Discussion about Energy Shield and Chaos Innoculation

Hey All,

i've been seeing a lot of doom and gloom about not being able to play Energy Shield, having to be hybrid, and really only being able to rely on armor instead of evasion or ES as a defensive mechanic since 2.0.

i'd like to open a discussion about Energy shield, CI, and how we can play them reliably, if it's actually feasible. and if it's not, let's gather some constructive critic and feedback for GGG to consider.

So, i'll start. I've always liked playing summoners, but i've never really had a ton of time to dedicate to POE. so the highest level i've ever gotten one to? well, that'd be 54 - this one. when i started i decided i'd sit down and plan out my passive tree, so i had a direction already figured out prior to rampantly killing everything i saw.

This is what i came up with. it spends a lot of points on being defensive, and commits to CI as my "big defensive passive choice." it's a rather logical progression for a caster/witch. the tree kind of flows towards that as a choice. ES is so abundant around the witch. it just makes sense.

i added in the aura nodes so i could run the ES aura and a damage aura for my minions. there's some points left over - they can go towards more ES if needed, or into buffing curses/more mana regen. i plan to run skelies/zombies with 2 specters just kinda providing some support. again, something the tree kind of leads a summoner towards, zombies and skeletons.

i feel like this should be a good progression path for my character - but i'm hearing a lot of complaints about phys damage and ES not being able to keep up. i want your guys' thoughts and suggestions. i ran into a lot of trouble with bosses in act 4 - dying multiple times to insta deaths on piety and having issues with mal as well.

what are your thoughts? on the build? on ES? on CI?

personally i think CI should be A choice. not the choice, but a viable, well balanced, choice for casters, or others.

It's fine most people that complain about are either not high enough level to branch out in the tree, made a marauder or duelist which is hard to get the build done till 80's.

Or have no currency for ES items.

ES superior to health late game in many ways.

Its perfectly viable if you dont get hit much (summoner, totemer etc) or can get like 4% instant leech

Issue is the sponge builds like CI flicker/reave tanks etc. Like CI cant run a lot of mitigation due to nature of it. So what they did in past was have huge EHP like 10000-15000ES to take all hits then instantly heal it back with big GG DPS and 8%+ leech. 2% makes it hard/impossible. I've been playing around with LL and warlords mark for 4% leech seems ok.

I run CI on my flameblast witch. I find energy shield works better as a "dip in, deal damage, dip out" tool rather than for sustained sources of damage. For flameblast it suits my needs really well because I just run in, freeze everything with a prolif Cold Snap, and then charge flame blast to 10 and nuke everything. CI works for me because my damage comes in bursts with burning damage as my sustained output, which means that i have plenty of time to run around and wait for my shield to recharge.

If I were to run a standard life build like this, I would have to rely heavily on flask usage and I wouldn't be able to run my increased resistance flasks or my quartz + granite, substantially lowering my survivability against burst damage (which is my primary weakness). Life leech is lackluster now with the mechanic I use behind flameblast (which relies heavily on burning damage as a source of dps), so there's not a whole lot I can do outside of flasks to sustain a life pool. Energy shield solves this for me.

"

jota1500 wrote:

It's fine most people that complain about are either not high enough level to branch out in the tree, made a marauder or duelist which is hard to get the build done till 80's.

Or have no currency for ES items.

ES superior to health late game in many ways.

are there specific ES items that are deemed "mandatory?" like looking to the area of 74+ so i can start looking around and saving currency for them.

thanks for your feedback

"

Nasreth wrote:

I run CI on my flameblast witch. I find energy shield works better as a "dip in, deal damage, dip out" tool rather than for sustained sources of damage. For flameblast it suits my needs really well because I just run in, freeze everything with a prolif Cold Snap, and then charge flame blast to 10 and nuke everything. CI works for me because my damage comes in bursts with burning damage as my sustained output, which means that i have plenty of time to run around and wait for my shield to recharge.

If I were to run a standard life build like this, I would have to rely heavily on flask usage and I wouldn't be able to run my increased resistance flasks or my quartz + granite, substantially lowering my survivability against burst damage (which is my primary weakness). Life leech is lackluster now with the mechanic I use behind flameblast (which relies heavily on burning damage as a source of dps), so there's not a whole lot I can do outside of flasks to sustain a life pool. Energy shield solves this for me.

this makes me feel a bit better about trying to run full ES. i feel it's pretty squishy in areas - and my minions themselves feel rather squishy.

"

Aim_Deep wrote:

Its perfectly viable if you dont get hit much (summoner, totemer etc) or can get like 4% instant leech

Issue is the sponge builds like CI flicker/reave tanks etc. Like CI cant run a lot of mitigation due to nature of it. So what they did in past was have huge EHP like 10000-15000ES to take all hits then instantly heal it back with big GG DPS and 8%+ leech. 2% makes it hard/impossible. I've been playing around with LL and warlords mark for 4% leech seems ok.

so working towards some leech and the "life leech goes to ES instead" passive would be highly recommended?