How do ES builds work?

Hello everyone.

Love POE and play exclusively hardcore. Trying to make a caster and I was going to go with a life/es hybrid build. I now see that chaos damage goes through ES. Is an ES build viable in hardcore without taking chaos innoculation?

Going hybrid with large amounts of both life and ES can work quite well in HC, as you will have a large effective life pool. Make sure to get some chaos resistance if you're worried about chaos damage. Some people like to make their leech go to ES with Ghost Reaver while keeping their life regen on their life. This is not a bad solution either.

Without CI, Shavronne's Wrappings or Solaris Lorica, (Or a really good flask setup with Corruscating Elixir), you will probably want to get a good life pool to protect against Chaos damage. Also you will need at least one life/hybrid flask.

I see some people who manage to somehow get armor while also using ES... how is this possible with all the armor giving almost purely ES OR armor and not both? I thought it was the aura but that appears to just add a %

do not try to play ES hybrid or pure build on HC unless you can shed a lot of exalts/chaos into it.
one of the most if not the most expensive gearing in the game.