Leech & Acolyte of Chayula Feedback

So im building a Acolyte of Chayula monk.
Basically i thought the ascendancy is underwhelming and very limited from the beginning.. but still wanted to give it a shot and make it work.

Anyways i rly wasnt expecting that there is basically no way of leeching without going full phys?

This ascendancy is build around chaos... everything is about chaos - But somehow you get leech nodes without being able to use them. But also if you decide to go another path ... basic monk skills are barely phys based.

In general nothing about this ascendancy seems to interact.. Im rly struggling to find 8 ascendancy points which complement each others...

The darkness nodes are useless - up to 600 additional and conditional shield for the removal of spirit? like wtf.. this node and the ones behind wouldnt even be that great without the removal of spirit... with it, its a net nerf - u basically weaken yourself using them.

The breach stuff is interesting but thats it.. it doesnt fit/interact with darkness or energy shield and being forced to "avoid" spawing nodes until your rly need them is just scuffed. additionally its barely a dmg increase and basically just helps limiting ur mana / health potion usage.

Then we have chaos resist which is fine imho but doesnt do alot for you if you chose the darkness or breach path... there is just no synergy... on the other hand it sounds like a great synergy with the es + leech nodes - but well... you cant use them? Everything is themed around chaos dmg on hit which already limits the usage of chaos spells since there is alot of damage over time going on obviously... but yeah, you cant leech of chaos

I mean in general this ascendancy is interesting and i could imagine ppl building fun stuff with it, if you remove all the limitations which lead to different ascendancy points that cant supplement each others..

To fix stuff something like this might work:

- The leech nodes def need a 2% base manaleech on any source of dmg.

- Additionally double the values of darkness and the increased chaos dmg for unreserved darkness to make that kinda viable, you should also consider removing the spirit penalty tbh...

- For the breach nodes, life gaining should also gain energy shield AND Darkness! - and probably a stacking buff with regeneration over a longer period would be better - same with mana. Pretty sure it would feel way better if you just stack up regens while picking everything up.

Yeah my absolute biggest issue atm with leech is it's so hard to actually leech...
Like besides some spell leech, leech is 99% physical damage only...

I just feels so bad and useless.

So i decided to drop the chaos bow and go full phys to take the leech nodes and give em a shot...

Well - even with 80% phys dmg and 5% manaleech, i barely notice any leech... when i get hit, i wont regain my energyshield ever again...

So at this state you prolly have to fully invest into manaleech to achieve a somewhat decent recovery which will never be strong enough to replace potions or the loss of energyshield recharge...

So it def needs a bit of love - at this point both leech related ascendancies points are not playable.

The best spells for mana leech acolyte i have found so far is:
Siphoning strike - has insane phys dps scaling
Herald of plague + Plague bearer - Best aoe i have found, and its insane, good synergy with chaos and phys damage.

There is a lot ways to play around it. Its pretty good build. After i have found poison synergy im sure its strong tier 2.