[3.0] How to Flicker. Terminus Est Edition!

Hey guys! Welcome to my guide - "How to Flicker. Terminus Est Edition!". As the title suggest this is a flicker strike guide using the newly buffed unique sword - Terminus Est, which with enough critical strike chance, allows you to permanently flicker around without without constantly relying on kills to generate frenzy charges, that means permanent flickering during boss fights. This will be a very detailed guide that will try to explain everything and answer most questions preemptivelly. In the thread i'll try to answer all your question and help you to the best of my ability and as soon as possible. Good luck!

INDEX
1.. Skills and Support gems
2.. About the Flicker Strike attack
3.. Buffs and Utility Skills
4.. Passive skill tree (leveling trees + Ascendancy)
5.. The Pantheon
6.. Gear
7.. The Bandits
8.. Leveling Guide.
9.. My Flicker build (passive tree, gear, screenshots)
10.. Videos
11.. Frequently asked questions
12.. List of my other guides

Path of building pastebin (thanks to crasah)
https://pastebin.com/P8QJJAh4



1.. Skills and Support gems

Flicker Strike + Multistrike + Melee Physical Damage + Increased Critical Strike + Fortify + Melee Damage on Full Life

Short explanation


Cast when Damage Taken (level 1) + Immortal Call (level 3) + Increased Duration (level 20) + Blood Rage (level 20)

Short explanation


Herald of Ash + Arctic Armour + Assassin’s Mark + Blasphemy

Short explanation


Leap Slam + Ancestral Warchief + Faster Attacks + Blood Magic

Short explanation




2.. About the Flicker Strike attack

What is Flicker Strike
First of all don't forget that you can click your flicker strike button while pointing on the ground and your character will automatically attack the nearest enemy !
Basically Flicker Strike teleports you to a nearby monster and attacks it with a melee weapon. Unfortunately it has a cooldown (2 seconds), the good news is that you can bypass that cooldown by expending a Frenzy Charge(which happens automatically if you have frenzy charges). Getting Frenzy Charges is the key for this build. With Flicker Strike you want to be able to attack non-stop so you need to generate Frenzy Charges all the time. This build utilizes two frenzy charge generators - Blood Rage, that will give you chance to gain a frenzy charge on kill and the Terminus Est unique sword that will generate 1 frenzy charge every time you deal a critical strike. Now i must note that when you attack with flicker strike linked to multistrike support gem you perform three attacks but you'll gain only one frenzy charge if you land a critical strike. Basically what this sword does is to sustain the amount of frenzy charges that you've already generated. You should always try to engage a boss with as much frenzycharges as possi. So keep that in mind and make sure that you start a boss fight prepared! Flicker strike has superior clearing speed, and it also provides extra defenses naturally becuase you'll be teleporting around and doing so it is much harder for mosnters to actually hit you. I must say that Flicker is very prone to desync so ... be warned if you play Path of Exile in predictive mode. Usually it's very hard to play flicker strike builds in a party. With the Terminus Est frenzy charge generation it is possible though it won't always go smothly ... and let's not forget that with the ridiculous speeding of flickering around your party members will usually be left way behind. Becuase of that i can't really suggest this build if you are a party player.

Support gems

Melee Physical Damage - The best support gem when it comes to increasing your damage. A must have!

Multistrike - This support gem greatly increases your attack speed and more importantly it allows you to strike three times at the cost of one attack. That means that you'll spend mana only once per three hit and you'll loose only one frenzy charge to bypass the flicker strike cooldown per three attacks. This build really can't work without Multistrike.

Increased Critical Strike - After all this build heavily relies on your critical strike chance. This gem not only increases it but it also increase the base critical strike chance of which all other increases are based upon.

Fortify - This gem increases your physical damage a bit and it also gives you the Fortify buff whenever you hit something, which gives you 20% reduced damage taken from hits (including elemental damage and reflected damage)

Melee Damage on Full Life - A gem that further increases your damage. It basically works as a second Melee Physical Damage support gem, as long as you are on Full Life, and since you are going to be a Slayer you'll be pretty much constantly at full life. It's important to notice that when you use Blood Rage your tooltip life will never be full, thankfully after patch 2.6 you'll still be considered at full life so you'll be able to take advantage of this support gem

Other options
Melee Splash - you get melee splash from the Slayer's Impact passive, but if you for reason decide not to go with the Slayer sub-class then know this - having splash is MANDATORY, this build cannot function without it!
Faster Attacks - attacking faster is of course always nice but this build is already insanely fast so there is no need for this gem
Increased Critical Damage - a great damage boosting gem, though Melee Physical Damage on Full Life just that adds more.
Added Fire Damage - a great damage boosting gem, though Melee Physical Damage on Full Life just that adds more.
Physical to Lightning - all other options simply give you more damage
Weapon Elemental Damage - all other options simply give you more damage



3.. Buffs and Utility Skills

Blood Rage
Blood Rage is an extremely important buff that gives you a chance to gain a frenzy charge and is one of the two frenzy charge generators that this build uses (Terminus Est being the other one). It also gives you all the life leech you and it increases your attack speed. The downside is that it degenerates 4% of your life constantly while active, thankfully this is mitigated by the amounts of life regeneration that this build has and further alleviated by your life leech combined with the Slayer's Endless Hunger passive. The duration of Blood Rage is refreshed whenever you kill something so usually it's enough to cast it just once when you enter a new area. The Increased Duration support gem further increases its already good duration time.

Herald of Ash
Herald of Ash is a buff that reserves 25% of your mana and in return it increases your damage by giving you extra fire damage based on 15% of your physical damage. Also If you kill an enemy with an attack, other enemies near them will be ignited for the overkill damage (i.e. a monster has 1 life you deal 10 damage to you so the nearby monsters will be ignited for a percentage of the excess 9 points of damage).

Arctic Armour
Arctic Armour is a buff that reserves 25% of your mana. It is a great defensive tool with its (8-13)% less Physical/Fire Damage taken when Hit while stationary. With flicker strike even though you are teleporting around you are actually considered stationary most of the time so this is a perfect buff for this build.

Blasphemy + Assassin's Mark
Assassin's Mark is curse and when it is combined with Blasphemy it is turned into an aura that reserves 35% of your mana. Assassin's Mark is your much needed power charge generator, while it also gives you an extra chance to deal a critical strike and increased critical strike multiplier against monsters cursed by it. You also gain mana and life when you kill enemies affected by it.

Cast when Damage Taken (level 1) + Immortal Call (level 3)
Immortal Call is a buff that gives you brief period of physical damage immunity. This is the perfect tool to deal with the terrifying quills on death effect of the porcupine monsters. It also helps against reflected physical damage and any incoming physical damage really. When you combine Immortal call with the Cast when Damage Taken support gem it will be activated automatically when you take a certain amount of damage - the lower the level of the Cast when Damage Taken, the more often it will activate. Now Cast when Damage Taken can support gem that have the same or lower level requirements as the support gem itself. For example if you have level 1 Cast when Damage Taken (because you want it to trigger as often as possible) it requires level 38 so you can link Immortal Call level 3 to it because it also requires level 38. If you link say Blood Rage level 20 to your level Cast when Damage Taken it won't be triggered by the support gem, because the level 20 Blood Rage has a level requirement of 70. It's worth mentioning that you can freely add support gem in the mix regardless of their level requirement (for example you can add Increased Duration Support gem level 20 and it will still affect your level 3 Immortal Call without interfering with the automated casting of your level 1 Cast when Damage Taken)

Leap Slam
This is your movement ability. Use it to move around faster and to jump over obstacles. Link it to a Faster Attacks support gem to increase its speed, and to a Blood Magic support gem so that you can use it freely all the time

Ancestral Warchief
Ancestral Warchief is an attack totem that deal damage in an area, increases your damage while active and can(kind of) serve as a decoy.

Other skills (if you have the sockets for them)
Vaal Grace - After charging it by killing monsters, this skill will greatly increase your chance to dodge attacks and spells for 6 seconds. You can link it to an Increased Duration support gem to further increase its duration.
Vaal Haste - After charging it by killing monsters, this skill will increase your attack, cast and movement speed for 4 seconds. You can link it to an Increased Duration support gem to further increase its duration.
Better Supported Ancestral Warchief - The Ancestral Warchief can pack quite a punch if you support it with the usual damage related support gems (melee physical damage, faster attacks, increased critical strikes, increased critical damage, added fire damage and so on.)
Frenzy - you could use the Frenzy attack linked to faster attacks for an extra way of generating frenzy charges (if needed). You could also turn it to an alternative attack skill by linking it to the usual damage related support gems (melee physical damage, faster attacks, increased critical strikes, increased critical damage, melee damage on full life, fortify and so on.). For an alternative attack you could also use Viper Strike



4.. Passive skill tree (leveling trees + Ascendancy)

Let's talk about the passive skill tree.
Basically the most important things are - increased maximum life, critical strike chance and multiplier, increased physical damage, maximum frenzy charges and jewel sockets.
First of all let's talk about the increased maximum life. It is literally the most important defense that you can have. The more the better! Basically you need to pick the major life related nodes along the way (Bravery, Golem's Blood, Thick Skin, Herbalism, Heart of the Warrior, Barbarism and Juggernaut ) and then you must take pretty much the entire Constitution cluster.
Your Critical Strike Chance is crucial to this build given that your frenzy charge generation via Terminus Est (and your damage) depends on it. Try to grab Fatal Blade, Heartseeker and Eagle Eye before you are able to equip your Terminus Est sword (even grab Deadly Dilettante early on if needed). After that proceed and take Disemboweling. If you need even more critical chance use jewels to satisfy those needs.
Because you'll be stacking a lot of critical strike chance it is only natural to stack increased critical strike multiplier. Thankfully they both are the same clusters so it's easy to pick them up.
Along the way you'll get plenty of increased physical damage, and pretty much the only notes that you go a bit off the way to grab are Razor's Edge and Blade Master - it is worth it though!
After all this is a flicker strike build and thus having as much frenzy charges as possible is very important. Two of the available three +1 max frenzy charge passives are easy to access. The third one is a bit too far away and in my opinion it's not worth spending the required passive skill points to get it.
This build ends up with four jewel sockets. Read more about the jewels that you want to use in the "Gear" section. Note that if you don't have good jewels it's better to take the jewel sockets later on when you actually have something that's worth it.
I should mention that the proposed skill trees barely give any elemental resistances because it isn't that hard to cap them without spending passives. With that said please remember that you MUST cap your resistances! If needed spend passive points to achieve that! There are plenty of great resistance passives (such as Diamond Skin, Sentinel and the passives behind them, Cloth and Chain is another excellent option) don't be afraid to use them if needed!
Note that it is very important to have some mana leech to sustain your flicker strike! Take a node or two ( or even 2 + Spirit Void early on ) if needed!
You won't be lacking strength or dexterity but you might need some intelligence. If that's the case then pick up the Wisdom of the Glade passive for the +30 to Intelligence. Refund the passive when/if you no longer need it.

What about going into the shadow area on the right side of the tree instead of the marauder's left side? Well after countless calculations and tests i can say that the results are better if you stick to the left side of the tree.
What about armour/evasion passives? No, just no! Spending passive points specifically for armour and/or evasion increases is literally like throwing your points away. Don't do it!
What about Executioner, Wrecking Ball, By the Blade Blade of Cunning and Brutal Blade? Sure they add some more damage but this build has already more than enough and the points needed to get them are better spent for increased maximum life.
How about some more life leech? Well in my opinion Blood Rage already gives you enough leech. Feel free to take Vitality Void if you feel that you need some more.
Vaal Pact! What about Vaal pact? Simple - it is too far away, it is not required at all and with it Blood Rage becomes extremely annoying (because you no longer can regenerate life to mitigate its downside). Also with Vaal Pact the Slayer's Endless Hunger becomes useless!

Passive skill trees per 10 points:


Ascendancy

Slayer is definitely the way to go in my opinion. With the 20% Culling Strike, 20 seconds Onslaught, free Melee Splash (effectively enabling you to have a 7L flicker strike ... 8L if you count the culling strike), awesome damage boosts and the great overleeching and life leech effect not being removed when at max life ... it's just the best option.

Start with Impact, continue with Endless Hunger*, then grab Bane of Legends and lastly take Headsman. Picking up Brutal Fervor instead of Headsman is also an option if you have issues with being stunned.

*The Atziri's Acuity gloves no longer stack with Endless Hunger. With that said Endless Hunger is still useful due to the occasional non-crit hits that you'll land, but if if you want you could get Overwhelm instead of Endless Hunger when you get the gloves.

The Ranger's Raider and the Shadow's Assassin are also possible options but in my opinion the Slayer is vastly superior.



5.. The Pantheon

The Pantheon is a system of divine powers that players can activate for themselves. These powers grant defensive bonuses and become available when players defeat certain gods in Acts 6 through 10. Upgrading a god's power requires consuming a Divine Vessel and any map in the Map Device. Strengthening the Map Boss, killing it allows the retrieval of its Captured Soul from the Map Device. These are used when speaking to Sin to unlock the secondary powers. A player can only have one major and one minor power activated at a time. The bonuses can be freely swapped with no extra cost, as long as the player is in a town.

Major Powers
Soul of Lunaris - the perfect Major Power for general mapping. It grants Physical Damage Reduction and movement speed based on the enemies around you, and the upgrades give you some chance based defenses.
Soul of Solaris - a good option if there is only one enemy around you. You can switch to it, if you feel necessary, right before a tough boss fight .

Minor Powers
Soul of Gruthkul - It gives you 1% up 5% physical damage reduction when you take a hit. Honestly this is the best available Minor power for this build.
It's worth mentioning that Soul of Tukohama seems much better but for some reason you loose the buff when you use flicker strike. That is very inconsistent with how flicker strike works with Arctic Armour for example, i'm not sure if it's a bug or if it is intended, but for now Soul of Tukohama is not usable with Flicker Strike.



6.. Gear

Weapon
In a "How to Flicker. Terminus Est Edition!" it is obvious that the weapon that we'll be using is the unique Terminus Est Tiger Sword. I think that it is important to note that you want a Terminus Est with a perfect increased Critical Strike Chance roll (75%). In fact the Critical Strike Chance roll is more important than the increased Physical Damage roll. After all this build relies heavily on your ability to land critical hits so the higher the base critical strike chance of your weapon is the better!


Body Armour
Now there are a few great options when it comes to Body Armours.
Daresso's Defiance is a good choice with its build-in Endurance charge generation (though you lose the charges when you take a hit), life leech and + maximum life.
Kintsugi is another decent chest piece - good amounts of maximum life, some fire resistance, and 20% less Damage taken if you have not been Hit Recently.
Belly of the Beast is a excellent choice due to the significant buff to your life, and on top of that it gives some resistances.
Kaom's Heart is a great option with its huge boost to your life.
Lightning Coil - another good chest that provides extra life and a way to better mitigate incoming physical damage... if you can handle the -60% to your lightning resistance.


Helmet
Abyssus is definitely the helmet that will give you a huge damage boost. It also increases your attributes which is quite helpful (due to the usual lack of intelligence) The downside is that it increases the physical damage that you take. I know... i know that it sounds scary but it's not as bad as you think. It's worth mentioning that the downside of the Abyssus can really be a problem in the Labyrinth when you are lower level, because it greatly increases the damage that you take from the labyrinth traps. It was never an issue for me but it might be for you! In any case, give it a try!
Now if you feel that you have more than enough damage even without Abyssus or if you are afraid of its downside then you could use the unique Rat's Nest helmet - it will provide you with good amounts of increased attack speed, very nice increased critical strike chance, extra movement speed and some increased Rarity of Items found. It does give you less damage than Abyssus but it is more safe, but not nearly as defensive as the third option, as it lacks life and resists. Rat's Nest is the ... middle road when you consider offense vs. defense.
The third option is the Starkonja's Head - a unique helmet with ssome increased critical strike chance, tons of dexterity (which will add between 100 and 140 accuracy), no resistances but a lot of + maximum life.
The final option is a rare helmet. A rare helmet with high amounts of life and a nice chunk of increased resistances can boost your defensive capabilities quite nicely. It can also have a good intelligence roll to help you with your attribute needs.


Gloves
When it comes to choosing a pair of gloves there are two great options and a best in slot item. The best in slot item is of of course the Atziri's Acuity. It gives tons of intelligence that will fix any and all attribute problems that you might have, adds a nice amount of life and increases your critical strike chance a bit. But most importantly with those gloves your leech (both life and mana) applies instantly ... it just doesn't get any better than that. Now Acuity does no longer stack with the Slayer's Endless Hunger. Endless Hunger still works on the occasional non-crit hit that you land. With the Atziri's Acuity you literally can die only from one-shots. The downside is the HUGE price tag on those gloves. And that leads us to the other two optinos:
Option 1 - Maligaro's Virtuosity - some attack speed, highest possible amounts of increased critical strike chance for gloves and a good amount of critical strike multiplier. Excellent pair gloves indeed.
Option 2 - Shadows and Dust - Similar to Option 1 these unique gloves give a nice increase to your critical strike multiplier, some critical strike strike chance but they also give 0,2% mana leech , Rampage (it adds a counter that tracks your kill streak and provides rewards for killing increasing numbers of enemies without stopping), Unholy might on rampage (extra chaos damage based on your physical damage) and smoke cloud on rampage (the cloud blinds the monsters in it so that they have a lower chance to hit you)
Of course using rare gloves with life, resistances and physical damage is also an option though i definitely prefer the gloves mentioned above


Boots
Usually a flicker strike build uses the unique Blood Dance boots (for the frenzy charge generation and the life regeneration) or the Darkray Vectors (for the extra frenzy charge and dodge) and of course this is still an option here.
You could also use the Atziri's Step boots for a nice boost to your chance to dodge spells and awesome maximum life boost.
A pair of Rare boots with 30% increased movement speed, high amounts of maximum life and increased resistances, would be an excellent choice as well (and my personal favorite).


Belt
A rare belt with high amounts of life and elemental resistances, maybe some weapon elemental damage is a great choice.
The Retch is also a good option with its excellent maximum life, some cold resistance and flask related buffs. The life leech applied as extra chaos damage is very good once you have Atziri's Acuity and/or Endless Hunger.
Belt of the Deceiver will increase your damage, some life and elemental resistances and a 30% reduced Extra Damage from Critical Strikes which is perfect vs. reflected damage. Definitely a great option if you can compensate its mediocre resistances and life elsewhere!
Headhunter of course is in my opinion the best belt that you can wear ... if you can afford it of course (most likely you won't be).


Rings
Rare rings with life, resistances and physical damage would be perfect (take diamond rings for the increased critical strike chance if your resistances allow it), some intelligence could also be quite helpful if you need it
A Voidheart ring can also be a nice offensive oriented option (again if your resistances can handle it... becuase Voidheart has none).


Amulet
You want a rare amulet with life, physical damage, critical strike chance and multiplier and some resistances, some intelligence could also be quite helpful if you need it. Carnage Heart with its leech related bonuses and huge amounts of attributes is a good unique option if you lack a good rare amulet.


Flasks
A Life flask with Remove bleeding (and if possible instant recovery)
A Diamond flask that removes the Frozen and Chilled. The "Your Critical Strike Chance is Lucky" (the game rolls twice for a critical strike and picks the better roll, i.e. first roll you don't crit, second roll you crit, outcome : you crit) property of the Diamond flask is extremely helpful especially if you haven't increased your critical strike chance enough
Lion's Roar - a unique flasks that gives you a very nice damage boost and some armour.
Atziri's Promise - an extremely cheap yet very powerful flask. It increases your damage and life leech and gives you chaos resistance.
Taste of Hate - awesome flask that not only provides great damage increase in the form of cold damage (very useful given the fact that this build does not use Hatred, so otherwise you won't have cold damage to shatter monsters thus preventing their resurrection and on death effects) but it also helps you to mitigate incoming physical damage. It is a bit pricey but it's worth it !


Jewels
This build ends up with 4 slots for Jewels. You can use them to fill up gaps in your resistances, attributes or mana leech. I'd strongly suggest that all 4 have 7% increased maximum life and at least one damage related mod (increased critical strike chance or multiplier, physical damage, melee damage, damage with swordds, damage with two handed weapons ... anything damage related really.)



Enchantments

Helmet
The best option in my opinion is the "9% increased Flicker Strike Damage per Frenzy Charge", followed by "40% increased Flicker Strike Damage". The Blood rage enchantments are also fine though the listed above are better.

Boots
There are a couple of good enchantments for your boots : "16% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've Killed Recently" "0.6% of Damage Leeched as Life and Mana if you've Killed Recently" "8% chance to Dodge Spell Damage if you've taken Spell Damage Recently" "10% increased Movement Speed if you haven't been Hit Recently". "80% chance to Avoid being Stunned if you've Killed Recently" is also a nice option.

Gloves
Commandment of Fury or Commandment of War - they are both fine choices.



7.. The Bandits

Kraityn
6% increased Attack and Cast Speed, 3% chance to Dodge Attacks, 6% increased Movement Speed

The 3% dodge is quite nice, while the increases to your attack, cast and movement speed are not really that noticable.

Alira
5 Mana Regenerated per second, +20% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier, +15% to all Elemental Resistances

The resistances are very useful especially considering that you'll be using 3 to 5 unique items that give absolutely no elemental resistances. And of course 20% crit multiplier is always nice.

Oak
1% of Life Regenerated per second, 2% additional Physical Damage Reduction, 20% increased Physical Damage

The flat physical damage reduction is very good (after all there aren't many sources of flat physical damage reduction in PoE, fewer in this build) and the damage increase is cool (though not as good as the global crit multiplier from Aliara)

Kill all
2 passive skill points

Not a bad option though i'd say that it's not the best one.

So what should i pick?
It's a diffiicult choice between Aliara and Oak, going with eighter of them is fine, though personally i'm leaning slightly towards Aliara.



8.. Leveling Guide

The leveling guide below is from 2.6 and as such is outdated, though most of the information is still valid and useful. You could check it out if you need help with the leveling process.



Leveling Gear
Now the gear that i'll discuss here is in no way mandatory but it will make your leveling process a lot faster and easier! Also never forget that you might find a rare piece of equipment that will be better then the items listed below!

At level 6 equip two Screaming Eagle Hatchets - they have very good damage and they'll increase your movement speed which is invaluable. They also give you some life and life gained on kill.
At level 22 equip an Edge of Madness sword - it simply has all the damage that you need at the time. As simple as that.
At level 44 you'll want to use a Rigwald's Charge sword - great damage, and 10% increased movement speed on the side.
When you hit level 51 you'll equip your Terminus Est and that's about it weapon-wise.

Other cheap yet very helpful unique items:
Wanderlust boots - no level requirements, freeze immunity and 20% increased movement speed.
Meginord's Girdle belt - it requires only level 8, yet it provides quite a significant boost to both your damage and defenses.
Belt of the Deceiver - is an excellent belt that will give you some damage, resistances and life and it will reduce the extra damage that you take from critical strikes. That makes it a very good way to mitigate the incoming reflected damage, that might be a problem i your mid to early-lategame levels
Goldrim helmet - it gives A LOT of resistances for an item that requires only level 3
The Peregrine helmet - adds great amounts of accuracy, has mana leech and 10% increased movement speed. This item requires level 23
The Gull helmet - is an awesome helmet with a lot of life, and the whole shire-thing definitely can increase your leveling speeds quite nicely. It requires level 38 and it is more expensive compared to most of the items mentioned here.
Tabula Rasa - this is THE leveling body armour. It is definitely not as cheap as the rest of the gear talked about here but it's worth it. It can be equipped from level 1 and it provides you with a 6-linked item for your attack. You can definitely use it until you get a 5-linked end-game chest piece (or a 5-linked Terminus Est).
Doedre's Damning - with it's +5 mana gained on kill this ring will ensure that you'll have all the mana that you need for quite some time and it has no level requirements!
The Ignomon - with the increased rarity, fire resistances, accuracy and added 12-24 fire damage this is the perfect starting amulet in my opinion. It requires only level 8.

Some final words and tips

Between level 51 and 75 it was a bit hard for me to sustain my mana while constantly using flicker strike so i had to pick up the Spirit Void passive - do the same if you feel that you run out of mana. Sticking to mana flask until you sort your mana problems out is also advised.

Physical Damage reflect can kill you in your mid to early-end game levels, so don't forget your Cast When Damage Taken + Immortal Call setup, try to get more life from your gear and if needed don't use Abyssus until you can handle the reflect later on. Having Fortify also helps quite a bit. Using a Basalt flask when you see a physical reflect monster is yet another good way to lower reflected damage that you take. The Belt of the Deceiver is another thing to consider as it can significantly reduce the reflected damage from your critical strikes.

At level 51 start using Blasphemy + Assassin's Mark. You might want to drop Herald of Ash or Arctic Armour until you sort out your mana problems, and then use it once again.

Never forget that your elemental resistances are extremely important!

Don't forget that you have flasks! Get a Diamond flask before you equip your Terminus Est at level 51 - it will help you immensely! Also always carry the largest possible Life/Mana flasks, don't forget to pick up a Quicksilver flasks from the Medicine chest quest in act 1. Get a "remove bleeding" and a remove "frozen flasks" as soon as possible! A Basalt flask can also be a very helpful physical mitigating tool

Also don't forget to do the Labyrinth when you are a bit overleveled. I did the normal one at level 45, the cruel one at 70, the merciless one at 80 and the Uber one at level 85. The labyrinth can be tough if you don't know what you are doing and if you are undergeared/underleveled. Also note that Abyssus increases the damage that you take from traps so don't fool around the traps (or switch out the helmet for the labyrinth run if you can't handle them)!



9.. My Flicker build (passive tree, gear, screenshots)


My Gear


My Passive Skill Tree


Defenses
Without flasks

With flasks (Taste of Hate + Atziri's Promise + Lion's Roar)

Offenses*
Without Flasks (Flicker Strike + Increased Critical Strike Chance + Melee Physical Damage + Fortify + Multistrike + Added Fire Damage, 6 frenzy charges, 3 power charges, Herald of Ash, Blood Rage) [345,868 DPS]

With Flasks (Flicker Strike + Increased Critical Strike Chance + Melee Physical Damage + Fortify + Multistrike + Added Fire Damage, 6 frenzy charges, 3 power charges, Herald of Ash, Blood Rage, Onslaught, Taste of Hate + Atziri's Promise + Lion's Roar) [778,565 DPS]

With Flasks and Ancestral Warchief (Flicker Strike + Increased Critical Strike Chance + Melee Physical Damage + Fortify + Multistrike + Added Fire Damage, 6 frenzy charges, 3 power charges, Herald of Ash, Blood Rage, Onslaught, Ancestral Warchief + Taste of Hate + Atziri's Promise + Lion's Roar) [904,491 DPS]

*Note that the Flicker Strike tooltip displays "Damage per Use" and NOT "Damage per Second". To get the "Damage per Second" (DPS) simply multiply the "Damage per Use" to the "Attacks per Second" (For example in this screenshot the "Damage per Use" is 51518, the "Attacks per Second" are 11.24, so the "Damage per Second" is 579069)

10.. Videos

Twinned Shaped Quay map (Tier 15):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBFC0iRGqLY

Apex of Sacrifice (Atziri):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBKVho2N6p0

Uber Labyrinth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOnvLYgwjuc

Tul's Domain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYspsyFe0j0

Xoph's Domain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5EDmFX9_ug

Esh's Domain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbvwxkOR2OE

Uul Netol's Doimain (featuring engaging a boss with no frenzy charges):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuczZcCldqk&feature=youtu.be


11.. Frequently asked questions

1. Is this build hardcore viable?
Is it viable... i'll say this - I wouldn't play it in Hardcore.

2. Can i kill the Guardians and the Shaper with this build
Yes you can, though switching out Flicker Strike for Viper Strike for the boss fights is strongly advised.

3. Is this build Atziri viable?
Yes, yes it is.

4. Can i play this build without a 6-linked item?
Yes you can. You can destroy tier 15 maps with just a 5L flicker strike, and honestly getting Atziri's Acuity should be a priority over getting a 6L.

5. Can i play this build without Atziri's Acuity?
Absolutely, though Atziri's Acuity is a huge improvement when it comes to survivability and it is strongly recommended for the most difficult content.

6. Can i play this build without Abyssus?
Abyssus is responsible for close to 50% of your total damage, but it is absolutely possible to paly without it if you want to have better defenses. Beware though - your clear speed will suffer if you don't use that helmet.

7. Can i run maps with physical/elemental reflect mods?
You absolutely can't run physical reflect maps, just reroll those. Elemental reflect maps you can run if you switch off your Herald of Ash and remove the added fire damage support gem from your flicker strike setup.

8. Is this build better than your two-handed weapon one?
Yes, in my opinion this build is better.

9. Should i get a 6L or Atziri's Acuity first?
Go for the Acuity first, 5L flicker strike setup is absolutely enough.

10. I am not using the Kaom's Heart chest so i have extra 6 sockets. What should i do with them?
There are several options. You could have a 6-linked Ancestral Warchief or a 6-linked Viper strike or Frenzy. You could use a Cast when damage taken + Power charge on critical + Increased Critical strikes + Blade Vortex (or another spell of your choosing) for power charge generation in boss fights. You could use a Golem or Vaal Grace and/or Vaal Haste. Molten shell is also an option and so is a warcry of your choosing. You could use Vengeance linked with some utility support gems or damage increasing ones. Pick one of those options or a combination of them and you are good to go.


12.. List of my other guides

"How to Flicker. Two Handed Weapon Edition!"
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/528011/page/1

"How to Smash Heads. Ancestral Warchief Facebreaker edition."
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1962832/page/1


Non-guide threads
"Results from map farming ( currency drops )"
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1581803

"Results from map farming 2 ( currency drops )"
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1704948

Old stuff ( most likely non-relevant now )

reserved

Damn now i have an expectation to meet! I'll try my best ^^

P.S. So far so good (i think) ... will continue tomorrow!