[2.0] Flicker CoC - fast & affordable

Credit for original build idea goes to Dariidar, he played this up to lvl 91 prior to 2.0
I mostly just updated the skilltree for 2.0 changes

Note - I will not be testing this on Atziri as I have zero reason to do so,
having a character (VMS Incinerator) that can deal with that fight a lot better.
If your ultimate goal is to kill Atziri - this is not a build for that.

Budget version of this build will cost around 3 exalts,
but ultimate version which I am using at the moment costs up to 35-45ex
due to the use of a 6L armour and Scold's Bridle.

It has the benefits (and downsides) of both Flicker and Cast on Crit builds, which are further explained down below.



Waste Pool (ML 74)
Dry Woods (ML 73) - what happens if you go too fast? Apparently this

Differences from the regular Flicker builds
- damage mostly depends on gem levels, not your weapon. You can use a weapon which costs 5-10c for the endgame.
This greatly cuts down the cost of the build, so pretty much anyone can run it.
- you can use any spells you like to deal damage, although some are more effective with Flicker than others, explained below
- area of effect of your spells is much larger than Melee Splash which is used by regular flicker
- you cannot use physical life or mana leech
- don't need an Abyssus to deal good damage

Pros & Cons


Build Mechanics

Flicker Strike is an attack that we use to trigger spells with Cast on Crit gem.
In the DPS-oriented setup the simultaneous use of 3 spells is possible for 6L, with a 5L or the defensive setup you can use 2.

Crit Flicker is an attack that absolutely requires two types of charges to function - Frenzy and Power Charges.
Frenzy Charges are gained by using a combination of Blood Rage and Blood Dance boots.
With Blood Dance it is possible to reach 9% life regen on full Frenzy charges, which completely cancels out Blood Rage life degen.

Another alternative would have been the use of Ice Bite gem, but I decided against it, as it would greatly reduce overall damage output and is only possible in a 6L.

A special note on using Atziri Step boots - they will reduce your overall survivability!
16% additional spell dodge is not worth not being to reliably get frenzy charges, after the Blood Rage nerf. The only situation where these boots are useful is against a map boss who doeasn't have any minions for you to regain charges.

Power Charges are maintained using Voll's Protectior in DPS-setup, or with HoT-CoH-Assmark combination when using a defensive setup.
It is also possible to link Frenzy gem to PCoC to build and maintain two types of charges at once.

Whirling Blades is used for fast movement.

Herald of Thunder is linked to a Curse on Hit and one curse of your choice (either Assmark or Warlords is recommended)

Auras (DPS setup): Herald of Thunder and Grace
Auras (defensive setup): Herald of Thunder and Purity of Lightning (for Lightning Coil). The use of AA is also possible, but I am not sure if it works with Flicker or not.



5/6L: Flicker Strike - CoC - Multistrike - spells

Any spells that either have autotargeting or area of effect will do. Projectile spells are a bad choice since we don't use GMP or CHain.
Good spells to use are:
Ethereal Knives - most enemies have either poor or no phys damage resistance
Flame Surge (highest damage per hit in the game, excluding Discharge)
Arc (autotargeting, shock)
Glacial Cascade (chill, can hit same enemy multiple times, part phys so deals with ele resistant enemies better)
Shock Nova (large AoE, shock)
Ice Nova (large AoE, chill)
Test them out and see which combination works best for you.

For singletarget, the best combination would be: Flame Surge + Glacial Cascade + EK
I personally use: EK + Ice Nova + Arc (changing Nova for Flame Surge for tougher bosses), it deals well with both general clearing and single target situations.

4L helm: HoT - CoH - Assmark - Chaos Golem
4L gloves: Blood Rage - Grace - Vaal Grace - Increased Duration
4L boots: CWDT - Warlords - IC - Frenzy (Immortal Call is probably a poor choice, not sure what to replace it with)

3L weapon: whatever you want. I have CWS - Ice Nova - Cold Snap, this hopefully should freeze whatever stuns me
3L shield: Whirling Blades - FA - BM (BM is mandatory! I tried without it - you run out of mana and become unable to flicker, which is extremely dangerous)



Helm - Rat's Nest (budget) or Scold's Bridle (endgame)
Gloves - Maligaro's Virtuosity
Belt - rare leather belt with highest life and resists you can get.
Body
DPS setup: Voll's Protector - lets you forget about ever needing to worry about Power Charges
Defensive setup: Lightning Coil - the best physical mitigation you will ever get (especially legacy one!) when combined with Purity of Lightning.
Boots - Blood Dance - source of Frenzy charges and life regen.
Jewelry - all rares - hp, res, crit. Ideally, mastercraft an amulet with Elreon's -8 mana skill cost mod, to cut down flicker mana cost.
Shield - Saffel's Frame. Raises max ele resistances.

Weapon - a dagger with Vagan's mod "Hits can't be evaded".
This is a requirement.
I recommend using a Kris type base.

Step 1 - Craft an initial one:
- Get a dagger with Vagan's mod only. If you can't find one, get the cheapest with the best mods available.
- augument, then regal, after that mastercraft increased Critical Strike Chance on it

Step 2 - Try to create a good base for multimodding:
Ideally choose only a Kris base!
60% global crit bases are ok, but not optimal.
40% global crit bases are really bad... don't use them, you will lose more than 10% crit chance on Flicker compared to using a Kris, this is a huge difference!



Regal and hope for a good mod with a good roll. Good mods are: spell damage, crit strike chance, attack speed, spell crit chance (less desirable than others mentioned)
If you do get one - then you can multimod it and put three other mods on it.
The total amount of mods you can craft is 2 prefixes and 2 suffixes, one of them being taken by the regal result.




Scion 116pt (endgame)

Scion 100pt(lvl 80)

Bandits

Norm - Oak
Cruel - Krait
Merc - Alira

nice guide but to your killspeed is not soo good tbh. guess you are low on crit/spellcrit, thus lacking in dps.
it does not outshine a normal flicker build imo. but looks fun :)

"

HeroOfExile wrote:

nice guide but to your killspeed is not soo good tbh. guess you are low on crit/spellcrit, thus lacking in dps.
it does not outshine a normal flicker build imo. but looks fun :)

Which build are you speaking of though?

After 2.0 I only seen 2 threads with CI Flicker, both have no defenses (literally none, only flasks), both use mirrored daggers and Acuity, without which their setups don't work good at all.

Compared to my old CI flicker this one runs better. Nova range is about 5 times bigger than melee splash, and Arc can hit enemies which are half a screen away from you.

With <10ex, I don't really think any regular flicker build compares to CoC variant.
In 10-50ex range - maybe.
Mirrored dagger - no need to explain, more than double the damage of the regular weapons

Before 2.0 you could circumvent the lack of AoE with HoA-EP combo, especially if you also linked Inc AoE to it. This doesn't work anymore as prolif range was reduced by 3 times.

Im talking about my build. still WIP, next goal is to run disc, hatred, ash at once. need enlighten lev 3 for that. without disc 5K ES. ~150k dps without shadows and dust buff running. but not a single lev 20 gem, nor q20, soo ... :-) highest map was a shipyards yesterday.

~50% mitigation, ~50% Evade, ~50% Block with flasks.

lets see, dagger 2ex, chest 2ex, gloves 5 ex, rumis 1 ex. rest was 1-20 chaos range. vaaled the amy last night :-) working on +1 frenzy boots now.

forum is bugged, cant post my gear. it keeps showing only the amy over and over :D




Binos,
Atz. Splendor 6L
Shadows and Dust
Bloodance
ev/es helmet and shield
critrings
rustic belt
+1 amy
5 damage jewels
rumis, AR flask, Ev flask, quicksilver, Resiflask

i cant do atziri i think but for regular farming/mapping, its golden.

"

HeroOfExile wrote:

Im talking about my build. still WIP, next goal is to run disc, hatred, ash at once. need enlighten lev 3 for that. without disc 5K ES. ~150k dps without shadows and dust buff running. but not a single lev 20 gem, nor q20, soo ... :-) highest map was a shipyards yesterday.

~50% mitigation, ~50% Evade, ~50% Block with flasks.

In terms of defenses your build is the same as others though - no defense aside from flasks.

Record some videos, would be interesting to see.

yeah, defenses are low without flasks, 30% EV 27% block. but 6.2k ES with Disc. and flasks are always up
and dont forget the binos regen. its insane. like 1,8k ES/sec.

your build has great potential i think. itemwise AND from the tree imo. i would get rid of the shield and buy a rare one with spellpower/crit. whats your critchance with melee/spell?

i have a lev 86 COC toon in warbands as well, 95% crit/84 Spellcrit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru6yYzM5HcQ&feature=youtu.be

I'm leveling this build right now and its much more enjoyable than a standard flicker strike build! i use shock nova and arc as CoC skills.

how you deal with the mana? im leveling this build and im running out of mana and i dont know if i should leech it or do something else

"

Nordigh wrote:

how you deal with the mana? im leveling this build and im running out of mana and i dont know if i should leech it or do something else

Once you get your Herald of Thunder - Curse on Hit - Assassin's Mark setup, things around you should be randomly cursed with Assassin's Mark, which will provide life and mana on kill. It can also help to grab some of the Mana on Kill nodes (shadow area has some).

You need to kill things to sustain your flicker anyway, so mana on kill is perfect.