[2.5] Elite CI Flicker Strike Slayer -- {In Depth Guide}

Pros:

Fast clear speed.
High single target damage.
Great mitigation vs physical reflect.

Cons:

Can be expensive to gear if you want high damage and energy shield.
Raider class has more reliable frenzy charge generation.

Progression:

I leveled this build with little to no effort. Leveled as life based dagger. I think the most effective way to level is dual wielding with an off hand stat stick from level 1 to 69 when you can gear for chaos innoculation. Started with redbeak at level one with one -8 elreon ring, one black heart and used cleave. Changed to the unique level 15 dagger bloodplay and used reave at that point. You will want to change from reave to blade flurry at 28. I used a level one axe in my off hand weapon slot for reave when I switched at 15 until I could use the unique relenteless fury at 29. Used bloodplay until I could use mightflay at 35. I also changed from elreon rings to rare rings and amulet with high life and started using a mana potion. At 50 I got a cheap dagger and got crit nodes and started using blasphemy assasins mark. For bandits I chose point/ kraityn / kraityn. For lab I went impact / bane of legends / headsman / endless hunger respectively.

Other unique leveling items include:

Wanderlust
Goldrim
Foxshade
Meginord's Girdle
Ondar's Clasp
Karui Ward

Good Life Based End Game Unique Items:

Devoto's Devotion
Belly Of The Beast
Bino's Kitchen Knife (main hand)
Death's Hand (off hand)

Cost:

250 Pdps Dagger with crit - 10-20 chaos
700 es 5 link regalia - 20 chaos
450 es shield - 20-60 chaos
350 es helm - 30-40 chaos
200 es gloves 15-20 chaos
amulet/ring with decent physical stats and % es - 40-60 chaos
valyrium 1-5 chaos
crystal belt 20-40 chaos
rare sorcerer boots - 5-10 chaos
three stat jewels 1-5 chaos each
level three enlighten 20-25 chaos each
atziri's promise 1 chaos
total estimated gear cost without sin's rebirth 215-310 chaos
sin's rebirth 260-280 chaos

sin's rebirth is not mandatory
can use duelist leech node instead of relying on leech from atziri's promise

Budget Tips:

Since you don't use skyforth, you can get the reduced mana reservation node by chaos innoculation. To make up for the other 2% reserved u can get the mana node by shadow named mind drinker. This will also give you some mana leech. You also need some sort of power charge generation so you will have to drop faster attacks on shield charge or four link it for power charge on critical strike or find some other means like orb of storms.

Set a desired amount of shield and search for total resists and search by highest on poe.trade when looking for decent quality es gear. Use poe affix to help with identifying tiers of stats so you can later divine them.

This gear is setup to work well with the slayer passives. I got a high energy shield helmet and ran lab myself for an enchant because I would of been happy with either shield charge attack speed, flicker strike damage or blade flurry damage. I can choose to run grace over hatred because my gear is at the point where I don't find the damage to have all that much of an impact and I don't scale weapon elemental damage. If you are just starting out, I would suggest running hatred instead of grace as your damage may be lacking without it. Blade flurry is strong enough to clear with only four links since we get a decent amount of aoe from slayer ascendancy and lots of attack speed from other sources. The charge generation for flicker strike comes blood rage. The flasks focus around chaos damage and physical damage reduction to prevent killing your self from blood rage. You may also want to craft the level three leo mod " reduced damage taken from damage over time " on your shield to further mitigate the damage from blood rage. You can also chose to use blasphemy poacher's mark if you are not comfortable with blood rage. The chaos damage from sin's rebirth work well to cut through enemies with high physical or elemental resistance. The free melee splash from slayer is also amazing for flicker strike because it allows you to have a high energy shield chest piece without needing five off colors for the melee splash gem which can take on average over four thousand chromatics.

The passive tree focuses around pumping up a high amount of energy shield along with a mass amount of damage. I have tried to optimize my points by not having to spec into any leech on the tree.

Try and shield charge into packs to keep fortify up. Always remember that you can use blade flurry on tougher content or bosses you can't one shot or when you run out of frenzy charges. Most of the time you are pretty safe while clearing packs.

Elemental Weakness -
164/169 elemental resistance is needed for tier six/eleven and above respectively.
Physical Reflect -
No way around this. The damage is just to high and the build doesn't use endurance charges.
Elemental Reflect -
Drop hatred for grace.
Don't run elemental reflect maps if you are using headhunter as you are likely to gain a elemental buff and kill yourself. Keep a rare crystal belt or rustic sash for these occasions.

One Minute Speed Clear Shaped Strand
Double Beyond Shaped Strand
Shaped Tropical Island

Atlas shaped strand guide (Norse)
Currency and leveling guide (Yoji + Ziz)
Price checking guide (ZiggyD)

These videos are very informative and helped me a great deal.

Headhunter Tooltip Warrior

2.1m dps (146k x 14.5 aps)


Flicker Strike

157k Hideout (17.3k x 9.01 aps)


718k Buffed (53k x 13.5 aps)

(5 power charge 4 frenzy charge vaal haste potions and slayer ascendancy)
No headhunter buffs in this photo.

Blade Flurry

9k Hideout


23k Buffed

(5 power charge 4 frenzy charge vaal haste potions and slayer ascendancy)
No headhunter buffs in this photo.