With the new Dawn of the Hunt seasonal event breathing fresh life into Wraeclast. Whether you're a returning exile or diving into POE2 for the first time, this event has everything: new mechanics, new challenges, and most importantly — new builds to explore.

In this guide, we're focusing on one of the most hype-inducing additions in POE2: the Smith of Kitava ascendancy for the Warrior class. It's tanky, it's brutal, and it gives you a ton of flexibility when it comes to leveling. Below, we'll break down our early experience with the build, how we're scaling defenses, where we're heading offensively, and what tools we're using to slam through content in the Dawn of the Hunt.

The Smith of Kitava – Overview

The Smith of Kitava is a warrior ascendancy themed around fire, resilience, and punishment. It leans heavily into fire resistance stacking, max resistance scaling, and converting damage taken into fire damage — which is incredible when you're pushing toward 90%+ fire resistance. It might not have the raw DPS scaling of some other ascendancies right out the gate, but what it lacks in flash, it makes up for in pure survivability and consistency.

This ascendancy turns your defensive stats into offensive enablers. You're rewarded for stacking fire resistance with boosts to other resistances and survivability layers. You even get chaos damage mitigation via armor and physical damage taken as fire, which opens the door to some very tanky, high-damage combos.

Ascendancy Point Allocation

Here's how we've started allocating our ascendancy points at level 52:

Flame-Forged Resilience

Your fire resistance now grants 50% of its value to cold and lightning resistances, making gearing significantly easier early on and offering natural tankiness. Stack fire res? You're stacking all res. Beautiful.

Maximum Res Scaling

Modifiers to max fire res also give max cold and lightning res, meaning when you pump fire res to 78-80%, your other max res are scaling too. We're not even capped yet due to some negative resistances from progression, but we're already cruising with 78% max fire res and rock-solid baseline resistances.

Upcoming Choices

We're debating between Temper Weapon and more life/strength nodes. Temper Weapon looks thematic and spicy but feels like a better fit if we had more points. Instead, our next steps may include:

• +75 fire res and +5 max fire res (gigacap your resistances)

• Armor causes 25% physical damage from hits to be taken as fire — amazing synergy with high fire res

• Chaos damage mitigated by armor

This is a toolbox of tankiness, and it's still early days.

Passive Tree Strategy

Here's a rough outline of our passive tree progression so far:

Early Leveling (1-30)

• Start top-side toward melee damage, grabbing stun buildup, strength, and armor bonuses.

• Focus on resolute technique early for guaranteed hit mechanics — “your hits can't miss, but can't crit.”

• Go through two-hander wheel for heavy damage and stun scaling, especially if you're leveling with Bone Shatter or Heavy Swing.

Mid-Level Progression (30-50+)

• Invest heavily in stun threshold reduction to avoid being stunned — a big issue early on.

• Scale more strength, life, and AoE if you've been stunned recently — you'll be stunning all the time.

• Target Titanic nodes and mace damage clusters for melee scaling.

• Work your way toward max res clusters and life regen.

Future Options

We might pivot into ignite scaling or bleed, depending on how the build evolves. We're keeping it fluid, adapting to drops and new gems.

Leveling Skills – What We're Using

We're using a mix of hard-hitting melee skills, leap mobility, AoE shout support, and single-target nukes. Here's what's currently slotted:

Bone Shatter + Impact Shockwave + Magnified Effect

The bread and butter for trash clearing. This combo gives huge AoE and damage-on-stun synergy. We're stunning frequently, which procs all our AoE bonuses.

Heavy Swing + Fist of War

Great for chunking mobs and pairing with Hammer of the Gods. Heavy, slow, but satisfying — and synergizes well with our stun stacking.

Infernal Cry + Empowering + Reduced Mana Cost

Use this right after leaping into a crowd. Gives bonus fire damage, enemy explosions, and significantly amplifies AoE bursts. Yes, it's worth the mana.

Herald of Ash

Classic PoE skill. Overkill damage causes ignite explosions, great synergy with Infernal Cry and Bone Shatter.

Hammer of the Gods (New)

Just unlocked this — it's changed significantly and now uses a Glory meter. We've paired it with Fist of War, but still testing its scaling and if we'll keep it.

Perfect Strike

Our bossing skill — time your attack perfectly for a massive single-target burst. Currently supported by shorter timing window and weapon elemental scaling (although this feels underwhelming and may change).

Leap Slam + Martial Tempo

Mobility is king. We've got faster attack speed here to keep movement fluid. May be replaced with something like Brutality or AoE impact if the stun threshold gets high enough to trigger leap-stuns reliably.

Gems, Links & Swaps

We're in experimental territory, but here's how we're slotting things right now:

Main Damage (Bone Shatter)

• Bone Shatter

• Impact Shockwave

• Magnified Effect

Boss Damage (Perfect Strike)

• Perfect Strike

• Shorter Timing Window

• Weapon Elemental Damage (possibly replacing soon)

Utility & Support

• Infernal Cry + Empower + Reduced Mana Cost

• Herald of Ash

• Leap Slam + Martial Tempo

Others

• Heavy Swing for bursty stun

• Hammer of the Gods + Fist of War (testing phase)

As we level, we'll start optimizing our support gems for either fire scaling, ignite, or possibly bleed/physical depending on what items and gear support best.

Why This Build Works

The Smith of Kitava is a dream for players who:

• Want low-stress leveling with tons of survivability

• Enjoy melee-focused, hit-heavy gameplay

• Prefer improvisational build evolution — it's not cookie cutter

• Want flexibility in offensive scaling (ignite, fire hit, stun, bleed)

• Like feeling unstoppable while charging into mobs

You can scale resists to cap all elements, even with low-tier gear, and you can trade armor into mitigation layers. This isn't just great for early game — it sets up your defenses for late-game progression.

Things to Watch Out For

• Attack Speed Scaling – With all the big, heavy hits, you'll attack slow. Balance your playstyle with mobility (Leap Slam) and Martial Tempo.

• Mana Costs – Shouts like Infernal Cry can get expensive. Support with mana reduction or invest in regen nodes.

• Skill Effectiveness – Some skills (like Hammer of the Gods) have changed in POE2 and need to be tested. Keep rotating and see what works best.

Final Thoughts: What's Next?

This build is just getting started. We've had a blast so far in Dawn of the Hunt, and the Smith of Kitava feels like a real powerhouse for early league starts. The tankiness, the ease of gearing, and the fun of slamming through hordes of enemies — it all feels great.

We're still deciding if we'll lean more into:

• Molten Blast / Ignite scaling

• Bleed stacking / Brutality

• Tanky AoE leaper with Bone Shatter + support shout chain explosion setup

One thing's for sure — POE2 has that loop nailed down: make a character, progress it, destroy content, get better Path Of Exile 2 Currency loot, repeat.

We'll keep updating as we progress through endgame, unlock new gear options, and refine the build. For now, if you're looking for a fun, tanky, melee leveling experience — look no further.