I don't understand Acolyte of Chayula.

Try jewelry. Few items that convert damage to chaos

Because AoC wasn't meant to use quarterstaff, at least in this patch. You better use a bow and do some poison dmg, or use a wand and become a chaos caster. It's way stronger those ways.

I chose an Acolyte assuming it'd be the best for an Archmage/ MoM build. The most effective thing I could do with it was to make a Hexblast build

Its unfinished. Period. Nothing left to try and understand. Its unpopular because its broken.

What I love the most ( /s ) is that quarterstaff technically has 2 Chaos skills but actually only has 1. The 1 actual attack skill Hand of Chayula doesn't even work with the other skill, Mantra because HoC is not a Quarterstaff skill even with it being from the Quarterstaff skill selection.

Obviously, we've got to wait and see how the future balance passes and new weapon additions will go, but, yeah, AoC's ascendancies look inferior to Invoker's in every possible way. However, the issue here is not that AoC is weak (and I believe that he isn't), but, rather, that Invoker is so ridiculously strong.

As an AoC main, I've settled, basically, for a watered-down Invoker with Gathering Storm and Tempest Bell an added utility of applying two curses (one manual for elemental, one a Blasphemy aura for chaos) and casting Hexblast on large crowds. It's very fun to delete hordes with a sigle snap of fingers, but chaos skills currently don't provide reliable single-target damage without the expensive Original Sin ring, so I have to rely on elemental for boss killing in te meantime.

The main issue for me is not having a reliable way to leech mana as that would make the build really tanky.

Dual wielding Daggers incoming

It needs some work, but Reality Rending is an insane node for poison builds like Gas Arrow which can snapshot the extra damage.

Hexblast Monk was pretty insane with Acolyte.

Have to run a Wand, not Quarterstaff though.

With Darkness, you have 3 layers of protection. You are supposed to be a Tank.

The archetype it's made for is not out yet, simple as that. Once daggers/claws are released we can talk about it sucking.

I use hand of chayula to apply debuffs and move around. Works great.

I’m going out here to say that this sucks right now because we have half a game from an items and characters standpoint.

I’d expect to see changes to the passives tree.

Poison bow chayula is actually pretty nice. Very comfy clear at t18. Boss damage is a little lacking at least in the build I’m using.

There is a ring that converts all elemental damage to chaos. I wonder if this would help you use quarterstaff

Chaos damage is locked to spells and bows. Poison damage is classes as chaos as well and can be pretty powerful when used correctly. I ran deadeye with trampletoe/corpsewade, killjoy, gas arrow, skeletons, and flame spirits or whatever it's called. Boost your ignite chance and watch all the poison explode, trampltoe causes added overkill damage and killjoy has double death effects.

Corpsewade was great for mobbing during low levels but trampltoe is arguably better.

I did a Plague Nova build on AoC with Gas Arrow, worked really well, amazing single target and clear. Didnt use darkness though.

Im hopeful that eventually they fix it a little bit as its just not as good as others. I just want purple shards to refresh timer on buff and ill be happy.

What I really struggle to comprehend is the darkness mechanic . . .

So . . . it's an energy shield that takes FOREVER to regen again and you lose your bonus damage as it depletes . . . so what you're telling me is that you get WEAKER as combat goes on (which in late game maps combat literally never stops, so you're never getting your darkness back unless you intentionally do nothing while twiddling your thumbs.)

Worse it has leech, I leveled one was gonna mana stack and leech. Found out chaos damage can’t leech. lol

I am in the same boat as you. The problem for me is that darkness remove 100% of spirit with little to no value in return except for some crazy builds in trial of sekhemas.

Spirit is too god to be 100% removed...it is the only way to generate power charges in a chill way (combat frenzy), wind dancer, grim feast...if darkness reserved 50% of your total spirit that would be cool. You still wouldnt be a invoker in terms of damage, but the extra layer of protection should be the trade off.

btw, I don't think you have to go straight chaos damage on AoC. There is really only one node that provides chaos damage increase, and it is only 11%. The others are "do extra damage as chaos", which you could choose to amplify in the passive tree

The chance to gain chaos damage is fun on a Bombard Grenade using Poison Nades or chaos bows, it spreads very lethal poison because of that scaling damage. The Into the Darkness though is kinda unusual to utilize, giving away all your spirit for an added unique layer of protection is risky when you could use the same spirit and add both multiple layers of survival and damage to your kit. Might be useful for Mind Over Matter + Eldritch Battery + Into the Darkness but if you run into a Siphon Mana enemy you lose all that layer of survival and you are just left with the Darkness and HP.

Then again, I haven't made a Chayula Monk yet, Invoker is just way too much fun compared to that, might consider it for a league starter to see what i might be missing out but looking at the ascendancy passives there's not much.

You can build a pretty solid poison bow that leeches to ES.

Poison is not a Quarterstaff type of build just like in PoE1. It's Bow, Dagger/Claw or Trap/Mine kind of build outside of some really rare outliers using different things

I went aoc quarterstaff, with lightning skills, and original sin unique ring to convert all elements to chaos dmg.

It worked decently well but main drawbacks were could not shock or chill, so no heralds. To generate charges I used profane ritual so I could still use charged staff.

I could clear most t15 maps, but my clear time was slow as I lacked major aoe.

I ended up making a gemling Stat stacker and my dmg went through the roof, the clear difference is insane. I think a major downside of original sin is loosing that ring slot because it's so valuable.

I could have kept pushing my build and I bet you I could have made it clear all content but it woulda been pricey.

Dark Effigy

I have a video coming out in a few days that explains how Acolyte of Chayula can be a great league starter with quarterstaves, even in HCSSF. Will be posted here: https://www.youtube.com/@darkstrikex

i'm not a specialist or anything, and i'm also i'm not even close to have that many hours in the game, but i played chonk the most and here is my take:

the darkness node is the ascendancy is, at best, underwhelming. i managed to make it work with bonestorm, it adds some considerable damage, but (!) the monster's speed makes it unreliable. i feel is an evasion maxing node.

mana leech works fine with whirling assault. it tops around 176% and with consuming questions, it can make you really tanking as long as you're attacking.

the chaos damage should be seen, imo, as bonus damage that you can add to your build, not as the main focus. imo, chonk is a physical monk. i didn't test (i burnout out of the game) but i'm confident that chonk with mace skills would be a good alternative if those skills weren't also problematic.

also, as fas as i know, hexblast is the only viable endgame attack chaos skill. essence drain barely cuts during the campaign, contagion is more of a support skill, profane ritual is too situational and dark effigy is awful against terrain conditions (burning ground) and aoe.

abt hand of chayula, you can use a support gem called hex bloom to make curses work like contagion. pretty useful, i think.

in sum, build physical (melee or range), chaos on top.

There’s a ring that helps a lot with this - Original Sin. Converts all elemental to chaos. Shame the build enabler costs like 7 div for the lowest grade version.

It is the best phys monk ascendancy, crazy good sustain but that’s about it and the phys monk skills are kinda shit. Wind blast + armour break on stun + armour explosion is good aoe. And I flicker with pinning boots for constant power charges.

If wind blast/wind palm get big buff I’ll roll it again it’s pretty fun. Flicker is your boss killer though and it just doesn’t compare to the insane flat lightning damage everyone is getting rn.

MO the skill tree for a lot of weapons/spells feel really bare bones, I'm hoping most tree's are double this at launch. Each element seems to have very few play styles and dont mix all that well.

But AoC best weapon is prob default attack mace/bow + hammer of the gods since you cant really stack poisons all that much. BUT putting a singular huge poison is the best on a bunch of vines and the boss.

I did a physical QS build with either flicker strike or vaulting impact that poisoned to take advantage of reality rending and extra chaos dmg mods on AoC. Was pretty good and the leech was fun to stay full on mana and ES. Not the fastest but good enough to clear endgame maps

I tried it and currently running poison hexblast.

It's performing pretty well so far for T2/3 map bosses in T15+. I might be wrong but the ascendancy that gives you %chance to gain chaos damage on hit will also contributes to poison magnitude. So I've been focusing on cast speed, +1 poison, and poison magnitude jewels to quickly proc and stack powerful poisons. Respectable damage for single target as well!

But I agree, this ascendancy seems lackluster right now with how few chaos skills there are at the moment.

With the exception of one node on the tree, most of the chaos is damage is extra. I would say this allows you to build freely into other skills than chaos while gaining supplementary damage. Though you could still build into chaos if you wish.

Wand+scepter or Bow both have their things

I think it leans Wand+Scepter because of spirit for Darkness, even if you can abuse Reality Rending given the fact it takes ALLLLL damage and than adds up to 100% EXTRA Chaos ontop of it, meaning you can just throw as much physical/lightning/fire/cold/chaos damage on yourself and attack speed, and watch it trigger over and over like a critical hit

If you ask me, it was suppose to Occultist for Witch

idk why people recommend playing poison

you can play him elemental and let his passive convert everything to chaos damage, his mana leech is strong too he's definitely the best crossbow/bow users since mana costs ramp up really high per skill level.

AoC is actually alright, kind of underrated.

I ran a stat stacker AoC Monk, you get a lot of chaos res for free so you can get more stats on your gear, the flames you pick up are a nice damage boost although a bit unnecessary once you're super cracked but it didn't feel bad when I played it.

It's extremely good but at very very narrow build ideas

I played Chayula and my favorite part is the effect on the chaos-dmg . It’s also really easy to figure out how much of the damage is chaos…..

So I went AoC on my first character and just muddled through, made a generic phys attacking monk and mostly used AoC for the random bonus chaos damage and for the great defenses it offers.

AoC allows you to run Ghostwrithe and get 85% chaos resist, playing a hybrid ES/Evasion build that can tank big hits. I also took Eternal Youth to give me crazy sustain/pseudo ES recharge on demand.

I did attempt to go down the ES leech path but the reality is that scaling your phys hits that high with Monk's ele strike kit is super difficult.

I had a lot of fun playing it, cleared all content in the game and was running T16 maps + endgame bosses, although the atlas bosses on higher levels were super tough fights. Not a oneshot the screen build at all, but I felt like it gave me the space to properly engage with mobs and mechanics without rolling over them.

Also heard AoC is good for trial of shekhemas cuz of damages apply to something else than es or life, therefore you can go for a temporales more easily, something that I heard, didn’t try myself.

Brother I play an Acolyte of Chayula Chaos build that’s amazing. The trick is Original Sin.

The ascendency is good and my build is excellent for bossing (especially considering bosses don’t have chaos resist). Here are my tricks:

Gust Strike with Armor Explosion, Break Armour on Stun, Inevitable Crit, Longshit, and Magnified Effect.

Siphon Strike with overpower, impact shockwave, momentum, and the last two are whatever you like.

Frost Strike with its typical stuff.

Charged Staff with Withering Touch, Envenom, Perpetual Charge, increased buff duration gem, and plague explode gem.

Hand of Chayula with Snipers Mark, Profusion, Chaos curse, hex bloom, and chaos mastery

And here’s the fun part: Cast on Crit with comet, inspiration, impetus, spell echo

The trick is simple. Make sure you deal NO ELEMENTAL DAMAGE outside of what is converted by Original Sin. Anything that is “As Extra” will not be converted and has the chance to light your bell off. We do NOT want this.

Ascendencies to Consuming Questions, Chayulas Gift, and that as extra chaos node.

Here’s the tech. Gust strike and siphoning strike clear large waves quickly by abusing AOE damage on stun (they both build up lots of stun). They also instantly fill your mana/ES pool of you have good leech on 1 ring and your staff, and better on gloves or you have something like Manifold Method. High crit staff is important. I use an Expert Gothic with 20% IAS and 4.3% to Crit and my crit chance is around 70% hideout. The crit is important.

The reason we don’t light our bell off is that leaves all of its damage a Physical. With high crit and mana leech, we can create and endless shower of comets that gets so absurd the entirety of the screen whites out. It’s absolutely hilarious and devastates all bosses (comet is chaos with Original Sin)

This build clears nearly as fast as my invoker and smokes bosses much faster. You also feel invincible instantly refilling ES with the click of one button.

Chayula isn’t bad. I’m enjoying it thoroughly. I’ve spent hours upon hours honing this build and it’s my favorite thus far (I have 5 other 90+ builds)