OUR STARTER BUILD IN MIRAGE LEAGUE - RELIQUARY IS BAIT? MAX BLOCK GLADIATOR?

--- Foreword --- This is a Flicker Strike levelling guide that utilizes Sunder to level until you are able to flicker. If you are new to Flicker Strike or Path of Exile in general, then hopefully this guide will be able to assist you in levelling. If you have any questions please, there is a discord for MAGEFIST (https://discord.gg/EqrMATBnZp), you can create a post on pob-links for help, or just ask in a channel (preferable). The levelling guide was made by A Guy, so you can ping him if you want some help. And as with any other melee levelling please follow this EXTREMELY IMPORTANT RULE OF THUMB: Upgrade your weapon Once an act should be good enough but if you ever feel your DPS is falling behind, you probably haven't gotten a new weapon in a while. --- Act 1 --- We are starting with Frost Blades early, this skill is very strong early but will be replaced with Sunder, which is just broken. After you kill Hillock go over to the vendor and grab Frost Blades, you can look within Tarkleigh's vendor window for a 3-link, a 2g1r, you can paste this regex: g-g-r|g-r-g|r-g-g and all correct items will highlight. There may be none. This is not a required thing, but it will help you possibly find better gear. Try to also look out for a Ruthless skill gem in the gem vendor and purchase that, keep it socketed in whatever open sockets you have. Although I haven't put it in the gems section, you can equip Steelskin and press it every once in a while to make yourself a bit tankier. You should always try to get the highest pDPS axe you can, basically just look for whatever has the biggest physical damage on the top of the weapon. Which must be a Two-handed Axe --- Act 2 --- In Act 2 we pick up our mana leech node, which makes levelling extremely comfortable and smooth. In terms of gems we swap over to Sunder, supported by Ruthless and Close Combat if you have the 3-link. Optionally you can still use Added Fire Damage until you have the correct colors as well. As you progress into the act you get the auras, Blood and Sand and Herald of Ash which are extremely powerful gems for damage and clear. You also get Blood Rage which you can use at the beginning of areas to get you Frenzy Charges, speeding you up a lot. --- Act 3 --- Here we add Determination which gives us a bit of tankiness early on. You also should only press Vulnerability on bosses, as you already have the clear damage. Finally, we get our lab towards the end of the acts, where we allocate Gratuitous Violence because exploed feels amazing. Try to always ensure that your Accuracy Rating is high enough to have a 100% chance to hit (Can be found in the offense section of the character menu) You can get more accuracy rating from gear or levelling up precision. --- Act 4 --- It is about this time where you should also check to make sure you are levelling Flicker Strike and other related gems in an off-hand weapon in order to make sure that the transition later is smoother. You also can socket Berserk which you can use when you reach maximum Rage on a boss for a bit more damage! --- Act 5 & 6 --- Not much is going on here, you should just be able to keep on rolling the campaign, if you are ever feeling weak, it is all because of your weapon, find one with a higher physical damage roll. Keep upgrading it! --- Act 7 --- Here is where you get your second ascendancy, War of Attrition, which helps your damage in longer boss fights, however, you don't need to take this first if you don't want to spend the respec cost of an ascendancy point you can instead spec into Determined Saviour, which doesn't really do anything --- Act 8 --- Nothing changes in this act, so just keep upgrading weapon and moving on. --- Act 9 --- If you do decide to go Flicker Strike this early, make sure you get Tribal Fury, it is mandatory. You do need to make sure you have enough % chance to gain frenzy charge on kill chance though. One important thing to note about respec'ing your points, is to try to use more often your gold than points, as before level 68, gold is decently cheap for unallocating nodes. However, if you feel more comfortable you may still use the normal respec from Orbs of Regret, or Book of Regrets from the campaign. --- Act 10 --- Here is a good point to swap, if you haven't already, when you swap to the 1h + shield setup, make sure your ascendancy is correct. The most important part of sustaining Flicker Strike is to get a high enough frenzy charge on hit chance from your sword and mark masteries. --- White Maps --- All the respecc'ing with swapping to Flicker Strike should be able to be from your quest rewards, but you can of course use Gold as well with Faustus. There are a lot of things to make sure if doing when using Flicker Strike, make sure Tribal Fury is allocated, make sure you are using Multistrike. Using Assassin's Mark is very powerful to ensure the generation of Power Charges, which is monumental to your critical strike chance and therefore, Frenzy sustain. If you want to use this power charge sustain to its make, you must also quality your Assassin's Mark which makes it so you don't have to kill for Power Charges. Here the auras also get slightly complicated; You are using a lot of different auras, make sure you have all the correct ones toggled, we have stopped using Determination here! Another important thing to note is your Precision set up, we are running it on Arrogance Support so we can have more auras on our mana pool. However, this means you are slightly more squishy, so try to keep Precision the lowest level it can go, while still having the accuracy rating to have 100% chance to hit. --- Yellow Maps --- Now you should be looking for your 4th ascendancy, which is a new Bloodline ascendancy, you will want to take Farrul's Huntleader node, this will really increase your attack speed, to get this you need to kill Farrul in his den, which is accessed via a beast. Anointing Fervour is good for DPS but not too required, so you don't need to focus a lot of your money onto it. If you want a budget anoint, consider True Strikes as the next best option. --- Red Maps --- Reaching red maps has you put even more crit onto the build, so make sure to use your diamond flask. !!! FAQ !!! --- Ascendancy --- Gratuitious Violence -> War of Attrition -> Determined Saviour -> More than Skiill ( Respec War of Attrition ) -> Farrul's Huntleader --- Frenzy Charge Generation --- The main source of Frenzy Charges on this build is your % chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Hit from your Mark and Sword masteries, if this isn't adequate, you can grab a Retaliation Charm until you can get both masteries.s --- Issues with Flicker Strike --- Flicker Strike of course is not the simplest gem to use and lots of people have issues with it to begin with. So to find what the issue is, when flicking, look at your Frenzy Charges, if they run out, consult the previous section. If it simply feels very clunky then you may not have Tribal Fury and its mastery allocated, or you might not have Multistrike linked. You also want to keep the "Always attack without moving" box checked in your Flicker Strike. If you checked all of these things and still have clunkiness, then you can ask on the Discord for more personalized help. Keep in mind Flicker Strike is VERY prone to getting one-shot by shotguns. So don't be suprised if you have a lot of deaths. But try to aim for 4,000 Life and you'll be decently strong, even in red maps. --- Bandit & Pantheon --- Help Alira league start, then later when you get more money and can get better gear, swap to killing all bandits. For pantheon you most likely want Lunaris (Major) Tukohama (Minor). This gives a bunch of tankiness, and even more physical damage reduction when stationary, which we always are with Flicker Strike. We do not need Freeze Immune as we run Arctic Armour.