[2.4] "Flitzker" Assassin Pure Lightning Flicker (acrobatics, cheap, fast clear, uber lab viable)

Pros:

Great for starting a league with. Very cheap to get started mapping with, and clear speed in Dried Lake/low maps is incredible. Only >1c unique requirements for endgame being a 5L Lightning Coil/Kintsugi, (20/35c) an Essence Worm (10c/35c) (League/Standard) You can even farm cards for The Sword.

Can do any map mod aside from ele reflect and blood magic, and temp chains pretty much gives free packsize with this build.

Rather fast.

Most game content possible, t15 maps, atziri, uber lab all no problem. Haven't tried Core or Uber Atziri yet but should be possible with some tweaking. There is a lot of room to min-max this build.

Surprisingly tanky with 50%+ evasion chance, capped dodge/spell dodge with vaal grace, and fast movement speed/whirling blades. 66/40 or 50/56 dodge without vaal grace up depending on what boots you use. Physical damage is mitigated through L. Coil (or Kintsugi), Basalt flasks, Fortify and Arctic Armour. (which is always in mitigation mode as you are considered stationary while flickering)

Cons:

Solo build, because it is dependent on on-kill effects and burst damage for bosses it's not recommended for party play. 1 friend can be OK, especially if it's an aurabot.

Ele reflect maps are forbidden territory, ele reflect rares can be a problem once your DPS gets very high, especially in -max resist maps.

Do not use if you have a history of epilepsy. Flicker targeting can also lead to inefficient pathing in maps.

This is not a faceroll build or “hold right click to one shot the whole map” like Oro's. It requires active flask management and frequent use of a weapon switch.

Not recommended for HC. RNG will inevitably eventually get you

ICS? Pfff - Critical strike chance maths:

this assumes +245% crit chance from passives and +30% from 1 diamond ring


base hyaon's 5
deadly infusion 2.5
crit calculation:
base crit 7.5
noncharged crit 28.125
with max power charges 46.875
with diamond flask 71.77734


with 100% more crit chance from Ambush/Assassinate
noncharged crit 56.25
with max power charges 93.75
with diamond flask 99.61

As you can see, using a gem slot on Increased Critical Strikes is not necessary.

101 points:

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAYAAABeBS0FtQYgBqIHHgguDY0N0Q5IEZYUdRfcGY4ZtBvII9Mj9iaVKgsuUzBxMHwyATY9N9Q6Qj7PQzFEDUV8R35JD0lRSn1LeEz_TZJOKlFHVUtVhVb6Whpbr13yYeJirGNDZU1qk2yMcFJ0oHTtd9d67311hNmHdonTjDaNfY2_j2CVLpeXmyadqqOKpcuyGbQ4tMW9Nr3mvqfC7MMzyPDPes_d02_TftQj1y3YYNrB3ajjhOOf5Rno1u0_7YPuDu968NXxivv1_ro==

This is my current tree:

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAYBAABeBS0FtQYgBqIHHgguDPINjQ3RDkgQkhEvEYERlhR1F7AX3BmOGbQZ1xvIIzYj0yP2JP0mlSoLKwouUzBxMHwyATIyNj031DpCPs9DMUQNRXxHfkkPSVFKfUqLS3hM_02STipRR1MQVUtW-loaW69d8mHiYetirGNDY6dlTWqTbIxwUnSgdO1313pTeu99dYTZh3aJ04w2jX2Nv49gk5WVLpeXmyadqqOKpcutM7IZtDi0xbxvvTa95r6nwuzDM8jwz3rP3dNv037UI9ct2GDZhtrB3UbdqOOE45_lGedU6NbtP-2D7g7vevDV8Yr79f66_94=?accountName=antilev2&characterName=Flikkering

first two Ascendancy passives are Unstable Infusion and Deadly Infusion. Then go for the Ambush and finally Assassinate notables. It's perfectly fine to skip the last one, especially if you can get a culling strike corrupted Hyaon's (I bought mine for 10c) but your effectiveness against bosses/single target will suffer.

Oak, Eramir, Alira

Main skill:

4L Flicker Strike + Multistrike + Melee Splash + Lightning Penetration
5L Flicker Strike + Multistrike + Melee Splash + Lightning Penetration + WED
6L Flicker Strike + Multistrike + Melee Splash + Lightning Penetration + WED + Added Lightning

Movement:

4L Whirling Blades + Blood Magic + Faster Attacks + Fortify

CoH: (can be any 3 linked sockets)

3L Herald of Thunder + Curse on Hit + Poacher's Mark

Weapon or shield slot:

3L Blood rage + Vaal Grace + increased duration.

CWDT:

2L CWDT + Enfeeble

Essence Worm:

1L: Wrath

Utility gems: (stick them anywhere)

Arctic Armour, Stone/Chaos Golem, Purity of Lightning, Purity of Elements

Weapon Switch:

4L Frenzy + GMP + Blood magic + Faster Attacks
5L Frenzy + GMP + Blood magic + Faster Attacks + Added Chaos Damage

The biggest struggles gearing for this build are getting enough flat life, capping resists with Coil, and getting enough stats to equip Hyaon's and gems. 122 STR and 155 INT are necessary, 159 if you have level 21 Wrath or HoT. For rares I order the affixes from most to least important.

Weapon is Hyaon's Fury. If you can get one corrupted with Culling Strike, that is of course quite nice. However with the addition of 2 extra ascendancy points in 2.3, it becomes unnecessary after adding Assassinate. Even good rolls tend to be cheap on this weapon.

Shield: Evasion shield with life, resists, and high evasion rating. Having an open suffix to craft Leo's reduced DoT taken is great too. +Block chance not important.

Chest: Kintsugi is BiS for this build, but it is extremely expensive to get 5 off colours on. (will cost close to 3000 chromes on average. Therefore Lightning Coil is the chestpiece you want to aim for, prioritising the life, flat lightning , and EV/AR% rolls in that order.

Hat: A rare evasion helm with life, resists, intelligence, and accuracy, in that order. Getting a flicker strike damage enchant is obviously great here.

Gloves: Rare evasion gloves with life, resists, accuracy, and flat lightning damage. IAS is not really necessary here, or anywhere else for that matter.

Boots: Darkray Vectors for DPS, Atziri's Step for defence. Best corrupts are +1 frenzy charge, or dodge chance. If you instead opt for the leech enchant, you can drop the mana leech node from tree.

Belt: Rare with life, resists and WED. I go for a heavy belt here as it's a good place to stack STR.i

Amulet: Rare with life, EVA%, crit %/multi and flat lightning damage. Good place to add necessary stats also.

Ring 1: Essence Worm, with a blue socket

Ring 2: Rare Diamond ring with life, resists, accuracy, WED flat lightning damage in that order.

Weapon Switch: Quill Rain 4L or more, roll not important, with a defensive quiver - life and whatever resists you lose from your shield. Maloney's Nightfall is an option here if you don't need the resists.

Flasks:

Surgeon's Divine Life flask

Quartz

Basalt

Diamond

5th flask can be another life flask, or ideally a Vessel of Vinktar with added lightning damage.

You will want Staunching, Grounding, Reflexes and Heat as suffixes.

I get life on all my jewels, just because it's so hard to get enough life on the right side of the tree. Then you want to get crit multi, lightning damage, and evasion. You may also need to use jewel slots to fill in resists, especially if you are using Lightning Coil.

My shield is also available for mirror service here.

Wrath and Herald of Thunder are always on, otherwise your DPS will suffer too much. The third aura but will be swapped out based on your setup and map mods you are running:

Elemental Weakness: Purity of Elements if you are not ele weakness capped

-Max resists: Purity of Lightning to guard against reflect rares

Monsters x% damage added as fire damage: Arctic Armour for fire damage reduction

Vulnerability: AA

Monsters x% damage added as lightning damage: Purity of Lightning

Otherwise the third aura is personal choice, I personally use AA most of the time as it synergises with acrobatics and flicker so well

Other map mods:

Slower/no regen maps aren't an issue, aside from the fact that you might have to keep an eye on your HP blood rage degen effect

Enfeeble: You might have to lean a bit harder on your diamond flask than normal, but it shouldn't hurt your clearspeed too badly unless it's combined with other mods making mobs tanky

Temporal Chains: free packsize, don't worry about it.

Chaining: drop your golem and then it's not an issue

Monsters immune to elemental status effect: this one can be surprisingly annoying when it's rolled on maps with tough bosses. I ripped once to twinned village ruin bosses with this mod. Not being able to shock bosses is an effective 33% less damage making it much more difficult to burst them down.

I've made a few quick videos, if there's interest i will be happy to take some time and effort and do some harder content like uber lab and t14-15 maps. It's actually quite a good uber lab runner, if you have enough dps to burst down Izaro.

Waterways run

Plateau

Gorge run, 2 min-ish w/ temp chains

Atziri run
I just rushed through the Atziri run and died twice on split phase because a) I was being careless and sloppy, and b) i haven't played in about a month so I am a bit rusty. This character isn't meant to be an atziri runner though, this is just to show that it's possible.

Uber Lab run
Izaro fights are linked in comments

guardian of the phoenix fight
minotaur