Righteous Fire. - How to build?

[shoju]

So, I've been looking at some of the gems that I have sitting around, that I've never used, and I came across righteous fire.

I tried it once. But I didn't understand it completely, and as such, it was a very short lived experiment.

But, now that I understand the gem, I'm contemplating making either a Templar, or Scion Righteous Fire Build.

I'm just not... 100% sure on how to do it.

This, was my original thought. This is a templar version of the build. To make it the scion version of the build, you just swap starting points (mana regen for 12 health) and you have it.

Why I was thinking this:

This tree has 5.5% Life Regen Per second. and a "decent" pool of health, though I'm not sure that it's enough HP.

I'm assuming, that increased Area of Effect is going to work with it, since it is an AoE skill, so I picked up some AoE increasers.

I'm assuming that my RF will be linked with Life Leech. Though, I'm not sure what else I would want to link it with, probably Iron Will, since my tree is Str heavy, and I'm assuming... Increased Burning Damage? Or would that just roast me quickly?

I'm also Assuming that I'm going to be using a Cast When Damage Taken, that is linked to Enduring Cry. That should be a nice boost, even at the mentioned, cap of 4 procs per second.

I'm also assuming that I'd Run Vitality.
I was thinking, if I can get enough Dex, I could also run arctic armour to cut the damage I take, slow monsters stuck in my AoE, and provide some defense.

For that, I'd Probably want to try and run Clarity as well. Which then means I'm going to need a reduced mana gem, to try and keep up with Arctic Armour.

For gear, I'm assuming Deodre's Gloves are a good choice. As well as Araku Tiki, both of which I have, in either difficulty I were going to try and become a burning kamikaze.

Past that, I'm assuming that I will be gearing like any other caster.

Do people cast other spells, or just curses while burning wraeclast down like the human torch?

Anyway, if anyone can give me some tips / tricks, You'd make me a happy guy. After I get my Scion mapping, this will probably become a novelty type thing I work on.

[MonTy]

Hey Shoju,

Man, I give you credit for attempting to try the new Righeous Fire. I had a RF build previously, but it's been changed massively since. I've talked to a few people that play much more than I, and they have no clue how to effectively run one now.

It provides a damage boost to spells, so you would certainly use other spells to take advantage of that. But the burn to Life is a game changer, and people are now saying RF is really only meant for Life based builds. I haven't been able to spend too much time trying it out, but eventually I'll give it a go and let you know my thoughts.

[Frag]

Ditto to what Monty said. The new RF is quite a game changer. I can do some theorycraft if you like, but have no actual practical knowledge with the recent changes.

[shoju]

I'm feeling a little defeated about my RF character, but after thinking about it last night, I'm going to press on.

I figure I would give everyone a play by play on how I'm trying to tackle RF in the new, 1.0 world. I've looked over a few specs, and I'm going to say right now, none of them blow my hair back. Why? Because most of them, are VERY out of the idea of what I'm looking to do. So, I guess at this point, we should define what it is that I'm trying to do. I'm trying to build a life based, Fire burning, immolating monstrosity, that uses Righteous Fire, and Fireball / Firestorm, (I'm also considering Incinerate, if I were to happen across the gem. I'm not going out of my way to get one, but if I see one, I might give it a whirl.) I would love to get to a point where I'm using RF to kill things, and at times, I can.

Here is my build so far.

I have a lot of points into passive mana regen. This is intentional. While I don't plan on going out of my way to stack mana, mana regen helps with Arctic Armour, another part of the build that I want to try and have some fun with. I love AA so far. It's been instrumental in saving my butt a few times already. I'm actually mulling over including one more mana regen increasing talent in the spec. I'm not sure I will or not.

This is what I have mapped out next

This finishes off the Fire Damage portion of where I'm at, gets elemental adaptation, an extra Endurance Charge, and the Life Regen based on EC's, behind it, as well as more life, and passive life regen. My goal at this point, is to run 2 Auras. Vitality, and Purity of Fire. I have Purity of Fire, but not a vitality yet. They will be linked with a reduced mana gem, to free up as much mana as I can. This also gets me the aura effect increasing talents, which will allow me to get better life regen, and more out of purity of fire. I am curious if the "increase aura effects" portion will increase the Max % Fire Resist portion of PoF. It would stand to reason that it is part of the aura, so it should, but I'm unsure if it would matter, as I would need a max level PoF + 25% increased to pick up 1% more, if there is no rounding involved. I'm sure time will tell easily enough.

Now, at this point, with my current build, I'm able to use my Ruby Flask, and Arctic Armour + PoF to get to a "life regen neutral state" and sustain it while I have flask charges in my life / Ruby Flask. This allows me time to actually focus on casting other spells, and clearing faster. The problem right now with RF, is that I don't have the setup needed to cast spells while running RF, as I have to focus on keeping myself alive.

On the other hand, if I'm able to drag enough together around me, I'm able to burn them down in no time with RF. Boss level monsters are the only thing so far that don't explode in a timely fashion.

Meaning, RF is still very capable of destroying packs of monsters, quickly, and efficiently.

But, as far as using it to "burst things down", at this point, I'm not capable of doing that. RF doesn't last long enough to "burst down" bosses, and it's gotten me killed on more than one occasion, trying to do so.

I will also be working to get a Rise of the Phoenix. I found that in domination they are pretty cheap. I might just go ahead and pick one up now, at ~5 chaos, rather than wait and see if the build survives further. I wouldn't mind owning one anyway. it could make for an interesting piece to have in a "backup set" for other builds in the future (say.... a +X% as fire damage map, burning ground, or other similar situation)

As far as what it would look like build / gem wise when I get to a point where I'm wearing the shield.

Firestorm + Fire Pen + CTI + Ele Prolif + iron Will (w/4L)
Fireball + CTI + LMP (what I'm using currently) + Iron Will (W/4L)
RF + Increased Area + ?
Vitality + PoF + Flammability + reduced Mana
CwDT (level.... 8 I think is what I have setup on my Scion, works well) + Enduring Cry + Temp Chains
CWDT + Immortal Call (leveled to 12+ on both)

As far as Bandits. I helped Oak in Norm. In Curel, I'm going to kill them all. In Merc, I'll be helping Oak.
As far as a build flesh out to 85 points, which I should have when I can put on the Rise of the phoenix shield?

I have two options in mind:
level 65 build a
level 65 build b

I see merits in both builds. I like B, because it will make wearing things like Koam's Sign Easier, allowing for more EC's, by virtue of including more resists, and putting me close to another aura cluster, that will help me boost the two auras that I will end up using. It also picks up some Chaos Resist, which right now, looks to be the one thing I'm going to fear most. But, Build A, gets me a little closer to another EC, as well as more passive Life Regen, which build B will not be able to reach, while picking up more things to round out the build.

From Build B, I would probably look to round out around Here when I would try Sceptre of God, in the low 70's. I say the low 70's, because this build is very odd, and I've already seen that there are times I'm going to die. It's the very nature of the build at this point, as I'm trying to use things in a way that is completely unconventional to their intent, at this point in the game.

I would imagine that any points past this are going to be invested in health. the next 13 points would all go towards HP nodes + 1 .4% regen node. HP ends up being the highest damage stat for the build, as the higher my HP goes, the harder RF will hit.

The big problems I see in the build so far, are going to be:

1.) I will have pitiful Armor / ES / Evasion. I'll be relying on my immolating life pool + Endurance Charges (I could get to 8) to keep me alive.
2.) My Mana Pool, while constantly refreshing, will be pitifully small.
3.) Gear for the build will be EXPENSIVE, highly niche, and a real PITA.
4.) I'm going to die. A lot.

But, It's something I'm very interested to try out. I'm really hoping that the build starts to come together, now that I have a foundation laid for it. If not, I'm going to have a really terrible character sitting around doing nothing. Maybe I can add some sort of movement and turn it into a terrible pvp build.

[shoju]

An update. I'm cruising along, still following the build that I had in mind (option B), and assembling some end game gear. I picked up a Rise of the Phoenix Shield last night for 3 Chaos (score!) so that will be ready for me when I can strap it on.

I'm starting to look at some other uniques, and see what I what to go with.

LifeSprig: Definitely going to try and pick one up. Good Stats + Life on the weapon slot seem like a no brained for this build, and the wand isn't a bad piece on it's own.

Hrimnor's Resolve. I'm torn about this one. Good Increased Fire Damage, which... based on the last patch should be a boost to RF? Am I wrong in that line of thinking? But, I'm not sure how many pieces I can sacrifice life on. So... Tell me. Is this the type of piece that I should look for? I'm not sure.

New Koam's. I'll keep dreaming, but it would be a serious boost to the build.

Koam's Sign. Extra Endurance Charges do 2 things.

1.) Give me more Life Regen thanks to the passive that I'll be taking.
2.) Reduce Damage Taken. (If I wore the pair I have, It'd put me at 8 EC's after A2 Merc.)

But, it's at the expense, of wearing rings that have Life and resists. I'm not sure if that makes them worth it or not. Granted, the EC's will give me more resists, but I'd rather not "bank" on them for resists. So, I'm a little torn on them.

So:

Hrimnor's: Worth it?
Koam's Sign: Worth it?

All in all, the build is still fun to play, even though at this point, I'm just leveling RF, and using Firestorm / LMP Fireball to level, since I don't have enough gear put together to make RF work the way I want it to yet.

[shoju]

Well, I've been working on the spec, and I've come to the realization, that at some point, I'm going to have to go all in on Righteous Fire. And by all in, I mean, I'm going to have to devote the entirety of the build to Righteous Fire. I spoke with MonTy last night for a bit, and he reaffirmed a few of the things that I have been thinking privately, but not saying publicly about where I needed to get to. With that in mind, I have a new build plan.

This It's pretty much option B, but it's changing up a few things, to make sure that I'm going "all in" so to speak on Righteous Fire. I'm removing some of the damage from the witch portion of the tree, to ensure that I can get to the "real" damage of the build, as well as making sure that I can live. The cost to switch this build build is a little high for me, it will take 11 regrets to get the build sorted in a fashion that will allow me to be here at the level 73 mark.

Now, with this build, I have 7.8% LRS passively, without any Endurance Charges, and without Vitality running. That's not too shabby. With Vitality running, Even at the level it is currently at, I will regenerate an additional 1.47% based on the Aura nodes affecting my currently Vitality Gem, bringing me to a total of 9.27% LRS, again without endurance charges. At 93 points into the build, I will be in the low 70's. I am predicting 73, based on my current build point totals of my witch and level 70 scion. Without wearing the Unique rings, I'll be at 6 endurance charges. I'll be at 7 endurance charges once I hit 78, but that's a long way from 73.

The other nice thing about this build, is the Life % That I'll be able to sport. After factoring in the 2% per 10 str, I'll be sitting just north of 200% increased life. That seems a little low, But keep in mind that I plan on having life draped over every slot of gear Save the shield, since the Unique Shield is really "required" for this build, and it does not sport life.

There are still a couple of things that I'm looking for clarification on post 1.02 and the functional changes to Damage Over Time that were implemented. Because Of the Immolating nature of Righteous Fire changing so that I don't "burn myself" for more with the damage increase modifiers, I've taken more burning damage modifiers in this build. I'm still unsure if the Elemental damage nodes will affect this, but I'm working out the kinks on that. This is doubly important since I need to plan my flasks in such a way that I will stay alive.

With that in mind, I have decided a few other things.

1.) Koam's Sign is not good enough to warrant a spot in the equipment. There is just too little life on the ring to warrant taking it in a slot that I can get 100 Life on.
2.) Hrimnor's Resolve, while awesome, is not something that I will be running, at least not in a "progression" type gear set. Though, it would make for a very interesting farming / IIR set.
3.) Lifesprig, is a must. I will be looking for one.
4.) Carcass Jack, is a rather interesting / entertaining option for a chest, as is Belly of the Beast. Even with my "not optimized" gear that I'm currently leveling in, a 30% Modifier on a Belly of the Beast is worth 125 Life on a Chest, something that I just can't match on a chest. Either of these chests would be a fantastic piece. I'd say as far as "best in slot" for this build goes, it would be the following.
a) New Koam's
b) Bell of the Beast
c) Carcass Jack
e) Stunningly rolled Astral plate
f) Stunningly rolled Occultist's vestments
d) Old Koam's

5.) At higher level maps, as in.... 70+, I'm going to struggle. The DPS requirements at that point get rather high, and I'm unsure if this build will be able to burn things fast enough, while staying mobile enough, unless I'm able to get into a Koam's. See how a lot of things in this come back to high priced uniques?

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the progress that I've made on the build. I have a level 90 version of the build stashed away. I'm not willing to look that far into the future on the build, as RF seems to be a skill that is under the microscope by GGG, and I'm not going to plan too far into the future on a character that could be rendered useless by a patch change. Because, when it's all said and done, this build will be Righteous Fire, Probably with fire raining from the heavens.

I assume my "OK, I'm ready for Righteous Fire to be my damage" build will look something like this:

Auras: Vitality, Purity of Fire (middle click)
Right Click: Arctic Armour
Q: Enduring Cry
W: Firestorm (Iron Will -> Fire Pen -> Life Leech)
E: Righteous Fire (Increased Area of Effect -> Fire Pen... This is a possibility, I need to do some testing to ensure that the support works like the DoT change)
R: Flammability
T: Normally Reserved for Movement.
I'll probably also run a CWDT Gem that I level up pretty high that has an Immortal Call + Increased DUration Linked, and another CWDT Gem that runs Temp Chains.

As far as Flasks, At this point, I'm going to try and roll Ample + ? on 2x Ruby Flasks, And then from there, I'll probably sport 2x Life Flasks, and 1X Hybrid Flask.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I figured it would be easier if I just went ahead, and updated the current state of the build in one fail swoop.

[shoju]

So, I found someone else doing a Scion Righteous Fire Build, and I've compared notes with them. They were actually running the build in Nemesis, and at level 80, using nothing but RF, they killed PIety in 7 seconds. I watched the video. It was insane. He RIP'd to physical damage, so I'm currently working on incorporating more armor + Nodes into the build.

Things I've Learned to be 100% true as of the current patch.
Conc AoE + Increased AoE = a lot more damage, without cutting the AoE potential. Because of the wasteland of supports that help the build, it's a viable option.
All the buff nodes directly increase RF.

The regret cost of continuing this build is mounting, but.... I'm ok with that. I have a good base for the build, and a character in the 50's already, so I feel like pushing forward with some regret cost will work out fine, especially since I have ~13 more levels to get before I can "really" get to RFing things, as the build really needs the shield to pull it all off.

And that doesn't even account for the possibility of new Damage over Time Nodes, and their effectiveness coming in patch 1.03.

[whyBish]

So, I found someone else doing a Scion Righteous Fire Build, and I've compared notes with them. They were actually running the build in Nemesis, and at level 80, using nothing but RF, they killed PIety in 7 seconds. I watched the video. It was insane. He RIP'd to physical damage, so I'm currently working on incorporating more armor + Nodes into the build.

Things I've Learned to be 100% true as of the current patch.
Conc AoE + Increased AoE = a lot more damage, without cutting the AoE potential. Because of the wasteland of supports that help the build, it's a viable option.
All the buff nodes directly increase RF.

The regret cost of continuing this build is mounting, but.... I'm ok with that. I have a good base for the build, and a character in the 50's already, so I feel like pushing forward with some regret cost will work out fine, especially since I have ~13 more levels to get before I can "really" get to RFing things, as the build really needs the shield to pull it all off.

And that doesn't even account for the possibility of new Damage over Time Nodes, and their effectiveness coming in patch 1.03.

---

All I can say is that rf totems seem to suck

[whyBish]

RF is my easiest build, but I play softcore. Unfortunately it is also my most expensive build, but it paid back after I got a Kaoms and a bringer of rain within my first five merciless dominus runs.

The stuff I bought for levelling my RF build ->
Ambus charge, Araku Tiki, and springleaf (9% regen on low lifee, useful for levelling while still using RF. Wore wondertrap until I was able to get to 65 and use RiseOfPhoenix, since I was essentially on low life)

Note that breakeven for RF requires that you have more %life regen than the damage you take. The rough formula is that if you add together all max fire resist + all % life regen the total should be more than 25 for breakeven. The full formula is actually:
R + r = (0.9 + 0.7(E/L)) x (0.25 - 0.01F)
Where
F = +%Max Fire Resist
E/L = ratio of max energy shield to life. At about 16% the rough formula works exactly. at 0% you can count life regen as giving a 10% bonus in the rough formula. As energy shield gets higher it gets much harder to reach equilibrium.
R + r is the percent regen (r is the % low life regen. If you exclude the lowlife regen and you are still above the damage taken then you can run RF permanently on high life)

My current gear cost (in standard):
RoF 2EX
Carcass Jack 20C (I managed to 5 socket 5 link it rather quickly, but getting the right colours for the perfect RF took me way more chromatics than it should have)
2x Red beaks on switch (one 20C I ripped myself off, one 3C)
Perandus Blazon (dropped)
BrightBeak (2c)
Blood Dance (Dropped just as I was looking to trade for one. Unfortunately has only 21% chance of frenzy charge on kill. Bought a 22% one later for 20 C)
So the build basically cost me every orb I had collected since the start of playing the game, but by level 70 had pretty much found everything for my other 10 or so characters. It's amazing how many damage multipliers it gets:
AoE multiplier (from passives and conc effect)
%Life increase / + life / +Energy shield (from passives and gear - seriously though avoid the energy shield. You are forced to have about 16% from Phoenix and CarJack already))
% burning damage (from passives and gem)
% max damage on low life (200% from readbeaks on switch)
% fire resistance reduction (From flamability, I use cyclone and brightbeak to apply it. If I get lucky on vaaling an amulit for +1 curse I could also get ele weakness which I have casting on damage taken)

A very rough Idea of my DPS at level 75;
3K (Life) + 600 ES = 1800 base damage
AOE = ~40%
Burning damage = ~120 % from passives and gem
max damage from redbeaks = 200%
flamability = ~20%
Total? = 20k DPS
This is about 7 times higher than any of my other characters, and basically only requires me to stand around (or move towards archers then stand around). Things basically die as you run past them, so maps like mountain ledge is just run from one end to the other and stop if something interesting drops.
Other RF players have better DPS numbers than this, but I've put some investment into + blocking, and probably took a couple too many %life regen passives (all except the ranger one)