Flicker strike

Hi,

I've been trying to get flicker strike to work and I finally hit the point that it feels good enough to progress my character in maps so I thought I'd share it.

Here's some typical gameplay footage. I couldn't find a higher level waystone, I'm level 73, area level is 69.

It's far from optimized. I'm constantly shuffling gems around and there is frankly quite a lot I don't understand. At the end of the video you'll see I realize I still have "Endless Circuit" spec'd from some experimenting with a different build before. I don't think it does anything.

I show my skill links, gear and passive tree in the video. More thoughts below.

Thanks for your feedback!

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Gameplay

• generate power charges > charged staff > generate power charges > flicker strike

• charge generation * PLAN A: kill a monster with storm wave to make a corpse > profane ritual * PLAN B: hit storm waves until you shock > siphoning strike. If you are not careful about how you enter the arena, you sometimes need plan B for boss fights (e.g. trials). It is not that bad as you get 3 charges worth immediately (amulet +1, One with the storm).

• at some point I was experimenting with (multiple) cast on shock + profane ritual + more duration. The idea was to trigger ritual while flickering, shortly come out of the flicker, absorb the charges and immediately continue. Pending further testing...

• new flicker is not old flicker. I think that when you first use the skill, it rolls a die to see if you either use no charges or all your charges. This makes flickering way less smooth and takes getting used to. Don't flicker on one white guy! You might lose all your charges.

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Skills

• charged staff - lightning infusion - primal armament - concentrated effect - conduction - overcharge

• flicker strike - perpetual charge - close combat - soul thief

• storm wave - martial tempo - rage - electrocute

• profane ritual - overabundance - fast forward - arcane tempo - unleash

• siphoning strike - culling strike - behead - life drain

• cast on shock - sniper's mark - conductivity - impetus

• herald of thunder - innervate - blind

• wind dancer - maim - magnified effect - expanse

• charge infusion - clarity

I used to play vaulting impact as you sometimes get into sticky situations (+ life tap and the stun support thing) but there is no room for more skills. I would also like to play voltaic mark. I just saw that tempest flurry gets a bunch of melee strike range with gem quality. Maybe it could replace storm wave in the future, then we can play culmination? on siphoning strike? This would be nice as we could more easily tap the odd rare in the map here and there to steal some buffs.

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Passive tree

TL, DR: pick whatever you want

I would advise playing a jewel that has "Gain 1 rage on melee hit", to sustain rage while flickering.

Most notably I am using mind over matter (MoM) and eldritch battery. Is it worth it? I have no idea. But I'm not dieing, so I'm not letting that aztec guy steal all my gold again. Please GGG, let gamers game, make respec free.

Why chonk? Well I wanted to embrace the darkness but giving up your spirit is really rough. My original plan was to use MoM to fully utilize grasp of the void (as it says life and ES but not mana) and only "use" embrace the darkness to save us from real big hits. But in the end I think it might just be a lot of hoops for a mediocre damage boost and some max hit.

I made a flicker - cast on hit - firestorm/DD in settler's which was a real epilepsy build. You have the mobility of flicker but boost the damage with something else. So I was dreaming ... flicker, cast on crit, archmage, MoM, instant mana leech...? I didn't realize archmage needed reservation though, so if this works it will be without embrace the darkness.

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