[2.2] Assassin Flicker Strike - Low/Medium Budget - 750k DPS - Life Based

Pros:
+ Extremely fun, high-octane build
+ 500K DPS for tanky version (mine) or 750k - 820k DPS for Immolation's more glass cannon version.
+ Very high clear speed; probably the fastest clear speed in all of PoE (no joke!)
+ ~750k DPS viable with around 20-30 ex in gear; with Loathe Bane I imagine something like 2 million would be possible
+Works WONDERS solo, and still very viable in parties
+ Actually takes some skill to play and manage flasks properly (could be a pro or a con)

Cons:
-Somewhat fragile compared to other builds; you will have around ~3,500 HP (though you will have a ton of mitigation)
-Punishing for mistakes, as the build is very fast paced. You need quick reflexes to manage flasks properly and not die
-Not hardcore viable

My PC is a toaster so I can't record but Immolation made me some videos of his build; for all intents and purposes our builds play the same and clear at similar speeds; I clear slightly slower but take a lot less damage, he clears a little faster but is more glass cannon. The choice is yours, but here is an example of what our builds look like:


T13 with Temporal chains:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBVekHNafI4

Gorge (t9) clearspeed example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob8QzSavXN8

And here is an example of the budget versions that Immolation and I created in action, using a 3L (lol), to show they are viable:

Budget (T9 Gorge):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hi2ByG3fds

Offence, standing in town


With charges and flasks (note: Immolation's version uses Lion's Roar and has a lot more DPS; about ~750k DPS. With Lions Roar and Phys to Lightning setup it's 810k)


Defence


Tooltip fully buffed

This is my current tree at level 89; My next nodes will be the life leech nodes south of Templar and am actually considering using some Regrets to get them now as they will add a ton of survivability. The next nodes will all be life, as I don't plan to take any more damage nodes and instead just take life and said leech nodes. I find my damage to be MORE than enough, and instead want to max my survivability.

~~Note, if you have Level 4 Enlighten you don't need to the take Mind Drinker (near the intuitive leap) as you will have plenty of mana. I only have a level 3 so I needed the mana.

Intuitive leap benefits this build quite a lot!

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAYBAAUtBbUHHg2NDkgQkhEvEZYWvxutIzYj0yP2JP0mlSoLLOEvzDBxMHwyMjpCPeI-z0MxRwZHfkjuSVFKfUt4TP9Nkk4qUUdTEFVLWhpbr13yYeJi7GNDZU1qjGwIbIxvJ3BScFZwu3LDdO14rnsUfXV944TZhO-HdonTjDaNfY2_j_qQG5S4lS6aE6LZo4qkeKXLpzSrC6xmsNixs7TFtoq5PrxvvTa95r6nwUnBgsHVwuzDM8gUyNzMBtDQ037UI9h22YbawdvU2-fdDd2o3vjjn-dU7BjuDvDV8Yr1b_zF_h3-uv_e?accountName=Vaalamity&characterName=Malridious_

Unstable Infusion is just a no brainer, as you get to make free power charges. Even with 90% crit chance and 90% chance to hit, while in combat you will make 1.4 power charges PER SECOND (at 8.33 Attacks Per Second) so this node is just OP for Flicker. You will easily get to 4 charges.

Ambush is also a no brainer, as you will pretty much always be hitting things at full life, so the benefit is always there. In addition, we 1 shot most mobs with a crit, so this helps ensure 1-hit-kills.

I did a LOT of going back and forth between taking Assassinate or Deadly Infusion; Overall, I believe D.I. to be superior, largely due to the huge local crit chance of Bino's (50%!) so the 2.0% to base crit it adds with 4 charges is really 3% after Bino's, which then get's multipied another ~500% (depending on gear) so that one node really adds like 15% crit chance, which is awesome

Assassinate is awesome, but I find too often mobs aren't even getting to low life; they are simply dying in 1-2 hits so the culling and extra crit on low life isn't doing much a lot of the time. Assassinate might be a better choice if you frequently play high maps in a full party and mobs have a lot of life.

Accuracy is vital; much more so than people think. Accuracy is even more important for a crit build due to the fact crits are accuracy checked TWICE; if the second roll fails, the crit becomes a normal hit. Taking that into account, adding to accuracy raises your real crit chance more than raising crit chance does, as well as raising your overall DPS more due to more hits.

For example, if you have an 85% chance to hit and 90% chance to crit, your attacks will look like this:
-15% miss
-8.5% normal hit
-11.5% hit that WOULD have crit but failed second accuracy check
-65% crits

If you raise your crit chance to 95% and keep your hit chance at 85%, your hits looks like this:
-15% miss
-4.25% normal hit
-12.11% normal hit that WOULD HAVE crit but failed second accuracy check
-68.64% crit

Notice in the above examples, you raised your crit chance from 90% to 95% but your actual crit chance went up only 3.64%.

Now watch what happens if you keep crit at 90% but raise accuracy that same 5% to 90% chance to hit...

-10% miss
-9% normal hit
-8.1% normal hit that WOULD HAVE crit but failed second accuracy check
-72.9% crit

So you raised accuracy by 5% but increased real crit chance by 7.9% and now you land more normal hits too! While raising crit chance from 90% to 95% only adds 3.64% real crits.

Some notes on gear choices, and also alternates choices. Let's start with my personal gear:

-Bino's is, hands down, the best weapon for the price. For 2-3 exalts you can get a weapon that can make you get to 700k dps. In addition, it provides life regen and synchronizes EXTREMELY well with the Assassin node Unstable Infusion (0.5% to base crit per power charge). The high 50% local crit on Bino's means with U.I. and 4 power charges your weapon crit is actually 12.6% which is nuts. Case in point, get a high-rolled Bino's until you can afford a GG dagger.

-Abyssus is mandatory; the damage it adds is invaluable, especially considering flicker strike has, essentially, "limited ammo" (frenzy charges). Thus, each charge needs to count.

-Saffells's Frame is the no brainer to pair with Lightning Coil as it raises max light resist; it also raises all resists which is not only just awesome overall, it also helps make Taste of Hate negate even more damage. Get legacy if you can afford it for more spell block. The lack of phys block isn't very serious with the large of amount of physical negation we have, along with acrobatics, so the spell block is actually better in my opinion.

-Blood Dance is mandatory, preferably legacy, to ensure you don't run out of charges. Run of charges in a large pack and you're gonna have a bad time

-Shadows and Dust adds nice damage, a lot of fun (through rampage) and also some solid survivability with blind. These gloves are just so much fun. If you can't afford them see the budget section below.

-Legacy Lightning coil is my preferred chest. Daresso's is also an option (see below section about Immolation's version). Coil provides a lot of effective HP and I feel is next to mandatory with Abyssus. This is because 40% of your phys is taken as elemental (70% with taste of hate) so Abyssus is only multiplying the remainder, thus Coil helps nullify the big downside to Abyssus. I can post the math if people request it, but yes, it really does work that way.

-Rings/Ammulet: Flat phys scales best, but also look for good resists, !accuracy rating! (see section on accuracy), crit multi/chance, flat elemental damage and life. I paid less than 1 exalt for each piece of jewelery so you can get pretty decent stuff for cheap. Obviously, you can go up to mirrored gear if you can afford it. My jewelery isn't great but it works fine and caps my resists (excluding chaos, obviously).

-Belt is just place to get some nice resists/life/elemental and physical damage, but look for flask recharge if you can get it; it's very valuable for this build as we will essentially have a flask up near 100% of the time.

If you run Lightning Coil, a Surgeon's Topaz Flask of Ground is mandatory. It doesn't have to be legacy, but if you can afford the 2-3 exalt then get one.

Taste of hate adds awesome damage and also converts phys into elemental, further helping negate Abyssus extra damage taken. It's now legacy so quite expensive but get one if you can.

Atziri's adds chaos res (pop this at the first spotting of chaos damage!) and also adds nice damage... and it's cheap!

The Divine's keep you alive, so I recommend a Panicked and a Surgeon's (legacy if you can afford it; we crit A LOT so it's an insane amount of charges gained)

6L - Flicker - Melee Physical Damage - Weapon Elemental Damage - Physical to Lightning - Multistrike - Melee Splash
4L - Herald of Thunder - Curse on Hit - Warlord's Mark - Blind
4L - Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Blood Magic - Fortify
4L - Enlighten - Vaal Molten Shell - Herald of Ash - Hatred
3L - Enhance - Chaos Golem (or Ice Golem if you want more DPS) - Blood Rage
3L - Frenzy - Faster Attacks - Multistrike (this is only used to gain Frenzy charges)

The Herald of Thunder curse setup lets us get Endurance charges, as well as providing a nice bonus to leech.

If you can't afford a 6L see the budget section below.

Normal: +40HP from Oak, or +10% Resists from Kraitlyn if you have to due to gear
Cruel: 16% physical damage from Oak
Merciless: +1 Frenzy from Kraitlyn

For the most part, our builds are incredibly similar, but there are some differences. Overall he chose to get more damage options and go for more of a glass cannon approach. I can't run that version as I lag like hell on my toaster oven of a computer so I died a lot lol. Here are the differences:

1) Chest armor: 6L Daresso. This is a great armor that provides endurance charges, Onslaught, life and decent resists and life leech. With this armor you are able to run the classic CWDT setup with Immortal Call.

2) Replace Physical to Lightning with Increased Critical Damage and replace Weapon Elemental Damage with Added Fire damage. This option provides less damage but more leech and is totally viable, and makes a lot of sense with Daresso's due to the added physical leech (that phys to lightning reduces)

3) Replace helm setup with classic CWDT + Duration + IC + Molten shell

4) Replace Topaz Flask with Lion's Roar; this is a great, cheap flask that adds a lot of damage. Go for the new version that can be used twice.

5) Replace Saffell's Frame with Aegis Aurora (non-legacy is fine, we don't have a lot of ES). It adds extra cold resist to go with Taste of Hate, some elemental damage, some resists and nice block. I strongly prefer Saffell's but I see why he uses it.

6) His skill tree is posted below; as you can see, it's very similar! That's because I made mine based on his.

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAYBAQUtBbUHHg2NDkgQkhEvEZYWvxutIzYj9iaVKgss4S_MMHEwfDIyN9Q6Qj3iQzFHBkd-SO5JUUp9S3hM_02STipRR1MQVUtW6FoaW69d8l5FYeJi7GNDZU1qjGwIbIxwUnBWcLtyw3Ttdf14rnsUfXV944DhhG-E2YTvh3aJ04w2jX2Nv4_6kBuUuJUumhOfgqLZo4qly6c0qwusZrDYsbO0xbaKtxe5PrxvvTa95r6nwUnBgsHVwuzDM8gUyNzMBtDQ037UI9h22YbawdvU2-fdDd2o4JXjn-wY7T_uDvDV8Yr1b_zF_h3-uv_e

You will have to level as something else until you can sustain flicker: I haven't leveled a Shadow in a long time but someone using this guide graciously sent me how he did it. Courtesy of user Torug (though I made some minor modifications):

Level 15 I used 'Last Resort' legendary fist up to level 20.


Level 30 At level 20 I bought 'Ungil's Gauche'. After that I took 'Mightflay' and using it till Bino's knife.




Level 45 At this point I got 'The Blood Dance' boots and started flickering. You do need to generate frenzy charges before you hold down your right click. I also use a Tabula for 6 link.



Level 60



After that I personally would finish the Ranger nodes as is in the final build and then continue onto the Duelist area. When Intuitive Leap is acquired respec the points near the jewel socket. Ideally you'd want to replace 'Tabula Rasa' with a 'Lightning Coil' as soon as possible, but the latter is quite expensive.

I don't recommend this as a first or maybe even second build. To make it really good, you need 25-35 exalts. It would still function very well on 15-18 exalts. To run it budget is doable, but probably not the best choice for a budget build. This is largely because you need high DPS to not run out of Frenzy charges, and the only way to do that very well is with a 6L. That said, here's how to run it budget if you have to while you get some currency:

Chest: 5L Daresso or non-legacy Lightning Coil - Run it with Flicker-Multistrike-Melee Physical-Added Fire-Melee Splash

Shield: If lightning coil, run Saffell's Frame.

If Daresso, I would run Chernabog's Pillar. It adds some elemental damage, life, fire resist, and enfeeble (10% chance on hit but we attack 8+ times per second). Since you will be clearing slower, the Enfeeble will actually do some work and help keep you up. Keep in mind it has a higher STR req so you will need some more on you gear.

You could also use Daresso's Courage; very solid shield with a lower strength requirement.

(Note: If running Chernabog's and Daresso's, dont use Herald Of Thunder/Curse on Hit setup. Use the gems listed in Immolation's version).

Helm: Abyssus is still necessary, as you need the damage it adds

Gloves: Maligaro's will work just fine

Boots: Still need Blood Dance (non-legacy is find, but look for high frenzy charge %)

Belt: The best rare you can get, or get a Meginord's or Doryani's with phys.

Jewelery: Flat phys damage, elemental damage, accuracy, life, resists, crit chance/multi are all things to look for

Flasks:

Atziri flask is still mandatory, as it adds nice damage and will save your ass vs chaos. Run Lion's Roar as a cheap way to add some serious DPS. I would probably add a Sapphire flask with Thawing on it to prevent freeze in addition to the two listed above in the main guide in place of Taste of Hate.

If you're short on exalts, the best way to trim the fat would be to ditch Taste of Hate, go with Daresso's armor instead of legacy Coil, and use Maligaro's gloves. Just those changes will cut the price of the build by 2/3's. You can run the build for ~15 ex with a 6L Daresso that way.