[3.21 SSF] Metronomy's Righteous Fire Cheiftain | Strength

The design philosophy of this build is to create a character with an easy playstyle (no need to spam different skills) with extremely high defensive capabilities and has damage that scales with life and the defensive layers.

The build is designed to be item independant, with cheap options to upgrade as you progress that only target low-hanging fruit (not the most optimised/expensive content). This guide does not define 'best in slot' equipment, instead I have tried to minimise item requirements and give goals that you can progressively work towards as an SSF character.


Firstly I will just go over the core RF build and then attempt to introduce stretch goals that you might slowly farm towards,
I will try to order these stretch goals in terms of ease of completion & timing. Specific uniques might be easy to obtain, but I have preferenced items that have a clear and easy path towards being obtained.
Many of these goals are intended to be easily achievable on a SSF character (However I noticed it was a bit difficult to achieve in Ruthless)

What this build is not:
This build is not an optimised build, there are many other more efficient ways to min-max these stats to push this build further through using expensive uniques (like any build). I would encourage you to progress the build even further and am happy to receive questions or suggestions. I would love to know if you found this guide helpful or useful!

Also, its important to note that Cheiftain is not your only option, you can get insane amounts of regen on the templar very easily as well

Key attributes that define this build are:

Life & Regeneration
Strength
Defence
Movement (as a subset of defence)

Playstyle
The build is intended to be as simple as possible.

0.Enable RF at the start of zone

1.Walk around to kill mobs (Have Enduring cry on your walk button)
2.Frostblink to move around faster, which will also apply flammability and on hit effects like exposure
3.Fire Trap if you need added damage on bosses

Righteous fire (B)
Burning damage (R)
Elemental focus (B)
Increased area of effect (B) / Efficacy (B)
Lifetap (R)
Swift Affliction (G)

Fire Trap (G)
Combustion (B)
Lifetap (R)
Trap and Mine Damage support (G)

Immortal call (R)
Increased Duration support (R) / Lifetap if you don't have unreserved mana (R)
Cast when damage taken support (R)
Enduring Cry (Put this skill on your walk button to walk around) (R)

Frostblink (level 1) (B)
Hextouch (B)
Flammability (B)
Lifetap (level 1) (R)

Purity of fire (R)
Determination (R)
Grace (G)

Arrogance support (R)
Vitality (B)
Stone Golem (R)

Focus on +Life +Resist on gear (But note your first ascendancy will give +100 fire resist, as well as running purity of fire, so you probably won't need fire resist)
Before maps, your goal is to cap resists and have lots of life

Level a Shadow, Witch, or Scion and kill Merveil if you want to have Firetrap early for levelling
If you do this, you will also be able to make use of the added lightning damage support from Brutus too
This is optional, but gives you access to the gems that these classes can buy early on

Use these skills at low level
Holy Flame totem + added lightning damage + anything you can find
Firetrap (For congruence with the final build)
Herald of thunder

Any time you are struggling with mana cost, equip a lifetap to that skill

Avoid the +Energy shield stat on gear as a trade-off, this will make it harder to obtain the correct colours for your gems, but will make RF easier to sustain

Try to get your 4L (G-G-B-R) fire trap as soon as possible so you can focus on survivability for your other gear

If you need some extra regen while transitioning to RF, consider Stone Golem + Meat Shield Support.

Soul of Arakaali (Killing the giant spider at the end of act 7)
This will unlock 10% Reduced damage taken over time, which will reduce the damage taken from RF

I was able to sustain RF around level 40, but didn't start using it until level 58 after getting this pantheon so there was a large enough regen buffer to not die easily

Try to carry a flask that removes burning, really helpful for ascendancy areas and times you are taking massive damage.

By 70+ (Maps) I was very comfortable in defences and using only a 3-link RF, I could clear all content and bosses with ease.

3.20 Sanctum
Path of building for level 73 - very start of maps
https://pobb.in/fqtBUwGe

POB level 88 (Found a corrupted 6L without ideal colours, reached T10 maps)
https://pobb.in/nK0aAYTM

POB level 92 - I found that switching to 6L fire trap, and putting RF in your helmet was a huge DPS boost, still working on comfortable resists/life pool
https://pobb.in/hs8qRcRy

POB level 100 - I pushed the build to 100 in 3.21 Crucible and ended up with this
https://pobb.in/kG-ZJ6C6ZrFS, Basically I am too lazy to run auras so I just went blood magic with 1 free aura from eternal blessing - Running more auras + determination is probably better overall

After maps, the priority on gear is +Life +Strength. The crafting bench becomes extremely helpful in rounding out your deficiencies.

Kill an Effigy mob (an Archnemisis mob) which will drop items with all-white sockets. It will be easier for colours to have at least one 4-link like this so you can swap out gems (your purity of elements / enhance/enlighten)
Also, you can put these in your off-hand to level gems without worrying about colours
I started seeing these items before maps

Try to get a 5L/6L or Tabula.

Grace is actually late game, you won't be able to run Grace + Purity of Fire unless you have some investment from the tree or items, so you may need +max fire resist items before you can drop your purity of fire. You can think of it as a 'free gem slot' until you are ready to use it, which gives you some room to play around in your gem setup.

iLvl 75+ Cluster jewels (Delirium) can give you the 'Mastery of Fire' notable passive
This notable will appear on a jewel with either +12% Increased fire or burning damage (I prefer burning damage one).

Rise of the Pheonix (unique) is fairly easy to obtain from maps. Look for 'The Sun' divination card.

Life regeneration rate & Life recovery rate a multiplicative stats that will give you insane recovery
Life regeneration rate:
Available on your gloves / boots / helmet
(the tiers for this mod are ilvl +46/57/68/76/85)
Life recovery rate: (requires influenced items):
Drox, the Warlord (Body Armour) & Elder (Belt) will allow you to craft increased life recovery rate
(the tiers for this mod are ilvl +68/75/80)

Vermillion rings (% Increased maximum life) & Marble amulet (Regenerate % life per second)

+% increased strength:
(Hunter) boots can have this mod

Legacy of Fury (Unique boots that drop from The Maven)

Run heist decent ones are for your Elemental focus, Immortal call, CwDT, Vitality gems

High-level builds often build an RF helmet - Crafting process:
1 Obtain iLvl 82+, with Elder influence)
2 Farm essence of horror to get Socketed gems deal 30% more elemental damage on your helmet (to get essence of horror, you need to kill essence monsters by adding a remnant of corruption + are Misery, Dread, Scorn, Envy).
You might need around 20x essences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5EEQC6rZk4
3 Craft until you get at least Socketed gems deal 30% more elemental damage + 1 other good elder mod that increases RF damage.
Note crafting in this way is very expensive and often the intention is to run RF inside the helmet meaning your 6L body armour can be used for something else.

When you finally find a nice belt, you can use attribute catalysts (from Metamorph) to enhance the attributes from your belt/rings. Socketing with a Hypnotic eye jewel is probably the best (if you can make a good jewel)