[3.6] Infinite Blazing Flicker Strike Slayer – Stun/Freeze Immunity [BUDGET] The TRUE Flicker Build
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Introduction
 _______ Updates 1/17/19 – Posted up the character build guide. 1/18/19 - Updated the skill tree to optimize for slightly more life. 1/30/19 - Uploaded another gameplay video on user's request for T14 Dark Forest. 1/30/19 - Updated Flicker Strike's main gem setup. Removed Ruthless for Damage on Full Life Support. [UPDATE LOG] - In 3.6, there are some changes that affect the build slightly. Leech has changed slightly but over-leech is still broken regardless. We can remedy this problem a bit more with getting more life, which we already have a crap ton of and especially so if you use Kaom's Heart. Do not be too discouraged. The build still works as intended even with this nerf. The build still remains dumb cheap and we have one of the best if not best and reliable ways to generate Frenzy charges and sustain. Skilltrees were updated. The western part of the skilltree was slightly modified since of the new Divine wheel. This actually lets us save some skill points and allows us to grab two other life nodes which have been updated accordingly. _______ This will be my fifth guide that I have created and officially posted on the forums. This build is going to utilize my favorite skill gem in the game, Flicker Strike. My last guide I just finished was my Arctic CoC Hipster Assassin, and I wanted to give my favorite skill in the game some love again. This build uses a Duelist/Slayer for some solid survivability and DPS boosts with two handed weapons. Grab a snack and your reading glasses and enjoy the Flicker Strike ride. Flicker Strike has always been my favorite skill in the whole game. My first guide that I posted here on the forums was actually a Flicker Strike build. It was my 5-Aura Flicker Strike build that used a Shadow/Trickster. That build was a bit on the more “unrealistic” side just because I wanted to be able to use 5 auras/heralds/aspects in any combination at the same time. The Flicker Strike build this time is focused more so for actual end-game content and mapping. Now, Flicker Strike is quite an interesting skill. It is a movement melee attack skill which teleports your character to a nearby monster and attacks. The problem with this skill is that there is a 2 second cooldown every time you use it. To bypass this cooldown, you can expend a Frenzy Charge so you can use it again right away. Problem is, sometimes sustaining Frenzy Charges and generating Frenzy Charges can be a bit of a challenge. There are a few ways to generate/sustain Frenzy Charges, and honestly, I would not say one way is superior to another, but it really depends on your build and the way you want to play the build. This leads me to mentioning one of the biggest weaknesses of Flicker Strike builds: Frenzy Charges. With the nature of Flicker Strike, the dream scenario is to be able to Flicker Strike an infinite amount of time without worrying about the generation of Frenzy Charges. A lot of Flicker Strike builds suffer from generating/sustaining Frenzy Charges to ignore the cooldown. Two other main weaknesses with Flicker Strike builds would be getting stunned and becoming frozen. These two ailments hurt Flicker Strike builds and can cause you to easily die if you get inflicted with one of these ailments. So, the three main weaknesses of a Flicker Strike build is generating/sustaining Frenzy Charges, getting stunned and getting frozen. This build eliminates all of these problems by having one of the most reliable ways to generate/sustain Frenzy Charges and being immune to stun/freeze. Eliminating these three weaknesses makes a Flicker Strike build truly viable. Though this is the case, Flicker Strike is still not recommended for some content in the game, but with patience and perseverance, it can be done. I took this build in a budget direction so you can easily do this build on a budget. The build only has two required uniques, one being Oro’s Sacrifice and the other being Dream Fragments. Oro’s Sacrifice is our main method of generating and sustaining Frenzy Charges. Whenever we ignite an enemy, we gain a Frenzy Charge. By making sure we have a high ignite chance, we can guarantee that every time we Flicker Strike, we gain a Frenzy Charge. This makes it so we can use Flicker Strike infinitely. The other required unique for the build is Dream Fragments. This unique ring gives us chill/freeze immunity. As you remember, becoming frozen is one of the major weaknesses with a Flicker Strike build. This ring makes sure that we never become chilled or frozen, ensuring that there is no way we can be interrupted as we infinitely Flicker Strike our enemies until they die. Oro’s Sacrifice is easily one of the most reliable ways to generate and sustain Frenzy Charges. The thing is, most other Flicker Strike builds that use Oro’s Sacrifice also rely on other expensive items like Xoph’s Heart, Xoph’s Blood, The Taming and the like. Going the budget route, I am going to want to shy away from these items and just focus on rare gear and self-crafted gear as much as I can. We utilize this build on a Duelist/Slayer which offers us some strong survivability tools which is important for a Flicker Strike build. Long story short, we are a Duelist/Slayer utilizing Flicker Strike and having the ability to counter Flicker Strike’s three biggest weaknesses: Frenzy Charge generation/sustain, getting frozen and getting stunned. By using the two required unique items and grabbing the Slayer’s Overwhelm passive to have stun immunity, we cover the three major weaknesses in a Flicker Strike build. Alongside the Slayer’s passive nodes and Vaal Pact, we have incredible survivability and able to face-tank Flicker Strike all content. Pros & Cons + INSANE clearspeed + Vaal Pact+Brutal Fervour (overleech) is broken + Tankiness (survivability from Slayer’s passives and Vaal Pact keep us healthy and surviving) + Extremely budget friendly (only uses two required uniques which cost less than a chaos each) + 100% hit chance without Lycosidae (by taking Resolute Technique) + Can do all content in the game (some content may be more difficult just because of the nature of Flicker Strike and because we only deal elemental damage) + Able to face-tank with Flicker Strike until all our enemies are dead + Permanent stun/chill/freeze immunity + Reliable Frenzy Charge generation and sustain (Flicker Strike forever!) + 6K+ life by grabbing life on gear and following the skill tree + 90%+ ignite chance to ensure we generate Frenzy Charges every time we Flicker Strike (possibly 100% if you get chance to ignite on jewels) - NOT a league starter but possible (reason being is because Oro’s Sacrifice is a required item for the build which can only be used at level 67) - Melee build so we need to stay close to enemies - Cannot run no leech/elemental reflect map mods (some other map mods can be a bit annoying but still possible) - Terrible for delves (it is possible, but an extreme headache since Flicker Strike can put you in places you do not want such as behind a wall where the darkness will just wreck you) - Screen seizures (some people cannot handle the screen shaking with the nature of Flicker Strike being as fast as it is) Requirements Required Attributes
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Strength: 155 (191 if you use Kaom’s Heart) Dexterity: 155 Intelligence: 111 These are based off of if you are using level 20 gems. Do note, if you use skill gems over level 20, these requirements could slightly change and increase. This is more so for the min/maxing and players who have currency to use for level 21 gems and 20+ quality gems. Required Items/Uniques
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Needed so we have a reliable way to generate and sustain our Frenzy Charges. Needed so we have immunity to chill and freeze so we can use Flicker Strike without being interrupted. Optional/Recommended Uniques and Items
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Although this build can just be done with the two required uniques and I said that this was going to be done a budget, I would still recommend Kaom’s Heart even though it is a bit more expensive. We do not need two 6 link setups for this build, so this means we want to get as much life on our build as we can. Kaom’s Heart does this for us but not just that, but the increased fire damage from the body armor is also beneficial to us. Reason being is because we are only dealing fire damage because of Oro’s Sacrifice. So like I said, it is a bit more expensive, but if you can get a Kaom’s Heart, you will easily break 6K+ life earlier on for the build if you just follow the tree and grab life on your gear. This will help your survivability by a ton. If you cannot get a Kaom’s Heart, just getting as much life on your body armor will still suffice. Alternatives?
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This build only requires two uniques. Because of this, there is a lot of flexibility in your build. The two required items are less than a chaos each as well so there isn’t really any need for an alternative for the build. As long as you use the two required uniques, just grabbing life+resists on your gear is more than enough for the build. This is what makes the build so effective because the build can be done on such a low budget with mostly rares. You have the choice to use other uniques if you want though. I know there are other unique items that will boost up this build a lot and are common unique items along with Oro’s Sacrifice such as Xoph’s Blood, Xoph’s Heart, The Taming… You get the picture. If you have the currency to get them, then they will easily boost up your damage, but just using rare gear alongside Oro’s Sacrifice and Dream Fragments will be more than enough. It is on your budget and on your choice. Build Budget This section will let you know how much the required items of the build costs. This can give people an idea on how much currency is needed for the required uniques/items/gear, and to see if you have the amount of currency to purchase the core parts. This is more so for the unique items and required items. The prices can obviously fluctuate, but I am going to use the prices that they were currently at, at this specific time of the league when I found or bought them.
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You can get Oro’s Sacrifice for a chaos or less. You can get Dream Fragments for 2 chaos or less. As you can see, this build is extremely cheap as it only requires two uniques. Everything else can be done with rare gear which makes this build extremely budget for what it can offer. Gear This section is what I am currently using for my build. This build only requires two uniques to have it run optimally. My gear will most likely differ from yours because most of the items are just rare items, but as long as you just focus on grabbing life+resists on all of your gear, you should be able to easily break 6K+ life and the build will run like butter. My Current Gear
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Main Hand/Weapon Slot #1
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The main weapon for our build and the first required unique to make the build run. Oro’s Sacrifice is a unique two handed sword that works perfect in our build. Reason being is because whenever we ignite an enemy, we gain a Frenzy Charge. By making sure we get a lot of ignite chance on our build, we can basically guarantee a Frenzy Charge every time we use Flicker Strike and ignite our enemies. Ever since using Oro’s Sacrifice, I have never once ran out of Frenzy Charges so I can guarantee you with our setup you will be good to Flicker Strike forever. Oro’s Sacrifice already gives us a 20% chance to ignite as well so that helps us. This unique also gives us culling strike which is also a helpful for downing bosses or enemies when they hit 10% life or less. As you can see, there is a lot of benefits that this sword grants us, but because of this, there are two minor setbacks as well to balance it out. We take an additional 10% damage for physical and fire damage. Luckily for us, we are using a Duelist/Slayer so Vaal Pact and our overleech covers this weakness pretty well. This is why it is also recommended that you use Kaom’s Heart so you can have even more life in case you get one-shot or anything of that sort. I haven’t been one-shotted yet so I can say it rarely if never happens as long as you have enough life. Body Armor Slot
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This is the body armor that I am currently using for this build. For this build, we do not need to utilize a second 6 link setup. Because of this, we can focus on grabbing as much life as we can on our body armor. The body armor with the highest amount of flat life in the game is obviously Kaom’s Heart which is what I would recommend you use if you have it or have the currency to trade for it. This easily pushes our life past 6K with little investment and especially so if you just follow the skill tree. The other benefit of this body armor is that it also gives us increased fire damage which also helps us since we use Oro’s Sacrifice which is all fire damage. This body armor is really giving us everything that we are looking for in our build. The increased armor gives us a good chunk of physical damage reduction too. If you cannot get a Kaom’s Heart, just get a rare body armor that has as much life+resists on it as you can. You do not need to worry about the links or sockets either since we only use one 6 link setup. A rare body armor with life+resists will suffice here. I was actually just using an astral plate with as much life as I could get on it until I was able to save up to buy a Kaom’s Heart. Helmet Slot
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As this build is not heavily reliant on unique items, you can pretty much just use rare gear for all of your other equipment. This is just a basic rare helmet with a good life roll plus resists. Nothing too fancy. I had to run a few labs to get the Flicker Strike enchant, but the per Frenzy Charge helmet mod is a lot better than the flat 40% Flicker Strike damage. Reason being is because we have more than the normal 3 Frenzy Charges so simple math is 9x5=45% increased Flicker Strike damage. We have good Frenzy Charge uptime as well so we are usually getting the max damage from our Flicker Strike. Life+resists with the Flicker Strike helmet enchant is probably the best in slot item you can get. You can still run it without the helmet enchant, but it is just for some extra quality of life and really gives Flicker Strike much more a punch. Gloves Slot
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Just some random gloves that I randomly crafted. We got some decent flat life on it along with some increased attack speed which gives us some more damage. Nothing too fancy here. I already had a lot of my resistances capped so I tried to get some chaos resistance on random pieces of my gear for some quality of life. Life+resists is all you need here. These have gotten me by for all the content so far. Boots Slot
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Another random piece of gear that I crafted. I already hit life on these boots so I just crafted the increased armor/maximum life mod to give us some more life and armor. Nothing too special here either. Just get as much resists and life as you can on your rare gear and you are good to go. Chaos resistance is just quality of life. Capping your resistances should be really easy since we are using mostly rare gear. Belt Slot
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Pretty standard Stygian Vise here. I just fossil crafted it and hit a pretty decent roll after 5 or 6 attempts. It gives us solid flat life and a good amount of total resistances. With an abyss jewel socketed into it, getting 110+ flat life becomes easy. I got lucky on the increased elemental damage roll, but hey, I will take it. Just get any life+resist belt or a Stygian Vise and you will be set to go. The more life you can get, the better, obviously. Ring #1 Slot
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The second required unique of the build and honestly one of the items that gets rid of one of our huge weaknesses: Dream Fragments. This unique ring makes it so we cannot be inflicted with chill and freeze. This gives us immunity to both of these ailments because of it. For a Flicker Strike build, getting interrupted which prevents us from flickering is one of the biggest reasons why you get killed. Getting stunned along with running out of Frenzy Charges are the other two ways to stop us from flickering. By using Dream Fragments, we gain immunity to chill/freeze which ensures we have no way to be interrupted from using Flicker Strike until our enemies die. We also take Overwhelm from the Slayer’s passive to become stun immune. Being stun immune also ensures that we do not become stunned while we use Flicker Strike, which is another huge weakness of a Flicker Strike build. So when you pair Overwhelm with Dream Fragments, we have no way of being interrupted while we Flicker Strike. The only way here would be if we run out of Frenzy Charges but with the nature of this build, this will rarely happen if never. Since I have been using this build, I have not stopped flickering once yet. Ring #2 Slot
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This is your standard rare ring. We just get life+resists and we are set for this ring. Try to get as much life as you can as usual, but prioritize in capping your resistances first. Any extra mods on the ring are just quality of life. This is the ring I have been using since then and it has carried me through the content just fine. Amulet Slot
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The current amulet that I am using the build. I could get more life on the amulet, but I just kept using it because it capped the rest of my resistances and also had some decent chaos resistance on it for some quality of life. I just crafted the increased elemental damage for some extra DPS. We obviously use Resolute Technique to get 100% hit rate, so we do not bother with critical strike chance or critical strike multiplier. I will most likely be upgrading this amulet for one with more life, but this one has been getting me by just fine as of right now. Life+resists as usual. Jewels
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Here are some jewels that I crafted myself for this build. In general, I usually just alt spam and self-craft my gear. It is kind of annoying finding the specific kind of jewel you want and sometimes they can get really pricey, which is why I would rather do them myself. Prioritize in getting your life rolls first, and then increased fire damage. If you want to cap off your ignite chance, try to get some jewels that have change to ignite on them as well. With our current setup, if you get chance to ignite on some of your jewels, you can easily cap your ignite chance to 100%. Obviously on Hexproof enemies and bosses your ignite chance is going to dip a slight bit because we get about 10-14% chance to ignite from our Flammability curse. Even with that, we are still sitting at 80% or more of chance to ignite which is more than enough for us to sustain our Flicker Strike/Frenzy Charges. If you are missing any other attributes or resistances, your jewels will also be a great spot to get them. The jewel sockets just offer us a lot of extra customization so use them as you please. This is what you should prioritize your jewels in: life > resists/attributes (if you need them) > increased fire damage/increased melee damage > attack speed. If you can get ignite chance on any of your jewels then that is just a bonus. Flasks
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This is the current flask setup I use for this build. Atziri’s Promise is pretty standard for some extra DPS and leech. The Wise Oak is obviously good in offering us some fire penetration as long as our fire resistances are the highest capped resistance. This is quite easy with this build. Just make sure you have your fire resistance as your highest capped resistance and you will always get the bonus from The Wise Oak. The other 3 flasks are really just for utility and some extra damage boost. As long as you have a Silver Flask and a Sulphur Flask, you will be getting the most damage you can get for your flasks. For your flasks, I personally think immune to shock, curses and ignites are the best mods you can get on your magic flasks. We already have chill/freeze immunity from Dream Fragments so that opens one of our flask slots. We are also already immune to bleed by being a Slayer. I would just suggest that if you do get a Dousing flask to get rid of ignites/burns, get it on a life flask as it is a lot more effective. Sometimes ignite can do some scary damage and while getting rid of the ignite/burn is good, getting some life back from curing the actual burn damage makes it a whole lot better. Though we are pretty tanky and overleech helps us a lot in that department, there is nothing wrong with being on the safer side. Just take these small tips with your flask setup and you should be good to go. Skill Gems This is the current skill gem setups that I use. One thing to note is that this build only utilizes one 6 link setup. Because of this, I would suggest you socket your main Flicker Strike setup in your Oro’s Sacrifice. Because we only utilize one 6 link setup, this makes Kaom’s Heart a great choice for the body armor. If you do not have Kaom’s Heart and would rather use another body armor that has life+resists on it, then you can create a 4-6 link Ancestral Warchief setup instead. This will net you more damage, but this is only if you do not use Kaom’s Heart for your body armor slot where you will have no sockets. Otherwise, just follow the other links as is unless you are in the situation that I listed above. The gems are prioritized in each of the skill gem setups so you know what gems to get first and to prioritize.
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6 Link - Main Attack – Flicker Strike Setup
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Flicker Strike > Multistrike Support > Combustion Support > Immolate Support > Elemental Damge with Attacks Support > Damage on Full Life Support This is your Flicker Strike setup which should be socketed into your Oro’s Sacrifice. As mentioned from before, these skill gems are ordered in the priority that you should use the setup in. If you are using a 4 link, use the first 4 gems, with a 5 link, use the first 5 gems and so on. You can run this with a 4 link and still get by pretty well since the first 4 skill gems are the core of the actual Flicker Strike setup. Combustion Support is prioritized before Immolate Support because Combustion Support gives us not just more damage, but also the extra 49% chance to ignite which is key for sustaining and generating our Frenzy Charges. As long as you use these 4 gems, the build should run fine until you can get a 5 link or a 6 link. The 2 other links do make a huge difference though so if you can get them, I would highly suggest you do. If anything, you can just run the setup in a Tabula Rasa until you can get your Oro’s Sacrifice 5 or 6 linked to get the full damage. 4 Link – Aura/Curse – Aura/Curse Setup
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Blasphemy Support > Flammability > Anger > Vaal Haste This is your curse/aura setup. We are really just utilizing this setup to get more damage, but also getting us some extra chance to ignite. Because of Flammability, we get an additional 14% chance of ignite which can cap our ignite chance if we also get some jewels that have chance to ignite. For my setup, I have two gems that give me 3-4% chance to ignite so by following the skill tree and just having these gems and Oro’s Sacrifice, we can get it to 100% ignite chance. Vaal Haste is just here for some extra damage. Pop it during a boss fight to get a boost in DPS. You can also use it while mapping since it refills up pretty quick, but make sure you have it charged up and ready to use for a boss fight. Obviously we are not using the regular Haste so do not activate it. We will not have enough mana to reserve it. The Vaal version of the skill is the only reason why we use it. 3 Link – CWDT/Utility – Cast when Damaged Taken/Utility Setup
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Unavailable Cast when Damage Taken Support (level 2) > Blood Rage (level 8) > Immortal Call (level 4) > Ancestral Protector The standard CWDT setup but with Blood Rage. The main reason why we have Blood Rage linked along with our CWDT setup is because we utilize the Pantheon Major God: Soul of Arakaali. The other soul you capture under Arakaali is Queen of the Great Tangle (Jungle Valley Map – Tier 6) which gives us 50% increased recovery rate if we stop taking damage over time. Blood Rage gets cast because of Cast when Damage Taken Support, and then Immortal Call gets cast which stops the life degen from Blood Rage. This means we get the captured soul buff which increases our recovery of life and energy shield by 50%. This makes us survive a whole lot more and makes use of Slayer’s overleech for some huge survivability and tankiness. Keep the level of the gems as listed to make sure we get frequent CWDT activations and to make sure the other skills pop when CWDT goes off. Ancestral Protector technically does not need to be linked to the setup. Keep leveling Ancestral Protector’s gem level. We just socket the gem in this setup just so we can use Ancestral Protector to boost our DPS during a fight. The only real time you need to use Ancestral Protector is during a boss fight. Just drop the totem before you engage the boss and then proceed to Flicker Strike your enemies to oblivion. 4 Link – Movement – Movement/Utility Setup
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Leap Slam > Faster Attacks Support > Blood Magic Support > Summon Flame Golem Leap Slam is our main movement skill we use for our build other than running around. We need to make sure we use Blood Magic Support in our setup so we can keep using Leap Slam without worrying about our low mana pool. Blood Magic Support makes it so our skills in the current link use life instead of mana. With our mana pool so small because of mana reservations from our auras, we need to make sure we use Blood Magic Support instead to cast these skills/spells. Summon Flame Golem is just there for some extra damage for our Flicker Strike. Just make sure you have your flame golem up as much as you can and definitely before a boss fight to ensure maximum damage from the get go. With overleech, you should not have to worry about spamming Leap Slam to move around the map. You are usually going to be healing yourself over and over because of all of the leech from your overleech with the Slayer’s passives. 4-6 Link – Optional Vaal Ancestral Warchief – Vaal Ancestral Warchief Setup
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Unavailable Vaal Ancestral Warchief > Elemental Damge with Attacks > Concentrated Effect > Blind > Elemental Focus > Immolate This setup is completely optional and not required for the build. As mentioned earlier in the gem section, if you use Kaom’s Heart, you are not going to be able to utilize this setup. Reason being is because Kaom’s Heart does not have any sockets. I would recommend still using the Kaom’s Heart over this setup as that body armor just offers us so much more life and survivability. I would always prioritize survivability over damage in any kind of build you create. This one is no exception. If you do not use Kaom’s Heart and use another unique/rare body armor that has sockets, then you can utilize a Vaal Ancestral Warchief setup. I personally do not use this, but if you have the space for it to get some extra damage, go for it. The Blind is really just for some extra survivability by providing a way to blind our enemies to make it harder for them to hit us. Otherwise all of the other gems are prioritized in damage. Blind does not really give us any damage, but it is important enough to utilize in the setup so that is why it is in the fourth position in the link in case you can only use a 4 linked armor. If you have a 5-6 link, then utilize the other gems as well. Like I said, this is totally not needed but only really more so if you have something other than a Kaom’s Heart as your body armor. If you use Vaal Ancestral Warchief, then you can drop the Ancestral Protector in your CWDT setup since you cannot have 2 totems unless you have something that can allow you to have additional totems. Just swap it to something like a Portal or a Vaal Grace to get some extra defense in a boss fight or during mapping. Another thing to mention is, if you are using a Kaom’s Heart, you can swap out your Ancestral Protector for Vall Ancestral Warchief since it grants us more DPS. Bandits
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Kill all of them! We need the extra 2 skill points for the build.
Passive Tree I actually just followed the skill tree as is while I was leveling up. The leveling up section will have a bit more information on this. Depending on how you level the build, you may have to respec the tree because our starting points are most likely going to differ. For me, I already had some items ready to level up with so following the skill trees did not really pose any problems.
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Level 70 Level 100 Prioritize leveling with the level 70 skill tree first. As you level and apply your skill points, ignore the Frenzy Charge nodes until you can start utilizing a small Flicker Strike setup to level up at the Blood Aqueducts. More information on this will be explained in the leveling section. Just following the level 70 tree should not be too difficult though. We also utilize a decent amount of jewel sockets so prioritize getting those jewel sockets early so you can fill in whatever other stats, attributes, life and resists as needed. The level 100 skill tree is my end game build with my current crafted jewels and gear that I am currently using. Your build will most likely look different, but you can build this character on how you want it to be since this build only needs two uniques to run at a core. Ascendancies and Pantheons Ascendancies
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 1st Lab: Endless Hunger 2nd Lab: Brutal Fervour 3rd Lab: Impact 4th Lab: Overwhelm This is the order that I grabbed these nodes in as I leveled. You might prefer to grab them a bit differently, but this is how I grabbed my labs as I leveled this character. I first went for Endless Hunger and Brutal Fervour to get overleech as soon as I could. Brutal Fervour is an insane Slayer passive which makes it so we can overleech even if we are already at full life. This makes it so all of the leech we leeched after we get to full life will keep constantly healing us until all of that life leeched ends. This makes it so we can handle the Blood Rage degen and any possible damage over time damage. We also have a life flask to pop if it gets out of hand but this is extremely rare. The next two choices might be a bit of a shocker for you, but since we are a Flicker Strike build, these two other passives are actually a godsend for this build. With Impact, we get a pseudo 7 link for our Flicker Strike by getting a free melee splash support. This makes it so we can just focus on damage boosting gems for our Flicker Strike. Flicker Strike usually suffers from damage because they have to use one of their links on a Melee Splash Support gem, but with Impact, we can totally ignore that and go for more damage. It is definitely worth it, trust me! The other passive we grab is Overwhelm. This node gives us stun immunity which covers one of Flicker Strike build’s largest weaknesses. By getting immunity to stun and freeze, we are able to guarantee to Flicker Strike everything without worrying about getting interrupted. This passive also stuns enemies at full life which gives us some small survivability as well. Usually Slayer builds grab Headsman and Bane of Legends, but we can already get some of those mods from other sources. For a Flicker Strike build, Impact and Overwhelm brings way more benefit to us. Oro’s Sacrifice already gives us Culling Strike and we already have an Onslaught flask that we utilize. Oro’s Sacrifice also makes us have no physical attack damage so the immunity to physical reflect from Headsman is pointless for us. This is why the other nodes benefit this build more than the usual 2 other nodes that a Slayer would get. You are not missing out on anything, I promise you. There are way more benefits to this build with grabbing the other two passives. Pantheons
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 Soul of Arakaali as your Major God. This is simply the best Major God we could ask for. The main reason being is the captured soul, Queen of the Great Tangle. What this captured soul does for this Major God is that it gives us 50% increased recovery of life and energy shield if we stop taking damage over time. With our current CWDT setup, Blood Rage pops which degens our life. After Blood Rage pops or while Blood Rage is running, once Immortal Call procs, it stops the degen damage over time from Blood Rage. When this happens, we get the captured soul buff which boosts our already ridiculous amount of leech by 50% more. This is insanely broken for a Slayer using Vaal Pact. A Slayer’s overleech from Brutal Fervour makes this even more powerful since all of that increased leech just gets stocked and keeps healing us until our leech is done recovering our life. This is why we can easily shrug off the Blood Rage degen, handle damage over time extremely well, and basically have a near infinite health recovery. This is why we will rarely ever use our life flask because overleech keeps us rapidly healing and recovering. Since we are already chill/freeze/stun immune, we can forgo some of the more common Major Gods. Make sure you capture Queen of the Great Tangle as soon as you can! As long as you do not get one shot, you are practically immortal with how much life is overleeched and waiting to recover your life.  Soul of Gruthkul as your Minor God. We use Soul of Gruthkul for our minor god. The other minor gods do not do much for our build since a lot of those mods are already covered in other ways in our build. Soul of Gruthkul offers us some extra physical damage reduction which helps a bit while we spam Flicker Strike. Capturing Erebix, Light's Bane also gets us some more defensive utility to us to. Any extra defensive tools we can get, the better. I would recommend capturing Erebix just for that extra defensive boost. Playstyle This build has an extremely simply way of playing. You literally just run/Leap Slam around the map until you see a mob of enemies and hold down your Flicker Strike button. Let Flicker Strike do all of the work for you. I would recommend you still keep your cursor in the direction or on enemies so you can ‘somewhat’ control the general direction of where you want your Flicker Strike to go. There may be some situations where you do not want to hold down your Flicker Strike. With the nature of Flicker Strike and how crazy it is, it may target things that you do not want. This is why you want to try to keep track of your cursor while you flicker. If you notice this happen, immediately stop flickering, and move closer to your intended target by using Leap Slam or by running towards them. When you do this, then you can let your Flicker Strike go ham again. This is one of the reasons why people hate using Flicker Strike. Once you get the hang of it though, it is not too annoying. Not being able to ‘actually’ choose your target is what shies people away from Flicker Strike builds. Pop your flasks before you Flicker Strike your enemies to ensure that you get the most damage you can get. Summon your Ancestral Warchief/Protector when you engage a boss and do not forget about popping Vaal Haste either. Since Vaal Haste is now instant cast, you can pop it without any interruptions. You can even pop it while you are flickering enemies or a boss without stopping. A Flicker Strike build is just constantly on the move. The only small gripe is going back to pick up stuff, but this honestly is not too bad of a problem. You get used to it over time. This is pretty much a one button build, minus the totem and Vaal Haste you have to pop during a boss fight. Obviously do not bring this build into a Delve. It is possible to do a Delve with it, but you cannot use Flicker Strike blindly which most inexperienced players would do. What I mean here is, actually take some notice of where your cursor is aimed at, and do not hold down your Flicker Strike button blindly. Do it in bursts of clicks to ensure you have some control on your Flicker Strike. You do not want to end up behind a wall and not able to get back to your crawler. If you do so, the darkness is going to be your best friend and we all know we do not want to be its friend. I have done Delves with it before, but it is more so of a headache then anything if you do. If anything, I just swap out Flicker Strike for Cyclone if I do run a Delve but rarely would I run Delves with this build in the first place. It is possible though. Media Here are some sample gameplay videos so you can see the build in action. Videos
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Conclusion At the end-game stage of the build, this build can get quite beefy while sporting some good tankiness and survivability. Oro’s Sacrifice with its 10% increased physical and fire damage is a bit scary, but with a Slayer’s passives and other various nodes on the tree like Vaal Pact, we get some very strong tools for survival. With this version of the build, we easily cover a Flicker Strike build’s biggest weaknesses. We are stun/chill/freeze immune and we have a reliable way to generate Frenzy Charges with having a high ignite chance with using Oro’s Sacrifice. We are basically guaranteed to never be interrupted from using Flicker Strike by being stun/chill/freeze immune. The build is also done on an extremely low budget since the required uniques cost so little. By following the tree and grabbing life+resists on your rare items, breaking 6K+ life is quite easy. If you have the currency to get a Kaom’s Heart or just have one, utilizing it brings a ton of benefits to the build. I can honestly say this is one of my best Flicker Strike builds that I have created and personally played. Eliminating all of a Flicker Strike build’s weaknesses really makes Flicker Strike feel even better and smoother. I can guarantee you that this Flicker Strike build will probably be one of the most comfortable and easy-going versions you have played. If you have never played a Flicker Strike build, I think this is a very good starting point to join the Flicker Strike family. A Slayer just really improves the survivability of this build by a ton as well. I can honestly say I am happy with how this build turned out. Just knowing you can infinitely Flicker Strike everything without worrying about being interrupted is the best feeling ever. Good luck and I hope you give the build a try! Overview of Current Gear (all together)
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Path of Building/Pastebin Code
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https://pastebin.com/BKy1ZjmA
*Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!* [Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 Last edited by Bakuhakubasugasu on Mar 20, 2019, 10:59:27 AM Last bumped on Apr 25, 2020, 10:10:25 PM
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Leveling/Tips
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My starting point is going to differ from yours so I am going to kind of generalize the leveling section. I am not going to be specifically listing what gem links you should be utilizing because our starting points will most likely differ. You are not going to be using Flicker Strike right at level 10 which is the earliest level you can use it. Since Oro’s Sacrifice can only be used at level 67 you are not really going to be able to really experience flickering efficiently until much later. We are pretty much going to be utilizing whatever melee skill you want to use until you hit Act 9 where you can farm the Blood Aqueducts where you will be able to start utilizing a small Flicker Strike setup. You will pretty much use this mini Flicker Strike setup until you hit level 67 when you can equip Oro’s Sacrifice. So, whatever melee skill you are comfortably leveling with, I would suggest you use that until you get to Act 9 to use the mini flicker setup. For me, I always just level with Double Strike since you get it right at the beginning of the game. The leveling guide is really going to be how I leveled with it, but as long as you follow the tree, you can level with any melee skill you desire that feels most comfortable to you. Level 1-51
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We are going to want to level with Double Strike. Double Strike is obtainable in the first Act of the game and an extremely user friendly skill to start with. As a Duelist, this is the first skill gem we get in the game so we already obtain it right away in the tutorial. To keep it simple, you just pretty much want to attach any damage boosting support gems you can get your hands on until you get access to use the more optimized support gems. I usually begin my builds at level 65-70 since that is the level where you usually can use all of your leveled gems and required items. Though this is the case, following the skill tree and using the same melee skill setup I always do to level up with went fine. There are also cases where a build can be done as you level, but this is rare as usually the required uniques for a build can only be equipped at higher levels. Just use whatever other gems that can link with Double Strike to increase the damage and the general utility of the skill. Your starting point may differ from mine depending on what items you have to level with. For example, I use the same Tabula Rasa that I got earlier on in the league for leveling. If you do not have a Tabula Rasa, your starting point for leveling is going to be different. Not just a Tabula, but just having other low level items or leveling items in general with sockets readily available so I can make leveling smoother. I am only going to list the most optimal skill gems to use with Double Strike that I personally use for leveling any of my melee builds. Another thing to note before I do so, get your end-game jewels as early as you can and socket them in random sockets to level them so when you can start utilizing the build with Oro’s Sacrifice at level 67, they will already be at a respectable gem level. The 6 main gem skills are Flicker Strike (requires level 10), Multistrike Support (requires level 38), Combustion Support (requires level 8), Immolate Support (requires level 38), Elemental Damage with Attacks Support (requires level 18) and Ruthless (no level requirement). Suggested gems to use with Double Strike: Chance to Bleed: Level Requirement (none) – Acquired by completing the quest “Enemy at the Gate” in Act 1 and then purchased in Act 1 from Nessa after the quest completion. [You get some extra added flat physical damage alongside dealing more damage on enemies inflicted by bleed. Double Strike also has a 25% chance to inflict bleed.] Ruthless Support: Level Requirement (none) – Given as a quest reward for completing the quest “Mercy Mission” in Act 1. Can also be bought from Nessa in Act 1 after completing the said quest. [Every third time you use Double Strike, it will deal a ruthless blow which does way more damage. This gem increases your Double Strike’s melee damage in general.] Added Fire Damage Support: Level Requirement (8) – Given as a quest reward for completing the quest “The Caged Brute” in Act 1. Can also be bought from Nessa in Act 1 after completing the said quest. [Your Double Strike also deals splash damage to your surrounding targets.] Melee Splash Support: Level Requirement (8) – Given as a quest reward for completing the quest “The Caged Brute” in Act 1. Can also be bought from Nessa in Act 1 after completing the said quest. [Double Strike gains 25-44% of your physical damage as extra fire damage. This gives your damage a boost in damage and also works great for us, since we are going to be mainly fire damage later on anyways.] Melee Physical Damage Support: Level Requirement (18) – Given as a quest reward for completing the quest “Sharp and Cruel” in Act 2. Can also be bought from Yeena in Act 2 after completing the said quest. [Double Strike deals even more melee physical damage. Also deals extra damage on bleeding enemies. Works great in conjunction with Double Strike because Double Strike deals more damage on bleeding enemies as well.] Multistrike support: Level Requirement (38) – Given as a quest reward for completing the quest “The Eternal Nightmare” in Act 4. Can also be bought from Petarus and Vanja in Act 4 after completing the said quest. [Double Strike repeats an additional 2 times, effectively giving you more attack speed. This grants us more damage and more attack speed.] I personally always use: [Vaal/Double Strike > Melee Physical Damage Support > Chance to Bleed > Ruthless Support > Multistrike Support > Melee Splash] in my Tabula Rasa to level up all of my melee characters. Once I hit the 60-70 level range where I can use my build, then I swap to my main gear and main skill gems. If you have been leveling your required gems while using Double Strike to level, they should be at a decent level where you can start utilizing them to success. Leveling with two handed weapons as a Slayer is best since their passives are catered to two handed weapons. Any other weapons like one handed weapons for example do not get much benefit from being a Slayer. You will get the most efficient damage using two handed weapons as this class and ascendancy. Here are some good items to level up with and that I personally used while leveling up.
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Any unique two handed weapons will suffice you through leveling as well. Two really good uniques to use would be Reaper’s Pursuit since it gives you 100% hit rate, and The Blood Reaper Headsman Axe since it gives you a chance to bleed on hit for 50%. This is especially useful if you are not using a Chance to Bleed skill gem for your Double Strike setup. Level 51-67 (until you can use Oro’s Sacrifice and utilize the build)
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I would personally keep using your Double Strike setup until you get to Act 9 and able to run the Blood Aqueducts. The reason for this is because Blood Aqueducts is very linear so Flicker Strike just wrecks shop there. You get a majority of your leveling done there as well. When you are under level 70, this is easily one of the best if not the best places to level at. With the map layout being so linear, Flicker Strike just goes through the map like butter. You want to level as fast as you can so using Flicker Strike here on a mini setup will suffice. Obviously this mini setup will not be ideal for bossing, but you are using this setup just to get you from level 51 to level 67 for when you can finally equip Oro’s Sacrifice and utilize the build. If you have been leveling up Flicker Strike as I mentioned from before in an open socket, you should have it at a decent level to use here. At level 51, we get access to Terminus Est which grants us a Frenzy Charge on critical strike. Obviously Flicker Strike has its cooldown refreshed by consuming a Frenzy Charge. This is why using this unique is so crucial here. If you do go this route, then grabbing your Frenzy Charges on your skill tree may be worth it. It will make this leveling process a whole lot smoother. I would also recommend using a pair of Darkray Vectors boots for an additional Frenzy Charge and just Frenzy Charge mods. You can easily get both of these items for less than a chaos. Honestly, just running a 4 link for Flicker Strike in a Terminus Est should get you by in the Blood Aqueducts. If you are just using a 4 link, just use Flicker Strike > Multistrike Support > Melee Splash Support > Increased Critical Strikes Support or Added Fire Damage Support. If you have more links available, then obviously use more gems to boost the damage. Make sure you are utilizing Blood Rage so you can get Frenzy Charges on kill. Because the Blood Aqueducts only has regular enemies and no bosses, you will be able to guarantee that you will be able to sustain Frenzy Charges through the map. One thing I would recommend is to equip rings and an amulet that has critical strike chance on it so Flicker Strike runs smoother for leveling with a Terminus Est. Here are some rings for example with crit chance that I actually used for this mini Flicker Setup with Terminus Est. Once you hit level 67 when you can equip your Oro’s Sacrifice, swap out to your main gems, and swap out your gear you were using specifically for the mini Flicker Strike setup you used with Terminus Est. One thing to note, do not take Resolute Technique until you can use Oro’s Sacrifice. Resolute Technique gives us 100% hit rate but in turn makes it so we cannot deal critical strikes. Since we are leveling with a Terminus Est where we get Frenzy Charges on a critical strike, you can see how Resolute Technique would ruin this. Just make sure you save up one skill point to use when you are able to use Oro’s Sacrifice. When you hit level 67, then you can allocate your skill point into Resolute Technique. When you get to Blood Aqueducts and utilize this mini Flicker Strike setup, leveling becomes a complete breeze. Depending on what level you are at when you get to this situation, you can easily get to level 67 within a few hours or less. Microtransactions/MTX
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 This is the fifth guide that I officially posted on the forums. I would honestly say that this Flicker Strike build has the perfect balance while eliminating the common weaknesses that a Flicker Strike build. This is mentioned plenty of times within the guide. Once you get to the Blood Aqueducts and utilize Flicker Strike with Terminus Est, leveling becomes extremely easy and gets you that much closer to utilizing your Oro’s Sacrifice. I understand that there are better items to use for the build, but I really wanted to keep this build on a budget. You can pretty much just use all rare gear with life+resists which this build uses a lot of. The only uniques I use on this build is Oro’s Sacrifice and Dream Fragments. Along with this, we utilize a decent amount of jewel sockets which further increases the range of customizing. Customize the character to how you want and you should get through the content just fine. If you have any questions or concerns, leave them here and I will get to them as soon as I can. I usually get to questions pretty quick, but I would say I will get to a post at least within a day. Good luck and enjoy! *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!* [Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 Last edited by Bakuhakubasugasu on Jan 17, 2019, 4:03:12 AM
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I think you copied the wrong minor pantheon
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" Thanks for the catch. I made this guide from my last build's template and forgot to edit that part out so thanks. Good luck! *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!* [Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 Last edited by Bakuhakubasugasu on Jan 17, 2019, 11:48:14 AM
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Looks really cool, gonna try.
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You can save some points in the tree by putting 2 points in life mana/leech node and reespecting the useless dex nodes and the single mana and life leech node.
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" You are right. I will get that swapped out later when I have time to change it. Thanks for the heads up and for stopping by. Let me know if you have any other concerns or questions. Good luck! EDIT: Just got it swapped. I have updated the skill trees and also the PoB link again. I remember why I took the life/mana leech node instead of one of each node to save skill points. When I was leveling the build originally, it was faster for me to take the dual leech node. It was technically a shorter route since I was originally grabbing the three life nodes (the Golem's Blood area) and didn't expand the tree to the right side yet. Because of this, it was faster for me to grab the dual leech node. It only took 5 points instead of 7 if you are going from the Golem's Blood life node section. When you respec points then yes, it is definitely way more optimal as you said so I thank you for pointing that out. I am currently working on other guides too so once I get a guide out, I don't really go back to it unless there are posts asking for help, major updates or new nerfs/buffs that come out. It is definitely a lot more efficient taking it this way now that the build is complete where we can start to respec some inefficient pathing. We are able to grab some more life nodes because of it now which boosts our life and survivability by a bit more. I grabbed the two nodes that connects to Devotion. It probably gives us the most life out of any of the other life nodes that we can get to with the free extra 2 skill points. Thanks for pointing that out, once again. :) *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!* [Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 Last edited by Bakuhakubasugasu on Jan 18, 2019, 12:23:57 AM
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Yep, I also took Devotion instead of the small nodes at bloodless.
Ty and nice build. Last edited by masterxkroxgk on Jan 18, 2019, 1:23:25 AM
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" Yeah, definitely a lot better now. I will break 9K life now with my current setup so definitely a lot better. Let me know how the build fares for you when you get to using it. Thanks, once again. Have fun and good luck! *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!*
[Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 |
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Dear author,
Just wanted to thank you for taking the time to write the build with all the detail you have included. As a semi-new player and one that does not have a firm grasp of all this game's mechanics, your manner of talking through everything is much appreciated. I am very keen to try this build and have already bookmarked this forum thread :D Again, thank you for a beautifully written guide, I will be checking out your others! |
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