Low-Life Righteous Fire Guardian Build Guide (PoE Metamorph 3.9)

• Lab
• Delve
• Boss Killer
• Uber Elder
• HC

Vvckd

December 11th, 2019, 21:09

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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:

• A Passive Skill Tree & Gem Link page
• An Ascendancy, Bandit, and Pantheon Power page
• A Gear page

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.

Ascendancy, Bandits, and Pantheons

Our Ascendancy, Bandit, and Pantheon Power page goes into detail about all the choices you need to make in these regards.

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.

Our 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.

1. Freezing Pulse
2. Onslaught Support

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.

1. Storm Brand
2. Onslaught Support
3. Added Lightning Damage Support

By level 18, your Storm Brand link should look like this.

1. Storm Brand
2. Onslaught Support
3. Controlled Destruction Support
4. Concentrated Effect Support
5. Added Lightning Damage Support
6. Elemental Focus Support

At level 28, you should add the following Lightning Spire Trap link, which will greatly augment you single target damage output.

1. Lightning Spire Trap
2. Controlled Destruction Support
3. Concentrated Effect Support
4. 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.