[3.0 guide] A brief guide to Scion RF, modest investment, defensive carefree.

1, Why Scion?
Don't feel like doing another Maurauder, bite me.

2, What's the damage level? Comparing to the usual RF Chieftain and the new fav Berserker?

Well, not that ideal, Chieftain has too much life regen, so it can focus more on damage passives and jewels, and berserker, well it almost always the best damage for most skill, so ``````. I would say damage wise, scion is roughly about 85% of chieftain, 70% of berserker.

However, a scion RF can still do more than enough damage, I clear everything up to T16 with ease, didn't try shaper and uber Atziri, by experience I suppose Shaper should be reasonable to fight, but uber atziri Trio might be too much. And keep in mind I only use one curse (don't feel like paying 20ex for that when damage is good enough), dual curses would be much better。

What scion shines at is defense, trickster gives a great deal of defense, as a matter of fact, if we exclude the frenzy charge generation part, scion trickster route is even better than trickster shadow. You basically don't worry about dying at all, and you don't pick map mods either, less regen, - max% or vulnerability, only no regen you can't do.

3, Is the build expensive?
Well RF build has three lockdown items, Kaom's heart, rise of the phoenix, and delirum crafted glove, it cannot be cheap, the whole set cost me somewhere around 600 chaos, not that much by my standard, but still you need to save up a bit.

4, Should I try Scion RF?
Who cares, ( ╯-_-)╯┴—┴.

RF + ele focus + burning dmg + inc aoe/conc effect, main skill

shield charge + faster attack + fortify, movement

blasphemy + flammability, if second curse is opened, use a witchfire brew flask for vulnerability.

orb of storm + inc crit chance, you can rely on shield charge to proc EE and ele overload, people doing that usually using Kaom's roots also, I'm just lazy.

purity of fire, cwdt, golem as usual.

Must take Trickster, 50% increased life recovery rate is really good for your defense, when you kill an enemy your life regen can push over 20%, tanky as hell. And trickster also gives 20% damage when not on full life, well with RF we never will be on full life. That juicy 15 mana after using a movement skill is also OP, as a matter of fact, 15 mana! It's a free lvl 16 clarity, RF doesn't need mana regen, but for some scion MoM builds this could be insane.

The other route I'm taking is pathfinder, it's not actually the best option, but it's the most handy one. When using a flask, pathfinder gives 10% movement speed, gives 30% dmg, and there is one often ignored advantage, 40 dex, since we only have 60 dex on the tree, but faster attack requires 111 at lvl 20, you have 51 to fill, with pathfinder, you can focus on life and resist first, then maybe later when you can get dex from jewelry and jewels then switch to other ascendancy options.

The best option is necromancer, since we always run at least one purity of fire, you have constant 30% dmg, 4% phys dmg reduction and 20% chaos res, oh some skill duration helps with immortal call a little bit.

Inquisitor gives 25% dmg, 8% ele dmg reduction on consecrated ground, and 30% chance consecrated ground on kill, but it's really awkward, RF moves too fast but also doesn't really stand still, you run out of consecrated ground covered area all the time even when fighting single target enemy.

Champion gives 30% dmg when having fortify, and taunt can further mitigate incoming dmg, also 20 str and dex, very solid.

Elementalist doesn't give anything directly, but you can have two golems, fire golem 21% dmg and stone golem 100+ regen.

for those who don't use POB.