[1.3 Build] "Flickering Candle" Oro's Sacrifice Flicker Striking Shenanigans

The idea behind it all:

Flicker strike kind of sucks, but it's really cool. The downside to flicker strike is that you need a frenzy charge to keep going. Most flicker strike builds rely on blood rage. However, you need to actually kill something to get the frenzy charge with blood rage. Even with gg gear that sometimes isn't possible. So they'll compensate by using a secondary attack like frenzy. Well that just isn't fun.

This build relies on Oro's Sacrifice, an interesting 2 handed sword:


No one uses this, mainly because of that first line. Yes, we have to do entirely elemental damage, and those nodes are hard to get. That's why it's important to go scion, so picking up good elemental nodes becomes a lot easier. We're going to deal with this downside because of that last line "gain a frenzy charge if an attack ignites the enemy". The important part is "on hit". We don't actually have to kill that stupid tanky rare mob to continue attacking. And yes, you can "re-ignite" already ignited enemies to get another frenzy charge. This allows flicker strike to single target bosses without running out of frenzy.

There's not many bosses without adds, but there some with very few of them. Here's a short clip of Dominus' second stage, where he has no mobs to kill, yet we can still continue to use flicker strike.
https://youtu.be/1NvY8NxTKvY

Unique Gear:


Alpha's Howl

Oro's isn't the only essential piece of equipment you need. Alpha's Howl is very important in making sure you can run 3 buffs. Not getting frozen is an amazing upside, nothing's worse than stopping mid-flicker strike and losing tempo. This head piece also let's us skip reduce mana nodes in the passive tree in favor of something better. The downside is, it offers only evasion.

There's a few other odd uniques you'll want to pick up.


Doryani's Invitation (fire version)

The fire version of Doryani's Invitation is a very strong belt for this build. Remember, rustic sash is completely useless with oro's, so we have to find other ways to get more damage. The 1% fire leech is quiet nice too.


Mokou's Embrace

Mokou's Embrace is a pretty neat ring too. It has everything we want, resistances, fire damage, more attack speed (we're going to light ourselves on fire :D), and most importantly more chance to ignite. I'd only recommend using 1, but if you really want to, go ahead and use both. It's not hard to cap resistances, as most of these uniques are giving resistances too.


Gang's Momentum

More chance to ignite? Yup, thank you. More damage against ignited? Excellent. And oh look, it even gives us fire resistance that our belt was missing.


Kaom's Heart

Now for the chest piece I want to emphasize that THIS IS NOT ESSENTIAL. You can use any chest piece you want really. However, non-legacy kaom's fits this build like a glove (even though it's body armour).


Here are some alternatives for gear you might want to consider:
>Pyre (ring)
>Daresso's Defiance (body)
>Belly of the beast (body)
>Devoto's Devotion (helm)

Before I jump into the rare gear, here's something to keep in mind

Stat Requirements:
Int: 151
Dex: 138
Str: 191 (you'll have enough)

Rare Gear:

1 ring, amulet and gloves will be rare

What to look for in rare gear:
>Finish capping your resistances
>Added int, dex
>Life
>Increased weapon elemental damage
>Added fire damage

Here's an example of an amulet you might want to get (no physical damage = not that expensive)


Cost:

Oro's Sacrifice: ~5c for a near perfect, the price goes up as you try to get more links, but crafting in 4 links is cheap, or chancing into 5L like I did

Alpha's Howl: 10-15c

Gang's Momentum: <1c

Mokou's Embrace: 1-2c

Doryani's Invitation (fire version): 5-10c

Ring 2 & Gloves & Amulet: <20c total, all you need to do is finish capping your resistances, they dont need to be some crazy tri-res stuff. I'd recommend 1 or 2 res w/ life and ele dmg/added fire as those for for 1-3c

Chest: 8ex for Kaom's Heart or <1ex for other chest pieces, you don't care about the sockets, so get the cheapest high-roll low-socket you can.

Gem Setup

I haven't quiet figured out the best combination to use for you main attack, but I'll go over all the options to consider.

Oro's Sacrifice or Chest Piece: GRRR Optional + XX

Flicker Strike (G) -Keep this at level 1, you'll see little-to-no benefit from leveling it up
Blood Magic (R)
Weapon Elemental Damage (R)
Multistrike (R)

Those are the most important gems. However, this weapon is cheap so it's likely you'll be able to get a 5 link (maybe 6?). There are a few options here if you have more than 4 links:

5L options:
Elemental Proliferation (B) - igniting more than 1 enemy with 1 flicker strike won't give addiional frenzy charges (possible glitch?), but we do 40% bonus damage to ignited enemies, so it's nice attacking an already ignited enemy
Melee Splash (R) - we don't benefit from the increased melee damage, yet are still hurt by the decreased damage
Chance to Ignite (B) - if you only have 3 max frenzy charges and don't want to use blood rage, this is a good option

6L: Fire Penetration (R)

The "or" means don't take both. If you're going elemental prolif, don't also use melee splash.

There are others too, but I wouldn't recommend them. Such as added cold/chaos/lightning, life leech/gain, and increased burning damage.

Alhpa's Howl RRB Optional + G

Reduced Mana (R)
Anger (R)
Wrath (B)
Grace (G) or Blood Rage (G)

I'll talk more about this in the defenses, but you won't have a lot of evasion or armour. If you're dying, you might want to consider using grace over wrath when you need to.

Wait.. what, why blood rage? We're getting frenzy from igniting. True, but with blood rage active you will always have max frenzy charges, this is like a faster attacks, except it doesn't have to be linked to your weapon. Keep in mind you won't benefit from the life leech, so if you don't have any chaos resistance this isn't recommended.

Boots or Gloves: 1 RRRR

Cast When Damage Taken (R)
Enduring Cry (R)
Immortal Call (R)
Increased Duration (R) or Leap Slam (R)

If you're using Daresso's Defiance you don't need Enduring cry. You can swap that out for a vaal gem. I recommend:

Vaal Grace (G)
Vaal Molten Shell (R)

Boots or Gloves: 2 RBBB

Herald of Thunder (B)
Curse on Hit (B)
Flammability (B)
Reduced Mana (R)

But..but, I can't crit! Yes, but the passive tree gives you a 10% chance to shock. This is why I took multistrike over fire penetration, because it means nearly constant uptime of herald of thunder's lightning storm and subsequently flammability.

Passive Skill Tree:

103 Points:


The only difference between the 102 and 115, is the crazy amount of extra life. I chose not to take that many life nodes, because of Kaom's Heart, but if you don't have one then you might want to take the life nodes first.

115 Points:


Also, if you managed to get a decent amount of +dex or +int, you can drop the +30 dex/int nodes.

Stats:



Flasks:
and sometimes

If you're not using Alpha's Howl then you'll need an "of heat" on your flasks. You can also swap out the quicksilver for another health potion. And you can use a normal granite instead of rumi's.

The only important one that you probably shouldn't change out is Atziri's promise. This gives you a ton of life leach, and damage. It also lets you kill any off-hand elemental reflects if you absolutely have to.

Summary:

I took the +40 Life, +Passive, and +Frenzy for the story line.

The 60% chance to ignite you see in the offensive stats isn't taking Chance to Ignite gem into account. Here's a quote from the Poe Wiki

"

The chance to Ignite from this gem will stack additively with chance to Ignite modifiers from other sources, such as from the Blaze notable passive skill, or the quality bonus on Fireball.

This means we have a 100% chance to ignite (60% from other + 44% from gem). So you should never run out of frenzy charges, because resolute technique gives you a 100% hit chance. The only caveat is if they dodge/block your attack.

Evasion and Armour are both quiet low. This may seem like a problem, but honesty most physical attack things in this game aren't very threatening. And for those that are you have immortal call. The nature of flicker strike allows you to randomly dodge crap because you're teleporting all over the place. Where the squishness comes from is the lack of control you have over targeting mobs. A particularly threatening mod has the same priority to flicker strike as everything around it. Flickering candles are likely to be blown out, you have to be careful. Holding down the flicker button is fun, but may get you killed.

Pros:
>Incredibly cheap if you exclude Kaom's Heart
>Fun and hilarious to play
>Good map clear capabilities

Cons:
>No atziri ever (+20% fire damage from Oro's is unacceptably bad and she can't be ignited)
>Elemental Reflect will hurt
>Not a lot of control over where you go and what you attack
>You're moving around so quickly you might miss drops
>"Limited hardcore viability"

Lastly, this is a Tier 2 build guys. It's not some mjolner or whatever craziness. All of the equipment combined is likely to be less than 1 exalted total (aside from Kaom's).

[Reserved for Videos]

Courtyard: (about halfway through, recording makes the v-sync worse as you'll see)
No ruby flask against a fire-based boss while also taking +20% fire damage... lol
https://youtu.be/PrBhln1RMDo