Pohx's Righteous Fire Juggernaut Build Guide (PoE Secrets of the Atlas 3.26)

Introduction

Before you read on I would like to state that this build along with the Inquisitor version have had a nerf (mainly to the clear speed). The Juggernaut version is affected more than the Inquisitor so I do recommend playing the Inquisitor version unless you’re okay with doing 25% less damage. This damage loss appears in yellow/red maps so you won’t be affected at all during the campaign. However, The juggernaut can easily hold his own. Juggernaut has a much easier time getting the defensive layers online. Also, no need for anything complex this build is great for first timers since your main defensive layers come from Armour stacking. Juggernauts Mitigation is unrivalled making it extremely hard to get one hit with this build. However, if you’re looking for the better League Starter you can find the Chieftain RF here

Righteous Fire has been in Path of Exile since Closed Beta. It has had many variations ranging from Occultist to low life Guardians, Hybrid Inquisitors & now I bring you the Juggernaut.
You can expect to charge through your enemies & burn them to death while maintaining the absolute hulking defences a Juggernaut brings you. For tougher targets, we’ll be cursing with our Flammability & Throwing Fire Trap Don’t forget to press your Infernal Cry to casually explode nearly half a screen.

The FAQ section can be found on my RF Wiki

Build Overview

In this section, We’ll be outlining the pros, cons, and general playstyle for the Righteous Fire Juggernaut. This will allow you to determine if this is the right build for you!

PROS

+ League Starter – You may not be able to level right away with this skill but have no fear you can get started right in Act 2 around level 17 to 20.
You also don’t need levelling gear. We’ll be levelling with Vendor Recipes.

+ Easy Playstyle – Righteous Fire only needs to be activated once per instance. After that, I’m mainly pressing 3 buttons. Shield Charge, Frostblink and Flammability. On occasion, you’ll press Infernal Cry & throw Fire Trap at tough targets.

+ Extremely Tanky – We like them Thick here. We’re talking 80k+ Armour, Potential 84+ Max Res. Incredibly high life regen levels.

+ SSF Friendly – This build doesn’t need any uniques to progress the atlas. The boss damage might lack a bit but you can totally farm more gear to overcome the endgame.

CONS

– Damage – The build doesn’t get the best single target. Don’t let that put you off from playing it though. You can still Fly through maps but I’d say going past 2-4 Million damage (Guardian/Shaper DPS) Is when it can get pricey.

– Map Mods & Melee – You’ll want to avoid certain map mods like “No Regeneration, – Maximum Resistance & Less Recovery” Being Melee can be tricky for newer users. When you’re not very well geared, you will have to pay a bit more attention to some rare monsters.

Extra info for being melee (basically just tips for newer players)

As for being nearly Melee this will require players to understand the differences on what monster bases are scary, especially when combo’d with dangerous mods. Once you’re geared this isn’t too much of a problem it’s more of a newer player learning curve.

Example: A Giant Skeleton hits 15X harder than a squid monster, so if you have a very heavy damage modded map try to pay attention to what monsters you’re flying face first into, especially if rolled with multiple %Physical added as Elemental mods.

Example: Executioner mod. literally disables your life regen (only above 50% Though). This can make it tricky to fight if players don’t understand that they have to disengage to heal back to full.

Example: Chaos Weaver mod. When you aren’t geared and are sitting on top of one of these mobs after they die they are going to release a bunch of chaos pods which will typically instantly kill players who are sub 20% Chaos resist.

Playstyle

Activate Righteous Fire (Every time you go into a new zone) Shield charge or walk it’s your preference really. Occasionally use your Flammability on blue & rare packs of monsters. Slam that Infernal Cry button to release some dopamine and explode the screen. When encountering tougher enemies you’ll be chucking fire traps while dancing around them or just straight sitting on their faces if you’re tanky enough.

For bossing on say Guardians I usually try to stand right next to them and Frostblink through them to chill and dodge the heavy hits. You can alternatively keep them on the edge of your ring from Righteous Fire and throw Fire Trap from a safer distance. Another option is playing around with your guard skill Molten Shell which gives you a 5,000 HP Bubble.

When you engage a large pack of monsters. Do not forget to use your Infernal Cry

Damage Scaling & Defensive Layers

Our Primary damage scaling is going to be broken down into 4 parts and where you can typically find these stats. There are more than I can list but these are the most common stats.

Note: Righteous Fire scales off maximum Health so it’s important to keep up with the health rolls on items. (You can often ignore the life mod on a chest if you take the 15% Max life mastery) Note that life does not scale your Fire Trap so you don’t want to neglect your other damage modifiers.

High Sources of % Increased Damage.

• % Fire Damage (Sceptre, shield, passive tree, jewels)
• % Buring Damage (Jewel, Passive Tree)
• % Elemental Damage (Passive Tree)
• % Minion Damage (Passive Tree & Weapon) (because of Spiritual Aid)

Large amounts of Damage over time Multiplier

• % Fire Damage over time Multiplier (Passive Tree, Sceptre, Jewel)
• % Damage over time Multiplier (Passive Tree, Sceptre, Jewel)

+ To level of Gems

• +1 to Level of all spell skills (Sceptre and Amulet)
• +1 to Level of all fire spell skills (Sceptre, Shield and Amulet)
  (Only Scales Fire Trap. So DOT Multi is preferred, this is a bonus stat)

– Enemy Fire Resistance.

• Flammability
• Fire Exposure (Master of Fire or Eater of Worlds Influence Gloves)
• Scorch (Legacy of Fury or scorch ground boots)
• Combustion Support (Optional & Applied if you throw Fire Trap)

PoB and Passive Skill Tree

The PoB community fork created by Localidentity is the only version being kept up to date, so make sure you have the correct version: PoB Community Fork.

This Comprehensive PoB will carry you through each stage of leveling, from both a League Start perspective & SSF environment.

Path Of Building, Skill Trees & Gems

Gearing

Note: Each piece ideally will want to be on the highest armour base you can get along with a high Life Roll. As we’re playing a Jugg our goal is to stack Armour.

Item Slot	Item Name	Rarity
Head	Here we’ll be looking for an Armour helmet with Elder influence ilvl 82, Essence of Horror helmet modifier with Socketed Gems are Support by either level 16/18/20 Burning Damage OR Concentrated Effect (IF YOU HIT BOTH YOU GOT A GOD HELM) The level doesn’t matter in particular as long as you can get these modifiers. Beyond this, getting the + level to AoE gems craft will be huge for your Fire Trap. Alternatively, you can purchase Burning Damage & Concentrated effect helmets on trade. You can usually find these really cheap after the first week. For SSF players you can reforge Fire with Harvest	Rare
Amulet	A life amulet with a Damage Over Time Multiplier and resistances will do plenty when starting out. Getting +1 to level of all fire/spell gems is also great here if you’re using a rare. The base will be either Turquoise Amulet, Jade Amulet or Marble Amulet depending on whether you need the extra attributes or not (Note you might want to use a Lapis Amulet in the early game just for the extra int till you get to that part of the tree).	Rare
Chest	As a jugg we want to be Thicc. Our goal here is to use an extremely high armour chest piece such as The Brass Dome or Preferably a Pure Armour Chest (Glorious Plate) Note off coloring can be difficult here. For eldritch Influenced I’d recommend +1 Max all res & Determination effect.	Rare
Gloves	Again we want Pure Armour. This is one of THE Most important places to get a High % Life Regen roll. It can roll all the way up to 21%. Since gloves are our least likely gear to replace I’d recommend spending some currency on them. This is also a great place to get Dex or Chaos res along with +1 to socketed aoe gems and place our aura gems in our gloves for the bonus. Eldritch influences – Fire Exposure (MANDATORY) & Fire Multi	Rare
Boots	Legacy of Fury This slot is pretty self-explanatory, it gives us huge AoE explosions and applies Scorch to nearby enemies. However, if you can’t afford them or you’re in SSF you should look for high Movement speed boots 20%+ and I recommend getting high life regen/% Life regen & Chaos resistance. You can also put eater/exarch influence for scorched ground which is a nice boss damage increase if you don’t have legacy	Unique
Belt	The highest source of FLAT Life regen which pairs extremely well with our Gloves. You’re looking for Life/Life regen & potentially res/chaos resistance. For uniques Immortal Flesh is honestly going to beat most rares due to the Armour bonus & MASSIVE Life regen. For the super late game, we can go with an elder crafted stygian with shock avoidance & abbysal jewel with shock avoidance. Utilizing stormshroud jewel for full elemental ailment immunity	Unique
Rings	An easy source of Life & Resists, we can craft minimum frenzy charges for some free damage too. This is usually where I get most of my chaos resistance. Harvest Reforge chaos = Guaranteed chaos roll.	Rare
Weapon	Here we want High sources of Fire Damage Over Time Multiplier & Increase Fire Damage. For a more expensive weapon, we can look for + Fire Gems with Multi or High Increase and craft the missing stat. You can also go with a mixture of stats such as High burn damage & high increases and craft Multi. Basically, you want a combination of stats and the 2 best modifiers to bench craft are Fire Multi & Fire damage & Ignite chance.	Rare
Shield	Rise of the Phoenix & Dawnbreaker are fantastic (I prefer Dawnbreaker since max res is easy to get) but we’ll be switching to an armor based Shaper Shield with % Recover life on block. This should be an excellent form of recovery when you get surrounded.	Unique

Ascendancy, Bandit & Pantheon Powers

You can read about the Ascendancy, Bandit choice, and Pantheon Power recommendations for this build on our dedicated page.

Ascendancies, Pantheons & Bandits

Levelling

If this is your first character you need to get some gems from the Witch before we start playing the Marauder. Level a Witch to level 4 to get these gems. Note: you need to complete the “Breaking some eggs” and the “Medicine Chest” quest.

The following gems you can purchase on your Witch Mule:

Rolling Magma
Arcane Surge Support
Frostblink
Flame Wall
Summon Phantasm Support
Holy Flame Totem

Levelling trees & Gem setups can be found in the Path Of Building link.

Early on we’ll be using Rolling Magma linked with Arcane Surge Support and later on also supported by Combustion Support Once we get Flame Wall we’ll be shooting into the flame wall for bonus damage.

We’ll also be using Holy Flame Totem linked with Added Fire Damage Support & Summon Phantasm Support

For players looking to get a bit faster, you can also purchase Leap Slam after you kill Brutus and link it to faster attacks.

Picking up Reservation Skills like Determination , Vitality , Purity of Elements when they’re available to us will go a long way.

For mobility, we’ll be using Frostblink all the way from Act 1 to the endgame.

In act 3 I like to pick up Flammability and link it to Lifetap Support

You also have the option for switching to Armageddon Brand after completing the Library quest, this will be less single target but faster clear and no more reason for Flame Wall

I have created a full leveling guide for you, so if you get stuck or are not sure what to do, please watch the below video.

Switching to Righteous Fire

This can be done at a minimum of level 17 after reaching our first Fire Mastery. To help reach the fire resistance cap we can use 2 ruby rings & craft fire resistance on our gear from our bench at our hideout. To help acquire ruby rings we can vendor an iron ring + red gem to make a ruby ring.

The setup here depends on how many sockets we actually have access to, but they will be listed in order of priority so if you only have a 4-link or 5-link don’t worry.

1. Righteous Fire
2. Elemental Focus Support
3. Burning Damage Support
4. Efficacy Support if you want more aoe use Increased Area of Effect Support
5. Lifetap Support
6. Swift Affliction Support

4-Link Fire Trap ( Requires Act 3 Library quest Completion)

This setup can be used all the way to the very endgame.

1. Fire Trap
2. Combustion Support
3. Lifetap Support
4. Trap and Mine Damage Support

Questions?

If you have any questions about my build, please join the ARPG Vault Discord where a team of moderators will answer you.

Closing Notes

If you’ve gotten this far with the guide, I’d like to sincerely thank you & hope you decided to play the RF Juggernaut, you can check out my Twitch Stream, where I am live almost daily. For other daily content including build updates, be sure to check out my Youtube Channel