Bloody flicker Jugg

+ Beautiful clear speed! Can keep up with my friends lvl 90+ reavers who have completely broken DPS
+ Immortal Call is running most of the time
+ Leaves no corpses behind, so no resurrections or Detonate Dead to worry about
+ Inspired Learning = Poor mans Headhunter is great fun to play with and level with!
+ Half a million DPS against shaper/guardians. Not the highest at all, but certainly respectable
+ Not a boring cheesy cookie cutter build! = Not an Inquisitor, doesn't use Volatile Dead. Originality people!
+ Great at uber lab. Regen means you can just ignore the traps and waltz right through them.
+ Loves reflect maps
+ You never actually have to aim! Just hold the flicker button and keep an eye on your life and buffs/debuffs while everything explodes around you

- Only 4.5K ish life end game (immortal call offsets this quite nicely most of the time)
- High elemental damage bosses can still wreck you if not careful
- Has to run Purity of Elements to cap resists
- Zero armour and energy shield
- Suicide is a possibility, especially when you desync
- Desync. Still an issue, especially if you have a poor ping.
- Flicker Strike is really not for hardcore, especially this particular build.
- Hates "no life regen" maps
- Doesn't like to stop to capture beasts.
- Potentially unkind to people suffering from epilepsy

desynchronization = What happens when you flicker strike so fast that the game can't keep up with your movement. What happens is on YOUR screen, you seem to be merrily flicker striking away flying through mobs with ease. What is actually happening on the server end is that you are standing still taking a beating somewhere because there was a hiccup somewhere in the internet and you got lost. This will kill you more than anything else as a flicker strike character and why I would never recommend using this skill in Hardcore.

T10 Bog map in elder corrupted area
This video is great for showing the awesome endurance charge generation, as well as the frenzy charge upkeep on the boss. It's also a got a handy reminder to watch out for volatile flameblood mobs...

More videos still to come!

Yes, this stuff is expensive, but it didn't start out that way!
There are only 3 pieces that are necessary to make this build function:

The boots give us our unlimited max frenzy charges, when combined with our passive axe bleed chance from the skill tree and a little help from the Hemophilia gloves and chance to bleed support, all reflected back onto ourselves via the jewel. I definitely had some hiccups along the way with this setup, namely a large amount of "VVriggle has committed suicide" thanks to the HUGE amount of bleed damage I was dishing out before I wised up and put in to my Flicker Strike setup.

Now my self-bleeding is inflicted ONLY by and which are purposely kept at lvl 1 so that they do the least amount of bleeding damage, particuarly when combined with , which also allows us to shock enemies for a spectacular DPS boost!

The belt is weird and wonderful. But mostly weird. The weirdest part being that you have zero armour. As a Juggernaut. Zero. This drops our physical damage reduction down to about 54%. The wonderful is that the belt "hits" us for damage, triggering all on hit effects, and also triggering our Cast When Damage Taken + Immortal Call. With flicker Strike, you're constantly being "hit" by your belt, very rapidly, but for only teeny tiny amounts of damage. Enough to trigger the level 1 CWDT often, but not enough to ever notice your HP drop. The only thing that made me sad about this belt and gear combo is that the damage from the belt can't cause bleeding because it's not an "attack", only a "hit". I field tested the bejeesus out of this to make absolutely sure, because the build would be even more fluid had it worked this way.
The culling strike on the belt is great, acting as a pseudo 8th link (the 7th being the free melee splash from the axe), and the poachers mark on hit means there are never any mana issues as well as being a nice buffer to frenzy charge generation, along with not needing to worry about running a curse

We still have a respectable physical damage reduction! Through our 7 endurance charges, Juggernaut ascendancy, a cheeky bonus 5% from the pantheon, and we also get the bonus from the boots (10% additional physical damage reduction while stationary) thanks to a somewhat inconsistent mechanic of flicker strike, in that you're "stationary" while flickering. This works for the boots bonus, but doesn't seem to work for the pantheon "while stationary" bonuses.

The Inspired Learning Jewel is an absolute delight to use. It gives you one ability for 20 seconds of each rare monster you kill, and they ALL stack. For this build, it is placed south of the Duelist start area, as shown here:

In order for it to work, there need to be 4 notable passive skills allocated in it's radius, which is easily done here and doesn't take us too far from our path otherwise, as we love the resists from Cloth and Chain to the right, and are more than happy to spend the 2 points for Revelry on the left to get such a fantastic boost to our power!

I got lucky and self-found mine, but last I looked they're selling for about 20 chaos on poe.trade

Major = Arakaali. By far the best part of this is the first upgrade after capturing Arachnoxia: 50% increased recovery rate of life and energy shield if you've stopped taking damage over time recently. Which means that every time Immortal Call is triggered, we stop taking damage from our bleeding and our Blood Rage. This is especially good when running the labyrinth and jumping into spike traps just for fun because you can. You have enough passive regen that you can completely refill your HP in about 1 second each time IC triggers, without having to do anything else.

Minor = Gruthkul (1% additional physical damage reduction for each hit you've taken recently up to a maximum of 5%). Thanks to our belt, we're taking "hits" constantly while flickering, so always have this maxed out. Luckily, upgrading this by capturing Erebix, Light's Bane does not cause ourselves to lose 8% attack speed, because you are not being "attacked by an enemy" (this has been field tested to make sure).

Above I mentioned the inconsistency of the "while stationary" flicker strike mechanic. Here is why:

Soul of Tukohama (While stationary, gain 2% additional physical damage reduction, up to a maximum of 8%).

Your estimated physical damage reduction is visible in the character screen defence tab, and actively shows the bonus from Gruthkul pantheon, but never shows it for Tukohama while flickering. Otherwise Tukohama would be the better choice. For this reason I am also skeptical about Arctic Armour, because it doesn't display on the tooltip or character screen when active. But also because we don't have the mana to run it as well on top of Haste and Purity of Elements

Flicker strike - weapon (main attack)
Flicker Strike > Multistrike > Bloodlust > Melee Physical Damage > Brutality > Ruthless plus, for free we are getting Melee Splash from the axe and Culling Strike from the belt


Leap Slam (level one) + Vengeance (level 1, 20%)+ Chance to Bleed (level 1) + Fortify + Physical to Lightning + Innervate

This is our build enabling utility setup. Leap Slam serves multiple purposes here beyond a handy movement skill. It is the very first thing I do when entering an area, as it causes the belt to "hit", triggering the Unflinching ascendancy node and generating endurance charges. It also leads the way into packs of mobs or bosses in order to cause bleeding to then get the frenzy charges flowing, while also granting fortify and often applying shock. The Physical to Lightning also has multiple uses here, and it's main purpose is not to shock, but to reduce the amount of bleeding damage we inflict, because that is all being reflected back onto ourselves! Because only physical damage can apply bleeding, Physical to Lightning is really saving our asses here! This is also why some of these gems are kept at level 1 - we want to do as little damage as possible with the skills that inflict our own bleeding! Vengeance takes over after our initial attack, having 40% chance to trigger with a max quality gem, and as our belt "hits" us as we flicker, you see that cool swinging axe animation flying out more than often enough to keep up the bleeding, fortify and shocks!


Cast When Damage Taken (level 1) + Immortal Call (level 3) + Increased Duration + Blood Rage

Keep the CWDT and IC at low levels to proc as often as possible. With 7 endurance charges and the skill duration nodes the IC lasts over 5 seconds. This is pretty nice considering it has a 3 second cooldown and triggers itself almost instantly again each time it stops.


Purity of Elements + Haste + Enlighten + Rallying Cry

Purity of Elelments is needed in my particular gear setup of extreme greed, as I don't get the resists I need otherwise. Resists are overcapped while at 5 or more endurance charges (so about 90% of the time). Rallying Cry is purely a luxury item that barely gets any use, but it's a DPS boost and I had a free gem slot! Haste is great all-round, but it's especially great with my Watcher's Eye jewel that gives me onslaught. Enlighten helps with any potential mana issues, although that has never been a problem thanks to the belt, so there are 2 free gem slots here to play with!


Summon Stone Golem + Ancestral Protector + Chance to Bleed + Maim

Ancestral Protector gives more DPS than Ancestral Chieftain for this build, so that's a no-brainer. Both the totem and the golem can maim, which further boosts our DPS, and the totem can apply bleed to help with bosses too. Unfortunately, the totem also reflects the bleed onto itself, so it never lives very long, unless it is cast out of range of the fight so that you get the attack speed bonus for longer without having to recast it.

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/3.2.2/AAAABAEBAQmWFCAelDkOUEdfP3ase4x82X7ghMSFUpHOl3meV62Nu-3Pftlh5FHqGOsJ7w73Mvjr

Start off with whatever setup you like to level with. Personally I like frost blades or split arrow with any half decent weapon and you'll rip through everything well into act 3. My personal favourite is using dual Ewar's Mirage antique rapier with frost blades for spectacular clear speed usually right up to level 60 or so. Another favourite is Quecholli jagged maul with sunder, and for this build that seems to make more sense with our early passive tree, but the damage from those rapiers with frost blades is really hard to beat.

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/3.2.2/AAAABAEBAQHcBS0JlhLhFCAY2xo4HpQhYCcvLIUt0jWSOQ4_J0CgRJ5Gt0d-SshQR1O7WW1Z81oaXhNfP1-YZU1l8G6qbztyqXTtdPF1Tnasd-N4DXh6eWh673uMfNl-4ITEhNmE74VSh2qPYJBVkc6S0Jd5nlefPqLqpo2pJ6luqZSsqq2NtfK77b02vqfAGsEEzzLPftNv2L3ZYeRR6hjrCe8O9zL46w==

This is around the time I would be ditching my frost blades in favour of a bigger 2 hander like The Blood Reaper headsman axe with sunder. The damage is spectacular, and you can make the most of the bleeding damage before we are reflecting it back onto ourselves. Because we're already wearing our Haemophilia gloves, we can really appreciate the explosions.

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/3.2.2/AAAABAEBAQHcA-4FLQd1CZYS4RNMFCAX4RjbGjgdvh6UIVUhYCb4JyAnLyyFLPst0jB3MgkzhzWSOQ453TrhPydAoEGHQ-dEnka3R35KyE3jTjJQR1O7WW1Z81n-WhpeE18_X5hkUmVNZfBsRm6qbztybHKpdO108XVOdqx343gNeHp5aHrve4x7w3zZfuCCx4TEhNmE74VSh2qKIoqvkBGQVZHOl3meV58-ouqmV6aNqSepbqmUrKqtjbXytz677b02vqfAGsCmwQTBo88yz37Tb9i92WHcPeJh5FHkseoY6wnvDvJF9zL46_no_gr-jw==

At level 68 we can finally put on our Red Trail boots and get our flicker on. I'm never usually a fan of builds that have to switch so late through the build, but i can happily say that this one has been worth it (and trust me, I've had a lot of failed build ideas). This is also when we insert The Golden Rule jewel, and add Bloodlust support gem into our flicker setup. If you're richer than I was, it's also when you'd equip your 6L Kitava's Feast void axe and watch your DPS and clear speed go Super Saiyan.