[2.6] Nokternl's Scold's Revival Flicker Farmer (SC, Fast, Cheap!)
 Welcome to my second guide, which is technically an update of my first guide, the Forever Flicker COC Assassin, using the same build post template that took me ages the first time :P Now we aren't Cast on Crit, and we aren't an Assassin, but we are an insane Berserking Marauder! :)
Video Guide and extras
(Right click - Open in new Tab) Some gameplay clips featuring this build -
To Do list
Things I will add to the guide in the near future.
TODO (listed by priority) -
Changelog
Things I have changed in the guide.
Changelog -
FIRST UP, AN INTRO AND A WARNING! I'm Nokternl. Thanks for taking the time to read my guide. This guide is an ongoing project, and will be updated as necessary as I make changes to the build. The idea of the formatting of this guide is to allow you to quickly and easily view the 'steps' as you level, and to be able to view extra information as required if you need more detail as to how and why we use a particular item/gem/link. I hope you enjoy the guide and the build! Let me know how it goes :)
THE WARNING/DISCLAIMER
I am great at writing walls of explanatory text, so I will try to hide most of it behind spoilers, for those who really want to understand my reasoning behind certain decisions in this build. I'll keep the main parts as concise as I can, and spoiler out the 'bonus' content. After all, information is power :)
BUILD INSPIRATION Ever since I started playing Path of Exile, I have wanted to create a viable, yet affordable flicker strike build which addresses as best as possible the shortcomings of the skill, whilst working with its strengths. I have finally managed to achieve this, and hope you enjoy it... After my original Forever Flicker COC build, I spent a lot of time transitioning the build to a Scold's Bridle based CWDT (Cast when Damage Taken) build, which was awesome fun and took the CoC build idea to the next level. It also allowed me to transition out of being a crit based build, even with the requirement to get crits in order for Terminus Est to grant us Frenzy charges. The sheer number of spells we trigger with CWDT virtually guarantees we generate those charges, even without speccing heavily into crit nodes, which lets us spend passive points on other things, like LIFE! With the Legacy league came a very unfortunate (and complained about) stealth nerf to Scold's Bridle. What was a multi-exalted orb item fell to 1 alch-1 chaos overnight, as all our beautiful builds which had relied on a Blood Magic gem setup suddenly no longer worked (now damage caused by Scold's is based only on MANA spent). Ouch. One of my two favourite items... So, not to be defeated, I accepted the challenge, and decided to revive the Scold's Bridle usefulness. Hope you enjoy it as much as I am :)
Thanks goes to...
Anyone else I have missed will be added! BUILD SUMMARY This build harnesses the great clear speed potential of flicker strike, whilst negating the biggest problems flicker strike characters usually face. This has resulted in a build that has become a perfect base for Cast when Damage Taken, without ever slowing down. It is not Hardcore viable as yet, and our life pool is our only real defence. At this stage, I haven't managed to work much mitigation into the build as you can't stack ES, and Armour is relatively counterproductive to self-damage :) We quickly generate Frenzy Charges to boost our attack speed and keep our flicker strike going, and Power Charge generation helps us improve our low Critical strike chance. As we put level 68 and can equip Scold's Bridle, we can start to transition to the full CWDT version of this build, utilising the massive spam of our triggered spells to generate our frenzy charges for our "Forever Flicker".
How does Flicker Strike work, and what limitations does it have?
Flicker Strike is a melee attack, where your character teleports to a nearby enemy and attacks once. It has a cooldown timer, so you cannot use it quickly unless you expend a Frenzy Charge to bypass it. Most Flicker Strike builds hit trouble when they run into a tough mob or boss and run out of Frenzy Charges, leaving them standing helplessly next to the boss and waiting to be pummelled into the ground. The elite Flicker Strike builds overcome this problem purely by out-DPSing everything, so that even the toughest mobs die quickly. These elite builds, however, cost a lot, and we are talking 100s of Exalted orbs worth of mirrored weapons and amazing gear. If you have that sort of currency laying around, you're reading the wrong guide and should look up multi-million DPS flicker strike builds. For the rest of us without the freedom of excessive currency, we have to work around the issue of running out of frenzy charges. Another core issue for flicker strike is that historically it has been generally a Solo only skill. Most of the frenzy charge generation items have required your character to land the killing blow on enemies to get a chance at a frenzy charge, and joining a party A) makes the enemies tougher and needing more flickerstrikes to kill, and B) doesn't guarantee that you get the kill rather than your party members. This build addresses both of these limitations. CORE CONCEPTS & PASSIVE TREES The build utilises the Unique 2 handed sword, Terminus Est, to bypass the flicker strike limit of only generating frenzy charges on kill, by way of its "Gain a Frenzy Charge on Critical Strike" mod. This sword gained a buff in the Legacy league, increasing its base critical strike chance from just 5%, to up to 8.75% (75% increased as a top roll), which really helps our build!
Terminus Est mods
Apart from the Frenzy Charge on Crit mod, the Terminus Est gives us some Physical DPS, +10 mana on kill, 20% increased Attack Speed, +360 Accuracy Rating, and 10% increased Movement Speed.
Enter the Marauder Berserker Ascendancy class Ascendancy brought with it the Berserker class for Marauders, and the ability for us to use an amazing Ascendancy node, Cloaked in Savagery, which gives us 100% of our damage dealt leeched back in life for a short time after we receive a Savage Hit (single blow taking 15%+ of our LIFE (not including ES/Mind over Matter Mana damage)) We ensure in our build to deal savage hits to ourselves via Scold's Bridle, to keep us at 100% leech full time. Coupled with Vaal Pact (leech is instant), we need not fear death from any but the most dangerous enemies, those who can kill us outright in a single blow. We go straight to Cloaked in Savagery with our first 4 ascendancy points from Normal and Cruel labs, and Crave the Slaughter for the Merciless lab, giving us much more Attack speed full time, and more Movement speed when we are between packs. Uber lab gets us to Aspect of Carnage for a great damage buff and increased self damage, perfect ascendancy options all round! Now we have the core issues out of the way, we build on the concept... We could go down the general flicker strike route of stacking our physical damage with melee physical gems, melee splash, added fire, etc... but at the end of the day, our 2H sword core damage is just too low for this to be particularly effective, and we have just made such a big effort to raise our critical strike chance that we should use it to our advantage... Cast when Damage Taken, amazing spam! With our Scold's Bridle damaging us with a savage hit every flicker strike, spamming spells each flicker and getting frenzy charges generated from those spells which crit, cast when damage taken gems are the perfect route for us to build on our damage potential. It keeps our frenzy charges up, and lets us scale damage well without having to rely on our sword damage, or levels of spells, just by sheer weight of number of spells triggered.
Issues to consider...
This build requires a lot of spells triggered via multiple CWDT gems to be effective, and the more you trigger, the more chance you have of critical strikes filling up our frenzy charges, allowing us more damage, faster attack speed, and continual flickerstrikes. Our life pool is also very important, as it is our only buffer of defence, and we use part of it on an ongoing basis (each flicker) to self damage trigger our CWDT spells. We need to monitor our life, flickerstrike mana cost, and CWDT/Spell levels closely as we level and change equipment, as we will kill ourselves very quickly if we fail to inflict a savage hit on ourselves, and can dramatically decrease our damage if we only damage ourselves enough to trigger our CWDT spells once every two flickerstrikes instead of every one. This reason, along with the unpredictability of flicker strike, is why I recommend you don't try this build in Hardcore.
ITEM OPTIONS, GEMS, LEVELLING & GEAR Early on, we can use any skill we like to level. I would recommend Molten Strike, moving on to Sunder or Ethereal Knives if you like. Level with whatever method makes you feel most comfortable. Using flicker strike before level 51 -
Spoiler
Although you can relatively safely use flicker strike before Level 51 when you can wield the Terminus Est, you are still vulnerable to the issues outlined above regarding maintaining Frenzy charges. Since you are limited to a chance to generate a frenzy charge on kill, you may still need to resort to another skill to take down tougher bosses and packs. If you're crazy enough to want to play this build in Hardcore, keeping to zone levels under your own will help you be able to kill faster and keep charges up, at the cost of XP gain and therefore levelling speed. Since you cannot use Cast when Damage Taken until level 38, and Scold's Bridle until level 68, I wouldn't recommend you fully transition to Flickerstrike til after this point. At the minimum, you should only start to use Flicker Strike on a 4 Link with GRRR sockets, if you don't own a Tabula Rasa. This will still work decently while you continue to level, but not as well as Sunder.
Important note - Don't go and buy a 6L that has GRRRRR sockets for end game, as when we move to Cast when Damage Taken, the socket colour requirements change! This is why I so strongly recommend the Tabula Rasa while you level. Key levels in this build -
Spoiler
Recommended items -
Spoiler
Terminus Est (Lvl 51. Required. Cheap) -
The only core item you need for this build. Definitely buy a 75% increased critical strikes modded Terminus, and try to find as close to 260% Increased Physical Damage too, as we still do damage with our flicker strike, and it all helps! You can start to use it at level 51, so before then you will be using as high a physical DPS sword or dagger as you can find, either dual wielded or with a shield. Attack Speed, Spell Damage, Critical Strike Chance/Multi are all bonus mods for the 1h starter weapons, and you should look to upgrade them as you level to 51.
Tabula Rasa (Lvl1. Highly Recommended) -
If you don't already own one, this is one of the core recommendations for this build to succeed well. You need your main Cast when Damage Taken trigger spells to be in this 6 link, and 6L body armour is expensive, even for the crappy ones! A Tabula will happily suffice all the way through to mapping, so that you will be able to afford a 6L at your leisure. If you don't own a Tabula, all of your currency gained while levelling should be earmarked to be spent on one.
Doedre's Damning (Lvl1. Optional. Cheap) -
I recommend picking up a Doedre's Damning Paua Ring if possible. They aren't expensive, and come level 38 will be very useful to add Assassin's Mark to our curses. This will help with our critical strikes and power charge generation while we are still gaining our passive tree nodes. This ring will be replaced by a crit/life ring later when we don't need Assassin's Mark or Poacher's Mark.
Thief's Torment (Lvl30. Highly Recommended. Cheap) -
Thief's Torment gives us some IIR, resists, and great life and mana generation for each enemy we hit, so it's worth using even before switching to flicker strike.
Doedre's Scorn (Lvl39. Optional. Cheap) -
This helm is useful if you are using Doedre's Damning for dual curse while levelling. Whilst the Elemental Damage doesn't help us much, increased damage per curse on enemy does, and if you can link the curses into the helm, +1 level definitely helps!
The Blood Dance (Lvl44. Optional) -
These are great boots for gaining Frenzy Charges. They work well with Blood Rage, and give you a decent movement speed too. Can be expensive but worth it til you have your CWDT spells triggering enough to be gaining your frenzy charges permanently from the Terminus Est. Replace them with 30% Movement Speed, Life, Resist boots when non longer needed.
Scold's Bridle (Lvl65. Required. Cheap (for now!)) -
Scold's Bridle is the basis for this build once you have enough spells casting when damage taken to reliably crit with it. This item gives us a big damage boost, both to our CWDT spells, and the ability to bring another big DPS skill into our arsenal if we want it later, being Vaal Molten Shell. More on this later...
Gem purchases while levelling -
Spoiler
Level 4 (Find/Purchase)
Vaal Molten Shell (Optional with Scolds) -
I highly recommend the use of Vaal Molten Shell in conjunction with Scold's Bridle, as it adds a good DPS boost to our character that we can trigger when we come up against a tough boss. With VMS "boom" explosions every flicker, it makes for some extra fun! This is by no means required, but it's fun, so get it if you can :)
Level 8 (Act 1)
Increased Critical Strikes (1 Recommended, co-level 1 more) -
Pretty much critical for this build (Pardon the pun!) in the early game before you are spamming lots of spells on CWDT procs. Get these and start levelling them as soon as you can. The higher they are, the more you crit, and the more frenzy charges you gain. Nuff said.
Level 10 (Act 1)
Flicker strike (Required, co-level 1 more) -
This is our core melee attack, and the basis of this build. The faster we flicker, the more crits we get, the more damage we do. Buy two of these gems as early as you can, and start levelling them with your character, even though you won't be using them til you can start generating frenzy charges reliably (using Poacher's Mark, Blood Magic, The Blood Dance, etc.) Note: Cast when damage taken has a 250ms cooldown on linked gems, so the FASTEST you should attack, fully buffed and with max frenzy charges, must be 4 attacks per second without multistrike, or 12 attacks per second with. Any faster, and you will actually do LESS damage.
Be aware of this when you pick up Shrines, as it can also kill you (well, you kill yourself technically!) if you get too much armour ;) Level 10 (Act 1)
Whirling Blades (Recommended for movement before level 51) -
Unfortunately, once we have the Terminus Est, we can't use this great skill to get around. Til then, a mix of Whirling Blades/Faster attacks and Quicksilver Flasks is the best option to get around quickly.
Level 12 (Act 1)
Blade Vortex (1 Required, co-level 1 more) -
One of our core late game skills, Blade Vortex will be part of our Cast when damage taken procs, and also can be linked with Power Charge on Critical Strike and potentially also Increased Critical strikes early in the build to generate Power Charges, which help us crit. You get this spell early, and can self cast it and move through mobs to help you level. Buy them early and level all but one. Keep one at level 8 for your low level CWDT.
Level 16 (Act 2)
Blood Rage (Optional) -
This gives us an attack speed boost, along with some life leech while we are attacking, and a chance to gain a frenzy charge on kill, at the cost of taking damage per second while it is active. Life Regen on gear in the early stages (before you take Vaal Pact passive) can help combat this degen. Stop using this once Terminus crits are maintaining your Frenzy Charges.
Level 16 (Act 2)
Herald of Ash (Recommended early) -
This is our core DPS buff, applying more damage to our physical attacks. Given that we have physical damage nodes on our passive tree, this is the obvious choice of aura until we move to mainly elemental damage through our spells. We could use Hatred instead of Herald of Ash...
Level 16 (Act 2)
Herald of Thunders AND Ice (Highly Recommended) -
These Heralds give us more DPS on both our flicker strike and every CWDT triggered spell, being the obvious end game option for scaling our elemental damage. Herald of Thunder also gives us the ability to use it in conjunction with Doedre's Damning for dual curse, by linking it in 3 blue sockets with Curse on Hit at level 38 and Assassin's mark, to proc the second curse without having to run a second blasphemy (giving you more DPS and using 25% mana reservation instead of 35% with blasphemy.)
Level 18 (Act 2)
Power Charge on Critical (1 Required, co-level 1 more) -
Power Charge on Critical Strike. We link one of these to our CWDTs (Blade Vortex or Firestorm are best for multiple fast hits and 6% base critical chance) to help us keep our Power Charges up full time. Can also be used with a self cast Blade Vortex prior to flickering into a pack with no charges. Remember, due to the Terminus Est, every time our blade vortex crits, we gain 1 frenzy and 1 power charge with this linked. Blade Vortex, Power Charge on Crit, and Increased Critical Strikes are a great combo for keeping our Frenzy and Power charges topped up.
Level 18 (Buy off Templar/Witch/Shadow)
Elemental Focus (Recommended, co-level 1 more) -
I recommend adding this to our 5L or 6L Cast When Damage Taken(s), to increase the damage done by 2 or 3 of our spells when it triggers. You don't want to link this with Lightning based spells, as we still want to Shock, but I have mine linked with Vortex, Ice Nova, and Arctic Breath in my 5L chest. In my 6L Tabula Rasa, I also used Controlled Destruction to scale the damage even further.
Level 18 (Buy off Templar/Witch/Shadow/Scion)
Controlled Destruction (Recommended, co-level 1 more) -
I usually recommend adding this to our 5L or 6L Cast When Damage Taken(s), to increase the damage done by 2 or 3 of our spells when it triggers. You can link this with Lightning based spells as it won't stop the shocks on crit. Elemental Focus is preferred over Controlled Destruction in a 5L unless supporting Lightning spells.
Level 18 (Act 2)
Faster Attacks (Highly Recommended) -
Faster Attacks linked with Whirling Blades gives us the quickest movement skill before we start using the Terminus Est at level 51. We then move it into our Flicker Strike links.
Level 24 (Act 3)
Poacher's Mark (Recommended for Flicker pre-Scolds) -
This is our bread and butter curse up until the point where our Terminus Est can take over frenzy charge generation for us. The on-hit life and mana can help us if we are having troubles keeping mana regenerating fast enough.
Level 24 (Act 3)
Anger (Highly Recommended) -
Anger is used in conjunction with both Heralds to add even more elemental damage to our attacks and spells. Although this is highly recommended, it is *only* viable if you don't use a Thief's Torment, and purchase an Essence Worm Unset Ring, and socket Anger in it. This ring lets us run Anger with no mana reservation, and our heralds mana reservation increases 40%, which we can handle within the scope of our build.
Level 24 (Act 3)
Assassin's Mark (Recommended) -
Assassin's Mark is a great curse to help us do more critical strikes, and more damage. Kills with Assassin's Mark gains power charges faster, which means higher crit chance and more reliable frenzy charge generation with the Terminus Est. It's a win win situation, hence why it's highly recommended to use in a dual curse setup, at least until our CWDT criticals are rolling in and we don't need this curse any more.
Level 31 (Act 3)
Blasphemy (Recommended pre-Scold's) -
Blasphemy allows us to curse every enemy we flicker to and kill. It ensures that whatever curse Mark we are running actually hits. From level 31 we will be using this with Poacher's Mark. Potentially Assassin's Mark could also be used with Blasphemy for dual cursing, but I don't really recommend this as it reserves 70% of your mana, leaving very little left over if you also want to run Herald of Ash, or anything else. Some modifications to the gearing could still leave you with enough mana to achieve this if desired, but I find the Herald of Thunder option better for a second curse.
Level 38 (Act 4)
Multistrike (Required) -
Use this in your Flicker Strike links to flicker faster. Core for this build/
Level 38 (Act 4)
Cast when Damage Taken (4 Required, co-level 4) -
Base for this build, these CWDT gems will be kept at a level based on your current maximum life. We need to ensure that whenever our maximum life changes (through equipment or passive nodes), we calculate 15% of that amount, to find the minimum amount of damage we must receive (after armour and any other physical damage mitigation), in order to savage hit ourselves, thus triggering our 100% leech from Cloaked in Savagery. As our life goes up,
so does the need for more damage from higher mana cost for our Flicker Strike, which in turn allows us to increase our CWDT levels and do more damage! More on this important dynamic later in the guide... Level 38 (Act 4)
Curse on Hit (Highly Recommended for dual curse option) -
If you go down the route of Doedre's Damning, you'll preferably want to link this gem with Herald of Thunder and Assassin's Mark in 3 linked blue sockets to proc your second curse. Ideally, this would be in Doedre's Scorn for levelling from 39.
Aura choices -
Spoiler
Poacher's Mark - For early flicker strike, use Poacher's Mark with Blasphemy until you have your Terminus Est and enough Critical Strike chance to keep your frenzy charges up without Poacher's Mark, Blood Rage, or Blood Dance boots in use. Dual Curse with Assassin's Mark - If you have decided to dual curse, run Assassin's Mark alongside Poacher's Mark. Herald of Ash - You should use this Aura for most of your mid-build. It gives the biggest DPS buff to your attacks. Heralds of Ice and Thunder - You should use both of these once you're CWDT triggering lots of spells with Scold's Bridle, to add flat elemental damage to your spells. Because we have to keep our CWDT levels (and thus our triggered spell levels) fairly low, these flat additional damage buffs are *HUGE* for this build, as we can level the Heralds all the way. Late build - I am currently running both Herald of Thunder and Herald of Ice for the flat elemental damage to my Flicker Strikes AND all my CWDT spells. Optionally, but highly recommended is Anger running in an Essence Worm Unset Ring (red), for even more flat elemental damage to scale. Flask choices -
Spoiler
I am currently using the following flasks -
Passive Trees - Late game gear choices and gem linking -
Spoiler
By the time we are happily flicking around with our Terminus Est, we should be aiming for the following gem links -
Note : I use Elemental Focus in my CWDT spells to help me do more damage. With Dual Curse, or against tougher enemies, you should use Enfeeble to help you survive heavy hits. Advanced Mechanics of the build that you need to know! -
Spoiler
Scold's Bridle & Fevered Mind Gems This setup is what brings the build to life. Scold's Bridle gives us more spell damage. We don't need the cast speed because most of our spells are triggered, and our skills deal us 400% of Mana Cost as Physical Damage. Flicker Strike with our chosen 4 links costs only 33 mana, so Scold's Bridle at this base point deals only 132 damage back to us (before any armour or physical mitigation. Not even enough to trigger a level 1 Cast When Damage Taken (which needs 528 damage to proc). We would also only Savage Hit ourselves if we had 880 life max. Not great, right? Why would we want to damage ourselves? To trigger damaging AOE spells via CWDT, lots of them, every time you take damage. Adding Vaal Molten Shell to the mix means we can get lots of explosions happening every flicker, too! With the speed at which we flicker between mobs, and the fact that we are almost always right on top of our enemies, this adds a great deal of DPS and fun to our build! Or, it would, if we could trigger the CWDT spells every time we flicker strike... Enter the Fevered Mind gems! These have amazing synergy with Scold's Bridle, increasing our mana cost for Flicker Strike whilst also dealing more damage (easily sustainable via our 100% instant Vaal Pact life leech thanks to Savage Hits) to ourselves, meaning Cast When Damage Taken procs every time we Flicker Strike, which leads to mass spell casts and damage, and more frenzy and power charge generation chances! A win/win situation all around, really, and why I really love this build! So, we need to do more damage from Scold's Bridle to achieve the desired results (Savage Hit + CWDT proc when we Flicker Strike.) Fevered Mind Jewels (Inc Spell Damage 20-30, 100% Inc Mana Cost of Skills) are relatively cheap, especially for low-mid 20 rolls to increased spell damage, but obviously top rolls are preferred for our damage (beggars can't be choosers though!) Just one of these Fevered Minds doubles our mana use to 66 (264 Scold's damage, 1760 max life for Savage hit, still not enough!) A 2nd Fevered Mind, 99 mana use, 396 Scold's Damage, 2640 max life, and we are starting to look a bit better. With the 3rd Jewel, we finally hit the 528 self damage required to proc a level 1 CWDT outright, assuming we have absolutely no armour or damage mitigation. 3520 max life is a more realistic target at this point for the proccing of our Savage Hits. From here we just work up with Fevered Minds as we can. Currently I have 6, my mana cost is 231 per Flicker Strike, I do 924 self damage from Scold's every Flicker Strike, and I can have up to 6160 Life before I fail to Savage Hit myself.
IMPORTANT NOTES
You should always make sure that any chances to your passive nodes, equipment, or gem selections don't break the fragile balance between you being able to Savage Hit yourself, and Proc all your CWDT gems every Flicker. If you get too much armour (including from Vaal Molten Shell if you are using it, beware it adds Armour!), you might slow your CWDT procs to one per 2 flicker strikes, effectively halving your DPS of your spells, or even worse, stop leeching at 100% rate, and killing yourself in just a few flicker strikes :) The math is easy. Flicker Strike Cost x 4 = Scold's Damage to you *before armour/phys damage mitigation* Maximum Life * 0.15 = the amount of Life (after armour/damage mitigation, and with no ES remaining) you must lose in a single Flicker Strike to get a Savage Hit for the 100% life leech buff. This is also why we don't stack ES (even though Scolds comes with some) Only level your CWDT gems and Spells that CWDT gems trigger to a level that can be triggered by the damage from a single flicker strike worth of Scold's self damage. Going more slows down your CWDT cast speed, and the damage increase is not worth it, because you also are damaging yourself MORE, giving you a higher chance of being one hit by a boss who happens to hit you at the exact same time your Scold's does. You can easily test all of the above by opening your character window (c), to make sure your Leech rate changes to 100% as you flicker, and stays there. Also by making sure that all your CWDT spells trigger each flicker strike. I refer to the POE Wiki CWDT page for the damage points I need to exceed before I level up my CWDT gems. For reference, my CWDT levels are still only 5 :) Additional Note - Yes, you can put more gem socket supports linked with my Flicker Strike to increase mana to achieve the desired self damage, and you may well have to if you don't have the jewel sockets or Fevered Mind Jewels to do so, but remember, every gem socket you waste is a gem socket you can't have another awesome CWDT triggered spell in ;) Whew. That was a long section. Read it again. Understand it, if you don't you will think my build sucks and give up. If you have questions, ask me here or in game!
Mana Regen
When GGG stealth nerfed the Scold's Bridle (may its former form rest in peace), we could no longer use Blood Magic with our Flicker strike, which really helped with increasing mana costs of the skill, as well as allowing us to not need any mana. We don't have this luxury any more, and this is why there are so many cries over Scold's being dead, and also the reason why they are worth next to nothing to buy now. To flicker strike as fast as we do, with as high a mana cost as we need, we have to rely on some important mechanics and items - Battle Rouse Passive Node - Just below the Marauder start, we need Battle Rouse, which gives us 3% of Damage taken gained as Mana when Hit. (We get 'hit' by our Scold's Bridle) We need to also buy at least two corrupted jewellery items with the same "% Damage taken gained as Mana when Hit" mods. These are cheap for the most part (failed Vaals from people looking for other mods), and you can upgrade them to better items with the same corrupt as you can. The highest roll on this mod is 6%, so look for those. Some mana nodes in the passive tree. We still rely on mana leech (3% once we have our first Ascendancy node (Pain Reaver)) and mana leech speed increases with extra mana. Although we don't go out of our way to get LOTS of mana, I do path through witch to enable me to get the Heart and Soul cluster and Deep Wisdom on the way to Vaal Pact. The Int nodes don't hurt at all, either. With these, and Terminus Est's in-built +10 mana gained on kill, you should easily be able to sustain just under the 12 attacks per second (with Multistrike) that we are aiming for in this build. If you're having trouble with it, a +30 mana gained per attack mod on a Thief's Torment should definitely help you until you can get the damage gained as mana mods on your items. Extra Mana on gear also does not go amiss here. My current gear, including with gem and socket layouts -
Spoiler
Current Gear - You can easily build a bit of Increased Rarity and Quantity into your gear without limiting the build too much. Just upgrade your gear as you can, and remember to check your calculations for your savage hits when you get more life! Aim for Life, Resistances, Mana, Movespeed boots, added flat damage. BANDITS, JEWELS, & OTHER LEVELLING OPTIONS Recommended Bandits - Normal - Help either Oak for +40 Max Life Cruel - Kill all for Passive Point Merciless - Help Kraityn for +1 Frenzy Charge Recommended Jewels - This is a tough list to remember -
Bonus Jewels - Fevered Mind ;) (Right click, Open in new Tab) Thank you for reading my guide! I hope you have found it informative. Please consider leaving me a comment, question, constructive criticism, or suggestions as to how I could further improve upon my build! Feel free to ask any questions you may have in-game or on my stream and I will endeavour to help as much as possible. You can find me on POE (Nokternl), or streaming with Survivor's Beacon @ http://twitch.tv/survivorsbeacon Have a great day! Nokternl Last edited by Nokternl on Mar 25, 2017, 7:51:50 PM Last bumped on Aug 27, 2017, 8:01:09 PM
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*Reserved*
Last edited by Nokternl on Mar 25, 2017, 2:07:42 PM
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+1
Saw it in action. Pretty sick. Been trying to build a flicker strike build myself, but I've been focusing on the Attack DMG of Flicker. This one goes for flicker as a utility and spells as the damage. Pretty legit use of flicker I'd say! | |
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This looks really interesting and creative but the damage seems really low.
Is that a gear problem and it will scale? livejamie
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Hey, thanks for chiming in!
Damage is fairly low at this stage, but I'm on the super-safe side, running only enough self damage to proc my savage hits. You can increase the mana cost of your Flicker Strike, and then increase your CWDT and trigger spell levels, at the expense of survivability. To achieve this, you can use Flicker strike on a 5L or 6L with high mana multiplier supports. Off the top of my head, Flicker-Multi-Melee Splash-Melee Phys Dmg-Life Gain on Hit-Conc Effect would be one of the best options, for the most mana cost. Obviously you will need more Fevered Minds to increase costs, too. The downside, of course, is that if you end up aiming for say, Level 20 CWDT, you have to deal over 3272 damage to yourself after mitigation in a single hit, or be OK with only triggering your CWDTS every 2 flicker strikes (with 1636 self damage, but halving your effective CWDT dps), which means that if you have a 6k life pool, you are dealing over half your life in a single hit. If some enemy hits you for 3k in that split second of your flicker self-harm before the instant leech, that's it, all over. My aim is to find other ways to increase the damage that doesn't require me to hurt myself more than I currently am, which is why I am being so restrained with my mana cost. In reality, you can just adjust your character anywhere you like from the scale of super safe less damage, to crazy suicidal awesome damage, based on your own playstyle. You could actually even have gear/gem setups to swap in and out depending on the content you are doing, which could have different CWDT and trigger gem levels, allowing you to speedily farm lower level zones with lots of damage and magic find, or be more tanky for higher level mapping when you're trying to XP and want to reduce your chance of random death :) I'll update the guide as I find better ways to increase the damage overall. The dual heralds and anger are a great example of how I've used unrestricted gem levels to add damage to my restricted CWDT triggers. Vaal Molten Shell is another. Vaal righteous fire, too. Since neither are triggerable from CWDT, they are good choices to level up high and use when you come across a tanky boss. If you decide to give the build a go, please let me know how things progress for you :) Regards, Nok | |
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My Current Gear:
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Trying to reach 8.3k life so I can try and run level 20 cwdt. Back before the nerf when I ran a cyclone version of this build, realized for a level 20 cwdt setup, you needed minimally 8,300hp. So that you didn't put yourself in complete danger when you cast. But with cyclone the goal was a proc every 2 casts. It's a whole lot different with Flickerstrike, also not having a shield with a modded 20% reduced damage taken over time, it's a lot deadlier to run Righteous Fire for the 50% more spell damage and 30% increased(60% increased total with my scold enchant) Now I could run Poacher's Mark(Over ele weakness) or Acuity(Amulet) but you have to kill for those, so not a smart choice, if I wanted to ditch Terminus. Once i get to level 90, I'm 83 right now, I'll try to work on your tree and optimize it more for my playstyle. But trying the setup you have is pretty good. I just know somehow, someway, I can push it to the limit :D (.) And by limit, I mean level 20 cwdt. That's the ultimate goal, it also feels good to run a level 20cwdt, since people will often call you a laggy pissant who does no damage since you run level 1's. Then you just link all your level 20's and leave the party Man-Mode style. :D ~It was fun when I ran pre-nerf Scold's, and it will still be fun :D/ Thanks for all the hard work bringing this build back into a viable state. Not as powerful as I would like it yet, due to the mechanics we're forced to deal with. But thanks friend. <3 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Update 1: 6.9k Life using Level 14 Cwdt. Replaced Praxis with
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"You're my Sword's canvas." ~Totes Adorbs. Last edited by Totes_Adorbs on May 29, 2017, 8:57:47 PM
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got myself a scold. Do you think it is still viable? Should it work with mind over matter?
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