[2.0.4]PewPewPews Official Flicker Strike build!

Updated Tree for 2.0 is here: https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwQBAdwDhwSxBS0FtQlYC8EM8g2NEdUV7ButIWAj0yP2LIUuCDGeNZI17zfUOJY64TrtPs9AoEMxRrdHBkd-Sn1MYEz_TZJN404qUUdU_leXWhpbr1z5XotgQWKsY3BkWmVNZ4BnoGwIbIxttG8nbzt07XfjeA167311gUGCU4O9hNmHdorwjX2Nv5AKk_yVZppqmy2dqqOKpcumV6gHqW60xbXytxe5Hb02vea-p8AawYvC7MMzypDP6dDQ02_TftP82L3bp9vn3efjn-lG647tP-4O7-PxivJF-WP8xf4K_o_-ug==

Recommended Leveling Tree:
Step 1 - Step 2 - Step 3 - Step 4 - Grab the Jewel nodes whenever you get some good jewels. Can be early, can be late.

Guide is not up to date, but should still be enough to get far with the build.

HOLY SHIT, dat wall of text. Ain't no one got time fo' that!
Nope. So here's a small summary what each section is about.

Basics: If you are new to Flicker strike, and curious how it works.. It's explained here!
Advanced: Also very helpful, what mechanics will we use to obtain this build?
Item Requirement: What you need to look out for during leveling, and what your end game gear should look like.
Build tree and Gems: Needs no explanation. The core of the build!
How to play: Another one that needs no explanation. How to play with this build
Video's: Huzzah, video's!

Basics: How does it work?
Flicker strike allows the user to teleport to it's target, and attack it with his melee weapon. There is a catch though, it has a cooldown of 2 seconds. We can bypass the cooldown, by using a Frenzy Charge however. How do we get the frenzy charges?
There is a buff called blood Rage, that gives you frenzy charges whenever you kill an enemy. So in Theory, if we kill an enemy in one hit with Flicker strike, we get a Frenzy charge, allowing us to bypass the cooldown of the next Flicker Strike, so we can kill another enemy with our next Flicker Strike. Repeat. Profit.

Advanced: How does it really work?
Having high enough of a damage to keep killing mobs in one blow is hard to obtain. Maybe easier, now the new 2-handed weapons are here, but I found another way around it. Instead of killing an enemy with each Flicker Strike, I weaken an entire group, with every hit I deal. Meaning, whenever the group gets low enough, I get multiple kills, granting me multiple Frenzy Charges. I need to spend a few charges in advance however.
In order to hit multiple targets, we need to adjust how our flicker strike works with support gems. Two gems in particular will help us out best. Melee Splash and Multistrike.
Like the name says, Melee splash will turn your attack into a small AoE attack. Even though it will turn down the damage the initial target takes, this is great for our build. Multistrike will add two more attacks whenever we attack. This is very important, since the two other attacks will not consume any frenzy charges! Meaning, we get two attacks for "free"(the damage of the attacks are reduced of course).
Please note: Due to the randomness of Flicker Strike, the two additional attacks favours targets other then the initial target. Meaning, you will be teleporting all across the place, without having any control over it.

Item Requirements for this build
First off all, you need two one handed weapons, since we are dual wield. Your weapons will also be your most important tools during leveling. So it is important that you keep them updated at all times. Some low level uniques will help you out greatly, like the mightflay(used these weapons until I hit 55 or something). But if you can not get your hands on those weapons, there is a very cheap alternative to get some decently good weapons to use. This crafting method explains all. Just get the highest one handed weapon you can use, and sell it with a rare rustic sash and a blackstone whetstone. That 80% should be enough to keep you sustained throughout your leveling. As for the rest of your gear, survivability is key and master. Increased HP, Resistances, are the top two values you want. High evasion is important to.
When you hit closes to end game, you want to pick up several uniques. The Blood dance, is the cheapest. It will negate the chaos damage you get from the Blood Rage buff, allowing you to keep on using Blood rage, without any consequences. It also drastically increases your survivability by granting you up to 7% life regen a second.
For higher damage, The Bringer of Rain is a must. The extra block chance you get from this helm, will also increase your survivability. If you can obtain a legacy Bringer of Rain, that is great. But this build will also work with a non legacy BoR. Needless to say, Flicker Strike will be set into this helmet.
Another damage boost is the Soul taker. Not because of it's dps, but because of its stat: "Insufficient Mana doesn't prevent your Melee Attacks". This will allow you to drop the blood magic support gem and get added fire damage instead. Same with the Bringer of rain, a non-legacy Soul takers should do just fine.

My final items are as follows.


Build Tree and Gems
Let's start off with the gems. You can see them in my gear already, but for easier access, I'll list them here.
Inside the Bringer of Rain, I have Melee Splash, Multistrike, Flicker Strike and Added Fire damage. If you are not using a Soul taker, swap out added fire for a blood magic gem.
I use a few aura's: Purity, Vitaliy and Hatred. In some cases, I swap out Hatred for Grace(Vulnerability maps, heavy hitters). Make sure the rest of the aura's are linked to a reduced mana gem.
Cyclone and Frenzy are both used as well. Both are linked to Life Leech and Life gain on Hit, simply because we only need them for utility, not damage.
As for curses, I use both Enfeeble(in my swap) and Vulnerability.
And ofcourse, Blood Rage is a must. We do not need to link it to increased duration, since it it's duration is now as long as the frenzy charges stay. We link both our curses and blood rage to a blood magic gem, so we can still cast them.

As for the tree..

As you can see, this tree is focused around a few things: Melee Physical/Dual wield Damage, Dual wield Block, Frenzy Charges, HP and Resistances. We do not invest in armor or evasion. This is because we get around 50% evasion from our gear and Grace alone. That plus around 60% block chance and the blind, increases our defenses by enough to stay alive in most scenario's.

Bandit Rewards are as follows:
- We get the 40 HP from Oak Normal
- We get the increased damage from Oak Cruel
- We get the Frenzy Charge from Kraitlyn Merciless.

So what about leveling up, you ask me? Just look here.



How do we play as a Flicker Striker?
Easy. We turn on Blood Rage, and hold down our Flicker Strike button. This will work in 90% of all cases.
Things that make this a bit harder are big packs of(massive)champions, Allies do not die Aura's, Bosses. Simply because we can run out of charges before they die. That is where the other two skills come in handy, Frenzy and Cyclone. Whenever we get stuck in a group of several monsters without any frenzy charges, we switch into cyclone. Depending on how big the group is, attacking with frenzy along will leave you vulnerable to many enemy attacks, and we do not want that. The Life leech and Life gain on hit from Cyclone, should be enough to keep you alive, while finishing off, the already beaten up monsters. If there are only a few mobs left, Frenzy is the best solution. every hit will grant you a Charge, allowing you to get back to Flicker Striking as soon as possible.
If you are playing in a party, having someone flicker striking around, could be really annoying. You might want to swap out Flicker Strike, multistrike and Melee Splash for Cyclone, Life leech and Life gain on hit(Cyclone and multistrike are prone to desyncs, not a good idea), and use cyclone instead of flicker strike.
We use curses only on hard bosses, like Temple Piety. But usually I end up forgetting about those, and just rush in like that.
As for aura's, we always have hatred turned on(I am looking at Wrath/anger, to see what that does to the damage). Grace is usually on for the additional evasion rate. For hard bosses, the 2% extra from purity comes in handy(it does more then you'd expect).

Video's
And here are a couple of Video's I've made over the time. Note, most of these video's were made before the release hit PoE. They are still nice to see though.

Pre Release Video's:
Lvl 50/60(Before Bringer of Rain/Soul Taker/Blood Dance): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mT-ruivaq8
Lvl 82(Piety Run): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTTg2UYKTTo
Lvl 82(70 map 108 Q): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-NoL4e2mWQ

Release Video:
Lvl 85 1.0.0c(Scepter of the Gods & Dominus solo): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqby9sXkIH8
Lvl 85 1.0.0e(Double Carnage Colonnade map): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCaosGGP0ms
Lvl 85 1.1.1c(Reflect Precinct map): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD1z42_U72U

If you have any questions about this build, feel free to post a comment in this topic :)

I'm just going to update this post into a F.A.Q. then :)

Is this a good build?
Yes. Yes it is.

Is this build Hardcore Viable?
Ask me this a few weeks ago, and I would shout "Hell no!" at the top of my lungs. But as I keep fine tuning this build, I have come to realize, that this build might as well do great on Hardcore with a few tweaks. If interested, I will see if I can turn this into a solid HC build.

How does this build handle reflect?
The question is, how do reflect monster handle this build. The answer is simple: they die without inflicting any noticeable damage. The combination of High Leech/High Regen/Evasion/Block/blind completely annihilates the threats of reflect. If you are unlucky, a crit on a big reflect pack in a reflect map might instantly kill you, but I have yet to see that day coming.

Do I need a Soul Taker/Bringer of rain?
I advice getting them, even though some of these are very, very expensive. Though, the soul taker is not necessary, any 250+dps one hander should be enough for this build to work(though, higher is better). I would advice against doing this build without a Bringer of Rain. You can do without one, but you have to put more points in defence/get a 6 link Armor.

Do I need The Blood Dance?
Yes, you do. This build can do without a Blood Dance, but the effects of a Blood Dance is just too good to neglect. 1% life regen per Frenzy Charge in exchange for 2% Attack speed per Frenzy Charge is a "Yes Please" no matter how you look at it. Three of four charges is usually enough to completely negate the DoT effects from blood rage, even with -60% chaos res. Getting more charges will even heal you under the effects of Blood Rage. I see no reason to give that up for any other pair of boots.

Dual Wield Vs 2Handed, why are we going dual wield?
Dual Wield:
- Higher attack speed, meaning thus higher movement. Most mobs can't touch me due to the high attack speed, before their attack even lands, I'm already 3 blocks away.
- Dual wield can block, which is particular helpful against hard hitters, the number one cause of deaths in most melee build. With the block, blind from the BoR, and the evasion, hard hitters, will have a hard time hitting you.
- You get both damage increase from one handed and dual wield nodes, keeping your dps high as well

That doesn't mean 2 Handers are bad. They have their advantages
- Much higher base DPS, it's easier to keep up with frenzy charges that way
- Needs less nodes from the tree to obtain similar damage.

Though, this build doesn't focus on killing a certain enemy as soon as possible, it's aimed at weakening entire groups, before sending all of them into oblivion. Like states above, the biggest advantage is the survivability you get.

Crit Vs nonCrit, which is better?
I feel crit builds lack one thing: Survivability(correct me if I am wrong here). Crit builds can get insanely high DPS, I've seen them go with over 475K dps(!) Though due to the heavy investment into crit and damage, you don't have a lot of points to spend for survivability. Plus, reflect. Though, if you are looking for a dedicated boss killer, crit is the way to go.
I feel this build is a more all round build, able to kill bosses still decently fast, while also being able to handle any map with any mod.

This Duelist build, or This Ranger build. Which one is better?
In terms off endgame viability, this one is. If you have access to a Bringer of Rain/good one handers. If not, I recommend going with the ranger one, it's great for starters and people with low funds :)

How do I handle Mana costs early game?
There are a few options.
- Go with an early Blood Magic Gem
- Get these two uniques(recommended).
- Level up with another build. Dual Strike/Spectral Throw for example. Get a blood dance at 44, and roll with a blood magic gem from that moment.

Until what level should I keep the two uniques(wurm's molt and the Slitherpinch)
I would say when you are able to link a Blood Magic to Flicker Strike(which should be after you get the blood dance). There is no rush though, those items can easily last you until you step up from Fellshrine, act 2 merciless.

What's better for this build. Weapons with high damage, or weapons with high attack speed?
They both have their advantages. High DPS allows you to keep up the frenzy charges, while high Attack Speed weapons will allow you to "dodge" many many many attacks, while upholding the damage. Generally, you want to stay flickering, so you need enough DPS to kill off the enemies, but also enough attack speed to stay unharmed through the fights.
To answer the question: they are both equally important in their own way.

I have another question?
Ask away. There are a lot of things I must have forgotten to mention anyways

Been thinking of doing a flicker strike character but not that good at making builds. I used it on my current cleave duelist at first but ended up just using cleave and dual strike. I would be interested in how you build yours etc, since I am always making new toons to experiment with and find the most fun one to play.

Hi Appel,

Thanks for putting this build up and I really enjoyed watching the videos.

Unfortunately, your current build is dangerous in HC so I will likely not using it but it look like much fun to run this build.

I see you have a lot of Attack speed in your passives.
Is Flicker Strike affected by attack speed? i thought it was only reliant on frenzy charges?

What did you take for the bandid rewards? I'm trying this build right now.

Posted in the wrong Thread, Sorry.

:(

"

Agmemnon wrote:

Been thinking of doing a flicker strike character but not that good at making builds. I used it on my current cleave duelist at first but ended up just using cleave and dual strike. I would be interested in how you build yours etc, since I am always making new toons to experiment with and find the most fun one to play.

Well, I used a couple of levelling items, to make life a bit(lot) easier. Especially Last Resort, Al Dhid and Mightflay were a bit help untill lvl 50ish. Then I swapped to one handed I found(look for Phys%, Flat Physical damage, and Attack speed as pre/affixes).
I started out with cleave, swapped to Flicker Strike + Blood Rage when I hit 19, linked Melee splash to FS, and just went on like that for a while. When the mana costs were to high I plugged a blood magic to my FS, and got a few life steal items(rings+amul were around 4% LL). I actually got Multistrike around lvl 50(the one I wanted to use was levelled). By that time, the life steal from my gear + Blood Rage was enough to sustain my flicker strike. I bet that if you got Blood dance at that point, it would have been even easier.

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Iluvthu wrote:

Hi Appel,

Thanks for putting this build up and I really enjoyed watching the videos.

Unfortunately, your current build is dangerous in HC so I will likely not using it but it look like much fun to run this build.

I don't disagree that this build is dangerous, however, my first death occurred when I hit merciless, and I personally think that I could have avoided it, if I had equipped the blood dance earlier(mostly the chaos damage killing me, as you can see from the vid where I am killing merveil). Interesting, since I tend to die a lot on most of my builds!
Thanks for your reply :)

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Velocireptile wrote:

I see you have a lot of Attack speed in your passives.
Is Flicker Strike affected by attack speed? i thought it was only reliant on frenzy charges?

It is. It is affected by both frenzy charged and attack speed.
Which is a must btw. This hasn't been my first flicker striker. I had one on standard where I felt the need to get Unweavering stance, since the mobs kept stunning me during my flicker striking. That guy was two handed, using Kaoms Primacy, so a whole lotta slower.
On this build I... well, I never get stunned. Mobs barely even touch me. Not because of the evasion, even with my crappy EV gear, and no hard points in evasion, I only hit 40% evasion(which isn't much at all). With only a bit over 60 block chance, makes this build actually pretty squishy. Even so, due to the rate mobs miss me due to me moving out of their attack before they even can land it, that is no problem at all.

For high level party mapping, I usually swap out to cyclone. I actually have to use life leech + life on hit, since I get hit so much more often. While I don't even need to link life leech to FS, even if I were Blood Magic.

Make your own conclusions I'd say :>

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Stuuut wrote:

What did you take for the bandid rewards? I'm trying this build right now.

Cool :)
Normal: Oak. 40 Life is just to good to pass up. Even though kraitlyn would be acceptable as well, since getting resists will be hard without any on your helmet/armor/boots(!)
Cruel: Oak. 18 Phys damage. Fuck yeah.
Merciless: Kraitlyn. Frenzy Charges are the reasons why this build works. It's more damage, and more life regen.

I better update this to the first post eh?

I love using multiflicker strike to freak out newbies in pub games, ROFL. However the novelty wears off very quickly, I get dizzy after a few mobs @___@
Awesome that you designed a build around it, though! Definitely one of the coolest combos I've seen :)

Why do you have the frenzy charge in there with cyclone btw? Don't you have space on the 2nd 1 hand weapon? So you can put another support gem in there with cyclone?

And also untill i have the funds for bringer of rain and soul taker are there any cheaper decent replacements i should use? I know the boots are vital for this build and they are not as expensive as the other items so i can get thoes no problem i think.