2.0 Universal Shadow crit CI flicker strike build - Flicker is not dead!!!

Great build, been using it the past few days and having a lot of fun.

Few questions though. I only have 4141 ES at the moment without discipline. With discipline it goes to around 4737 ES. How did you get it to go to 6.2k?

And even with 4141 ES I still feel a little squishy. I've taken all the ES nodes according to your skill tree.

My Gear


These are my defensive stats
Evasion rating 3225
Chance to evade 28%
Chance to block attacks 38%
Chance to block spells 17%
Resistances all 75%


Only reason I can think of is I lack a Rumi's flask. Could that be the reason?

P.S how do you counter Phys reflect without wasting a slot on the life leech gem?

I may have missed the part about how you start this passive tree? Can someone show me where I need to put my points in from say level 20-35 or so? Also what gear I should be looking for during these levels?

Sorry if someone has posted this info but I got really overwhelmed looking for it.

Thanks guys!

First, let me say this build has been IMMENSELY fun. I've played it to level 80 (20% away from 80 to be exact) so far, and contrary to some of the nay sayers in the thread, it's worked out well but it needs some planning and patience. That said, it's not the easiest build to make work. But, given the patience, it's very addictive and rewarding. I say down with the one button builds.. Who wants to play those all the way through, your mind will go numb.

It takes a great deal of balance to survive and maintain fluid and constant FS casts. I was very lucky in my mid 60's to craft a 6L, so I do have the full Flicker attack setup. It takes 63 mp per cast to use. I was having alot of trouble making mana leech work with that amount of mp. Again the goal was to maintain FS indefinitely and not worry about mana running out. This is probably only necessary if you have the full 6L skill set.

Through much experimentation and many deaths (trial & error), I came to the conclusion that mana regen & leech combined could keep up with the demand. I beefed up my mana regen on some gear and decided to see how far I'd need to get clarity to fill the remaining requirement. Using these two sources (gear and clarity), I was able to find the sweet spot. Roughly 60 mana/sec regen and 1 - 2% mana leech, and I'm now able to spam FS with no worries of stopping. With this, I'm able to use Ash, Hatred, and Clarity, leaving just enough mp for a single cast or two of FS. This method is obviously a later build problem you MAY have to deal with and it's just been my solution. Earlier in the build, you shouldn't have to worry about this.

Another important aspect of this build is to either balance between evasion and armor while maintaining a good amount of ES. The +ES Shield nodes are very important, they'll add a lot it.

This class is VERY fast. I can clear a level 71 map in about 10 minutes. I was able to get about 80% of level 79 in 50 minutes. I can tell it's about time for an upgrade in armor/eva/ES, but I haven't regeared in over 10 levels so that makes sense. I'll keep everyone updated as I progress and find any other quirks in the build that we can work out. Soloin' map bosses is hard, I'll just say my flasks go a looong way at keeping me alive, dont underestimate their power. Granite + Jade are spammed quite a bit in tough situations, as well as Vaal Disc. I think it's important to get anti-freeze on your flasks or gear somewhere too, that's a very quick way to die.

On a final and important note. DPS. You'll always have to maintain a relatively high dps with this in order to also maintain frenzy charges when fighting packs. The gem placement goes a long way in making this happen. But as you see, you don't need mirrored or really high priced dagger for this as some people have been claiming. My dps is around 30K with 6 frenzies.

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zyt_91 wrote:

Great build, been using it the past few days and having a lot of fun.

Few questions though. I only have 4141 ES at the moment without discipline. With discipline it goes to around 4737 ES. How did you get it to go to 6.2k?

And even with 4141 ES I still feel a little squishy. I've taken all the ES nodes according to your skill tree.

My Gear

Spoiler

These are my defensive stats
Evasion rating 3225
Chance to evade 28%
Chance to block attacks 38%
Chance to block spells 17%
Resistances all 75%


Only reason I can think of is I lack a Rumi's flask. Could that be the reason?

P.S how do you counter Phys reflect without wasting a slot on the life leech gem?

Are you far enough along to have grabbed the Shield ES bonus nodes? That adds a significant amount. The cluster near the bottom of the tree has two nodes. One gives 50% increased shield ES and the other 60% increase. That took me from 4,000ES to 4,400. The other cluster near the top will give you another 40% increase. And of course the ones near Ghost Reaver add another +80% to shield.

"

woofdang wrote:

I may have missed the part about how you start this passive tree? Can someone show me where I need to put my points in from say level 20-35 or so? Also what gear I should be looking for during these levels?

Sorry if someone has posted this info but I got really overwhelmed looking for it.

Thanks guys!

Shouldn't have to worry too much until you get to merciless. I'd suggest you go towards Ghost reaver and Chaos Innoc. Stop at the nodes right before them, so when the time comes, you'll just be ready to hit them both and swap from health to ES build. I'd suggest while you're near Ghost reaver, you can take the bottom half of the dagger sphere to give you that decent dps / crit chance boost, and if you're dying alot make your way down from Ghost reaver to hit those useful shield defense nodes to boost your ES while your shields equipped. So the order that you do these things really just depends on whether you're RIP'ing a lot. If you are, go with the shield nodes early on. If not, hit the dagger ones up.

When I switched over to CI, i ended up taking some extra ES nodes at first. The three below Coldhearted Calculation. Then later on, rerolled em for the shield nodes near the bottom (Command of steal). But mileage may vary of course.

I'd say as far as gear goes, not to worry until you're in merciless mode. Then of course u want to absolutely max out your resistances (at this point when u switch to Chaos Innoc you wont have to worry about chaos res of course, which makes things easier). ES is most important, followed by Evasion and Armor. I don't really think you need to be too pressed about crit chance until you make it to higher levels, unless you really want to stack those stats. When you no longer have life, and switch to ES, don't forget those life saving flasks to boost armor / evasion in tough phys situations. Flasks to remove freezing are very very useful too.

Hey, could use some advise, struggling to progress with this build. I've not followed it exactly, so I'm guessing that might be part of it. Here's what I have currently, could use some advise. Keep dying to everything so can't move forward.

Items:


Skill tree:

I was having the same problem. Are you watching your mana? Make sure you're not running out, as any stoppage will get u killed. DPS has to be sufficient enough to not run out of frenzy charges. You could TRY using poachers mark as your curse on hit curse to get extra frenzies. Point is, if you run out of frenzies you stop moving, then get hit and die. If you get frozen, you'll die pretty quick too. Also, what's your ES at? Looks like it may be somewhat low? It's important on your gear to balance armor and/or evasion for damage mitigation in those moments when you're vulnerable.

If I use Discipline, nearly 2k, it doesn't seem to help though so I've been running Hatred instead. Without it, I have 1.1k, almost 1.2k ES. I'm aware of the other points you made, that's why the flasks I have set up to counter slow/freeze and give more mana. Most of the time I don't need the mana flask though. Half the time it's from lag that I die, sometimes I just pop in the middle of a pack of blue and/or a rare with reflect and I just kinda, well, pop. Most of the time though, reflect doesn't even phase me.

Also I have no issues keeping frenzy charges up at all, sometimes initially getting them going, but that's where frenzy comes in. One or two hits form that kills any trash mob and gets me 2-3 charges, and then only death stops me, or block, I hate mobs that block. -.-

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omegasage wrote:

Half the time it's from lag that I die

That's what I thought was happening to me a lot too. That's where the extra ES and Armor/Evasion come in to help. They'll act as a buffer. I started to get in the habit of hitting certain flasks before I'd need them. Like if I saw mobs in a pack that shoot ice projectiles, I'd hit the anti freeze flasks right before I'd start to attack. Also, what went a long way for me is getting my DPS up by using some + phys damage rings and that belt I linked with the +phys% damage and lotsa +STR. Also, if you're getting hit alot, try popping your Granite / Jade flasks right before you start jumpin around. 1.1 - 2K ES does seem pretty low though, I think if you can just try to get that up with a better shield with lots more ES, that may possibly get you near 3 - 4K. Vaal Discipline helps a good bit as one of your few methods to "heal" yourself. Life leech gem may help as well, I think it will just take some experimentation.

Try getting a shield with 3-400 Es then remove some of the Es nodes you're using and take the ones near the bottom (command of steel). See if that beefs it up a bit. Also you may improve your dps if u exchange your upper dagger points for some of the +crit chance ones. If you have orbs of regret to play around with you can try that. Other wise I think the command of steel with a better shield will help.