[3.17] 👑PoE on Steroids: ✨Flicker Strike✨ CoC Ice Nova / Spear ❄️ - S-Tier T16s, Sirus, map/boss ✔️

Hello Flickers!

Loving this build so far. I utilized crucible for Cospri to ditch the Usurpers helmet and took dual evasion ring attributes in order to grab EV/ES mastery bonus #3.

Looking on my next direction to min/max - jewels maybe? Different helm? Not sure. GL out there! This is my most profitable league ever and enjoying it!

"

Diacred wrote:

"

YuhaKiiva wrote:

is this still a viable build ?

It is, I played it last league and farmed deli 80 with it. Here is my write up on the subject (copy-pasted from reddit). You have 4 pobs, one very cheap (< 5 div) and then you can see the progression to 80+ div, going from 500k DPS to ~6M.

Also this league you can forgo to helmet and use a cospri with "flickerstrike uses power charge instead of frenzy charges" which is amazing and would free the helmet slot for a real helmet.
Probably gonna play it again this league as a league ending build where I pour all my currency.

"

I am triggering Ice nova as a main skill and Phantasmal frostbolt / Divergent creeping frost in Cospri.

Frenzies are maintained using the helmet "Usurper's Penance" which gives ~25% chance to get a frenzy on crit at close range which is pretty much all the time and counts for spells too. It is impossible to run out of frenzy charges even with only 3 max charges. Very comfy. Only maps hard to run are "monsters steal charges" (but doable) and reflect (quasi impossible)

If you want more info:

This is a low life build so you can use Shavronne, but I personally go with Coruscating Elixir + The traitor keystone from Brutal Restraint which gives you pretty much perma flask (coruscating and topaz / sapphire flask are actually permanent even in hideout, just not the quicksilver / granite). This frees up the body armour slot and you can use anything you want. I chose Ghostwrithe because it gives an insane amount of ES + Chaos resist and it's very cheap even with double corruption (10 div for +3 gem lvl).

I also use a Forbidden Flame/Flesh with Soul Drinker (energy shield overleech from trickster) which makes you absolutely insanely tanky. It's also very inexpensive somehow. I've also tried with "One Step Ahead" Forbidden F/F to be immune to slow / stun, etc... But it didn't feel tanky enough in high deli juiced maps.

The watcher's eye (~1 div with just es on hit mod) is fairly major for tankyness but not necessary I played without it last league.

Mana cost are handled with 2 elreon's craft on rings + a flask with reduced mana cost of skills during effect. The flask is very important for damage uptime.

PoBs with budget and gear progression:

Base PoB ~20-30 div (any belt + 1 passive tree flask wheel for perma flask): https://pobb.in/CEBomkDE89gb

Mid investment PoB ~50 div (micro-distillery belt for permaflask): https://pobb.in/l6x8nCHM1UQ9

Higher investment PoB ~80+ div (ashes of the star + micro-distillery belt or HH, I use HH for high deli and micro-distillery belt for other content): https://pobb.in/n825mSNpYEHw

Absolutely not min maxed, lots to improve and I never changed the gloves, I am also lacking a bit of attack speed to be near the breakpoint. It can definitely go higher DPS wise and I am not sure Ashes of the stars was a boost worth its cost.

Here is a video of a T16 high quant map under 2 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSUVFcawsyU

I've been using it to farm 60-80% deli 100% quant maps so it does work very well on maps with high pack size, very satisfying.

You don't need HH at all it's just funnier with it. I also tried to use a double implicit Soulthirst for a while with a cluster jewel for flask duration, worked fairly well but was too spiky for my taste and sometimes you just get too much attack speed which isn't good for CoC, but it still was very fun.


PS: If anybody is interested but doesn't have the currency: here is a very cheap (<5 div) evasion based + 100% spell suppression version: https://pobb.in/i-2dO6bLhzmy

That's what I ran last league but it lacked damage, I was semi-SSF (private league) so hard to come by most of the stuff needed. Still worked quite fine for farming T16. I do think the armour version is better and can be made for less than 10 div too.

I'm confused; you say the base- and mid-investment trees have permanent uptime even in hideout, but PoB shows neither one having 100% minimum even before updating the tree for 3.21; am I missing something?

"

Research Question #3: Can someone run a high-end version of this build? We're talking 100ex and Mageblood!

It should do swell with Mageblood considering most of the flasks are already magic. I don't think you even need a Granite flask with that much damage + speed..

Answered by: [No one yet!]

PUT ME IN COACH!!

https://pobb.in/fitFx6blb7-v


Howdy Yall, grab yerselves a drink, it's time for some more path of exile discussion.


TLDR: Is the mageblood version better than the headhunter version? Yes. kinda.

But a mageblood is over twice the cost of a headhunter. Is it twice as good as the headhunter version? No. To me it feels maybe 15-25% better tbh


/tldr



Ok so first of all this build is my take on adapting the occultist iteration from this guide to 3.21 using a mageblood and focusing on clear speed and not considering any bossing scenarios.

Can you make a bosser from this? Yeah probably. but that's not what this is designed for.


So what does the mageblood buy us for this build? Lets look at the flasks


- bottled faith gives damage, crit, regen (with ZO), and some curse protection. probably bis for unique flasks. especially if you need the crit chance like occultist does

- enough crit to not have to have the watchers eye that gives base crit. we simply take the es on hit alone saving 40-60 div (other leagues its been more to get both those stats on an eye). and it only cost a 200 div belt to get around that price hurdle. so yay i guess

- a bunch of armor and spell leeched as es. taken together these probably let me get away with a lower total ES than some other versions of the build. Since I also managed to get thaumophage on a cluster jewel and have good sustain from the watchers eye, this is probably the most negotiable flask

- armor again and ATTACK SPEED. This flask suffix right here is the exact thing that made me think the mageblood version pulled ahead of the headhunter version. Having a higher minimum attack speed feels SO GOOD on this build. I'll talk more about speed below.

- Move speed and resists. with this we dont have to get any resists on rares and are free to get attributes and other goodies



So circling back to the speed topic. both belts give the same top end speed experience of going fucking super saiyan when one of these things happens:

- acceleration shrine
- echo shrine
- soul eater buff

so naturally we invest in shrines on the atlas tree but to still be able to get soul eater with mageblood we take on the inspired learning jewel. Doing so is a small cost because we now need to take a mana wheel somewhere anyway for the reservation mastery changes.

Conquerer's Efficiency doesn't exist anymore and that's fine we dont need it. Divergent inspiration and non-channel mana cost on both rings, clever theif and its solved.

so the mageblood version is always very fast and occasionally uber fast.

but the headhunter is fast and commonly uber fast because it steals soul eater more often and keeps it longer.

for this reason I think i would honestly recommend the headhunter version. The gear pressure might be a bit more, but lets get real, we want to feel uber fast as often as possible on a giga build like this.

There are definitely some more ways i could improve upon the pob at the top, but i dont think they'd substantially change what ive already learned.

also(1) i didnt bother getting any crucible trees on this gear because that wont be available going forward and i didnt want to muddy the results of this test.

Also(2) I took profane bloom for even more clear speed because its wildy fucking unethical to play occultist and not take the funnest node in the game.

Also(3) putting a gmp on the cwdt-ballLightning is reeeally good and should probably be mandatory actually

Also(4) i had an enlighten on some of my heavy auras at one point and took it back off, just didnt even need the reservation

Also(5) some of the new masteries are likely buffs for this build

Also(6) I think the next thing to try is to rework this build using the new trickster. Could be giga tanky with ES overleach. Would probably drop armor and go evasion + spell suppression though.

Here was my gear for the curious

https://pobb.in/2MPTY3R3TN-o

im gonna just leave this here. no big deal..

its just better in every single way..


=p

"

BruteNewb wrote:

https://pobb.in/2MPTY3R3TN-o

im gonna just leave this here. no big deal..

its just better in every single way..


=p

Unless I am missing something, the damage seems to fall off a cliff. I just acquired Mageblood and converted from Primaeva's version that I have been running since 3.17 and this version seems to have a painfully slower clear.
While it does feel significantly tankier which is what I was hoping for, as soon as I run into a rare it takes 10-30s to kill...if I can kill it at all.

Here is my PoB: https://pobb.in/cIAUef2rfVCa

I wasnt able to get the same Megalomaniac with Thaumophage but everything else is on par with your build from what I can see. Please let me know if I am simply missing something in regards to damage.

I still need to polish up my flask prefixes and fill the chaos resistance hole losing my other belt created...which as a matter of fact, I think I actually bought from you in 3.17 originally.

I switched to Anom GMP>Phant Frostbolt>PC on Crit in the weapon and moved Ice Nova to the body armour. I removed Ice Spear entirely.
The general clearing ability is MUCH better. Rares still take too long to kill but it is improved.

I also swapped out the armour suffix on my jade flask for crit chance since in game I was not hitting 100% crit on flicker even though POB said I was.

Im thinking about going back to Assassin and then using Forbidden Flame/Flesh for Soul Drinker in place of inspired learning and not sure what else yet. Maybe just level a few times to get an extra jewel socket.

I really like the idea of Inspired Learning but rares are just taking too long to kill and acquiring multiple stacks of the buff is too infrequent to really feel like the jewel is doing much for me.

I have been doing some experimenting.

I switched back to Assassin but kept Brutenewbs tree as it provides more defensive layers which were very much needed. I picked up Forbidden Flame/Flesh for Soul Drinker.

Replaced the Megalomaniac with an Area Damage Cluster jewel.
Replaced Inspired Learning and added the Forbidden Flame/Flesh using the cluster for the jewel socket.


I also picked up an upgraded Watcher's Eye with ES on Hit and Chaos Res while affected by Purity of Elements.

Also added an Amethyst Flask. Chaos res is capped now.

The damage is much more consistent and rares are no longer an issue for me.
Basic T16 Mapping feels pretty good. Havent tested in juiced maps yet as I think I need more phys mitigation for the hits that do not get evaded.

I think I will get a couple levels so that I can throw Inspired learning back in now that rares aren't an issue and it seems my survivability is much better and not actually getting randomly deleted every other map.
Long term goal would be to find a source of Phys taken as an element or Endurance charge generation for some phys mitigation. Not sure how to work either in just yet. I know I can get Phys as an Element as a corruption on Prism Guardian so will probably try to get one of those with another useful corruption such as +1 gems or +2 to Auras/AOE.



Edit:
I have also been experimenting with Frost Shield when I find a particularly tanky rare or on map bosses. Seems to work well as long as the monster doesnt move around a lot which happens rarely from my testing. But, even so, I think I would only recommend the Anomalous variant as quality increases the AOE and with Ashes of the Stars it is big enough that you stay inside even if the monster moves a bit. To give you an idea of the size, it can almost cover an entire harvest plot.
So far it feels pretty good. You can cast frost shield while flickering. You do stop for a moment to cast, but it is very brief.


Edit 2:
Removing Anom Ice Spear was a mistake. Re-added it in place of PC on Crit in the weapon. Also, replaced one of my Area Damage clusters with an Eye2Eye/Repeater Proj Damage cluster instead. So now I am running one Area Damage and one Proj Damage cluster.
Clear is very noticeably better and it was already feeling pretty good. The thing I really notice is how quickly rares go down now. I have been spec'd into essences on my atlas and with this iteration there is big difference on how quickly I am clearing them. Even 5+ essence rares are going down easily.


Here is the PoB for my current iteration: https://pobb.in/9e1Bu94iDnyT

I have been doing some more fine tuning and the build feels great. I have leveled from 94 to 98 while working everything out using Brutenewb's Mageblood tree as a base. Thank you Brutenewb for putting it together. Aside from the Ascendancy, I have kept it mostly the same but have made some small adjustments in regards to masteries.

It took me 2 levels to realize my attack rate was way over the 7.57 trigger rate. Lowering my attack rate down to 7.58 was huge. The DPS loss for going over is absolutely massive. I leveled from 94-96 before I discovered this. Primaeva talked about this in the original post, but I forgot about that detail.

I managed to get a decent Prism Guardian with both phys taken as fire and +2 AOE for a bargain. I am also currently spec'd into Overcharged for the Endurance charges. Keeping 3 endurance charges up while mapping became very consistent once I got all 3 points in the cluster. I know I could get some big DPS gains if I put those points into some other clusters such as the herald cluster at the top of the tree but the damage at this point feels really good.

I have been doing T16 Essence, Harbinger, Red Altars, and Harvest for most of this process. I have died a few times in the past couple levels, all but one of them were positioning failures on my part. My last death I am not sure why I died to be honest. However, the survivability feels great. I have been able to survive and kill doubled 7+ Essence rares without issue. Previously this wasnt possible.

I added Inspired Learning back in, but I am still not convinced it is worth the jewel socket. I am thinking about trying out an Impossible Escape using Necromantic Aegis to get a few of the really nice Scion nodes. Would end up adding another consistent 1m DPS and ~300 ES.
Inspired Learning is definitely fun when you do get Soul Eater + speed/echoing shrine and clear an entire map in seconds. However, the short duration in general kind of ruins it for me. Majority of the time I dont really notice a difference in performance even when I have 5+ monster buffs. I'll just run shrines and get a more consistent speed experience.

I think my build is probably in the 300 divine range for cost at this point.
Could I build a stronger character for that price tag? Definitely.
Would it be as fun, definitely not.
I love this build and it is by far the most fun/visually satisfying build I have played in POE. Thank you Primaeva for starting me down this path back in 3.17. I have played several different Flicker builds and this one is definitely the best.


Here is my current tree: https://pobb.in/S3h3EQ9AwDJn

Current Gear:

"

sniperscout wrote:

I have been doing some more fine tuning and the build feels great...

Hi! Sorry for the radio silence, not much activity on this thread nowadays sadly.

I'm glad you were able to get your damage issue sorted, i picked over your first pob link and wasn't able to spot the attack speed issue. Only that as you mentioned the flasks needed work and I found 1 mastery different. and the watchers was different. outside of that your damage should have actually been better than mine per pob.

I just saw today that in 2.23 there's a transfigured flicker that works off of power charges instead which I think could be hugely impactful for a reimagining of this build. Which at this point is really a family of builds.

Might have to make this my money sink again in 2.23 =p


ps. i think you are likely right about inspired learning. its more for fun. probably could do something smarter with those points