Short naive vaal righteous fire questions

I've never tried Vaal Righteous Fire before, but before I kill myself or screw up my socket colors, I would like to ask:

1. VRF has the "duration" tag, which RF does not. Thus, apparently, efficacy applies to it. But does that mean that efficacy will aalso apply to the base RF portion of the skill (which does not work with the base gem type) or only to the vaal activation part?

2. Do I understand correctly that the RF part of VRF is (or at least can be) active as normal, causing the buff which drains my health and ES and causing constant burning damage + a spell damage buff to me as would the normal RF gem, but that when enough souls are gathered I can activate the Vaal part with an additional button, and this "sacrifices" 60% of my health and ES at once (not over a duration) and causes me to cause extra burning DOT based on this amount -- right?

3. Is this "sacrifice" (which is not a hit) mitigated in any way?

4. If not, it could be quite possible to kill yourself from this activation if I have less than 60% total health when activated, right?

5. If the answer to question 1 is yes (duration tag applies to continuous portion as well), and 2 is yes, and 3 is no, and 4 is yes, then am I correct in understanding that -- everything else being equal -- I could simply use VRF over standard RF and never activate the Vaal part and still benefit from being able to equip efficacy -- right?

thanks in advance

1. Long story shot, Efficacy (and Swift Affliction) works only with vaal part by default.

2. Right.

3. No, sacrifice is not even damage.

4. Sacrifice can't kill you directly.

"Sacrifice" is a keyword indicating the player loses life. This is not considered to be damage, so you cannot mitigate it and you cannot trigger effects like CWDT with it.

For the long story:

RF does not have a duration tag, and so does not benefit from supports like Efficacy.

Vaal RF has a duration tag, but it is a separate skill. This "separate skill" behavior means that things that affect Vaal RF don't necessarily affect RF (such as being supportable by Efficacy), and things that affect RF don't necessarily affect Vaal RF (such as transfiguring the gem; whether the normal skill the gem provides is RF or RFoAD, Vaal RF would have the exact same behavior).

You can use a Vaal RF gem and never activate Vaal RF, just using it for RF. The results would be no different from using just a plain RF gem.



RF does not have a duration tag, but supports can affect what other supports can apply to a skill. When you support RF with Lifetap, the skill can now apply a buff with a duration. This combination lets you support RF with gems that support skills with a duration, because RF now applies a buff with a duration.

When people run RF linked with Lifetap despite RF not having any cost to activate, it's because it opens up more support gem options.

Thanks. I think I get it now. How confusing!

But the "sacrificing" part means: I cant mitigate it, but I also cant kill myself with it? I tested it once in a halfway safe environment on full health, and it sure looked like I could die from that if I used it at under 60% health...