This guide is about the new Righteous Fire skill for a Hierophant in Path of Exile 3.23. The build uses Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion skill, in contrast to regular RF, not only sources its damage from maximum mana instead of maximum Life but is also affected by all modifiers to spell damage, including increased spell damage from the Indigon helmet. It’s one of the most potent sources of damage that’s rarely explored in dot builds, as the dot damage doesn’t scale with it unless it’s specifically stated.

How It Works

To get more damage from Indigon, get a lot of maximum unreserved mana and then spend it very quickly with Arcane Cloak to recover all this mana back. Use Armageddon Brand of Volatility with Brand Mastery that recovers 10% of your maximum mana after the brand expires, which happens after merely one activation. When mapping, there's no need to do it since you'll also gain mana on killing with Thrill Killer and/or Mind Drinker.

Hierophant is the ascendancy that specializes in mana, with passives such as Divine Guidance and Sanctuary of Thought. These nodes grant mana damage, reservation efficiency, area of effect, and energy shield, which the build heavily relies on. The damage is sourced entirely from the Indigon. It has a damage cap that you’re able to reach with enough mana, which is sourced from items and passives.

The fire damage over time can be improved with burning damage or dot multiplier modifiers on a weapon. It’s a durable build with over 10k energy shield, a lot of evasion, and reduced Elemental damage taken. It has a low block chance and almost no armor, but the high ES pool combined with Arcane Cloak guard spell will protect you from getting killed in one hit.

Clear speed is great and restricted only by your movement speed. To reach meaningful single-target damage, you will need to spend some POE Currency. The price is high, as expected from an intelligent stacking build, but it can be assembled on a moderate budget.

Gear And Jewels

The build requires a lot of unique POE Items. Your focus is on mana and intelligence. Intelligence grants mana and energy shield, making it important with Shaper’s Touch gloves. It grants Evasion. mana will affect your damage with the Indigon helmet. Transfiguration of Mind adds AOE due to the Sanctuary of Thought. Strength grants mana and energy shield. Indigon increases energy shield and your spell damage alongside mana spent recently, which is the main reason to stack mana and use Arcane Cloak.

All spell damage modifiers affect the damage over time of Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion. You can’t reserve mana, but you can reserve life, and the Prism Guardian Shield is the most efficient way to do so. Socket your most expensive and important auras here. The Ivory Tower protects you from chaos damage and grants tons of energy shield regeneration, intelligence, and mana.

There is no replacement for this armor. Legacy of Fury boots will significantly improve your damage with powerful Scorch and Explosions on killing. If you can't find any resistances, mana, or intelligence, consider replacing them with rare boots. Use Shaper’s Touch gloves to gain tons of mana with energy shield from strength and evasion from intelligence. Cyclopean Coil is a reasonably priced belt with a lot of maximum mana, attributes, and freeze immunity. Use it before you’re able to afford a better one.

Astramentis is the amulet with a lot of attributes that we recommend using in this build. Eyes of the Greatwolf with suitable rolls will undoubtedly be very expensive. You’re looking for increased intelligence, strength, or all attributes with life regeneration, global defenses, fire damage, or maximum mana. Put Shavronn's Revelation on your right finger to gain tons of maximum mana and energy shield regeneration. Since you don't regenerate mana, the downside won't be a problem. Socket Healthy Mind Jewel near Cruel Preparation to gain much more mana, intelligence, and mana on Split Personality.

A rare amulet can be an excellent option. Look for maximum mana, attributes, and resistances. The best ones will have a synthesized implicit or shaper suffix for increased attributes. On a ring, you shall get the usual mana and attributes, especially intelligence. You will probably need some dexterity too for the Grace skill gem. You can obtain mana, energy shield, attributes, chaos resistance, and Elemental spell damage from Jewels. Use large cluster Jewels to create a suitable environment for 2 of your Split Personality jewels. There are quite a few notables to look for. Most importantly, Scintillating Idea from a lightning cluster Jewel for a 20% increased maximum mana.

Flasks

Mana and intelligence from Clarity are the best modifier to get on a Watcher’s Eye. Another great one is the Malevolence dot multiplier. Excellent additions may manifest as Clarity, Discipline, Grace, and even Purity of Fire. It may be hard to cap your resistances after you put most of your resources into intelligence, strength, and mana. It can be done with Ruby, Topaz, and Sapphire flasks if you’ve opted for the Traitor Keystone. While searching for burning damage modifiers on your items is an option, prioritize mana and intelligence instead.

Life regeneration will affect your ES with Zealot's Oath and is very important. You need a weapon with a lot of maximum mana and various types of fire damage over time modifiers, attributes, and dot multipliers are too very valuable. We can craft some of these modifiers. Look for boots that offer attributes like movement speed, mana, and resistances. For Eldritch mods, seek life regeneration per endurance charge and maximum fire resistance. On a belt, you can increase your attributes via Hunter or Elder suffix. Try to get some intelligence from the crafting bench. energy shield, maximum mana, and resistances are good too.

Ivory Tower protects you from chaos damage until you have no mana. Use Coruscating Elixir flask to shift incoming chaos damage to affect energy shield if your mana has been depleted and to take less fire damage. You may also use a regular Ruby flask if your chaos resistance is high and you don’t run out of mana. For other flasks, get a Topaz flask with bleed immunity and a Sapphire flask with increased movement speed if you’re using the Trader Keystone for permanent flasks. These are your 3 flasks. If not, you should also get a Forbidding mana flask with a crafted mod for life regeneration during flask effect and a Quicksilver flask with increased movement speed.

Gems And Sockets

Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion deals damage based on your maximum mana to your character and enemies around you in the form of fire damage over time. Link it with Burning Damage, Swift Affliction, Controlled Destruction, Elemental Focus, and Arcane Surge support gems.

It’s important to use some kind of channeling skill with Armageddon Brand of Volatility. Scorching Ray is the top choice because of its powerful fire exposure. Armageddon Brand of Volatility is supposed to recover 10% of your maximum mana when it expires, which it does after activating once. Allocate the specific Brand Mastery to achieve it. It’s a substantial source of mana recovery during boss fights. Link these 2 with Cast While Channeling and Infused Channeling support gems.

The following 3 auras shall be socketed in the Prism Guardian Shield:

1. Discipline adds energy shield and increases its recovery rate.
2. Grace adds and increases evasion, which you have a lot of already from the Shaper’s Touch gloves.
3. You need a lot of maximum fire resistance to withstand self-inflicted burning damage. Increase the purity of fire skill gem level to 21 additional maximum fire resistance.

Malevolence makes you deal more damage over time and increases your skill effect duration if you have no mana reserved. Eternal Blessing support allows you to have one permanently blessed aura of charge with an increased aura effect. Link Malevolence to it. Clarity does nothing with Shavronn's Revelation, but it unlocks some of the best mods on a Watcher’s Eye. If you don’t have it, use Vitality instead or alongside it if you have enough life. Link it with Arrogant support.

Your entire mana pool has to remain unreserved. Activate Arcane Cloak to spend 64% of your current mana and gain up to 2,000% increased spell damage from Indigon. Spending a minimum of 16,000 mana in just 4 seconds is necessary to reach this aspirational cap, but it's not practical to attempt with any other skill. Link it with Less Duration and Swift Affliction to use it again sooner. Flame Dash's ability is the curse that lowers the fire resistance of your enemies. If you don’t want to cast it, get a slightly worse Elemental Weakness on hit as a corrupted glove implicit, as we did. You can link your curse gem to Hextouch support to proliferate the Hex.

Shield Charge is simply used to travel faster. Spending mana within Sigil of Power enhances its strength, leading to reduced damage from enemies.

Bandits And Pantheon

Kill all the bandits in Act 2. You will need the two extra passive skill points the most. For a major God, we recommend the Soul of Arakaali to take less damage over time and less chaos damage over time after an upgrade, which is good if your chaos resistance is not yet capped. The selection of minor Gods offers a variety of bonuses. We recommend something to take less physical damage or less damage over time against the type of damage you struggle with the most. We have picked Shakari for better protection against poison.

Passive Tree

The passive skill tree resembles an S shape to squeeze out more mana and intelligence from forbidden jewels. So if you don’t have them, opt for a more optimized shape. Aim mostly for maximum mana, some energy shield, and intelligence. Fire damage and damage over time are less important. Eternal Youth will be transformed into the Traitor Keystone. Allocate also Zealot Oath, Iron Will, Pain Attunement, and a single brand cluster. Get passive energy shield regeneration and shift the stun threshold to ES. Two energy shield masteries lessen damage taken. As for mana recovery after using Guard skill, as mana Mastery, increased attributes as attribute Mastery, and mana recovery when brand expires as Brand Mastery.