[3.15] Flicker strike champion from the "dying less than a usual flicker" tribe

Updates
Spoiler

3.15 - Technically the build is still viable, but it got hit really hard. The "up to 40% damage loss" was probably an understatement from Chris.
Anyway, here's a PoB
https://pastebin.com/GFCaiWM7
The good news is, because of the impale reword, you can swap dread banner to war banner or the new defensive one. You might want to get a ring with -mana cost however, cause the already little mana pool got hit hard with the increased cost as well.


Path of Building
Spoiler

First of all, for the real warriors, here a link:

This is a what I'd call a "mostly achievable, min-maxed" version, meaning that you can get everything in it from the market usually, the rolls are usually T2-3 only, and in general the budget is reasonable. With that said, this is still an optimized version, my gear is nowhere near as good, I cook with what I have. My current build is this:



Introduction
I play a lot of flicker strike builds

Build introduction
Since I play a lot of flicker strike builds (yes I copypasted this from above) I realized that getting all the dps is good on paper, but dying less is actually a pretty solid way to get your character to higher levels, so I decided to get something done on the defense side as well. This character is still not very tanky, but it has a pretty good balance between offense and defense, where you can survive most ultimatum encounters, and go confidently against bosses as well.

Pros
- Flicker strike
- Good clear speed
- Can do most content (killed Sirus6 with it, I'm not an endgame player)
- Good eHP with good damage
- Physical damage only

Cons
- Flicker strike
- Phys reflect maps don't go well with this build
- You can still get 1shots sometimes
- Delving is not recommended for new flicker players (but you can do it, I'm on depth 185)

Gear
My current gear, I use(d) in ultimatum league. This is quite different from what's in the PoB, but I don't have the drive to grind all the needed currency for upgrades, so I'm just sticking to a less expensive, more tanky than damage-focused version.

Spoiler



Details
Wall of text warning!
Weapon
Originally the build was a Terminus Est build, with Daresso's Defiance for endurance charges and onslaught, but lack of critical strike chance sometimes caused some issues, so I switched to good ol' Farrul's.

2handed axe with a shaper "#% chance to gain an Endurance Charge on Critical Strike" roll is all you need, but getting 10% on that is important. Obviously try to get as much physical damage as your budget can handle. Attack speed/crit chance or multi can help as well of course. These axes can vary a lot in price, I got mine (with 643 dps) for only 1ex, and was lucky to link it in about 60 fusings. Sometimes you can get one with pretty good dps (400+) for a couple chaos orbs. Keep an eye on the market and you should be able to snipe something good.

Since we are a crit build, we can build up the 5 endurance charges quite fast, and with enduring cry, you'll be ready to roll against staged bosses as well.

Helmet
Abyssus for damage. I know for a build that calls itself quite tanky, it's quite stupid to take 40+% more damage, but this item gives so much damage, I just can't skip it. Luckily the flicker enchant this league (Ultimatum) is really cheap, hopefully stays that way.

Body armor
Farrul's Fur enables the frenzy generation. This is one of the most expensive items we get, but luckily we don't need a 6linked one, we only use one 6link skill. Life and armor rolls are both important, try to get as much as you can from both.

Since we don't run any purity auras or anything similar, ideally you should get a +1 max resistances corrupted version, if your budget allows it.

Gloves
Gloves is a bit of a free spot, you can more or less use anything you want here, but there's an issue. The +1 max frenzy corruption is quite important, so unless you can get it on some better gloves, I'd recommend sticking to a unique.

Shadows and Dust is a decent choice, it's cheap even with the +1 frenzy, gives you crit chance and multi, the rampage is pretty good too, and it removes the worry of getting mana leech from either a jewel or from the tree.
Other good pick would be a tombfist, which is probably better overall, but that removes 1 skill gem slot, which we already are running short cause of all the buffs and auras.

Boots
Darkrays give you +1 frenzy, so they are good and cheap. A life or +1 endurance charge corruption is great, but not necessary.

Belt
This will probably be your most or 2nd most expensive item. Since we have a lot of uniques, we need to get life and resistance from somewhere. I managed to get this one for only 2ex, but with a sub-par life roll. A good one would cost probably 3-4x that much. A mana roll is nice to have here as well, cause they nerfed Flesh and Stone (reserves 10% more mana than before), so it will help a bit with your mana pool.

My eye jewel is quite bad, but we don't need a lot from it. Accuracy is the most important roll, you should go for 200+ if you can. Life, resistance and damage are all secondary, depending on where you can get the resistance you need for the build.

Amulet
A good rare definitely beats this, but I'm using Carnage Heart cause it's cheap and gives a bit of everything. As described at body armor, +1 max res gives you some extra defense, definitely nice to have.

Rings
In an ideal world you get 2 warlord rings, with phys damage, melee damage and life as prefixes, but in reality, this is where you need to fix everything you couldn't before: accuracy, resistances, or even leech if you use different items to mine. Vulnerability on hit is a big damage boost, you should definitely aim for that. Other than that, just get everything fixed and get as much life as you can.

The ring with Aspect of the cat has to be an unset jewel, so you can put a less duration support into it for better frenzy generation. Get a 20/20 one at least.

Jewels
Life, resistance, accuracy are the keywords for the rares, the damage is secondary. You can see here, that my jewels were not switched after I switched from terminus est, but they kinda work, so I use them.

For watcher's eye, you need the impale chance to get to 100%. If you can afford the +2 impale hit roll, definitely go for it, otherwise if you can, get a precision attack damage/crit multi version (don't recommend attack speed, cause it can cause mana issues). If you can't afford that either, it's fine, impale chance is what's important.

Flasks
PoB has a much more offensive flask setup, and to be honest, the armor+evasion flasks are mostly useless because of the endurance charges. I think they help against very big damage hits, but generally I just use them, cause they make me feel safer. Get cinderswallow and lion's roar instead.

Other than that, diamond flask gives you a lot of damage, and the sulphur is easy to get a freeze immunity one from, so I got that.

For a life flask, get one with some instant recovery (so bubbling or seething), for slow regen, you have leech and enduring cry.


Skill gems
Spoiler

Flicker strike - main attack
Flicker - Multistrike - Fortify - Impale - Brutality - Melee physical damage/Melee splash for bosses/clearing.

For regular map bosses, gemswap is definitely not necessary, but if you fight conquerors, or in a maven crucible, you should swap to get some extra damage. Because of the gemswap I don't think you can use close combat, so that's a bit of a damage loss, but nothing too bad.

Auras
Pride - Flesh and stone - Precision - Enlighten - Dread banner

Since Dread banner is free, you can put it anywhere in your gear. You will need a lvl3 enlighten at least, other than that nothing special.
I usually roll in blood stance, but for ultimatums, or simulacrums, or similar fights, switching to sand stance will give you some better survivability.

Boss boosters
Vaal ancestral warchief - Ancestral protector - Maim
Vaal haste - Summon ice golem - Blood rage

In my build, I don't have Vaal ancestral warchief, which is a lot of damage loss, but I have vaal double strike instead, which also has its perks. Ideally you would go for both, but there's just not enough gem slots in our gear.

Maim support gives you some extra damage cause of blood stance, otherwise it would be useless, so if you're a sand runner, don't use it.

Ice golem gives some extra accuracy as well as crit chance, so that's my go-to pick, but golems are not necessary for the build (so you could add vaal double strike here if you want). Blood rage gives some extra attack speed, and also frenzy on kill, so you don't drop low on them during mapping.

Adrenaline
Corrupting fever - Empower - ???

Depending on how many skill slots you have, you can add some support that INCREASES the life usage of corrupting fever. This is basically used to spend life in a short time to activate adrenaline. Atm, I have a bit of a scuffed setup, cause I'd need a level 4 empower to get adrenaline from 3 casts, so do a better job and set your life up in a way you can get to 50% as fast as possible when needed. I usually only use this at the start of maps or before bosses.

Rest
Leap slam - Faster attacks
Cast when damage taken - Steelskin
Less duration

I use leap slam for movement, probably dash is a better skill, but I'm used to it by now.

For CWDT, set your levels however you want it. I run 11-16, so I get a pretty big steelskin with a fairly low damage taken threshold. If you want 20-20, it's up to you.

Less duration support is for the ring with Aspect of the cat (as described above). Get a 20/20 gem at least.



Media
Spoiler

https://youtu.be/AqlDiZObyPU

I'm lazy, so this map is all you'll get. I got the stone circles ultimatum, but to be fair with ele weakness and vulnerability, I probably would've died anyway. If you don't get curses, you should be fine though even in T16.


Bandits and Pantheon
Surprise: You help Alira. It's a crit build.

I care little about pantheons, so just pick whatever. Since they nerfed shakari, I usually just use Aberrath for the burning ground immunity. For major, I'd say pick whatever. Arakaali can give you better leech, Lunaris or Solaris for damage reduction. Brine king is pretty much useless, cause we have stun immunity anyway.

Ascendancy
The order depends on how you level I'd say, but I'd go with Unstoppable hero first, then Master of metal, then Inspirational, and First to strike last to fall as a final one.

Unstoppable hero gives you a lot of armor (thanks to iron reflexes) and stun immunity. Master of metal gives better impale, Inspirational is basically needed to have enough mana. Adrenaline gives a nice boost of everything, but it's quite situational.



If you have any questions, feel free to ask, I'll try to answer everything I can.
Don't forget to blink!

PS: I didn't proof read this, so if some sentences are weird, that's the reason.
Last edited by Kacsa1#4813 on Jul 22, 2021, 1:18:15 PM
Last bumped on Sep 17, 2021, 10:31:21 AM
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What skill do you level with? looks like you cant use flicker strike until you get the fur?
"
tomtom518 wrote:
What skill do you level with? looks like you cant use flicker strike until you get the fur?


Yeah levelling with melee is a bit of a pain in the butt, especially on league start. You can either use earthshatter or just cleave until lvl30, then you can swap to cyclone with Thief's torment. Damage will likely suck, but at least you'll have a lot of survivability.

The good life starts from level 51, where you can switch to Terminus Est. Just make sure to get the crit nodes from the tree and you should be able to start flickering from that point on. You will probably need to reorganize your passive tree once you can afford to switch to axe, but it shouldn't be more than the points you get from quests during story anyway.
is this viable as a league starter/ 1st char with no currency ?
"
Kangarax wrote:
is this viable as a league starter/ 1st char with no currency ?


Depends on what you want from your character. Starting with melee is usually the worst, but you can get through it. From level 51, you can usually buy a 5link terminus est for a few chaos, after that you're more or less set for stage 1. You can get to red maps if you have good support gear. After that it's just farming for a weapon and a farrul.

I've done it many times before, so definitely possible, but honestly I wouldn't recommend it that much, cause it's more pain than gain.

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