[2.3] Zelkor's CoC Flicker Striker - Low Life, EE, VP

INTRO

Hello and welcome to my pre-planned build for 2.3 where I am planning to make a Flicker Striker that uses Cast on Crit and utilizes Low Life and Elemental Equilibrium to maximize its damage.

*PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A THEORETICAL WORK IN PROGESS SINCE I HAVE NOT STARTED MAKING THE CHARACTER, THE SOLE PURPOSE OF THIS GUIDE IS FOR ME TO HAVE A PLACE OF COLLECTED INFORMATION ABOUT THIS BUILD AND BEING ABLE TO SHARE IT WITH OTHERS WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN TRYING IT OUT OR GIVE ADVICE*

P.S. This is my first guide here

Why go Scion for this Build?
We choose to go Scion - Ascendant for this build since we can pick up much needed crit chance to make sure we trigger our spells (Assassin), increased damage and defenses through a variety of choices (Slayer, Berserker or Elementalist) and lastly +3 extra passive tree points.
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VIDEOS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o89j0iNK3Q - Shows CoC working with all Multistrike hits.

Will try to make more videos when I get this character going in 2.3
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PROS & CONS

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PASSIVE TREE [2.3]

Ascendancies
The most important Ascendancy sub-class to take as the Ascendant is Assassin. After that we can choose to either pick up Slayer to get increased damage and cull vs Uniques and Rares (which are the enemies we usually struggle most against due to a finite amount of Frenzy Charges), Berserker for a more general damage increase and more reliable life-leech in curse immune maps, or Elementalist for Increased Damage through penetration and reduced elemental damage taken (both for general damage and reflect reasons). Both Slayer and Berserker also gives Life Leech on Kill, which we'll need to regenerate lost Energy Shield in Combat.

Some things to keep in mind though is that Berserker makes you take 5% increased damage and that it also gives some stuff that are not helping us in any way (Savage Hit effects). But it's better at life-leeching than Slayer in curse immune maps due to the fact we want to hit hard to make most out of the overkill effect. There is also the Elementalist which gives a nice damage boost through penetration and defensive boost through elemental damage reduction, at the cost of being unable to leech ES at all in curse immune maps.

Other Classes
Now, I have also explored other classes to play this build as, and as far as I am concerend it is viable on 3 other classes, the Assassin, the Inqisitor and the Occultist. The problems with this build is that it's centered around achieving really high crit chance (90%+) which is hard doing with Ascendancies that doesn't give any crit chance. The thing that differs the Ascendant to these 3 classes is that we have alot of choice on how we should pick up our second sub-class, do we want to be better at Curse Immune Maps? (Berserker/Slayer) or do we want to reroll them all and make ourselves more effecient in general? (Elementalist) We also get 3 extra points which we could use to get another jewel slot.

If you do want to try this build out on another class, I'd suggest to choose the Occultist. I won't cover the Assassin or the Inquisitor, since they are both very path-inefficient, aswell as not giving any defensive benefit that both the Ascendant and the Occultist has to offer.

Occultist
The Occultist gives us alot more ES, increased damage from our curses, a reliable way to sustain Power Charges and ES regen on kill (similar to Berserker/Slayer in the Ascendant tree) at the cost of flexibility and 3 extra passive points. I also suspect that Occultist could be a prime target to put the new anti-Hexproof mod on, which I cover a little bit further down under the Curses Section.

Conclusion
After exploring the other classes I've come to the conclusion that the Occultist and the Ascendant are pretty similar in percieved power. The thing that seperates them apart is that you have more build flexibility with the Ascendant if you'd ever like to respec your sub-class into something else.
I have therefore added the Occultist tree in the sub-section below.

Bandits
Bandits are following:

Kill All (N) - Kill All (C) - Help Kraityn (M)

Passive Tree

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GEAR

Check the image below for a rough image on how to gear your character.



This is a Low Life character so getting as much ES on our gear is preferable, there are however a few places that we'd like to go for less/no ES for other benefits, these places include:

Weapon
We'll be using a dagger as our weapon since they are able to attain two very important mods we are after. Firstly we need the Vagan mod, which means our Hits can't be Evaded. This is to not having to worry about our accuracy, which would greatly reduce the amount of spells triggered. Secondly, we need to get as much base crit as we can on our dagger (8.5% minimum, 9.0+ preferably), as our chance to crit will be greatly dependent on it. Other valuable mods are attack speed, spell damage, crit multiplier, spell crit, and resists.

Stat Priority - Hits can't be Evaded > Local Crit Chance > Attack Speed > Resists (if not capped) Spell Damage > Crit Multiplier > Spell Crit Chance

Helmet
If you are on a budget, go for The Vertex here. This is mainly becuase it will help our Assassins Mark Lvl 20 getting pushed to Lvl 21 with its +1 Socketed Gems mod, which will make it grant 10% additional crit instead of 9%. We do however also have a second option to corrupt Assassins Mark to Lvl 21 and get a Rare ES Helm with higher base ES than The Vertex to maximize our ES pool, but keep in mind that this option is more expensive than the first.
Unique - http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/The_Vertex

Chest
We are playing a Low Life build so of course we need to make sure we don't insta-RIP against Chaos damage, which is why we choose to take Shavronne over any high-ES chest. If you are on a budget you can go Solaris Lorica, but be aware that this will cut your ES by alot (at least 1k+ in later levels).
Unique - http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Shavronne%27s_Wrappings
Unique - http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Solaris_Lorica

Gloves
Now, you could go with a pair of rare gloves here, but Voidbringer's ability to regen ES on Kill and grant loads of crit to our spells is a deal maker, also, the amount of ES it gives isn't that bad. The only worrisome thing on these awesome gloves is the 180% Mana multiplier, which I'll cover under Math.
Unique - http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Voidbringer

Boots
We are going The Blood Dance here simply because of the Frenzy Charge on Kill effect. To make sure we are flickering around we need frenzy charges, our sources to get these are from Blood Rage, Poacher's Mark and these Boots which (if perfect) nets us with 25% + 49.2% + 30% Chance to get a frenzy charge (NOTE chance to get frenzy charge is not additive, our real chance to get a Frenzy Charge on Kill is about 73.3% with all these mods together)
Unique - http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/The_Blood_Dance

Jewelry
As for our Amulet we are going to use Eye of Chayula to obtain Stun Immunity. After that we have two options on how to make sure we can run 3 curses, a budget and a more expensive one. The budget alternative is to use Doedre's Damning to raise our curse cap to 3. While the expensive alternative is to corrupt our Eye of Chayula to give the +1 Additional Curse mod. As for the last ring slot, try and get an Elreon -8 mana cost ring with decent resist and preferebly some crit chance.
Unique - http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Eye_of_Chayula
Unique - http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Doedre%27s_Damning

Other than that, try and get as much ES as possible aswell as keeping yourself resist capped
(135% Merciless, 169% Elemental Weakness Maps).

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SKILLS

This is where I'll cover information about which skills we'll use and why.

Main Skill
A 6-link is more or less essential for this build, it can be done on a 5-link by sacrificing Firestorm and EE, but the amount of power lost is huge since CoC gets exponentially stronger with more Spells linked to it. Multistrike is taken to be able to flicker around much more efficiently by using fewer Frenzy Charges per flicker, aswell as making ourselves less likely to be hit by flickering around faster.

Also, Cast on Crit is known to have somewhat lacking single target damage exchanged for great AoE clear, by using Multistrike to get more hits and maximizing our crit chance (90%+) our single target damage will be greater relative to more common CoC attacks such as Spectral Throw.

If you get tired by flickering around you can always swap Flicker Strike for Cyclone and Multistrike for Fortify. These gems work quite well as replacements for Flicker Strike and can be relaxing to use after several hours of camera-jumping.

Cast on Crit
The spells choosen in this CoC build are Ice Nova, Shock Nova and Firestorm. The main idea here is to use Firestorm with Elemental Equilibrium to shower our enemies with constant -50 Cold and Light resist and blow them away with several Ice Novas and Shock Novas per second. Since all these spells have the AoE tag they are all amplified by Area Damage modifiers from the passive tree.

Flicker Strike - Multistrike - Cast on Critical Strike - Ice Nova - Shock Nova - Firestorm

Curses
Curses are used extensively in this build, and they are for a good reason. They enables us to get 90%+ crit chance aswell as being our greatest source of Frenzy Charges and in-combat sustain.
If you were to drop one of them becuase you can't find a Doedre's Damning / Corrupted Chayula or haven't reached Whispers of Doom the in passive tree yet. Then I'd advice you to turn off Warlord's Mark, since Poacher's and Assassin's Mark are build-enabling by generating Frenzy Charges and keeping our Crit as high as possible.

Hexproof
A quick note about Hexproof, since the only current way to apply curses on Hexproof targets is through the Unique Chest Armour Cospri's Will, It might be worth to reroll these kinds of maps (unless you are able to one-shot packs of mobs in that tier) until another way to obtain the
Curses can apply to Hexproof Enemies mod appears.

Poacher's Mark - Assassin's Mark - Warlord's Mark - Blasphemy

Movement
Since this is a Flicker Strike build, we'll need a way to reliably generate Frenzy Charges when we don't have any. This is done by using Frenzy, which is greatly supported by Faster Attacks and Fortify to make it fast and safe to use. This means that we'd prefer to use a movement skill that also can take advantage of the same supports that Frenzy has, which points us towards using Whirling Blades.

Now, I am personally not a fan of Whirling Blades since it can't take us over obstacles like walls/cliffs aswell as it's getting nerfed in 2.3. But it's pretty much the best option we have, since we can't use Leap Slam due to using a dagger as our main weapon, and Flame Dash/Lightning Warp being lackluster without Faster Casting/Less Duration (aswell as not synergizing with the other support gems).

Whirling Blades - Frenzy - Faster Attacks - Fortify

Cast When Damage Taken
Cast When Damage Taken. Linked with Immortal Call and Blood Rage so we won't have to worry about casting them. Supported by Increased Duration and our Endurance Charges from Warlord's Mark to increase our Immortal Call duration further. We can adjust the CWDT level to our choosing for more attack speed from Blood Rage and slightly longer Immortal Call duration with our Endurance Charges, just make sure it's triggering before we take a lethal dose of physical damage.
Also, we'll be running 2 CWDT setups, just to make sure we keep our cool little buddy alive.

Cast When Damage Taken Lvl 5 - Immortal Call Lvl 7 - Increased Duration - Blood Rage Lvl 10
Ice Golem - Cast When Damage Taken

Auras
For auras (and other self-buffs) we'll be running Discipline, Arctic Armour and Grace. Other than that we'll also be running 3 curses on Blasphemy, which is covered a little bit further up. To reach low-life, we use Blood Magic linked with Arctic Armour and Grace.

The reason why we run these auras, is to increase our ES (Discipline) and decreasing the amount of physical and fire damage we take while flickering (Arctic Armour). We also need to reach low-life and the only useful auras left that reserve 50% are Haste, Grace and Determination. We want to improve our defenses here (which disqualifies Haste) and to make use of Determination we would need a good amount of base armour, which then makes Grace the best option.

We can however, also use a Purity of Ice/Lightning instead of Grace. This is so we can reduce elemental damage from reflect and other sources (we got Fire somwhat covered thanks to Arctic Armour). I currently choose Grace over Purity of Ice/Lightning since it reduces chance to get hit and crit by attacks (which is great for crit-modded maps).

Check the link in the spoiler below for a clear image on how we reserve our auras.

Discipline
Grace - Arctic Armour - Blood Magic

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MATH

What will our ES pool be like?
8k+ as Ascendant.
10k+ as Occultist.

How do we shoot for Crit Cap?
Base Crit: 8.5~ (Crit Dagger) + 1.0 (Assassin Ascendancy) = 9.5~ Base Crit

Crit Percentage Increases: 255% (Passive Tree) + 250% (5 Power Charges) + 60% (Dagger Implicit) + 20% (20 Quality CoC Gem) + 30% (Ice Golem Lvl 20) + 30%~ x2 = 60%~ (Crit Rings) + 15%~ x4 = 60% (Melee Crit Jewel) = Base Crit Chance increased by 735%~, which is the same as multiplying our Base Crit with 8.35.

Crit Chance without Assassins Mark: 9.5 * 8.35 = 79.3% Crit Chance.

Crit Chance with Assassins Mark: 79.3% + 12% = 91.3% (Assassins Mark Lvl 21 10% Crit Chance with 20% Curse Effectiveness (10% from 20 Quality Blasphemy and 10% Passive Tree) = 12% Crit Chance).

Final Crit Chance with values above: 91.3%

Now keep in mind that it is possible to get higher base crit on a dagger than 8.5 and that we can get more crit than 30% on our rings and 15% on our jewels, which makes it possible to shoot for crit cap at 95%. I simply used lower values since it's more realistic than using perfect gear in every slot.

How do we manage our Mana?
Simple, Mana Potions.

Chance to get Frenzy Charges?
Depends.
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Thanks for reading!
*I am currently working on this guide so please don't see this as finished until this note is gone*

What needs to be done?

-Complete Skills Section /Check
-Complete Math Section
-Add more general information (Example: Build isn't recommended as a leauge-starting build)
-Add more info on other Ascendancy classes /Check
-Add Jewel sub-section
-Add lower Lvl Passive Trees
-Make a Flask sub-section under Gear section
-Do Video (Will later on in 2.3 after i acquire the currency to make this character)
-Re-read the guide for missed spelling errors
-Edit guide after received feedback (F.A.Q and so on)

*NOTE: AS OF THE LAUNCH OF 2.3 I WON'T THAT HAVE MUCH TIME TO SPEND ON THIS GUIDE, WILL TRY WHEN I HAVE TIME*

RESERVED

Looking forward to videos, but I don't think Scion is good. The mini ascendancies she gets are pretty weak compared to some of the ones other classes can get. I'd suggest exploring other classes more since I can't see Scion being the best.

I thought Flicker - Multistrike was unable to proc multiple instances of CoC?

"

Elgskred wrote:

I thought Flicker - Multistrike was unable to proc multiple instances of CoC?

Yeah, I thought so initially aswell, but after testing it out on my Spectral Throw CoC character, I see that aslong as Flicker Strike crits, all of its 3 strikes have a chance to cast the spells linked.

Edit: Got video proof up