Flicker CoC - Clearspeed is fun (and affordable)! [2.0 updated]
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I've been contemplating doing a flicker CoC build for a longer time, so today I decided to just do it. Can't be that hard to make a build with insane clearspeed...
Videos: Spontaneous Zana 77 fracture map in 2 man party. Current gear:
Gear
(Bino's is obviously better, but the first dagger works just as well). Note that this was thrown together from what I had lying in stash. Take a CoC dagger, a tabula (or any 6l with decent colors, can even work with a 5l), a rat's nest for attack speed and crit, and a bunch of rares for life + resists. Blood dances are The gear (without bino) is a couple ex in total I'd say. Probably costs less than the bino itself. Bino is really good though if you're looking to upgrade from there. Weapon swap: Use to get frenzy charges before jumping in. 5l is overkill, you don't really need anything more than the frenzy itself. Passive Tree:
Tree
My current 85 char.
Life, evasion, acrobatics. Dagger crit and crit multi is good, global crit is even better since it benefits spells as well. Bandits:
Bandits
Normal - Oak (+40 life)
Cruel - Kraityn (8% attackspeed) Merciless - Kraityn (+1 Frenzy) You can opt for +1 skill point in cruel, but this build is about clearspeed. Similarly I took frenzy over power charge in merc. 2.0 update: Sustaining obviously gets easier if you attack less often (= flicker is off cooldown more often). Keep that in mind. Skills:
Skills
6L: Flicker - Multistrike - Cast on Crit - Flame Surge - EK - Arctic Breath Spells can be varied. -Flame surge is good because when your attack crits (which it has to in order to proc flame surge) you ignite enemies, so it will always deal the bonus damage. -EK benefits from Herald of Ash, high damage effectiveness and still being (pseudo) aoe. Bringing phys damage into the mix is also nice. -Arctic Breath is very solid damage, chilled ground, as well as a small aoe explosion. -Freezing Pulse is great in melee range, where you'll be casting it, and no longer needs LMP. -Arc is in there for a little bit of pack clearing help. Probably works just as well as EK, except it has lower damage effectiveness. Tradeoffs I guess. 4L: Herald of Ice - Herald of Thunder - Curse on Hit - Assassin's Mark This is how you sustain power charges. I wouldn't rely on only one of the two, HoT is too slow to keep up with your clearspeed, HoI is too unreliable outside of dense packs. I'd like to point out how important Ass. Mark is for this build: -Improved crit chance -More crit multi -Sustain power charges -Sustain mana (and life) on kill. You need to kill anyway for frenzy charges, so relying on this is fine. Put Herald of Ash wherever you want (you don't even technically need it if you have fire damage on gear, but it helps if you have spare mana anyway). You also need a Bloodrage, and you'll probably like to have Whirling Blades + Faster Attacks somewhere. Plus the Frenzy in weapon swap quill rain. Could use curse on hit (or PCoC) in there I guess. Also currently using a CwDT setup, but you could also use those sockets to level other gems. Gameplay:
L2P
Weapon swap to bow, use frenzy until at max frenzy charges, swap back, blood rage.
Jump in and (Nice build for min-mapping though...) Now run back and collect your loot. A bit more in-depth:
Spoiler
-Keep an eye on your frenzy charges: If you're engaging e.g. a pack of blue rocks and fail to kill anything before your initial set runs out, disengage (WB) and start again.
-Keep an eye on your mana: Similarly, if you're not killing (or not killing enough), you might run out of mana. I'm keeping a mana flask handy for this, you don't want to stop in the middle of the pack and wait for regen. -Keep an eye on your life. Doh. Normal white packs shouldn't be an issue. Once you kill a mob, you're going and unlikely to stop before the pack is gone. The only problem is if the pack is huge or you're flickering off into a different pack on each hit. See above in that case. Exiles and other lone/high health targets are not quite the strength of this build, but as you can see in the above video, you can still quite easily melt them if they have some mobs around or give you the breathing room to repeatedly disengage and build frenzy charges. Relatedly, if you need to focus a particular enemy in a pack, try to get a namelock on him (keep him targeted). The first hit of a multistrike will hit him, subsequent ones can kill off the trash nearby and thereby sustain your flicker. Note that this can be dangerous if the multi-flicker takes you further away from the targeted enemy: Your char will attempt to run back through the pack, or worse, stand still. For that reason you should avoid namelocking if it's not necessary. Lastly, keep your mouse cursor in the screen center while flickering. If it's over a wall, your character may refuse to flicker, even if mobs are in range. Again, this build was made totally impromptu and is not optimized or anything (heck, doing 77 maps with 3k life). But it was immediately tons of fun and surprisingly versatile. And boy, the clearspeed is amazing, I'm spending more time picking up loot than killing mobs. Warning: Ecstatic camera bouncing. This is a flicker build, don't complain to me if you start feeling sick after a while. A word on desync:
Spoiler
It's almost entirely fixed in 2.0, BUT I have still experienced desync with lockstep occasionally: Your character stands there, mobs will attack him a screen away (you'll even hear the sound from a screen away) but you won't flicker. In that case ignore where the game shows your char to be, go by the sound/where you know enemies are and give a flicker/move order in that area. If you try targeting around your desynced location, it's as if you're targeting a screen away (from the perspective of where you actually are) and won't do anything.
Now to make this a low-life build... 2.0 update: Not even gonna try to revive the LL version, lol. Changelog: 25/02/15: Created. 12/05/15: Updated a bit. 03/08/15: Updated for 2.0 Last edited by MauranKilom on Aug 5, 2015, 6:21:48 PM
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Any update on the low life version? :D
IGN: Gieves
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Update on LL version: 6L on shavs is already attained and build is being played for quite a while now. ~6k ES is lower than I'd have liked, but works well enough. Had to invest into accuracy rings (69% chance to hit without them...), build feels fine with that.
Clearspeed really is an order of magnitude above this build, but flicker always feels dangerous. At least once per day I get "stuck" in an offscreen pack, I know I'm desynced, I try to /oos but nothing happens for multiple seconds. Really anticipating lockstep :) |
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thx for the build guide!
this looks really interesting, will try it out when act 4 beta is over and implemented into the official game! | |
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I started this build in Torment and can't put it down in Std, it's so much fun. Currently level 88. I have even taken down a 77 Abaxoth with this build. Started with Scion, but it also works as a Shadow or Templar.
Tree: Gear:
Spoiler
Lightning coil and Atziri's Step w/ acrobatics and nonstop flicker make you incredibly tanky. FYI, Glacial Cascade and Arc are the absolute kings of pack clearing. Flame Surge should be swapped in for a 6L or single target. Mirror Arrow Summoner: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1422529 Teleports Behind You: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2123293 Magma Orb Deadeye: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2736039 Last edited by dariidar on May 12, 2015, 3:53:05 PM
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