1.3 CI Flicker NO power charges! Now with videos

Hi, i'm Nito and i'm here to show you my variation of CI flicker that i've been enjoying over the past few months.

Videos



So first things first, My shadow is level 91 and has 9.4k ES, with 16.7k Flicker average damage without using any power charges.

Offense



Defense



Now first thing's first, and i should get this out of the way because it'll be the first question about the build i'm sure. The reason i decided to forgo Power charges is, i dislike how they make your average damage be inconsistent, i.e. you could kill yourself to reflect with 6 charges, but not none, and Decided to make a flicker build with More or less stable Average damage instead. Also those points we saved can go into added defenses as you'll see.

My Tree:



Now as i was theorycrafting out my tree, after picking up the Nightstalker Cluster, Along with Flaying and Adder's Touch i noticed, There are not that many Dagger damage node clusters. After realizing this, i decided, rather than go down south past acrobatics for extra damage, i could focus instead on beefing up my Energy shield as much as possible, and grabbing a couple aura nodes as an added bonus. Although the build has does not use power charges, we still path through the one near the shadow start due to the efficiency of the points spent, however, if you do not have mana leech on a piece of jewelry, you can path through Mind drinker and forgo that power charge instead. Another unusual thing to note about the tree is the lack of Frenzy charges gained from it. This, i'm embarrassed to admit was simply something i forgot about while making the tree itself, however, we grab the one next to shadow, and we take the frenzy charge in Merciless from the bandits, so we end up with a rather tidy 5 Frenzy charges to tackle those bosses with.

I should note, that as a CI build we obviously have no need for life % nodes, but the life/ES nodes actually have a niche use in helping make it slightly harder for us to be stunned, which, given our lack of Stun immunity, is a rather nice thing to have.


Now for my Gear, Which is rather unusual to say the least.



Now the first thing to say is, Yes, we have no Stun immunity nor freeze immunity, two things general thought integral to the CI playstyle. Also, while my Gear is obviously leagues from Mirror worthy, it isnt terribly cheap either. Though for those on a budget, you could replace the rare dagger with a Bino's, Replace the 6l chest with a 5l Ar/es Atziri's Splendour, the Rustic for an Auxium, and the crit multi ammy for an ammy with res/es for even an eye of Chayula if you feel the need. Obviously using non legacy maligaros will be fine, and as high ES shield as possible for you is recommended.

Now, the only unique i would absolutely recommend is the Abyssus. Without it, your damage will be mediocre at best, The helmet alone is roughly half my Average damage. If you are particularly wealthy you could eventually replace the Abyssus with a Crown of Eyes, but if that's the case, you're most likely going Low life, in which case the build is hardly for you. As high crit multi, and as low phys damage taken as you can find will work.

For your Jewelry, you'll mostly want Resists and not much else, a prefix open for ES% is a nice bonus, but not needed. Also at least one ring should have a nice strength roll to help wear the Abyssus helmet. In a perfect world, You'd want Diamond rings for fairly obvious reasons, but really, any base rings will work.


For your links you'll want:
Flicker strike / Melee Splash / Multistrike / Melee Phys / Melee Damage on full life / Additional Accuracy

In roughly that order of importance. Melee phys and melee dmg on full life are identical, but their effects stack. Additional accuracy is my ideal 6th link, as it gives us more consistent hits, through higher accuracy and 20 Quality will also give us a constant 40% crit chance. Crit chance is also given on Quality of the Flicker strike gem at a rate of 4% per Quality Percent, making it rather powerful.

The rest of your Links should be as follows:

CWDT / Immortal Call / Enduring cry / Increased Duration keeping it at roughly level 10 cwdt will trigger it at around 15% of our total ES, allowing for rather safe play.

A Secondary CWDT is also used, but not mandatory. It consists of Level 1 CWDT / Level 5 Enfeeble And a Level 5 Enduring cry, For an extra endurance charge. This will trigger at 440 damage, which will be going off if trash mobs so much as blink at you.

We only use two Aura's, Hatred for Damage, and Discipline for the Base ES. I also use a portal gem for the convenience. My Frenzy 4l is actually not as optimal as i'd like, i Currently use Frenzy / Phys to lightning / Melee Phys / Pcoc

Now i know what you're thinking, "i thought this build didn't use Power charges?" And you're right. However, My Maligaro's, which house my Frenzy 4l are corrupted with RBBG colors, so I made the best of it. The Optimal setup Would be Frenzy / Multistrike / Faster Attacks / and a Final support of your Choice. The logic behind this is, we do not use Frenzy for the Damage it deals, we use it to generate Frenzy charges in a tight spot, and as such, the IAS is all that matters in that regard.

Now, I've gotten a number of concerns over How this build survives reflect. So i figured i should elaborate on exactly how that works. Now, looking at the tree and my gear, it raises some concerns for good reason. I use neither Vaal Pact, nor do i use Acuities. This under normal circumstances this would be a bad idea, and for good reason. Reflect would normally toss your salad. However, as I've explained elsewhere in the thread, our massive Energy shield pool will allow us to survive the first hit of reflect, all but guaranteed. From there, our leveled cwdt will trigger our Immortal call, which will allow us to flicker with immunity. Note that This obviously will not work against phys reflect map mods. You will actually need to grab Vaal pact for that. Though i'd imagine you could just drop ES nodes, and still have around 7k or so Energy shield with VP. Also, it was brought to my attention that you could also use Phys to lightning to mitigate phys reflect damage. While this can work, perhaps even to the point of phys reflect maps, it means you'll end up fearing at least slightly, ele and phys reflect in equal measure. Also, in my exact link setup, phys to lightning would have to be used in place of Additional accuracy. Which would make you lose a great deal of accuracy in your flickering, not to mention 40% crit chance, which i personally would rather avoid. But if you don't mind, then by all means, go for it.

My Flasks are rather self explanatory:



Obviously you'd like Surgeon's of Status Ailment immunity for each of the elemental flasks, and an Atziri's flask, the last one comes down to personal preference, i personally prefer a quicksilver because the low IAS of Flicker daggers make using Whirling Blades clunky, and I'm more scared of Curses, than Bleed, which explains the Warding affix. You could forgo the Quicksilver for a Rumi's if you like though. Just watch out for those curses!


My Bandit Choices are

Normal: Kill all for the Passive point
Cruel: Oak for the Phys %
Merciless Kraityn for the Frenzy charge

As far as what to look for in your Gear, your Dagger ideally should be a Dagger with High crit and Phys, but low IAS due to flicker giving more than enough IAS from the gem and frenzy charges. So going off of that, Bino's Kitchen Knife would be a perfect Starting Dagger. You could even drop a few ES nodes and grab Zealot's Oath for the Regen to your ES.

If you have any Questions about the Build, feel free to spend me a Message either Ingame at JustaCIboy, or PM me for more information. I'll try to improve the Guide itself as time passes and answer questions as best i can.

Enjoy, and have Fun Desyncing.

Reserved

Added more info on my Specific links and items used, Will work on expanding the guide as time passes.

How do you deal with reflect?

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Borginn wrote:

How do you deal with reflect?

Between the Less multipliers from Multistrike and Melee splash, and my considerable ES pool, how reflect typically plays out, even with Abyssus/ Vulnerability is, we take the first hit, but our massive ES allows us to survive, then IC gets triggered, then we kill the rare as normal. The only exceptions to this would be a phys reflect map, would would actually require vaal pact, or If the phys reflect mob has alot of minions close to itself, in which case, we kill one shot ourself, despite our ES pool due to the reflect from each of the minions and melee splash fucking us over. I'll have to remember to add a section about reflect and Vaal Pact in the guide, thank you.

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Based_Nito wrote:

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Borginn wrote:

How do you deal with reflect?

Between the Less multipliers from Multistrike and Melee splash, and my considerable ES pool, how reflect typically plays out, even with Abyssus/ Vulnerability is, we take the first hit, but our massive ES allows us to survive, then IC gets triggered, then we kill the rare as normal. The only exceptions to this would be a phys reflect map, would would actually require vaal pact, or If the phys reflect mob has alot of minions close to itself, in which case, we kill one shot ourself, despite our ES pool due to the reflect from each of the minions and melee splash fucking us over. I'll have to remember to add a section about reflect and Vaal Pact in the guide, thank you.

Thats like my only Problem atm with the build. Reflect kills me so often. I think Atziris Acuitys or Vaal Pact might help out, but i think the life leech of Blood Rage is not enough to leech a decent amount with vaal pact.

Yeah, just Blood Rage isn't enough with vaal pact because VP takes your total leech and cuts it to 40% of it's value, then that end percent will be your instant leech, so my 10% or so leech would be cut down to 4% instant leech which is rather subpar in comparision, even if it is instant.

However, if you have a large enough ES (or life) pool to absorb the initial hit of the reflect, Immortal call should be able to save you long enough to finish off the reflect rare

I have thought about how to deal "better" with reflect. A lvl 4 Enhance linked with blood rage brings us up to 14,8 % lifeleech . With acuitys now leeching 8,88% it should be enough to stay safe. I know expensiv solution but should be working great.

Very interested in tryin out ur build, a few questions tho

Is there a reason why u suggests armor over evasion, even though you spec into some evasion nodes?

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RyanD2892 wrote:

Very interested in tryin out ur build, a few questions tho

Is there a reason why u suggests armor over evasion, even though you spec into some evasion nodes?

Armour, although a a rather ineffective System over all, helps mitigate your reflect. Though I suppose Evasion would be better for that, espcially when combined with Ondar's Guile. Of course, armour is also going to be coming from your chest if you want to follow my exact colors for your links. Getting 6 off colors on an ES base is rather scary to think about, but getting two Greens on an ar/es is very doable. At the end of the day, Evasion would most likely be better for Reflect mitigation, but Armor would be easier to color.