Lets Talk About CI.

In baldur's gate, neverwinter nights, and generally in early 2000's, late 90's games, Bosses were fancy guys who are stronger than you, more charismatic than you. But you were following the 'right' path and win the game by doing so. Character building was not about expressing who you are, what you prefer, and what kind of fighting attitude you want to represent. It was just about efficiency. I remember deathbringer assult of Sarevok in B2, he had his own 200 damage strike, one shots everyone with a small chance, i always wanted to have 'godly' yet not overpowered keystones of abilities. I was really wishing to have benefit - punishment system in character building.

I always wished to be unique like Jon Irenicus was. Or i would like to choose my path to be so, or i would like to use 'wild magic' instead of having a big book of pre-made spell and choose whats inside. Poe changed that. Thats why im playing this game, you can create your own path. You'll get punished when you get too far, but you can cover that with items. Amazing.

And CI was like ''deathbringer'' assault of Sarevok for me, you were giving life/your soul to get godly powers. 10K+ Health Pool.One mistake would cause your death unlike life builds but if you dont make any mistakes, CI builds were really rewarding. CI has More damage, almost no defences besides high hp pool. Full edgyness. I never had Life based build in my poe life, (about 1.5 years) and i always played ES builds. ES builds were all about min maxing with highly valuable items and getting the most edgy dps, and survivability in the game. Im a life based Crit Bower atm in standard league.

What is the State of Energy shield builds nowadays? Lets talk about that.

CI has upsides:

+Better DPS (for melee & mostly ranged)
+Tanky except vs Pure Phys damage.
+Better vs spell damage, due to high HP pool
+Best possible regen in the game, if you wanna lose 10 points to reach Zealoths Oath and walk around marauder area
+Immune to chaos

Downsides are very big:

-No pots to heal yourself in battles, you rely on leech, or regen desperately. Going regen makes you lose a lot dps.
-Its very expensive to have late game viable CI gear
-Stun threshould is based on your non CI modified max health. (around 1200-1300 in lvl 90) almost everything in end game content stunlocks you. Everything. You gotta get Unwavering Stance or get like 75 Block. You cant get acrobatics, no pots, easy to get stunned. even 1 damage dealing arrow dealt with 100 accuracy can hit you when you have UW. You are like a sandbag rolling over the wraeclast. Everything can hit you.
-Easy to get status ailments too, like Freeze. Freeze is based on your life pool / damage, freeze, stun all applies to CI builds much easier than life builds.

We, Standard players with our mirrored gear like to play CI cause its edgy but thats all. CI, as an idea, as an structure has viability for pre-dated meta of the game which is based on leech - DPS. That era is over but CI remains same.

Im kickstarting this thread after 2.0 patch changes.
All started with Leech changes. CI has always been offering higher melee damage than any other builds, it is better vs spell damage since you have higher HP pool. Then again, What good is additional %49 more damage in such meta when you cant leech enough back? OR should i ask the question like this: Is 49% more damage better than life pots in battle when leech is so nerfed harshly?

Life builds good sides:
-Acrobatics,
-Higher Eva/Armor stacking gear,
-Life pots
-Hard to get stunned, even though you get stunned, recovery is pretty good cause stun threshould is based on life pool %X
-Hard to get frozen, the more you have health, the better.
-No need to spend 10+ points to be stun immune, or 3-4 points to be able to get ES leech, or +8 points to be able to regen Main HP pool.
-Lightning Coil + Armor makes you get easily 70+ damage reduction. Assume you are having 6k life, that makes you have like 14K~ CI health.

Downsides:

-Weak to spell damage, especially in pvp, you can cover this with spell dodge though
-Lesser damage compared to CI, in life builds you gotta get 160% increased life at least to be able to do high end content, this takes a lot passive points to get. CI has 'melee damage on full life', but CI is forced to spend around 12-15 points to be able to leech & stun immune.

I see only one reason to be CI in this game at the moment, The edgy %30 more damage in standard league builds, where you can cover all the weaknesses of a build with GG 6T1 crafted items.

lets Check Perfect Gear Base Life vs Perfect Gear CI Base ES pool.

I Assume im using a Bower or a 1H + melee build.

Rings x 78,
Belt 99
Chest 119
Helmet 99
Shield: 99
Boots 88
Gloves - 88
amulet - 84

Approx 750lvl 100: 12x100, with strength modifier you get around: 1400-1500 Helth

2340 with kaoms it gets 2840

CI:
940ES chest, 300 ES gloves, 260ES boots, 500 ES helmet, 540 ES shield

2540 approximately.

With CI you can get like %20-25 more health pool cause +int benefits your HP pool better than +str does to life, but in return you have no armor, almost no eva, no acrobatics, nothing. No pots... ah even writing makes me feel ill.

this is CI's path

~-> Get tanky, You lose a lot dps when you get tanky, you end up having lesser dps than life base build if you want same tankiness.
~-> Forget Acro, and IF you wanna surpass Life builds in tankiness you gotta lose 1 aura slot to discipline
~-> Get stunlocked or spend 10 points.
~-> You gotta have 1000ex gear to benefit from that %30 more damage, and still you gotta micro hard, play hard to be able to stay alive. You gotta hope to leech back what you lost in hardcore battles. Most of the time you cant.
~-> Faster Regen is amazing but its cool when you have somewhere to hide, Most of High End boss fights are in crowdy rooms unlike über atziri 1v1 arena.
~-> What happened to CI Block Caster, does that even exist anymore? Only CI Aegis would be viable i suppose and probably you would get bored to death because of clear speed.
~-> Lets get all the regen nodes & ES nodes in tree; have like 18K ES and 3.5K regen. Thats good, yeah.

So If you wanna start beeing CI you end up in a autistic end: No offense, max defense toon which cant even kill anything at all but cant be killed at the same time.

Current meta, This leads player to make CI tank builds with retartedly high regen. (check dyness tank build)


CI was for me edgyness, lowering your defences, sacrificing your life for more power, for maximum high damage and offense, its really sad it turned into totally opposite.

My recommendations,

****Adding nodes like Auxium has,
''Chill and Freeze duration on you is based on 65% of Energy Shield'' Maybe -3% Max Cold resist can be added to punish the overly good side.

****we should have nodes like that for stun and freeze. I think the stun variant must be like

''Stun threshould bla bla is based of your %X of Energy Shield, 20% Reduced Energy Shield''

****Changing Zealoths Oath's Location, its gotta be a bit closer to critical damage side.

****Lowering the punishment amount of Acro & ES combo.

this was my CI build:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1322947
I mean, i had very long past with CI. All ive said is tested, well thought overall. At least, this is what i believe.

"

Rupenus wrote:

****Changing Zealoths Oath's Location, its gotta be a bit closer to critical damage side.

Would this even help?
You still need to travel over there to get the regen passives, no matter where ZO is moved, almost all the regen is located in the "strength zone" (marauder, templar, duelist).

"

Peterlerock wrote:

"

Rupenus wrote:

****Changing Zealoths Oath's Location, its gotta be a bit closer to critical damage side.

Would this even help?
You still need to travel over there to get the regen passives, no matter where ZO is moved, almost all the regen is located in the "strength zone" (marauder, templar, duelist).

I want just Regen which can help me to sustain Blood rage in battle, im recommending that for crit builds who like to have beenfit from high hp pool / regen ratio in battle.

For tank builds, it doesnt matter where ZO is since its close to marauder area. My aim in this thread is to warn people that CI is turning into autistic defensive keystone than edgy Offence + Defence keystone.
Do we really need that? does CI deserve such a high punishmen by everything that makes you get killed in game like freeze, stun, having no life pots, while leech has nerfed so hard? thats the question im asking

i have to agree. Playing only CI or lowlife builds since CB.

2.0 was a bit too much of a nerf. leave ZO where it is but make it also part of the CI node or let us use bloodrage like before.

Nothing was said about ES recharge - unique ability that allows completely refill insane CI hp pool in 1-2 seconds of non being hit. Only bleed and burn can prevent CI character of using this, but, thx to flask changes there is no problem to get temporary status effect immunity. So, since leech nerf 'non VP CI meta' should shift into 'block and es recharge', successful block wont reset es recharge cooldown. And its almost always possible to quit battle and recharge (only exception I can remember is BotB piety fight)

CI in pre-2.0 was a 'life build but with higher buffer value'. Vaal pact plus old leech made it a perfect sponge build that had both damage and buffer and reflect immunity (no longer a problem now)

I think CI is in good spot. It is simply no longer a best endgame choice some liked.

Stun is the only real problem (freez3s are cured with flasks) and even that reqires some sloppy play to occur (stun avoidance, 50% inherent stun avoidance + stun recovery) makes stuns pretty rare.

Regen and shield recharge delay reduction are what makes CI pretty damn fun and safe to play.

Making it different from Blue Life was obe of the better changes in 2.0.

"

a_z0_9 wrote:

Nothing was said about ES recharge - unique ability that allows completely refill insane CI hp pool in 1-2 seconds of non being hit. Only bleed and burn can prevent CI character of using this, but, thx to flask changes there is no problem to get temporary status effect immunity. So, since leech nerf 'non VP CI meta' should shift into 'block and es recharge', successful block wont reset es recharge cooldown. And its almost always possible to quit battle and recharge (only exception I can remember is BotB piety fight)

"

~-> Faster Regen is amazing but its cool when you have somewhere to hide, Most of High End boss fights are in crowdy rooms unlike über atziri 1v1 arena.

i said that, do you know a boss battle room that you cant be hit by 1-2 seconds? über has but then how can you sustain your survivability in über split phase? Besides everything, you gotta lose 4 more points to essence surge in order to do have really fast recharge. and %faster recharge on rings maybe but you gotta lose a prefix to do that. While flasks are helping you to gain really good amount of life suddenly, is Fast ES recharge that good? can you kill core malachai with depending on fast ES recharge? I mean whispering ice is solid, but you still depend on life leech.

Its really funny that all boss fights are based on ''while you are facetanking can you leech enough back or regen good enough that you can survive'' If you cant facetank or create a room for yourself (whispering ice ~ firestorm builds) You'll get really hard times.

Also, I would prefer getting Block build with Life base which is better since the GG block nodes are in duelist area. I could get more dps.

"

sidtherat wrote:

CI in pre-2.0 was a 'life build but with higher buffer value'. Vaal pact plus old leech made it a perfect sponge build that had both damage and buffer and reflect immunity (no longer a problem now)

I think CI is in good spot. It is simply no longer a best endgame choice some liked.

Stun is the only real problem (freez3s are cured with flasks) and even that reqires some sloppy play to occur (stun avoidance, 50% inherent stun avoidance + stun recovery) makes stuns pretty rare.

Regen and shield recharge delay reduction are what makes CI pretty damn fun and safe to play.

Making it different from Blue Life was obe of the better changes in 2.0.

My point is, instead of going from CI area to ZO, i can open a marauder char, get life base, get better regen because i wouldnt spend a lot points to go blue area and get better DPS because all the nodes i want are together. Also cheaper gear, easier to acquire, etc.

I see no point in going CI + Regen + DPS while Life + Regen + DPS is more efficient. CI surpasses life builds only in crazy %regen ratio. And that created very weird tanky(im not bashing dyness build i really loved it) CI builds lately, which rely on CWDT damage.

CI + Regen > Life + Regen in regeneration amount
Life + Regen + DPS > CI + Regen + DPS

we tested this with Mind fang 837 pdps mirrored exquisite blade, Life build offers more life, better dps and whats most important flasks. If you want Regen with your CI, the DPS lose you have is incredibly high.

On paper sheet CI builds looks awesome, High dps, high HP pool, well gathered up tree etc. when it comes to boss fights, you slowly realize there are really big problems.

The points you spend on getting Stun immune can be spent on more dps, and therefore once can easily equalize dps gain of ''melee damage on full life''

So whats the point of CI then?

as i said, block is better in duelist area. If somebody is going to try to convince me CI block is the best, I wanna make you remind that Duelist area to CI area is the most further distance in Passive tree. :)

Hybrid + aegis is still kickin ass:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APMm6u32E00

and about regen tankiness of CI, life is still best, here is the proof:

this is how tanky a life build can be. 82 core malachai cant even damage him. Get such tankiness with CI, ill respect you, seriously.

i agree with everything

i am CI and use blood rage, i dont have natural regen, i dont have pots for blood rage degen or hard fights/bad situations, i can't get ES on hit/kill anywhere from the tree or curses, i get stunned easily, cannot be stunned node is at the opposite of the ES nodes ( since for life based builds stun isn't a big problem, it is for CI and of coruse the keystone is in the life part of the tree instead of ES part )

only thing i can do is play very quickly to leech leech and leech

and you must have 1000+exa of gear else it's trash

Only change it needs is to be much less punishing status effect wise compared to life.