A New/Poor Player's Start to Finish Guide to Righteous Fire (Patch 1.2, HC)

RF is perfect for new players because the build is very simple. With RF, the more life you have, the more damage you do. Building an RF character doesn't require you to sacrifice defense for offense or vice versa. Just stack that life pool!

RF is perfect for poor players because the required gear is very cheap compared to most end-game builds.

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Fire Resistance and Life Regen
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The most obvious thing we need to do with an RF build is to be able to actually use RF. For any new players out there...RF damages you for 90% of your total health pool per second as fire damage (and 70% of your energy shield pool, but this guide is for a life build).

Let's play some Math of Exile:

Let's assume you have 4000 health. A reasonable life pool at around level 65-70.

4000 * 0.9 = 3600 damage to yourself per second from RF.

You may be asking, "How the hell will I live through 3600 DPS on myself!?" Here's how:

The max fire resistance in PoE is 75%. You can raise this amount by 1% in the passive skill tree, making it 76%.

You will be running the aura Purity of Fire, which at level 17 raises your fire resistance by 3%, making your total 79%.

Lastly, you will need one unique item for this build called Rise of the Phoenix (don't panic, we'll talk about how to get it later). This unique raises your max fire resistance by 8%, making your total fire resistance 87%.

3600 * (1 - 0.87) = 468 dps to yourself

Therefore, we need to have at least 468 life regen per second to sustain RF.

468 / 4000 = 0.117 or 11.7% required life regen per second

For you math nerds out there, these equations are what are called "simple linear equations". All that means is that the output of the equation will always be exactly proportional to its inputs.

This means that regardless of how much life you have, you will always need a minimum of 11.7% life regen for a max fire resistance of 87%. Doesn't matter if you have 1000 health or 10,000 health.

For this build, we should have 12.3% life regen around level 65. 11.1% from the passive tree and 1.2% from the aura Vitality (level 11).

TLDR;

You will need a passive, an aura, and a unique item to hit 87% fire resistance. You will then need a minimum of 11.7% total life regen to sustain RF.

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Health Pool
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RF is very simple. You do 50% of your total HP as DPS. If you have 10,000 HP you do a base of 5,000 DPS. So for an RF build, you want as much health as possible. This makes building an RF character pretty easy since more health = more DPS = more defense.

The only required piece of gear for this build.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Rise_of_the_Phoenix

Rise of the Phoenix currently sells, on average, for about 5 exalts on Hardcore. It's important to remember that RF is a build that is capable of completing all facets of the end-game. 5 exalts is very cheap for an end-game build.

Rise of the Phoenix requires level 65 to use, so obviously you won't be using RF until you reach (at least) level 65. This will give you plenty of time to farm currency while leveling. Personally, I end up switching to RF around level 70 because it takes me a few extra levels to farm up the currency.

Since we can't possibly use RF before level 65, we need another plan for leveling.

Searing bond synergises very well with RF because they are both burning damage. This allows you to lay the framework for your RF build while leveling, but while using a different skill.

Why is searing bond so good for leveling?

Searing bond does a lot of base damage. The reason for this is because the skill is supported by very few support gems currently in the game. So GGG gave it really good damage without having to be linked to much of anything.

However, searing bond really starts to lose its potency around level 60. As you'll see in the coming sections, we will spend about 15 points in the passive tree to extend the usefulness of searing bond to about level 70. Whenever you get Rise of the Phoenix and are ready to switch to RF, we will re-spec out of these 15 points (using passive refunds from quests).

Here's all of the gems you will need for your end-game RF build. Whenever you can get them while leveling (from quest rewards or drops) make sure to grab them and bring them along to level.

*****Purity of Fire***** - EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. First available as a quest reward in Act 2 normal (Intruders in Black). If you get the gem from this quest, the gem should be around level 17 by level 65, giving the needed 3% max fire resistance increase.

**Vitality** - The higher level the better, but you want it to be at least level 11 by the time you're 65.

Righteous Fire (obviously)
Elemental Weakness
Flammability
Curse on Hit
Cyclone
Life Gain on Hit
Faster Attacks (2)
Leap Slam
Reduced Mana (for any auras we want to run)
Concentrated Effect (for RF)
Increased Area of Effect (for RF)
Increased Burning Damage (use on searing bond for leveling, then put on RF after switch)
Blood magic (2)

Gems to look out for:

Enduring Cry
Immortal Call
Increased Duration
Anything Fire DPS related (Fire pen, added fire, etc.)

Remember to hold onto some weapons for your weapon swap slots. This is 6 extra gem slots just for leveling purposes!

Regular - Help Oak (+40 max life)
Cruel - Kill all 3 (passive)
Merciless - Choice: Kill all 3 (passive) or Help Oak (+1 endurance charge)

For merciless, we a have choice between getting an extra passive or getting an extra endurance charge. Endurance charges are great for defense at the end-game and as you'll see in the coming sections, our build will be capable of grabbing an extra endurance charge very easily. This 1 extra point in the passive tree, plus helping Oak in Merciless, would give us 5 endurance charges.

This decision is totally up to you and how you want to build your character.

Since this whole guide is built around having no previous currency, we'll be leveling extremely cheaply.

The gear we need is simple. Armour based gear with as much HP as possible, with as much resists as possible. If an item has more resists and HP on it than your current one, it's an upgrade.

DO NOT use any currency to craft gear or purchase gear while leveling. I know it is tempting but remember, you're on a budget.

There will be two exceptions to the "no currency usage" rule. We will be purchasing an Aurumvorax (unique 1H sword) which I will explain in Stage 2 of the leveling process below. The second exception is that you will most likely need to blow some Alteration Orbs on flasks when you hit Cruel Dominus. You NEED a few flasks of Staunching (removes bleed) in order to survive the final phase.

We need to save all of the currency we obtain while leveling for our Rise of the Phoenix.

It is important to remember that everything in PoE has value. By the time you reach level 60, you may not have a single chaos in your bank if you were unlucky with drops. But I can guarantee you that you'll have at least 15-20 chaos worth of alterations, fusings, jewelers, chromes, regrets, and scourings.

The majority of your currency while leveling will come from vendoring ID'd yellow items for Alteration Orbs. 1 stack of alteration orbs is worth about 1 chaos.

Be as absolutely stingy as possible. Don't spend any of your currency on crafting or buying. If you spend literally nothing from level 1-60, you'll probably have around 1 exalt worth of currency just from leveling.

Sell anything you can. Certain gems like Spell Echo, Multi-strike, Cast When Damage Taken, GMP, chain, etc...they always sell. If you're a trader, hold out for the best price. If you're like me, dump it for 1-2 chaos less than typical prices and sell it immediately.

For items, I'm not much of a trader, so if I don't think I can sell it in less than 1-2 minutes, I vendor it. If you're a trader, trade to your heart's content.

NOTE: We will need to spend 1 chaos on Aurumvorax (explained in Leveling Stage 2) and probably around 1 chaos rolling flasks for Cruel Dominus (explained in Leveling Stage 3)

WIP **ice nova and fire trap**

WIP **Explain Aurumvorax**

WIP **Explain Cruel Dominus**

Farming in PoE is a numbers game. You need to kill enough stuff to let the probabilities work out for you.

Farming in PoE isn't about winning the lottery (getting an amazing drop) but about consistent income. As we've discussed and shown earlier in this guide, a majority of our income is going to come from vendoring yellow items, saving up tons of alteration orbs, trading them up to chaos, and eventually exalts.

We will also make some chaos from the chaos vendor recipes since we will be farming in level 60+ areas. You can learn about these recipes here: http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Vendor_recipes

**I will update this section once I've farmed enough in 1.2 and read about the best ways to farm from other guides/suggestions (update for both Beyond and Rampage Leagues)**

Bare minimum requirements for switching to RF:

1. 87% effective fire resistance
2. 11.7% life regeneration

Suggestions for switching (especially in hardcore):

- 13%+ life regen (11.5% from tree and 1.6% from level 20 vitality makes this easy)
- 180%+ increased maximum life (you will have this if you follow this build)
- 4000+ HP
- 5-link item (cyclone - life gain on hit - blood magic - curse on hit - flammability)
- 25%+ over-capped resists (to help with ele weakness maps, as well as curses)

Note the 5-link isn't required. But having the 5 link will really help your clear speed since you won't have to curse all the time. Don't blow a lot of currency on a 5L. Chances are you'll find one while leveling (usually find 1-2 per level 60 character) that you can either use or trade someone for one you can use. If you want to buy one (after you've acquired Rise of the Phoenix) don't spend more than 5-10 chaos.

You can also use a 4L cyclone - life gain on hit - blood magic - faster attacks. You won't clear maps any faster, but you'll have more survivability.

Otherwise, go for it on a budget and just use a 3L cyclone - life gain on hit - blood magic.

Making the switch:

Since we've invested a handful of skill points into making searing bond more effective, we'll need to re-spec out of those points.

If you follow this guide exactly, you will need to re-spec 19 passive points. You get 18 total passive refunds from quests, so you will only need to use currency for 1 point. If by some miracle you haven't found an orb of reget by level 65ish, you can trade some of your currency to the vendor for one.

You will be refunding the points you spent on all totem related passives, as well as switching the 3 armour/life nodes in the very beginning of the Marauder tree to the 3 0.6% life regen nodes.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure you refund 3 points from totems, then put those 3 points into the regen nodes at the Marauder starting area. Then refund the 3 armour/life nodes and the rest of your totem nodes. If you save the armour/life refunds for last, you won't be able to since it will break your passive tree. You need to put the 3 points into regen before you can refund the armour/life nodes.

Level 65 RF Passive Tree:

WIP