Hardcore Flicker Witch

Hardcore Flicker Witch on the PoE Wiki

The general idea behind this character is having a very strong defensive base, and using some of the most overpowered passives and active skills in the game. So, I've made a character that picks up Catalyze, Chaos Inoculation, and uses Flicker Strike.

Highlights:

• 75% Block Chance (hard cap)
• 9% Chance to Block Spells
• 283% Increased ES on Shield
• 143% Increased ES on everything else
• 105% Increased Elemental Damage w/ Weapons

You can read more about the "behind the scenes" on the wiki page, including a link to the passive tree.

I'm currently running this build on Default, because I simply didn't have the stores of equipment on HC that would be required to level this build. It is VERY gear dependent, and if you have subpar gear, you will die, a lot. I have yet to die in any meaningful way (a couple stupid deaths I could have avoided) and I'll be entering Merciless tonight. I've done some spreadsheet math and I should have 0 problems once I'm able to get into my mid 50's gear and start tearing through MoC.

The primary benefit of this build, and the reason I set out to create it, is that there are no MoC instances it can't handle. I won't need to reset for Ledge, or skip maps that have Cold Snap elementals anymore, this build should be able to handle anything thrown at it.

I'd like someone else to take a look at the passive tree, see if I missed anything or made any silly mistakes. I've ran over it so many times I can draw the entire thing out without references...

Hi,
basically, I love the build and I wanted to try this myself. Anyways, I do have some questions:
1) Is Block recovery important? never really noticed this, so does it trigger whenever you block?
2) You have +36% block, if I'm not mistaken. What's you're highest blocking shield? Isn't it like 35%? My current one has 32% and not 20% quality, so I figured there might be better ones.
3) Will you use tempest shield? I think you should, just for extra damage, but maybe it's not worth 25% mana.
4) Did you calculate it through to the end? Maybe you could save a point in shield block and still get 75% block.
5) You didn't take a lot of ES recovery delay nodes. Will this not be a problem later on?
Cheers

At the highest levels will you go for Eternal Sword or Jeweled Foil?

I also think ES cooldown passives are important.

Doesn't Arcing Blows help Lightning Strike?

"

mokschi wrote:

Hi,
basically, I love the build and I wanted to try this myself. Anyways, I do have some questions:
1) Is Block recovery important? never really noticed this, so does it trigger whenever you block?
2) You have +36% block, if I'm not mistaken. What's you're highest blocking shield? Isn't it like 35%? My current one has 32% and not 20% quality, so I figured there might be better ones.
3) Will you use tempest shield? I think you should, just for extra damage, but maybe it's not worth 25% mana.
4) Did you calculate it through to the end? Maybe you could save a point in shield block and still get 75% block.
5) You didn't take a lot of ES recovery delay nodes. Will this not be a problem later on?
Cheers

1) block animation only triggers if you block a hit that would have been a stun.
2)+36% from skills, 30% shield, +6% quality, +4% tempest shield (76%)
3)^
4)^
5)Hasn't been a problem so far, you block so many of the attacks you recharge pretty often.

"

At the highest levels will you go for Eternal Sword or Jeweled Foil?

I also think ES cooldown passives are important.

Doesn't Arcing Blows help Lightning Strike?

What?
Ok.
What lightning strike?

Ok, I've gotten to Chaos on my flicker witch, and it's pointless.

I do 20% more dps than my lightning strike character, I have 75% block chance, and just as much energy shield, and I can't clear anything.

First of all, the desync is huge. You'll be flickering around and not hitting anything. Literally hitting nothing, just bouncing around the screen, because your character is warping to an area that doesn't really have a mob at it. And then you die, nowhere near where you saw yourself or the mobs you thought you were attacking.

The DPS is decent, but there's no AoE component, so even though you're 1 or 2 shotting mobs, there's just so many of them that you can't kill them as quick as someone spraying around projectiles.

Finally because so much of the build is based around spamming Flicker Strike and relying on mana leech, once you hit a mob that has the energy shield aura you're dead in the water.

So I'll be shelving this character until they rebalance melee damage compared to projectile damage.

Well, you can always just switch to wand and become OP. Although it doesn't solve the desync problem, of course.

@ the rabbit, same comments on my topic about the shadow with flicker strike it was perfect to level up but MOC is impossible so I switched to lightning strike and manage MOC with average gear.

Yea, I already have a Lightning Strike character that makes MoC mind numbingly easy. Currently using all magic-find gear on her because I don't even need to stack damage to clear MoC.

I bought some more gear last night so that I went from being simply over-geared to now being incredibly over-geared. Flicker does 12k dps now with auras up, still have 75% block chance and 7k ES. It's 3x more DPS than my lightning strike character uses to clear chaos, and attack speed is 4.2 per second with frenzy up. Also going to switch my curse from Elemental Weakness to Temporal Chains.

If this doesn't work, nothing will.

I still think it's incredibly awkward that this build does amazing from 1-56. Literally had 0 problems and only 1 or 2 deaths going through the entire game up to Maelstrom. Then you get into MoC and it's a huge brickwall. The build I'd been using that could AFK through Fellshrine, Cave, and Temple now can't even kill a single pack of mobs.