Chaos Inoculation thresholds
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Hi, I recently tried the Keystone Chaos Inoculation for the first time. At first glance, it's not a very attractive keystone since it comes with a very clear downside — making you lose approximately 1000 life.
But after studying it more closely, you can find nodes that compensate for that drawback and even provide benefits, like the energy shield increase nodes that help you recover what you lost. However, what I never could have imagined is what happened to me right after selecting this keystone. I entered a map that had the modifier "minions have 14% of damage as cold damage." I couldn’t believe what I was seeing — a white rat was able to freeze me consecutively for over 10 seconds. I couldn’t stop laughing. After investing several Divine Orbs into my build, the smallest of enemies turned out to be a bigger threat than the strongest Pinnacle Boss. This led me to research more about stun and elemental ailment thresholds, especially freeze. I saw that there were changes in the latest patch: " I’m already using the Self Mortification node, which provides 20% of my energy shield (3400 * 0.2 = 680), and still, that regular rat is able to freeze me. I managed to fix this by allocating 5 skill points into the Ice Breaker node, which specifically increases my freeze threshold by 50% of my energy shield (3400 / 2 = 1700 + 680 = 2380). I went back into the map to face my formidable enemy — the white rat — and it could no longer instantly freeze me. Now it just applies a chill so strong I can’t even walk, and my attack speed drops drastically to below 1 attack per second (probably even less). Here’s my point: Chaos Inoculation is unplayable from my perspective. You’re sacrificing 10 skill points, 1000 life, stun/ailment threshold, and who knows what else I haven’t discovered yet. Is this expected? maybe the patch is not properly applied? maybe chill doesnt have the same ailment threshold than stun/freeze/ignite? Well thats my feedback Have a nice day :D Last bumped on Apr 11, 2025, 10:05:59 AM
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TLDR;
Chaos inoculation freeze threshold is based on life but even after spending several points on the tree this is stil a huge issue. After spending even more points chill is still a issue. Dont know if this behaviour is expected but feels unplayable. |
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I think the real problem is the opportunity cost of actually taking the amount of nodes on tree to make it viable. As we need to invest as much as possible into damage to even be able to kill stuff.
The fact that ailment treshold is based on ES with CI is fine, and your journey to try and mitigate that is also fine. But after investing a lot (points on tree) into this its still not "solved" feelsbad IMO |
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" Yeah, this is a must read for CI users. A bunch of us discussed this in the discord at launch because I was talking about the stun threshold issues that come with using CI. At that time this was debated and the mechanics of stun and ailment thresholds being based on your actual life were not really commonly known. 1 life comes with massive drawbacks if you're not willing to invest in thresholds from the tree - especially now with it being much more difficult to screen clear by breathing on a monster. Stun was always my biggest issue, especially when dealing with Vaal monsters. All of these thresholds are based on a percentage of life, and without the nodes that transfer this threshold to energy shield, or enough DPS for it to not matter, CC will be, and has been a huge issue with CI. Even with a heavy investment from the tree, and capped res, ailment and stun is still the biggest concern for CI. I have it the old college try with my AoC Monk and ended up just capping my chaos res and other resistances and it effectively nullifies my need for CI anyhow. One thing I can see GGG possibly wanting to encourage, is more investment into defensive options from the passive tree - because content creators at this point make it well known that they just pump offense in the tree and use gear for most, if not all of their defensive effort. This isn't ideal in a well optimized build, but up to this point has proven viable because gameplay has been balanced more towards offensive screen clear as a defensive option. Those days are gone I think, and defense might have to be more in mind when building a passive tree. Good info man, keep it up. Stupid people never lose an argument. Last edited by NotPivot#9831 on Apr 11, 2025, 7:35:02 AM
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As additional information for those interested: after assigning the nodes from the Ice Breaker cluster, I no longer experience excessive freezing. However, the chill effect still persists. I’ve found a partial solution with the Silver Charm, which has increased duration and a chance to gain a charge when I kill an enemy.
This allows me to keep the charm active permanently. But my attack speed still suffers as a result. I believe the patch GGG mentioned hasn’t been applied correctly yet, because the numbers related to my stun threshold don’t quite add up. I also want to point out the skill point cost that Chaos Inoculation requires. Points: - Chaos Inoculation - Eternal Youth - Ice Breaker cluster – 4 points - Self Mortification cluster – ~4 points - ~14 points for increased Energy Shield - 2–3 specific jewels That’s a total of around 25 points invested in the tree. Let’s say you can reduce it to 20 if you use some Anointment and give up all your life — just to be Chaos immune, which can basically be achieved with capped Chaos Resistance. |
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" Yep. My workaround in 0.1 was to farm a 3 slot belt and run stun, freeze and a gold charm because... Well rarity Stupid people never lose an argument.
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