[2.3] Righteous Fire Vortex Marauder

We cale Vortex damage primarily using Strength and Righteous Fire.

Strength can benefit spell damage via:
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Iron_Will_Support This support gem will give 58% increased spell damage, more importantly Strength's damage bonus applies to Spell damage. Since we will get a total of about 1000 strength this will give us just short of 250% spell damage.

But wait, it gets better:
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Doon_Cuebiyari This badboy gives us another 125% damage on top of the 250% spell damage. Also it gives some strength and quality of life cast speed.

We will socket Vortex together with Elemental Focus and Increased area of effect for a 49% MORE Area Damage modifier and qality of life.

Finally:
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Righteous_Fire
Righteous fire gives us another 59% MORE spell damage!

Note that all this damage scaling applies to both the initial hit as well as the degen portion of the damage.

We are not actually scaling the RF damage as much as a 'Pure RF build' would. The reason is that RF does not scale with spell damage. We do however get:
- 10k life
- 125% Incresed Damage from Doon Quebayari
- 49% More Elemental Damage from Elemental Focus
- 69# Increased burning damage from Increased Burning Damage Support gem

First off we get a really big life pool. Secondly we get a metric shit ton of regen.

In order to combat the degen from Righteous fire you need about 12% regen, 1% maxres to fire on the tree, and a lvl 17+ Purity of fire. We get all that and then some.



In total, we get about 10K life and a little over 28% life regen!

Here is a super big plus for this build. It is fun to level.

This time, instead of leveling your melee build as a caster you will level your caster as a melee character.

The key to happy leveling for us is the Pillars of the Caged God unique staff. This badboy scales damage with strength which lets you fill out your tree without any detours AND it will do really good damage meanwhile. What that means is you will be tanky and have good clearspeed.

So, here are the steps for leveling.
1. Start as a marauder
2. Get yourself to lvl 13 any way you can
3. Buy yourself a Pillar of the Caged God, a Meginords Girdle and some phys damage jewelery
4. Get Resolute Technique. Your tree should look something like: http://poeurl.com/Glv
5. Play around with skills you like. I prefer Sunder. Earthquake and Ground Slam are good too
Link with things that scale with phys damage, i.e. Melee Physical Attack Damage, Added Fire, WED..
Run with Herald of Ash
Run Clarity and get yourself a Survival Secrets to sustain mana costs
Aim for a passive tree that looks something like this: http://poeurl.com/Glz
If you want you can get less regen and more life, but make sure you have enough regen to sustain RF
6. Bash monsters heads in, blow stuff up. Cause general mayhem while leveling yourself and your gems
7. Become lvl 65. Buy yourself a Rise of the Phoenix.
8. Buy yourself an Essence Worm amulet and socket your Purity of Fire.
9. PROFIT

As a general rule you want to avoid Energy shield on your gear as it increases your life degeneration. It does also boost your RF damage however and can be easier to colour, so you need to make a judgement call.

Head:


Body:
Kaoms Heart is best in slot.
Belly of the beast is cheaper and very good.
If you can 6-link Belly of the Beast and off colour it you can socket your vortex here, but it will be expensive.

Although a six linked Belly of the Beast or a Kaoms heart help the build out you don't need to spend a lot to make this build work. It should not require more than what you can save up during leveling.

Gloves:
You want to prioritize
- Strength
- Life
- Resist


Boots:
You want to prioritize
- Strength
- Life
- Resist


Belt:
You want to prioritize
- Strength
- Life
- Resist


Rings:
Kaoms Way x 2


Amulet:
Essence Worm (B)


Weapon:
Doon Quebayari (BBB)


Shield:
Rise of the Phoenix