**BillyB's Flickerstrike Staff, the Baseball bat thwack youtube included**

Hey everyone, this is my first attempt at writing a comprehensive guide to a build I fabricated with a mate of mine (Soulcry_POE). The build is loosely based on Hegemony's own sweep build, but this has a very different skill gem set up.

I've quite often experimented with builds that never ended up working, like a CI bloodrage frenzy discharger, theoretically nice, however, doesn't hold up well on any areas past merciless docks.

The main skills for this build are flickerstrike and frenzy. Coupled with bloodrage, to keep our frenzy charges up. I went for a hp based build, theoretically CI is possible too, but you will need extremely expensive gear. It uses 2 curses, one manually cast Assasin's Mark, and Warlord's Mark coupled to cwdt (full gems and links below).

Gems and links:
For levelling I started off with Moltenstrike and a Karui ward. You could opt for cleave or any skill really, I used any 2H with decent damage, mostly swords. Shiversting -> Rigvalds -> Terminus est -> Staff

I was surprised to find out I was able to clear 66 maps easily using Terminus est, and I have only 6 nodes specced in generic 2H weapons!

Progression guide:

lvl 20ish:
lvl 40ish:
lvl 60ish:
Final build:
Bandits:

Depending on what gear you have, you could spec into more life, by dropping one of the accuracy wheels and going for thick skin instead. Its necessary to take the Mental Fortitude nodes, especially if you have a 6L, flickerstrike becomes very mana intensive.

edit: If you want to go for total dps, you can drop vaal pact, and the lifeleech gem. You can throw in crit chance, or added fire. However, if you go this route, reflect will be very dangerous to you. Given that the flicker strike chain is difficult to control you may kill yourself on occasion.

Gear
The most important item is Hegemony's Era, for the final build to be successful. However, as I previously stated, you will be doing quite well without out it but to clear end game maps 75+ you will need it or a rare staff with 450 pdps+. The best thing about Hegemony's is the extra power charge though, and the innate power charge generation, without it your power charges will solely come from Assasins mark, in which case you might want to swap AM for WM in cwdt to have a steady supply of Power Charges.

My gear:
Running a promise is great in this build, as it adds more lifeleech and the chaos res makes you lose health less quickly from having bloodrage up constantly. Other things to note are the fact that you need to get Chaos res; this is mandatory. You will need to get it to at least positive figures in Merciless. I'm running around with +18% chaos resist, and it works fine. Having an Alpha's isn't mandatory but it will give you a nice defensive boost, having a lvl 23 Grace up is nice. As you may have noted my jewellery is pretty lackluster, ideally you want diamond rings in your finger slots also my armour could be better. I picked shadows and dust over Maligoro's as you only lose 6% crit multi but you will be rampaging all over the place and the unholy might is a pretty awesome bonus (and it looks cool too). With that equipment I have 11k armour without granite popped, combined with the block nodes for staff gives you a decent amount of mitigation. Alternatively, you could get the combat stamina node, drop grace and get HoA instead? Havent tried that yet, and I doubt armour will high enough unless you have BiS gear.

I believe its HC viable but extremely difficult to pull off, also requiring massive balls. The constant degen from bloodrage is occasionally killer (especially with low chaos res). Another thing to beware of is you cannot read nemesis mods on rares whilst flickering, because of the screen shake. You will know it was a volatile iceblood when your dead.

Here is a youtube video demonstrating the build in a lvl 75 plateau map:
This is a new video with some adjustments. I dropped vaal pact, and dropped the lifeleech gem and tested in a 77 shipyard map (in this video my flickerstrike is only 5L):

Reserved

linking lifeleech is a waste, blood rage, which is needed for flicker gives enough lifeleech as a phys build

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StormHunter wrote:

linking lifeleech is a waste, blood rage, which is needed for flicker gives enough lifeleech as a phys build

I would encourage you to try it out without LL. The last time I tried it without the LL gems it felt pretty rippy. Vaal pact gives quite a large hit to lifeleeched, and the degen from bloodrage requires a lot of heal on long flicker chains. I'll give it another go though, if its sustainable just go for added fire imo.

"

I would encourage you to try it out without LL. The last time I tried it without the LL gems it felt pretty rippy. Vaal pact gives quite a large hit to lifeleeched, and the degen from bloodrage requires a lot of heal on long flicker chains. I'll give it another go though, if its sustainable just go for added fire imo.

i didnt looked at your tree but going vaal pact is retarded, didnt you noticed that there was a patch called Sacrifice of the Vaal-Pact - Atziri gloves or GTFO


if you play flicker you gonna desync and die even more with no regen

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StormHunter wrote:

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I would encourage you to try it out without LL. The last time I tried it without the LL gems it felt pretty rippy. Vaal pact gives quite a large hit to lifeleeched, and the degen from bloodrage requires a lot of heal on long flicker chains. I'll give it another go though, if its sustainable just go for added fire imo.

i didnt looked at your tree but going vaal pact is retarded, didnt you noticed that there was a patch called Sacrifice of the Vaal-Pact - Atziri gloves or GTFO


if you play flicker you gonna desync and die even more with no regen

If I could afford those I would drop vaal pact. I just tested, without lifeleech gems you will die for sure. However you can get away with running no lifeleech on frenzy. Desynch really isnt that much of a problem, as long as you have /oos macro´d. The video will be up soon its a 75 plateau map run.

I think what he means to say is that you need to drop vaal pact. If you have good physical damage, then the leech from blood rage should be enough. As for reflect, well, CWDT+IC=immune. Or even better, self cast it.

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Etherfire wrote:

I think what he means to say is that you need to drop vaal pact. If you have good physical damage, then the leech from blood rage should be enough. As for reflect, well, CWDT+IC=immune. Or even better, self cast it.

I think he finds me retarded because I dont use acuity, instead, I'm using vaal pact. And that the leech from bloodrage alone should cover the lifeleech needs. He fails to realize several things however, firstly, not everyone playing this game or making builds has 150+ ex to spend on one slot. Secondly, without a lifeleech gem linked to flickerstrike you will die (unless you have a lot of lifeleech from another slot). Regardless, there is no way this build will work without an instant leech mechanism; of that you can be certain.

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thevdende wrote:

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Etherfire wrote:

I think what he means to say is that you need to drop vaal pact. If you have good physical damage, then the leech from blood rage should be enough. As for reflect, well, CWDT+IC=immune. Or even better, self cast it.

I think he finds me retarded because I dont use acuity, instead, I'm using vaal pact. And that the leech from bloodrage alone should cover the lifeleech needs. He fails to realize several things however, firstly, not everyone playing this game or making builds has 150+ ex to spend on one slot. Secondly, without a lifeleech gem linked to flickerstrike you will die (unless you have a lot of lifeleech from another slot). Regardless, there is no way this build will work without an instant leech mechanism; of that you can be certain.

Yes there is. I tried a budget version of a staff build I'm running with blood rage, without acuities, and without vaal pact and I was fine on L77-78 maps (check my signature). I had a huge 17-18 second IC for protection against phys damage/reflect. As for spell damage, I had a 5k Life pool and was using rainbowstrides with the option to swap to a lazhwar as well for some ridiculous spell block with smart use of Rumi's. For ele reflect, all I had to do was switch Hatred to Haste (could keep Ash on...), but that might not even be a problem depending on your DPS.

Vaal Pact + Blood Rage on a Life-based build is just a terrible idea. Either don't go flicker which would let you drop blood rage and keep vaal pact, or drop vaal pact. Good luck

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KiPad wrote:

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thevdende wrote:

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Etherfire wrote:

I think what he means to say is that you need to drop vaal pact. If you have good physical damage, then the leech from blood rage should be enough. As for reflect, well, CWDT+IC=immune. Or even better, self cast it.

I think he finds me retarded because I dont use acuity, instead, I'm using vaal pact. And that the leech from bloodrage alone should cover the lifeleech needs. He fails to realize several things however, firstly, not everyone playing this game or making builds has 150+ ex to spend on one slot. Secondly, without a lifeleech gem linked to flickerstrike you will die (unless you have a lot of lifeleech from another slot). Regardless, there is no way this build will work without an instant leech mechanism; of that you can be certain.

Yes there is. I tried a budget version of a staff build I'm running with blood rage, without acuities, and without vaal pact and I was fine on L77-78 maps (check my signature). I had a huge 17-18 second IC for protection against phys damage/reflect. As for spell damage, I had a 5k Life pool and was using rainbowstrides with the option to swap to a lazhwar as well for some ridiculous spell block with smart use of Rumi's. For ele reflect, all I had to do was switch Hatred to Haste (could keep Ash on...), but that might not even be a problem depending on your DPS.

Vaal Pact + Blood Rage on a Life-based build is just a terrible idea. Either don't go flicker which would let you drop blood rage and keep vaal pact, or drop vaal pact. Good luck

Well watch the vid! It works in 76 maps too, my map pool doesnt go higher atm, as soon as I have a 77-78 map I'll post a vid of that. I dont get why you think it doesnt work, it works beautifully imo (just watch the vid) constant full life during flicker chain.. As I said in the guide as long as you have positive chaos resist, you will be fine running bloodrage as a life based char. When covering large distances I use a slow regen pot to counter the bloodrage degen. Because I have BR linked to enhance and empower, it reduces the degen and increasaes the lifeleech further.