'Budget' Oni Flicker/Flurry (2m+ shaper dps, insane clearspeed)

Char is Wuboni if you want to import

Pastebin:
https://pastebin.com/z1tf71dy





Flicker is against trash, because it shouldn't really ever be used against bosses anwyway, lack of positioning just isn't worth trying to scale it further. With Flurry + pen enchant you can hit 2.2m shaper dps. Higher with improved jewels, multi from leveling up, etc etc.

Why Oni?
Oni-Goroshi is a great budget sword. An endgame 6L for under an exalt is fantastic, especially since it is a weapon you can swap to a single target version by just purchasing a second one.
Honestly, Oni transcends just being a budget weapon because of this, no one wants to buy two disfavours for their build. Throw in the fact that its a 1h sword (gives access to the best array of skills in the game, adding blade flurry/reave to the standard molten strike/frost blades/wild strike which are very solid right now.

Why Ascendant?
I originally went ascendant as I was unsure of the best class to use Oni. Raider, ascendant, slayer, and juggernaut all seemed very strong. After playing ascendant for a while, I definitely prefer it, though, the leech from slayer provides sustain and extra survivability, while the assassin node grants crit, power charge, and access to essentially all the good crit on the tree. Especially given the free frenzies from the flicker setup we run, ascendant is ideal.

Why Flicker/Blade Flurry?
Blade flurry is fantastic single target, competing only with molten strike and spectral throw. Flurry gets lion's roar, abyssus, and disembowling nodes in the tree since it benefits from melee scaling,
whereas molten strike/spectral throw benefit from point blank and projectile nodes. Flicker is the best its ever been with consistent frenzies on hit and ancestral call; it was already a very fast skill, now it's a rocket ship. (Also Oni has no local attack speed roll, and as such isn't great for movement skills. Whirling blades is bearable but only just, With flicker you get to go super fast without that brightbeak)

I'll briefly cover each skill I think is an alternative later, but in short, flicker/flurry is the optimal intersection of high clearspeed and single target, with both benefiting from melee damage scaling and not requiring specific jewels.

How do you survive the reflected bleeds?
If you're dying to bleeds from the golden rule, make sure you convert more of your phys damage to ele. I'm currently at 80%
conversion from the watchers eye + cold nodes on the tree, and can easily sustain with leech.
Other options if you don't have watchers eye or the skill points include hrimsorrow/hrimburn and phys to lightning support.

Why no videos?
If there's demand I could easily record something, but it'll just be the standard screen-seizure flicker and flurry boss deletion. Let me know if there is interest though.

flasks aren't ideal, just stopped at perfect chemist/ample rolls. No idea what I want on the life flask honestly.

And yeah, jewels are a mess right now too.

http://poeurl.com/bISD

Rush the mana/life leech wheel and then the ranger sword crit area.

For Ascendancies, go assassin first, then Path of the Shadow before uber lab if you don't mind potting through the degen.

Notes on Tree

Main weapon of the build, without it you lose the weaponswap 6L option. Buy two.



Grants life, frenzy on hit, and 40% MS while bleeding. Required for flicker.

If not using flicker, an alternative would be rares with life + resist, or kaom's roots. Attack speed enchant for clearing, ele pen if you haven't killed recently for single target:




Cheap, 1c item that gives 10% increased damage *taken* which is essentially a 10% more multiplier. 10% IAS, 1-2 sockets with 6% increased max life, great for damage and survivability. Ele weakness on hit would be a nice luxury upgrade, though it only really helps mapping which isn't necessary at all.



I'm not sure its 100% needed, but it helps avoid dying to bleeds, and works very well with belly of the beast if you have it. Yoke of suffering or a rare would probably be the best damage option (there are %chance to poison nodes on the tree near thick skin you can take for all 5 ailments, and shock would boost damage substantially as well. Additional frenzy is very nice to have.


Here's where things get a bit harder to get, there aren't many anger conversion watcher's eyes available. In my opinion for Oni, you need this jewel. Free 40% conversion scales fire pen for single target, and weapon ele on both skills. You could run hatred or wrath conversion, but lose out on the dps from fire pen on blade flurry which is pretty important for bossing.

Vitality recovery rate is extremely good with vaal pact and akraali.



Get one accuracy roll somewhere.

Deeps.


Works well with bloodgrip. Alternatives are all over the place, depending on what you want. Carcass jack for damage + aoe (or inpulsa's if you have a way of shocking), Kaom's Heart for high health pool, Cloak of Flame/lightning coil if you run the appropriate purity and want help with abyssus/dot mitigation, Perfect Form for spell dodge and good defensive stats, Yriel's fostering dps. List goes on and on, you can run whatever you like here. Not needing the chest linked lets you do all sorts of experimentation without spending too much money.



Multi on jewels is great, but despite paying multiple ex for a 3x multi roll jewel I was dissappointed to find it barely beat out my 1c ones I already had in the tree. Look for specific (sword/one-hand)
damage/attack speed rolls as they're higher than the generic ones. Life would be great but expensive, and should definitely be on there.

For abyss jewels in tombfist/belt, go for life, multi, attack speed on crit.

Flicker - Multistrike - Ancestral Call - Melee Splash - Melee Phys - Weapon Ele

(weaponswap) - Blade Flurry - Melee Phys - Weapon Ele - Conc Effect - Fire Pen - Maim

Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Fortify - Blood Magic
Leap Slam - Faster Attacks (can be merged with above if you drop blood magic)

Anger - Vitality/Purity of Fire/Herald of Ash/Herald of Ice - Enlighten
Here use Vitality or purity of fire if you have the appropriate watcher's eye.

Ancestral Warchief

Cast When Damage Taken - Blood rage - Increased Duration - Immortal Call

Soul of Akraali + Soul of Abberath
Akraali is extremely important (you need to capture the first god after akraali for the recovery bonus) as it scales your leech beyond the cap whenever immortal call triggers (stopping the dot from bleed/blood rage). Abberath is just the next best option to mitigate damage from Oni burn.

Alira is probably best, otherwise go for passive points.

Wildstrike + Molten
My character started here. Wild strike is top tier for clearing, probably my favorite skill to use with ancestral call, and molten melts bosses. The only downsides are that you need to get a dying sun, and two wildfire jewels. I'd recommend the wild strike enchant over the molten enchant though, as you don't really need more boss dps and it increases clearspeed.


Reave
Fits in well with abyssus + disembowling nodes, great aoe with vaal reave. Didn't love the playstyle in the end and felt it forced me into specific maps to get the best clear.

Frost blades
Another top tier clearer with ancestral call. comes with free conversion which is awesome, and works with either molten and its scaling or blade flurry and melee node scaling. I ended up not using this in the end as I've done fb to death, but you could easily run it and its probably great.

Spectral Throw
The other single target king, but it only needs one 6L so I don't think you would need Oni to run this, or at least not need a second one. Just swap gmp-slower proj. Deceleration enchant is supposed to be the best option.

Uber Lab
Respec out of vaal pact while you're running lab, and take a stibnite flask for argus/izaro. Probably want more health pots as well, you can afford to drop some damage.

Map Mods
Mods to avoid would be red tier bleed avoidance and elemental reflect. Phys reflect shouldn't be too bad.

On Overdoing Conversion
Be careful! If you go over 100% conversion you no longer can inflict bleed which stops flicker

Ele Focus
Obviously the blocks the buff from her embrace, but would be a nice dps gem. If you feel like doing some clunky sort of ignite method I guess go for it?

Flicker Mana Cost
Sucks. Not sure what to do here tbh.