Is The Righteous Fire Bodyswap Chieftain Build Worth Trying In Path Of Exile 3.24? – An In-Depth Build Analysis

In this guide, we will delve into the possibilities of a Path of Exile 3.24 league starter featuring the Righteous Fire Bodyswap Chieftain, providing theoretical analysis on its strengths, weaknesses, and the diverse choices for late-game advancement.

I desired to engage in some analysis regarding the various paths you can pursue with the Righteous Fire Bodyswap Chieftain build, intended as a league starter for Path of Exile’s forthcoming 3.24 league.

Shield: Rise Of The Phoenix

In the early stages of your journey, the Rise of the Phoenix will be your go-to shield. Even in SSF mode, if you don’t manage to acquire it through drops, you can always farm the Divination card. 

This shield is readily available and highly beneficial for Chieftain, aiding in sustaining RF and significantly reducing elemental damage intake. With Rise of the Phoenix, reaching 90% resistance early in the game becomes achievable.

Shield: DawnBreaker

As your progression advances, transitioning into a setup where physical damage is converted to other damage types becomes essential. This is where Dawnbreaker comes into play, this POE Currency currently utilized in this build. The goal is to maximize the conversion of physical damage to fire damage on the Dawnbreaker shield.

When making the switch to Dawnbreaker, you’ll need to source your maximum fire resistance from alternative means. While Purity of Fire is utilized from the outset, it’s advisable to elevate it to Level 21 for an additional 5% maximum fire resistance. 

Achieving this requires socketing it into an item granting gem levels, such as the glove setup featuring the unveiled Betrayal mod for +2 to the level of socketed AOE gems. Once Purity of Fire reaches Level 23, it effectively grants a 7% increase due to a 40% Aura effect.

Boots: Titan Greaves

This particular one is slightly more challenging to obtain in Path of Exile 3.24. You’re going to need to buy POE Currency to get it, especially in an SSF environment. It’s fine if you sit around 88-89% early on, but you’ll want to push for that 90% later on with better gear.

The Turquoise Amulet is anointed with Charisma, accounting for the remaining aura effect. Altogether, this totals just over 40%, resulting in a 7% boost from Purity of Fire. We derive 3% from this wheel below – 1% from Prismatic Skin, another 1% from Barbarism, and the remaining 4% from the implicit Searing Exarch on the boots.

Armor: Cloak Of Flame

We’re also using Cloak of Flame for another 40% of physical damage taken as fire. Both of these affect damage over time as well, so it’s going to be really nice against bleeding, corrupted blood, and any other physical damage over time effects.

Gem: Desecrate

Then, I’ll mention is the Desecrate. This build lacks damage for single targets, so you’ll want to include Desecrate in the build. All you have to do is grab a few high-life specters from the campaign.

You can get a Kitava’s Herald or an Auric Champion or Auric Colossus. Once you’ve raised those specters, you can get rid of the gem and then level up a Desecrate to Level 20. You’ll barely use Desecrate while you’re mapping.

Occasionally, you’ll reach a really tanky rare that you can’t deal with because it has too much life. You can drop Desecrate down and use Bodyswap to explode one of the raised specter corpses that Desecrate summons. That’s going to massively improve the ignite damage there that you deal, and it’s a nice addition to this POE 3.24 build.

These gear above are all recommended for this Righteous Fire Bodyswap Chieftain build. Then I’ll talk about the skills I’ll be using with this build in Path of Exile 3.24 .

Skill: Tempered By War

Tempered by War with Dawnbreaker allows much of that damage that’s being taken as cold and lightning to be taken as fire damage. This also affects damage over time. But the reason we’re using this is because we’re using Arctic Armor.

This is actually a huge defensive layer of this build is that we’re playing Bodyswap and we’re often stationary. Arctic Armor is really strong defensively. It provides 21% less physical damage and 20% less fire damage taken from hits while stationary.

The physical damage component is not that relevant once we have this full damage taken setup, but the fire damage is important because all the fire damage we take is going to be lessened by Arctic Armor when we’re stationary.

A lot of the cold and lightning damage we take is also being taken as fire damage, and that portion is also going to be lessened by the Arctic Armor modifier. That’s a really powerful defensive setup.

The downside of Temper by War, the less cold and lightning resistance, is relevant. It’s something you have to overcome. But Chieftain definitely outgears this with the Tardio notable. This notable makes it so easy to outgear this. You can fully focus on fire resistance. Most of the gear I have here is just fire resistance rolls with the crafted Betrayal Fire and Chaos modifiers.

Final Thought

I’d like to emphasize that this build of Path of Exile 3.24 isn’t particularly effective for bossing. However, it’s designed as a mapping build. While it may struggle in boss encounters, it excels in traversing the Atlas and acquiring 4 Watch Stones. Although it may not excel at boss farming, its true strengths lie in mapping.