Questions about energy shield.

Hi, i still haven't played but am planning a build, and have several questions about Energy Shield.

I'd like to know exactly what it does and understand how it works. Does it reduce damage?, does it make some or all damage affect mana instead of life?

The many pasive skills +X% energy shield there are, what is that percentage exactly, what does it affect exactly.

There are skills tha reduce ES cooldown, does ES have a time limit? or it can be broken through taken damage?, if so, i suppose a character that relies on ES is left somewhat defenseless, can it be sustained through recovering mana or anyhow?

"Chaos Inoculation" skill , if i understood correctly, reduces maximum life to 1 (and increases ES percentage), making ES/mana (not sure) your only survival value, which makes me more confused about what ES percentages are, since with 1 life you couldnt stand a hit, unless ES takes all damage, then again "Eldritch Battery" skill says "Converts all energy shield to Mana" which amkes me think the exact opposite, that not all damage was converted before (and this second skill is further on the tree than chaos inoculation), so im pretty confused on how this works, if its worth spending on percentage skills or not depending on waht exactly they increase, or maybe instead i should increase my mana values, etc. I hope someone can clear my doubts on how this works to know what should i spend skill points on when i create my character. Thank you

Energy shield is like extra life. When you take damage it first comes out of your energy shield and then once that is depleted, damage is taken out of your life. The only exception is chaos damage, which ignores es and comes right out of life.

Enery shield regenerates after a short time when you stop getting hit. Some passives decrease this time. So passives that give 15% es would increase your energy shield by that percentage.

The passive Chaos Inoculation is so popular because it increases your es by 50% and makes you immune to all chaos damage. It also reduces your life to 1. The only disatvantage to having 1 life really is you cant use life flasks any more since once your through your es your dead. So you have pull back and let your shield recharge if you start getting low.

So if your build is going to rely on es as your defense, you should take all the es% passives you can. A lot of people with es for their defense also take CI so dont take any life passives.

Hope that made sense, its 4:20 by my watch.

Yeah that helped a lot thanks, I still have couple doubts:

- What does "Eldritch Battery" do?
- Only way to regenerate ES is by staying away from enemies (to prevent getting hit) and wait the auto recover?
- Chaos inoculation, once learnt, is always active?, or can the player choose not to have it active?

Thanks.

I might not be playing for too long, but i think i can answer you those questions, but if there is additional information that i miss, i´d be very glad if someone could correct me.

How does ES work: The Name Energy Shield is quite a good description of the mechanic itself, i works as a layer that shields your HP completely, as long as there is a shield, your HP won´t get reduced (with the exception of Chaos Damage wich ignores ES, i will explain it together with CI)acting as a second lifebar.

Your equipment can offer different boni regarding your ES:

Basic ES points,- raising your maximum ES by the number displayed ( works like +maximum life)

+% Max ES,- raises your maximum ES by the percentage displayed, after adding all flat +ES points first (e.g.: you got a glove with an ES stat 100 and +10% maxES, after equipping the glove you will have 110 ES, if you wear boots with 100ES you will end up with 220 maxES)

% reduced Recovery,- the main difference between Life and ES is, that ES doesn´t recover while you are hit, there is a delay after the last hit you received until your ES starts regenerating itself again ( i don´t know the value by wich it is recovered, but after it starts it is quite fast). % recovery reduces the amount of time it takes for the ES to regenerate by the given value in %

There is the possibility to let any form of Life leech recover ES instead of life by using the Passive Skillnode "Ghost Reaver". which, to my knowledge, would be the only way of recovering ES while getting hit by enemies

CI ,or Chaos Inoculation, is one of my favorite Passive Skillnodes, like you said it reduces your Lifebar permanently to 1 while adding +50% ES to your maximum ES.
The benefits of CI are that it makes you immune to Chaos damage, chaos is a form of damage that ignores your ES completely and directly damages your lifepool, making it extremely dangerous for characters that rely on ES alone.
This immunity allows for the use of the skill "Blood Rage" without taking dmg:

"Adds a buff that deals Chaos Damage over time, while increasing Attack Speed and Life Leech. Killing an enemy while this buff is active refreshes the buff duration, and grants a Frenzy Charge."

Additionally CI is very effective for keeping your life always at 100%, a state that a synergizes very well with skills/ supportgems that add bonusdmg while at 100% life.

Eldritch Battery is a skill you don´t want to combine with CI... it really just takes all your ES values and adds them to your manapool leaving your 1 HP lifepool completely unprotected :)

How you want to plan out your character is really your choice, but i advise you out of my own experiences: consider playing a character purely unplanned to get a "learning by doing" situation going or stick to one of the "beginner guides/ builds"

Those characters most likely won´t stand a chance in later difficulties but they provide huge insight on game mechanics as you will encounter more and more obstacles that will show you in which ares your char might be lacking.
Generally it is often advised to for both Offense and Defense, so don´t invest too heavy in either of them alone.

Well that´s what i have to offer for you, if i used strange wording or wrong grammar/ expressions i must apologize, since english is a second language for me and i´m not used to it :P

edit: seeing that there are newer posts, i wanna add:
every Skill in the skilltree is, like the name "Passive" suggests passive and always active by definition
best Regards, Rhagius

Thanks a lot for both answers, that clears all my doubts and thanks to the web-passive skill tree system (which is awesome) I already planned my character. Cant wait until open beta.


Edit: Just came with one more question , "Pain Attuenment" works "when Low Life", If Chaos Inoculation is active, is PA always active because only 1 hp, or never active because always 100%? Thanks.

last one. Pain Attunement starts working when you are below 35% (i think). It wont work with CI because even if its 1hp your life is full

I see, thanks.

One last question regarding the whole build.

Seeing that with CI active, ES basically becomes what "life" was at first, and considering ES differently to "life" has no recovery flasks, and doesnt regenerate when being attacked, i started to wonder:

Is it really worth spending skill points on all ES-related skills, instead just increasing life?. Maybe ES values are higher, i don't know, would just like to know if increasing ES skills has any advantage over increasing life. Maybe experienced testers have compared both. Thanks.

In all honesty just ignore CI as if it wasnt there. Chris Wilson said tonight on Kripparrians stream in an interview that CI is NOT going to stay as is. It may not even be there in open beta if they havent figured out how to fix it by then. Since you havent played yet (dont know if you plan on it before OB or not) I would personally just ignore it. There is SO much more learn once playing than to try and work your character around a passive that will not be the same or even be there come time to keep your character.

edit: Also there is a passive that makes all of your lifeleach "heal" your ES instead. Just go down the passive from CI to the right, its a key node. Forget what its called off the top of my head.

oh man xeno, thanks for the input, this basically destroys a few of my favorite builds ;(

but i seriously doubt that they can simply remove the mechanic, simply plastering everything with life/-reg/-leech won´t cut it for witches and shadows... well maybe shadows if they find a nice synergy between evasion and life

if they donßt find a serious alternative for ES most builds will incorporate BM and start from the southern area i fear

sorry, what is about ES that needs to get fixed?