[2.6] Rattle Retch - Flicker Slayer *1.6 mil DPS, no Crit, no Double Dips*

hey dude.I dont know why but i survive better without Vaal pact...With vaal pact debuffs are so annoying

"

etien4 wrote:

hey dude.I dont know why but i survive better without Vaal pact...With vaal pact debuffs are so annoying

Yeah a couple notes on not going vaal pact

- I eventually chose to take vaal pact because it meant my damage from the retch would apply instantly, therefore helping my dps.

- Not taking vaal pact means that you're losing some survivability, in that you're limited in how quickly you can heal yourself in between successive large hits.

- Not taking vaal pact means the damage from the retch is limited by your maximum life leech per second. This means that you can only deal, at maximum, 20% of your life per second, which compared to damage with vaal pact is total garbage. This can be increased by getting "+% of max life to maximum life leech rate" on your tree. I suggest grabbing Vitality Void for this. I would also highly consider adding melee splash on your 6 link, dropping Impact, and picking up Brutal Fervor. This gives you bleed immunity, more area damage, removes your need for Kaom's Roots, let's you leech faster, and gives you a 75% damage buff to your retch at the cost of losing one of your links.

- Dropping Vaal Pact will technically increase the amount of damage that each instance of retch damage does (because of the %increased life leech nodes), but decreases the rate at which it is applied. This might be good for the biggest of bosses- like extra health shaper. Unfortunately, I'm not even sure the first instance of leech will be over by the end of a fight with shaper.

- Not going vaal pact opens up the option of getting items with the "while leeching" affix, as well as allowing you to use "while at full life." This opens up the use of the BIS unique amulet - Daresso's Salute.

Hello, how do you deal with chill or freeze? Strongboxes booty blast me. Also have you considered getting the jewel socket right of health wheel to get Sentinel and resists to put a Green Dream/Nightmare? Maybe drop blood rage and sub ele focus with melee of full health?

"

BubbyBuddy wrote:

how do you deal with chill or freeze?

I honestly haven't had many problems with freeze. The nice thing is that this is a life based build, so the freeze duration is pretty low. There's maybe a half a second freeze when opening boxes, but I haven't died to it... at least not yet. If you're used to being wrecked by freeze on a CI build, it's nowhere near as bad with life.

The nice thing is that I actually have sort of decent defenses, especially against the physical damage that tends to cause insta-gibbage, due to 4 endurance charges, a basalt flask with flask effect nodes, armour and arctic armour. When dealing with box minions, typically you get a lot of little hits really fast which my defensive setup actually handles pretty well. Then just make sure you can pop vinktars when you open the box, and you can leech back the health before they can finish you off.

This probably isn't the answer you were looking for but it's what I got. Flask realty is really narrow. You could drop lion's roar or atziri's promise but then you're losing a lot of damage. I also wouldn't suggest dropping the staunching or grounding flasks either. The staunching is crucial for volatile mobs and the grounding helps balance out vinktars.

"

BubbyBuddy wrote:

Also have you considered getting the jewel socket right of health wheel to get Sentinel and resists to put a Green Dream/Nightmare? Maybe drop blood rage and sub ele focus with melee of full health?

I thought about working the green dream into the build in the sentinel jewel slot. Obviously it would be strong, but there are some tradeoffs to consider.

1. It takes 5 passive nodes to get there. Mind you they're decent nodes, especially if you're having difficulty capping resists. Maybe this is something I would consider later on, but atm I'm level 91 and I just don't really know where I could spare the nodes without taking considerable dps or life total losses.

2. Melee damage on full life is really powerful, but it's a conditional modifier. Any time you take damage, you lose it. And while it'll be up most of the time, it won't be up 100% of the time. Elemental Focus on the other hand is not conditional. It's just the same big more multiplier without any real drawback and it is up 100% of the time. The only drawback to ele focus is that you can't shock or ignite with attacks. But frankly, you're shocking enemies almost all the time with Vinktars, and you get much larger ignites from herald of ash.

3. Green Dream/Nightmare are pretty expensive. We're talking 70c and 5 ex respectively. I don't know that I can justify that getting Green Dream, and I just straight up can't afford Green Nightmare at the moment.

4. That whole %cold damage as added chaos damage is worthless seeing as we don't deal any cold damage. This doesn't kill the gem's usefulness, but it is sort of unfortunate.

5. Blood rage does provide other benefits along with frenzy charge generation. While we can't make use of physical life leech, the attack speed does increase dps by about 5%. It also makes me feel hella fast which, though not necessary, I enjoy.

That said, some arguments in favor of your suggestion

1. Blood rage degen sucks, especially when you can't offset it with regen or reduce it with endurance charges. It's definitely the reason I die the most (like I'll survive most of the damage, then notice I'm about to die to BR degen, and I don't react fast enough to unequip my gloves or portal back)

2. Being at max life has other benefits aside from just the melee damage on full life gem. Daresso's Salute is an amazing unique for this build. Being on full life means 60% increased damage and 10% increased movement speed. It also gives weapon range, which is nice for clear speed. I'd say this setup with the green dream/nightmare, daresso's salute and no blood rage is probably the best possibly setup in the event that a monkey's paw talisman with %chance to gain endurance charges on kill isn't an option.

Really it's up to you. I don't disagree that this is viable, but I personally, at this level, like the way I have it set up now. Maybe in a couple level's I'll reconsider.

Holy mother of god almighty.

When I came back to game a couple months ago I rolled a multistrike cleave Scion that I though was awesome and OP.

Then I rolled a burn arrow double dipping raider that I thought was insane (but had actually no ST damage).

Then I rolled a Cyclone Zerker and thought "well this it, doesn't get any better than that".

Then I rolled a shock nova witch with to my great surprise did as well as the zerker.

Now I've rolled this Slayer and it's the first time I've used Flicker strike. WHAT.THE.F*CK. is going on. This is so insane haha, I absolutely love it. I've sunk more currency on this toon than any other so far (Retch & 40% enchant aren't cheap) but OMG it's absolutely worth it.

I don't always understand what's going on when I start flickering all over the place but I'm absolutely loving it. It's my first build that could do Merc Lab on its own at 68 without any issues (just brought a life pot with me because VP and traps suck ass).

Thanks for posting this, it's brilliant. I should have called this toon SeizureMan©

I'm definitely interested in seeing the differences between VP + Headsman and No VP + Brutal Fervour.

Hey! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the build. It means I didn't just write all this for nothing. Keep your fingers crossed that we can get the retch again someday and good luck in FoO.

Hello there, I'm currently at the lvl 68 tree and I got 95 chaos, got no idea how to start mapping with flicker, is it even possible to start mapping if I don;t have enough currency?

I really like the regen idea so I'm asking for some stats or items I should get to map before I can buy a retch and a vessel

btw: the character is called "DarkSavagery" (cool name I know) if you wanna check that out

Waiting your reply

Hi, what are your thoughts on Iron Reflexes/Unwavering Stance vs Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics?

Does armour work better than evasion for any reason in particular?

Hey,

Sorry I haven't responded to comments in a while. I took this league off (I still haven't even seen 3.0 yet!), but I'll try to answer your questions based off memory.

"

Astrarex wrote:

Hello there, I'm currently at the lvl 68 tree and I got 95 chaos, got no idea how to start mapping with flicker, is it even possible to start mapping if I don;t have enough currency?

I started mapping straight out of Dried Lake back in legacy. I didn't really have any problems. So long as you have
- A. a decent 5L weapon (which is definitely acquirable with 95 c)
- B. your first couple of ascendancies done,
- C. Frenzy charge generation and
- D. your defense manageably ok. You should be able to map. Start slow, and work your way up. Before you buy a retch and a vessel, you're kind of just running a generic flicker strike build, so maybe look for another guide on generic flicker strike builds rather than relying on my very specific version.

"

Astrarex wrote:

I really like the regen idea so I'm asking for some stats or items I should get to map before I can buy a retch and a vessel

Maybe I'm dumb, but I don't entirely know what regen idea you're talking about. If you mean running my build as I have it without VP. Probably don't. Its not worth it. Instant healing and instant damage are far too good.

If you mean real life regen (as in not life steal without VP), you're definitely not going to be tanky enough to live off of regen with my build, and the life you get back from even some minor degree of life steal will far exceed life regen if you have even a halfway decent weapon. Get yourself an atziri's promise and a lifesteal node or two and you'll be fine.

"

Simonatron wrote:

Hi, what are your thoughts on Iron Reflexes/Unwavering Stance vs Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics?

Does armour work better than evasion for any reason in particular?

Again, I haven't played since legacy so this might've changed, but back in legacy I was really unimpressed with evasion/dodge builds. It sort of felt like you were just waiting to get stun locked or 1 shot. Armor wasn't much better in that it did absolutely nothing against big hits, but I liked Iron Reflexes/Unwavering Stance because it meant I never got stun locked. To me, avoiding that stun meant I could keep flickering, and thus constantly be stealing back all that health and manually evading enemy attacks. Plus, if you're not stunned, you can kill, and the safest enemy is a dead enemy.

That said, evasion is good for a couple of reasons. You are less likely to be crit with an evasion build which might reduce the odds of a 1 shot. I'd recommend still getting endurance charges if possible, and rolling with a granite or basalt flask. Any little bit of hard physical damage reduction you can get is going to help for those hits that do get through. I'd probably recommend using Kintsugi or maybe even Daresso's Defiance. Those were my favorite evasion chests back in the day. But like I said, I haven't played in a while so I could know nothing.