1.3 ☼ Oro's Burning Flicker Build ☼ (updated 2015-03-11)
 Oro's Burning Flicker a semi-tanky, cheap and fast paced build.
Changelog
How do we kill stuff? tl;dr Flicker strike in mach 10 and burn trash and bosses down, without even knowing what is happening.
in-depth
This is a Flicker Strike build; using the unique two-handed sword Oro's Sacrifice. Oro's works very well combined with Flicker Strike because of its mechanic "Gain a Frenzy Charge if an Attack Ignites an Enemy". This means if you have a high enough chance to ignite an enemy from either chance to ignite or a critical strike it is possible to Flicker strike indefinitely regardless of the skill's cooldown.
To achieve this we are going to get extra chance to ignite from gear and the passive skill tree and will get a total of 70% chance to ignite. We will also be using the support gem Multistrike that will make us attack three times per skill use, meaning we will flicker three times per consumed Frenzy charge and have a 70% chance per attack to ignite and get a new charge. For a significant boost to our damage we will be using Weapon Elemental Damage. To kill trash we are going to use the support gem Elemental Proliferation with its mechanic, "Elemental Status Effects caused by supported Skills spread to other enemies". Meaning the initial ignite from our Flicker Strike will spread to nearby enemies. This will also shock nearby enemies with the added lightning damage from Herald of Thunder. So our 4-link will be Flicker Strike, Weapon Elemental Damage, Multistrike and Elemental Proliferation. tl;dr Cloak of Flame combined with Arctic Armour to mitigate physical damage. Use Granite/Amethyst and instant pots when needed.
in-depth
This is a melee build without block that may seem fragile, but with a smart unique setup and the use of instant potions and a Granite flask we will be able to hold our own.
To mitigate physical damage we will be using Cloak of Flame and Arctic Armour that work wonders combined. It will be possible to sustain a high level Arctic Armour, because while Flicker Striking the base mana cost will only apply to Arctic Armour. Though we need to reapply Arctic Armour every time we walk or leap slam. Arctic Armour also takes care of reflect for us, though Vengeance procs on double reflect can be dangerous, but I have never died from reflect with this build. Arctic Armour could also be linked with Empower to further increase our survivability. The correct usage of potions and flasks is important. We should generally use our Granite Flask before engaging a potentially dangerous monster pack. Instant potions have saved me on numerous occasions. We are going to use some automated defenses for survivability like the popular Cast when Damage Taken combo Enduring Cry, Immortal Call and Increased Duration. Vengeance linked with Weapon Elemental Damage and Life Leech also helps with survivability. 
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Required:
Optional:
Rares: Try to get life, resistances, armour, increased weapon elemental damage and attack speed when possible. Flasks The ideal mods on our life flasks would be Seething and bubbling and bleed removal. On Granite Iron skin for the extra armour and on the Amethyst Flask Curse immunity. 
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Passive tree:
We aim to get a good balance between survivability and elemental damage nodes. To increase our chance to apply Status ailments is important mainly our chance to ignite as it's one of the most important things that makes our build work. The increased mana and mana regen nodes in combination with reduced skill cost will help us sustain at level 6 Flicker Strike without the use of Blood Magic. These nodes are also required so we can run a high enough level Clarity for our Arctic Armour. Keystones:
Bandits:
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Residence Map (Please be understanding of my lack of skill at the boss :P).
Gorge 3.50 (Zana daily, +29% monster life and dual boss). Mao Kun (montage). Labyrinth map boss. Random Tora, Haku and Elreon mission (montage). Fun with Echoing shrine. I will try and upload more and better videos when possible. 
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Flicker Strike
Multistrike lets us flicker indefinitely and the attack speed scales well with frenzy charges and the ignite effect from our Mokou's Embrace combo. Elemental Proliferation lets us spread status ailments on enemies to ignite, shock and sometimes freeze groups of enemies. Weapon Elemental Damage will significantly increase our damage with its more multiplier. Optional for 5-link and 6-link. I can't with certainty say which gems would be most optimal, where a high quality added lightning could help us to shock more efficiently where a added cold could help us freeze. Life leech would boost our survivability and fire penetration boost our main source of damage, fire. Faster attacks would also be a possibility if we get more mana regen to compensate for the extra attack speed. Auras, buffs and auto curse Anger will give us extra damage, same with Herald of Ice. A low level Clarity will help us sustain Arctic Armour while Flicker Striking and the cost of Leap Slam. Herald of Thunder Will give us extra damage and thanks to our chance to shock from the passive tree we will be able to shock enemies. We can therefore proc its effect that we use Curse on Hit in combination with Flammability to auto curse enemies with. Flammability could be replaced with Elemental Weakness to increase our damage from Heralds and make it easier to freeze and shock enemies. Since the chance to ignite from Flammability is unnecessary with our already excessive chance to ignite from the passive tree and gear. (Why am I still using Flammability? :/) Movement skill Nice way to travel, why walk when you can keep on slamming? Automated defenses Vengeance setup This setup will do so when we take damage there will be a chance to counter-attack in an area around us for a large hit thanks to weapon elemental damage that will leech back generally more damage than we take from trash mobs. It would also be possible to add another Vengeance to increase the proc chance but then we would have to sacrifice another gem setup ideally faster attacks with leap slam. CWDT Combo The popular R-R-R-R combo to counter physical damage. Arctic Armour Arctic Armour work wonders with Cloak of Flame and will take care of most of the physical damage we will be taking. Ideally we want to get it as high level as we can even linked with Empower end game. Since attacking while Flicker Striking doesn't increase the mana cost of Arctic Armour, we can sustain it with our mana regen. 
Spoiler
Since Oro's got a level requirement of 67, we must level up to this level before we can get started with this build. Some easy ways to do this is to level as a caster using skills like Flameblast, Fire Trap and Searing bond.
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Pros:
Cons:
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This is something I have wanted to test with this build and I think it would be pretty effective.
Cloak of Flame + Mokou's Embrace + Scold's Bridle + Vaal Molten Shell. The self inflicted damage from Scold's Bridle would ignite us, thanks to Cloak of Flame and then we would get a constant increase to attack speed and cast speed from Mokou's Embrace. Arctic Armour would counter the extra damage taken from Scolds. We would safely Flicker Around in mach 10 exploding like a supernova, if only I could be so grossly incandescent. Praise the sun. \[T]/ Thanks for making it this far and hope you liked this build guide. If you think it's missing something or got any suggestions for improvements please let me know either here on in a PM. Last edited by snajk#5853 on Mar 17, 2015, 7:16:02 PM
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Reserved.
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Can you get ignited by physical damage while using Cloak of Flame under the effects of Immortal Call ? If so then you can add two endurance charge nodes, both skill duration clusters and use self casted Immortal Call for about ~12 seconds of physical damage immunity which could considerably increase survivability
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Leveling Flicker Strike past level 6 isn't a great idea. (until it reaches 20 that is...but you can keep that in your weapon swap)
With the amount of ignite you have, you could easily drop Multistrike and Blood Magic in favor of the much more mana-friendly Increased Burning Damage and Weapon Elemental Damage. Just pick up that 5% ignite node you skipped, swap your amulet to Rashkaldor's Patience, and get a high quality Increased Burning Damage. That will get you up to 90% ignite (91% with corrupt) which will be more than enough considering you also have Vengeance to trigger extra frenzy charges. ...you could also just start each fight by leap slamming first for initial charges. Alternatively, depending on how well your chaos resistance is, you can use a Blood Rage for the extra charge generation (which shouldn't be necessary). Last edited by bullgaria#3826 on Mar 9, 2015, 8:26:13 PM
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I believe there's an issue with Weapon Elemental Damage and Oro's- back in the last year WED did not multiply the base Fire damage on the sword, making it a wasted gem slot. Has that been fixed?
Edit: just checked, WED works now. Yay! Last edited by Rules#4868 on Mar 9, 2015, 11:48:54 PM
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"The extra mana cost doesn't matter if I use blood magic with it. The attack speed is the thing that scales the best with this build, combined with Mokou's and extra frenzy charges does so I get 7.3 attacks per second with flicker if I use Multistrike. " Multistrike is actually a really awesome gem for us because of the scaling with attack speed I mentioned and it makes our build much more fast paced. Multistrike doesn't really increase the mana cost that much because every three hits is counted as only one so you actually spend less mana per damage. The burning damage from this build is pretty low compared from the initial damage done from Flicker Strike. I have done some math and if I we swap Multistrike with chance to ignite I would hit for 5032 damage (4393 fire) and have 3.6 attacks per second. This would be a dps of 18115. If I keep Multistrike I would hit for 3220.5 damage (2811 fire) with 7.3 attacks per second, giving me a dps of 23509. A loss of 5394 dps from the initial hits. Counting the extra dps from the ignite (1581 more fire dmg without multistrike per hit) it would be 1581 x 0.2 x 4.14 = adding 1309 more dps. So with factoring in the extra dmg from the ignite, Multistrike would have 4084 more dps than chance to ignite. Heavy strike for science. Heavy strike would have a dps of 15218 and hit for 2461 more fire damage per hit, that would be 2461 x 0.2 x 4.14 = 2037 more dps from ignite. Resulting in 17255 dps[/u]. Flicker Strike would have 6254 more dps than Heavy strike. " That amulet looks interesting, though we would lose a frenzy charge if we want to keep the implict dex on it. We are 2 points away from quickness, close to Unwavering Stance that I think is the most efficient nodes closest to us. Maybe a rare amulet with +dex, +%elemental damage with weapons, life and mana reg would be the best choice? But I think it would take a while to get a good one with +1 frenzy charge. "We wouldn't be able to have up AA before we engage a pack of monsters then because of the increased mana cost while Leap slamming. The extra frenzy charge generation is not needed with my setup at the moment and from the math I did above we wouldn't gain anything from removing Multistrike from our 4-link. "I just tested this and it works, the conversion to fire damage happens before you take the initial physical damage. This is very interesting, and might be looking more into. Thanks for the feedback :) Last edited by snajk#5853 on Mar 10, 2015, 4:22:07 AM
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When I was talking about the mana-saving benefit of removing Multistrike I was not thinking about the fact that it actually ends up saving you mana since you only spend it once every third attack. Dropping it and adding Weapon Elemental Damage WILL add more to your dps, it's just that I was thinking that you might be able to sustain that without Blood Magic (which you won't because, once again, brain fart).
Ideally, you should drop Blood Magic and use Weapon Elemental Damage instead, which brings me to the rest of this post... First, about leveling Flicker Strike above 6: the current 3% attack speed gain (up to 6% at lvl19) is insignificant. I mean, sure, it'll add like 50 to your dps, but the mana economy aspect of it is much more important. Even in your current setup, your life-cost/second is just under 133, switching to a lvl6 version of it will bring it down to 109...that's 24 life/second, think of it like picking up a free 0.5% regen node. If you were to remove Blood Magic and replace it with Weapon Elemental Damage, the mana/second will be 83 with a lvl6 Flicker Strike (101 with the current level). This can then be greatly reduced my swapping the nodes leading up to Bloodless for those before Unrelenting (19% mana cost reduction), bringing the cost down to 67 per second. Arctic Armour's mana drain is 34, meaning that your mana regen needs to be a minimum of 101 mana/second. The problem is that the best way of doing that is by increasing the level of Clarity...for which you have no mana to upgrade. Luckily, one of the best nodes for both doing that and further reducing mana costs is right there, so picking up Righteous Decree through the mana cost reduction node will net an extra 22% mana and bring the total mana cost reduction to 31%, resulting in a 57 mana/second Flicker Strike and therefore a total cost of 91. After a bit of tweaking, this tree trades 90% increased melee/weapon damage for the ability to add in Weapon Elemental Damage and support a lvl12 clarity, resulting in 96 mana/second regeneration (91+ is required). The original damage increase from the tree is 377% (402% with Celestial Punishment), while the new one is only 287% (312%), but since you can now add in Weapon Elemental Damage, even a level 1 gem's 40% *more* multiplier will result in an effective 402% (437%). The level 18 gem will result in 451% (490%). Keep in mind that all the damage changes only relate to the initial hit, and that none of the regular elemental/fire damage increases have been altered, meaning that any double-dipping for burning damage has not been affected. Last edited by bullgaria#3826 on Mar 10, 2015, 1:24:53 PM
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" Yeah the added dps is insignificant, but since the using of blood magic the extra cost have also been negligible. "You are forgetting to factor in the extra cost from Inner force and Devotion (26%), so the cost for a lvl 17 AA is actually 43 mana/second. Though this aint a significant increase for us, at the moment. Though we will want to level up AA as much as possible even past 20 with the help of empower/corrupting to maximize our defenses, the cost will the he higher than 50 mana/second. I can agree with your suggestion to try and replace blood magic if were only going to use a 4-link. But if we want to add a 5th the mana cost will be too hard to sustain. |
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Good news, although I did forget to account for the 26% buff increase, putting it at 99.71 total required regen per second, I also forgot to account for the 10% increased mana you have from Atrizi's Foible and the 20 increase in Int from the new tree (more base mana).
With that, the new mana regen you get with a level 12 Clarity is 98.87...but you have enough mana left over to raise Clarity to 14, raising your final mana regen to 107.5 per second, which is enough. The solution to having a higher level AA and more links is actually quite simple: higher level Clarity and the Dynamo cluster (Dynamo by itself is enough for a 5th link). You could also replace a Mokou's Embrace (or both) in favor of ring(s) with mana regen on them, but that goes against the point of this build I think. Btw, if you want to look at a completely disorganized table to tweak any values...good luck. Last edited by bullgaria#3826 on Mar 10, 2015, 4:06:55 PM
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Thank you for all the suggestions. I have tried the changes to the tree and it works nicely, without the blood magic gem.
"Yeah at the moment I want to keep them because of the synergy with Cloak of Flame. I have been thinking about an alternative tree with the shadow that will get 9 frenzy charges and use Darkray Vectors. Maybe crit, but not sure it would be worth it with its 5% base crit. Last edited by snajk#5853 on Mar 10, 2015, 6:50:20 PM
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