Path of Exile 2 has been in early access for a few months now, and players are continuously exploring new builds for their characters. One of the ones gaining steam is Chaos Inoculation build—although it’s tricky to get it right.
There are a few reasons why Chaos Inoculation build is vastly different from others in PoE 2. Most importantly, it reduces your health to one, making you rely defensively on Energy Shield. It’s a high-risk, high-reward option that’s simultaneously fun and satisfying.
What is Chaos Inoculation in PoE 2?
Chaos Inoculation is a Keystone Passive Skill you may unlock in PoE 2. As previously mentioned, it alters your character, reducing their health to one. On its own, it sounds ridiculous, but it’s not as chaotic as it sounds. Chaos Inoculation also grants you immunity to Chaos damage, one of the few Elemental damage types in PoE 2.
It makes a lot of sense, since Chaos deals the most damage to Energy Shield in PoE 2 regardless of its source. Having a total immunity to it in the endgame has a lot of pros against many bosses and rare enemies.
How do you play with Chaos Inoculation in PoE 2?
The idea of playing with one Life in PoE 2 may seem impossible—and it practically is. That’s why you need to gain as much Energy Shield as possible if you want to utilize the Chaos Inoculation build.
With that in mind, picking that Keystone Passive Skill requires you to substantially rework your character. Your items and other defensive aspects must focus on boosting your Energy Shield. This also means stacking your Intelligence becomes pivotal, since this is the main attribute in these kinds of builds.
Furthermore, the resistance to Chaos damage plays a major role and makes this build so strong. With that, you can completely ignore that type of damage. Additionally, this allows you to ignore Chaos damage resistance on your items, which should free slots for other stats, like different resistances, Intelligence, and more. On top of that, map modifiers where enemies deal extra Chaos damage become your main gameplay goal, since you’re overpowered on these kinds of maps.
Best Chaos Inoculation build options in PoE 2
Now that we have the basics of the build out of the way, let’s look at the best build options for Chaos Inoculation. Generally speaking, you don’t want to rush Chaos Inoculation once it becomes available for you. Instead, you’d better start stacking high Intelligence and Energy Shield first before picking the Keystone Passive Skill. That way, you don’t become a character that could get wiped in a second or two against tougher enemies.
Invoker Monk Chaos Inoculation build
So far, PoE 2 players pointed out to Monk as the best class to utilize Chaos Inoculation, and they have a point. Invoker is one of the two currently available Ascendancies in the game for Monk, and in some builds it’s better than Acolyte of Chayula. It focuses on making the most use out of Elemental damage, endorsing fast-paced, dynamic combat, which is where Chaos Inoculation fits like a glove.
This build has an immense critical strike damage, while also shredding through enemies’ health bars with Elemental damage, like Cold, Lightning, and Fire. Many of them also allow you to stun mobs, increasing your mobility and domination on the battlefield. Additionally, Invoker Monks should often aim to have high Evade. When all of these aspects are combined, this build is almost unkillable while being able to output massive amounts of damage.
Key active skills and passives
- Storm Wave: Fires three waves of projectiles that deal Lightning damage. This is pivotal when it comes to making enemies’ health bars disappear. It also scales with crit chance, which should be one of your main attributes.
- Herald of Thunder: Further increases your Lightning damage. When combined with Storm Wave, it’s almost perfect when used to clear large groups of mobs.
- Herald of Ice: Provides cold explosion to clear packs and freeze them if needed.
- Shattering Palm: Allows you to Dash to enemies and strike them with an attack that emits a wave of cold around you. It’s not too powerful, but it’s useful due to the mobility it grants.
- Charged Staff: Gives your basic attacks Lightning damage. Great for all kinds of fights.
- Wave of Frost: Another skill that allows you to gain some ground as you flip backwards when you use it. At the same time you send a wave of Ice damage, slowing down anything in its path.
- Wind Dancer: A pivotal skill for almost every Monk. Grants you more Evasion and knock backs enemies once they hit you.
- Evasion (Invoker skill): Increases your Evasion rating by 20 percent.
- Eternal Youth: Makes your life recharge from Flasks apply to Energy Shield instead.
- Echoing Frost, Flames and Thunder: All three increase their respective elemental damage by 30 percent.
- Inner Faith: Increases your Evasion Rating, maximum Energy Shield and reduces effects of Curses applied on you.
When it comes to items, the build becomes a bit more tricky, since as we all know, the majority of the equipment in PoE 2 is randomly generated. But these are the attributes you should focus on in the Invoker Monk Chaos Inoculation build.
Key item attributes
- Critical chance and critical chance multipliers
- Lightning damage
- Ice damage
- Evasion
- Energy Shield
- Intelligence
- Dexterity
- Movement Speed
Stormweaver Sorceress Chaos Inoculation build
Many Sorceress builds rely on Spark skill that launches powerful projectiles. These deal Lightning damage and are perfect for both wave clearing and damaging rare enemies. Stormweaver Sorceress Chaos Inoculation is an experimental variation of that build, and so far it has worked fairly well in PoE 2.
Besides boosting Spark as much as possible, which we’ll talk over soon, this build requires the Stormweaver Ascendancy. It boosts your Elemental magic and is the common choice among Sorceress players, contrary to the other Ascendancy currently available, Chronomancer.
Key active skills and passives
- Spark: We can’t stress how important this skill is in the build. You should aim to inject as many Support Gems into it as possible. These should be Acceleration, which makes them faster; Arcane Tempo, which makes your character cast Spark faster; Inspiration, making it cost less; and Support Gems that make it deal more damage.
- Orb of Storms: This is yet another pivotal skill. It creates an Orb of Electricity that fires Chaining Lightning bolts at nearby enemies. You should also pack it with Support Gems, like Lightning Exposure.
- Flame Wall: Pivotal to get rid of enemies that are immune to Lightning damage.
- Sigil of Power: Creates a zone that boosts your damage while also reducing enemies’ damage. It’s powerful against rare enemies and bosses.
- Conductivity: Another great pick to enhance your combo. It curses all targets in a specific area, reducing their Lightning Resistance.
- Blink: Basically an escape tool, replacing your dodge roll with a short-cooldown spell that teleports you away.
- Pure Power: A massive passive skill that gives you two percent increased Lightning Damage for each 10 Intelligence points you have. Boosts your damage by a ton in late-game.
- Branching Bolts: Gives you a 60-percent chance for your Lightning Skills to Chain one more time.
- Eternal Youth: Makes your Life recharge from Flasks apply to Energy Shield instead.
- Mind Over Matter: This is optional, since it makes your character take damage in Mana before it starts shredding through Energy Shield. If you have a lot of mana. this might work as an additional defensive layer, however, we usually wouldn’t pick it in Chaos Inoculation build.
Items collected on Stormweaver Sorceress Chaos Inoculation won’t be too different to other mages. This build also wants to increase Energy Shield and Elemental damage, like the Invoker Chaos Inoculation build. However, you’d also want to collect mana regeneration and projectile speed.
Key item attributes
- Mana and mana regeneration
- Projectile speed
- Energy Shield
- Elemental damage
- Fire, Lightning, and Cold resistances
- Flasks recovery
- People who experiment with this build go for Bow and Quiver combo that can help scaling Spark’s damage.
