How do I sustain Frenzy Charges for Flicker Strike?

Question

Been trying to theorycraft a flicker strike build for the upcoming Metamorph league, but I've been running short on ideas to sustain Frenzy Charges for Flicker Strike. Here are some methods that I've known work for a long time but I don't personally like, for various reasons:

• The Red Trail + The Golden Rule
  • My issue is that it requires either running a Malevolence + Watcher's Eye Bleed Immune mod, or speccing into the Slayer ascendancy to keep up its 100% uptime. This also includes taking on not as "useful" Slayer ascendancy nodes.
• Apep's Supremacy + The Golden Rule
  • My issue with this is similar to the Red Trail, only that it requires that I invest in %chance to Poison nodes/mods
• Blood Rage/Blasphemy-Poacher's Mark
  • At later game stages, including end-game, Poacher's Mark becomes far less useful. 35% mana reservation isn't exactly ideal for a Flicker Strike build when there are more auras out there that can carry this build into endgame.
• Terminus Est
  • Just not a fan of 2H. GGG has consistently made dual wielding 1h melees stronger than 2H weapons, and with the upcoming nerfs to Elder-influenced 2h melees getting a cheap 6-8L will be impossible.
• Oro's Sacrifice
  • A lot more restrictive on damage gearing. Since this does mostly fire damage I'd have to gear my entire build around essentially that, fire damage, and this does low phys to start off with so there isn't much to scale off of phys.

And the deepest, largest problem for me:

• Mapping really hurts this build. I essentially have to reroll over:
  • Phys reflect
  • Ele reflect
  • Cannot leech/mana
• Each ascendancy has their own issue with the build
  • Trickster has access to Weave the Arcane for no issues with mana, but the skill tree starts considerably far away from the melee nodes I want to use the scale damage up.
  • Raider has easy access to Frenzy charge generation, so the question is answered, but it's seemingly tougher to account for the mana cost of Flicker Strike, and still has to avoid phys/ele refl and cannot leech
  • Slayer can scale crit for Flicker but also runs into mana issues, and cannot run ele refl/cannot leech mods.

Other than these, I can't really think off the top of my head if there's any other consistent ways of generating Frenzy Charges for Flicker Strike?

Answer 1

Flicker Strike can easily be sustained by itself. FL has an innate 15% chance to generate a Frenzy Charge on-hit, wich can be boosted to 20% if the gems have 20 quality. If used in conjuction with Multistrike and Blood Rage it will easily sustain during clearing and even bossing. It can happens that you finish all the frenzy charges, but it's rare. To further prevent this, you can use a Body Armour with the mod "10% chance to Generate a Frenzy Charge on Hit" and again you can look for a Precursor's Emblem ring with the following mods : 10% chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Hit and/or 15% chance that if you would gain Frenzy Charges, you instead gain up to your maximum number of Frenzy Charges With all of that, you will have no issues of Frenzy Charge at all. Keep in mind that I actually played a Flicker Strike character with ONLY gem level 20 quality and Multrike, from level 38 to 90 without issues. All the others example are if you found yourself - for any reason - lacking Frenzy Charges and without getting in consideration the examples you borrow.

Substain There are a lot of ways to mitigate the problem. For tha mana issue, you can : - Run a Mana potion ( BUUUUUUU! ) - Using a Thief Torment or otherwise any Mana Gain on Hit ring/tree points - Have some Mana Leech and some non-reserved mana. - Decrease the cost of Flciker Strike with "% Reduced Mana cost of Skill" and/or Inspiration Support - Craft or buy a Body Armour with "-15 to Total Mana Cost of Socketed Skill" - Craft or buy one or more Ring with "-x to Total Mana Cost of non-Channeling Skill" - Be a Trickster!

You can mix-up all of these depending of the type of build.

Map mods The "hard ones" are : - No Leech - No Regen - Reflect

The "No leech" and "no regen" works similar, as they are annoying depending on how you made the build. In both cases, you have to rely on your Flask or some way to have Life Gain on Hit ( Thief Torment, Watcher Eye Vitality, Poacher's Mark, Elder Influenced Ring ). You can found the same problem even if running Energy Shield, in wich case you can look for a Watcher Eye of Disciple with ES gained on hit. Anyway, the most efficent way to be able to do does map is just ... have more damage. Nowdays, offence is the best defense. If you kill the mobs before they start to hit you, you have no problem in substaining the map.

The Reflect issue can be addressed in various ways : Take the Slayer Ascendacy in a full-Physical build. Take the Elementalist Ascendacy in a full-Elemental build. Take the Assassin Ascendacy in a full-Crit build. Take the Ascendant Ascendacy and take the bonus of the relevant ascendacy as explained above. Take a Body Armour with the modifier "100% reduced Reflected xxxxx Damage Taken". Convert all your damage in Chaos Damage. Chaos Damage cannot be reflected!

Answer 2

Very few builds are able to do every single map mod. You can minimize how many mods ruin a build but there will probably always be 1-2 you can't do.

That being said, Slayer is getting a buff in the golden rule interaction; the endless hunger node will now give "you are unaffected by bleeding" rather than immune. The difference is now you can have a bleed on you to activate golden rule, it just won't damage you. Immune meant that you couldn't have a bleed on you whatsoever. Slayer also already has a physical reflect immunity mod (headsman). So physical reflect and frenzy generation are already solved by Slayer + golden rule/red trail.

If you really want, you can also get elemental reflect immunity from the newly buffed Shaper mod, it gives a full 100% reduction on its own and can be found on Shaper base body armours. If you don't want to go slayer, you can get the same mod for physical reflect immunity, but on an Elder body armour.

Mana should be easy to solve by picking up some mana leech on the skill tree and/or jewelry and further helped with some Elreon crafted rings. You can reduce the mana cost by 8-9 at the max tier down to 4-5 at the lowest. These mods can be tricky to hunt down so you may be better off purchasing them. Another option is a serrated fossil crafted body armour mod which reduces the total cost of socketed active skills by 15 mana.

To do a cannot leech life/mana map then your best option is probably a Theif's Torment ring. It gives 40-60 life per hit and 30 mana per hit, the downside being you cannot use a second ring. Alternatively you can simply use life/mana flasks.