Righteous Fire Inquisitor Build Guide - Path of Exile 3.24

Righteous Fire is one of the most popular skills in Path of Exile and there are many reasons why. It is one that can be enjoyed as early as level 20-35 and it scales really well the more currency you put into the build. You don't even need pretty expensive gear to pull this off. You can craft your starter pieces until you have enough currency for your endgame gear.

In this build guide, you will learn how to create the Inquisitor variant of Righteous Fire. Speaking of which, why choose Inquisitor for this build?

Ascendancy: Why Inquisitor?

With the changes implemented in Patch 3.23 Affliction League, the Inquisitor ascendancy class has been the go-to option for those who want to use Righteous Fire. Why is it better than the Juggernaut, you ask?

In Path of Exile, where you begin in the passive tree is entirely dependent upon your chosen class. When you play the Templar (the base class for the Inquisitor), you have easy access to damage nodes early on compared to the Marauder (Juggernaut). Notable passives, such as Holy Dominion, Divine Judgement, and Holy Fire can be allocated at level 30.

On top of that, socket colors are not going to be a problem. You see, each socket color (red, green, and blue) is tied to a specific stat. If your gear has a high STR requirement like, say, a Glorious Plate, rolling it with blue socket colors is hard because blue is associated with INT. Because most of your gear is armor (STR) and energy shield-based (INT), getting red and blue socket colors is a cinch.

The Inquisitor also does a higher amount of damage than the Juggernaut, especially in the early game. This is due to this class' ascendancy passives, including Sanctuary, Pious Path, Augury of Penitence, and Righteous Providence.

Sanctuary lets you create Consecrated Ground while you're stationary. Consecrated Ground regenerates 5% of your max HP per second, as well as reduces the effect of curses on you by 50%. Life regeneration is required for Righteous Fire builds since the skill itself does fire damage to you when it's activated. You can deal with that by having high fire resistance and a good amount of life recovery; Sanctuary helps you with the latter.

Pious Path is the second ascendancy notable you should get. This essentially improves the effects of Consecrated Ground, empowering it to also recover your energy shield for an added layer of defense. Furthermore, the effects of Consecrated Ground linger for a bit after you step out of its AoE. This means that you just have to be stationary every four seconds and you can be on your way.

Augury of Penitence is both an offensive and defensive ascendancy notable passive. This weakens your enemies, making them take 16% increased elemental damage. Additionally, this notable passive improves your survivability by making your enemies deal 8% less elemental damage to you. It might not look much but every bit of damage mitigation that you get really helps.

Righteous Providence is the last notable you should be getting for the RF Inquisitor. This notable passive gives a flat 50 increase to your strength and intelligence. But more importantly, it grants a 1% increased critical strike chance per point of strength or intelligence, whichever attribute is lower.

In the endgame, you can get the Forbidden Jewel Set with Sanctuary of Thought as the matching modifier. This is from the Hierophant ascendancy class. Sanctuary of Thought works so much better for the build now because of the changes made to the base version of Righteous Fire. When you have this notable ascendancy passive, 20% of your maximum mana is granted as extra energy shield, which translates to more damage due to the 70% conversion of the RF gem itself.

Furthermore, the 25% increased mana reservation efficiency of skills enables you to activate more auras. And lastly, you get 1% increased area of effect per 50 unreserved maximum mana. Because Righteous Fire and Fire Trap work well with AoE modifiers, Sanctuary of Thought is definitely a must-have, especially if you're going to min-max the Righteous Fire Inquisitor.

Basics

Righteous Fire is a spell skill gem in Path of Exile that deals consistent damage over time to you and nearby enemies so long as the skill is active. Although it has the "spell" tag on it, that part only refers to the "more" spell damage modifier it grants.

Because you'll also be taking fire damage when the skill is active, you have to make sure that your fire resistance and life/energy shield recovery are in check. A fire resistance of 80%+ should do the trick. With regards to life/es recovery, you can stack as many as you can for maximum benefit. Failure to get at least one of these things sorted out will result in your character losing life per second. If anything, sort out your fire resistance first and then gradually improve your HP regeneration and ES recovery after that.

In Patch 3.23, the base version of Righteous Fire received some major changes that altered how the gem works, particularly in terms of damage. GGG has removed the base fire damage that was inherent in the gem prior to this league. Instead, they doubled down on converting 70% of your maximum life and energy shield to RF's base fire damage per second. What does this mean?

It means that RF now works best if you scale your HP and energy shield to a significant degree. This is also the reason why the Inquisitor now overtakes Juggernaut as the premium ascendancy class to choose if you're going to use the Righteous Fire spell skill gem in Path of Exile.

You can increase the damage of Righteous Fire by putting as many of these modifiers on your equipment as possible:

• Increased Damage
• Increased Fire damage
• Fire Damage Over Time Multiplier
• Damage Over Time Multiplier
• Increased Burning Damage
• Increased Elemental Damage
• Increased Area damage

While Righteous Fire excels in killing map minions with ease, it suffers a lot when it comes to single-target damage. That's why you'll use Fire Trap as well. The bulk of Fire Trap's damage comes from the Burning Ground it creates. You can improve its effectiveness by putting as much fire damage over time multiplier and damage over time multiplier mods on your gear. Some gems like Swift Affliction Support and Burning Damage Support also help.

Did Fire Trap receive any changes in 3.23 Affliction League? Well, it only got one notable change in that instead of getting 20% increased fire damage from a max quality gem, Fire Trap now has an 80% increased trap trigger area of effect. Although you lose a bit of damage, the trap itself now triggers easily so long as there are enemies on screen.

So, how does the Righteous Fire Inquisitor fare in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League? The build still works just as well as it did in the previous league, albeit with some changes in the early game.

You see, Grinding Gear Games has made a significant change to elemental flasks like the Ruby Flask and Topaz Flask in Patch 3.24. More specifically, they no longer provide 20% damage reduction of their respective element. Instead, they now give an additional 5% to maximum resistances. 

This is especially good for the Inquisitor because it can be challenging for this ascendancy class to achieve more than 75% elemental resistances without a heavy investment.

In addition, GGG brought back tattoos, though with some pretty notable changes. More on this later on in the build guide.

Playstyle

The playstyle of this build is actually quite easy. The first thing you need to do is activate your Righteous Fire and then use Shield Charge or Frostblink to move around the map. When you come across tough enemies like essence monsters or bosses, cast Flammability and then deploy Fire Traps to deal considerable amounts of damage.

In terms of defenses, you can use Frost Shield and stay in its area of effect to contain your Consecrated Ground within that space. Tempest Shield not only deals lightning damage to enemies that are attacking you, but you have a 20% chance of shocking them as well, making them take more damage in the process.

Even though the Righteous Fire Inquisitor is tanky when built right, there are some map mods that you need to avoid like the plague. They are:

• -9 to -12% maximum player resistances
• Players cannot regenerate life, mana, or energy shield
• Players have 60% less recovery rate of life and energy shield
• Players have 60% reduced effect of non-curse auras from skills

These are the map mods that you can run, albeit they're quite annoying to deal with:

• Players have 40% reduced chance to block
• Players have 30% less armour
• Players have 25% less area of effect
• Buffs on players expire 70% faster

Transfigured Gems

One of the biggest additions to the game courtesy of Patch 3.23 is the Transfigured Gems (TG). Grinding Gear Games has made these gems as a way to consolidate labyrinth enchantments, threshold jewels, and alt-quality gems.

That said, Righteous Fire only has one Transfigured Gem in this league and that is the Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion. So, what's the difference between the base version and this one? The major difference is that rather than converting 70% of your hp and energy shield, this version of RF converts your maximum as base fire damage per second. On top of that, spell damage mods now affect the damage over time effect of Righteous Fire.

Truthfully, you do not need to concern yourself with Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion because it will not work well with the Inquisitor ascendancy class. If you really want to use it, you have to switch to Hierophant, but that is a topic for another time.

How about Fire Trap? It has a Transfigured Gem variant called Fire Trap of Blasting. Unlike the original, Fire Trap of Blasting does not leave burning ground. Instead, it deals fire damage upfront with a chance of triggering a second time.

While you could try Fire Trap of Blasting to see if you like how it works, we still recommend that you use the base version because it synergizes really well with damage over time modifiers (which we also use to scale Righteous Fire damage).

Gear

The Righteous Fire Inquisitor is very easy to gear up. In fact, most of your equipment consists of self-crafted pieces, with some uniques that you can acquire later on. Let's start with one of the most important: the weapon.

Weapon

The ideal weapon for this build is a self-crafted one using an ilvl 85+ Opal Sceptre or Void Sceptre as base. The sceptre is the ideal choice because it can roll modifiers that complement the RF Inquisitor, such as damage over time multiplier and even +1 to level of all fire spell skill gems.

There are a number of ways you can craft the weapon. Get yourself an Opal Sceptre or Void Sceptre and quality it up to 20% by using Blacksmith's Whetstone. Ideally, you'd want to increase it to 30% using Perfect Fossils, but they can be expensive early on, so this will do for now.

Once that's done, you can use Orb of Transmutation to turn your white (normal) item into a blue (magic) item. From there, use Orbs of Alteration until you get "+1 to level of all fire spell skill gems." This is a global modifier, which makes it incredibly useful for the build as Righteous Fire and Fire Trap scale really well with gem levels.

Anyway, if there is no second mod, use Orb of Augmentation. If there is, use a Regal Orb to turn your blue (magic) item into a yellow (rare) item. A rare item in Path of Exile enables you to put a total of six affixes (three prefixes and three suffixes). When you use Orb of Augmentation plus Regal Orb, you will have about three affixes in total.

Now, if you're happy with these three, you can go to your Crafting Bench and choose "Can have up to 3 Crafted Modifiers." Then, add increased fire damage/chance to ignite and "% to fire damage over time multiplier." and you're done! Here are the mods that you'd want to put on your weapon (in no particular order):

• Damage Over Time Multiplier (T1/T2)
• +1 to Level of all Fire Spell Skill Gems
• +1 to level of all Spell Skill Gems
• % Fire Damage (T1/T2)
• % Burning Damage (T1/T2)
• Can have up to 3 Crafted Modifiers (bench craft)
• 60% Increased Fire Damage/20% Chance to Ignite (bench craft)
• +19% to Fire Damage Over Time Multiplier (bench craft)

If you're able to acquire an Opal/Void Sceptre with the "+1 to Level of All Fire Spell Skill Gems" already fractured, you can engage in Fossil Crafting by spamming the said weapon with Scorched Fossils. Crafting the endgame weapon this way is easier since you will have a better chance of rolling fire damage modifiers, which are great for improving Righteous Fire and Fire Trap damage.

When you're mapping or leveling, make sure that you keep gems that have a "fire" tag on them in your stash. That's because you can actually use them for crafting. You see, there's a vendor recipe where "selling" your Opal/Void Sceptre plus "fire" gems that have a total of 40% quality results in a guaranteed, "+1 to level of all Fire Spell Skill Gems" mod. After acquiring this affix, just follow the steps above until you create a decent weapon.

Opal/Void Sceptres are very good bases to craft on because of their "40% increased elemental damage" implicit modifier. However, if you're leaning more toward a crit version of the Righteous Fire Inquisitor, you can opt for a rune dagger instead. Some of the rune daggers we recommend are the Platinum Kris, Golden Kris, and Demon Dagger for their high critical strike chance implicits.

Helmet

Another piece of equipment that you can craft yourself is the helmet. You want to get yourself an elder-influenced ilvl 82+ Royal Burgonet (pure armor) or Praetor Crown (armor/energy shield). This is because there are specific mods that you want to acquire, such as "Socketed Gems are Supported by Lvl # Concentrated Effect" and "Socketed Gems are Supported by Level # Burning Damage." There are a few ways to do this.

The easiest and cheapest way to get these mods is to go to your Harvest Bench and use the "Reforge Fire" option. Concentrated Effect may be a bit rarer than Burning Damage simply because the former doesn't have a "fire" tag on it. Still, keep using the "Reforge Fire" option until you get these two mods.

The more expensive way of crafting the helmet, and one that you actually want to do for your endgame gear, is to use Essence of Horror. Why is that, you ask? Essence of Horror guarantees that your helmet has the mod, "Socketed Gems deal 30% more Elemental Damage." Now, this process can get really expensive depending on how lucky you are. Most of the time, you get either of the mods (concentrated effect or burning damage) but not both. That's why there are some things that you can do if you get at least one of them.

If you have the Burning Damage mod after using Essence of Horror, you can go to your Crafting Bench and select "Suffixes Cannot Be Changed." This can only be done if you have at least one prefix slot open, so you may have to use an Orb of Annulment to do that. Then, use an Orb of Scouring. This will remove all of the prefixes on the helmet. Don't worry, your suffixes are fine.

After your prefixes are cleaned up, go to your Crafting Bench again and put the "# to armour" mod. This helps in blocking certain "armour" mods from appearing when you use an Exalted Orb. Speaking of which, use Exalted Orbs to fill the open prefixes and hope that you get Concentrated Effect. If you still don't get the said mod, you can do Suffixes Cannot Be Changed again and repeat the process.

What if you got Concentrated Effect instead of Burning Damage? Well, the best and easiest thing that you can do is just reroll using Essences of Horror until you get burning damage. The reason why you'd want to do this is that Concentrated Effect and the "Socketed Gems deal 30% more elemental damage" mod are a prefix and suffix, respectively. Therefore, you cannot use Suffixes Cannot Be Changed to get the desired mod. But, if you're feeling lucky, you can fill up the prefixes by going to the Crafting Bench and then use an Exalted Orb to possibly get burning damage.

When you have enough PoE currency, you can craft the endgame version of the RF helmet. You can find the full instructions in our ultimate crafting guide.

Chest

Since you are an Inquisitor, you should use an ilvl 86+ Saint's Hauberk or Saintly Chainmail. Go for the former if you want more armor; choose the latter if you prefer having more energy shield. Now, the reason why you need to have an ilvl 86+ Saint's Hauberk/Saintly Chainmail is so that you can roll the "8% additional Physical Damage Reduction"suffix mod for improved damage mitigation. You will need it if you want a tankier character.

Once you've obtained your preferred chest armor, use Deafening Essence of Loathing until you get the following mods:

• % Additional Physical Damage Reduction (T1)
• + to armour/+# to maximum Energy Shield
• % increased Armour and Energy Shield
• % increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills (from essence)
• 6% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire Damage/6% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Lightning Damage (bench craft)
• % Fire Resistance or Strength/Intelligence (whichever is needed for your build)

If you're wondering where you can obtain the "6% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire Damage/6% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Lightning Damage" mod, you can actually unlock this by unveiling a body armor that Gravicius drops. You may need to force Jun on your map device if you want to get this prefix as soon as possible.

Now, when you craft a body armor that has all of the mods mentioned above, you can take the life mastery, "15% increased maximum Life if there are no Life Modifiers on Equipped Body Armour"for a more considerable boost to your HP. If you get maximum life or regenerate # life per second, that is still okay. Just make sure to get at least a Tier 2 (T2) roll on to make these mods count.

Once you have all of the explicit mods, you can then focus on the implicits. Use one Grand Eldritch Ichor and then some Grand Eldritch Embers until you get "% to maximum Cold Resistance." After you've acquired the latter, use an Orb of Conflict to elevate the maximum Cold Resistance to +3%. You may have to use Orb of Conflict several times to achieve this.

For those who don't know, Orb of Conflict only works if you have the Searing Exarch and Eater of Worlds implicit mods on a rare item. What the orb does is it elevates one of these mods to a higher tier, while the other one is downgraded to a lower tier.

That being said, when you have +3% to maximum Cold Resistance, use Grand Eldritch Ichors again until you get "Malevolence/Determination has 27% increased Aura Effect."

The budget version of your body armor pretty much has the same mods. Use the Horticrafting Station or whatever essences you have in your possession to craft it.

With the major changes made to the Righteous Fire gem, scaling life and energy shield now has become a top priority. While you can still craft your endgame body armor, a lot of people opt to use Utula's Hunger instead.

Utula's Hunger is a unique Majestic Plate that was introduced to the base loot pool in Patch 3.23. The main reason why this has become quite popular in this league is due to its unique effect, where you get a substantial increase in HP, provided that there are no life modifiers on your other equipped items. This body armor works well with Replica Soul Tether and we will explain their interaction in the "Belt" section of this build guide.

If you have the currency, you can purchase a corrupted Utula's Hunger with any of the following implicit mods:

• +2 to Level of Socketed Trap or Mine Gems
• +2 to Level of Socketed AoE Gems
• +2 to Level of Socketed Duration Gems
• +1 to Level of Socketed Gems
• % Increased Damage
• % Increased Maximum Life
• % Increased Maximum Energy Shield
• +1 to All Maximum Resistances
• You Take 50% Reduced Extra Damage from Critical Strikes
• % Additional Physical Damage Reduction While Stationary
• % Reduced Fire Damage Taken
• % Reduced Lightning Damage Taken
• % Reduced Cold Damage Taken
• % Reduced Chaos Damage Taken

Shield

Early on, get a Chiming Spirit Shield and use Harvest Reforge Fire until you get "+1 to All Fire Spell Skill Gems" and other modifiers, such as life, elemental resistance, and chaos resistance. Block chance is quite good as well.

The best shield to use for the Righteous Fire Inquisitor is a unique champion kite shield known as Aegis Aurora. This thing provides the goods, such as increased armor/energy shield, +6% chance to block, and 15% increased elemental damage with attack skills. But, the main reason why this shield is amazing for this build is that it increases your maximum cold resistance to 5%, which can greatly improve your survivability.

On top of that, you recover energy shield equal to 2% of your total armor when you block. So, if you've opted to use the Saint's Hauberk for your chest armor, you'll get an even greater benefit from using the Aegis Aurora.

If you're feeling lucky, you can use a Vaal Orb to corrupt this unique shield. Here are some of the useful corrupted implicits you should aim for:

• +2 to level of Socketed Curse Gems
• +2 to level of Socketed Duration Gems
• % increased Maximum Life
• You take % reduced extra damage from Critical Strikes
• % reduced damage taken from projectile hits
• % reduced area damage taken from hits
• % increased maximum Energy Shield
• +1% to maximum chance to block attack damage
• % of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire Damage

While you can certainly equip the Aegis Aurora and call it a day, you can go for a more offensive approach by crafting a rare shield. To do this, grab a Titanium Spirit Shield with an item level of 85+. Then use Scorched and Aetheric Fossils to give you a high chance of rolling "+1 to Level of all Fire Spell Skill Gems." The other affixes you'd want to include in your shield are:

• + to Maximum Life
• + to Maximum Energy Shield
• + to Maximum Energy Shield/+# to Maximum Life
• % increased Fire Damage
• +2% to all Maximum Resistances
• Regenerate # Life per Second
• +15% to Cold and Chaos Resistances (Bench Craft)
• % Chance to Avoid Physical Damage from Hits (Redeemed Exalted Orb)
• % Reduced Damage Taken from Damage Over Time (Hunter Exalted Orb)

Gloves

For the gloves, you'll be crafting on an ilvl 85+ Crusader Gloves for a hybrid armor/energy shield base. Remember that the higher your energy shield is, the better your Righteous Fire damage will be.

Because you'll be starved for DEX, we highly recommend that you use Deafening Essence of Sorrow to guarantee dexterity on the gloves. Use as many as needed until you get any of these affixes:

• + to Maximum Life
• 21% Increased Life Regeneration Rate
• +% Chaos Resistance
• + Dexterity (from essences)
• Increased Armour and Energy Shield
• +1 to Level of Socketed AoE Gems/10% Increased Area of Effect (bench craft)

The Eldritch implicit mods are very important on the gloves. Slam the gloves with Grand Eldritch Ichors to obtain the mod, "Inflict Fire Exposure on Hit, Applying -13% to Fire Resistance." Furthermore, use Grand Eldritch Embers until you acquire "+1% to Maximum Cold Resistance."

If you have the currency, we advise you to elevate these mods using Orbs of Conflict. Ideally, you want to achieve +2% to Maximum Cold Resistance (Searing Exarch mod), but either one is fine.

Now, you could also opt to go pure offense by spamming the gloves with Grand Eldritch Embers to get "+13% to Fire Damage Over Time Multiplier."

Belt

This Righteous Fire Inquisitor build uses the unique jewel Melding of the Flesh to make all of your elemental resistances on par with each other. However, there is a huge downside to this in that the jewel also reduces your elemental resistances by as much as 80%! In order to fix that, you have to roll some resistances on your belt and rings.

That said, we advise you to acquire an item level 85 Stygian Vise. Get one with an Elder or Hunter influence so that you can roll the prefix "#% increased maximum life." Then, spam it with Deafening Essence of Sorrow for guaranteed dexterity. Do this until you get the following:

• % Increased Maximum Life
• + to Maximum Life
• Flasks applied to you have % Increased Effect
• Regenerate Life per Second
• Resistances (Fire, Cold, Lightning, Chaos)
• + Dexterity (from essences)
• Regenerate 150 Energy Shield per Second While a Rare or Unique Enemy is Nearby (bench craft)

When you do not have a self-crafted Stygian Vise yet, you can equip the Immortal Flesh unique leather belt for the time being. This belt provides a huge amount of flat HP and life regeneration. Moreover, you take reduced physical damage from attack hits and you have increased armor when you're not affected by ignite, shock, or freeze. The only disadvantage here is that this belt reduces your elemental resistances by as much as 25%. But, this is pretty much the best-in-slot until you craft a good Stygian Vise.

It is important to note that you can improve the life modifiers on these belts by using some Fertile Catalysts.

If you are wearing Utula's Hunger, you should also pair it with Replica Soul Tether. This synergizes really well with the said unique body armor because this belt grants extra maximum energy shield based on 7% of your maximum life. Since Utula's Hunger provides you with a ton of HP, you will have high amounts of energy shield like never before!

Replica Soul Tether is relatively cheap, so you can purchase a corrupted one with any of the following implicits:

• Malevolence Has % Increased Aura Effect
• Determination Has % Increased Aura Effect
• % Increased Area of Effect
• % Increased Maximum Life
• % Increased Maximum Energy Shield
• +% to All Elemental Resistances
• % Increased Dexterity/% Increased Intelligence
• % Increased Strength/% Increased Dexterity
• % Increased Strength/% Increased Intelligence
• % Increased Movement Speed During Any Flask Effect

Rings

For the rings, you can go for a Warlord-influenced Amethyst Ring for its chaos resistance implicit or the Two-Stone Ring if you're still having trouble capping your elemental resistances. The item level of these rings should be at least 85 to get some decent rolls.

Anyway, crafting the rings is easy. All you have to do is go to your Harvest Bench and select the "Reforce Chaos" option. This guarantees #% chaos resistance. Do this a bunch of times until you get any of these affixes:

• + to Maximum Life
• + to Maximum Energy Shield
• % increased Area of Effect (Warlord mod)
• + Dexterity
• +% to Fire/Cold/Lightning/Chaos Resistances
• % increased Damage (bench craft)

Since your elemental resistances are reduced by Melding of the Flesh, we suggest that you use Prismatic Catalysts to improve the resistance modifiers on your rings.

Now, if currency is not an issue for you, there are a couple of other ways to craft the rings. You can either use Deafening Essence of Anger for the guaranteed "#% increased Fire Damage" suffix or Essence of Delirium to get the "+12-15% to Damage Over Time Multiplier" mod. Remember, you're sacrificing one of your suffixes if you're going this route, so capping your resistances might be a problem. You'll have to get those resistances elsewhere.

Amulet

Ashes of the Stars has been nerfed in Patch 3.23. The reason why we've gone for this in the past is due to its increased mana reservation efficiency of skills. However, this unique effect has been removed and is no longer recommended for the Righteous Fire Inquisitor.

The perfect amulet that can replace Ashes of the Stars for this build is a self-crafted one using the Jade Amulet or Turquoise Amulet as a crafting base. The reason why you'd want to use either of them is for their dexterity implicit mods. If you have sufficient DEX already, you can use a Marble Amulet for that "Regenerate % of Life per Second." Anyway, here are the steps to craft the amulet:

1. Obtain an ilvl 85+ Jade Amulet or Turquoise Amulet
2. If the item is rare (yellow), use an Orb of Scouring to turn it into a normal (white) item. Then, use an Orb of Transmutation to transform it into a magic (blue) item
3. Once the amulet has been turned into a magic item, use Orb of Alteration until you get "+1 to Level of All Skill Gems"
4. After that, use a Regal Orb. If you get a prefix, you can proceed to the next step. However, if you got a suffix, repeat steps 2 and 3
5. Go to your Crafting Bench and put "Can Have Up to 3 Crafted Modifiers," "Prefixes Cannot Be Changed," and "Cannot Roll Attack Modifiers," in that order
6. Next, go to your Harvest Bench and choose the "Add a new Fire modifier and remove another random modifier from a non-influenced item" option. This will guarantee the mod "+1 to Level of All Fire Skill Gems"
7. Once that's done, go back to your Crafting Bench again and select "Remove Crafted Mods"
8. Then, put "Can Have Up to 3 Crafted Modifiers" and add the following:
   1. (10-12)% Increased Area of Effect/(14-16)% Increased Area Damage (prefix)
   2. (13-16)% increased Fire Damage (suffix)
9. The last suffix is reserved for the Warlord Exalted Orb. You are looking for the mod, "Determination Has (40-50)% Increased Mana Reservation Efficiency." This is pretty risky because there are other mods that may appear when using the Warlord Exalted Orb, so do keep that in mind
10. If you do not want to risk it, the last suffix can be filled up using a regular Exalted Orb. Whatever you end up getting, you will have to settle with it
11. For the finishing touch, use Turbulent Catalysts to improve the fire damage suffix

After completing the above steps, you should have something like this:

When you're done crafting, the final step would be to anoint the amulet with Charisma (Opalescent Oil, Golden Oil, Golden Oil) for 16% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills and 6% increased effect of Non-Curse Auras from your Skills.

Boots

There are no better boots than the Legacy of Fury for the Righteous Fire Inquisitor. This unique Wyrmscale Boots grants 30% increased movement speed and up to 300% armor and evasion. But, the main reason why this is the best-in-slot is that enemies near you are instantly affected by Scorch - an elemental ailment that reduces the enemy's elemental resistances. With the boots' innate 50% increased effect of Scorch, your foes take considerable amounts of damage from Righteous Fire and Fire Trap.

Furthermore, killing a scorched enemy will have a chance to burn each surrounding foe for several seconds, dealing 8% of the killed enemy's life as fire damage per second.

Since Legacy of Fury is pretty cheap, you can buy some and corrupt them using Vaal Orbs. Here are some corrupted implicit mods that are worth getting:

• % increased movement speed
• Regenerate 100 Life per Second While Moving
• % Increased Maximum Energy Shield
• % Increased Maximum Life
• +1 to Level of Socketed Gems
• +1 to Maximum Endurance Charges

Flasks

• Ruby Flask
• Amethyst Flask
• Granite Flask
• Quicksilver Flask

Roll your flasks with Orb of Alteration until you get the "Flagellant" prefix, which gives you three flask charges when you are hit by an enemy.

For the suffixes, aim to get these:

• 40% additional Elemental Resistances during Effect
• 60% increased Armour during Effect
• 14% increased Movement Speed during Flask Effect
• 17% increased Attack Speed during Flask Effect

If you've unveiled a Cinderswallow Urn and you've managed to unlock the suffix, "Regenerate 3% of Life per second during Effect," you can use this one instead of the increased movement speed mod. The Cinderswallow Urn can be acquired from Katarina or purchased from the trade website.

For the last flask, you have a couple of choices. Bottled Faith not grants you a flat 40% damage buff but it also creates Consecrated Ground that weakens your enemies, making them take up to 10% increased damage.

Oriath's End is another viable option for the Righteous Fire Inquisitor. When used, enemies that you kill have a chance to explode, dealing a portion of their max HP as damage of a random element. Because this is a Bismuth Flask, you gain 35% to all elemental resistances as well, which is quite helpful if you are struggling to overcap your resistances due to Melding of the Flesh.

Jewels

One of the first jewels that you need to get your hands on is a Watcher's Eye. Aim to get any two (or three) of the following mods:

• +% to Damage Over Time Multiplier While Affected by Malevolence (Best)
• % Increased Recovery Rate of Life and Energy Shield While Affected by Malevolence
• Damaging Ailments You Inflict Deal % Faster While Affected by Malevolence
• % Additional Physical Damage Reduction While Affected by Determination
• + to Armour While Affected by Determination
• You Take % Reduced Extra Damage from Critical Strikes While Affected by Determination
• Chance to Block Attack Damage While Affected by Determination
• #% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Cold Damage while affected by Purity of Ice
• #% of Fire and Lightning Damage taken as Cold Damage while affected by Purity of Ice

Large Cluster Jewels allow you to get notable passive skills that improve the damage of Righteous Fire and Fire Trap. You want to get a large cluster with "12% Increased Fire Damage" as a base. Then, go to your Harvest Bench (or Horticrafting Station) and use the "Reforge Fire" option to get these three passive skills:

• Burning Bright
  • 25% Increased Burning Damage
  • 8% Increased Area of Effect
• Prismatic Heart
  • 30% Increased Elemental Damage
  • +10% to All Elemental Resistances
• Widespread Destruction
  • 20% Increased Elemental Damage
  • 6% Increased Area of Effect

While all of the three notable passive skills are great, you can remove Prismatic Heart if you need two extra points to allocate elsewhere. For this reason, the said passive skill should be in the middle so that you can allocate or remove points as needed.

This build can also utilize Medium Cluster Jewels to great effect. Get one with "10% Increased Damage Over Time" as a base. Use your Harvest Bench again, but this time, you select "Reforge Life" to have a bigger chance of obtaining "Flow of Life."

Flow of Life is a notable passive skill that increases your maximum life by 4% and regenerates your HP by 0.6% per second, which is quite useful in an RF build. Furthermore, it grants 24% increased damage over time, so you're really getting the best of both worlds.

The second notable passive skill can be anything. We recommend the following:

• Vile Reinvigoration
  • 24% Increased Damage Over Time
  • 6% Increased Maximum Energy Shield
  • Regenerate 2% of Energy Shield per Second if You've Killed an Enemy Recently
• Student of Decay
  • 25% Increased Damage Over Time
  • +13% to Chaos Resistance
• Brush with Death
  • +5% to Damage Over Time Multiplier
  • Recover 1% of Life on Kill
  • Recover 1% of Energy Shield on Kill

Since this build uses more than four auras, the only way you can activate them all is by equipping some mana reservation jewels. Get two small cluster jewels with an item level of 83+. On the first jewel, use an Orb of Scouring to turn it into a normal item and then an Orb of Alchemy to transform it into a rare one. After that, go to your Harvest Bench and reforge Chaos until you get Mortifying Aspect.

For the other small cluster jewel, you'll use a different approach. Instead of transforming a normal jewel into a rare one using an Orb of Alchemy, you're going to use an Orb of Transmutation to turn it into a magic item. Then, use Orb of Alteration until you get Pure Guile. Use a Regal Orb and then an Exalted Orb to take care of the other affixes.

As you gain more currency, you will start purchasing the more expensive jewels. Melding of the Flesh is always a good jewel to have, especially for Righteous Fire Builds. That is because when this is inserted in a jewel slot on your passive tree, your elemental resistances will be on par with your highest maximum resistance. For example, if you have 86% maximum cold resistance, your fire and lightning resistance will become 86% as well.

It is important to note that Melding of the Flesh's unique effect only applies if your other elemental resistances are capped at 75%.

Brutal Restraint is another jewel that you should incorporate in your build. This enhances the passive skills in its radius by adding some amazing effects. You should insert it on the jewel socket that is adjacent to "Overcharge" and "Endurance."

Anyway, use the nifty Timeless Jewel Calculator to help you search for a Brutal Restraint that has the following mods:

• 8% Increased Effect of Non-Curse Auras from Your Skills
• 4% Increased Maximum Life
• 5% Increased Dexterit
• 20% Increased Elemental Damage
• 5% Chance to Gain a Frenzy Charge on Kill
• You Gain Onslaught for 8 Seconds on Kill
• 5% Increased Attack and Cast Speed (for Shield Charge)
• +20% to Cold Resistance
• 5% Increased Movement Speed
• 20% Chance to Avoid Being Stunned

Now, this next unique jewel is optional but it does unlock the ability to allocate passives that you normally do not have access to. If you are interested, get an Impossible Escape jewel with "Passives in Radius of Lethe Shade can be Allocated without being connected to your tree." Once you insert it into a jewel socket, you will gain access to "Growth and Decay" and "Written in Blood," both of which are helpful in improving Righteous Fire damage.

For the remaining jewel slots, you can insert any base jewel that contains mods that benefit the build. Here are some recommendations:

• +% to Fire Damage Over Time Multiplier
• +% to Damage Over Time Multiplier
• % Increased Burning Damage
• % Increased Maximum Life
• % Increased Area Damage
• Corrupted Blood Immunity (corrupted implicit)

Gems

Once you have crafted and equipped all of the items mentioned above, it is now time to talk about the gems.

Head

• Righteous Fire
• Awakened Elemental Focus
• Awakened Increased Area of Effect
• Efficacy

When you have the Burning Damage and Concentrated Effect mods, putting Righteous Fire in the helmet makes sense as this spell skill gem greatly benefits from them.

Awakened Elemental Focus Support adds one level to your Righteous Fire gem for even more elemental damage. The only disadvantage to using this support gem is that your RF cannot inflict elemental ailments. Don't worry, this downside is circumvented by Legacy of Fury.

Awakened Increased Area of Effect is a support gem that increases RF's radius to a considerable degree. On top of that, Righteous Fire gets a whopping area damage increase, especially when you max out the quality of this support gem.

Efficacy provides more damage over time. If you are using the Vaal version of Righteous Fire, Efficacy will boost the duration of the secondary magical fire as well.

It's important to note that Righteous Fire damage scales really well with higher gem levels. That's why get as many "+1 to level of fire spell skill gems/all skill gems" mods as you can on your gear.

Even though the regular version of the gem is fine, you could also opt for the "Vaal" version of the fire spell skill gem. When activated, you gain an extra burst of damage thanks to another magical ring of fire that engulfs you for several seconds. However, this sacrifices 60% of your life and energy shield, so if you're not comfortable with that, stick to the base version.

Chest

• Fire Trap
• Lifetap
• Trap and Mine Damage
• Awakened Burning Damage
• Empower (Lvl 4)
• Awakened Swift Affliction

This is your Fire Trap setup. Since it is placed on your chest armor, you can increase its damage even further thanks to the additional support gems you can slot in.

Lifetap is there to increase the damage of Fire Trap, while also allowing you to use it by spending life instead of mana. Trap and Mine Damage is a support gem that grants 50% more trap damage at level 21, though this comes at the cost of 10% slower throwing speed.

At max level, Awakened Burning Damage increases the level of all fire skill gems by one, which affects both Fire Trap and Righteous Fire. Awakened Swift Affliction improves Fire Trap's damage over time multiplier, enabling you to incinerate enemies with ease.

And lastly, Empower Support is included to raise the level of Fire Trap by three.

Gloves

• Malevolence
• Purity of Ice
• Determination
• Enlighten (preferably Lvl 4)

You're going to put your main aura gems in your gloves. Malevolence grants more damage over time. Determination provides you with even more armor. Purity of Ice increases your max cold resistances by 4% at level 20. You can increase it to 5% by corrupting the gem to level 21 and having the Aisling mod "+2 to level of Socketed AoE Gems."

The above setup presupposes that you're using an Aegis Aurora. If you've opted to equip a Titanium Spirit Shield, replace Purity of Ice with Purity of Elements.

Purity of Fire is also a viable alternative to Purity of Ice, especially if you do not have the Aegis Aurora. Basically, just use whichever gives you the most amount of max elemental resistances.

Enlighten adds a cost and reservation multiplier to supported gems, effectively reducing their reserved mana cost by a considerable amount. While a level 3 Enlighten gem is fine, the level 4 gem is better, especially if you're going to put Skitterbots into your setup. Speaking of which...

Weapon

• Tempest Shield
• Summon Skitterbots
• Vaal Discipline

Summon Skitterbots is quite good here. It chills and shocks nearby enemies, making them take additional damage. The skitterbots grant 10% more trap and mine damage as well, which allows your Fire Trap to make quick work of your foes.

Tempest Shield improves your survivability by granting you a 25% chance to block spell damage while holding a shield (at max level).

Vaal Discipline is included in this setup, but mainly for the "Vaal" portion of the skill. Activate it whenever you need a huge boost in energy shield recovery.

Shield

• Shield Charge
• Lifetap
• Faster Attacks Support

The changes to mana that were implemented in 3.24 Necropolis League are pretty daunting. But, the good news is that the Righteous Fire Inquisitor is saved in this regard. Still, the combination of Shield Charge, Lifetap, and Faster Attacks Support allow you to use Shield Charge comfortably without ever worrying about mana.

Boots

• Flammability
• Hextouch Support
• Cast When Damage Taken Support
• Molten Shell

Flammability is a curse spell in PoE where the fire resistance of affected enemies are reduced by a considerable amount. You do not have to think about casting it manually because it is automatically applied by Hextouch Support whenever you hit enemies with your Shield Charge.

Molten Shell linked with CWDT is a typical combination that bolsters your defense against physical damage. This, too, does not require manual activation because it automatically gets cast whenever you receive enough damage.

Tattoos

The removal of the secondary ascendancy classes is a huge blow to any build in Path of Exile. Fortunately, Grinding Gear Games has brought back Tattoos from the Trial of the Ancestors League into the 3.24 Necropolis League.

Keep in mind that the tattoos have received certain adjustments, so don't expect them to be overpowered like the first time they were introduced. Still, if you want to add any tattoo on your Righteous Fire Inquisitor, here are some of our recommendations:

• Tattoo of the Ngamahu Warrior

  • 5% Increased Fire Damage

• Tattoo of the Tukohama Shaman

  • 0.3% Life Regeneration per Second

• Tattoo of the Valako Scout

  • 10% Reduced Effect of Shock on You

• Tattoo of the Ngamahu Firewalker

  • +6% Fire Resistance

• Tattoo of the Hinekora Warrior

  • 3% increased Maximum Energy Shield

Passive Tree

POB

Main Setup

With Utula's Hunger

With Mageblood

Final Thoughts

The Righteous Fire Inquisitor is a great build for new players and veterans alike. You can start a new league with it and you can improve its damage by crafting better gear later down the line.

With this build, you utilize fire damage over time to incinerate enemies to death. You simply activate Righteous Fire, zoom around the map using Shield Charge or Frostblink, and then use Fire Trap on tougher enemies and bosses.

You can spend more currency on this build to improve the damage of Righteous Fire and Fire Trap even further. The RF Inquisitor is quite tanky as well. If you want a character that can take a beating, then this is definitely one of them.

Although there are some changes implemented in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League, thankfully, this build is largely unaffected. If anything, the RF Inquisitor got buffed thanks to the re-introduction of Tattoos.

So, there you have it! Follow this build guide to a tee and you'll have a pretty competent Righteous Fire Inquisitor that’s fun to play!

With all of that said, good luck on your adventures in Wraeclast, Exile!

PROS:

• League-start viable
• Can use RF as early as level 20-35
• Damage can be greatly improved the more currency you spend on this build
• Fun to play!
• Quite tanky
• New synergies that make this build tankier and more damaging

CONS:

• Relies on damage over time to eliminate enemies
• Can be slow if you're accustomed to fast mapping builds