Wrecker's 3.14 RF Chieftain build (not a guide, sorry!)

(responding to “The Chief is a lot more tedious to level than the Witch” comment on reddit)

I personally like the Cyclone Righteous Fire combo better than the Incinerate Righteous Fire combo. I tried the level-as-caster back in 3.11 with Incinerate and Flame Wall and, while it went smoothly, the transition wasn’t quite there. I got into this league late and started with Mathil’s Cyclone Shockwave Chieftain from 3.13 which went quickly and gave me a few ideas when I saw this thread and decided to redo a Righteous Fire Chieftain …

First off, the changes:
Switched to a 2-button build – Cyclone for clearing, Cyclone and Storm Brand for bosses (Storm Brand doesn’t require precise targeting, it moves with the boss, still fairly strong without investment, and you can have 3 brands up at any time):
* Cyclone + Fortify + Inspiration + Infused Channelling
* Storm Brand + Hextouch + Flammability

Leveling (Cheat Sheet):
* Holy Flame Totem → Righteous Fire
* Smite → Static Strike → Cyclone
* Steelskin → Immortal Call
* Herald of Ash, Herald of Purity → Herald of Ash, Anger → Purity of Fire, Malevolence
* Storm Brand, Holy Relic, Purifying Flame, Wave of Conviction, Stone Golem

As a side note, Holy Relic is a really strong addition when leveling, worth muling it on a Witch (strong enough that Holy Relic Guardians are a force to be reckoned with)

"

c3rement wrote:

Spoiler

(responding to “The Chief is a lot more tedious to level than the Witch” comment on reddit)

I personally like the Cyclone Righteous Fire combo better than the Incinerate Righteous Fire combo. I tried the level-as-caster back in 3.11 with Incinerate and Flame Wall and, while it went smoothly, the transition wasn’t quite there. I got into this league late and started with Mathil’s Cyclone Shockwave Chieftain from 3.13 which went quickly and gave me a few ideas when I saw this thread and decided to redo a Righteous Fire Chieftain …

First off, the changes:
Switched to a 2-button build – Cyclone for clearing, Cyclone and Storm Brand for bosses (Storm Brand doesn’t require precise targeting, it moves with the boss, still fairly strong without investment, and you can have 3 brands up at any time):
* Cyclone + Fortify + Inspiration + Infused Channelling
* Storm Brand + Hextouch + Flammability

Leveling (Cheat Sheet):
* Holy Flame Totem → Righteous Fire
* Smite → Static Strike → Cyclone
* Steelskin → Immortal Call
* Herald of Ash, Herald of Purity → Herald of Ash, Anger → Purity of Fire, Malevolence
* Storm Brand, Holy Relic, Purifying Flame, Wave of Conviction, Stone Golem

As a side note, Holy Relic is a really strong addition when leveling, worth muling it on a Witch (strong enough that Holy Relic Guardians are a force to be reckoned with)

Thanks for the feedback c3rement! I appreciate it. Thanks for going out of your way for it.

What I always wondered: there's this map mod reducing life recovery rate. From its wording it is "reduced" and not "less'... does this mean belt/replica atziris and chieftain ascendancy more or less negate that problem?

I see on the cheat sheet above it says Vaal areas, 6 link.

Can someone let me know what that means, how do vaal areas get you a 6 link? Also if not already mentioned can someone give a basic order of keystones to path to whwn leveling? Never played marauder before, thanks!

**
Just hit act 3.. wow, the struggle with Oak was real! :) DPS is well, crappy right now.. Cheat sheet helped a LOT. Just got herald of ash,purity up and running and I can see a noticeable difference - mana is a fight now... and I found a vaal righteous fire, so I cant tell you how many times i've basically burt myself to death... I'm not sure I'm responsible enough for it yet. :)

"

Nephalon wrote:

Spoiler

What I always wondered: there's this map mod reducing life recovery rate. From its wording it is "reduced" and not "less'... does this mean belt/replica atziris and chieftain ascendancy more or less negate that problem?

Sorry for the delayed response Neph. I appreciate your patience. Technically, though there are always 1000 details to consider with every idea in PoE, but ya..."increased" and "reduced" cancel each other out, along with "less" and "more".

Obviously don't ignore the other mods as well as they sometimes synergize with other map mods, but ya, an item like that would give you more mapping freedom.

"

scjohnson243_1 wrote:

Spoiler

I see on the cheat sheet above it says Vaal areas, 6 link.

Can someone let me know what that means, how do vaal areas get you a 6 link? Also if not already mentioned can someone give a basic order of keystones to path to whwn leveling? Never played marauder before, thanks!

**
Just hit act 3.. wow, the struggle with Oak was real! :) DPS is well, crappy right now.. Cheat sheet helped a LOT. Just got herald of ash,purity up and running and I can see a noticeable difference - mana is a fight now... and I found a vaal righteous fire, so I cant tell you how many times i've basically burt myself to death... I'm not sure I'm responsible enough for it yet. :)

Hey Johnson!

My cheat sheet for this build will (in more detail) go like this:

- Level Purity of Fire, the Stone Golem, Vitality, and Enduring Cry as soon as they are available.
- I suggest getting the southern part of the tree out of the way as fast as possible, without skipping any nodes. Then, work your way north, also not skipping any nodes. - It'll give a decent balance of what's needed.
- By the mid-40s you should be able to do ok with RF with a little help from flasks and Enduring Cry. By the mid-50s you should be starting to sustain RF pretty ease with just the warcry...if at all.
- The first two ascendancies are your choice but should be between Tasalio or Valako. Valako will help with life regen earlier but you'll have to care about keeping your fire resists capped. Tasalio will make gear easier but you'll have to wait for the second ascention to get the life regen perks from Valako. So that's a choice you make on the spot. There's no wrong path.
- Once you've ascended a second time, you'll be dancing with RF.
- Don't forget to look at your patheon as well.

HOpefully that helps a bit.

"

scjohnson243_1 wrote:

Spoiler

I see on the cheat sheet above it says Vaal areas, 6 link.

Can someone let me know what that means, how do vaal areas get you a 6 link? Also if not already mentioned can someone give a basic order of keystones to path to whwn leveling? Never played marauder before, thanks!

**
Just hit act 3.. wow, the struggle with Oak was real! :) DPS is well, crappy right now.. Cheat sheet helped a LOT. Just got herald of ash,purity up and running and I can see a noticeable difference - mana is a fight now... and I found a vaal righteous fire, so I cant tell you how many times i've basically burt myself to death... I'm not sure I'm responsible enough for it yet. :)

Just a BIG heads up, the cheat sheet I posted was for leveling with my changes rather than following Wrecker’s advice – ie. leveling as melee instead of as caster and throwing in Storm Brand as an extra button (in the bottom-right corner, I’ve tried to keep track of all the extra points I’ve spent that I will have to refund at a later date to bring the tree back into line).

re: “Act 7 - Vaal side areas - 6 links”
Starting from Act 7 onwards, Vaal side areas have a chance of dropping corrupted 6-linked items, they will have non-standard prefixes, suffixes, and socket colors.

Side note:
You can use the Crafting Bench to recolor the sockets, but because the item is corrupted, it will cost an additional number of Vaal Orbs – ie. normally “3 Blue Sockets” costs 25 Chromatic Orbs, on corrupted items will cost 25 Chromatic Orbs and 25 Vaal Orbs.

That is HUGE about the 6 links, I had no idea! Thank you!

Just for an update - I used a mix of your cheat sheet, and wreckers advice and have hit level 45 - hit at 6. This is my first non-caster type and I have to say, the damage is way lower than normally used to (act 5 was downright painful) but the ability to not have to dodge things is really nice. when I do get hit I normally have so much life regen starting its right back up... so I can understand people not into it as much...I'm finally starting to see a bit of light with the dps, I'm able to sustain RF for a bit right now, not the entire time, but between potions and Enduring cry I can stay up and manage to kill bosses.

My Gear and my gem links are probably crap- I'm doing this in SSF to try to figure out if I can league start, I just had a bit of luck and got a tabula, so I have been playing with my cyclone setup, currently running:


Linking lifetap made it cool, and the constant blasting away with purifying flame is fun, not sure if it will stay! I thought about adding Hextouch + curse and doing it that way, but still not sure what I'm doing.. having a good time though and will hopefully stumble on something!

So far its been rough, but I can see where its headed...I'm not sure how to scale damage, and my fire resist is WAY to high, I could drop some of that and throw in some +Fire somewhere I'm sure.....