What is CI?

Some builds are based on CI. What's CI exactly?

Chaos Innoculation. It's on the passive skill tree:

-Maximum Life Becomes 1
-Immune to Chaos Damage
-50% more Energy Shield

Chaos Inoculation (a passive skill, see upper right in the tree)

makes you immune to chaos damage, gives you more shield but reduces life to 1

Isn't it more beneficial to have %100 HP instead of %50 energy shield?

The top builds in shadow section is mostly CI builds, but does it require top notch gear? Can I play without being CI?

It's really good for INT based build, because STR passively gives you life, and INT energy shield; therefor some templar, witches and shadows lack in life, but having high int, have big energy shield; CI primary i used for the chaos immunity, since chaos damage goes through the shield and, therefore, kills low hp charachters(aka low str charachter, aka witches, shadows and some templars).
tl;dr it's necessary if you play high INT character, but not mandatory(opinionable)

"

aristona38 wrote:

Isn't it more beneficial to have %100 HP instead of %50 energy shield?

This isn't 50% Energy Shield in the sense of 0.5 Energy Shield. It's 50% more energy shield, which means it'd be 1.5 times what your current base Energy Shield.