[Solved?] Died with Chaos Inoculation while still having energy shield. (In Hardcore, be warned!)

Hello, I'm trying to clarify if I made a mistake, or there is a bug to be reported. My Act 3 Hardcore run was just ended because I lost life while using Chaos Inoculation. I still had plenty of energy shield. I understand that my hardcore status will not be reinstated and that is okay, although I am quite sad. Edit: Well.. I don't think it's okay, but it is understandable and I accepted those conditions.

Here is my death screen.

0/1 Life
4,737/2,538 Energy Shield

I died in The Drowned City at level 42.
The enemy that seems to have killed me, not 100% sure, was a rare mob called Pitflayer the Mad, which has the Hasted and Volatile Crag modifiers.

There didn't seem to be any other enemies around when I approached this rare mob. I died very shortly after engaging with it like 3-5 seconds after starting the fight.



Here is my entire passive skill point tree.



I'll take pictures of my gear and other info too, once I respawn (I'm not ready to do that yet </3. Just in case I'm reached out to for other details. I hope this helps kill the bug that got me so I can have my revenge!

I've used Chaos Inoculation for a while across two characters and had no issues up til now. I hadn't made any major equipment changes nor picked any perks etc that I fear would have negatively interacted with it, since as I am.. was.. :( playing on hardcore.

I do love chaos inoculation, so hopefully this is a bug and and was not intended.

Edit: So possible solution to what may have caused this death, but apparently the this type of enemy has an instant kill effect? Drowned? Kind of harsh to die after 3 seconds with a debuff that appears in the top corner of the screen. I get hardcore is? may be? advised for people who have a lot of game knowledge, but I felt I was trying my best to do everything right. I'll continue in softcore, but it has definitely been a 'feels bad' moment.

does your mana flask have remove x% life mod?

Nope. (I took screen shots of all my equipment after I respawned.)

I'm reading that in the previous game it did percent health damage maybe they forgot that when you have one life and you get too many times they round down

Only other thing I can think of is that you accidentally put a gem in that uses life instead of mana to use on accident probably not though

Same thing just happened to me in hardcore at level 51 on January 19, 2025.

My character's progression was currently in Act 2 Cruel, but I was going back to Act 3 (normal difficulty) to do something. I died to an easy mob way below my level with 4,133 / 4,296 Energy Shield Remaining. Somehow damage bypassed my energy shield and hit my 1 life directly. I had just chose Chaos Inoculation as a passive skill about 10 minutes prior to dying, and did not have any previous experience with it. The mob was standing within melee range when I died, and I seemingly died to a small amount of physical melee damage, or maybe lightning damage.

My mana flasks did not damage life either, so no chance of those being the cause of death.

Below is a screenshot of where I died, there was only 1 rare mob in the screen which is what killed me. The mob is shown in the screenshot.

Can anyone confirm if Chaos Inoculation was bugged in this death? Am I missing something in the mechanics of how it's supposed to work? I also had Mind Over Matter, but I don't think that should have caused damage to go to my life pool prior to energy shield.

I don't believe this should have happened, and think it was a bug. I definitely won't be using Chaos Inoculation again anytime soon, especially in hardcore

Quite a loss of gear/time sadly.