OUR FLICKER STRIKE STARTER [3.27 KEEPER OF THE FLAME] ASSASSIN? CHAMPION? SLAYER IS STILL BIS?

--- 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 Fortitude for some more tankiness from fortification. Another option for ascendancy is to go First to Strike, Last to Fall, then later on remove it. This helps make the levelling smoother, but you lose out on Fortify early and you NEED to take the "All Hits Fortify" mastery for fortification. You can also take Master of Metal, first, if you want another strong ascendancy that doesn't require some micromanaging. The difference is mostly preference. But you still need to take "All Hits Fortify" 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, Unstoppable Hero, which makes you quicker and tankier. --- Act 8 --- Nothing changes in this act, so just keep upgrading weapon and moving on. --- Act 9 --- If you are a risk-taker and willing to ruin your league start a little, you can start Flicker Strike even this early, if you can afford Terminus Est that is, look to later parts of this guide for more tips. If you do decide to go Flicker Strike this early, make sure you get Tribal Fury, it is mandatory. 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 it is possible ( and far easier than act 9's swap ) to swap to Flicker Strike if you can afford Terminus Est, you HAVE to allocate Tribal Fury in order to make Flicker Strike work! You also can get 3rd lab, Master of Metal, which gives a lot of damage. --- 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. Usually this is around level 8. Keep in mind that you have 50% more Accuracy Rating at Close Range, so you can't always trust the character menu at this point. --- Yellow Maps --- Now that you have gotten the final ascendancy point, Worthy Foe, which is a big bump in damage and feels really nice, it also lets you completely ignore accuracy. So don't forget to respec out of Eagle Eye and remove the Precision setup. There are a few other uniques you can get around this time to increase DPS, if they aren't too expensive at the time. They are all in the items section, with some small notes in their name to help choose. 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. Higher end investments of this build will be going into Replica Farrul's Fur and higher DPS weapons. !!! FAQ !!! --- Ascendancy --- Fortitude -> Unstoppable Hero -> Master of Metal -> Worthy Foe You also have the option for going First to Strike, Last to Fall as the first ascendancy, then respec it later ( post-campaign ) to follow the above path. This helps make leveling smoother. Or you can even go Master of Metal first, it is a matter of preference, as they are both very powerful levelling options. On the topic of Bloodline ascendancies, there isn't one that sticks out yet, for either Slayer or Champion, but things might progress as the league goes on. --- Frenzy Charge Generation --- Frenzy charge generation in this build is very straight forward. We use Terminus Est which grants us a Frenzy Charge on critical strike. Since we attack 3 times per strike, due to Multistrike, we really only need about 30% critical strike chance. That is the bare minimum for sustain on bosses, however you of course want lots more for better daamge and sustain in general. There is also a second time in which you need sustain, on packs, if you can sustain on bosses then you can sustain on packs easily. However, if you want a second option, you can use Blood Rage, this can theoretically let you Flicker Strike before even getting Terminus Est but that is not recommended as you need to swap out on bosses. Keep in mind that this is not the only way to do Frenzy sustain. If you want to have a bunch of options available, there are some other routes you can go. If you want to focus on Impale you can remove Terminus Est and go Ceaseless Feast along with Resolute Technique for early mapping, then grabbing all the Impale nodes instead of Crit. This option exists for those who are mostly tired of Terminus Est and want something else to go, or if Terminus Est is cheap and the gloves aren't. This route sacrifices some tankiness for more damage. There is also the option of Retaliation Charm which replaces your amulet, but you can go any other armour items you want, you can basically go any route, but you just need to pick up one blind wheel on the tree. This option exists for those who don't want Terminus and also are a bit scared of the Impale route. It can lead to higher investments, especially before Farrul's Fur but you lose amulet slot, which is kind of bad. IF FOR SOME REASON TERMINUS IS EXPENSIVE ON LEAGUE START, Delay your swap or go the route directly above this paragraph. --- 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.