Low-Life Righteous Fire Guardian Build Guide (PoE Metamorph 3.9)
This build is not updated for the current patch, and due to the mechanical changes, it is essentially not viable. We have chosen to leave it up for reference, and since it may be revived in the future, but for now we do not recommend trying it out.
Guide Format
This build guide is split over multiple pages, both to prevent it from getting too long, as well as to help you better find the information you are looking for. In addition to the current page, which presents general information about the build and also contains a Leveling and FAQ section, we have the following pages:
Introduction
Righteous Fire has been a popular skill for a long time. The skill essentially degenerates player’s life and energy shield pool in order to create a burning circle around the character. Righteous Fire has a decent clear speed along with the potential to kill all endgame bosses. The Low-Life Righteous Fire Guardian is a character that specializes in stacking heavy amounts of Energy Shield, Life regeneration that transitions to Energy Shield and a good amount of Maximum Resistances. This is achieved by running strong auras in combination with the Guardian ascendancy class, which provides great perks when you reserve your mana and life.
The build achieves extreme amounts of Energy Shield, Armour and Maximum Resistances, which allows you to land smooth and safe kills on endgame bosses. The build is also not recommended for beginner players, since it requires some game knowledge and specific items and gem setups in order to work.
Build Summary
The Low-Life Righteous Fire Guardian requires few specific items in order to work. Every Low-Life build needs to somehow mitigate Chaos damage, as otherwise it will easily kill you since you have very little life. To prevent Chaos damage from bypassing your Energy Shield you need 
Solaris Lorica, 
Shavronne's Wrappings, or 
Coruscating Elixir. We also need to deal with being stun-locked, and for this we will need 
Eye of Chayula early on, and 
Presence of Chayula as an endgame amulet.
The build can get pricey later on, but all you need in order to get started is a simple Solaris Lorica, Eye of Chayula, and preferably a crafted Shield with “% Reduced Damage Taken From Damage Over Time”.
Pros & Cons
Pros
+ Hardcore viable
+ Great for boss killing
+ One of the tankiest builds available
+ Decent clear speed
Cons
- Not recommended for new players
- Cannot be played since the beginning of the game; requires respecing
Playstyle
Offensively, standing near enemies is necessary, since Righteous Fire deals damage in an area around you. Once the enemies are in your burning area and take damage, you can lower their resistances via 
Scorching Ray. 
Orb of Storms has two purposes – lowering enemies’ resistances via Elemental Equilibrium and triggering Elemental Overload. 
Shield Charge will allow you to move around quickly.
Defensively, you mostly rely on your extreme defense and damage mitigation in combination with immense amount of life regeneration in order to survive. Running all the elemental purities, along with Discipline and Vitality will give you everything you need in order to stay safe.
For Playstyle, when you active Righteous Fire you simply run into packs of monsters, they should die in a second from the burning effect. If you encounter stronger foes you should drop down an Orb of Storms and start channelling Scorching Ray. For defense, you should focus on one big thing – the Time of Need ascendancy node. This ascendancy node will heal 30% of your life pool every 5 seconds, which will allow you to step back when you get hit hard and recover the damage taken.
Passive Tree
This is the endgame passive skill tree.
For more information, be sure to check out the passive skill tree page.
Passive Tree PageAscendancy, Bandits, and Pantheons
Our Ascendancy, Bandit, and Pantheon Power page goes into detail about all the choices you need to make in these regards.
Ascendancy, Bandits, Pantheons Page
Gems
We go over all of the gem links this build uses in the end-game on our Gem Link page.
Gear Summary / TL;DR
These items provide a good balance between offense and defense and are enough to deal with the endgame, although there is definitely a room for improvement. Please ensure you read the Gear, Jewels and Flasks page in its entirety.
Gear PageOur recommendation:
| Item Slot | Item Name |
| Head |  Memory Vault |
| Amulet | Presence of Chayula |
| Chest | Shavronne's Wrappings |
| Gloves | Rare Gloves |
| Boots |  Sin Trek |
| Belt | Rare Belt |
| Rings | Rare Rings |
| Weapon |  Doryani's Catalyst |
| Shield | Rare Shield |
Leveling
As a reminder, we have several guides to help you level up a character.
- Our step-by-step leveling walkthrough, which allows even more experienced players to save time and speed through the leveling process.
- Our guide to Unique Items for leveling, which helps you gear up your characters for the leveling process.
- Our beginner leveling guide, which answers many of the questions new players might have and will set you on the right path.
The Low-Life Righteous Fire Guardian should be leveled with a strong leveling spell such as 
Storm Brand. You can respec into Low-Life RF even before maps, as long as you have the required gear.
Leveling Trees
This is an example of a leveling passive skill tree for using Storm Brand. You can level with any skill you prefer, just make sure you do not spec into too many nodes that you will have to respec later.
Useful Leveling Unique Items
As you begin a new character, there are few unique items that can boost your power exponentially. 
Tabula Rasa allows you to have a 6-Linked skill as early as you get the gems. 
Wanderlust gives a decent movement speed, which will make your leveling that much more efficient. 
Goldrim provides a lot of elemental resistances, this will let you worry less about gearing when approaching certain Act encounters.
If you are a new player (or if this is your first character for the league), then note that obtaining these items will be very difficult, if not impossible. They are rare drops, which you can otherwise only acquire if you have saved up currency, so do not focus on them too much, and instead simply look for items that match the affix priorities listed in the gearing section above.
Gem Progression
Using Tabula Rasa will allow you to have 6-Link gem setups early on, which is why we show such examples below. If you cannot get Tabula Rasa (or another item with a 6-Link), then simply prioritize the first gems in each link provided below.
In order to acquire gems that are not available to your class as a quest reward, simply ask a friend to buy them off vendors for you, or buy them yourself from Sioasa in The Library in Act III Library.
From level 1, you should use the following link.
At level 4, you can add 
Frost Bomb for additional single target damage. 
War Banner can be picked for the Adrenaline buff it provides for a short duration when dropped.
At level 10, you should add 
Flame Dash for additional mobility.
At level 12, you should replace your 
Freezing Pulse with Storm Brand.
By level 18, your Storm Brand link should look like this.
- Storm Brand
Onslaught Support
Controlled Destruction Support
Concentrated Effect Support
Added Lightning Damage Support
Elemental Focus Support
At level 28, you should add the following 
Lightning Spire Trap link, which will greatly augment you single target damage output.
- Lightning Spire Trap
- Controlled Destruction Support
- Concentrated Effect Support
- Elemental Focus Support
FAQ
What map mods are impossible to do?
The build cannot do no regeneration maps. You should be fine with less regeneration maps in most cases, but it still might feel kind of clunky.
What is the very least the build needs in terms of a budget in order to get started?
Solaris Lorica and Eye of Chayula are mandatory. As long as you have decently leveled gems you can choose to not run one of the purities (Ice or Lightning), which will save you a lot of money on 
Enlighten Support. Getting a Shield with the crafted mod “% Reduced Damage Taken from Damage Over Time” is also important early on. To start the build you do not need a huge amount of currency, but to improve it you will.
Conclusion
The Low-Life Righteous Fire Guardian is a very strong endgame boss killer. It does require some game knowledge and gear investment in order to get started. This build is not recommended for beginner players.
Energy From Within
Conqueror's Efficiency
Prism Guardian
Quicksilver Flask
Honestly, this build is tedious as hell to play.