Chaos Inoculation questions from a noobie.

I'm playing an ice witch in Anarchy as my first character. I've been strongly ogling Chaos Inoculation since encountering those "huge beast" type mobs in A1 that have constant chaos damage auras. I have checked wikis and stuff but ultimately I'm hoping to get some experienced players' views on its practicality in end-game.

The stuff I know:
- CI sets your effective health to 1, so basically your Energy Shield is your new HP bar.
- You're never on "low health", you're only on full health or dead for the purposes of hp-related passives.
- Secondary effects (such as stuns and status effects such as burning, frozen, etc.) are calculated on the basis of incoming_damage / your_theoretical_hp_pool_without_CI.

The questions I'd like to know more about:
1. How frequent and dangerous is Chaos Damage end-game?
2. If you have picked CI, do you take health passives in order to prevent secondary effects? (Esp. considering that the one amulet that makes you stun-immune is unavailable in Anarchy) What else do you do to avoid getting blasted by secondary effects end-game? Unwavering stance? (Seems soooo far away)
3. If you were to play an ice witch, would you take CI?

Background Info:
- I'm currently lvl 31 in Anarchy, new player, so no ph4t lootz/boosts in stash.
- I'm interested mostly in solo play. If I find people to be friends with I'd create a new character for long-term partying purposes, but no "LFD" style parties please.
- I don't want to totem spam. Maybe I'll have a defensive totem (skelly summoning totem or similar), but definitely no dual totem builds please.
- Passives so far: Cold witch core, just started branching out towards templar tree for more mana regen, crit, and some resists

In closed beta Chaos Innoculation used to give a massive bonus to your energy shield and players would only take it usually after their energy shield reached a certain point.
Now you should probably save a few passives up to get the whole tree behind Chaos Innoculation first. That way you'll notice an immediate boost.

Chaos damage in a very frequent occurrence in maps, however it's not nearly as dangerous as say, puncture.
Chaos Innoculation will effectively lock you out of some maps that have blood magic mods. And burning ground mod is particularly dangerous since it prevents regeneration of your shield without certain passives or unique items.

I don't know of anyone who keeps health nodes after progressing far enough in the game. Usually health on a few items would suffice and keep stuns less of an occurrence. Health nodes require a lot of strength in order to be effective.

Playing an ice witch and using something like freezing pulse will mean you probably won't be stunned often since everything around you will be frozen solid most of the time.

1) there are a handful of monster types dealing Chaos and mixed Chaos/physical damage in the game. by the time you complete Normal, you'll probably face all of them.
Merciless difficulty and maps only make them stronger, and having little Chaos resistance (mainly because of Merc's -60% base Chaos-res) can be very bad. up to a point of potentially being one-shot by said mobs.
still, I find physical damage reduction and elemental resistances a far higher priority.

2) yes. but never take a hp node as CI, if you can take an ES node instead. there are many pieces of equipment in the game, that provide reduction and even immunity to Elemental Status Ailments.
as an Ice-Caster Witch, you simply need to get hit as little as possible. you have minions and totems providing you cover, as well as the advantage of range over mobs that can Stun you.
and as a side-note: Unwavering Stance is a lousy keystone.

3) depends on the specific build, and it's too early to say in your case. "Ice Witch" is more a category than a build. but CI is a good option. and when (if) you find a Shavronne's Wrappings in late-game, you can always re-spec using a few Orbs Of Regret.

Thank you both for your helpful replies, much appreciated <3

Okay. I'll spend some more levels working on the templar tree first (more frost damage, mana regen and resists) and then look at saving up a few points for the (CI + shield improvement) nodes probably mid-cruel or something before either filling up some more of the templar nodes or heading over to the shadow portion of the tree.

Also, thank you for your advice re hp nodes. You make very valid points with their effectiveness resting on the amount of STR, which I don't plan to boost much anyway. I'll see if I can get away with mostly ES nodes. I always have some HP nodes within reach if it's not enough. :)

Again, thanks a bunch!

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Nituvious wrote:

And burning ground mod is particularly dangerous since it prevents regeneration of your shield without certain passives or unique items.

I'm CI and patches of burning ground mod does almost nothing. I always pick it up if rolled

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dracolucis wrote:

Okay. I'll spend some more levels working on the templar tree first (more frost damage, mana regen and resists) and then look at saving up a few points for the (CI + shield improvement) nodes

You should spend almost everything on ES and then pick up some other nodes. PoE - Path of Es nodes

My target was 3000 ES in Act 2 merciless. You switch on CI there before going left

my max char lvl is 50, and I've never played ci, so I'll defer to any of the ci players on the subject, but i think it's more of a later game build that's gear dependent.
what you want to do is play an interim life based build for x levels, maybe 60, or whatever it is, then at some point get your uber ci gear with your amassed wealth, respec your life nodes, and go full ci.

status ailments like freeze and stun will be a problem, so maybe you get a dream frags ammy for the freeze, for example, and maybe some 'avoid stun' nodes, or whatever, to help against stun.
bear in mind, es gives you a built in 50% stun avoidance, I believe.

I would most definitely consult some ci pros, search the site and research the build before spec'ing into it, but it sounds pretty strong.

1) It appears quite a bit, and it's very dangerous, one of the most dangerous things in the game.

2) HP nodes aren't going to help because you shouldn't be going for HP on gear. You can get a dream fragments for freezes, unwavering stance (the passive) for stuns, you have to use a lot of points for it, but it may be a requirement for most builds in anarchy/onslught, and I'm not too sure about shock, you could use a Fairgraves Tricorn, but other than the shock immunity and lightning resist it's not very good, maybe there is another unique is a less important slot, or you could just use a dispel shock flask with extra charges.

3) Yes, CI is far superior than HP right now, you can get a lot more of it, and a hybrid may have issues with chaos damage.

Again, thank you all, that sort of information is very helpful because not really available via the standard avenues. So it's decided, CI it is.

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dima_dunedin wrote:

You should spend almost everything on ES and then pick up some other nodes. PoE - Path of Es nodes

My target was 3000 ES in Act 2 merciless. You switch on CI there before going left

Heh. Path of Energy Shield Nodes -- You should (c) that!

Sounds like a good plan. I will see what other ES nodes I can grab, though I think I've got them pretty much covered in my current plan. Thanks :)

CI until you can go

Shavronnes + low life + Pain Attunement + Righteous Fire + Inner Force cluster + life regen nodes / Vitality aura + Zealots Oath

Advantage of this is crazy superior damage (286% original output), and scales well if lightning with 3 stacks shock