With VP/GR nonexistent and pool nerfs across the board, CI needs a buff (two ideas inside)

Basically what the title says. Nobody uses Chaos Inoculation anymore - it's either life at the bottom half or MoM at the top half. With ES on gear / from Discipline so greatly diminished and Vaal Pact no longer functional with Ghost Reaver, and MoM applying to DoT as well, there's not really a reason to use ES unless you're making a low life build.

Idea 1: Return the 15% more multiplier that was previously present. With the reduced ES from gear and the lack of Vaal Pact, it'll still be nowhere near as strong as before, but significantly more viable than its current state.

Idea 2: Directly give CI a secondary effect of converting the +12 Life gained per level to Energy Shield. This has the effect of bringing up low-end and high-end gear by the same flat amount, but may not be preferable due to how much it de-emphasizes ES on gear.

Your first suggestion sounds nice in principle, as I do think that CI needs a bit more than it currently has - though it might be better to use something completely new rather than to compound the issue of "much higher ES than life" by adding ever more ES to CI.

As an obvious suggestion, adding something like "5% ES regeneration" to CI would make it more powerful and distinct from hybrid ES/Life builds, or how about "50% less recharge delay", things that would not reducing its vulnerability to spike damage.


Your second suggestion is insane as proposed (sorry) unless accompanied with a huge nerf to existing equipment, something that would make every NON-CI ES builds miserable.

As an example, my current CI-ZO-GR ES tank just hit 14020k maximum ES at level 93, due to 592% increased ES and 2026 ES base from skill tree, equipment and Discipline aura. (So 6.92*2026 ~ 14020)

Your suggestion would give it an additional (93-1)*12 = 1104 ES base, which is 6.92*1104 ~ 7640 ES base, taking my flametank to 14020+7640 = 21660 maximum ES --- bringing it back to the levels of ES that GGG thought way too much and one of the primary reasons that ES received a major nerf in the first place in 3.0.