flicker strike animation stops and does nothing and goes on cooldown

Flicker Strike constantly goes on cooldown without attacking and the animation appears to cancel itself.

This happens ONLY at the start of a combat where I have no existing frenzy charges. It makes things so incredibly awkward to rush toward enemies, hit attack only to do nothing whatsoever and I have to run around until it comes back up and try again.

Read the gem's description.

Some map mods/enemies can steal frenzy charges on hit. This is detrimental to flicker strike, as it obviously takes away your frenzy charges from blood rage, etc.