3.7 -- Righteous Fire Juggernaut / Chieftain


Shield Charge was buffed. It's noticeably faster now. Since it now uses shield's base attack speed, there is no point in getting attack speed on a weapon - it's a local mod. Lightning/Cold damage is also useless on a weapon now, since it only works with weapon attacks.

Passive tree changes give us a bit more aoe, damage, regen, and end charges on kill.

Juggernaut was slightly buffed. Unyielding now gives a bit more damage and aoe per end charge.

Chieftain became way more viable for Righteous Fire builds, but Juggernaut is still superior overall.


Righteous Fire is a skill that sets you and everything around you on fire, dealing burning damage over time. It uses your maximum life to scale its damage, so it’s very important to have a large life pool. The damage done to self can be overcome with enough max fire res and life regen.

With good gear you can get up to around 10k life (12k with legacy Kaom’s) and 4k net regen (5k with legacy Kaom's). That's not counting the consecrated ground buff. It'll add another 1k regen.


Righteous Fire is your main damage dealer. Turn it on when you enter a map, and then Shield Charge into packs, burning them to ash.

When you SC into a mob, it can proc Elemental Equilibrium on that mob, reducing its fire resistance. There's also a chance that Elemental Overlord procs, increasing your damage against everything for several seconds. It's very important to understand how EE works, or it might fuck up your damage. You can read about it in "EE_and_EO" section below.

Summon Storm Brand when fighting bosses or tough rares, it will trigger EE and EO automatically for you. Then channel Scorching Ray, while the enemy is standing in your Righteous Fire. It will reduce its fire resistance, and deal some extra damage.

Vaal Righteous Fire can be used to boost your damage. Once activated, it will work alongside your regular RF, burning everything around you for a few seconds. It deals about three times as much damage as the regular RF. I recommend saving it for bosses, since that's usually when you will feel like your damage is lacking. It can also be used on Breaches, Abysses, Harbingers, and Essence monsters.


Righteous Fire builds are most well known for their survivability. 8k-10k life pool combined with a few thousand life regen and 9 endurance charges makes you quite tanky, allowing you to complete every encounter the game has to offer with relative ease. The downside is that single target damage is mediocre in toughest encounters. The fights are easy, but long. Having said that, with good gear, pretty much everything below t16 dies quickly enough.

It's not a great league starter. Degeneration from Righteous Fire is hard to counter early on, forcing most people to level with other skills and then switching to RF in late 60s. But, with the right gear, you can start leveling with RF from early 20s.

The build is pretty cheap to start, but can be quite expensive to take to a decent level. So if you are looking for something budget and powerful, you should look elsewhere.

Survivability 9/10
Clearspeed 7/10
Single-target damage 6/10

Since this build relies heavily on regen and resists, there are a few map mods that should be avoided:

no reg - deadly
elemental weakness - dangerous/deadly if not overcapped
reduced max res - dangerous
reduced regeneration – dangerous



Elemental Equilibrium is a keystone passive skill:

"Enemies you hit with Elemental Damage temporarily get +25% Resistance to those Elements and -50% Resistance to other Elements."

For us to take advantage of EE, we must hit the enemy with cold or lightning damage. That will reduce its fire resistance by 50% for 5 seconds. Hitting an enemy with fire damage will give it fire resistance, which is bad for us. Important to note that even though we deal fire damage with RF and SR, they don't hit, so they won't trigger EE.

To proc it, we use Shield Charge during the map, and Storm Brand on bosses. SC is an attack skill, that only deals physical damage, so we need to get "adds cold/lightning damage to attacks" affix(prefix) on our gear. It can roll on gloves, amulets, rings, and abyss jewels. SB already deals lightning damage, so nothing else is required for it to work.

WARNING: Make sure that none of your items have added fire damage to attacks or spells on them. Some boot and glove enchantments add fire damage to your attacks or proc skills that deal fire damage, so be careful what you put on your items.

Mouseover your skills that hit, to make sure that they deal cold or lightning damage, and not fire. If using Pyre rings, you also can't have cold damage. Physical damage is fine.


Elemental Overload is a keystone passive skill:

"40% more Elemental Damage if you've Crit in the past 8 seconds."

RF and SR can't crit, so Shield Charge and Storm Brand is used to trigger this effect. It's recommended to increase their critical strike chance to make them more effective. We do that by linking Shield Charge and Storm Brand with Increased Critical Strikes Support gem, it more than doubles their critical strike chance.




1. You don't need to overcap your resists to deal with Elemental Weakness. Nine endurance charges will give you an extra 36% resistance. A flask with “Immunity to Curses” mod can be used to protect yourself until you get your charges up.

2. Make sure that none of your items have added fire damage to attacks/spells on em. And try to get a single "adds cold/light damage to attacks" mod. No cold damage if using Pyre rings. Watch out for Glove/Boot enchantments with fire damage.

3. Penetration and Leech don't work with RF and SR since they don't hit.

4. % increased damage sources that affect Righteous Fire are: Damage, Fire Damage, Burning Damage, Damage over Time, Area Damage, and Elemental Damage. Even though RF is a spell, % Spell Damage has no effect on it. Everything mentioned, except for % Area Damage, affects Scorching Ray.



Go to "Items" section. In the drop down menu, in the top left corner, you will find multiple item sets, ranging from starter to highend. It should give you an idea of where to start and what to upgrade.

For more in depth explanations, please go through the sections below.


Starter sceptres:

Doon is cheap and widely available, and makes a decent starter weapon. Doryani is better, but is generally way more expensive, especially at the start of a new league. I would actually recommend looking for a rare sceptre first. They can roll much better than unique sceptres, and can often be bought for cheap. Also keep an eye out for ones with open affixes. If you have the right crafting recipes, you'd be able to craft damage over time, fire damage, or damage per end charge on it as well.

Ideally, you want a shaped sceptre with Elemental Focus as an affix, along with other damage mods. It'll give you a lot of increased damage, and a four-linked Scorching Ray setup. It doesn't have to be multi-modded or crafted, you can often find decent ones for sale.

Desirable affixes:

1. elemental focus + ele damage (rolled on shaped sceptres) OR fire damage (rolled or crafted)
2. damage over time (crafted)
3. +2 to fire gems (rolled) OR +1 to gems (rolled) OR +2 to support gems (crafted)
4. Hits can't be evaded (crafted) - shield charge will always hit, improving EE and EO proc rate
important added cold/light damage on weapons can't be used to trigger EE with Shield Charge anymore, since it's a local mod and will only work with weapon attacks, and Shield Charge is an offhand attack

1. fire damage (rolled or crafted) / burning damage (rolled) / melee splash + area damage (rolled) / resists (rolled or crafted)
2. damage per endurance charge (crafted)
3. multimod (crafted)

Legacy sceptres:

Blood Magic was removed from the game. You can now only find it on legacy sceptres in Standard league.



1. Get an ilv 80+ shaped Opal or Void Sceptre.

2. Alt spam until you hit Elemental Focus. If you get EF and a useless mod, and your goal is to create a multi-modded sceptre, you should try to annul the useless affix now.

3. Now regal. Annul if needed.

3b. If you don't mind gambling with more currency, you can also proceed when you get one of the other good affixes. Odds are small that you'll hit EF with a regal, but if you get lucky, you'll have a better than average sceptre.

4. Multimod.

Important to note that fire damage can roll as a prefix and/or a suffix. Elemental Focus can't roll when there is a fire damage prefix on an item. Controlled Destruction also can't coexist with EF.

I don't know the exact odds of getting EF. But, in my experience, it seems to be somewhere around 1 in 200 alts.


For the best possible sceptre you have to use fossils. But it's extremely difficult to get a good one.

Prismatic Fossil (40–60)% increased Elemental Damage
Aetheric Fossil Socketed Skills deal 40% more Spell Damage
Bound Fossil Minions deal (30–80)% increased Damage

Pristin Fossil (50–120)% increased Damage when on Full Life
Hollow Fossil Has 1 Abyssal Socket



regular, legacy

This is the recommended shield. The way it differs from Rise of the Phoenix is that it gives you max all res instead of only max fire res. This gives you a much better overall survivability.

Ideally, you want at least one of the following corruptions on your shield:

+2 to Level of Socketed Aura Gems (gives +1 max fire res when combined with lv 21 Purity of Fire)
(4–6)% increased maximum Life
(6–8)% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire Damage


regular, legacy

Kaom's Heart is the best choice. Nothing really comes close. It will give you a huge damage and survivability boost. It's the first big piece you should be going for.

Ideally, you want at least one of the following corruptions on it:

(40–50)% increased Damage
+1% to all maximum Resistances
(4–6)% increased maximum Life
You take 50% reduced Extra Damage from Critical Strikes

Tabula Rasa and Ambus Charge are decent starter armors. I’d recommend six linking RF in Tabula, if you don’t yet have an elder helmet with BD, or BD+Conc. Belly of the Beast, or a rare chest with high life and regen are also good options.



Regular Leather belt with high life and decent resists is a good starter.


I highly recommend upgrading to an elder belt with % recovery mod on it, as soon as you can. It acts as a regeneration multiplier. Very powerful mod. All that's really needed is recovery and decent life, other stuff is worth sacrificing.

For your first belt, i recommend just buying an ilv75+ elder leather belt, using alts to get 16+ recovery, regaling, and then crafting life.

Once you get some currency, i highly recommend fossil crafting something better. Recommended fossils are: Pristine (more life mods), Scorched (% fire damage), and Prismatic (% ele damage). If you are on a budget, just spam Pristines. It will greatly increase the odds of rolling life, %life, and %recovery mods.

Stygians can't roll elder anymore, you can only get them in Standard from other players.


The following belt can be used to quickly recharge your endurance charges if needed. Like if you drop em before a boss fight, for example. You put it on and use a movement skill, which will make you take physical damage (belt mod), and that will trigger Juggernaut's endurance charge generation mechanic.

If you are playing Chieftain, you'd need the following mod to exploit this trick. You can get it on a unique Precursor's Emblem ring.

"Gain an Endurance Charge every second if you've been Hit Recently"

Notable affixes:

(3-99) Life
ELDER (4-10)% Life
Scorched Fossil (20-30)% Fire Damage
CRAFTED (8–20)% increased Damage

Prismatic Fossil (20-30)% Elemental Damage
ELDER (10-20)% Life Recovery
CRAFTED (1-2)% of Life Regenerated per second during any Flask Effect



A regular pair of rare boots is a solid choice. Look for high life, resists, and movement speed.

Notable Fossil Mods:

Pristine Fossil (Prefix) +(15–25) to maximum Life (2–3)% increased maximum Life

Pristine Fossil (Suffix) 1% of Life Regenerated per second
Shuddering Fossil (Suffix) (4–6)% increased Movement Speed if you've Hit an Enemy Recently

If you want to debuff enemies with more than one curse, you can use Windshriek boots instead of investing four passive points into Whispers of Doom.

Recommended Enchantment:

Uber Lab Regenerate 2% of Life and Mana per second if you were Hit Recently

The cool thing about this enchantment is that along with life regen, you also get mana regen, which can help you sustain Scorching Ray without linking it with Blood Magic.



Pyre is the recommended starter ring. They are cheap and give a ton of burning damage, which is very helpful early game. Just make sure that you don't have any additional cold damage on your gear, since it turns it into fire damage, which will mess up your EE.

Regular rare rings are also an option. Look for high life, resists, fire/elemental damage, and attributes if needed.

It's possible to craft powerful damage rings that are a decent alternative to Kaom's Way. When you have pretty solid gear, you can generally stand to lose some regen.

This ring base is from Synthesis league. It's legacy now and can only be found in Standard.

Notable affixes:

+1 to minimum frenzy charges - this make it so that you will always have 1 frenzy charge, 2 if you get this affix on an amulet as well. You won't need any generation method to maintain em. Each frenzy charge gives you 4% more damage, and 4% attack speed.

Shock nearby enemies for 4 seconds when you focus - this will grant you a Focus skill that you can activate. The shock you get from it makes enemies take 20% increased damage, which is essentially like 20% more damage, unless you have other sources of that type of increased damage. You generally want to use it on bosses, right before you activate Vaal RF.

-(4-9) to mana cost of skills - this affix can help you deal with mana issues without investing in Blood Magic gems

Midrange (Highly Recommended):

Kaom's Way rings are really OP with Jugg ascendancy. They give a ton of regen with nine endurance charges. It will take your survivability to a whole new level. They are very important for farming endgame comfortably. Just make sure to grab all extra endurance charge nodes on the tree.


Precursor's Emblem ring is an alternative to Kaom's Way. It can potentially roll better, but good rolls are extremely rare.

They can roll the following useful mods:
0.3% regen per end charge
+1 end charge
5% inc damage per end charge
10% chance to get end charge on kill
10% chance to get frenzy charge on kill
15% chance that if you would gain Endurance Charges, you instead gain up to your maximum number of Endurance Charges

Gain an Endurance Charge every second if you've been Hit Recently - this mod is extremely useful if you decide to go with Chieftain ascendancy

What's also interesting about this ring is that it can roll the same mod more than once, doubling its effect.



Bloodgrip and Shaper's Seed are decent starter amulets.


I highly recommend essence/fossil crafting a Marble amulet as soon as you can find a reasonably priced base. Marble amulets come with a % life regeneration implicit, and it doesn't take much getting % fire damage and life on it with essences or fossils.

You can craft one yourself by using an essence of anger on a white marble amulet. You can also use fossils. Recommended fossils are: Pristine (more life mods), Scorched (% fire damage; if it rolls with regular fire damage mod, you can get over 50% inc damage)


Elder marble amulets can roll (1-2)% life regeneration. But they are very expensive. Ilv 80+ recommended.

If you feel like you have enough regen, you can go with Xoph's Heart amulet. It covers enemies that hit you in Ash, increasing the damage they take by 20%. It's a damage multiplier, that will help quite a bit on endgame bosses. Just make sure to use Xoph's Heart and not Xoph's Blood. Blood version comes with Avatar of Fire, which will mess up your EE.

Aul's Uprising is another solid choice. It reduces the cost of an aura of your choice to 0, allowing you to run more auras.

Notable Affixes:

(1.2-1.6)% of Life Regenerated per second (Marble)

(3-89) Life
Scorched Fossil (20-30)% Fire Damage
ELDER (1)% increased Damage per 15 Strength
ELDER (7-15)% increased Area of Effect

Essence Crafted (anger) (11-34)% Fire Damage
(3-26)% Fire Damage (regular) - can't have regular and essence crafted on the same item. You get an increased chance to roll this affix when you use Scorched Fossils.
CRAFTED(0.7–1)% of Life Regenerated per second
ELDER (1-2)% of Life Regenerated per second
CRAFTED +1 to Minimum Frenzy Charges



Regular rare gloves can be used as a starter pair. Look for high life, resists, attack speed, and dex if needed. Pristine Fossils can roll 1% regen, and minor life with % life.


Elder bases can roll some unique affixes. I recommend getting something with Faster Attacks. It'll open up a socket, and reduce your dexterity requirements. "Frenzy charges on kill" is also quite nice.


If you want to maximize your mobility, and have a lot of currency to burn, i recommend essence crafted elder gloves. Insanity mod acts as an attack speed multiplier.

You can craft one yourself by using an essence of Insanity on an elder base. A high armour, ilv 84+ base is recommended. Elder Titan Gauntlets are the best option.


Trigger Word/Edict/Decree/Commandment of Light when you take a Critical Strike - creates Consecrated Ground (6% life regen)

Notable Affixes:

(3-89) Life
(18-28) minor Life
Pristine Fossil +(15–25) to maximum Life (2–3)% increased maximum Life
ELDER (4-10)% chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Kill (4% increased AS, and 4% more damage per charge)

Essence Crafted (insanity) Socketed Gems have 16% more Attack and Cast Speed
ELDER Socketed Gems are supported by Level (16-20) Faster Attacks / (7-14)% increased Attack Speed
Pristine Fossil 1% of Life Regenerated per second



A regular rare helmet can be used as a starter. Look for high life and resists.


I highly recommend upgrading to an Elder helmet as soon as you can. They can roll skill gems as affixes, essentially adding extra links to your Righteous Fire setup. Get one with Burning Damage, or Burning Damage and Concentrated Effect. You can use an Efficacy gem in-place of BD.

The Downside of always having Conc on your helmet is that you lose quite a bit of AoE, reducing your clearspeed. The upside is that you gain a lot of damage, which can be helpful if your gear isn't good enough for areas you are farming. That damage increase is only going to be against trash though, because when fighting bosses, BD helmet users can always just switch AoE gem with Conc. The loss of AoE can be somewhat overcome with Unyielding Ascendancy node, and Amplify tree node.


Ultimately, you want to upgrade to an essence crafted elder helmet.

Horror + Conc (cheapest)
Horror + Burn
Horror + Burn + Conc (very expensive)

I prefer Burn + Horror for clearing maps. Larger AoE helps with clearspeed.

Horror + Burn + Conc is considered to be the ultimate helmet. It gives you a ton more damage against trash, which generally doesn't matter that much if you have good gear, but can be quite useful during breaches, abysses, and deep delves. Another advantage is that you don't need to bother with gem switching during bosses. The downside is that you lose some AoE when mapping.

If your helmet has a white socket, you can switch inc aoe and efficacy with arcane surge and swift affliction. This will give you a 20% damage boost. This is only recommended for endgame bosses, like Uber Elder for example. Due to the loss of too much AoE, it's not really viable for general mapping. I personally keep a helmet like that in my inventory, to switch to on bosses.

You can craft one yourself by using an essence of Horror on an elder base. Ideally, you want to craft a white socket and 30% quality with fossils before you start spamming essences.



I have to preface this by saying that crafting your own helmet is extremely risky. Since horror essences are expensive, getting bad rng can result in you spending a ton and getting nothing in return. I would generally recommend just buying it.

Sometimes you will get Conc Effect instead of Burning Damage. Don't roll over it. You should either use it, or sell and start another craft.


1. You want an ilv 82-84, high armour, elder base. Eternal Burgonet and Royal Burgonet are the best bases.

2. Spam essence of Horror until you get Conc Effect or Burning Damage; ideally, you want Burning damage, or Burn + Conc.

If you also hit a good third suffix, and the item has an open prefix, you could then try to mastercraft it. BD and Horror mods are both suffixes. What you do is:

0. you can skip to 3 if an item has no prefixes
1. craft "suffixes cannot be changed" (2ex)
2. scour
3. craft a prefix you don't wanna get, that has a lot of tiers, like %armour
3. ex slam twice
4. repeat if needed


This is the best combination of affixes that you can get. It's only possible to get it with fossils.


Encrusted Fossil = more white sockets
Perfect Fossil = improved quality

Ideally, you want to spam these first to get at least one white socket, and 30% quality.


Glyphic Fossil (Suffix) = Has a Corrupt Essence modifier, 1 in 4 chance to get Horror mod

Scorched Fossil (Suffix) = Nearby Enemies have -9% to Fire Resistance

Sanctified Fossil = Numeric modifier values are lucky, High Level modifiers are more common

I've never attempted a craft like this due to rarity and cost of Glyphic fossils. So i'm not quite sure about the best combination of fossils here. You definitely want to combine Glyphic with Scorched, but i'm not sure whether Sanctified are worth adding to the mix.


Getting the right socket colours with chromes can get expensive. There is a crafting bench trick that you can use to get three or four blue sockets on an armour base more easily.

Video: How to get four off-colour sockets more easily

This image shows the difference in damage multipliers between different elder helmets and gem setups.


Uber Lab 40% increased Righteous Fire Damage

Notable Affixes:

(3-99) major Life
(18-33) minor Life
ELDER Socketed Gems are supported by Level (16-20) Concentrated Effect + (15-25)% increased Area Damage

Essence Crafted (horror) Socketed Gems deal 30% more Elemental Damage
ELDER Socketed Gems are supported by Level (16-20) Burning Damage + (20-35)% increased Burning Damage
Scorched Fossil Nearby Enemies have -9% to Fire Resistance
Pristine Fossil 1% of Life Regenerated per second


Common Setup:

Make sure to craft "3% life regen during flask effect" onto one of the flasks as soon as you can. Bleed immunity is also recommended.

With enough regen, you can get away with dropping Ruby with another flask. I prefer Silver for better mobility. If you don't farm bosses, you can even get away with dropping Forbidden Taste as well.

Sulphur flask can be replaced with a unique version. However, it'll make it harder to get both bleed immunity and regen mod on your flasks. You can overcome that by using a regular flask inplace of Forbidden Taste, or getting a jewel with "Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you" corruption.

Another flask worth mentioning is:

It basically allows you to activate Vaal RF more often, while also substantially increasing its damage. The way it works is: if you activate Vaal RF while the flask is active, VRF won't go into soul gain prevention(12s), so you'll be able to recharge souls as soon as it ends. Activate flask, followed by Vaal RF. Wait for flask to recharge, and then repeat the cycle.



Legacy Flasks:

For Divination Distillate to work you need to grab Mind over Matter passive node. RF's degen will keep your mana at 0, keeping all flask mods active for the full duration of the flask. Since you won't have any usable mana, your Scorching Ray, Shield Charge, Storm Brand, and Enduring Cry would need to be linked with Blood Magic.

Shaper and Elder:

Flask mods to look for:

3% of Life Regenerated per second during Flask Effect - has to be unveiled and then bench crafted onto a flask

Chemist's - (20-25)% reduced charges used
of Staunching - immunity to Bleeding
of Warding - immune to Curses (Vulnerability, Flammability and Elemental Weakness makes you take more RF damage)
of Adrenaline - (20-30)% increased Movement Speed during Flask effect
of Grounding - immunity to Shock (Shock makes you take more RF damage)

Chemist's mod data:

20 charge flask (sulphur/quicksilver):

(21-25)% = 15 charges

30 charge flask (ruby):

(20)% = 24 charges
(21-23)% = 23 charges
(24-25)% = 22 charges

40 charge flask (basalt/silver):

(20)% = 32 charges
(21-22)% = 31 charges
(23-25)% = 30 charges


Look for the following affixes. You can't have more than two from each category on a jewel:


(5-7)% Life
(14-16)% Fire Damage
(6-8)% Attack Speed with Maces
(4-6)% Attack Speed with One Handed Melee Weapons
(4-6)% Attack Speed while holding a Shield


(8-10)% Damage
(10-12)% Area Damage
(10-12)% Damage over Time
(16-20)% Burning Damage
(12-15)% Single Res
(10-12)% Hybrid Res
(8-10)% All Res
(12-16) Dex/Int
(8-10) Dex + Int
(3-5)% Attack Speed




I highly recommend getting a Watcher's Eye jewel with %recovery.

It rolls two-three random aura modifiers. The primary one that you want to get is:


It acts as a regeneration multiplier. So, with 30% recovery, 1,000 regeneration will grow to 1,300.

Ideally, you also want to get one with the following secondary mod:

20% increased Recovery rate of Life and Energy Shield while affected by Malevolence

There are a couple good tertiary mods that you can get in combination with the above two:

Unaffected by Bleeding while affected by Malevolence - opens up a flask mod

(100-140) Life Regenerated per Second while affected by Vitality

(6-10)% of Physical Damage taken as Fire Damage while affected by Purity of Fire

Might of the Meek can be used in the jewel socket south of Constitution.

It gives:

10% life
0.4% regen
8 life
25 strength
5 dex
5 int
20% armour

You can also use a unique jewel called "The Green Dream" to generate frenzy charges:

"Passives granting Cold Resistance or all Elemental Resistances in Radius also grant an equal chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Kill."

Each frenzy charge gives you 4% AS and 4% more damage. You can have a maximum of three charges without investment.




+(25-50) to maximum life
(10-14)% increased damage over time while holding a shield
adds # to # cold/lightning damage to mace attacks


(15-20)% increased damage if you've killed recently
(8-10)% to all elemental resistances
(0.5-1)% of life regenerated per second while moving
(3-8)% chance to gain onslaught for 4 seconds on kill
adds # to # cold/lightning damage to attacks
(12-15)% to single resistance
(10-12)% to double resistances
+(12-16) to dexterity/intelligence
+(8-10) to dexterity + intelligence
(3-5)% increased Attack Speed
(6-8)% increased Attack Speed if you've dealt a Critical Strike Recently





- leveling and endgame skill trees for Chieftain and Juggernaut
- multiple item sets ranging from starter to highend
- you can find some explanations inside the "notes" section


Kill All.



Unbreakable > Unflinching > Unrelenting

Unyielding - damage and aoe
Unstoppable - movement speed; stun, slow, and freeze immunity

I would generally recommend starting with Unyielding, and then eventually switching to Unstoppable. The thing is that, early on in the league, to deal enough damage, you will likely need to run Conc Effect for the entirety of the map. Unyielding will help compensate for the lost AoE. The extra damage is also quite nice.

Unstoppable is great for mobility. It gives you a decent movement speed boost, and immunity against all stuns, slows, and freezes. Temporal chains map mod would have no effect on you. If you want to farm Uber Elder, Unstoppable is highly recommended. Otherwise your mobility would be seriously impacted in there, making it very difficult to avoid big hits.


Tasalio, Cleansing Water > Tawhoa, Forest's Strength

More Regen - Valako, Storm's Embrace > Ramako, Sun's Light
More Damage - Ramako, Sun's Light > Hinekora, Death's Fury

I'd go with Valako until you get more regen and recovery on your gear. And then, if you feel like you'd rather have more damage against bosses, you can switch to Hinekora.


Chieftain gives you significantly more regeneration, and a decent amount of extra damage. But it lacks a good end charge generation mechanic, which will force you to pay attention to your charge duration, and you'd have to use Enduring Cry occasionally to prevent charges from dropping. And if you do drop your charges in a boss fight, it will take a long time to get them back, which can get you into trouble.

Juggernaut has a very impressive end charge generation mechanic. You'd essentially never have to worry about your charges dropping. And if you do drop em, you'd get them back in no time. It's a huge quality of life thing, and i hear over and over again about how it makes people switch from Chieftain to Jugg. Another significant advantage of Juggernaut is the Unstoppable ascendancy node. It gives you some movement speed, and makes you immune to all stuns, slows, and freezes, including temp chains curse. It's really nice for general mobility, and gives you a huge advantage in an Uber Elder fight, because of how dangerous getting slowed in there can be. Also, even though Jugg doesn't have as much regen as Chieftain, he has a decent amount of extra physical and elemental damage reduction, which will help you absorb bigger hits without dying.

With everything up, Chieftain is stronger, while Juggernaut is more dependable, and will give you a smoother ride overall. I would generally recommend Juggernaut, but Chieftain is also a solid choice if you can deal with its negative aspects.

If you do go with Chieftain, i would highly recommend keeping an eye out for an emblem ring with the following mod. It will greatly help with end charge generation.

Gain an Endurance Charge every second if you've been Hit Recently



Soul of Arakaali (Major God)
Soul of Abberath (Minor God)


Soul of Solaris (Major God) - make sure to unlock secondary powers
Soul of Tukohama (Minor God) - make sure to unlock secondary power


Level 94 Juggernaut - PoE Planner
Level 95 Juggernaut - PoE Planner - an alternative path in the top left section of the tree

Level 94 Chieftain - PoE Planner
Level 95 Chieftain - PoE Planner - an alternative path in the top left section of the tree
Level 94 Chieftain - PoE Planner - if you get your hands on an emblem ring with "gain an endurance charge every second if you've been hit recently" mod, you can spec out of "Inexorable" wheel, and allocate those point elsewhere


Jewel Socket - east of Holy Fire (3 points) - if you have a decent jewel

Jewel Socket - north of Devotion (3 points) - if you have a decent jewel

Sovereignty - (4-14)% reduced mana reserved (2-4 points) - can be used to run more auras

Whispers of Doom - ability to run a 2nd curse (4 points)

Tireless - 20% life wheel (5 points)

Ash, Frost and Storm - 40% ele damage, 12% all res (3 points)

Spiritual Aid - can be worth it if you have a decent amount of increased Minion damage on gear



Vaal Righteous Fire gem comes with both the regular and the vaal version of RF, so you should transition to it as soon as you can. Vaal RF is quite nice for melting bosses.

Support Gems:

If you have an elder helmet with Burning Damage as an affix, you can use Efficacy in its place.

The following two gems only work with RF when combined with each other. That's because Swift Affliction only works on skills with duration, and Righteous Fire isn't a duration skill. You can change that by linking it with Arcane Surge.

You can use this combo if your helmet has Burning Damage and Concentrated Effect as affixes. Slot em in-place of Efficacy and Inc AoE. Your AoE is going to be small though, so it's going to suck for general mapping. The dexterity requirement is also quite high. I would only recommend using this setup in a dedicated boss-killer helmet that you switch to on bosses. Or if you helmet has one white socket, you can switch to this setup during harder fights, like Uber Elder.


Support gems:

I don't recommend running Shield Charge without Faster Attacks, since it has too big of an impact on mobility. Ideally, you want to socket it into elder gloves with Faster Attacks as an affix. It'll save you a socket and reduce Dexterity requirements.

Increased Critical Strikes will help you proc EO more often. But you can drop it if you really need to open up a socket.

If you find that you keep running out of mana, you can add Blood Magic.

Fortify is a buff that reduces damage from hits by 20% for four seconds.


There are five most commonly used auras:


This aura will help you cap your fire resistance. At level 20, it will also increase your fire res cap by 4% (5% at level 23). You can get it to 23 by putting a level 21 gem into a shield with "+2 to to level of aura gems" corruption.

It used to be mandatory for good sustain, but with all of the new regeneration and recovery mods, it no longer is. Once your gear is at a decent level, you can drop it for something else. That being said, it's still a solid choice.


This aura will help you cap your cold resistance. At level 20, it will also increase your cold res cap by 4% (5% at level 23). You can get it to 23 by putting a level 21 gem into a shield with "+2 to to level of aura gems" corruption.

People generally use it for better survivability during hard cold boss fights, like Uber Elder and Aul. If you don't farm that content, then there isn't much point in using it.


At level 20 it gives 1.65% regen. Which is nice, but nothing really game changing, unless you have really bad sustain. You can generally drop it in favour of something else without an issue. That being said, it becomes extremely important if you are using a Watcher's Eye with the following mod:



Malevolence is a good DPS aura. It will increase your DoT damage by 20%. It will also increase the duration of Vaal RF by 20%. Unfortunately, the reservation cost is quite high (50%). This aura becomes exceptionally good with the following Watcher's Eye mod:



It's a decent DPS aura, that will increase your damage by 5 to 15%, depending on how long an enemy is exposed to it. While also slowing em down.

It can be crafted onto your gear as a suffix, using a Bestiary recipe. Ideally, you only want to put it on your amulet, or belt. That's because some socketed gems will negatively affect the mana reservation value.


For more damage, you can also turn curses into auras with Blasphemy.

Keep in mind that enemies can't have more than one curse affecting them, unless you increase that cap with Whispers of Doom passive, or Windscream/Windshriek boots.

It's possible to run multiple auras even when they reserve more than 100% mana. Potentially running up to five auras. You can find out how in the following section.


50% reservation auras = Malevolence
35% reservation auras = Purity of Fire, Purity of Ice, Vitality, Blasphemy+Curse
25% reservation auras = Aspect of the Spider

35 + 35 + 25 = 95 = nothing needed
35 + 35 + 35 = 105 = enlighten 2+
50 + 35 + 25 = 110 = enlighten 4
35 + 35 + 50 = 120 = enlighten 3+ and 14% reduced mana reservation from sovereignty wheel (5 points) /// it'll also work with enlighten 4, 8% reduced mana reservation from sovereignty wheel OR "reduced mana reservation" helmet enchantment
35 + 35 + 35 + 25 = 130 = enlighten 4, 14% reduced mana reservation from sovereignty tree, and "reduced mana reservation" helmet enchantment

You can also use an amulet like this, to reduce the reservation cost of one aura to 0.

So, with an amulet like that, enlighten 4, sovereignty wheel (5 points), and a mana reservation reduction enchantment you can run five auras.

Purity of Fire + Purity of Ice + Vitality + Malevolence + Aspect of the Spider.


Storm Brand is used for triggering EE and EO during boss fights. Linking it with Inc Crit is important for consistent EO procs.

Storm Brand + Increased Critical Strikes

Can also be linked with Culling Strike to cull bosses. Faster Casting will improve the frequency of attacks, but it's not really necessary since Storm Brand attacks quite fast already.

Can autocast it with CwDT. It's nice not having to cast it, but the downside is that it can take a while to trigger on some bosses. I also like it because it helps maintain EO while mapping. Trash sometimes triggers it.

If you decide to go this route make sure to keep CwDT at level 1, and Storm Brand at 1-8, or it won't proc often enough.


Scorching Ray's primary function is to reduce enemy's fire resistance. But you can turn it into a damage dealer by linking it with multiple support gems.

If you start running out of mana, you can link it with Blood Magic.

Alternative options for mana management include: "-9 to cost of skills crafted affix" on rings/amulet; 2% life and mana regenerated if hit recently boot enchantment.

Elemental Focus can roll as an affix on shaped sceptres. We also used to be able to craft Blood Magic onto sceptres, but not anymore. You can probably still find some crafted sceptres with both EF and BM in Standard league.


Enduring Cry can be used to generate endurance charges, or to reset the charge timer when it gets close to expiration.

EC isn't always necessary. Juggernaut can generally run without it due to his exceptional charge generation mechanics. If you could use an extra socket, i recommend trying to run without it and see if you are able to maintain charges.


Phase Run can be used to boost your movement speed temporarily when delving. It's quite nice for running into darkness to farm fossils and resonators. It gives you speed and Phasing, making it easy to pass through enemies and get to your destination quickly. It's too easy to get stuck in those tight corridors with Shield Charge. It's best to link it with Increased Duration, since it doesn't last that long by itself.


Cast when Damage Taken + Stone Golem

Level cwdt setup as high as possible, since SG is only useful at higher levels. You can also use it without cwdt, if you don't mind self casting it.

Stone Golem isn't important. You can easily drop it if you need sockets for something else. I would only recommend it it for early leveling.

Can also use Summon Holy Relic in combination with or inplace of SG.


This is a nice defensive setup. It'll help soak up some damage.

Level both to max level. You only want it triggering when you are taking a lot of damage, and it's way better on higher levels.

MS will trigger bad EE on enemies since it deals fire damage when the effect ends, but it doesn't proc that often, and will usually get overwritten quickly.

MS's fire damage can be reflected back at you, so it's not recommended in HC mode.


Vaal Righteous Fire(20/20) - Level 21 not that important. It will only increase dps of SR by 1%.
Scorching Ray(21/20) - extra levels add a lot to its damage
Shield Charge(20/20)
Stone Golem(20/20)
Cast when Damage Taken(20/0) - level to 21 if stone golem is 21; level 1 if connected to Storm Brand
Enduring Cry(20/20)
Phase Run (1/20) - levels increase dex requirement by a lot
Storm Brand (1/20)
All Auras(20/0)

Elemental Focus(21/20) - 21 is 1% more damage
Burning Damage(21/20)
Increased Area of Effect(20/20)
Concentrated Effect(21/20)
Swift Affliction(21/20)
Arcane Surge(1/0) - no point going higher
Faster Attacks(20/20)
Increased Critical Strikes(20/20)
Blood Magic(1/0) - can level and increase quality if you want, but it won't do much
Fortify(1/20) - can level if you want, but it won't do anything
Culling Strike(1/20) - going higher will only increase dex req
Infused Channeling (21/20)

Last edited by rhah on Jul 2, 2019, 9:57:41 PM
Last bumped on Jul 16, 2019, 7:49:15 PM


Should be pretty easy if you know the mechanics. Can use a Sapphire flask for better survivability.


Rippy but viable. You can expect to die once or twice. Knowing the mechanics is extremely important here, so maybe watch a guide or something first.

It's a good idea to have at least around 9k life. Bleed removal flask. Can't really say more, it's been a long time since i did it.


Can't clear this with RF alone, need to use Scorching Ray as well. Linking SR with multiple support gems is recommended. Most of the waves are easy, for the rest you can keep your distance and blast em with SR for better survivability. It's a bit rippy. Unless you are careful and your gear is good, you can expect to die once or twice.


This build doesn't deal enough damage to destroy portals quick enough to keep Shaper alive. There is a trick that should be used: Frost Wall + Increased Duration. If you don't have open links, you can replace two Scorching Ray support gems, the colors will match (blue+red). Keep a couple walls up in front of Shaper and he'll be safe from all damage.


For better survivability i recommend using Purity of Ice aura, and a Sapphire flask. Unstoppable ascendancy node is highly recommended. It'll keep you from getting slowed down and frozen.


Leveling with RF is a bit tricky, since it's hard to get enough regeneration early on to counter the degeneration.

Starting in a fresh league:

1. The simplest way is to level into 60s with other skills and then switch to RF. By that point you should have enough currency to buy a few key uniques.

Use whatever melee skill you like. Sunder used to work well for me, but i don't know what the best skill is in Legion. Keep upgrading your weapon, and if you feel like your damage is lacking, you can grab some increased damage nodes that are on the way. You can respec out of em later, just don't grab too many, or go off the recommended path.

I've seen a few positive reports regarding the following leveling gem combo. What's cool about it is that you don't need to worry about upgrading your weapon all the time.

2. If you can't wait until 60s, you can switch earlier. Level 40-45 should be fine, try to complete normal lab first though, it'll give you a bit more regen to work with. If you don't have any regen uniques, you'll be degenerating life quite a bit. So make sure to keep your life flasks upgraded and move fast to recharge flasks quickly enough. If you have some currency at this point, it might be worthwhile to search for some leveling uniques to improve your regen. You can find the item list farther down the page. You can also give this a read for more information, but i'm not quite sure how up to date it is: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2166420/page/1

This last way requires you to be at a point in a league where you have some currency and there are affordable low level uniques up for trade.

3. You can start leveling with RF at level 20, but you'll have to meet some gear requirements. You will also be degenerating life quite a bit, unless you use temple items and watcher's eye with flat regen, so you'd have to use life flasks regularly to stay alive. If you don't want to deal with degeneration, you can switch at around level 40 instead. You'll be able to sustain fully at that point.


Your fire resistance must always be capped. This is very important. More fire res means less degeneration.


Core Starter Items:

These items are very important for countering degeneration from Righteous Fire.

Useful Starter Items:

Dreadarc has fire damage on it, so you might have to replace it with another weapon when you get Elemental Equilibrium. If you are using Shield Charge then fire damage on a weapon won't matter, since it works off of offhands. But if you are using a weapon attack, like Cyclone or Leap Slam, to trigger EE, then you'd have to drop Dreadarc.


- a decent rare sceptre can be a good source of increased damage. Look for fire and burning damage on it, and if it has open affixes, you can craft fire damage, damage over time, or damage per end charge on it
- an upgraded version of Springleaf
- life, regen
- can be used to increase curse cap to two
- ton of damage and resists; can roll up to 80% fire damage IMPORTANT: Make sure that you don't have added cold damage on your gear, since this ring will convert cold damage to fire damage and mess up your EE buff, turning it against you. Use added lightning damage to proc your EE instead.

- life, regen, resists

OP Items:

If you are starting later on in the league, you can use some of these items to gain a ton of regeneration at low levels.

1. Watcher's Eye with one or both of these mods:

(100-140) Life Regenerated per Second while affected by Vitality - flat regen is very powerful early on


2. Incursion items that drop from the Temple:


Don't forget to upgrade life flasks when possible.



Shield Charge(10) - mobility, EE and EO trigger
Faster Attacks(18)
Increased Critical Strikes(8) - don't need to use until you get Elemental Overload passive
Blood Magic(31) - removes mana cost

Shield Charge is kinda slow early on. So you can manually run around and use Cyclone to proc EE.

Cyclone (12) - EE and EO trigger

If you can't get added light/cold damage on gear. You can get it by linking one of the following gems with either SC or Cyclone.

Added Lightning Damage (8)
Added Cold Damage (8)


Righteous Fire(16)
Elemental Focus(18)
Concentrated Effect(18)
Burning Damage(31)
Increased Area of Effect(38)

Extra Damage:

Scorching Ray(12)
Infused Channeling (4)
Elemental Focus(18)
Burning Damage(31)
Blood Magic(31) - removes mana cost

Spell Totem(8) - can be used to auto-cast SR, if you don't want to self-cast it


Enduring Cry(16)


Purity of Fire(24) - fire res, max fire res
Vitality(24) - life regen

At level 31 you can choose to drop one of those auras, and get an aura that curses nearby enemies, for a solid damage boost.

Blasphemy (31) + Flammability (24)

At level 33 you can drop the other defensive aura as well, and add another curse to your Blasphemy setup. But you'd need to get Windscream unique boots, to be able to debuff enemies with two curses.

Elemental Weakness (24)

You can also use, for more damage:

Malevolence(24) - damage


Summon Stone Golem(34) - flat life regen
Cast when damage Taken(38) - can link it with Stone Golem; makes it easier to keep it alive

Storm Brand:

Use it to proc EE and EO on bosses.

Storm Brand(12)
Increased Critical Strikes(8)

Can also link it with Cast when Damage Taken for auto procs.

Last edited by rhah on Jul 2, 2019, 8:17:49 PM
Finally someone wrote a good guide for RF (for new players).

I am playing as Chieftain, but reading your guide, you can get the aswers about EO and EE in one place and not in 70 pages...

Thank you.
Thank you for doing this. Im doing this build, lvl 69 atm, and I have low dmg (doing t6 atm with 5.6k hp) its normal right? It gets better with more hp and gems lvl?
Last edited by ratz on Sep 1, 2017, 5:32:40 PM



Can fill open slots on boots with: End Cry+Inc Dur, Stone Golem+CWDT, Phase Run+Inc Dur, Molten Shell+CWDT. Or do something like this:

CWDT on Storm Brand is highly optional, and doesn't work that well on some bosses. I like it because there is one less thing to activate.

Purity auras can also be moved to a shield with "+2 to level of aura gems" corruption, for an additional max res point:



Can switch Ruby and/or Forbidden with Silver for better mobility, or Basalt for more survivability:

Alternative to Sulphur flask:

Another flask worth mentioning is:

You can read more on it in the "Flasks" section.

Last edited by rhah on Jun 6, 2019, 5:53:13 AM
Also playing this build, pretty smooth, a lot of fun, fast clear speed, killed all guardians, next I will try shaper.
I play this since yesterday and it's a lot of fun. I just don't feel the Regeneration and DPS.. u can give me some advice? Jewels are 100c+ each so i need to farm those, but otherwise?

Can you tell us what Pantheon are best for RF?
Could not find it in the guide.

Thanks for making this guide!!1
Ty. Pohx makes really good builds, but he never makes forum guids which is unfortunate :D
Musixx wrote:

You need a 30% more damage mod crafted on gloves or helmet. That's a lot of damage right there. Information on how to get it is in the Gear >> General_Info section.

You missused some passive points. You put 1 into Attack Speed, Melee Damage and Life, and Armour. Take those out and throw them into Elementalist. It'll give you all res and 26% increased damage.

You forgot a Ruby Flask. It's very important for regeneration. You can replace your Life Flask with it. Warcry should be more than enough for healing yourself.

You went the wrong way in your Ascendancy tree. Replace Pain Reaver with Rite of Ruin. It will reduce the damage that you take from RF and increase your attack speed on bosses.

Other than that, get better jewels and a higher helmet RF enchantment. That's pretty much it i think. You have to keep in mind though that this isn't the best boss killer. It's really good for clearing maps but when it comes to bosses, it's on the slower side. Having said that, it can still kill Guardians and Shaper in a reasonable amount of time. Just don't forget to use Concentrated Effect gem in-place of Increased Area of Effect.

SirAlfa wrote:

Can you tell us what Pantheon are best for RF?
Could not find it in the guide.

Thanks for making this guide!!1

I completely forgot about this system. I added information on Pantheon to the Build section.

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