[3.26] Holy Flicker Strike Necro [League start > All content] Mercenaries. Updated to 3.26

Great guide and great concept!

I'm seriously considering league starting this in 3.26. Whether triggering the holy relic nova with lancing steel, flicker, static strike, cyclone, or something else. I need to make this happen.

I'm worried about the damage though.

I play SSF. This means I'm very unlikely to ever see (within a reasonable timeframe) Dialla's, Ashes, Enhance, possibly even Skin of the Loyal.

I've seen a table of increased gem quality that leads to CDR breakpoints:

Relic Breakpoints of Quality for CDR: 2, 14, 30, 52(5aps), 82(6 aps), 128(7.58 aps)

from Balormage's Holy Relic Necromancer guide on PoEVault:
https://www.poe-vault.com/guides/holy-relic-necromancer-build-guide

Please help me. Is it worth playing holy relic of conviction if I can't even make the 30CDR breakpoint?

My goal is to probably get to 24ish challenges in the league like I usually do. I want to get all voidstones and be able to complete T17s. I dream of annihilating ubers but I understand that might be unrealistic. Failing that, I just want to kill Sirus as hard as possible. He needs to die.

So, should I play this, or try to start with something else?

Thank you very much!

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SunsetVista#4840 wrote:

Great guide and great concept!

I'm seriously considering league starting this in 3.26. Whether triggering the holy relic nova with lancing steel, flicker, static strike, cyclone, or something else. I need to make this happen.

I'm worried about the damage though.

I play SSF. This means I'm very unlikely to ever see (within a reasonable timeframe) Dialla's, Ashes, Enhance, possibly even Skin of the Loyal.

I've seen a table of increased gem quality that leads to CDR breakpoints:

Relic Breakpoints of Quality for CDR: 2, 14, 30, 52(5aps), 82(6 aps), 128(7.58 aps)

from Balormage's Holy Relic Necromancer guide on PoEVault:
https://www.poe-vault.com/guides/holy-relic-necromancer-build-guide

Please help me. Is it worth playing holy relic of conviction if I can't even make the 30CDR breakpoint?

My goal is to probably get to 24ish challenges in the league like I usually do. I want to get all voidstones and be able to complete T17s. I dream of annihilating ubers but I understand that might be unrealistic. Failing that, I just want to kill Sirus as hard as possible. He needs to die.

So, should I play this, or try to start with something else?

Thank you very much!

So for this build breakpoints are not that valuable and you can get away with low trigger rate because we don't care that much how fast we hit (that is important to poison). We just hit hard with phys crits.

That's the end of the good news for you though because Skin is a cornerstone of the endgame. And there is no way in a world for you to get it in SSF unless you spend all your time grinding breach and selling skins 3to1 in hope to get right colors.

Its more realistic that you get Dialla and 6 link it, but even if you do you'll be lacking a great deal of protections.

Another problem is that you'll be lacking forbidden flash/flame setup.

Honestly it depends how deep you want to push the build. It can comfortably do juiced t16 on tabula. But you prolly not gonna reach uber content with it on SSF.

Thanks so much for the quick reply and clarification! It's good to know that the CDR breakpoints are more important to the poison version. That really helps!

So, you got baited into league starting this. Here are few things for you to help you reconsider


Do NOT get baited by the world ‘flicker’. Check out videos (especially day 0 ones from different leagues) to have a full understanding how the build plays.
Also if you are a flicker hater, the build also can run on pure Static Strike, Shield Charge+Static and even Volcanic Fissure.

This is ALL-ROUNDER build. And as such it excels at nothing. Or as I like to say ‘equally bad at everything’. It will let you do all the content and it is relatively fast, but obviously cant compete with specialized builds.
And speaking of ‘content’ check out "Interaction with league mechanics for planning your Atlas Passive Tree" section on the main form page to get better understanding of what to do and what not to do.

This build is mechanically heavy. There are lot of subtle things (that you might not know about) that are crucial for the build. Example - level of static strike gem. Or order of gems in the trigger weapon. If you got yourself baited into playing this and you find that it feels like shit - go to QnA and drop your PoB. We WILL help you.

Searing Exarch ball phase is straight up not doable with this build. You can try anything you want, but as long as you have your relics up, you will die. Blame GGG, not the build.

There is no defined leveling in acts description. I recommend using SRS or Absolution.


Now for the rest 4 of you who are still left determined to try this build here are some more advices and resources for league starting

If you realize that you’ve been baited and build feels like garbage – you are lucky. You can reroll into several popular archetypes - Elemntalist, BAMA and poison SRS or HRoC, without a need to level a new character.

Discord for questions is open and I LOVE making fun of your PoB giving people advices on what to improve. There is a high chance you mess something up. The build should feel relatively smooth and if its not - Go and ask. At very least you get a conformation that it is what it is, or a fix that makes things a lot better for you.

For the leveling I can recommend Vennto’s addition to the guide – Absolution leveling. But don’t hesitate to peek into other content creators leveling guides. All necros typically have the same tree. I personally will roll with Balor’s SRS leveling just to try it this league.

https://pobb.in/RhZoKTG5DhlJ
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHSKgIFmF80
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdGIMG_IBlE

Another great summoner leveling guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acz9TAhiZ2I

Balormage's leveling guide - https://youtu.be/y2iDKNEZaAE?si=eXMoK_qJr146y4Ou

A bit more info about T17 map mods - here

And always make sure you grab THE LATEST verson of the main PoB from the main page. Its constantly updating. Just grabbing it once is not enough! https://pobb.in/OYd9hrG5yoAs



And with that I wish all of you a great league start and many divines.

I will be dropping raw PoBs after every act as I go on the discord so feel free to join if you wanna follow.

See you on the leaguestart.

Anyone try the "Spectral Shield Throw of Trarthus" as a trigger for the relics?

Due to lack of things to report "The road so far" post gonna be a bit later.

Suffice to say everything went relatively smooth

So instead here is a merc Im using

Sniper
Haste, Grace, Puncture (imporntant not to have brutality on it)


Call of the void makes physical damage chill AND reduces enemy damage. Also makes cool sounds.

Ahuana's Bite makes chills bigger AND makes enemy take more damage

Rare helm triggers shocks from physical damage for even more damage

Thunderfifts make the shocks very big and also apply enfeeble

Eternal struggle gives 15% cull and everything that is cursed by enfeeble doesn't heal

Victarios gives a lot of value from Haste and Grace

Bow with high phys and high elemental rolls so merc can shock chill and ignite on its own.

Kaoms to reduce enemy phys damage

Keep in mind that since your merc shocks ignites and chills you can use although it might not be as reliable but 10x cheaper.

Hello, I don't know what did I go wrong with this but I can't even do maven with the build. There is simply not enough damage from I what feeling when doing major pinnacle bosses. Might be skill issues or might not so please take a look
POB: https://pobb.in/zTLaTYn9z-iS

"

ariyawat6#2552 wrote:

Hello, I don't know what did I go wrong with this but I can't even do maven with the build. There is simply not enough damage from I what feeling when doing major pinnacle bosses. Might be skill issues or might not so please take a look
POB: https://pobb.in/zTLaTYn9z-iS

Hello. Yeah there are a fair bit of issues with that one. And not just with damage, but since you asking about damage let go with that first.

Brittle ground on boots is 30% damage that is missing straight up.
Specters - with your setup you are expected to have two demon harpies (30% damage each) and a Perfect blood demon (for pride aura - ~40% more damage)
Curse setup/ Boss killing gloves - you currently have vuln on hit and ass mark with curse limit of one. This is why for bosses we swap for Vixens to apply Punishment and Ass mark that almost tripples the damage. Check out the gem/item setups in PoB loadouts for bossing.

Also boot up the PoB and import your character on top of PoB set up to get a better view on your dps.

Now to other things - moltenshell and CWDT levels dont match. Offerings missing mastery. And I don't know what kind of a merc and AG you are using.

"

Fire_Archer#4037 wrote:

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ariyawat6#2552 wrote:

Hello, I don't know what did I go wrong with this but I can't even do maven with the build. There is simply not enough damage from I what feeling when doing major pinnacle bosses. Might be skill issues or might not so please take a look
POB: https://pobb.in/zTLaTYn9z-iS

Hello. Yeah there are a fair bit of issues with that one. And not just with damage, but since you asking about damage let go with that first.

Brittle ground on boots is 30% damage that is missing straight up.
Specters - with your setup you are expected to have two demon harpies (30% damage each) and a Perfect blood demon (for pride aura - ~40% more damage)
Curse setup/ Boss killing gloves - you currently have vuln on hit and ass mark with curse limit of one. This is why for bosses we swap for Vixens to apply Punishment and Ass mark that almost tripples the damage. Check out the gem/item setups in PoB loadouts for bossing.

Also boot up the PoB and import your character on top of PoB set up to get a better view on your dps.

Now to other things - moltenshell and CWDT levels dont match. Offerings missing mastery. And I don't know what kind of a merc and AG you are using.

Hello, now that you pointed what I was missing, I managed to kill the maven now. I was missing alot of stuffs it's crazy. My AG he using Kingmaker, gruthkul, leer cast and my merc gears are leer cast, shaper's seed, victario's and kaom's. Ty! Here my current POB with all the fixes and using your POB template: https://pobb.in/usG5sEUpm71Q
1 last thing tho any Ideas for forth spectre? currently using Tul rn don't know if that sill relevant

"

ariyawat6#2552 wrote:

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Fire_Archer#4037 wrote:

"

ariyawat6#2552 wrote:

Hello, I don't know what did I go wrong with this but I can't even do maven with the build. There is simply not enough damage from I what feeling when doing major pinnacle bosses. Might be skill issues or might not so please take a look
POB: https://pobb.in/zTLaTYn9z-iS

Hello. Yeah there are a fair bit of issues with that one. And not just with damage, but since you asking about damage let go with that first.

Brittle ground on boots is 30% damage that is missing straight up.
Specters - with your setup you are expected to have two demon harpies (30% damage each) and a Perfect blood demon (for pride aura - ~40% more damage)
Curse setup/ Boss killing gloves - you currently have vuln on hit and ass mark with curse limit of one. This is why for bosses we swap for Vixens to apply Punishment and Ass mark that almost tripples the damage. Check out the gem/item setups in PoB loadouts for bossing.

Also boot up the PoB and import your character on top of PoB set up to get a better view on your dps.

Now to other things - moltenshell and CWDT levels dont match. Offerings missing mastery. And I don't know what kind of a merc and AG you are using.

Hello, now that you pointed what I was missing, I managed to kill the maven now. I was missing alot of stuffs it's crazy. My AG he using Kingmaker, gruthkul, leer cast and my merc gears are leer cast, shaper's seed, victario's and kaom's. Ty! Here my current POB with all the fixes and using your POB template: https://pobb.in/usG5sEUpm71Q
1 last thing tho any Ideas for forth spectre? currently using Tul rn don't know if that sill relevant

Wrong loadout, but seems right. Although 2 second brittle is very bad. You want at least 3
Tul is a good choice but if you want a bit more DPS - frenzy monkey is go to.