Level 97 CI Lightning Strike Trickster^3.25

Notes

Check out my YouTube and Twitch for more content like the Video Build or Crafting Guide:
https://www.youtube.com/@Tarekis-official
https://www.twitch.tv/tarekis

A note about PoB config:

The PoB is configured with cooldown skills enabled, but Guard skills disabled, to reflect Boss damage with cooldowns up.
Trash mob damage is irrelevant, as Tribal Fury + additional Strike targets up to triples your regular damage.

LEVELING

Disclaimer: You won't be leveling with Flicker for most of the campaign and can switch at around maps to flicker.
League-Starting this isn't pleasant, it's smoother if you run another build and then buy gear and transition later, but you can league-start this if you're a bit of a masorchist or insist on never rerolling.

Follow the tree outlines for a general progression on your tree while doing the campaign.

Level with Explosive Trap until you can get Blade Trap.
Use any two swords with as much DPS as you can find on floor/vendors, crafting bench added damage if you have an open prefix.
Link Blade Trap + added Lightning/Cold Damage and swift assembly for the entire campaign.
Run Purity of Elements and Herald of Ice.

Getting Ephemeral Edge is better than any rare weapon as long as you have ES on your gear, so you should get it ASAP.

You can swap to Flicker as soon as you have the following:
- 20% quality frenzy (or at least as high quality as you can get)
- Multistrike in your link
- Charge wheel skilled (frenzy on kill)
- +2 frenzy ascendancy
- Tribal Fury on the tree (annoint is probably way too expensive)
- The small mana leech node to sustain mana

This should be somewhere between the trees for Ascendancy 2 and 3.

Now you should grab all frenzy nodes and top up ES as high as possible.

At around maps you should get some ES gear to get at least 4k ES, now you can get CI. Do not get Ghost Reaver until you have Shavronne's!

GEAR PROGRESSION
A rough outline of what investment levels should you get which upgrades at

Close to none Investment
To start out, all you need is Ephemeral Edge, uncorrupted.
Grab as much ES on your gear as possible and cap your resistances. 
Fix your accuracy with tree and cheap benchcrafts.

10-20d Investment
Grab the most important/cheap uniques
Resolute Technique EE
Aegis Aurora
Darkness Enthroned with budget increased mod + Abyss Jewels
Cheap Lethal Pride
Vessel of Vintkar
Stormshroud + shock avoid on abyss jewels
Depending on prices, get a Voice of the Storm

Upgrade ES as much as possible on your rares, keep your res capped

50d
Grab all Uniques besides (maybe) Bottled Faith, max out DE as much as your want to spend
Annointed VotS is mandatory now
Upgrade your Lethal Pride, if you get a (near) perfect one now, you can forget about it later
Watcher's Eye, possibly with 2 wrath mods, depending on prices

Upgrade ES as much as possible on your rares, keep your res capped

100d
Grab every Unique in Mid-Tier, and as always, push ES as high as you can on your gear

Moving shock avoid to 100% DE + 50% shock avoid jewel to get or at least prepare for +4 Aura Helmet is advisable
Upgrade your eldrich implicits

Beyond
+4 Aura Helmet
Upgrade your eldrich implicits with Conflicts, only do this for already finished slots like +4 frenzy, +frenzy, 6T1 items, etc
Possibly Double-Corrupted Bronn's + Res Juggling
Possibly MB Res fixing, so you can do conducitivy ring, whispers of doom/tribal fury annoint juggling, etc shenangians, or MB full tank focus

CRAFTING/BUYING GUIDES
Self-crafting essentially all rares, you can try to buy them but they'll probably be at a hefty premium if you find any that match.

If you have the currency to do so Sacred Orb your bases. No more 20%+ quality anymore, missed that change, only realized now that I needed it myself.

Currently fractured bases are very expensive. Just spam dense fossils for good perfixes and then get 2 okay suffixes with eldrich currency rolling.
Anything with fractures is reserved for high-tier right now.
You can also not get a fracture and pray you're lucky instead. with eldrich currency.

Color offsocket 4-links with jewellers, not chroms. This works with bench crafting 2 sockets, forcing base colors, e.g. 2R, then spamming 3-2-3-2 sockets until your third socket hits the correct color, then the same with 4-3 sockets.

The 3R2G1B Chest is best done with 1R bench craft on average.

Video Crafting Guide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxiTs8ic2ZA

Trade Site Searches:
Lethal Prides:

Budget Version (Intimidation, 1 Rage on hit, these searches includes the Clever Thief node!!!!)
https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Settlers/LMYD39jIn
https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Settlers/Y35XOaDTY
https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Settlers/pQzDa0JC0

Strong Version:
At least 5% Double Damage, + Intimiation, 1 Rage on hit: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Settlers/DM8dqZBi5

Cluster Jewel: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Settlers/zYj9ybmh4
Abyss Jewel: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Settlers/olBqzrZhl

Helmet:
Crafting:
Currently fractured bases are very expensive. Just spam dense fossils for good perfixes and then get 2 okay suffixes with eldrich currency rolling.
Anything with fractures is reserved for high-tier right now.
You can also not get a fracture and pray you're lucky instead. with eldrich currency.

You can sacrifice a jewel slot for another shock avoid jewel to make the helmet cheaper!

Prefixes: you want as high ES as possible, if you want to increase DPS veiled chaos prefixes for +2 AoE
Suffixes: Shock Avoid, Ele Res / Int, (+2 Essence Mod if you can min-max shock avoid with boot mods or 50% jewel + 100% DE)

My crafting process:
- Fractured ES Mod Lich's Circlet (flat fracture is better than %inc, since benchcraft %inc is way better)
- Spam T1 Torments or Delirium (if you moved shock avoid to abyss jewels) until 2 high tier res/int, you can exalt/eldrich exalt the last suffix
- Add Searching Dominance

Prefix strategies:
Efficent:
- Eldrich Chaos for secondary ES mod
- Eldrich Exalted if Chaos was empty (if cheaper than raw Exalted)
- Benchcraft last ES or +1 to AoE mod

Costly +2/4 AoE:
- Clear Prefixes (high chance with Eldrich Chaos)
- Lock Suffixes
- Veiled chaos
- Craft + zombie if empty to block some unveils
- Unveil +2 AoE
- Benchcraft last ES mod
- If prexises were filled, repeat the entire craft

Insanity:
- Clear Prefixes (high chance with Eldrich Chaos)
- Block mana, roll T1 ES
- Lock Suffixes
- Veiled chaos, hope for hit lock suffix
- Unveil +2 AoE
- If you don't hit the veiled chaos or the unveil, repeat

Gloves:
Crafting:
Currently fractured bases are very expensive. Just spam dense fossils for good perfixes and then get 2 okay suffixes with eldrich currency rolling.
Anything with fractures is reserved for high-tier right now.
You can also not get a fracture and pray you're lucky instead. with eldrich currency.

This league I'm going with abyss socket jewels because we're on such low gem pressure. This is a expensive craft, but here's how:
- Fractured Flat ES Base
- 3-socket Resonator with Hollow & Shuddering & Sanctified Spam until you get good attack speed suffix
- If open suffix, slam and pray, if it hits int or res, continue, else back to resonators
- Exarch Dominance
- Eldrich Chaos orb if too many prefixes
- Eldrich Exalt/Annul until %inc ES
- Craft damage while leeching or damage with non-vaal

Default process:
- Fractured ES Mod Warlock Gloves (flat for atk spd, hybrid %inc for pure ES)
- Spam T1 Zeal until 2 high tier res/int (use Woe for pure ES until triple T1 ES alternatively)
- Fish for non-vaal veiled chaos if you want to burn some currency, and you intend to use vaal haste/vaal totem regularly.

If you went for atk spd, you need to fix prefixes:
- Eldrich Chaos for secondary ES mod or +lightning to attacks
- Eldrich Exalted if Chaos was empty
- Benchcraft last ES mod

If you went for pure ES you need to fix suffixes, which is a bit lackluster IMO
You could also throw in a prefix lock and veiled chaos + slam if you want but probably do:
- Eldrich Chaos until 1/2 high tier res/int
- Eldrich Exalted if Chaos only had 1 mod
- Benchcraft last mod

Boots:
Crafting:
Currently fractured bases are very expensive. Just spam dense fossils for good perfixes and then get 2 okay suffixes with eldrich currency rolling.
Anything with fractures is reserved for high-tier right now.
You can also not get a fracture and pray you're lucky instead. with eldrich currency.

This league I'm going with abyss socket jewels because we're on such low gem pressure. This is an expensive craft, but here's how:
- High Quality ES Base
- 3-socket Resonator with Hollow & Fundamental & Sanctified Spam until you get good int suffix
- If you have an open suffix you can keep it open for bleed immunity.
- Exarch Dominance
- Eldrich Chaos orb and exalt until good enough (since we have 3 open prefixes and high quality T3 and T2s aren't all that bad to settle for, keep rolling according to your budget)

My crafting process:
- Fractured %inc ES Mod Warlock Boots if you do essence spam
- Spam T1 Woe until high hybrid ES
- Fix Suffixes with Eldrich Currency as above

If you are running Vaal Flicker Strike, you can Veiled Chaos for inc dmg during Soul Gain Prevention for a good DPS increase while it's on CD, this is only really useful for very beefy bosses tho

Body Armour:
You can just roll a Bronn's Lithe (definitely cheaper) or craft a rare chest with high ES/Evasion with resistances/attributes:

Crafting:
Currently fractured bases are very expensive. Just spam dense fossils for good perfixes and then get 2 okay suffixes with eldrich currency rolling.
Anything with fractures is reserved for high-tier right now.
You can also not get a fracture and pray you're lucky instead. with eldrich currency.

- Fractured T2 %es/eva Necrotic Armour
- Spam Dense/Prismatic until double T1 ES/Evasion
- Eldrich Suffix fix if you didn't get lucky with resistances/attributes
- Veiled Chaos for hybrid Attributes is decent, but not worth IMO

Rare Ring:
Finish off your build with whatever you need from ring, and get ES & Damage if you're res capped.
You can build your ring spamming Torment or Woe and hoping for the best, or just buy one.
I simply searched for ES, flat lighting, ele w/ atk, ele/lightning %dmg and bought the best price/value one.

Rare Abyss Jewels:
If you run Darkness Enthroned socket the best ones there, preferrably:
ES & Flat Lightning & Flat Lightning w/ Swords & Atk Speed
Fix your Shock avoidance with one, and get Corrupted Blood Immunity if you don't have another jewel that does

Belt:
High-rolled Darkness Enthroned with DPS Abyss Jeweles or Crystal Belt (unlikely to be better) with ES, Flask Effect, Ele Dmg (Res if you need it)

Tincture:
Sap of the Seasons for constant uptime and ramping up penetration for bosses with higher ceiling (instant leech allows up to 40-50 penetration), Magic Pen Tincture for strict boss cooldown.
What feels better for you very likely depens on what type of content you are running. I'm leaving Sap as default for now, not sure what others are playing.

Lethal Pride:
Essentially just get the Indimidation Chance Node, Rage on Hit if you can, then as many Double Damage Chance as possible, and maybe Strength to complete requirements.
There are other cool mods like fire res, phys as fire, so you can round off your build that way too.
To tweak/inspect combos: Conqueror does not matter as Keystone wont be specced, deselect all and select only used nodes!
https://vilsol.github.io/timeless-jewels/tree?jewel=2&conqueror=Kaom&seed=15436&location=61834&mode=stats&stat=5806&stat=8164