Righteous Fire Juggernaut Build Guide (PoE The Forbidden Sanctum 3.20)

Introduction

Before you read on, I also have an Inquisitor version of Righteous Fire. The Inquisitor version has much more boss damage. He goes Block based to reach 75% Block & Spell Block which ends up shrugging off most little hits. Is a bit more complex to build for players looking for something a bit more advanced due to ES scaling. And has an easier time mapping while being nearly permanently curse immune. 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. This will even end up protecting you against Elemental Damage. Juggernauts Mitigation is unrivalled making it extremely hard to get one hit with this build. However, if you’re looking for the more complex inquisitor RF build you can find that 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 defenses a Juggernaut brings you. For tougher targets, we’ll be cursing with our Frostblink & Throwing Fire Traps. 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 as you acquire your ascendancy (usually around 35)
You also don’t need leveling gear. We’ll be leveling with Vendor Recipes

+ One Button Playstyle – Righteous Fire only needs to be activated once per instance. After that, I’m mainly pressing 2 buttons. Shield charge & Frost blink. On occasion, you’ll press Infernal cry & throw fire traps at tough targets.

+ Extremely Tanky – We like them Thick here. We’re talking 80k+ Armour, Potential 84+ Max Res. Incredibly high life regen levels and the ability to take awakener maze meteors by pressing Molten Shell.

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 3-5 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 Archnemesis. Once you’re geared this isn’t too much of a problem it’s more of a newer player learning curve.

Example: A Colossal Bone Stalker hits 25X 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.

Example: Executioner Archnemesis. 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 Archnemesis. 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 Frostblink (or flame dash) on blue & Rare packs of monsters to apply your Flammability. 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 traps from a safer distance. Another option is playing around with your guard skill Molten Shell which efficiently gives you a 10,000 HP Bubble.

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 also scales off maximum Health but I don’t really bring any attention to that since we’re naturally going to be getting health on almost every piece of gear and the Max HP portion doesn’t scale Fire Trap.

High Sources of % Increased Damage.

• % Fire Damage (Sceptre, shield, passive tree, jewels)
• % Buring Damage (Sceptre, Jewel, Passive Tree)
• % Elemental Damage (Passive Tree)

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, Amulet)
• +1 to level of all fire spell skills (Sceptre, Amulet)

– Enemy Fire Resistance.

• Flammability (Usually curse on hit)
• Fire Exposure (Master of Fire or Eater of Worlds Influence Gloves)
• Scorch (Legacy of Fury or scorch ground boots)
• Combustion (Optional & Applied via combustion gem)

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 & using Twink Gear all the way up to End Game and High Budget with Aegis and Melding.

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 a preferably an Armour helmet with Elder influence ilvl 82, Essence of Horror 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.	Rare
Amulet	a life amulet with 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 Jade Amulet or Marble Amulet depending on whether you need the extra attributes or not (Note you might want to use a Lapis Amuletin 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. I recommend using Voirici in Research after getting 3 off colors (Blue blue green) You then hope he turns one of your red sockets white. 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 aura gems and placing 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 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. You can probably craft a better belt via Elder influence but it’ll be costly.	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	Preferably a high shield with +to maximum elemental resistances. There are also a lot of fantastic unique shields such as Dawnbreaker or Saffell's Frame. I recommend Saffels or Dawn Breaker for Mitigation and these are typically FAR better than rare shields. If your armour is like sub 50k use Dawnbreaker If over 50k without flasks I’d go with Saffell's Frame	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

Leveling

If this is your first character you need to get some gems from the Templar before we start playing the Marauder. Level a Templar 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 need to get/buy:

Rolling Magma
Arcane Surge Support
Frostblink
Flame Wall
Elemental Proliferation Support

Leveling trees & Gem setups can be found in the Path Of Building link, leveling will heavily depend on whether we’re league starting or have access to twink gear. Twink gear will allow us to run Righteous Fire earlier but here we’ll focus on running it after completing the Cruel Labyrinth.

Early on we’ll be using Rolling Magma linked with Elemental Proliferation 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.

To make your leveling experience all the way to maps smoother, I recommend crafting a magic weapon with added fire damage. Follow the recipe below starting at level 8.

If you don’t like leveling with Rolling Magma you can use Holy Flame Totem together with Flame Wall instead.

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

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 drop Flame Wall. We typically use this on bosses and tanky targets. If mana cost is too high link it to Lifetap Support

Switching to Righteous Fire

This can be done right after completing the Normal Labyrinth when we pick up Untiring, our primary requirements will be 79%+ Fire resistance, Summon Stone Golem and Vitality. If your life regen starts going down make sure you have taken everything correctly on the tree. If still depleting you might just want to get a few more levels and allocate the nodes I promise it will work.

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

For more general leveling advice, we recommend the following guides.

• 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.

Questions?

If you have any questions about my build, please join the PoE 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