[1.0.2]PewPewPews Official Cheap Flicker Strike build!

Hello I am new and what is this?

My Flicker Strike build for beginners! Follow this guide, and you will sure to be flickering all across Wraeclast!
This guide is meant for new players and players with barely any funds. If you are interested in a high dps/end game flicker striker, you might want to check out my Official Duelist Flicker Strike build. Nevertheless, with the right items, this build can still get as strong as most other builds around it. The big difference is that this build will also work without any expensive item. And with expensive items, I also include everything more then a 4L ;)

This build is a Dual wield Flicker Striker, focussed on Evasion and utilizing Acrobatics. Besides Flicker Strike, we use Spectral Throw, Cyclone and Frenzy.

Ok. I am new, how do I get started?

First of all, I would recommend reading the next bit about Flicker Strike itself. Understanding the mechanics behind this build is very important. If you really don't care, skip to the next chapter.

Mechanics behind Flicker Strike!
Well, to start of with the basics, Flicker Strike is a dex based attack, that teleports you to an enemy, while attacking at the same time. There is a catch though, Flicker Strike has a cooldown of 2 seconds. This cooldown can be bypassed, by spending one Frenzy Charge.
So, if we have an infinite amount of frenzy charges, we can keep on flickering to our hearts content. Sadly, there is a cap on frenzy charges. At most, we can have 7 charges(3 base charges, 3 charges from the tree, and we can get one charge from a quest in merciless act 2). So we need a way to keep refilling our Frenzy Charges without having to quit Flicker Striking.
This is where Blood Rage comes in play. Blood Rage is a buff that does three things when activated. First of all, if gives you a decent amount of lifesteal. Second, whenever you kill an enemy, if grants you a frenzy charge, and will reset it's countdown. The last effect is negative though: while blood rage is running, you will take a percentage of your max life in chaos damage.
Getting a frenzy charge on kill, is a reliable way to keep Flicker Strike going. Meaning, as long as we keep on killing enemies in one hit with flicker strike, we can keep on Flicker striking. Got it so far? Good. Because it's only getting more complicated from here.

There is a problem with this little trick. Unless you have some godly items, you will eventually face mobs that won't be killed in one hit. This won't always be a problem, since you have multiple frenzy charges to spend. But when entire groups of mobs spawn with a little too much hp, you will end up without any charges, and fast too.

This is why we do things a little different. With the help of support gems, we can augment our flicker strike to act a little different. The support gems we use are Multistrike and Melees Splash. Click on the links, and you will find out that Multistrike will repeat the melee attack two more times on additional targets(or the same one, if no additional target is available), and melee splash will hit an area around the target upon hit as well. Both support gems will cut the single target dps by a lot though. This might seem bad but.
As mentioned, Multistrike will allow two more attacks, but these two attacks will not consume any frenzy charges(You can not cancel these two attacks as well). Meaning, you will only spend a frenzy charge every three attacks. Though, the other two targets will be randomly selected from around the main targets. So, for one attack, you will hit three different targets(where possible). Now, if we add melee splash to these three attacks... Look what happens.


Red dots are enemies
Blue dots are the enemies hit by Flicker Strike
The blue AoE is the radius where Melee Splash hit.

As you can see, some enemies are hit by multiple AoE's, meaning they got double the damage there(or triple, if all three AoE's managed to hit one mob). This is great. Because, not only do we attack an entire group at once, some mobs will get more damage from one attack, leaving them with less HP then others. We have 7 charges up, so repeat the Flicker Strike another few times, and they are sure to fall, and grant you a few more charges to finish off the group.

And this is how we will flicker everything to death.

Very interesting! So what do I need to get started?

Gems!
Again, back to the basics. We need a couple of gems. You get most of them from your quest rewards, but some won't. Here's a list of gems you need to obtain.
- Spectral Throw: Make a level 1 Scion, and get it from the dying exile.
- Reduced Mana: Buy it off another player(or level up a marauder/scion/templar to act 2 cruel)
- Greater Multiple Projectiles/Multistrike/Cast with Damage Taken: You get these three from a quest, but all three are from the same quest. You could switch out Greater Multiple Projectiles for a Lesser Multiple Projectiles(which you do get from a quest), but you definatly have to buy Multistrike/Cast with Damage Taken from another player. If you are unable, get Multistrike when you get to the quest. It is far more important then Cast with Damage taken.

Never pay more then one chaos for a gem. No matter how rare people say they are, don't. Too many people out there trying to make cheap money of new players. Don't let them!
All the other gems will be obtained from quests.

Items!
I will split this chapter into two parts. Items you need for "endgame", and items useful for leveling.

Leveling items:
Two items are very, very important for leveling(more about this subject later on)


Must have items:
Items. Well, scrap the "s".

All the other items will be obtained through farming.

These three items shouldn't be worth a lot. A couple of chaos should be more then enough for all of them. If you only have a few to spend, get the Blood Dance, and forget about the Slitherpinch/Wurms Mold.

I can get those! So what about the gems/tree?



Let's start with the tree. This is the tree when you hit 87. Of course, only the most dedicated will get to that point, missing a few points here and there won't hurt the build.
A few important nodes I picked up include:
- Acrobatics & Phase acrobatics: Dodge is not the same as evasion, and will be calculated seperately, which makes that very valuable to us.
- Ondar's Guile: Will raise our evasion against ranged attacks, allowing to stay almost unharmed under some extreme attacks.
- Three Additional Frenzy Charges

The bandit quests are taken as follows:
- Normal: 40 Hp from Oak
- Cruel: 18% physical Damage from Oak
- Merciless: 1 Frenzy Charge from Kraitlyn

And this is how we will socket our gems.

Note: You might want to link a faster attacks to leapslam. I forgot to put it in there/too lazy to edit it

As you can see, we have a lot of different attacks going on there. I'll explain why we have this many, and why we need them.
- Flicker Strike: The main attack, it should not be a surprise this is in the build.
- Spectral Throw: Linked to Faster Projectiles for increased range, Greater Multiple for Increased Area of Effect, and Life Gain on Hit, for insane sustain. Throw in one or two into a group of mobs, before you start flicker striking. Due to the amount of mobs hit, you will heal every bit of damage you take. Especially useful when taking a big hit out of nowhere, and you need to heal it up fast. This will also hit mobs off-screen, luring them towards you.
- Cyclone: The same counts for this one. Low on life? stuck in a group? No Charges up? Just Cyclone and heal back everything they throw at you. Cyclone is also great to start out with, to get the first few frenzy charges up.
- Frenzy: Very useful for gaining charges. Mostly used against single targets, where you just need those few charges to keep on flicker Striking.
- Leap Slam: More then just movement alone, this will also let you escape dangerous situations, or kite against high hitting enemies.
- Temporal Chains: Don't worry about this one, it will be cast automatically, when you take damage, slowing everything around you.

Note: Keep temportal Chains at lvl 5 max, and Cast with Damage Taken at lvl 1 max!

Sweet! So.. a little bit more about the items please?

Alright. Here is a list of things you have to look out for, for your end game gear. The things in front are more important then the things later on in the list.

- Headgear: Evasion, Life, Resistances. That is all you need from your head. I would recommend going with a Evasion/Armor piece, since, this item, or your gloves, will be used for flicker strike. Meaning, you need Three Reds and One Green Slot in your item. And it's hard to get three off colors in your gear.
- Armor: High Evasion, Life, Resistances. I would prefer a high evasion piece above a piece with life and resistances. If you can get something with high eva, life and resistances, that is fine of course. Due to the high Eva need, I would recommend pure Evasion. 1000+ eva would be very welcome(but not mandatory).
- Gloves: Mana Leech, Evasion, Life, Resistances, Attack Speed. Mana leech is very important. Make sure you get at least 2% on your gloves, otherwise on your rings/amul. 2% total should be enough. If your headpiece is pure eva, turn this one into eva/armor, for the three red links.
- Rings: Resistances, Mana leech, Life, Attack Speed, Life Leech. If you don't get mana leech from your gloves, make sure you get them from your rings. Don't worry too much about attack speed/life leech, it is nice if it's on it, but the rest is far more important.
- Amulet: Resistances, Mana leech, Life, Attack Speed, Life Leech. Same as with the rings. Try to get at least 20 Strenght and 20 Intelligence from the amulet(base: Agate Amulet/Onyx Amulet), so you will have enough intelligence/Strength to level up all your gems.
- Boots: Blood Dance. Otherwise Movementspeed, Life, Resistances. The blood dance are very important to this build, since it almost completely annihilates the chaos damage we take from Blood Rage. The Chaos damage won't be a problem on normal/Cruel, but will start ticking health away at a scary rate when you hit Merciless. A few charges are enough to stop this degeneration, and another few charges will actually regen a % of your life. No other boots can substitute for the blood dance. But if you really can't get your hands on them, try getting as much life/resistances/movement speed(even though, those boots will most likely be more expensive then the blood dance anyways).
- Belt: Life, Physical Damage, Resistances. If you get a Sash base belt, you will have the phys damage Prefix. A nice little buff to your damage. Besides that, a combination of life and resistances will do the trick.
- Weapons High Physical Damage, High Attack Speed, Resistances. Elemental Damage is nice too, but will give you a much smaller damage boost. So high Attack Damage, and High attack speed are the two main focus points. Any one handed base weapon will do, but I would recommend Rapiers or sword. If you can't find a good rare weapon, one or two prismatic eclipses will do just fine.

There are the items I am using right now.


Aww Yiss. I'm going to do this right away!

And you should!
Flicker Strike is a very fun skill to play with, and easier to get started with, than most people think it is. It's been really fun to get to this point with my flicker strikers. This is the 4th one I made, and I'm actually quite proud on this one. Flicker Strike is hard to sustain late game, without the right items. But this one actually manages just fine without the best items out there.
If you have any questions about this build, or started with the build and just want to share your story, feel free to post it in here!

Video's
Lvl 42/43 The Crypt Cruel
Lvl 73 Part of a Piety run + Piety Kill Merciless
Lvl 73 Full Piety Run + Piety Kill merciless
- More Coming soon(Youtube is being a bitch etc) -

tl;dr aka Conclusion
Tree
Gems
Bandit rewards: Oak/Oak/Kraitlyn
Items: Blood Dance/Rares

Since I'm a lazy mofo, I'll leave the promise here, that I will build this into a full leveling guide sometimes soon! But for now, you guys have to do it with just the trees :>









Leveling guide will be fully hosted in the near future!

I've read most of the wall of text and I really like the style you write your guides.
I will definitely try this out. I got one question though why did you choose Ranger over Shadow?

Happy to hear :)

My main argument would be: I am not going crit. The shadower has more damage nodes as well, but I feel those are not necessary, the nodes from the ranger side and the duelist side are more then enough. Plus the amounr of block nodes near the duelist side, makes it even more attractive to start this one as a duelist or a ranger.
I just found the starting points a little bit better then the ones from the duelist side :)

Which of your Flicker builds is better for endgame and party play?

I would say my Duelist Flicker Striker. If you have the items though(BoR, Soultaker/High dps one handers). Otherwise I would stick with this one.

Hey! What do you think about dual wielding prismatic eclipse? I know, the damage is quite low (~50-120 with 20%Q), but it offers 20% block and up to 150% global damage increase. And the price is only 2 - 3 chaos orbs.

The damage should be high enough, and I see those as a decent weapon for quite a while :)

Since I've had a full respec on my lvl 66 duelist I thought I give this build a shot. I figured you guys might be interested in the new found wisdom of a noob :)

First off: I've spent 7 chaos orbs on this build. 3 for each 'Prismatic Eclipse' and 1 for 'The Blood Dance'. I had the rest of the stuff lying around in my stash. Mostly pretty trashy gear.


Here's my current passive tree.



Here's my gear.



Now lets talk about stats!



That's it! Imho the damage of frenzy is pretty satisfying for such a low budget build. And as I already mentioned the block chance is something that most dual wielders can't even dream of. This makes 'Prismatic Eclipse' a very solid choice for low budget builds.
However, my damage with flicker strike is just too low atm. I've made a few dock runs. The defensive aspect of this build makes up the lacking damage a bit. But when I'm facing any kind of champions I need to stop flickering and restack some frenzy charges.
I'm pretty sure that even if I do get the missing 73% physical damage increase I still won't be able to face any higher content with flicker strike.

Or maybe you could get me some tips how to further increase my flicker damage without changing my weapons.

As for the guide in general I just can say thank you! Even if my current build hast some major flaws I'm sure it will work pretty well with some upgrades. This guide shows that you can make pretty much any build work with a very limited budget.

/Edit: I might try to get some higher phys damage rare swords for comparison. I'm sure I'll hardly miss my block chance tho :(

/Edit #2: By the way I'm also pretty sure that you can get 'Prismatic Eclipse' for two, if not even one chaos orb. When I offered three chaos orbs I've been flooded with offers.

/Edit #3: I've managed to get my damage up tp 650 for flicker and 3000 for frenzy. Dock runs are pretty sooth now - well, at least as smooth a flicker build can be. Still have a bit trouble with champion voidbearers. Biggest concern atm is keeping track of the loot tho.

I'll test with my own variations and keep you updated on my progress!