[3.0] How to Flicker. Two Handed Weapon Edition!
 Hello and Welcome to my Guide for a Flicker strike Duelist{Two Handed Weapon Edition}. I’ll try to explain everything about it, answer every question, give advices etc. etc. I’ll update the information in this thread when it has to be updated. With this build you’ll be able to solo pretty much every map and every boss in Path of Exile. This is not a theorycraft thread and everything in this guide is tested! "Your build so far is allowing me to far merciless piety with pretty much using only one hand, which I could not have done previously with the blender cleave build" "This is one the best looking guides on this forum" "Your guides are amazing, they look cool, the gfx is great, everything detailed, not just another gear show off what sadly happens more often." "I recently used this guide to start my newest character. I have to say: The most fun I have ever had leveling a character!" "Thanks for the build ! Very nice and clean presentation ! Time to flicker ..." *Featured in the Community Build Guides: Ice Nova, Flicker Strike and more! Reddit thread :Click! Twitch : http://www.twitch.tv/korgothbg Special thanks to Vasilas who with level 99 won the N1 Slayer in the Flashback Perandus race with this build and who gave me one of his "Demigod's Dominance" rewards after that. The thread about his experience is here: Click!  Flicker Strike - Flicker strike + Multistrike + Melee Splash* - Flicker strike + Multistrike + Melee Splash* + Melee physical damage - Flicker strike + Multistrike + Melee Splash* + Melee physical damage + Fortify* - Flicker strike + Multistrike + Melee Splash* + Melee physical damage + Fortify* + Ruthless + Melee Physical Damage on Full life *When you pick the Slayer ascendancy sub-class, you'll get melee splash from it so you won't need the support gem, instead pick Melee Physical Damage on Full Life for the 6L gem setup. Note that you should use the melee splash support gem UNTIL you actually get the Slayer's ascendancy splash passive! Explanation
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Multistrike is the support gem that makes this build possible. With it you perform 3 attacks while using only 1 frenzy charge to bypass the flicker strike cooldown, also you pay the mana cost once per 3 attacks. It's an absolute must! Melee Splash turns your single target flicker strike into an AOE attack, that helps you kill many enemies at the same time. Awesome for your frenzy charge generation, for your mana management and for your killing speed. It's an absolute must! Melee physical damage gives you more damage... it's self-explanatory really. Fortify is an insanely good support gem that gives you the Fortify buff whenever you hit something with a melee attack. That buff gives you a flat 20% damage reduction from hits. Definitely a must. Oh and did i mention that on top of all that it increases your physical damage, not by much, but it's still a nice bonus. Melee Damage on Full Life is a gem that will further increases your damage. It basically works as a second Melee Physical Damage support gem, as long as you are on Full Life, and since you are going to be a Slayer you'll be pretty much constantly at full life. It's important to notice that when you use Blood Rage your tooltip life will never be full, thankfully after patch 2.6 you'll still be considered at full life so you'll be able to take advantage of this support gem Ruthless greatly increases your damage on every third attack. When used with multistrike (and that's exactly the case) you'll receive the boost on every third use of flicker strike for all 3 hits (i.e you'll have more powerful 7th, 8th and 9th attacks). Auras 1st - Hatred 2nd - Blasphemy + Poacher's Mark Explanation
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Hatred boosts your damage by quite a lot by giving you extra cold damage based on physical damage. It reserves 50% of your mana Blasphemy + Poacher's Mark . The combination turns the Poacher's Mark curse into an aura and that allows you to auto-curse everything around you with it. The poacher's mark is needed for 2 reasons. One - it helps you to generate frenzy charges and because of that the Blood Dance unique boots are no longer mandatory. Two it takes care of any mana problems that you might have because it gives you high enough amounts of mana gained per hit. Oh and on top of that it gives you some life gained per hit and you get more flasks charges from the kills of cursed enemies. Now don't get me wrong this is not a must because there are other ways to get what Poacher's mark gives you and thus there are some alternatives, but i'll explain them later on. Arctic Armour + Herald of Ash instead of Hatred is also an option if you want a bit more tankier setup. Utility Attack Frenzy + Faster Attacks Leap Slam + Faster Attacks Explanation
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You need Frenzy so that you can gain frenzy charges if you run out of them. It's a "just in case". Faster attacks helps you gain those charges faster. You could link it to damage support gems ( like melee physical damage and added fire ) or to utility support gems ( like fortify or blind ), it is not necessary but you can if you want to(and if you have free sockets). As for Leap slam - well it is a movement skill, you use it to get from point A to point B faster or to get from a dangerous situation ASAP. Link it to faster attacks to move faster with it. You could also link it to culling strike support gem with 20% quality for extra 10% increased attack speed. A good idea would be to add a Blood Magic support gem to the mix (i.e. Faster Attacks + Blood Magic + Frenzy + Leap Slam) Buffs Blood Rage + Flame Golem Vaal Grace + Increased Duration Explanation
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Blood Rage gives you 25% chance to get a frenzy charge on kill and it is a mandatory skill for this build. It also increases your attack speed and gives you life leech.The drawback is that it drains 4% of your max life per seconds but you won't feel that due to the life regeneration from your passive skill tree and the Blood Dance unique boots (they give you 1% life regeneration per frenzy charge). The buff recasts itself whenever you kill a monster. If you have a free slot you could link it to Increased Duration(definitely not needed) You could link your Blood Rage to an Increased Duration support gem to increase it's duration ( though it's not necessary ) The Flame Golem increases your damage. If you want and if you have free sockets you can link it to Minion Life and/or Minion and Totem Elemental Resistance so that you won't have to recast it very often. And of course you might skip using the golem at all becuase of how often it dies. Vaal Grace will increase your dodge and spell dodge for a couple of seconds ( more when paired with the increased duration support gem ) Perfect for Boss fights. Triggered Skills Cast when damage taken(level 1) + Immortal Call + Increased Duration Explanation
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You want Cast when damage taken to be at level 1 because that way it will trigger more often. There isn't really any useful spells that you can link to Cast when damage taken besides Immortal call. Immortal Call is very useful because it is the best way to deal with the on-death effect of the porcupines.  What is Flicker Strike and what it can and can't do. So basically Flicker Strike teleports you to a nearby monster and attacks it with a melee weapon. Unfortunately it has a cooldown (2 seconds), the good news is that you can bypass that cooldown by expending a Frenzy Charge(which happens automatically if you have frenzy charges). Getting Frenzy Charges is the key for this build. With Flicker Strike you want to be able to attack non-stop so you need to generate Frenzy Charges all the time. There are a couple of ways to do that - Blood Rage, the Blood Dance unique boots and the Poacher's Mark curse combined with Blasphemy. Any combination of two of them will be enough to get all the frenzy charges you need ( and with enough damage even just the Blood Rage could be enough) They all give you a chance to get a frenzy charge whenever you kill a monster. If you have a helmet with "Blood Rage grants additional 20%/30% chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Kill" you'll be able to run around only with Blood Rage for sure! You'll also need the Frenzy attack. It gives you a frenzy charge whenever you hit something with it. If you find yourself out of frenzy charges with nothing for you to immediately kill ( can happen when you face bosses ) just hit the though guy a couple of times with Frenzy and finish him/her/it off with your Flicker strike. The Multistrike Support gem is the other thing that makes this build possible. With it you will cast 3 Flicker Strikes at the cost of one. That means that you will spend mana once instead of three times AND that you will use only one frenzy charge to bypass the cooldown instead of three! The next important support gem is Melee Splash. It will help you to kill packs of monsters faster(and they are always in packs). Of course if you decide to use the Slayer sub-class(and i really suggest to pick Slayer) you'll get melee splash from there. The fortify support gem will increase your physical damage and will boost your defenses by giving you flat 20% damage reduction from hits - a must! Melee Physical damage will greatly increase your offense. Melee Damage on Full life, Added Fire Damage and Faster attacks will further increase your DPS - pick one and use it ! This build will work with any two-handed weapon. Which one to use? Well they are all nice and i'd suggest to use your best two-handed weapon and build the passive skill tree accordingly personally though i prefer axes because the best unique two-handed weapon for this build is the Atziri's Disfavour axe, and there are plenty of cheaper axe to use before you can afford it. Due to the teleporting nature of the flicker strike you'll rarely take hits, note that there are some things that will always hit you - Arc, Cold snap, flicker strike. Sadly for those of you who like to play in a party... this build is not really playable in a party because you just can't generate enough frenzy charges. I guess the way to play in a party would be to switch Flicker Strike with Frenzy. It's less effective but it will allow you to play with your friends. When it comes to your gear the primary thing that you need is a weapon with high enough DPS so that you can kill fast enough to generate enough frenzy charges. You see you don't want to use too many frenzy charges per kill because that way you'll end up with no charges in no time! Don't forget that you can click your flicker strike button while pointing on the ground and your character will automatically attack the nearest enemy ! Pros. +Very High Damage +Very High Attack Speed +Extremely fast clear speed +The nature of the skill provides extra defenses - you can't hit something that is no longer where it was 0.1 sec ago. +It is fun ... for me at least Cons. -Unplayable in a party ( maybe playable in a 2 man party ) -Very desync unfriendly ( if you are using predictive mode ) -You can run out of frenzy charges in boss fights  Frenzy Frenzy gives you a frenzy charge per hit. It helps you to get frenzy charges if you are in a tough situation. You can swap flicker strike for frenzy so that you are able to play in a party. Link it to Faster attacks so that you can accumulate frenzy charges faster. You could also link you to damage increasing support gems or to some utility support gems ( if you have the free sockets ). Don't link it to Multistrike - you'll hit three times but you'll get only 1 frenzy charge! Blood Rage Blood Rage is the skill that makes this build possible. It gives you a 25% chance to get a frenzy charge when you kill an enemy and gives you large amount of life leech. The duration of Blood Rage refreshes when you kill something so it's enough to cast it once and pretty much forget about it. The duration of the buff is long enough and if your pair it with increased duration support gem it gets even longer. The drawback is that it deals to you a % of your maximum life as physical damage. But don't worry, having life regeneration nodes and/or being a Slayer (due to the overleeching) will help you with that, wearing the Blood Dance unique boots will mitigate that easily too. Curses Well you will use your curse by linking it to Blasphemy and thus making it an offensive aura. I strongly suggest that you use Poacher's Mark beucase it will help you with the frenzy charge generation, take care of any possible mana issues, it will give you some life on hit and on top of that it will greatly increase your flask charge generation ( which is very powerful, though usually underestimated ) Vaal Grace Combined with 20/20% increased duration support gem Vaal Grace gives you large amounts of dodge and spell dodge for 10 seconds - perfect for boss fights. Golems The golems are cool summoned minions with own set of attacks and a passive buff. All we really need them for is the passive buff that they give. The quality bonus increases the life and damage of the golems. You can use only 1 golem at any given moment. You can link your golem to Minion Life and/or minion and totem elemental resistance support gems. Even though the golems have a lot of life they do die quite often in high level content thus you can simply not use one if you feel like recasting them constantly is annoying ( and that's exactly how i feel about them! ) Flame Golem A nice ranged attacking golem that increases your damage with up to 20%. Lighning Golem This golem increase your attack speed with up to 9%. It has rather high intelligence requirements though( for this build at least ). Ice Golem Well this golem gives you increased critical chance and accuracy, and you don’t need any of them … so this golem is not a good choice at all. Chaos Golem This is a close range golem that gives 3% additional Physical Damage Reduction up to 4% at level 20. That’s nice of course but the problem is that this golem has high intelligence requirements ( 155 at level 20 )and some might struggle leveling it ( personally I can level it up to 17 ) Stone Golem The Rock golem gives up to 105 life regeneration per second. It's true that this build has lots of life regeneration ( tons of it with the Blood Dance unique boots ) and when it comes to regaining lost life you have leech and flasks on top of that, but having even more life regeneration is also nice. It is especially good while leveling due to the flat amounts of life regeneration that it gives. So which golem should I use? Well if you can level up the Chaos Golem high enoughit is probably the best one. But if you can’t don’t worry about it, the Flame Golem is also a good choice if you want to boost your damage and the Rock Golem - if you want to boost your defenses, is also very nice and the requirements for them won’t trouble you at all! Personally though i don't use a golem at all becuase they die way too easily. Totems Ancestral Protector The Ancestral Protector is a totem that attacks nearby enemies with melee attacks. It is active always while you are around it and while you are in its range the totem will give you up to 20% more attack speed. Compared to the Golems, the totem gives much more powerful buff and actually deals good damage, but on the other hand the golems have almost twice as much life, their buffs are not limited by your proximity to them and they are not stationary. Nevertheless the Ancestral Protector is a very nice buff and addition for boss fights. Ancestral Warchief The Ancestral Protector is a totem that attacks nearby enemies with AoE melee attacks. It is active always while you are around it and while you are in its range the totem will give you up to 18% more damage. Compared to the Golems, the totem gives much more powerful buff and actually deals very good amounts of damage, but on the other hand the golems have almost twice as much life, their buffs are not limited by your proximity to them and they are not stationary. Nevertheless the Ancestral Warchief is a very nice buff and addition for boss fights. If it's properly supported it can hit quite hard.  Hatred - you will have a lot of physical damage and that will result in a lot of bonus cold damage from this aura. Blasphemy + Poacher's Mark - Blasphemy will make the curse linked to it to become an aura that will curse all enemies around you. Poacher's mark is absolutely the best option for 2 main reasons. One - it will help you greatly with your frenzy charge generation. And two - it will take care of all of your possible mana problems! Alternatively if you don't need Poacher's mark for mana and frenzy charge generation you could use Enfeeble or Temporal chains instead, Warlord's mark for mana/life leech and endurance charge generation is also an option. You could also use Arctic Armour ( the Arctic Armour's damage reduction works awesome with flicker strike because you pretty much are stationary all the time.. just teleporting around ... but still stationary thus still getting the damage reduction boost from Arctic Armor ) or Herald of Ash instead.  What is Cast When Damage Taken? Cast When Damage Taken is a trigger support gem. When you link a spell to it( including curses and buffs) it will trigger the linked spell when you take a certain amount of damage(440 at level 1). When you level up the Cast When Damage Taken gem the damage threshold is increased ( i.e. 560 at level 3) and the damage that the linked spells will do when triggered is increased( at level 1 the spells deal 70% less damage and at level 3 - 62%). The spells linked to the trigger gem can't require a higher level than the trigger gem itself or they won't be casted. The most useful spell that you can use at the moment is Immortal Call which won't help you much more if it's leveled up. Because of that keep your Cast When Damage Taken at level 1 and link a low enough level Immortal call to it. Immortal call is great against the otherwise deadly on-death effect of the porcupines. Counterattack skills Two of the 3 new counterattacks are unusable due to the lack of block. Even if you are using a staff you can only use Riposte, but in my opinion it's the least useful counterattack and with the rather low block chance yo can get with a staff it won't be very effective but you can still use it if you want to. Vengeance has a chance to trigger whenever you take a hit and it makes a very good support skill that based on what you link to it can deal good amounts of damage, life leech for you or to debuff your enemies. Currently though i can't really say that it's justified to spend free sockets for counter attacks - no, they are not bad ... just ... not that good. "I'm going to show you pain you never knew existed, you're going to see a whole new spectrum of pain!!!!! Like a RAINBOW!" Last edited by KorgothBG on Dec 19, 2017, 5:39:16 PM Last bumped on May 2, 2019, 9:36:43 PM
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 Let's talk about the passive skill tree Basically you need physical damage, life and the Resolute Technique, Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics keystones. You see there are practically 2 types of melee builds - crit builds that invest a lot in terms of passives and gear into crit chance and crit multiplier and non-crit builds that pick up Resolute Technique. With Resolute Technique you never have to worry about hit chance and in this case 100% chance to hit is something extremely important, because you spend frenzy charges to flicker and you don't want to waste them by missing a strike, that way you can't get your frenzy charges back. As a two-handed weapon build you don't have the awesome block that shields provide ( staves have a bit block chance but not nearly enough ) to compensate the lack of that defensive mechanic you want to pick up Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics. The ability to dodge 40% of the attacks ( ranged and melee, physical and elemental ) as well as 30% chance to dodge spells is just amazing. Sure you loose armour but you don't have much anyway again due to the the lack of a shield ( high armour shield + X% shield defense passives = large amounts of armour ). On top of that you can dodge your own reflected attacks ( and reflect is already very easy to handle with the Awakening changes to it ... besides the map mod... don't run maps with physical reflect mod ). Based on your weapon type grab the nearby weapon specific passives. Of course you should pick up lots and lots of life and enough damage nodes in order to kill fast enough ( killing with 1-2 hits is important otherwise you can't generate enough frenzy charges to keep flickering ) Pick up the two easy to access frenzy charge nodes. Sustaining Flicker strike on mana is easy once you start using Blasphemy + Poacher's Mark, but if you have some problems before ( or after ) that moment i'd suggest to pick up some mana leech from the Spirit Void and Vitality Void cluster or use a blood magic support gem until you can handle the mana cost. In the passive skill trees below i haven't picked up resistance nodes. That is because everyone has different resistance needs based on their gear. Let me make this clear - you need to... you MUST cap your elemental resistances at all cost! If your gear is not enough to cap your elemental resistances then pick up resistance passives! Sentinel and Diamond skin are awesome resistance nodes and they have even more resistance passives behind them. Again - pick as many as needed to cap your elemental resistances at all cost! You'll also notice that i haven't picked up many jewel sockets. That is because once again it depends on the jewels that you have at your disposal. When you consider grabbing a jewel socket do the math - calculate what you'll get from the jewel and how many passive skill points you have to spend to get that socket, then see if you can get better results if you just spend those points on regular passives. See which option gives you better results and go with it. There are extremely awesome rare jewels, don't be afraid to get sockets for them if it's worth it! Skill tree per 10 points: Axe
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At 10 Skill points
At 20 Skill points At 30 Skill points At 40 Skill points At 50 Skill points At 60 Skill points At 70 Skill points At 80 Skill points At 90 Skill points At 100 Skill points At 110 Skill points Sword
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At 10 Skill points
At 20 Skill points At 30 Skill points At 40 Skill points At 50 Skill points At 60 Skill points At 70 Skill points At 80 Skill points At 90 Skill points At 100 Skill points At 110 Skill points Mace
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At 10 Skill points
At 20 Skill points At 30 Skill points At 40 Skill points At 50 Skill points At 60 Skill points At 70 Skill points At 80 Skill points At 90 Skill points At 100 Skill points At 110 Skill points Staff
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At 10 Skill points
At 20 Skill points At 30 Skill points At 40 Skill points At 50 Skill points At 60 Skill points At 70 Skill points At 80 Skill points At 90 Skill points
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At 100 Skill points At 110 Skill points  When you complete the Labyrinth in Normal you can pick between 3 ascendancy sub-classes of your class. You will get 2 ascendancy points which you can spend in the mini-skill tree of the ascendancy class you've picked for each of the 3 game difficulties and when you complete the end-game labyrinth for a total of 8 ascendancy points. The three Duelist sub-classes are Slayer, Gladiator and Champion I strongly advise you to pick up Slayer Slayer The Slayer sub-class has a big emphasis on two-handed weapons, as well as life leech related passives and melee splash. If you decide to pick the Slayer i'd suggest that you take Impact, Endless Hunger, Bane of Legends and Brutal Fervour OR Headsman (I prefer Brutal Fervour). The Slayer is an excellent ascendancy class for the build and my personal favorite. Impact gives you melee splash and will increase your AoE radius thus it will free you up a socket because you'll no longer need to use the melee splash support gem. Endless Hunger gives you the ability to leech 20% of your overkill damage (i.e a monster has 100 life and you deal 150 damage to it, the 50 damage is your overkill damage in that case thus you will leech 20% of it) be it physical or elemental damage. On top of that your life leech effects will not be removed when you reach full life. Bane of Legends is an insane passive which gives you doubled culling strike effect and you gain Onslaught (20% increased attack, cast and movement speed) for 20 seconds after killing a rare or unique monster. 20 seconds are a lot of time and in reality that means that you’ll have onslaught active almost constantly. Brutal Fervour increases your life leech rates by 10% and doubles your life leech values. It also grants you stun and bleeding immunity while you leech (remember that with Endless Hunger you still “leech” even when you are at full life). Headsman reduces the reflected physical damage that you receive by 50% and it gives you 20% more damage and 20% increased AoE radius if you’ve killed a monster in the past 4 seconds. Take in the following order: Impact > Endless Hunger > Bane of Legends > Brutal Fervour/Headsman Champion The Champion has awesome fortify related passives (including permanent fortify effect), good offensive and defensive capabilities and movement speed increases (also taunt related passive which are not ideal for this build in my opinion ). With Champion I’d suggest that you pick Unstoppable Hero, Fortitude, First to Strike, Last to Fall and Inspirational Unstoppable Hero increases your attack speed, armour, evasion and melee damage while you have the Fortify effect. Fortitude fives you … well … permanent Fortify effect, which frees up a socket in your Flicker Strike gem setup. First to Strike, Last to Fall it significantly increases your damage, armour and evasion while you are not on Low Life (aka pretty much always), it removes any status ailments from you when you reach low life (chilled, frozen, shocked and ignited) and your hits permanently Intimidate (thus increasing the damage you deal to the intimidated enemies by 10%). Inspirational increases the damage and movements speed of you and your allies. Take in the following order: Unstoppable Hero > Fortitude > First to Strike, Last to Fall > Inspirational Gladiator The Gladiator has some cool block passives which can be useful if you are using a staff, it also gives you a mean to generate frenzy charges and some nice damage boosts related to bleeding ... it's not that bad but in my opinion this is the least useful of the three sub-classes when it comes to this build, personally i wouldn't pick that one. If you decide to go with Gladiator though i'd suggest to go for Outmatch and Outlast, Gratuitous Violence and Blood in the Eyes and Painforged. Outmatch and Outlast gives you yet another way to generate frenzy charges it gives you 10% more damage when you are at max frenzy charges and you take reduced physical damage while you are at max endurance charges. Gratuitous Violence gives you 25% chance to cause bleeding with your attacks, you deal increased damage to enemies that are bleeding, and when you kill a bleeding monster it will explode dealing 10% of its life to the monsters around it. Blood in the Eyes gives you yet another 25% chance to cause bleeding, again increases your damage against bleeding enemies, reduces the damage that bleeding monsters deal to you and gives you a chance to slow a monster that’s bleeding. Painforged increases your damage and your block chance if you haven’t been hit recently. This passive isn’t very useful (unless you are using a staff I guess ... but even then it’s not the best thing) but you have to spend your last 2 ascendancy points somewhere. Take in the following order: Outmatch and Outlast > Gratuitous Violence > Blood in the Eyes > Painforged  The Pantheon is a system of divine powers that players can activate for themselves. These powers grant defensive bonuses and become available when players defeat certain gods in Acts 6 through 10. Upgrading a god's power requires consuming a Divine Vessel and any map in the Map Device. Strengthening the Map Boss, killing it allows the retrieval of its Captured Soul from the Map Device. These are used when speaking to Sin to unlock the secondary powers. A player can only have one major and one minor power activated at a time. The bonuses can be freely swapped with no extra cost, as long as the player is in a town. Major Powers Soul of Lunaris - the perfect Major Power for general mapping. It grants Physical Damage Reduction and movement speed based on the enemies around you, and the upgrades give you some chance based defenses. Soul of Solaris - a good option if there is only one enemy around you. You can switch to it, if you feel necessary, right before a though boss fight . Minor Powers Soul of Gruthkul - It gives you 1% up 5% physical damage reduction when you take a hit. Honestly this is the best available Minor power for this build. It's worth mentioning that Soul of Tukohama seems much better but for some reason you loose the buff when you use flicker strike. That is very inconsistent with how flicker strike works with Arctic Armour for example, i'm not sure if it's a bug or if it is intended, but for now Soul of Tukohama is not usable with Flicker Strike.  A good weapon + Life + Resists + some bonus damage that's what you'll need. Weapon - You'll need a high physical damage two handed weapon. The attack speed is less important compared to the raw physical damage. You'll need a weapon with at least 400 Physical DPS. Kaom's Primacy, Hezmana's Bloodlust, Marohi Erqi mace, Kongor's Undying Rage, Kondo's Pride, Kitava's Feast, Uul-Netol's Embrace, Doomsower they are all good and cheaper weapon choices. The best one being Kitava's Feast. Of course the Atziri's Disfavour unique axe is awesome because it has very high DPS but it is much more expensive, and honestly the Kitava's Feast comes very close to the Disfavor. If you decide to stick to the Kitava's Feast i'd strongly suggest to put your flicker strike setup in it for the build-in melee splash. That way you'll be able to get rid of the Slayer's Impact and take Brutal Fervor/ Headsman instead. Body Armour - There are some awesome unique chests. I'd strongly recommend Daresso's Defiance. It has good armour and evasion, it gives life leech and some life and most importantly it gives you an endurance charge on kill, when you take a hit you loose your endurance charges but you get the Onslaught buff which increases your movement, attack and cast speed. Because you kill very fast you'll be at max endurance charges all the time. The Belly of the Beast is also a nice option because it significantly boosts you life. Kaom's Heart is not bad too IF your weapon is 6-linked. In the end even a good rare chest will do the trick though the items mentioned above are superior Helmet Well what you want here is a rare helmet with lots of life and resistances. If it has nice evasion and/or armour - even better ! Boots - The Darkray Vectors unique boots are a great option. They will give you an extra frenzy charge and will boost your dodge chance by 2% per active frenzy charge. They will also increase your movement speed based on your frenzy charges, the downside is that you'll be moving slowly while you have no charges ( i.e. in town or your hideout ). The Blood Dance unique boots are the other possible option - they will give you 0.5% life regeneration ( 1% if you are using the legacy version ) per active frenzy charge and will increase your chance to gain a frenzy charge per kill ( something that used to be a must but that no longer is the case, yet it is still something great ).
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Gloves - Life + Resists + Armour... some physical damage and attack speed would be nice too. That's it! Belt - Rustic Sash with extra Life + Resists + Weapon elemental damage Rings - Resistance rings with life and resistance mods. Having mana leech on one of them ( or on your amulet ) is also a good thing to have ( for example you need mana leech in curse immunity maps .. and it will guarantee that you'll never lack mana ). Things like increased weapon elemental damage and/or flat physical damage are welcomed of course. Amulet - Same as the Rings. Flasks - First of all let me say that in Path of Exile your flasks are EXTREMELY important, they can literally double your damage and in many cases a proper flask setup and management is the difference between life and death ( no that's not an overstatement ). No doubt the Taste of Hate is the best flask that you can get for this build - it increases your damage AND it boosts your survivability greatly. The Atziri's Promise is the second unique flasks that you should definitely have - it increases your damage and it gives you more life leech while boosting your chaos resistance... and it's extremely cheap too! The third unique flask that you want to carry is the Lion's Roar unique granite flask. It gives you a huge damage boost, armour and grants you knockback during it's effect. On top of that when you use it you'll knockback the enemies around you and you'll have a 75% chance to fear them which makes it very nice in dangerous situations. Other than those three i'd suggest that you carry a life flask that removes bleeding and a quicksilver flask with remove freezing. If you can't afford a Taste of Hate use a Basalt flask instead! Jewels Well the ideal rare jewel that you want to use would have the following mods: Prefixes: 16% increased Physical Damage (or 16% increased physical damage with the weapon type that you are using) 7% increased maximum Life Suffixes: 10% increased Damage (or 12% increased Area Damage) 12% increased Melee Damage Of course there are other ok mods like attack speed, attack speed with the type of weapon that you are using, resistances ( if you need them ), attributes ( if you need them ), item rarity etc. I'd say though that your jewels should have at least increased maximum life mod and one damage increasing mod. Enchantments Upon completing the Labyrinth you can enchant your gloves, boots or helmet with a random enchantment. In normal you can enchant only your gloves, in Cruel you can enchant your gloves or your boots and in Merciless you can enchant your gloves, boots or helmet. There are 3 tiers of enchantments - Word, Edict, Decree being the most powerful. It's important to mention that you can re-enchant your gear if you are not happy with the enchant that you've got ( when you complete the Labyrinth again of course ). Gloves Enchantments The Gloves Enchantment are basically offensive trigger skills. Some are triggered when you hit, some - when you kill, some - when you take a hit and some - when you take a critical strike. For a glove enchantment you'll want to have one that is based on X% of your melee damage and not a spell which has X-X damage on it's own. Boots Enchantments The enchantments applied to your boots are buffs triggered by things like taking critical strike recently, killing an enemy recently, if you were hit recently etc. Enchantments such as X% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've Killed Recently; Regenerate X% of Life and Mana per second if you were Hit Recently; X% increased Movement Speed if you haven't been Hit Recently and X% chance to Dodge Spell Damage if you've taken Spell Damage Recently are perfect for you. Helmet Enchantments The helmet enchantments boost the power of the skills you use. There are two usful enchantments that affect flicker strike - one that increases your damage with it and one that increases your damage with it based on the amount of frenzy charges that you have. Either one of those two is great. The 12% increased attack speed from your blood rage is also nice to have.  Kraityn 6% increased Attack and Cast Speed, 3% chance to Dodge Attacks, 6% increased Movement Speed The 3% dodge is quite nice, while the increases to your attack, cast and movement speed are not really that noticeable. Alira 5 Mana Regenerated per second, +20% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier, +15% to all Elemental Resistances Having +15% to all Elemental Resistances is always nice but that's all that Aliara has to offer for this build and that's simply not enough. Oak 1% of Life Regenerated per second, 2% additional Physical Damage Reduction, 20% increased Physical Damage The flat physical damage reduction is very good (after all there aren't many sources of flat physical damage reduction in PoE, fewer in this build) and the damage increase is cool (though not as good as the global crit multiplier from Aliara) Kill all 2 passive skill points Not a bad option though i'd say that it's not the best one. So what should i pick? Oak is your guy in my opinion. Kraytin and killing all are ok options but i prefer Oak for sure.  1. When should i start using flicker strike ? You should start using Flicker strike the moment you can generate enough frenzy charges to sustain the constant use of flicker strike. 2. What skill should i use until i start using flicker strike ? Any AoE attack would do the job. Ground Slam, Sweep, Cleave, Reave you name it! As long as it is an AoE attack it will help you until you start using flicker strike. 3. I have mana problems! What to do ? First of all make sure that you have melee splash either from the melee splash support gem or from the Slayer Ascendancy sub-class. Next make sure that you are using poacher's mark. If after that you still have problems i'd suggest to pick some mana leech passive nodes from the Spirit Void cluster. Alternatively you could use a blood magic support gem until you can handle the mana cost. 4. Is this build hardcore viable ? It is a very tanky build but due to the random nature of flicker strike i'd say play it in Hardcore at your own responsability! 5. Is this build Atziri viable ? Yes it is, just don't forget to switch Flicker Strike with Frenzy for the actual Atziri fight, becuase flicker strike + multistrike + damage reflecting clone of atziri = insta-death. 6. Predictive mode or lockstep mode ? Lockstep for sure ... flicker strike + multistrike produces tons of desync so playing it in predictive is quite challanging, though i've palyed it that way for years even before the desync related improvements. So it is possible with predictive for sure, just a bit annoying from time to time 7. How to deal with Porcupine Goliaths ? The best way to deal with them is CWDT + Immortal call. 8. I'm running out of frenzy charges in though boss fights. What should i do ? Use the frenzy attack to quickly generate some charges then proceed to flicker strike the boss to oblivion ( repeat if needed ) 9. How dangerous is physical/elemental damage reflect ? Elemental reflect be it from a rare monster or from a map mod is easily managable. Physical reflect from rare monsters is a non-issue, the physical map mod though is something that i'd strongly suggest to avoid. 10. Can i play in a party ? The key for this build is to generate enough frenzy charges so that you can flicker strike constantly. That means that you need to kill fast and to actualy be the one that lands the killing blow. Because of taht playing in a party is really not an option ... well ... maybe in a 2 man party if you have enough damage... but that's it. 11. What about Melee Damage on Full life support gem? When you use Blood Rage you can never be on full life, it's just the mechanics of the skill, you can outregen the damage taken by Blood Rage, you can overleech with the Slayer sub-class, you can use flasks but you will never be considered on full life thus making the Melee Damage on Full life support gem unusable. "I'm going to show you pain you never knew existed, you're going to see a whole new spectrum of pain!!!!! Like a RAINBOW!" Last edited by KorgothBG on Aug 13, 2017, 4:50:54 AM
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 My Passive skill tree: My Gear DISCLAIMER: DO NOT LOOK AT THE GEMS IN THE GEAR - for your links read the relevant sections in the guide. Defenses ( solo, with 5 endurance ) ( Fortify is not counted in the defensive screen )
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 Defenses ( solo, with 5 endurance + Vaal Grace ( lvl 17 ) + all flask effects ) ( Fortify is not counted in the defensive screen )
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 Flicker Strike Flicker Strike + Multistrike + Culling strike + Fortify + Faster Attacks + Melee Physical Damage Note that Flicker trike tooltip displays average damage per attack and not damage per second ( DPS ) to get the DPS you need to multiply the average damage per attack by the attacks that you perform per second ( in my case ) .. and of course culling strike is not factored in the tooltip DPS ( but it is awesome ) (solo, Hatred + 6 Frenzy Charges + Blood Rage + leech bonuses from Slayer)(146239 DPS)
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 (solo, Hatred + 6 Frenzy Charges + Blood Rage + leech bonuses from Slayer + Onslaught + Flasks)(300144 DPS)
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  Shrine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS3_jMBvZ5A&feature=youtu.be physical reflect Gorge feat. Abaxoth, The End of All That Is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0l9HpNbVo8&feature=youtu.be Excavation map with -12% max res, no life and mana regen and huge packs of Porcupines on the side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZyoZx4_gHA&feature=youtu.be Village Ruin boss fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOM0rjVDmYg&feature=youtu.be Wasteland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czh0B6d3xn8&feature=youtu.be Apex of Sacrifice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGp9eTZfX0U&feature=youtu.be Labyrinth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61w1mhc3uTU&feature=youtu.be Arid lake map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zvI0rMpR6g Shipyard map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgXsitqMeaY&feature=youtu.be 2 white Gorge map runs - one with Headhunter, one without for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUkrixncmHI&feature=youtu.be All of the videos below here are old ( some are very old ).
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A video of Arid Lake map (level 76) (ver. 2.0.0)
A video made by SpinntoLose - he's level 63 and he's showing some action in the Ancient Pyramid Merciless. A video made by Ihmemies2 - he's level 67 and he's doing a Mountain Ledge Map A video made by me. I'm clearing a Cells map(level 73) with the following mods: 18% phyisical reflect -21% max resistances +31 movement; attack; cast speed +100% extra cold damage Another video made by me. Waste Pool(level 72) with 50% less regenration; extra speed; cannot be stunned.. and.. i don't remember the others Necropolis(level 75) with Elemental Weakness; Extra lightning Damage(98%); Extra Life; Extra monster speed Academy(76 level) with +26% cast/movement/attack speed; totems; 75% light resist; Warlord's Mark Platou(75 level) with +26% more damage; 2 bosees; 4 more projectiles; totems Map Dominus Fight! +25% extra monster damage; -17% maximum resistances; + Enfeeble Ok here is my twitch channel. I'll try to make some videos. Feel free to check them out!  "How to Smash Heads. Ancestral Warchief Facebreaker edition." https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1962832/page/1 "How to Flicker. Terminus Est Edition!" https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1859077/page/1#p14293430 Non-guide threads "Results from map farming ( currency drops )" https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1581803 Old stuff ( most likely non-relevant now )
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"How to Farm Piety. Guide for a Melee IIR/IIQ Runner." http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/769276/page/1/#p6668082 "How to Smash Heads.Guide for a CI Facebreaker Witch with Infernal blow" http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/606841 "How to kill without doing anything. Guide for an AFK PvP witch build." http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/721568/page/3 "Farming Masters - a thread about the popular farming places!" http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1046339 "How to know which item is Valuable. Detailed item guide." http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/797699 "All-round Newbie Guide! By KorgothBG." http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/590251 "How to Flicker. Guide for a Flicker Strike build using a dagger and a shield." http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/502321  Like this guide? I've helped you out somehow? You like my account name(that's how i've got my closed beta key)? You want to make me happy? You just feel generous? Donate a buck or two. It would be greatly appreciated! I will use the donated money to support GGG, because they deserve it! :) CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE Donations spent so far: $85 for 750 points Donators: Krasimir Ganchev - €20.00 eGPU project foundation - €10.00 Andrew Poquette - €10.00 Iuliana Bojinovska - $10.00 Stan Hervieu - €5.00 Richard Burnham - €5.00 David - €5.00 Thomas Elliott - €5.00 Marc Myers - €3.00 Philip Lee - €4.00 Charles Ang - €2.00 Leon Overmeyer - €1.00 "I'm going to show you pain you never knew existed, you're going to see a whole new spectrum of pain!!!!! Like a RAINBOW!" Last edited by KorgothBG on Aug 17, 2017, 3:23:17 PM
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HP regen enough to cover blood rage + blood magic?
Might be worth trying to BM flicker on my own character, though I suspect all I'll get for it is a suicide. How to make a build: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/510084
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Well i lose 3.8% life from the blood rage(i have 2% chaos resis) but my regen is 9.5%(3.5% from the skill tree and 6% from the Blood Dance Boots) and don't forget the 10% life leech. I actualy never notice any life loss at all when i cast.
"I'm going to show you pain you never knew existed, you're going to see a whole new spectrum of pain!!!!! Like a RAINBOW!" Last edited by KorgothBG on Sep 25, 2013, 4:10:54 AM
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And an new awesome Guide gonna try this free push!
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Added skill tree per 10 points and for the different types of two handed weapons.
"I'm going to show you pain you never knew existed, you're going to see a whole new spectrum of pain!!!!! Like a RAINBOW!"
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Added helpful items for low levels
"I'm going to show you pain you never knew existed, you're going to see a whole new spectrum of pain!!!!! Like a RAINBOW!"
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Why no vaal pact this time around? This has worse reflect than the dagger build, because when you dont crit you are doing 4x the raw physical dmg of the other build, and the crit dagger build of yours does the same dmg on crits as this does with RT
Also Not running Grace and Iron Reflexes? A.4 Yes i don't. You wont get alot of armour from it(escpecialy now with the nerf of the Iron Reflexes) Besides you'll have to spend extra passive skill points just to get the IR and you can use them better. Besides the Grace Aura will Boost you're chance to evade by alot and you'll end up with around 30% chance to avade at level 80. You do get a lot of armor with IR and determination, and the nerf to IR for most builds like yours with 150dex for gems requirements was absolutely nothing. Low armor, no US, and no endurance charges without any block ... I wouldnt attempt high level maps with this one. | |
" 1st - lests talk about the damage. The damage is not the same as the crit dagger build. When you crit with the dagger build you'll do 5116.95 physical damage per hit and per target(if you hit for the max damage) with this build you'll hit for 3107 physical damage(if you hit for the max damage) Don't tell me that a difference of 2010 damage is nothing. I really don't see how the damage is "the same". I'm yet to kill myself with just one hit with this build. With the dagger flicker strike crit build i've onehitted myself 7 times. Yes the physical reflect still is a problem but here it is manageable with a simple granite flask. And with no vaal pact i don't constantly loose life due to the Blood Rage even with 75% chaos resist. That and the life regen makes it easier and safer for you to survive when you are not killing physical reflecting enemies(as for them i've just explained). 2nd - Iron Reflexes Yes the favourite kid. The champion of champions. The master of defenses. The savior of lives(and builds). THe lord of the... you've got the idea. Now lets see some numbers. Grace with Iron Reflexes will give you around 3000 armour and thats around 18% estemated physical damage reduction. Yes, yes we all know that you can't trust the estemated physical damage reduction because it depends on how hard your enemie will hit you and blah blah blah. Yes we know that. So 18% is coold and all indeed. But to get that 18% you'll need to waste 4 passive skill points and 31% chance to evade. Sure the chance to evade is once again estemated but lets just say that you'll evade every 4th hit that you would take. Every 4th hit would deal to you 0 damage. So is 31% chance to evade and 4 extra skill points worth the 18% estemated physical damage reduction? For me? No it's not. For you? Maybe, after all it's up to you. You are fre to take it if you want to. 3th - The dexterity Come on ... are you even trying to read what's in this thread? The dex for just the tree is 160 but with the items is 259. And thats 51.8% evasion. 4th - Low armor, no US, and no endurance charges without any block ... I wouldnt attempt high level maps with this one Let's start with the Endurance charges... again are you even trying to read? Just read Q.2. I'm starting to think that you are just trying to be aggresive and mean... and that my friend is not cool(not reading is not cool too ;) ) No US? Oh no! Blasphemy! But before you try to burn me at the stake let me tell you this. I've never been stunned. Never! Not even once! No block? Well i must say that i do love to block... but with a two-handed weapon(except for staves ofcourse) it's just impossible. Low armour. Yes it is kind of low but let me tell you that - it is enough. Actualy you will take almost no hits at all! Thats the nature of the flicker strike you'll flicker/kill before gettting hit! The only real problem is the reflect and thats... *drums*.... manageable! You wouldn't attempt high level maps with this build? Well... it's up to you really. I've been doing maps up to level 76.. but if you say that i can't... well i guess i've been having...hallucinations? In the end i want to tell you this - it's up to you to try this build or not. It's your right to like it or hate it. But please try to read more carefuly. Reading is good for your. The written language is your friend! ;) "I'm going to show you pain you never knew existed, you're going to see a whole new spectrum of pain!!!!! Like a RAINBOW!" Last edited by KorgothBG on Sep 28, 2013, 5:19:18 PM
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