Flicker Strike is a very unique build/playstyle I've been trying out. The problems and guidelines of the build are simple. You need to sustain at least 1 frenzy charge per mob killed, and you need to survive. Poacher's Mark, Ice Bite, unique mechanics, just some way to consistantly generate frenzy. If you don't the skill feels terrible. There are also other problems, like getting stunned or frozen while flickering. I set out to solve these.
Commonly you would go Oro's Sacrifice and stack ignite chance to sustain it. That sword has insane damage as well, but even with max ignite chance, flicker sustain most likely fails on bosses. My problems with Oro flicker is the passive tree placement. The best oro's class is probably a Slayer, something I played last league. The tree itself has very low fire damage, something the sword dps barely makes up for. The last was the no physical damage tag, which limited end game double dipping interactions.
Enter the new Terminus Est, a reworked unique this league. This turns the requirement of ignite chance into crit chance. Slightly easier to gear for, and requires less of the boring marauder side of the tree. While the sword has less damage than an Oro's, you will have crit to do about triple to quintuple the amount. The crit is just the tip of the iceberg however, we also use conversion, which is most commonly something like fire to chaos, ice to fire, or physical to chaos.
We additionally use hatred/taste of hate to gain 40/70% of our unaltered physical as cold, and physical to lightning to gain 30% of our unaltered physical to lightning. We then convert our entire physical damage to 70% lightning, 20% cold. End game the possibility is there to throw in a Herald of Fire or Added Fire for 20-40% fire added from physical. We pick up every elemental damage with weapons node to further increase this elemental spam.
The skeleton of the tree is not done till 80. The build is extremely hungry on points, as you need crit, elemental nodes, and all the frenzy charges, as well as picking up every life node. To me this is the precise amount of crit chance you need to sustain frenzys without blood rage or a diamond flask. This is not infallable though, so we use two backup mechanics.
We go Raider for a few reasons. 9-11 "super" frenzy charges. Free phasing, which helps with getting stunned/restarting whenever the flicker mechanics fuck up and stop you for half a second, and finally, that huge ele damage node and immunity to ignite, freeze, and shock without flasks. This frees them up to be traded for op unique ones.
Ideally, you only have 1 blue flask. It's either a diamond w/ staunching or a sulfur w/ staunching. I really like The Overflowing Chalice's interaction with my other flasks so I use that. Our other important flasks are Lion's Roar, as the more tag multiplies all the previous damage by 35%. The op duo of Taste of Hate and Vessel of Vinktar for both huge damage increases and survival. Your final flask slot is either a Sin's Rebirth for pure damage or the newinteresting choice of the Wise Oak. Ideally your Cold and Lightning resists are the same, and you pop Vinktar and ToH at the same time! It's a huge damage boost.
If the flasks weren't enough this build uses a lot of uniques. We are a two handed life build, so a Kaom's Heart is the best chest you could use. We are a melee crit build, so Abyssus is the best helmet you could use. We are a frenzy based evasion character, so Darkray Vectors are the best boots you could use. We are a crit life build that wants vaal pact, so Atziri's Acuity is the best pair of gloves you can use. This would free up 5 points are are 6 ex, so there are other options. The safest is Shaper's Touch which gives a lot of life and physical damage from our dex. The cool option is Shadows and Dust, which gives both crit stats, mana leech, smoke dodge, and constant rampage, which is amazing for flicker. All those items together give 45% lightning resist!
So you need really good jewelry and a good belt. You also need to get your int and str here. It's pretty expensive/impossible without some nodes to help you from the tree. In an ideal world, your belt is also a unique. Headhunter is the final solution to this build, but Soulthirst is a great option until you become the best mang. Interestingly enough, a headhunter saves about 6-18 points for this build.
How so? Well the skeleton has enough damage to clear up to the t13 I've tried at the same speed as a t1. We don't need more damage, we need more clear speed! So we take the tree to this. We get another power charge, more attack speed, and the duelist mana cluster for infinite mana. We also get the three jewel slots by these nodes. Interestingly enough, by each of these jewels we get 4 notable nodes. This enables 3 Inspired Learnings to be socketed into them, effectively giving a budget headhunter.
You could also just go this for maximum clearspeed without meme jewels. Also more life, but in my experience you will kill faster than anything can hit you. Death only comes by reflect and ground effects.
Flicker Strike>Physical to Lightning>Multistrike>Melee Splash>Weapon Elemental Damage
The 6th link is either Melee Physical Damage or Added Fire, I don't know which one would be better. Assassin's Mark with Blasphemy for crit. I'm considering just getting more crit to drop it and running something else. Hatred is like 60% more damage. Leap Slam if you want Leap Slam. Blood Rage is not mandatory at all, and in fact if you run one you need a life flask. I run Decoy Totem to further reduce the chance the boss will hit me. My dodge is 35%, acro is a different 30% roll and the Darkray's/acendency boosts this to 60%. 5.5k life, almost nothing 1 hits, just scary half seconds where you are chunked for 75% then instantly full again.
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