Infernal Legion Smith of Kitava "Righteous Fire Beast" 0.30 League Starter

Infernal Legion on Smith league starter, Righteous Fire style minion build - 0.3

Guide Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQfRCNPReH4

PoB Code:
https://pobb.in/Ik8dP8eKTChe


Maxroll:
https://maxroll.gg/poe2/pob/9ebme0gd

Introduction
Hello Team! Welcome to our Infernal Legion “Righteous Fire Beast” themed Smith of Kitava build ready from 0.30. There have been a lot of changes, some buffs, some nerfs, and we intend on capturing the most impactful ones in this update from our 0.2 showcase.

We aimed to make a build that was strong but easy to play: suitable for new players learning the game, players with injuries or disabilities, grandpa/grandma gamers, or anyone who prefers a low apm playstyle. Needed to be able to clear endgame, be safe 'n tanky, simple to understand gear which is also inexpensive. And of course, it needed to be chill and fun!

We have finally released a full video guide but we're going to continue to test different variations of the build well into the next few patches.

Overview:
We were inspired to create this build after dropping a Carrion Call unique focus, which gives your minions the same resistance as your character. Right away we thought of the Smith of Kitava ascendancy because of how easy it WAS to get all elemental resistance to 90% in 0.20 unfortunately that has changed and it's a bit harder to get 90% all res especially on SSF, so the current version of the build does not consider Carrion Call as best in slot.

We still focus on getting as much max fire res on our companion as possible but this is now more reliant on the passive tree and or the "Fire Resistant" modifier that can be found on rare beasts. Having high max fire res on your companion will essentially mitigate the life loss caused by the Infernal Legion support gem. Overall the spirit of this build is unchanged and still themed around the Tame Beast skill that allows you to capture Rare beasts as Companions which keep their potentially powerful modifiers.

Content:
This build has been able to clear everything in early/mid endgame and could be pushed further. All trials, Xesht, The Trialmaster, round 15 Simulacrum, The Arbiter of Ash, King of the Mists, etc etc. It’s designed to get a new player through all first tier bosses using SSF gear.

Mapping on tier 15+ alc is no problem. It’s not lightning spear/arrow fast but it gets the job done and, again it is very light on the apm requirements making it quite chill to run maps.

Some modifiers can be more dangerous than others like general damage mods, reduced regen, and any resistance lowering can cause your companion to die once in a while but that’s extremely rare.

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Pros & Cons

Pros:
Good for new players, senior citizens, injured/disabled folks who can’t click a ton.
Steadily melts bosses on its own, allowing you to learn mechanics and focus on dodging.

Very easy to get the build going, should be league start viable.

Very cheap to gear. Smith solves resistances basically for free, chest is easy to self craft, recommended uniques are dirt cheap. We completed atlas, easily clear T15s, and defeated all initial pinnacle (50-150 shard) bosses on a 1-2 divine budget (estimated cost, we were on GSF but self crafted all gear).

Very simple stat priorities. Minion life, minion levels, minion damage, attributes, fire resistance and max fire resistance, chaos resistance and that is about all.

Mapping is smooth as the beast clears for you. Zero button build outside of optional buffs/debuffs on bosses or tanky rares.

HC Viable. You are quite tanky ( High % elemental damage mitigated by armor, lots of regen, respectable health pool) as are your minions, more importantly you are free to move in fights while the beast deals damage.

Finding a great beast can take a bit of time, giving a nice pokemon minigame even when playing on your other builds.

Cons:
Finding a great beast can take a bit of time, if you get unlucky you can get stuck on a suboptimal beast for quite awhile. (tips to catch them here https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dsN2dIKGOO8, and another here for chaos trial baddies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4ByN3lDBZc)

Unique items while not impossible, are harder to find on SSF

Mapping may not be fast enough for some people (recommend looking at our witch guide if this is the case)

Mapping can feel janky and slower at times due to Companion AI.

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Building

Gear Quick Overview:

Rare Affix Priorities
Most of the gear we want are items focused on life, max fire res, fire res, chaos res, and attributes. We want to stack str, but also need dex and int to meet some of our gem requirements.

Minion levels are important stats on every slot we can get them. Other than that we want minion life and damage, and that is it for offense.

Offhand
We used to recommend the unique focus Carrion Call which gives our minion the same resistance as us, letting us avoid all minion resistance investment, but in the current patch it's much more difficult to obtain 90 all res on SSF. So now we recommend a shield or focus with life (or ES), Armor/ES, Minion levels (if using focus), fire/chaos res, str, and armor as ele modifiers.

Mainhand
A Scepter with Purity of Fire is a good place to start. Minion levels, life, and damage are priority. The more spirit the better. The higher level the better so that you can get more gem sockets, putting spirit support gems in which are free.

If you can get enough fire res without this, you could swap for a Rattling Scepter which would give you another minion for Muster. But may not be worth losing the free spirit supports.

Body Armour
Set your loot filter to show normal bases of desirable types https://poe2db.tw/us/Body_Armours#BodyArmoursItem, ones with useful implicit mods. We targeted Ornate Plates for the life regen.

Try to get the best roll in the implicit you can, quality and socket them, then vaal for hopefully another socket or useful implicit. It took us four tries to get a perfect Ornate Plate. (First try on our 0.30 league starter!)

Jewels
Jewels are an import source of damage. You can get Companion life/damage emeralds for extremely cheap since there is no demand.

Rubies can give you minion life and max fire resistance if that is your bottle neck instead.

We have a Prism of Belief is a big boost if you can find or afford it.

Belt
A well rolled rare belt with armor, life, str, chaos res, or life flask modifiers are what we prioritize on our belt.

Amulet
Minion levels are the priority. We use the anoint Sturdy Ally, giving our Companion our strength. We have over 500 strength, giving both the Companion and ourselves each 1000+ base health.

Beast Considerations:
Type
Should be an up close and personal melee beast.

Beast type selection is a balancing act of health pool and speed. Extremely small and fast will have less single target damage, extremely big and slow will not clear well.

Suggested middle ground: Prowling Chimeral, Plague Harvester, Stoneclad Gorilla, Nameless Hulk, etc. There is Drudge Osseodon buffing tech that Truditoru demonstrates here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwcMklHF2ag that might be a very good option if you can get a Hasted one. Finally one of the easiest to farm and strongest beasts is the Frozen Mandibles from the Interlude.

Mods
Check the full mod pool herehttps://www.poe2wiki.net/wiki/Monster_modifier. We’d target Extra Fire Damage, Extra Chaos Damage (if using Xophs Pyre support gem), Increased Life, Hasted / Haste Aura, Life Regen. Secondary mods we’d keep an eye out for are status effects like chills and shocks, stun, and debuffs like Temporal Bubble.


Gem Basics:

Beast
As high a level as you can get. Quality is important to lower the cost.

Purity of Fire (if using)
Upwelling II and which ever defensive spirit supports you prefer, they will have no spirit cost.

Hex
We reduce boss fire resistance with Elemental Weakness.

Exposure
We apply exposure with Frost Bomb.

Offering
You can use Pain Offering to give your beast increased damage, but overall our testing has showed the improved damage is minimal outside of mostly stationary bosses.

Minion Zoo
You can use multiple different minions if you plan to use the Muster support gem. Remember that they must be different, so 1 of each skeleton, 1 spectre, etc...

We went with a cheap spectre in our testing, but if you can think of something more synergistic let us know.

Tree Basics:
Minion life, Minion Damage are what we prioritize. As well as Fire and minion Max Resistance to ensure our companion has 89/90% Fire resistance.

We use some of the smaller Minion elemental res nodes if we do not have a beast with the Fire Resistant mod.

Blood Magic
We take this to simplify life for new players, it also enables Upwelling since we are never considered ‘on full mana’.

Sockets
As many jewel sockets as we can reach for very efficient boosts.

Leveling Basics:
We recommend swapping to the companion build after level 31 when you can reach some of the most important notables on the tree above Witch/Sorc.

Until then level with whatever you are comfortable with. We used Skeletal Snipers and flame wall but there are a lot of options. Our POB tree is minion focused right from level one.

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Feedback
We've had a ton of feedback and interaction with the build since the launch of 0.30 and we really appreciate all the comments on the channel/discord. Please feel free to reach out to us on any of our socials or channels!

If you’ve got questions meanwhile, we stream from time to time on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@otterjones and Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/otterjones so feel free to ask live. Or drop into our Discord https://discord.gg/Y5dhJKCXR9 and ask there.

GLHF!
OtterJones
https://otterjones.com/

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Cool

Great stuff, really nice build, i love your videos!