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Xevy

Log Wizard
8,885
4,105
That's not too far off the traditional Spectre build with Flame Sentinel's. I'm a SRS/Spec/Zombie CI build right now with Montegul's grasp and 4 spectres/4 (soon to be 5) bigass zombies. The Flame Sentinel's just murder everything and if there's any targets with a large hp pool, the zombies and SRS absolutely demolish them. And if SOMEHOW (happens maybe once every 2-3 hours) one of my zombies dies he leaves a puddle of like 50k+ chaos damage. It's ridiculous.

That dude had 3k hp though.... jesus. I'm at like 8.7k ES and I'm still feeling a little low.
 

Kiroy

Marine Biologist
<Bronze Donator>
35,321
102,337
Yeah it looked neat, although I think it might actually disapear with the future poison/double dip changes they have since it's the result of some weird interactions where stuff that dies from poison is credited as kill to you even if you didn't apply the poison yourself, at least from what I understood. I assume they're unfucking poison and dots in general for 3.0 so it might not work anymore.

it will for sure disappear in 3.0 when poison gets gutted. Lots of meta builds that end game scale via damage over time are going to go away. Those builds work by sort of exploiting (ya wrong word cause it's in the game) the nuances of a lot of different mechanics / synergies to get insane clear speeds but stack crazy dots on bosses so they also get retarded insane kill times on the big boys.
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
16,738
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Thanks. Sorry for shitting up the thread. I've put close to a hundred hours in(total, not this league), so I'm likely going to buy some stash tabs soon.

Not sure what to play next if flicker strike isn't end game viable.
 

Harfle

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,055
69
Thanks. Sorry for shitting up the thread. I've put close to a hundred hours in(total, not this league), so I'm likely going to buy some stash tabs soon.

Not sure what to play next if flicker strike isn't end game viable.
Cyclone
 

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer
15,320
11,614
View Profile - Path of Exile - Casia

Losing steam on my Ek pathfinder. Die alot. Warlords is not keeping up with damage. I am not really sure how to fix it. life leech support? but honestly mana is also running dry too much, as well.
BV pcoc crit helped a small bit. the extra hits/s.
Early play had a bit of, "too many buttons". Wither totem, flamedash/wb, +pcoc spam.
BV solves it a bit, since it can be cast ooc and +duration nodes keep it going, to maintain power charges. I COULD BV, coh, pcoc, warlords as well in theory.

largely built around this:
 

Korrupt

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,832
1,228
Thanks. Sorry for shitting up the thread. I've put close to a hundred hours in(total, not this league), so I'm likely going to buy some stash tabs soon. Not sure what to play next if flicker strike isn't end game viable.

You arent shitting anything up dude, everyone is always learning in this insanity. I've been playing for years and every few days I'm learning something new or learning the correct way something interacts. Once you get comfortably into maps then I would start worrying about end game. There is many different tiers of difficulty starting with Atziri --> 4 Guardians maps --> Shaper --> Uber Atziri. I'm doing SSF ladder and just doing Atziri the normal version is a challenge at 90 because of my shit gear / gem levels. IMO its what makes the game fun, hitting a wall and tweaking your build to overcome something.

Keep questions and discussions coming, even for veterans it refreshes knowledge on patched or older mechanics some of us haven't thought about in a long time.
 

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer
15,320
11,614
Finally made it past my personal A4 Cruel hurdle! I've been having a ton of fun with Flicker Strike but I'm having a big problem determining why I can't flicker strike.

I ran out of frenzy charges? This usually doesn't happen except when I get really lazy and decide to go in empty into a big pack and depend on Terminus Est to crit in the first three hits. With 50+% crit chance, this seems to happen more often than it should.

Something stunned me.

Server can't make up its mind where I am and my character temporarily pauses. Or worse, he keeps pinging around but not actually registering any hits.

The screen fills up with spell effects(breaches usually do this) and my FPS takes a dump.


Aside from that, lots more fun my 4th:rolleyes: trip through the mid 50s. Probably helped that I did all the side quests and areas as I leveled so that I was constantly over the monster level. Also, prioritizing resists and then HP. I think I was falling into the dps noob trap even though I should really know better. D3 does not prioritize defense, at least while leveling.
yeah, flicker should be relatively end game viable. def early-mid maps. Not sure how great it is vs shaper. but you aren't talking endgame-endgame.
poe has 2 "endgames".
post story maps. t1-t12. white and yellow maps. This is normal player endgame. character level 85 or so.
Then, there is the actual endgame. Red maps, shaper, guardians, uber atziri. possibly uberlab. char level 90+. This stuff is well beyond the average player. time, currency, etc. to the point people do not even assume 8pt ascendancies, etc when giving out builds. same reason a build guide is usually 90-114points or so, and NOT 121. you are NOT going to get those last 15 passive points for level 85-100.

then that is kindof where "league starter builds" comes in. where streamers etc recommend. They are builds with focused power on leveling and 1-85. They may not scale into the real endgame well. but, are great for farming currency, to set up that end game reroll.


Been a few leagues since I did flicker. I am not 100% where it stands nowadays. 50% crit should be keeping you up yes.
#1. what is your accuracy? your 50% crit is not actually critting 50% of the time. Chance to crit is calcuated twice, and reduced TWICE via accuracy.
50% crit vs 80% hit. =20% miss, 80% hit. only 80% of the hits can crit. Roll acc again. 20% of the crits miss, and only hit."
actual hit, miss crit. 48% hit,20% miss, 32%crit.
you want 90% hit at least, in a crit build.

#2. stunning. possible. not sure what your build is. Yes, while it may look like you aren't getting hit while bouncing around. you are getting hit during flicker. Chance to stun, and be stunned is a factor of how much damage you get hit or hit by. So, having MORE life solves this issue. or various stun immunity items. A real problem from ES/CI builds, as low life=stunned aLOT. Typically flicker is life, and shouldn't have much problems with getting stunned. I can't say I ever actually had issues with being stunned while flickerstriking.
Stun - Official Path of Exile Wiki

#3. not likely. hits are being registered. lockstep might help though.

#4. yes. this is a problem.

#5. mana. this is probably the biggest reason beyond running out of frenzy for stopping a flicker,mid flight. are you sure you aren't running out of mana?

looking back, I don't see a build linked. b ut do see.
Could a Flicker Strike CI assassin be good
ok, yeah. if CI assassin. that might be the problem. First, yes, you are getting stunned.
I wouldn't have recommended CI flicker as a league starter.
 
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Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,217
2,365
it will for sure disappear in 3.0 when poison gets gutted. Lots of meta builds that end game scale via damage over time are going to go away. Those builds work by sort of exploiting (ya wrong word cause it's in the game) the nuances of a lot of different mechanics / synergies to get insane clear speeds but stack crazy dots on bosses so they also get retarded insane kill times on the big boys.

I mean the dmg is for sure getting gutted, but the concept of the build might also simply not work. The point of the build really is the fact the AW autosummon more AW, that's great because summoning AW is easily the worst part of the build(and ppl used totems to do it but imo using totem is arguably even more boring) but it relies on the fact the unique summons AW when you kill stuff, even though you(as in, the you for the game mechanic) don't kill stuff, it's your minions who do but because they die from poison dmg(regardless of how much it is really), they get credited to you.

If they unfuck poison shenanigans they might also make sure poison is properly credited to the original source(in this case minions) and as such the build wouldn't work anymore. It is possible that on the other hand they change all source of minion kills to be considered your kills, to make minion builds more appealing with certain items, that'd be nice.
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
16,738
7,767
yeah, flicker should be relatively end game viable. def early-mid maps. Not sure how great it is vs shaper. but you aren't talking endgame-endgame.
poe has 2 "endgames".
post story maps. t1-t12. white and yellow maps. This is normal player endgame. character level 85 or so.
Then, there is the actual endgame. Red maps, shaper, guardians, uber atziri. possibly uberlab. char level 90+. This stuff is well beyond the average player. time, currency, etc. to the point people do not even assume 8pt ascendancies, etc when giving out builds. same reason a build guide is usually 90-114points or so, and NOT 121. you are NOT going to get those last 15 passive points for level 85-100.

then that is kindof where "league starter builds" comes in. where streamers etc recommend. They are builds with focused power on leveling and 1-85. They may not scale into the real endgame well. but, are great for farming currency, to set up that end game reroll.


Been a few leagues since I did flicker. I am not 100% where it stands nowadays. 50% crit should be keeping you up yes.
#1. what is your accuracy? your 50% crit is not actually critting 50% of the time. Chance to crit is calcuated twice, and reduced TWICE via accuracy.
50% crit vs 80% hit. =20% miss, 80% hit. only 80% of the hits can crit. Roll acc again. 20% of the crits miss, and only hit."
actual hit, miss crit. 48% hit,20% miss, 32%crit.
you want 90% hit at least, in a crit build.

#2. stunning. possible. not sure what your build is. Yes, while it may look like you aren't getting hit while bouncing around. you are getting hit during flicker. Chance to stun, and be stunned is a factor of how much damage you get hit or hit by. So, having MORE life solves this issue. or various stun immunity items. A real problem from ES/CI builds, as low life=stunned aLOT. Typically flicker is life, and shouldn't have much problems with getting stunned. I can't say I ever actually had issues with being stunned while flickerstriking.
Stun - Official Path of Exile Wiki

#3. not likely. hits are being registered. lockstep might help though.

#4. yes. this is a problem.

#5. mana. this is probably the biggest reason beyond running out of frenzy for stopping a flicker,mid flight. are you sure you aren't running out of mana?

looking back, I don't see a build linked. b ut do see.

ok, yeah. if CI assassin. that might be the problem. First, yes, you are getting stunned.
I wouldn't have recommended CI flicker as a league starter.

I didn't go CI flicker, I knew that had steep gear requirements. My build only requires Terminus Est and Cospri's Will. And I don't mean "my build" like I made it up. Anyway, this is what the passive tree looks like:

http://poeplanner.com/AAYAAP0WKwB8s...jdf2Eb3aCyAy00YSiB5lZ8EyOMjIQktmGvG8AAAAAAA==

Obviously there's some stretch goals there. Some of the dps passives in the 2H and Sword nodes can be dropped. I didn't take any jewel nodes yet because I haven't found any worth socketing so I wasn't sure whether it was worth planning around them. And I'm not sure if i want to get the spell dodge keystone.

My accuracy is at 93% and I know about the double roll thing. Just seems weird. Melee splash rolls crit only if the main hit rolls crit too? Maybe that was it, I was flickering empty into a large pack thinking I'll get at least 10 unique hits, no way none of them don't crit.

I didn't know stuns were still based on your life after taking CI, that seems wrong.

Lockstep seems to be the default now. I went to change that on zaphid's suggestion and it was already set to that.

My computer is one step above a potato. My cpu and mobo are from 2010 and my video card is a 660 GTX. I'm honestly surprised it still plays games decently.

Not a mana issue. I have 0.4% leech, Poacher's Mark, and 10 mana on kill from Terminus Est. I'm only reserving 35% of my mana partly for that reason. And secondly because most of the dps aura's kinda suck if you play a phys/poison build. I eventually want to switch to double curse, Enfeeble and Vulnerability. Obviously I need Cospri's Will for that, but losing Mana/Life on hit from Poacher's Mark will need to be compensated somehow.


I think part of it is just learning the build. I've found Leap Slamming into a pack more consistent at generating 1-2 frenzy charges than Flicker Strike. Which still doesn't make much sense, but whatever. Leap Slam procs Fortify so I should be doing that anyway. The tricky situations are when you go empty into a pack or you open a door and there happens to be a Rare, a Warband, and a Perandus chest. And don't accidentally flicker into that Breach nearby.

Builds that just straight up whack things with single target melee skills, I don't know how they survive. I start hitting even relatively safe packs with just frenzy and my health starts to dip fast.

Just for posterity, I'm at level 64 and my HP is almost 3k, fire resist is maxed, cold is almost maxed, and lightning is at 34%. Chaos is sitting at -40%. Seems hard to find chaos resist. Would craft it if I could.
 

Fogel

Mr. Poopybutthole
13,132
51,962
Chaos res isn't too big a deal if you know what to avoid - Unless you're doing some kind of low life build w/o a shavs, then it should be maxed. I'd cap that lightning res asap, good way to get shocked and then one shot.
 

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer
15,320
11,614
Chaos res isn't too big a deal if you know what to avoid - Unless you're doing some kind of low life build w/o a shavs, then it should be maxed. I'd cap that lightning res asap, good way to get shocked and then one shot.
yeah. typically I ignore chaos res on my life builds entirely.
of note, chaos is one the things wrecking my EK pathfinder above.
as its essentially a low life build atm. ES too low to swap over to CI entirely. so, life pool is also low. chaos nearly one shots. Bameth. vaal consructs. Although, its to be expected. shes ALSO dying to breaches and others due to insufficient leech or something.
 

Neki

Molten Core Raider
2,726
397
My computer is one step above a potato. My cpu and mobo are from 2010 and my video card is a 660 GTX. I'm honestly surprised it still plays games decently.

I'm still on a i5 3570K and a GTX 560Ti. I feel your pain bro. Game runs fine when I am soloing but when I joined some games for Dried Lake farming, the screen lags with all the AOE animations everyone was using heh.

Still using my pizza sticks elementalist build. Even though I am using crap gear, I'm beginning to do maps. It's pretty beginner friendly and is good even with normal gear. Don't know how viable it is with higher tier maps though. Got to final boss in Merc labs last night and died with the boss at around 10℅ life left. Ffffffuuuuuu.
 

Korrupt

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,832
1,228
I'm still on a i5 3570K and a GTX 560Ti. I feel your pain bro. Game runs fine when I am soloing but when I joined some games for Dried Lake farming, the screen lags with all the AOE animations everyone was using heh.

Still using my pizza sticks elementalist build. Even though I am using crap gear, I'm beginning to do maps. It's pretty beginner friendly and is good even with normal gear. Don't know how viable it is with higher tier maps though. Got to final boss in Merc labs last night and died with the boss at around 10℅ life left. Ffffffuuuuuu.

My brother who has been grouping with one of you guys from the guild has been farming shaper with pizza sticks in LSC. I think the only wall he hit was that he bricked an Uber set last night and said he could have done it but needs more attack speed for shield charge to dodge.
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
My brother who has been grouping with one of you guys from the guild has been farming shaper with pizza sticks in LSC. I think the only wall he hit was that he bricked an Uber set last night and said he could have done it but needs more attack speed for shield charge to dodge.
Flameblast, especially with elementalist or inquisitor has been a longtime staple for doing endgame in the first week or two. The only reason it's not considered meta build is the playstyle, never appearing in patchnotes and there's generally something cheaper with better clearspeed.
 

Korrupt

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,832
1,228
Its crazy how much damage Flameblast gets up to without even having to worry about the ignite portion. He actually went elementalist like you mentioned but stacks spell power instead of elemental damage since he doesn't worry about ignites. The playstyle is pretty easy too, he runs 3 curses one of which is Temporal Chains and just drops totems while he runs in circles.
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
My builds always seem to run an Atziri's Promise so I usually don't get a fuck about Chaos and just hope the flask effect will get me through when I need some more res
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
16,738
7,767
Get to mid 60's, maps start dropping. Currency tab is a mess and full of cards too. Looks up hours played...over 100. Fine, I guess I'll give GGG some money for some functional microtransactions.

6 premium tabs, essence tab, divination tab, and currency tab for just under 30 bucks and they're on sale this weekend, good timing,

Wait, you can get points with those supporter packs, I guess I should at least look at them. Hmm, 250 points for the classic supporter and it comes with some fancy weapon effects. I can still get everything if drop it down to a quad premium stash bundle.

The armor and character effect on the legacy supporter look nice. And it's only $60, the regular price for game that would get much less play time. Oh god, how did I get here? I abhor cosmetic micros.


Can anyone comment on the armor and weapon effects? Are they unique to respective supporter packs? I'm not even sure what I'm asking here beyond "do they look cool?". I'm not even sure what I'd spend the extra ~300 points on anyway.
 

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer
15,320
11,614
yes. supporter pack mtx is unique and only for sale during the league.
Many are hideous imho. Current, classic/legacy one is decent.

I really like the new hats/cape.
Bandana is a great buy imho too. $3 for a good looking helm, AND a face effect.

MTX is reusable. only the skin transfer mtx is consumable.
it wont let you delete a character/item with mtx on it.
need to reclaim effect first. (in the mtx tab.)
2 pets at a time. pets can be placed in your hideout.
mtx is shared by all characters. if you put a helm effect on one, others cannot use it, until you reclaim it.
 

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer
15,320
11,614
started a witch.
the ek pathfinder was dying too much. Maybe Ill go back to her, if I get the EK nova threshold. Or atziris promise, to help her with leech.

occultist crit lightning witch. is the plan. Need some help deciding on setup.
Plan A was arc selfcast. Arc is a bit weak single target. though maybe orb of storms, but ugh. kindof hate that.
Actually leveling. ive been using lit trap 90%. and put arc on spell totem. Worked pretty well. Traps running out of charges on bosses though. And, just got ball lightning. so, dropping lit trap for ball lightning.
The question is then, where do I go from here.
need 2 skills. Self cast dps. with back up. either self cast-coh-warlords. or spell totem-coh-warlords.
Do I self cast ball lit, and have arc on totem doing coh/damage. or do I selfcast arc, and have ball lighting doing coh?

arc-totem-coh-warlords.
ballight-slowproj-elem focus-spell echo-lit pen-lifeleech

I wanted to do arc, but ball light probably scales with more supports?

hrm. also doing a mockup in path of building.
Using my ek pathfinders gear as base, getting 17k dps with ball lightning setup. ^ gemlinks, vs 62k arc. with ARc-echo-lit pen-elem focus-conc destr-life leech.
is ball lightnings dps false like barrage, etc? feel like that should be much higher..

edit:should have checked. yep. tooltip dps only calcs one hit. ball lightning dps calc estimate here. its estimating actual dps would be about 80k.
 
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