left clicking. There is x% chance that Molten Shell is active when you take the hit, where x% is your uptime (active time per interval between skill uses). My MS duration is 5.31s with a 2.96s cooldown, so that's 5.31/(5.31+2.96) = 64% uptime.

• 64% chance active: You take 1,250 damage and Recover Life extremely quickly and survive. (MS takes 3,750 damage and remains with 450 damage left.)
• 36% chance cooldown: You take 5,000 damage. You are dead.

Scenario 3: MS manual cast + you have insane reaction time. You cast Molten Shell. You take 1,250 damage and Recover Life extremely quickly and survive. (MS takes 3,750 damage and remains with 450 damage left.) 100% chance of survival.

====

Suppose you have 4,200 Life, and you're about to take 10 hits that, before Molten Shell, would each deal 800 damage, MS's size is 4,200 damage, and MS requires 3,000 damage to trigger.

Scenario 1: CWDT + MS: You take 4 hits of 800 damage each, for 3,200 damage. MS triggers. The next 6 hits play out as follows: 200 to Life, 600 to Shell. 4,200 - 3,200 - 200*6 = -200 Life, ceiling function to 0 Life.

• 0% chance of survival.

Scenario 2: MS + Left click + constant left clicking. There is x% chance that Molten Shell is active when you take the hit, where x% is your uptime (active time per interval between skill uses). My MS duration is 5.31s with a 2.96s cooldown, so that's 5.31/(5.31+2.96) = 64% uptime.

• 64% chance active: The first 7 hits play out as 200 Life from you, 600 Life from the shield; the remaining 3 hits are all 800 damage to you. You take 7*200 + 3*800 = 3,800 Damage and Recover extremely quickly and survive.
• 36% chance cooldown: You take 8,000 damage. You are dead.

Scenario 3: MS manual cast + you have insane reaction time. You cast Molten Shell. The first 7 hits play out as 200 Life from you, 600 Life from the shield; the remaining 3 hits are all 800 damage to you. You take 7*200 + 3*800 = 3,800 Damage and Recover extremely quickly and survive. 100% chance of survival.

====

From the above, you can clearly see there are certain scenarios that would favour CWDT + MS. However, I and other POE players have found that those scenarios are far less likely than the ones where, by the time you take the burst damage that would trigger CWDT, you'd be dead anyways. Again, if POE were a slower game, I'd probably agree with you. Also, while working out the math, I did see that if MS redirected 100% of damage instead of 75% of damage, CWDT would be the better choice in any scenario where you aren't being one-shot from your current reactable Life amount.