Flicker Strike

I found irritating but with it. If you click with this skill at a target that is outside flicker range you character will run to melee range of that target and do a normal attack. What should happen is your character running to edge of range of flicker and doing a Flicker attack.

After joining the beta recently and having not even read this forum, I decided to try to abuse a high damage duelist using double strike and flicker strike with the largest two handed axes I could find. Here are my findings thus far...

So far I've leveled him to 38 and have abandoned all hope of double strike. Flicker strike is currently at 1638.5 DPS, which is far above my other skills (Heavy strike being second at 803dps). It is also free to cast.

The key components to this build are the following:

High damage weapon - 138-185 two handed axe

Any additional damage you can do:
- Linked: Melee physical damage (lvl 3) +32% physical damage
- Linked: Added fire damage (lvl 8) +36% of damage as fire

Blood Magic - removes the mana requirement

Not missing - Resolute Technique passive skill

Life gain:
- Linked: Life gain on hit (lvl 6) +15 life on hit
- 2% life leech from passive/items
- 21 life gained on hit from misc.

Defense:
- 452 armor
- Use of Molten Shield (additional armor and damage)

This build currently allows me to continually cast flicker strike, regaining all life spent casting. This skill can be used infinitely.

Using this build my team mates now no longer need to do anything on ruthless difficulty. I can simply spam Flicker Strike and watch everything die. I do sometimes mix in a sweep or two, cleaves perhaps, due to boredom, but mainly just use flicker.

It is possible for me to get hit, (and if stunned possibly killed) while flickering. Using spells, flasks, and having some defense reduces the risk of use for this spell. The life gain reduces it again, to nearly nothing. In fact, the only times I've died while using the skill is because I got bored and distracted.

Gameplay Problems:

No cost:
A large issue with this build is the lack of a cost. Being a high utility skill due to it's movement it is already inherently valuable. Removing the cost of casting removes any restriction on its use. This alone suggests that there are possible problems with it.

High Damage:
The damage for this is also better than other skills available, making what appears to be a utility skill a top tier damage skill.

Not engaging:
The main issue I have with this ability is the lack of engagement. Use of the ability in this way (and ways others have mentioned) does not engage the player. There are no meaningful choices being made while in combat which removes any feeling of accomplishment. (Friends will also now only group with this character if "you don't use your stupid flicker.")

Not intended use(?):
The use of the skill in this way does not appear to be intended. I am not using the frenzy portion of the spell at all. It may be that the pure damage route to flicker strike was not taken into consideration during the design/redesign of this skill and may need to be re-looked at.

Issues in PVP?
I can't imagine this skill/build would be something that would be easy, or interesting, to contend with in PVP without expecting it and taking the Bloodless passive skill.


Possible Changes:

I can envision two versions of this spell that i would enjoy.

I would like to see Flicker Strike as a dex based utility spell. Perhaps only being used with small weapons such as daggers and claws would better balance the spell and give it additional flavor. I do not use the frenzy aspect of the spell at all, so I can't comment on the attack speed, however, I don't see a need for this to be readily spammable.

The other version of this spell I imagine the caster quickly dashing between 1 and X+1 targets where x is the number of used frenzy charges for the spell, and returning to their original position. This version of the spell would have not have a lesser amount of damage increase while having a slightly higher casting cost. I see this version being allowed for use with one handed melee weapons, with a much longer delay between casts.

I'd love to hear any comments/suggestions about these observations. Happy to be (attempting to) contribute.

I post it here because there is no "all skill post".

To balance skills there should be something more to them then DPS and Mana cost.

- Some skills could have cooldowns [after one or several uses]
- Some skills could synergise with diferent things for example:
Skill X changes its efect with diferent weapons. Skill Y changes its efect depending on the highest statistic [str/dex/int or armour/evade/ES]
- Skills could give you other perks while you use them. For example I don't know if flicker actually makes you harder to hit, same with haevy strike when you push one enemy [and yourself] do the other mobs/players have to retarget you or will miss started atacks on your last position.

It would make the experience diferent and would make a reason to use diferent skills, not just one. For example flicker could have been on cooldown every five usess [if used it 1/2/3/4 times the soft cooldown trigers anyway, and when it runs to 0 you can use it 5 times again. But if you use it before soft cooldown runs to 0 you have only the remaining uses, and then the normal cooldown that block your usage kicks in.] For the two handed weapon you would flicker behing enemy dealig one blow. For big onehanded weapons you would flicker two time per use into the same enemy. For daggers and claws you would flicker to four diferent targets per use starting and endng with the one you have targeted.

It could aply for other skills as well to make them diferent not just mana per dps skills.
Cooldown makes you use diferent skills, and make you use them in the right time, not just all the time. Some skills shouldn't hvae cooldown and could be main atacks or could have cooldown after few uses.

"

FaceLicker wrote:

Forcing people to Frenzy, Flicker, Frenzy, Flicker slows down the fast paced nature of the skill, makes it annoying to use and less fun.

It's not forcing people to alternate between flicker and frenzy just to use flicker (Although I guess they could do that if they really wanted). The point is that flicker shouldn't be a spammable skill.

It seems like you understand the intended use of this skill that I was conveying.

I don't know if you were around, or if you remember if you were around, but at one point flicker strike used up ALL your frenzy charges. That way the skill was most of the time just used as a finisher (sorta like discharge's intended use), which was still cool to use (problem was losing all frenzy charges made it extremely inefficient due to the big benefit frenzy charges would give).

Changing it to consume 1 frenzy charge per cast keeps the (speculated) original intended use of the skill — not as something a person would spam, but something someone would use as utility with great effectiveness to deal with occasional bosses or archers or stuff.

Also realize that with blood rage if the targets are being 1-shot, no net-loss of charges would occur.

"

FaceLicker wrote:

Forcing people to Frenzy, Flicker, Frenzy, Flicker slows down the fast paced nature of the skill, makes it annoying to use and less fun.

I think it would be great if it actually did force you some way to use frenzy. Or if diferent skill had to be interrupted by the other ones. Especially the strong ones like flicker. You would have to play smart not just hold one button.

"

Xapti wrote:

Changing it to consume 1 frenzy charge per cast keeps the (speculated) original intended use of the skill — not as something a person would spam, but something someone would use as utility with great effectiveness to deal with occasional bosses or archers or stuff.

Also realize that with blood rage if the targets are being 1-shot, no net-loss of charges would occur.

Nice idea. As I have stated before skills shouldn't be a simple spam fest, game should require a skill from a player not only from characters.
The more flicker usages while using blood rage [even with 2-hit kill you have few aditionall uses, and that is a good synergy.]

Flicker is a dexterity skill, but it should be an option to use it as a str/int character, so the "freenzy consumtion" mechanic shouldn't be the only one. Maby other charges could be consumed as well, but without the bonus speed.

I went from 1.3k DPS as a Tankish built duelist to 2.5k DPS that autofires itself onto enemies while refilling my health and mana bar.

The skill really isn't fun, I'm leveling faster than I ever thought possible by just holding down right click and shift whenever I see a crowd of enemies nearby. It's mindless, and yet it does more damage than any other damage dealing ability I can get my hand on for how I was building my character.

I was planning on just using Double Strike as my main move, trying to do something stupid like getting in ten attacks per second.

Why does Flickerstrike cost so cheap? Why does it offer insane mobility, auto targeting, and damage boosts when skills comparable to single targeting with it fall short by gaining power at incredibly slow levels by comparison?

What's double strike giving me, something like 2% more -Physical- damage a level while sitting under that 30% reduction to all damage? Flickers scaling just zooms above it.

I know, different abilities are different, but Flicker Strike is the total package, a fire and forget nuke that turns me into a loot hauler that watches a red bar to make sure it doesn't dip below 40%.

Is the skill supposed to miss if you have the always hit/never crit talent?

Because mine does.

Personally I do quite a bit more damage using dualstrike instead of flicker strike...

However flickerstrike has it's uses too.. especially when I fight in tight spaces and can get corned then I pop flickerstrike to get into a better position.

Since I am hunting the DPS then flicker strike is not my main choice for attack skill.

"

thrilled wrote:

Personally I do quite a bit more damage using dualstrike instead of flicker strike...

Since I am hunting the DPS then flicker strike is not my main choice for attack skill.

That's because you are using a build that is not suited for DPS with flicker. I think you'll find that if you switch to using a good two-hander you will be doing more damage with flicker than you were with dualstrike -- and you won't need any other skill.

"

legomancer wrote:

...
The skill really isn't fun, I'm leveling faster than I ever thought possible by just holding down right click and shift whenever I see a crowd of enemies nearby. It's mindless, and yet it does more damage than any other damage dealing ability I can get my hand on for how I was building my character.

I was planning on just using Double Strike as my main move, trying to do something stupid like getting in ten attacks per second.
...
I know, different abilities are different, but Flicker Strike is the total package, a fire and forget nuke that turns me into a loot hauler that watches a red bar to make sure it doesn't dip below 40%.

I'm right in the same boat here. I thought of making a super fast attack speed ranger but once I picked up Flicker Strike the character started losing the fun factor I hoped for. I think the way the ability works (teleport + stab) is a great idea, it just seems way over powered as it is. I think the damage should either be much lower on it, or it should consume a frenzy charge as a previous poster mentioned. This would bring the skill in line with many of the other single target attacks. Personally I like the damage on it, so I would vote for it to be tied to Frenzy charges.