POE Synthesis Scion Flicker Molten Strike Ascendant Build - Fast, Tankly, Boss Killer

Flicker Strike is an attack that teleports the character to a nearby enemy and strikes it with his weapon. If no specific monster is chosen, one is picked at random. The skill has a cooldown that can be bypassed by expending a Frenzy Charge.

Quick Jump

• Pros & Cons

• Skill Tree 

• Leveling

• Endgame Gear

• Endgame Gems

• Endgame Skill Tree

Pros & Cons

Pros

• + Fast mapping
• + Very tanky - Even Rippy T15 and T16 maps feel safe
• + Boss Killer - 1 to 4 million single target shaper dps depending on gear
• + Affordable base of gear can kill shaper (2-3ex)
• + No clunky gear swaps, weapon swaps or gem swaps

Cons

• - Lots of backtracking to pick up loot.
• - Little control over where flicker strike brings you. Delving with flicker strike is not recommended. Use molten strike to safely clear delves, details below in gem section.
• - Playing flicker strike with more than 100ms feels horrible.
• - Endgame character optimization gets expensive.
• The build performs well in 99% of content on just a few exalts, but to create a truly OP character takes a large currency investment (16-20ex). Optimizing further beyond that gets even more expensive.
• - Using flicker strike will violently shake your screen. Some people find this very uncomfortable to look at. Please watch videos before deciding if this build is right for you.

Skill Tree 

Ascendancy

We take the Juggernaut and Champion ascendency before taking Path of the duelist

Bandits

Help Alira

Pantheons

The Pantheon List

Soul of Lunaris and Soul of Tukohama

Passive Tree

Leveling

----------------------level 1 to 67----------------------

Gems Setup

Flicker strike only becomes viable to use at level 67 when we can equip the weapon Oro's sacrifice.

To get to level 67, we will be using molten strike linked with Added fire damage support, elemental damage with attacks support and ancestral call as our primary damage ability.

Link molten strike (quest reward for killing Hillock on the beach) with ancestral call ASAP (reward from optional quest "Mercy Mission"). You can do this as soon as level 4 and it makes life significantly easier for our baby scion.

For passive buffs while leveling, use Herald of ash and Anger

Decoy totem is extremely helpful for bosses. It is received from the quest "Breaking some eggs" in act 1.

At level 38, change the added fire damage gem out for a multistrike support gem in the molten strike setup.

Gear

Level with a 2 handed, high physical damage weapon.

There are only two other things worth bringing attention to:

Wildfire jewel

This jewel is really overpowered for leveling and highly recommended.

If possible, buy one from other players as soon as you can - they are very cheap. If for some reason trading with someone else is impossible (league start, SSF), the quest in act 5 "Death to Purity" has wildfire jewel as a reward.

While leveling, the wildfire jewel goes here: https://i.imgur.com/dUwsjfQ.jpg

Resists

!NEW PLAYERS - PLEASE READ!

Elemental resists are a core defensive mechanic of the game. They are respectively cold resist, fire resist and lightning resist. While the game does not punish for having low resists from act 1 through 5, from the beginning of act 6 the game becomes very unforgiving if resistance is neglected.

From act 6 onwards the game becomes balanced around the player having 75% resistance in each element. Not having 75% resistance will lead to taking an insane amount of damage and repeated death.

To put how important getting resists are, lets say something hits the player for 1000 damage. With 75% resistance to that element, the player will take 250 damage. However, if the player loses a bit of resistance and goes down to only 50% fire resist, that same hit will do 500 damage. This means that the player with 50% resistance is taking double the damage that the game is balanced around, and likely finds themselves dying frequently.

There are a number of ways to increase resistance. They are

• Using the crafting bench in your hideout.
• Trading with other players for better gear.
• Using a "Purity of elements" aura. Clarissa in act 3 sells them. Since purity of elements reserves a lot of mana, either anger aura or herald of ash has to be deactivated to use it while leveling.
• Bismuth flasks. On activation will give +35% elemental resist to all elements. This is the worst method to get resists as when the flask deactivates there will be huge spikes in damage but is helpful if trading with other players for better gear is impossible.

Leveling skill tree

Level 20 passive tree

Level 30 passive tree

Level 40 passive tree

Level 50 passive tree

Level 60 passive tree

Level 67 passive tree

Level 67 is a big level for us. We finally get to use Oro's sacrifice and start using flicker strike.
Please note that at this point we refund the skill points "Wisdom of the Glade" and "Mana flows", as they are no longer needed.

If you feel that you don't have as many skill points as the trees above, typing /passives in the chat box will show you any missed story quest passive points.

Once you get to level 67 and start using the weapon Oro's sacrifice, it is really important that you socket a "Fireborn" Jewel in the duelist start area. The endgame gear section goes more in depth on where to put it.

Really important passives that are easy to miss:

If you're having trouble with mana:

Make sure you have this passive skill point! It's in the bottom right of the skill tree and it is easy to miss.

Life and Mana Leech

40% more Elemental Damage if you've Crit in the past 8 seconds
No Critical Strike Multiplier
No Damage Multiplier for Ailments from Critical Strikes

If you're having trouble with damage:

Molten strike damage comes mostly from projectiles! This passive point gives us 1.5x more damage, make sure you don't miss it.

Point Blank

Projectile Attack Hits deal up to 50% more Damage to targets at the start of their movement, dealing less Damage to targets as the projectile travels farther

Endgame Gear

Weapon: Oro's Sacrifice

Allows us to always be at max frenzy charges. It also gives us culling strike on all of our attacks (target is instantly killed if they are below 10% hp)

Amulet: Impresence (fire version)

Budget Amulet -  The Effigon

Packs enormous punch for its cost. It is a common prophecy so please don't pay more than what the prophecy is selling for. The prophecy is called "Blind faith" and requires killing the "Haunted mansion" map boss (Tier 6) while in possession of another amulet called "the Ignomon".

To get maximum benefits from the effigon it is critical to also use an abyss jewel with the mod "% chance to blind enemies on hit" like so Murderous Eye Jewel of Blinding

Endgame Amulet - Impresence

Combined with the passive "Whispers of doom" which grants +1 to the maximum number of curses on an enemy, this amulet allows us to use both the flammability and enfeeble curse on top of anger aura. This setup is impossible without the Impresence amulet, as over 100% of mana would be reserved.

The amulet also has decent stats, and maddening presence (-10% less damage dealt by enemies) provides yet another layer of defense.

Gloves

Any rare with "# to # added fire damage against burning enemies"

Boots

Atziri's Step (with enchant / corruption choices)

Boot corruption/enchant options

These corruptions are all really good:

• +1 maximum endurance charge
• +% chance to dodge attack hits
• +% chance to dodge spell hits

Beneficial enchants ranked from best to worst:

• "+% crit chance if you haven't crit recently" - Completely removes crit requirements on gear for elemental overload.
• "10% elemental penetration without killing recently" - This one is rare so will likely be expensive, it's the best one for bossing by far.
• "% increased attack speed if you've killed recently" - Great for mapping + syndicate.
• "Adds # to # fire damage if you've killed recently" - Same thing as # 3.
• "8% chance to dodge spell hits if you've taken spell damage recently" - The more spell dodge, the better it gets. Essentially reads as "If you've taken spell damage in the last 4 seconds, reduce the average amount of incoming spell damage by 15%.
• "Regen 2% life and mana if you've been hit recently" - Good but other options give more power.
• "10% increased movement speed if haven't been hit recently

Since there's only 15 boot enchants and "% ele pen without killing" is the only rare one out of these, just doing one lab yourself with a "twice enchanted" prophecy gives a really good chance to hit one of them.

Helmet

Any rare or Unique with +2 molten strike enchant

Essentially we are just looking for helmets which have high life and evasion on them.

Budget helmets

Rat's Nest or Devoto's Devotion with +2 molten strike projectile enchants are good budget options. Since they don't have life they aren't ideal though. A bad rare helmet (usually mirrored) is also an acceptable budget option.

Endgame Helmets

Starkonja's is one of the best fits for the build, giving huge evasion which gets amplified by the enfeeble curse, life, critical strike and attack speed. The fact that it can have up to 100 life makes it significantly better than the budget options.

Rare helmet with "-9% fire resistance to nearby enemies". A rare helmet with high life and the delve mod which reduces fire resist of nearby enemies is the best possible option for helmets, even better than Starkonja's. Finding this with the +2 molten strike enchant though is usually absurdly expensive.

Chest Armor: Belly of the Beast

Budget option: Craft your own 6 link. This method will cost you 35-60 chaos and will result in a chest piece that has 80% of the power of a belly for a fraction of the cost. Please see section "Armor purchase priority" just below this one to find out how to craft one.

Endgame options: Belly of the Beast is the go-to chest piece. It gives us more life than a rare chest piece and some resistances. If you don't mind weapon swaps (I find them quite clunky and don't enjoy them at all) you can use a Kaom's heart, and weapon swap between flicker strike and molten strike. If you are doing weapon swaps, use two Oro's sacrifices.

Belt: Any rare

Look for one that has life, resists and a lot of "% increased elemental damage with attack skills". A Stygian vise belt is the best belt base, as it allows another abyss jewel to be used.

Rings: Any Rare or The Taming

Flasks Setup

Two necessary flasks

Basalt flask and a Life flask are necessary. The basalt flask physical damage reduction stacks with our endurance charges, armor and pantheon, providing us with a significant physical mitigation. It is way too good not to use.

A "Panicked" mod on the life flask is also recommended.

Three necessary flask mods

CURSE , BLEED and FREEZE immunity on flask use is necessary for our continued survival.

The bleed flask is to cleanse the corrupting blood debuff. The freeze flask is for the strongboxes which freeze on opening, delves and some syndicate members. If you are lucky enough to acquire the corruption implicit "Corrupted blood cannot be inflicted on you" on a jewel, you can drop the bleed immunity.

Curse immunity is a priority as it allows a lot of dangerous map mods that give permanent zone wide curses to be completely negated. Do NOT put curse immunity on your life flask - once you go to full hp you will lose curse immunity. Try to get it on your longest lasting utility flask (basalt, quicksilver, etc).

Rare Jewels

Budget Jewels -Crimson Jewel, Viridian Jewel

Recommended endgame jewels

abyss jewels with

• # to # fire damage added to sword attacks
• # to # fire damage added to attacks
• % increased attack speed if you've dealt a critical strike recently
• 45+ maximum hp <<< Important to reach a high hp life pool

Quality of life with abyss jewels -Murderous Eye Jewel of Blinding, Searching Eye Jewel, Murderous Eye Jewel of Preparation

Unique Jewels -Wildfire, Fireborn, Might of the Meek, Watcher's Eye,

Endgame Gems 

Chest 6L: Flicker strike, Combustion, melee splash, multistrike, elemental damage with attacks, ruthless.

• 5link flicker: drop ruthless
• 4link flicker: drop ruthless and elemental damage with attacks 

Weapon 6L: Molten strike,  Combustion, concentrated effect, multistrike, elemental damage with attacks, fire penetration

• 5link molten strike: drop fire penetration
• 4link molten strike: drop fire penetration and combustion

Helmet 4L: Enfeeble, Flammability, Blasphemy, Enhance

CURSE CHOICE - PLEASE READ

Without access to an Impresence amulet only one curse can be used. Prioritize the use of enfeeble curse over flammability curse - Enfeeble provides significant damage mitigation and keeps us alive

Boots 4L: Leap slam, Ancestral protector, Faster attacks, Blood rage.

Gloves 4L: Cast when damage taken (level 14), Immortal call (level 16), Anger (level 20), Summon ice golem (level 16)

Endgame Skill Tree

----------Level 68 to 100----------

All the following passive trees assume that a fire Impresence amulet is being used. If an Impresence amulet is not being used, do not take these passive points: https://i.imgur.com/WltZI7k.jpp

No Uber lab complete

Level 86

Level 90

Uber lab complete

Level 93

Level 94

Level 97

Level 100

POB link

Level 90, no Uber: https://pastebin.com/xGFdXZyU

Level 93, Uber lab complete: https://pastebin.com/Lp7aqTzT

Level 94, Uber lab complete: https://pastebin.com/X9jir8Cn

Level 100: https://pastebin.com/QLu4w6mi