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

Hey Prim, I wanted to add my thoughts from playing the build to maybe help inch it towards crowd sourced greatness.

Been playing it for about a week now and I'm 30-40ex deep. The tldr bottom line is it is very fun and therefor a success. All that follows does not detract from that opinion.

First of all I actually found that I was able to make the build come online at level 68 for about 5-7ex. At least in terms of the core flicker and CoC mechanic and being able to use it to farm white and red maps to keep progressing. I think this is cheaper than your stated estimates.

I also found that the replica conq eff jewel and one ring with non-channeling cost was sufficient to keep my mana from bottoming out. so maybe there's ground to be gained there.

I killed 3 labs myself but did need a carry for uber lab which I did before killing A10 kitava.

In my current state of the build I sit at 5420 ES which is roughly 1.5k lower than the PoB. Partly this is because I am lv 90 instead of 95 and so I don't have the 5 points leading to scion. Partly it is because I don't have as much INT on my gear as the PoB because I just found it prohibitively expensive.

My main problem as it stands is that I am just a bit too glass cannony. I die often and it feels kinda bad after a while. It is unclear to me if the extra 1.5k ES would fix this. With pots I sit at 25.5K armor (81%) and somehow this just sometimes doesn't feel like enough.

I also find that the builds greatest vulnerability is the Dots and Degens. We do have great sustain when attacking but sometimes you just get piled on by harbingers or eldritch mobs and if their combined damage goes fast enough to beat the ES gain then you wont often have the reaction time to pop vaal Discipline. It's possible that getting bottled faith would help me against degens.

The PoB version I got doesn't specify pantheon. I started on Araakali and Ralakesh because poison and corrBlood were kicking my ass. Then I thought I was getting stun locked so I switched to brineKing. But then poison was bad again so I got more chaos res gear and some on cluster jewels and switched to Shakari. But then corrBlood was bad again (it was still a problem even with full Ralakesh) so I got corrBlood immunity on a rare jewel. Then my ES got high enough to not have to worry about stun so I finally landed on Lunaris/Shakari. This feels pretty good.

Another problem I had was that it seemed like curses were really affecting me. Especially tempChains. To combat this I got 64% reduced curse effect as a suffix on my silver flask. This helped. But what I lost compared to the PoB was some attack speed.

To compensate for this I could have got some attackSpeed as a corruption on the sword but instead I decided to swap one of the medium cluster jewels for a megalomaniac which had:

Bloodscent = 25% attackSpd and 10% movSpd with full rage. In practice I spend much of the each map at partly filled rage but I still think its worth it. Just keeps some fun factor.

Thaumophage = more ES leech (on top of flask), some spellDmg and some hinder. Seemed like a nice defensive option

Streamlined = projDmg. Just picked any third notable that was semi useful. There aren't many megalomaniacs on the market with bloodscent and thaumophage so it could be a problem to recommend getting one in the guide. Not my call tho.

What I gave up in the medium jewel swap was some AOE scaling that I can't say I noticed being gone.

One thing I noticed is that whenever I get an acceleration shrine I turn into a god of destruction for mega fun. This leads me to believe that if I put a headhunter on this build it will be an order of magnitude more awesome. I understand why you may not want to tell people to go for HH in the guide, but if I do farm one up ill come back and report. Also a bonus of the HH is str and dex stats. Getting enough stats was the biggest challenge for me in gearing the build. No ES tho so it may feel bad before HH buffs kick in. idk.

Another thing I noticed is that it seems like the build is sensitive to a lot of map mods which can get annoying.

Map mods I reroll or avoid:
-Players cant regen mana
-Ele Reflect (phys reflect is fine despite flicker attacks)
-Monsters steal charges on hit (breaks flicker sustain sometimes)
-Temp chains
-Monsters are hexproof
-Monsters take reduced dmg from crits
-Monsters have EleResists
-Monsters suppress spell damage
-Monster Action speed cannot go below base
-Players have -max resists
-Players have less cooldown recovery rate
-Players have less recovery rate of ES


The top 2/3 might be the only ones to hard pass on. The rest can be done but might really suck in combination. I dont know what can be done about this list, just bringing it up for people to chew on.


For my current take on the build I have found (in T16s) it is really quite good at:

Legion, Harbinger, Breach, Abyss, Ritual, Bestiary, Eater of Worlds packs, strongBoxes, shrines


But really not so great at:

Delirium, Beyond, Essence, Metamorph, Archnemesis, Pinnacle Bosses


I haven't tested:

Incursion, Heist, Harvest, Blight, Betrayal, Delve, Expedition, Torment, Rogue Exiles, Searing Exarch packs


All of which I think agrees with the premise of this build which is that its designed for mapping, not bossing. I haven't tried the cyclone variant of the build because I came for the flicker fun and if I'm going to do bosses I'm just gonna use my SkeleMages build.

For the helm there are few enchanted ones and none with the +1 power charge corruption on the market so people going all in on the build are gonna have to make those themselves. I did neither.

For the boots I never got elusive on them, instead getting elusive with increased effect from dropping "Opportunistic" and picking up "Mistwalker" which also has some crit defense. This may at some point be proven to have been dumb but I think it was both cheaper and more fun.

I did get the "drops brittle ground" Searing Exarch implicit on the boots but to be honest I dont think it really does anything noticeable for me. I dont struggle to crit anymore, even on bosses. Plus the flicker range is soo good with ashes I really spend barely any time walking to drop brittle when enemies are on screen.

My first time through the PoB I missed that I should be running precision. It made a noticeable difference adding it in. I believe some other people struggled to understand what gems to slot for the 6link as well.

Also it was pointed out by others on this thread that on the right side of the tree you can replace a frenzy duration node with a 10 dex "for free" which I did.

Also one of the mastery nodes in pob gives light radius, I instead chose 2% ES regen.



Sorry to one and all for the wall of text. Happy to hear any feedback/comments on what I could do better or clarify anything I wrote.

Hoping to make more apes more together for more strong.

Hi, cool build. I had one question.
I have boths rings crafted with non channeling skills ahve -7 to mana cost and i have replica conqurers efficiency. Inspiration is not procking and it shows that flicker strike and ice nova both have 0 mana cost. Using normal ice nova at the moment. Both say that theyr mana cost is 10. When i remove ne craft from ring it sas mana cost is 2. Does that mean that anomalious ice nova has bigger mana cost?
Just wanted to clarify this, becouse right now it seems i dont need to use 2 rings with normal ice nova.

You can check wiki to verify if one cost more mana than the other and the -mana on gear is only needed to min-max your build so yeah just get enough to get the cost of your spells enough so your mana, during combat, isn't bottoming out

you can also de-level inspiration a couple levels to make ice nova cost 1 rather than 0 if you can't replace gear yet

yes your ice nova needs to cost 1 or more for the inspiration gem to work

Hey so I'm currently running this build and I'm still a bit behind in levels (only lvl 85 at the moment) but I'm really struggling on the damage department right now. I'm probably just missing something but I really can't put my finger on it because the rares all consist of stats/res/energy shield and nothing that actually adds a significant amount of damage aside from the frostbite which I do already have. (I'm also missing the unnerve/exposure/ele pen for now, but even with those added in I sit at ~50% of the dps as opposed to ~40%). Even so my pob is landing at half or less than the 5.5m in the provided one even when I take the provided skill tree + jewels at lvl 95 so I'm really lost here.

Normal mobbing goes just fine, but as soon as I hit really thick packs like those from harbinger bosses or just some with some real tanky enemies in there, or even just the map bosses, my dps really can't make a dent in them which leads to me dying a few moments later. I'm hoping someone can point out where I'm going wrong/what I'm missing so I can patch that all up. Here's my pob:

https://pastebin.com/y9HtvhGN

Thanks in advance!

"

Blank_Username เขียน:

Hey so I'm currently running this build and I'm still a bit behind in levels (only lvl 85 at the moment) but I'm really struggling on the damage department right now. I'm probably just missing something but I really can't put my finger on it because the rares all consist of stats/res/energy shield and nothing that actually adds a significant amount of damage aside from the frostbite which I do already have. (I'm also missing the unnerve/exposure/ele pen for now, but even with those added in I sit at ~50% of the dps as opposed to ~40%). Even so my pob is landing at half or less than the 5.5m in the provided one even when I take the provided skill tree + jewels at lvl 95 so I'm really lost here.

Normal mobbing goes just fine, but as soon as I hit really thick packs like those from harbinger bosses or just some with some real tanky enemies in there, or even just the map bosses, my dps really can't make a dent in them which leads to me dying a few moments later. I'm hoping someone can point out where I'm going wrong/what I'm missing so I can patch that all up. Here's my pob:

https://pastebin.com/y9HtvhGN

Thanks in advance!

Ill point out a few things i noticed:

-You take the +50 life mastery, but we reserve our life. use that point elsewhere.
-you take the mana res efficiency mastery, but the guide calls for aura effect. might be some dmg missing from this. If you need res efficiency get a better ashes.
-I think u already know but ur missing some points on the left like a power charge and a few from the thread of hope ring.
-pick up 10dex on the right instead of frenzy duration
-You seem to be running a mana flask but you shouldnt need it at this point. I was even able to drop the mana cost craft from one ring and still dont need mana flask. recommend dying sun instead.
-you could divine your watchers eye to get more ES on hit
-Awakened cast on crit has increased cooldown recovery where normal CoC does not. This might account for some of your missing damage.


Hope it helps

And since I'm new to CoC, been heard there's some attack speed / cooldown things need to be taken care of, any up to date guides explain things like this?

epic looking build, but i dont have an assassin i can use for this , but i do have a witch, i saw you say you can run it as an occultist, is there any chance of a pob for that ?

"

BruteNewb เขียน:

Hey Prim, I wanted to add my thoughts from playing the build to maybe help inch it towards crowd sourced greatness.

Been playing it for about a week now and I'm 30-40ex deep. The tldr bottom line is it is very fun and therefor a success. All that follows does not detract from that opinion.

Ahh thanks and glad to hear! I'll be sure to update the guide with respect to the feedback, and also try to reply point by point if you bring up any questions.

"

First of all I actually found that I was able to make the build come online at level 68 for about 5-7ex. At least in terms of the core flicker and CoC mechanic and being able to use it to farm white and red maps to keep progressing. I think this is cheaper than your stated estimates.

Haha yeah, the more experienced of a player you are - which you clearly are! - the better you would be at keeping costs low (in general, experienced players have better Google-fu on trade search so they get better bargains, move stats around etc etc). I try to peg my build cost estimates at T16 farming and current league content though, so I priced it a bit higher to be safe and newcomer-friendly.

"

I also found that the replica conq eff jewel and one ring with non-channeling cost was sufficient to keep my mana from bottoming out. so maybe there's ground to be gained there.

Yes! Although I recommend you sacrifice for the open prefix on ring and drop Rep Conq Efficiency instead because a jewel slot adds a LOT of damage and tankiness! (Look at my Abyssals - they were 10c and 20c and add a ton of ES and like a hundred thousand DPS I believe.) That's more than a prefix can ever grant on a ring, so flip that around. Plus rings without a life roll are supa cheap.

"

In my current state of the build I sit at 5420 ES which is roughly 1.5k lower than the PoB. Partly this is because I am lv 90 instead of 95 and so I don't have the 5 points leading to scion. Partly it is because I don't have as much INT on my gear as the PoB because I just found it prohibitively expensive.

My main problem as it stands is that I am just a bit too glass cannony. I die often and it feels kinda bad after a while. It is unclear to me if the extra 1.5k ES would fix this. With pots I sit at 25.5K armor (81%) and somehow this just sometimes doesn't feel like enough.

1.5k ES more is 30% more "HP" than you currently have - let me promise you it WILL make a world of difference - to the point where you could just try slotting in Presence of Chayula for a couple maps and you will immediately notice the difference! Since we rely on brute force 50% of ES as stun threshold, and 50% stun avoidance, the extra 750 buffer is really huge (imagine taking a 2.5k life build to tier 16s, you'd be stunned to death all the time). A lot of deaths comes from being micro-chain-stunned and thus the damage not popping off fast enough to murder stuff. I would do everything in your power to get that figure up to 6.5k ASAP (I currently run a 7.1k ES setup).

Tying some info together, I kind of suspect, since you mention that you don't do no-regen maps and therefore may be running out of mana on those maps, that your CWDT-Ball Lightning+Molten Shell may not be firing as often as they could be because you're oom, which is why the 1 mana cost mark is really key. CWDT-Ball Lightning is a cheese mechanic that makes you almost invulnerable to zerg damage in maps: https://streamable.com/aegb8x - and if you're OOM you're down a ridiculous defense layer.

"

I also find that the builds greatest vulnerability is the Dots and Degens. We do have great sustain when attacking but sometimes you just get piled on by harbingers or eldritch mobs and if their combined damage goes fast enough to beat the ES gain then you wont often have the reaction time to pop vaal Discipline. It's possible that getting bottled faith would help me against degens.

Absolutely right, I hate degens with a passion. Zealot's Oath + Sulphur/Bottled is a good stopgap. With a higher budget like 40ex, you can try to shop an Assassin's Mark ring, put Frostbite into the Cospri's instead, and all this to free up the Mark on Hit + Ass Mark slots to run Vitality and one other aura. You will however need to come up with 5 skill points for even more reservation nodes on the tree (left side). This is a build that needs points all the way up to 100, which is both a blessing and curse.

"

The PoB version I got doesn't specify pantheon. I started on Araakali and Ralakesh because poison and corrBlood were kicking my ass. Then I thought I was getting stun locked so I switched to brineKing. But then poison was bad again so I got more chaos res gear and some on cluster jewels and switched to Shakari. But then corrBlood was bad again (it was still a problem even with full Ralakesh) so I got corrBlood immunity on a rare jewel. Then my ES got high enough to not have to worry about stun so I finally landed on Lunaris/Shakari. This feels pretty good.

Yeah whoops, I haven't finished the guide, wish PoB included these choices. I run fully upgraded Ralakesh and swap between Brine King / Arakaali (Brine for super juiced 160% quant maps with double added as etc because stun can become an issue again with that much added). This because I'm too lazy to buy a corrBlood jewel but that is absolutely the right move. Ralakesh just works a cheap alternative.

"

Another problem I had was that it seemed like curses were really affecting me. Especially tempChains. To combat this I got 64% reduced curse effect as a suffix on my silver flask. This helped. But what I lost compared to the PoB was some attack speed.

Oh yeah, I actually run too. It goes up to 60%? Damn! Although I do love Temp Chains since it makes my Flasks last forever... hahaha.

"

What I gave up in the medium jewel swap was some AOE scaling that I can't say I noticed being gone.

Hmmm I personally do love Megalomaniacs but I can't include them in a build guide because they're too one-of-a-kind. There are a lot of neat tricks with them, for example, getting Arcane Surge on one combined with two other nodes frees up yet another skill gem slot which is crucial for an additional aura. All these tricks I will compile into a "high-end" section of the build towards the end... eventually.

"

One thing I noticed is that whenever I get an acceleration shrine I turn into a god of destruction for mega fun. This leads me to believe that if I put a headhunter on this build it will be an order of magnitude more awesome. I understand why you may not want to tell people to go for HH in the guide, but if I do farm one up ill come back and report. Also a bonus of the HH is str and dex stats. Getting enough stats was the biggest challenge for me in gearing the build. No ES tho so it may feel bad before HH buffs kick in. idk.

Nope. HH REALLY works well with this build, mainly because even before Divergent + Ashes combo it make your targetting become screenwide. HH + Open Maps is absolutely insane, you can clear it in 15 seconds. It also becomes a hilarious Nem3/Nem4 farmer (or whatever the equivalent is these days). I actually built this on Standard in 3.16 to prepare for the 3.17 release, and 3.17 Ashes happened and I've been too busy to farm a HH, but when you do get one, absolutely go enjoy it (it's why the build is designed around having the belt slot flexible as well.)

"

Another thing I noticed is that it seems like the build is sensitive to a lot of map mods which can get annoying.

Hmm I think a lot of these boil down to needing to get more ES to take a hit before you give it back, there are some absolutely no-do ones like Steal Charges and Monsters have Ailment Avoidance yes (and even -max res is doable if you don't roll +added%Element) but +monster res is a super common roll and Exposure and/or Frostbite usually dent the resist enough for you to zerg it down in a couple of procs instead of one.

However this is one reason why Occultist is the superior build past a point - they have inbuilt additional curse, their curses apply to hexproof, and the -20% cold res is universal!

"

For my current take on the build I have found (in T16s) it is really quite good at:

Legion, Harbinger, Breach, Abyss, Ritual, Bestiary, Eater of Worlds packs, strongBoxes, shrines


But really not so great at:

Delirium, Beyond, Essence, Metamorph, Archnemesis, Pinnacle Bosses

Yep, absolutely agree. You have to be beefier (7k is when these became jokes for me) to handle these mobs since you won't one-round 'em, and preemptively pop VMS and keep VD handy. The Ice Spear version is quite required to take a bat to Pinnacle bosses.

There is a reason why the damage feels lower than the sheet PoB DPS - I am making a video on this, but the TL:DR is Flicker Strike doesn't actually attack in a smooth pattern like Cyclone. It fires in triples with different intervals because it apparently uses the weapon's thrusting animation. So while a Cyclone build can plan for max procs (7.57 etc), Flicker even with a reported 7.57 proc-rate is probably only getting 5-6 off because of its irregular rhythm. This is VERY irritating and a lot of Flicker users have been irate over this for ages, and is one of the reasons why Flicker traditionally is a "throw Mirrors at it until it works" build - because it has such a silly mechanical handicap compared to the monster that is Cyclone. As you can guess the effect is compounded with a mechanic like CoC that requires regular intervals to work *grunt*.

"

All of which I think agrees with the premise of this build which is that its designed for mapping, not bossing. I haven't tried the cyclone variant of the build because I came for the flicker fun and if I'm going to do bosses I'm just gonna use my SkeleMages build.

I highly, highly, highly recommend you just buy a level 1 cyclone (and drop Multistrike ofc for like Cold Pen) and try it out for a boss. It is a simple, clean probably 40% DPS upgrade for the reasons stated above and it gives CONTROL over your character. It is why I intend to really sell the build as 3 builds in one. It can be a GREAT pinnacle bosser (especially Ice Spear, oh boy, Ice Spear scaling is busted even with cheap gear).

"

For the helm there are few enchanted ones and none with the +1 power charge corruption on the market so people going all in on the build are gonna have to make those themselves. I did neither.

Ahaha you missed the boat, there used to be maybe 50+ on the market and I handed out all 3 of my reserve at cost price already. xD

"

For the boots I never got elusive on them, instead getting elusive with increased effect from dropping "Opportunistic" and picking up "Mistwalker" which also has some crit defense. This may at some point be proven to have been dumb but I think it was both cheaper and more fun.

Yup, also if you go this route, try Badge of the Brotherhood. 3.16 version used Badge with Mistwalker and it was as you can guess amazingly fast. I just tend to release the 'safer' version as baseline PoB because a bigger weakness was the single targt DPS (and probably one of the biggest dangers to the build in juiced maps is aura-stacking rares so the 20% reduced damage taken is huge).

"

I did get the "drops brittle ground" Searing Exarch implicit on the boots but to be honest I dont think it really does anything noticeable for me. I dont struggle to crit anymore, even on bosses. Plus the flicker range is soo good with ashes I really spend barely any time walking to drop brittle when enemies are on screen.

Hmm map bosses and mapping aren't what this mod is for, since you will be at full power charges and can just go in and truck them. This mod is for pinnacle bosses and zerging down their first 50% HP so Ambush and Assassinate comes online. It rarely gets use during regular mapping (however if you switch to Cyclone CoC it is AMAZING especially on Occultist, which lacks base crit.) Expect nerfs next league...

My first time through the PoB I missed that I should be running precision. It made a noticeable difference adding it in. I believe some other people struggled to understand what gems to slot for the 6link as well.

"

Also it was pointed out by others on this thread that on the right side of the tree you can replace a frenzy duration node with a 10 dex "for free" which I did.

Dang this is super smart! And I guess ditto on the left - you can get 10 int instead of 20% PC duration! Stonks!! I should just update the PoB based on these two things (I did value Frenzy duration early on, especially on phased nonsense like Elder Guardians).

"

Also one of the mastery nodes in pob gives light radius, I instead chose 2% ES regen.

Yep definitely a great choice if you don't ever run indoor maps, I feel blind when doing UGS however so I absolutely had to get this. I'll do a couple more options in the Masteries section.. when I get to it. xD

"

Sorry to one and all for the wall of text. Happy to hear any feedback/comments on what I could do better or clarify anything I wrote.

Nope mate all this is great and will enhance the guide + guide people who come to this thread! Keep em coming. Try Presence of Chayula and Badge! They're so cheap and may fix or amplify what's missing / what you like about your playstyle!!

"

Blank_Username เขียน:

Hey so I'm currently running this build and I'm still a bit behind in levels (only lvl 85 at the moment) but I'm really struggling on the damage department right now. I'm probably just missing something but I really can't put my finger on it because the rares all consist of stats/res/energy shield and nothing that actually adds a significant amount of damage aside from the frostbite which I do already have. (I'm also missing the unnerve/exposure/ele pen for now, but even with those added in I sit at ~50% of the dps as opposed to ~40%). Even so my pob is landing at half or less than the 5.5m in the provided one even when I take the provided skill tree + jewels at lvl 95 so I'm really lost here.

Normal mobbing goes just fine, but as soon as I hit really thick packs like those from harbinger bosses or just some with some real tanky enemies in there, or even just the map bosses, my dps really can't make a dent in them which leads to me dying a few moments later. I'm hoping someone can point out where I'm going wrong/what I'm missing so I can patch that all up. Here's my pob:

https://pastebin.com/y9HtvhGN

Thanks in advance!

|

Hey there! On top of what BruteNewb said (thanks Brute!) I have some additional pointers!

1) The issue with beefier mobs is they often spawn with Ele Resist that trash mobs don't have, and map bosses and Pinnacle bosses have a ton of baseline too in addition to any map mods. Curse Immunity and Curse reduced effectiveness also make these mobs stand up to you instead of falling over. And that's where you, with less than 5k ES, will fall over yourself, because it is absolutely crucial to hit at least 6K ES or the build will get stunned to high heavens, doing 0 damage and thus dying even faster! ><

At this point the first step I can recommend till you get better ES gear is to equip Presence of Chayula to stopgap the damage. You need to focus on levelling your gems right now and dying less rather than worrying about DPS.

2) The PoB shows Pulverise as one of the links, is this an error? It should be Inspiration instead! That alone is going to increase your DPS by a ton.

3) Exposure and Unnerve are REALLY cheap to roll for. The build is really ES starved so it's crucial to invest heavily in the Glove and Boots slot - I highly recommend you pour more currency into the gloves, it shouldn't be expensive to get a 200ES rare at least (mine at 240 are exceptional and unrealistic - I slammed ES on it with Eldritch Exalt). Once you get that glove, Exposure and Unnerve are huge multipliers.

4) Gem levels - If you're going to use level 19 0 qual gems, I hope you're doing high yellows or tops early reds. Corrupted 21 Disciplines are 30c right now and will give you a truckload of ES, it sometimes makes no sense to cut costs on tankiness when the deaths waste so much of your farming time and make a build less enjoyable to play.

5) ES total - Do not enter T16s with less than 6k ES, you are in for a world of pain. Int is a great way to scale ES (and even a bit of damage, with Tranquiltiy) but the gloves and boots providing so little base ES means there's nothing to scale it with. ALthough I am super jealous of the Ice Nova enchant, I never did manage to get that!!

6) Wise Oak - with Inspiration instead of Pulverise, your mana cost should be low enough to remove that mana flask. If you can't use Wise Oak, at least use a Sulphur Flask with an Attack Speed roll on it!

Actually that's it. I compared the PoBs side by side and the stat window is almost the same except mine had a 1.3x modifier on the damage and yours had 0.87, all due to the penetration/unnerve gap. To summarise:

a) Wise Oak - 8% Penetration
b) Exposure - 12% lowered
c) Unnerve - 10% taken
d) Boots - 10% Penetration

and finally

e) Gem levels, this is huge and about 10% base hit difference.

So yep, you'll get there, but absolutely start with your glove slot, it makes a huge world of difference even in mapping speed + tankiness.

"

Cazziuz เขียน:

epic looking build, but i dont have an assassin i can use for this , but i do have a witch, i saw you say you can run it as an occultist, is there any chance of a pob for that ?

Before I start, do you have about 60 ex? Because I am absolutely not going to recommend anyone try to Occultist this with less than deep pockets. XD