PoE Sanity

Raven Righteous Fire = Righteous Bait

By CaptainLance9Watch videoDuration: PT15M

Summary

  • Limited Scaling Vectors: The skill cannot scale with attack or cast speed, and its damage is split between Physical and Chaos, making resistance penetration and damage multipliers like Wither only half as effective.
  • Investment Conflict: As a hybrid between a Damage over Time (DoT) aura and a hit-based command skill, investing in one (like Crit for the command) fails to benefit the other (the DoT clear), leading to split resources.
  • Mechanical Bottlenecks: Raven generation is slow (one per second near uniques), and the primary single-target command skill has a restrictive 10-second cooldown, creating severe uptime and ramp-up issues.
  • Gear Opportunity Costs: Being tied to a two-handed unique staff prevents the use of powerful minion scepters, off-hand sigils, or runes that provide gem levels to spells.
  • Acquisition Difficulty: The item is gated behind high-level Simulacrum content and Tangmazu, meaning the build-enabling item is locked behind content the build itself may struggle to clear.
  • Low Baseline Performance: Based on official showcase footage, the skill exhibits a slow kill time (approximately 20 seconds) on Tier 1 map bosses, suggesting a weak baseline for such a high-investment item.

The Mechanics of Raven Righteous Fire

The skill, provided by the Spiralen Conspiracy staff, is a minion-tagged ability that generates ravens to increase area of effect (AoE) and damage. Ravens are generated over time when near unique enemies or by killing enemies. The skill is split into two components:

  1. A passive Damage over Time (DoT) aura centered on the player.
  2. A command skill (Mad Flight) where mirror images shoot ravens to hit enemies.

This design presents immediate scaling challenges because the damage is split between Physical and Chaos types, and the mechanics are split between hits and DoT.

Opportunity Costs and Scaling Issues

Scaling damage in Path of Exile requires multiple “vectors” (e.g., speed, crit, multipliers). This skill lacks these traditional avenues:

  • Speed Modifiers: It does not scale with attack or cast speed. The DoT is static, and the command skill has a fixed hit rate.
  • Resistance Reduction: Because it is a Phys/Chaos hybrid, traditional Elemental Exposure is unavailable. Despair only affects the Chaos portion, making it half as efficient as it would be for a pure Chaos skill.
  • Weapon Restrictions: Using a two-handed unique staff occupies the most important gear slots for a minion build. You lose the ability to use a minion scepter or a shield/off-hand sigil (which can provide 60% more damage multipliers for spells).
  • Gem Levels: Unlike spells, this minion skill cannot benefit from +1 level runes or specific weapon crafts. Potential scaling is limited to roughly +6 levels from helmets, amulets, and specific passive tree notables.

Investment Splitting and Mechanical Friction

The hybrid nature of the skill forces inefficient character building. If you invest in Critical Strike Chance to boost the command skill’s hit damage, your baseline DoT clear speed gains zero benefit. Conversely, focusing on DoT multipliers leaves the command skill’s single-target damage underwhelming.

The “ramp time” is also a significant concern. Ravens generate at a rate of roughly one per second near rare or unique enemies. In boss fights without additional “adds” (minions), the player must wait 10+ seconds for the skill to reach full power. Furthermore, the command skill’s 10-second cooldown means that if a boss moves out of the ability, the damage uptime is severely penalized.

Acquisition Gating and Market Value

The Spiralen Conspiracy staff is a level 20 item dropped from Simulacrum progression and the Tangmazu encounter.

  1. Difficulty: Simulacrum in Path of Exile 2 is tuned for high-survivability builds that can brute-force tank waves of enemies.
  2. Scarcity: Level 20 versions of unique items are significantly rarer than lower-level versions. This makes obtaining a six-linked version of the staff extremely expensive.
  3. The Paradox: There is a concern that the build required to use the staff is not strong enough to farm the content where the staff drops, making it a “dead on arrival” item for solo progression.

Comparison to the “Death’s Oath” Trap

In Path of Exile 1, Death’s Oath is a chest piece that provides a Chaos DoT aura. It is often considered “bait” because its scaling is so limited that players eventually realize they would be stronger using a different skill and a rare chest piece. Raven Righteous Fire risks the same fate: appearing visually and thematically cool but requiring a secondary skill to handle single-target damage, at which point the staff itself becomes a hindrance to the build’s overall power.

Analysis of the Showcase Baseline

In the GGG showcase, the skill was used against a boss with approximately 200k HP (typical for Tier 1 maps).

  • The kill took approximately 20 seconds.
  • The footage began after the “ramp-up” period, hiding the initial build-up time.
  • For an item obtained from endgame Simulacrum content, a 20-second T1 boss kill suggests the baseline damage is insufficient to compete with other endgame options.

Key References