CWDT + immortal call optimization

I'm building a Reave Ranger, much along the lines of ZiggyD's "southpaw" reave ranger. I find my mind wandering, wanting to explore some different ways of making this build more survivable.

To set up a fight, I whirling blades into range of a pack, hit Enduring Cry, and start reaving... and then:

At present, I have the following CWDT chain set up: CWDT (1) + Warlord's Mark (5) + Blood Rage (7) + Immortal Call (3).

However, I'm considering (dropping Ice Brolem and Increased Duration from Enduring Cry to make room for) running a second higher level CWDT dedicated entirely to Immortal Call, as follows: CWDT (10) + Increased Duration (13) + Immortal Call (12).

Does the latter have more ass-saving potential?

Thoughts, opinions, and experience welcome. Help me logic/math this out. Thanks!

(PS. Character is HeavyMetalReaver, should be publicly viewable.)

For starters, the gem level cap on Cast When Damage Taken does not affect support gems, so you can use a max level Increased Duration gem. As for the duration, use the following formula(assuming you have no reduced/less duration):

Skill Duration = Base Duration * (1 + (Increased Duration) / 100)


For level 3 Immortal Call you gain 106% duration per endurance charge, assuming you are using 3:

Immortal Call Duration = 0.40 * (1 + (318) / 100) = 1.67 seconds

For level 12 Immortal Call you gain 133% duration per endurance charge and then another 64% from a level 20 Increased Duration (could be more with quality):

Immortal Call Duration = 0.40 * (1 + (399 + 64) / 100) = 2.25 seconds

Ultimately with Immortal Call the way it is now, the addition of the Increased Duration gem is pretty negligible. You gain about half a second of immunity by using up all those links, so personally I am not sure if I would give up the other links for it. Depends on how much you value that extra 0.58s

How I set up Immortal Call depends on what type of character it's on, I mostly stick to the sneaky, evade-y kinds which means I'm limited to three endurance charges and have to generate new ones if I spend the ones I have on an IC. As such I want IC to
a) not pop too often and
b) keep me from getting two-shot by something like Colossal Vaal Fallen.
Which means I level CWDT to trigger at half my life, which by endgame typically means lvl20. CWDT at lvl20 also conveniently means you can link your golem to it, and not have to bother with re-casting it every so often.

On an armour-based character with 6+ endurance charges I would rather keep IC as self-cast, or possibly on a lvl20 CWDT.

From what I see on your char you are trying to survive on dodge keystone, IC and around 150 % life increase alone. That's might be viable for ranged attacker but when you jump into the pack you want to have at least 200% as a melee.

Something similar to what you want to do (game mechanic-wise) would be this build:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1376001

At least when we are talking about defense mechanic.

In your case, with the upcoming patch, I would redesign tree to get around 150% evasion increase and Darrrey vectors boots to enhance dodge. Set the IC like the guys before me mentioned and add temporal chains to the mix to have at least some of the effect similar to chill from above thread. Also, get the dualist leech cluster to have some life leeched for you or change your weapons to claws. Blood rage is nice frenzy charge generator and leech enabler but your tree lack regen to support it. Don't get it if you cannot increase it to at least 3,5 regen (theoreticly blood dance would solve it but darkray vectors should be better for you).

Play a bit with new tree and don't decide to fast where to allocate points (maybe even post somewhere in the forum your theorycraft).

Thanks for all the advice. I'm rethinking things now.