2.6 LSC - Terminus Est Flicker Strike or Cyclone Juggernaut

Just wanted to record the character I used to get 38/40 in LSC (and then I bought Uber Atziri and Shaper kills to finish up the leage) but did mostly everything myself, minimal use of Trade/Global 820.

Started the League as a cleave/block build but the DPS and play style annoyed me. When TE dropped, I was surprised to see it had received MASSIVE buffs and wanted to try a build around it.




Got lucky early in league with Cadiro, and later traded the clean Headhunter and 30 exalted for a Corrupt one with +1 endurance charges.

Cadibro Moment, Yes Dreams Come True: http://i.imgur.com/coxLC9V.png

Tree
https://goo.gl/8ea6hv


Currently exploring the idea of dropping disembowling area in Marauder and going to shadow for even more crit and crit multi. This tree, as is, is a good tree and more versatile as the +1 weapon range near Marauder makes it also good for cyclone.

Going to shadow would make it a dedicated flicker tree.


Why Juggernaut
Overall concept was simple:
- Since AOE nerfs, Templar Area is not as good for Marauder to travel to. By not going there, Marauder can easily path to Ranger now, with Juicy Sword Crit cluser, while still getting Disembowling.
- Of the Marauder classes, Juggernaut has the best physical mitigation to counter-act the downside of abyssus. It also has a very useful node for Crit, giving +1000 accuracy allowing you to dedicate suffixes to resists because this build uses a lot of uniques!

So:
- Use Juggernaut with Endurance Charges, Accuracy and scale crit from gear and items and crit multi from abyssus.

- Since it is a map focused not a boss focused character, I made endurance and power charges with Red and Blue Dream respectively. Red Dream near marauder jewel slot and Blue Dream can either be near Cloth and Chain or Sentinel (good area if you need resists).



Why Abyssus
I was originally going to play a Leap Sweeper using a Crit Staff Tree and the synergy of staves with juggernaut and endurance charges, but after I got the unexpected headhunter, I decided to go all out with a faster, mapping-focused fast character, and flicker and cyclone were natural choices. Legacy with beyond + nemesis and then later double beyond turned out to be a great league to do that.

Juggernaut with 9-10 endurance charges applies physical damage reduction before Abyssus is calculated. At 10 charges, I was taking 84% of actual physical damage (100% x (1-0.4) x (1.4) = 84%).

Something really important: A diamond flask is fantastic to make sure you always get charges and instant leech from acuities. I also ended up getting a 20% conversion (non legacy) vinktar, but I kept acuities anyway in case I was in a tough battle.

Because with Accro + Phase Accro, you barely get hit, and 16% reduced phys overall + instant leech with a decent life pool from Kaoms Heart should make the build decent for softcore. I did die a few times due to being unlucky.

Abyssus helps get Crit Multi and Flat Phys both of which are low on a left-side TE build. With Flicker, it makes you hit much harder to maximize the frenzy generation from Blood Rage, the onkill effects of Herald of Ash. I started with Hatred + Blaspphemy+ Warlords Mark but switched Hatred + HOA and a Red Dream in the Marauder Jewel Slot.

Changes for Cyclone
As Cyclone does not rely on Frenzy Charges for smoothness, these can be dropped for either more damage, more utility (movement speed), or more life near Scion. Cyclone is a great use of Terminus now given than Marauder Sword Nodes give +1 range, TE itself gives 10% movement.

The other big change I made for Cyclone was to swap abyssus for Devotos Devotion as this setup can easily farm strand without abyssus damage.

My links were Cyclone, Faster Attacks, Inc Crit, Inc AOE, MPD and Fortify.

Can this work with other ascendancies

Slayer is a grat choice if you want to drop acuities and deaths door, since it will have fast-ish leech and bleed immunity. But again, need to get accuracy on gear. It is actually probably better to use slayer with league starter gear.

I would say if you go Berserker, you have to probably drop a unique and get resists and accuracy or else crit will be unreliable. Without +1000 accuracy, I am at around an 84% chance to hit, which is not enough to keep TE smooth.But it is definitely a good option if you want to drop Abyssus and Headhunter. Even in SC I would not use berserker + abyssus :)

Champion is versatile enough and can let you fit in another gem for fortify but I dont see any great gems to sub-in for fortify that make up for losing the benefits of Juggernaut, Slayer or Berserker. Perhaps use of Blood Magic Support on the main attack, letting you reserve the remainder of your mana for Arctic Armour.

I think Raider can work really well but it seems to be better for Cyclone as it gives tons of move speed. If you want to play mostly Cyclone, look at Ranger.

And of course, Pathfinder can make this work as life or ES, but what can't be done on that ascendancy these days^^