[2.1 Updated] Nurbel´s Righteous Will Spellcaster (130k+ DPS, 6k+ Life, 16k+ Armor)[V- 3.0]

Pros:

• Scales extremely well
• Good Survivability
• Viable as your first Toon in a fresh League
• Can be Hardcore Viable, with some Tree Adjustments
• With some little Adjustment to the Tree, you can run many (Projectile)Spells as your Main attack

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Cons:

• While leveling: The Build is mediocre before the end of Act 3 Normal (General Scion Problem)
• You need Key Items to get the most out of it
• You have to be aware of Map mods and Curses
• Reflect itself is not a big Problem, but the Map mod should be avoided (Turn off RF/use
  Physical to Lightning Gem)

Iron Will(IW) in General:

IW got some Love since 2.0. The reduced Cast Speed modifiers are gone and IW gains now Increased Spell Damage per Gem level. Iron Will lets you use the Melee Physical Damage increases you get from Strength to Spells. This means every 100 Strength, you get 20% increased Spell Damage for Spells linked to it. With 750 strength, my Ethereal Knives gets a boost of 150% increased Spell Damage. Strength in General gives you also 10 life per 20 Strength, which results in an high Life pool.

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Why i use EK:

EK is a spell which do not need many Supports to be good. It looks cool anyways and i Love this spell. It is also Physical based, which means Added Fire and Hatred are huge DPS increases and your main Damage won´t get mitigated too much by mob Defenses unlike Elemental based Spells. EK received a nice buff in 2.0. The Cast time is now 0,6 sec, instead of 0,8 sec. Additionally, the Quality Bonus now grants increased Projectile Speed instead of Proectile Damage. Things brings EK on par with Spells like Freezing Pulse (which has one of the highest Base Damage in PoE).

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What about Bladefall?

Bladefall is crazy. It has a much higher Base Damage then EK (a level 16 Bladefall has a higher Base Damage then lvl 18 EK) and 120% Damage Effectiveness, but lower cast Speed (0,8 Base). Currently i run Bladefall in my Doon with Spell Echo, Controlled Destruction and Iron Will from Doon itself. I use it to Kill Allies cannot die Totems from Range, when my EK is Blocked by Monsters, or when i need to Kill things behind cover. Sadly, it's not a Projectile. But since Bladefall is an AOE Spell, you can link it with Concentrated Effect, to get a pretty potent Single Target Skill for something like Atziri.

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About Righteous Fire:

Righteous Fire itself can be used as a Damage Spell alone. But with this Build, you dont care about Righteous Fire Damage that much. Because we don´t have the Passive Points free to Increase the Damage of it (and its AoE) and we don´t even need it.
However, for Enemies in Melee Range, Righteous Fire is a nice to have Damage boost.
We use this Spell mainly as a Spell Damage Boost, because when we run it, we get 59% more Spell Damage, which is a Multiplier on top of our regular Damage Increases from the Passive Tree and our Gear.

The Drawback is that Righteous Fire is dealing 90% of our Life and 70% of our Energy Shield as Fire Damage to you. That´s why we need as much +%max Fire res as we can get. And even then, we need Life Regen on top of that to sustain it. We can get up to 89% Fire res with a Corrupted lvl 21 Purity of Fire in an Alphas Howl (5%), 1% from Tree and 8% from Rise of the Phoenix. We need atleast (1000 * 0,9 * 0,11 = 99 life per sec) 9,9% Life regen then to sustain Righteous Fire.
But we need even more, because you want to get your Life back and you casting your Spells with Blood Magic. We run a total of 11 % Life Regen + 2,5% from Frenzy Charges (Blood Dance Boots).
The good thing is, with a Ruby Flask we get up to 99% Fire res, which means that we have up to 15,1% Life Regen for Surviving incoming Damage. Another thing is Energy Shield. We have ~150 ES, mostly from Rise of the Phoenix, which is unavoidable.
When you play in a group, you have to keep in mind that the Discipline Aura is "Damaging" you, because we take 70% from our Energy Shield as Fire Damage too.
Sadly we dont have the points to spare for Eldritch Battery, so we have to live with that. For Solo Players, this is no Problem.

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About our Defensive Layers:

All the Damage done is nothing when you can´t survive incoming Damage, so we need a good Defense (in my Opinion).

First of all, we have a relatively high life pool. We are wearing many Uniques that have no Life, but we run about 800 Strength. Strength gives us Damage (from IW) and base Life. We get 5 Life per 10 strength and about ~180% increased life from the Tree plus about 35%
increased Life from Belly of the Beast, which sums up to ~215% increased maximum Life. This results in ~5,7k life while carrying 6 Uniques with no Life mod.

Next one is our Armour, we can get up to ~16k Armour. Armour helps much against Physical Damage and Reflect. To get that even higher, we use a high level Enduring Cry to get up to 4 Endurance Charges.

We get some Block from Rise of the Phoenix too, which is nice to have. But this alone wouldn´t keep us alive.

Our mobility is another Defensive Layer, we have a decent Movement speed and Cast speed, which allows us to run - cast - run - cast very quickly. Damage that we can avoid with mobility, is no Damage taken at all. You can see this Playstyle in my upcoming Videos.

On top of that we have our Massive Life Regen. With a Ruby we regenerate our whole life pool in roughly 6 seconds. Add a good rolled Eternal Life flask to that and you regenerating your whole Life in ~3-4 seconds.

Our Damage is a Defensive Layer too, because who´s dead can´t do any Damage.
Since we hit so Hard with EK, even Rares get stunlocked. This is nice for charging Rhoas as an example. They stop charging at you when they get stunned.

Together this makes us very Tanky while doing massive amounts of Damage. You can easyly remove some Damage nodes to get more Life. This is what i do when i start my leveling to lvl 94+. I run ~6,1k life then while still doing ~70k dps.

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Dealing with Reflect:

Reflect is a problem for most Builds with high Damage. But we have some options to Deal with that.

Reflect from Rare monsters is no problem. While elemental Reflect doesn´t touch our life pool that much, Physical Reflect is noticable. Use a Granite and you are good to go.

Reflect as Map mod is something you should avoid, but you can run it in different Ways.

The best Way to handle Elemental Reflect is to switch your Hatred with Haste and carry a Atziri Flask with you. Use it on Big packs in Cycle with your Ruby Flask and Elemental Reflect is no Problem.

Physical Reflect is harder though. One way to handle this is to swap your Controlled Destruction for Physical to Lightning and Iron Will for Life Leech. If you are careful, this will be enough. The best way is to Swap your Main Hand Weapon for a Moonbender's Wing http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Moonbender's_Wing and use Physical to Lightning.
This will convert all of your Physical Damage to Elemental Damage and you are good to go.

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The Gem Setup:

Ethereal Knives

• 4L EK Spell Echo Iron Will Blood Magic/Controlled Destruction
• 5L + Added Fire
• 6L + Empower/Faster Casting/Life Leech (Empower recommended)

Auras:

• Enlighten lvl 3 - Hatred - Grace - Purity of Fire
• Without RF just use Hatred and Grace
• With the Mana Version, just use Hatred and Purity of Fire

Utility:

• Blood Magic - Enduring Cry - Projectile Weakness - Lightning Warp
• Righteous Fire - Empower - Enhance
• Summon Flame Golem - Minion Life - Blood Magic
• Vaal Haste - Increased Duration - Rallying Cry/Warlord's Mark - Blood Magic

Defence:


Offence:

DPS in Town

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DPS with Hatred

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DPS with Hatred and 5/5 Frenzy Charges

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DPS with Hatred/RF

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DPS with Hatred/RF and 5/5 Frenzy Charges

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DPS full buffed with Vaal Haste and Atziri's Promise

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Defenses (with Chaos Golem and 4/4 Endurance Charges up):

Blood Magic Gem Version:


Mana Version:


Very Endgame Mana Version:

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Bandits:

Kill - Kill - Kraytin

We get enough Base Life from Strength, the 40 Life from Oak are not worth that much.
All rewards in Cruel are Mediocre. When u can use that point for an additional Jewel Socket,
every Reward lacks in terms of Utility. The additional Frenzy Charge is a very Good Choice. Helping Oak in Merciless is also a good Idea.

Current Gear (Standart):



Current Gear (Talisman):

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Jewel:


Put it in between Scion - Ranger/Shadow Area to gain ~90/100 Strength

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other Jewels:

Jewels are Insane, they can roll more % increased Damage on one mod than a Passive node. But they can also have % increased life, Projectile Speed, % reduced mana cost, Cast Speed ect. They can have max 2 Prefixes and 2 Suffixes.

They can roll up to:

Prefix:

• 16% increased Spell Damage while holding a shield
• 16% increased Physical Damage
• 7% increased maximum Life
• 5% Cast speed while holding a shield

Suffix

• 12% Spell Damage
• 12% Projectile Damage
• 10% increased Damage
• 8% Projectile speed
• 4% increased Cast Speed
• 16 Strength
• 5% reduced mana cost

So a T1 Jewel would look like:

• 16% increased Spell Damage while holding a shield
• 16% increased Physical Damage
• 12% Spell Damage
• 12% Projectile Damage

That would give you a total of 56% increased Damage for 1(!!!) Jewel slot. And we have access to 3 additional Jewel slots (4 total). That would give us (if all these Jewels would be the same): 168% increased Damage! that all for just 3 slots. You can trade this with the 3 10% Spell Damage nodes in the Templar Area, which result in a max. of 138% increased Damage. That should tell you something ^^

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What should i looking for in terms of Gear?

Helmet:



This Helm has relatively High Evasion, some Cold resist and Cannot be Frozen which is nice.
But the best ist the +2 level for Auras and the 8% reduced mana reservation. The +2 Levels of Aura Gems boosting our Damage not by much, but our Defensive by a great amount. A lvl 21 Grace gem in this Helm gives us roughly 3k Evasion, which ends up in ~6k Armor. Purity of Fire is also boosted, with an lvl 21 gem you can reach +5 max fire resist, which increases our total Fire resitance to 89%. Pop an Ruby Flask and enjoy nearly full Life regen for the duration. The 8% reduced mana reserved gives us the oppertunity, to run our 3 Auras with an lvl 3 Enlighten with only 3 Passive points investment.

Alternatives:

Without Alpha´s you cant run the 3 Auras. If you dont want to run Grace/Hatred, you can use any High Armor/Evasion Helmet with max Strength and Life.

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Shield:



If you want to run Righteous Fire, there is no other option. The +8% max Fire resist is absolutely needed. Also a Saffel's Frame for +max Maps where you can't run RF is a good option. You can Craft a mod on a Rare shield from Leo to reduce Damage taken over Time.
This can get you an Awesome Shield, because a Max roll on that mod, is just a bit less good than Rise of the Phoenix. But you can not regenerate that much Life while Ruby Flask is up (Less overall Life Regen) and you need about 1,2% more Life Regen to sustain Righteous Fire.

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Chest:



That´s what i run. Belly is pretty much just Life, couple of all resist and a bit of Armor/Evasion. The best option if you want just pure Life

Lioneye´s Vision:

This Chest was newly added in 2.0. It is pretty decent Defensive wise, but the best is the lvl 15 pierce. This makes this Chest effectiveley an 7-Link

Rare Chest:

A good Rare Chest can be also very Strong. It can also have Strength on it and more resists and much much Higher Armor/Evasion. But its also the most Expensive Option. You need an really good Chest to Beat a Belly Defense wise.

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Belt:



This Belt is the Best option Damage Wise, the leech alone is not really notable these days, but the up to 30% physical Damage increase and the Strength on top of that, let any Rustic Sash fall behind. If you dont want to buy this belt, any Leatherbelt oder Rustic Sash is also a good option. As a Cheap Option, i recommend a Heavy Belt with a High Strength Roll, Life and Resists.

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Gloves:



Good Rare ones with High Armor/Evasion, Strength, Life and Resists are what you are looking for.

Meginord's Vise:

These Gloves are very good. They give you 10% increased Physical Damage and 100 Strength, along with some Armor. Combined this leads to 42,5% increased Damage, instead of (at a max 50 Strentgh roll) 16,25% increased Damage from reare Gloves. However, we are wearing a lot of Uniques already and we have only 3 Slots to get our Resist overcapped (especially Fire) to run Elemental Weakness Maps. When you can handle that, they are an notable Damage boost.

Winds of Change:

If you can make up the loss of Resists, these Gloves are Amazing. The reduced movespeed hurts and i Prefer a Rare Glove over that. Damage wise the best Option.

Repentance:

...i waited for these Gloves and they are...pretty Bad. Giving up about 50% Spell Damage from 20/20 Iron Will and another 20% (at best) from these Gloves is pretty meh. If we had any other Strong Gem that we can use to make up for that, yes. But i dont feel that we need it. The other Stats are all Pretty Bad and you need a lot of Int to wear it. The Energy Shield on these Gloves hurts our Life Regen as Well...They are no Option for me at this Time (Maybe later)

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Boots:



The Blood Dance Boots are best in slot here. With them, you can have your Frenzy Charges maxed out 98% of the whole map. We loose 3% Cast Speed per Frenzy charge, but gaining 1% Life regen and 2% Movement Speed per Charge instead.

Alberon's Warpath:

If you want to use a Wand instead of Doon for keeping up the Frenzy Charges, they are the best Choice in terms of DPS and Life. You can get about 100 more Strength pretty easy with them. They are also very Cheap to use.

Good Rare ones with High Armor/Evasion, Strength, Life, Resists and Movement Speed.

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Amulet:



This is the best Choice. But a good rare Amber Amulet with Strength Roll, Spelldamage and Cast speed is also pretty nasty - but Expensive (an ~100stat Astramentis isn´t that cheap, but this rare Amulet would cost a lot more ^^). You have to keep in mind that you might spare some Passive Points for Int/Dex nodes then.

Talismans are amazing, i definately will not wear a Astramentis in this League, so much good Options here DPS and Defense Wise. When you can get your Hands on a good one with a usable Implicit - use it. Pretty Good are these Implicits: Life Regen, Physical Damage Cold/Lighting to Fire conversion (imagine a Rigwald one with 100% Lighting to Fire, which let us nearly forget about these both Damage Types while Ruby Flask is up), Increased Stats.
You have to keep in mind to get your Int then from somewehere else.

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Rings:



Good rare Rings with Life, Strength, Cast speed and Resists are your choice. Keep in mind that you can roll %increased Armor/Evasion if they have the Space from Elreon´s crafting bench. Also Ming's Heart is an good Option if you want to sacrifice some Life and Elemental Resistances against 20% added Chaos Damage and Chaos resistance.

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Weapon:



Morsexier´s baby. And this Sceptre is pretty Sexy. This can only be beaten by an mirror Wand with max Spelldamage and Cast speed. But Doon costs only a few Chaos these days. In my case this Weapon gives me 93% increased spell damage (750str) on top of our Iron will gem and the weapons high str and Cast speed.

If you want to use a Wand, you can keep your Frenzy Charges up with it (just use Frenzy/GMP/Faster Attacks). I used to do this while Leveling and until i get Blood Dance.

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Flask Setup:



You definately need an "Holy shit, wtf!!" Flask aka ..of staunching to cancel your Righteous Fire. The best option here are the Eternal Life Flasks or Divine life Flasks (Bubbling).



I also recommend an Ruby Flask, to get nearly your Full Life Regeneration and a Flask which grants Immunity to Curses for the Duration is key. Because Curses like Vulnerabilty, Flammability and Elemental Weakness (depends on your Resistance overcap) can be very Dangerous.
The rest is up to you.

This section is Pure Theory, because i specced into this Build with a Passive Tree reset.
However, i would give this a shot in Tempest League in the upcoming weeks, to prove the Leveling and Hardcore viability.

Normal ~ lvl 37 (44pts) Tree & Explanation

Tree



Explanation

This Build Starts to rock at the end of Act 3 Normal. Until then i recommend to level with the Flame totem/Firestorm combo. If you can not get it (or don't want to level a Witch), you can Start with EK from Scratch, but don't expect too much until Act 2. Bladefall/Bladevortex are nice additions. Blade Vortex is THE Boss Killer, it makes every Act Boss a piece of Cake.

You left the Scion Area with Spell Damage nodes and head your way towards the Shadow Area. Take here the Physical Damage nodes, to increase your Clear speed. Then take the Life Nodes upwards (Blood Siphon). After that go down to the Ranger Area and take Ballistic Mastery, followed by Heart of the Oak. With this, you should be able to do nice Damage with a good Range of EK. Now leave the Scion start to the left with the Life regen nodes, get the Constitution notable and work your way towards the Duelist Area. Run EK - Faster Casting - Added Fire and Controlled Destruction. You need to wait until Act 2 Cruel to get Iron Will or Trade it. Get Hatred (Lost in Love) in Act 3 and run it as your only Aura. Replace Faster Casting with Spell Echo (rewarded for Killing Malachai) at the Start of Cruel. Grab Projectile Weakness from an other Char (Lost in Love) or Trade it. Dont forget to grab Purity of Fire from Lost in Love and level it in an offslot.

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Cruel ~ lvl 58 (73pts) Tree & Explanation

Tree



Explanation

Since 2.0, Physical Damage from Enemies is pretty nasty. Espacially in Act 4 it is ridiculous. Because of that, we work our way to Iron Reflexes first and getting some Armor/Evasion increases, together with more Life Regen to Counter that. Take the notables "Warriors Blood" and "Master of the Arena", followed by "Bravery" and "Art of the Gladiator". Now its time for some Damage with the Projectile Damage Nodes under "Art of the Gladiator". Leave this Area with the +10 Dex node and get the Notable "Cloth and Chain" and now Iron Reflexes. You should be mid Act 4 Cruel now and you are Ready for the Transition into Blood Magic. You should be ablo to sustain atleast EK - Added Fire - Spell Echo - Controlled Destruction without any Problems. Because of that you can now Run Hatred and Grace together, leaving no mana left, but Grace increasing your Armour drastically. If you want to go the Mana Build, just run Hatred and maybe Herald of Ash. With two Mana Pots you can sustain EK without too much problems.

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Merciless - lvl 68 (91pts) Tree & Explanation

Tree



Explanation

At lvl 17 from Purity of Fire, together with Alpha´s, the three Aura nodes between Shadow and Ranger Area and Rise of the Phoenix, you should be able to Run Righteous Fire at ~lvl 75 (or earlier, if you want to get the Aura nodes first). I started to use Righteous Fire at lvl 77. I did Maps up to Tier 5 without it and i did fairly well. Don't rush it and don't expect too much early on. I would suggest to run RF when you have Blood Dance, because the additional Regen will be a decent QoL addition.

Lvl 77 Plateau Map
https://youtu.be/N53Uk-Yf5Fs

Lvl 75 twinned Orchard Map Boss Fight
https://youtu.be/_-LtO6NBGtY

Vulnerability Map
https://youtu.be/ZwyxDhrIrNg

Lvl 78 Academy Map with GMP Boss Fight
https://youtu.be/htduxhLzjTQ

Elemental Reflect Map (going Hard)
https://youtu.be/89ICiYZd_gc

Physical Reflect Map. First half without RF, no Leech Gem. Second half with RF and swapping IW for LL
https://youtu.be/lP2KiG231EQ

Twinned Jungle Valley Fracture Map Boss fight
https://youtu.be/A1wAhxNxMoo

Twinned Necropolis Lvl 77 Boss Fight
https://youtu.be/q1QYb_IRh-Y

Malformation Lvl 76 Map
https://youtu.be/9yIqcAxQjwc

Map mods that are Dangerous:

Shocking Ground

You Take also more damage from Righteous Fire when you stand on that. But its doable. Be careful when Leapers are around, a pack Leaping to you, while you stand on shocking ground, can be lethal.

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Vulnerability

With my Gear and Setup i can Run this Map mod (5 Frenzy Charges), but casting EK will Drain my Life slowly. You take also more Physical Damage. I just turn off RF in most cases. That depends on which Enemies i face in the Map. Are there a lot of Leapers/Chaos Snakes or Titty Bitches and/or the map has the "Cannot be stunned" mod, i run it without RF just in case.

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Elemental Weakness

When you are not overcapped a lot, you can die very Quickly if you are not aware of that. You should overcap your Elemental Resistances by 34% (to 169% total), to counter that.

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Added x% as Cold/Lightning Damage

It depends on the Type of Enemies. Added Fire is not Dangerous at all (obviously)

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Reflect Phys/Elemental Damage

It´s doable, but i just avoid it if i can. While Elemental Reflect can be done easly with turning off Hatred and using a Ruby (you won´t even notice that there is Reflect on the map), Physical Reflect requires its own section.

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- max % resistance

It depends on the Monsters you are facing in such Maps, how dangerous this mod is. However, you can´t sustain Righteous Fire in such Maps, so you need to run the Map without. I swap Purity of Fire for Herald of Ash and take a Sapphire and Topaz flask into these kind of Maps. Switch your Ruby Flask for the most dangerous Element you face, you can also switch your Remove Burning Flask for an Resistance Flask.
Be careful with this mod when the map combines it with Added x% as Cold/Light/Fire Damage.
For extra safety, switch your Rise of the Phoenix for a Saffel's Frame shield, to counter the reduced max % resistances a bit.

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Maps you cant run with RF

No Regen/quarter Regen

you can´t sustain RF then, so turn it off

-% max Resistances

Same here, turn off RF

Spreadsheet

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To do List:

V - 1.0 Posting the Guide
V - 1.1 Added Damage Calculations / Updated the Theorycraft section / Added Video of a Lvl 77 Plateau Map
V - 1.2 Fixed some Typos, Added more Information about EK and Added requestet Leveling Section, Added Section about Mapmods
V - 1.3 Got lvl 4 Empower, added new Screenshots
V - 1.4 reworked Jewel section, added Detailed Information about Jewels
V - 1.5 added Endgame Section, with new Tree, to get that Jewels rolling. And i gave my Baby a decent Name :), removed Damage Calculations because they are no longer needed.
V - 1.6 I tightened the Guide, removed some parts and improved existing ones, fixed some typos
V - 1.7 Added more General Information (RF, Reflect,Defenses). Improved layout. Added a bunch of Videos, removed Parts for Thornflesh Bloodline mod, fixed some Typos, added Spreadsheet to calculate EK DPS
V - 1.8 Improved Map mod and Gear section. Updated current Gear
V - 2.0 Huge Optical Update, removed a lot of Spoilers. This should make the Guide better to read. Added new DPS Screenshots and updated the Endgame Passive Tree.