[2.3 HC] HecticHippo's Elementalist Oro's Flicker Strike. Tanky, fast, fun.

This is my take on an Elementalist Flicker Strike build. There are many ways to build this type of character and this is just the way that I decided to go. Feel free to make alterations to this build and to let me know how they worked in the comments below! Thank you for taking the time to read this guide and I hope that it provides you some enjoyment/insight.

-Flicker strike is a melee skill that has an internal cool down.
-This cool down is bypassed by expending a frenzy charge.
-We generate a frenzy charge each time an attack ignites an enemy (thanks to Oro's Sacrifice).
-We have 100% chance to ignite when elemental conflux is active (thanks to the elementalist ascendancy).
-Flicker strike attacks three times thanks to multistrike so as long as one of the those three attacks ingites an enemy we can infinitely sustain flicker strike (which it will thanks to elemental conflux).
-Thats it. It is a very simple skill to build around once you understand its mechanics.

PROS
-Fast clear speed
-High damage
-High life
-Cheap gearing with option to invest heavily for high payoff.
-Enemies have a hard time hitting you since you are constantly teleporting around.

CONS
-High dex requirements (155 for lvl 20 flicker) and only 10 dex from tree.
-Little control of character while flickering
-Vulnerable to bearers and volatiles if not careful
-10% extra phys and fire damage from Oro's
-Melee range
-Bosses can be annoying when conflux isn't active and you have bad RNG with ignites.
-Low attack speed for leap slam.

COMING SOON!

Dried lake:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKqoAUa42ZA

Vulnerability Jungle Valley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seWi5Fx7NoQ

Beyond Dried Peninsula
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-Dz8ciOOmc

Oak, Kill all/Kraityn, Kraityn

Ascendancy

Leveling tree (level 40)(Level as spellcaster)


Final Tree (respec at level 67 into flicker strike)

Core of the build (3-link)GRR
Flicker Strike-Multistrike-Melee Splash

These three gems are the core of the build. Multistrike allows us to flicker three times per attack, making it much easier to achieve infinite flickering capability. Melee splash obviously adds splash damage to each flicker, making us able to clear packs.

6-link setup GRRRRR
Flicker Strike-Multistrike-Melee Splash-Weapon Elemental Damage-Fire Penetration-Fortify

If you don't have a 6-link I would prioritize the gems in the order that I listed them. I am currently using a 5-link and don't have fortify.

Auras
Blasphemy-Warlord's Mark-Enfeeble
This reserves 70% of our mana, leaving 30% for our attack. The mana leech from warlord's mark solves all our mana issues, while the life leech and endurance charges boost our surivability. Enfeeble can be replaced with another curse/aura but I think it adds a great layer of defense for hardcore play.

Movement Skill
Leap Slam-Faster Attacks-Blood Magic (Optional)-Fortify (Optional, use if you don't have 6-link for flickerstrike)

Cast When Damage Taken & Golem
CWDT(Level is optional, mine is LVL 5)-Immortal Call-Increased Duration-Flame Golem (max level).

The higher level your cast when damage taken is the longer your immortal call will last. Make sure your immortal call level requirement doesn't exceed what your cast when damage taken gem can trigger.

The only required unique for this build is Oro's Sacrifice. It does a TON of fire damage and it is the main source of our frenzy charge generation.


Besides that there are no required uniques. However, there are several that I think benefit the build immensely. I will go over them now.

Helm


Devoto's Devotion is an AMAZING helmet for this build. Despite not having any life it does several things for us that we desperately need. First, it gives a TON of dexterity which we desperately need. This frees up two points on our passive tree. Second, it gives us attack speed which this build lacks. Third, It gives us high armor and evasion which are both valuable defensive stats for us. Fourth, it has high chaos resistance which is a nice bonus. Finally, it comes with the mercury footprints MTX for free so you just made like $10 in savings.

Chest
The best in slot chest for this build would be a Kaom's heart. This would easily put us at 7-8k life at level 90 and the extra fire damage is a nice bonus.

Belly of the beast is a nice budget alternative to Kaom's.

Everything else

Forj jewelry. You need high elemental damage with weapons and good life rolls. Everything else is gravy. Other stats to look for would be %fire damage, resists, dexterity, strength, attack speed, armor (on belts).

These are my current jewelery:

For gloves you just want life and resistances. If you can find a pair with dexterity and attack speed that would probably be best in slot. As I have mentioned before this build is both attack speed and dexterity starved and gloves are a great slot to make up for that.

Here are my current gloves (I can master craft attack speed):

For boots you just want a good pair of rare armor or evasion boots with life, resists, high movement speed and dexterity if you still need it.

Here are my current boots:

The flask slots are very flexible and I leave it up to your judgement on what you want to use. Here are my current flasks:

Some other good options to consider would be:

So the worst part about this build is that you can't actually play as flicker strike until level 67 because of the level requirement on Oro's sacrifice. This means you have to level up as something else. I think that leveling up with any fire spell is the easiest way to level this build seeing as we already scale a bunch of fire damage in our tree. However, do not fear! This doesn't resign you to hours of miserably casting firestorm and wishing you were dead.

You can do what I did and use the unique ring Pyre to convert all your cold damage into fire and level up with that. I found that this broke up the monotony nicely. I leveled with glacial cascade which I found fun. I think the best skill to level with would be vortex. You could spend a few poitns to grab elemental equilibrium early and just destroy everything with vortex early on. Once you get to 67 you can spec out of EE and the spell nodes and flicker to your hearts content.

Paragon of calamity does make reflect manageable (meaning you won't one shot yourself)but I still advise staying away from reflect maps. Since we do not utilize vaal pact you could still easily die in a reflect map if you start clearing too fast. If you are dead set on doing reflect maps consider replacing one of your rings with Sybill's Lament.