[3.0] Rash Decision - 30 APS Poison Viper/Flicker Guide
 Welcome Exiles! This build is a chaos damage powerhouse that aims to clear content very, very fast with Chaos damage, stacking as many applications of poison as possible in a short amount of time. Benefiting from all of this attack speed, it focuses on life gain on hit mechanics and tremendously high evasion to survive most threats. It has a very active playstyle despite only requiring a few buttons, and can start with little to no investment.———————————————————————————————————————————————————
Videos
Pros/Cons
Positives:
• Attack speeds that can exceed 30 per second. • Chaos damage means reflect immunity. • Life Gain on Hit x Attack Speed = 1,200 ~ 3,600 HP gained per second. • Life Regeneration, Life Leech, and Life on Kill enabled. • Almost 500 Dexterity, Acrobatics & Onslaught 'more' evasion feels tanky. • Potential for dual cursing for silly high damage. • Gotta go Fast! • Cheap/common unique items. Negatives: • Build leveling with flicker is a bad idea. • All evasion characters can have unlucky strings of damage. • For end-game, needs really good rolled rings. • Life on tree is not 200%, almost is though. • Some people don't like flicker. • Has yet to be proven in T16 maps. • May need to stop and use single target skills on some rares (That's the point though). • You'll get yelled at for making poisons good again.
Stats
 Self-buffed Viper Striker at Level 78 (Without Uber Ascendancy)  Self-buffed Flicker Strike at level 78 (Without Uber Ascendancy)At the point of making these screenshots, I have not yet equipped Essence of Insanity, and our Viper Strike is still in a 5 link. No Vaal Haste, and good jewels yet to equip. At level 78:  PoB Pastebin At level 100:  PoB Pastebin (Mirror worth items)
Mechanics
This build has quite a bit going on, so lets break it down into smaller pieces.
Frenzy Charges
The build is heavily reliant on Frenzy charges, of course since it's a Raider and also using Flicker strike which requires charges in order to operate. The build also has a tremendously high attack speed, which means that more Frenzy charges will be consumed in the same amount of time as a slower attacking build, so we have to improve generation somehow. To address this, we utilize four different Frenzy Charge generating sources: Poacher's Mark at lower levels on a blasphemy setup feels great early on, we can eventually drop it if we want for more damage later if we feel the mana leech and generation becomes unnecessary. Blood Rage is the classic method that builds generate frenzy charges, but it is limited in use as it only grants a charge 25% of the time. This is just not going to cut it for our build however, since we require pure octane fuel for the vroom vrooms. This new Amulet introduced in 3.0 actually works great for us, since it grants additional Frenzy Charge production when we have 5 or more poisons stacked on targets. That's something our build can do rather well. It also promises some Power Charges if we fail, which I see as more of a 'diagnostics' device than actually helpful. Of course we wouldn't say no to some extra duration, but it's either here or not. They are also dirt cheap as of the time of writing this, so they are excellent candidates for Vaal Orb crafting +1 curses onto. We don't wear this though until we're comfortable dropping Poacher's Mark, and our other gear can afford it life/resistance wise.  And finally, since we are a Ranger, we gain extra Frenzy Charge production for killing monsters as well as simply striking Rare and Unique monsters. To total this all up, we should assume to have 30 + 25 + 20 = 75% Frenzy Charge chance. With Lab enchants, we can gain an extra 20% or 30%. Net maximum would be 95% ~ 105%, which more that meets our criteria for consistent charges. For final considerations here, we need to remember that we only acquire charges when we Kill something, which as some players have pointed out may be challenging in content where monsters have increased maximum life. To address this concern, higher-tiered content will require greater investment into character damage in the form of Steel Rings, possibly 6 linking our chest, and making sure we have the prerequisite Intelligence for Dendrobate.
Life Sustain
The build does have life leech coming in from damage dealt with our attacks and Blood Rage, albeit a very small amount. It also has some Life Regen to help with Blood Rage degen. The major method of sustaining our life pool however comes in the form of our attack speed paired with Life Gain on Hit.
Our weapon has 40 life gained on it as an innate property, which it should be stressed counts for ever single enemy hit per attack. We pair our Flicker Strike with Melee Splash, and we can reach 30 Attacks Per Second. Even in a modest 20 APS, our total life gained per second from attacking a single monster would be 20x40 = 800, and if we imagine only 3 monsters hit per second is 20x120 = 2400. When we reach closer to our ideal speed, those numbers increase to 1,200 and 3,600 respectively. And again, we still have Regen/Leech/Flasks occurring. This flask also gives us more leech, more damage, and more base poison damage. After all of our layers of defense, this amount of leech is seen as adequate for most content. We can however substitute our Off-Hand weapon for a second Wasp Nest, to double these values.
Gear
My character at level 78:
I dropped my Slink/Three-Steps in favor of well rolled Two-toned for more flexibility in gearing. Since I was hoping to try on Maligaro's Cruelty soon for testing, I felt I needed to move more stats from my amulet and into other gear pieces. There is still much more work to be done to finalize the character for regular mapping, but it is working out so far. Ideal Gear: Larger Life pools on all rare items. Essence of Insanity crafted gloves for far greater Flicker Strike speed. Vaal Haste needs to find it's way into the build. Likely easier to socket once I drop Poacher's. Vaal corrupted amulet for +1 curses, so Witchfire Brew + Temp Chains can exist. I believe it's silly to imagine Temp Chains on hit in glove socket on top of well rolled Insanity gloves, but if you have the bankroll for it this is a great place to spend it.
Links
Main Skill - 6 Link Dendrobate:
=== Implied gem links: Single target gets the 6 link because Flicker really shouldn't need this much love. While leveling, since Dendrobate has a built in 40% poison on hit with linked attacks, it makes sense to make Flicker your 6-link skill until you finish picking up all of the chance to poison nodes on the tree. However, with 3.0's boss HP buff, we really want to keep Viper strong so that we can kill bosses quickly. Map Clearing - Essence of Insanity crafted Gloves: As was stated prior, you can choose to swap Flicker and Viper between gloves and Chest armour, but these choices were made specifically to take advantage of gem socket coloring and how each skill works for us. Flicker not having 100% chance to poison is the one true downside, which with our current attack speed has not been noticable. Movement Skill - Boots: I played around with reduced mana instead of blood magic, but in the end it just couldn't keep up with how fast I wanted to zoom around maps with. Remembering to use this during boss fights to keep Fortify up is pretty important. Aura/Herald - Helm: Poacher's Mark and Blasphemy eventually go away, and are replaced with Vaal Haste and Enlighten. I run Herald of Thunder to be able to apply shock to enemies, which helps us a lot. If I had lightning damage on rings, I would probably still run it, however you can drop it if you like. Obviously you cannot run all three simultaneously. Support: Weapons or I personally prefer Protector over Wither, and at max gem levels it also is more damage overall. Since I prefer more attack speed for more hits and therefore more poison stacks / life gained, I chose Protector. It's perfectly fine to run spell totem and Wither if you like the hinder debuff, but it's not particularly meaningful on bosses as a method to make the encounters safer. Additionally, Brotector does fight alongside us. If I could, I would also run a max level CwDT here for the Ice Golem, just so that he can auto-respawn and I wouldn't ever have to recast him.
Skilltree
Level 40 Tree
Level 60 Tree Please do notice that for leveling, Essence Sap and Master of the Arena are pick-ups to help the process. Both disappear by the time we enter mapping. Level 95 Tree I'm still not 100% finished with this tree, as I've cut Ambidexterity from the build for the sake of efficient pathing. More HP is also within range that we did not pick up, and attack speed. For leveling, I typically recommend players use whatever uniques and items they can get their hands on to make the process go faster. The major skill grabs early to focus on are the required strength and intelligence for our skills, enough attack speed to improve the rate that we level, and waiting to pick up Frenzy Charges until we reach roughly 60. In the introduction video I described how I had left 70% to maximum life on the tree by this point, however feel free to modify this if you specifically want to survive content safer (i.e. hardcore).
Jewels
The only 'required' jewel is Growing Agony, to enable Viper Strike to exist as a meaningful addition to the build.
Priority of stats on jewels for the other 3 is as follows: Life > Attack Speed with Claws > Damage over Time > Poison Damage/Chance to Poison > Poison Damage > Any Attack Speed that is applicable > Chaos Damage.
Bandits/Ascendancy/Pantheon
 Ascendancy: Raider Order of Ascendancy selection is recommended: 1. Rapid Assault 2. Avatar of the Chase 3. Way of the Poacher 4. Avatar of the Slaughter The rationale behind this is that during the leveling process, the build does not focus on Frenzy Charges or generation as heavily as it does later. Onslaught and improving Onslaught is far more meaningful to quickly level. And yes, I know how good Avatar of the Veil is... But this is an attack speed build, take your cookie cutters somewhere else, seriously. This build is for speed freaks. So of course, improved Onslaught. Bandits: Kraitlyn (You could not have expected us to get 2 passive points when one of the Bandits actually gives us attack speed, could you?) Pantheon: Major: Soul of the Brine King Minor: Soul of Ralakesh(Litanius) / Tukohama(Tore) / Garukhan(Rek'Tar) Brine King is a no-brainer because we lifegain to live. Being stunned = not gaining life.The minor gods actually have really interesting choices for us, and we can swap through them depending on what content we plan to face. For everyday mapping, I prefer Ralakesh. It makes our Blood Rage degen slightly less while moving, helps us avoid having to use our Staunching flask, and prevents blind (and maim) which is a really bad thing for our accuracy. Gruthkul is a pretty safe pickup if we're going into a map where Porcupines spawn, since we don't run an Immortal Call. Typically though, the chance of being one-shot by a Porcupine is tremendously low since we gain life so rapidly. Garukhan is our third option for encounters where we are expecting to take savage hits, so use it when we face harder hitting bosses. The movement speed is really not required.
F.A.Q.
Q: Didn't you steal this idea from Mathil?
A: I would say 'Great Minds Think Alike' but then it would imply that I think I'm great. On the contrary, I've made endless builds over the years with varying levels of failure and success, this just happens to be one of them. I took it as a point of pride that I made a build similar to his at approximately the same time, however I can't site him as a source of inspiration due to starting on it before I even knew his existed. Lots of differences as well. Q: Oh my god Kwitch this build won't work because X Y Z! A: I believe it will work, I've tested it and thus far it has worked. I look forward to hitting a wall and solving any problems that I encounter with it. It's not a perfect build that can clear 100% of the content. It's a drag racer that can beat any other car off the line. If you wanted an Uber farmer or Currency farmer or Shaper farmer, you would approach those challenges with that goal in mind. The goal of this build is speed, excessive speed, and managing to somehow kill everything it sees as an afterthought of speed. Q: 'Gee kwotch, why does your Path of Building pastebin have perfect items? If PoE is played for 8 million years those will never exist! Reeeeeeeeeeeee...' A: I build all of my builds in PoB with perfect gear so that the build can be viewed at it's 'maximum' potential. I then remove half of that and consider if what would be possible at 50% would still work as a build. If it does, then I play it and make sure. Also, I play temp leagues. Standard players DO have mirror-worthy items and appreciate knowing what a build is capable of should they invest their time into it. However, I also always include my 'current' PoB links so that people can use educated judgement to find a middle point between my current, real character and the hypothetical values. Q: Can this build do [Boss Name]? A: You'll be the first to know, when I do. Q: Why not drop Acrobatics and pick up Iron Reflexes, change out your breath of the council for another item, get more weapon damage on tree, and reroll as duelist so you can get slayer leech. A: Why don't you accidentally enjoy the flavor of a fire hydrant. Q: Your builds are pretty awesome and I am really proud of your contributions to the Path of Exile community. A: Thanks mom, but it's really weird knowing you read my build guides.
Changelog
None yet, no changes.
Hot Flashes: poeurl.com/bPZT Balance: poeurl.com/btzp Shocking EleHit: poeurl.com/bZXo Last edited by Kwitch on Aug 27, 2017, 1:17:03 AM Last bumped on Oct 8, 2017, 8:38:41 AM
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I started levelling this build as soon as I saw the video you produced.
Thanks so much for creating the forum guide, it's been a huge help. | |
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I've got this to 70+ but t5+ maps on evasion just feel so squishy. Switching to full res. rings for cap and I feel like paper.
Anything recommendations? | |
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I would really like to see how this build will deal with frenzy charge generation in higher tier maps with very low frontloaded damage, can u post a video please ? And what about The embaler glovse for free 5link flicker ?
Last edited by qrowNN on Aug 27, 2017, 8:56:07 AM
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After seeing your youtube video I was waiting for this guide! Excited to try this one out. Thanks for posting!
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awesome, questions! lets see if I can answer each one fully.
"There were one or two moments where I've felt squishy, but I chalk those moments up to me standing somewhere I shouldn't have. For me, those moments would have been avoided with more hp, so perhaps focusing on HP earlier in the build process is what you want. Also, if you're not already, poacher's mark on blasphemy was the go-to solution for me whenever I felt like I wasn't leeching enough life or mana on hit. Everytime something was a bit too 'tough', turning that on basically eliminated any issues I was having with it. I don't particularly recommend this for party play either, mobs gaining hp doesn't do us any favors. "Higher tier maps, say T8+ ? I can upload a video of myself in tier 8's np. I haven't gotten higher than that simply due to playtime. I saw mathil's vid today, and his character is already 90. I wish I had the time to play like that, however I'm still only 79. Charge generation has not been a problem yet though. If it does become one, I'm going to have to refer back to my guide where I state well rolled steel rings as being a necessity. Since you can't even wear steel rings until 80 though (one level away) I can't speak to how much of a difference they will make for this particular build. Suffice it to say though that added phys damage is tremendously beneficial for poison application. As for your question about The Embalmer, a couple of problems exist. 1: We already run 4/5 uniques in the build, and struggle to have sufficient resistances in the remaining 5 slots. 2: The damage increase for Flicker is negligible compared to Essence of Insanity + Spiked Gloves. 3: We throw away a lot of attack speed in doing so. 4: Just low level evasion stats in general, might as well be pure es gloves. For comparison:  That's the effect they have on our Viper Strike. For Flicker, it's obviously much higher.  But making a decision to hurt the survivability of the build so that trash dps 'looks better' but ultimately is slower doesn't seem viable. But hey, you are free to take this build and run with it. I just follow the less is more approach when it comes to uniques. "My pleasure. Coursework is starting up for fall so my free time is seriously being hindered, but I'll try to keep progressing with the build as much as possible with updates. Cheers *Edit* I am playing around with a pair of Embalmers just so I can make a solid opinion of them, they might totally be a good addition during the leveling process. I can't see them lasting into mapping though. I'll report back after more testing. Hot Flashes: poeurl.com/bPZT Balance: poeurl.com/btzp Shocking EleHit: poeurl.com/bZXo Last edited by Kwitch on Aug 27, 2017, 10:56:42 PM
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Can the build do red maps without dying including bosses?
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Just started this build, but can't seem to be able to sustain frenzy charges, any idea how could I generate more?
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" There is a section on frenzy charge generation in the mechanics section, but here's the general idea: Blasphemy + Poacher's Mark. Blood Rage Maligaro's Cruelty at low levels if you need it. That already is roughly ~ 80% chance on kill to gain one. You don't only hold down flicker while playing, stop and use viper sometimes or to get started in a new zone. using flicker on a single target is a bad idea. Hot Flashes: poeurl.com/bPZT
Balance: poeurl.com/btzp Shocking EleHit: poeurl.com/bZXo | |
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Hello. ive followed the build as well as i could and im having some serious DPS issues
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