The Warrior is a durable melee-centric class that can ascend into a Smith of Kitava, Titan, or Warbringer in Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2). Check out more information on the Warrior's ascendancies, class guide, builds, skills, playstyle, and whether you should pick the Smith of Kitava, Titan, or Warbringer for the Dawn of the Hunt update!

Warrior Ascendancies

During the early access, you'll have the choice to pick between 3 Ascendancy classes for the Warrior:

Smith of Kitava

The Smith of Kitava focuses on applying buffs to their weapon and alter the properties of their armor. They can also create an animated copy of their weapon, essentially granting them double damage.

Smith of Kitava Ascendancy Overview and Skills

Titan

The Titan ascendancy focuses on the Warrior's ability to hit big and deal massive damage. It significantly increases the effectiveness of area and slam attacks and the consistency of stun effects using skills like Earthbreaker, Crushing Impacts, and Surprising Strength.

Titan Ascendancy Overview and Skills

Warbringer

The Warbringer ascendancy focuses on harnessing powers from ancestral spirits to receive significant boosts to the Warrior's capabilities. It significantly increases the potency and capabilities of Totems, Breaking Armor, War Cries, and Blocking with skills like Answered Call, Imploding Impacts, Greatwolf's Howl, and Turtle Charm.

Warbringer Ascendancy Overview and Skills

Which Ascendancy Should You Pick?

Play the Smith of Kitava for New Experience

We highly recommend playing as the Smith of Kitava for Patch 0.2.0 to experience it as the new Ascendancy for the Warrior Class in the Dawn of the Hunt Update. The Smith of Kitava allows you to buff your weapons and customize your armor modifiers, granting ease with builds and meeting resistance caps.

If you want to play the meta, then the Titan is the better ascendancy out of the three. It gives players more direct increases to damage and survivability with passives like Ancestral Empowerment and Mysterious Lineage. The Hulking Form passive is also incredible, with its ability to boost the effects of all small passive nodes, significantly buffing any Warrior build with a single skill point.

Warrior Class Overview

Overview

The Warrior
Attribute	Strength
Weapon	Maces

The Warrior has its efficiency shine in heavy hits that ripple its damage, making it a great pick for bursting enemy hordes and bosses.

Strength Focus

The Warrior is a Strength-based class that focuses on applying high melee damage while having good survivability during combat. It is a melee fighter that specializes in using shields and maces.

Warrior Builds

Warrior Leveling Build

Strike Warrior

Strike Warrior NEW
	Focus: Leveling, AoE, High Single Target Damage, Physical
Summary: The Warrior Class is built around priming enemies for stuns with Boneshatter and Leap Slam. Warriors aim to charge into enemy packs and set up satisfying killing blows. Perfect Strike is used to to quickly take down bosses.

Leveling Builds

Warrior Endgame Builds

All Smith of Kitava Builds

Flaming Smith of Kitava NEW
	Focus: Endgame, AoE, High Single Target Damage, Physical, Tank
Summary: The Flaming Smith of Kitava Class turns the Warrior into an unkillable tank with Coal Stoker and Smith's Masterwork, then transitions to incurring the wrath of Fire with each hit.

All Titan Builds

Slam Bleed Titan UP
	Focus: Endgame, Aftershocks, Stun, Bleed
Summary: The Slam Bleed Titan is a pure physical build that utilizes Slam skills to deal Aftershocks and high Bleeding DoT.
Shockwave Totem Titan
	Focus: Endgame, AoE, Mobbing, Stun, Fast Clear
Summary: The Shockwave Totem Titan build capitalizes on delivering high, screen-clearing AoE damage using multiple shockwave totems.

All Warbringer Builds

Fire Explosion Warbringer
	Focus: Leveling, Endgame, Burst, AoE, DoT, Stun
Summary: The Fire Explosions Warbringer specializes in setting up fiery chain explosions that leave any remaining enemies burning.

Best Endgame Warrior Builds

Warrior Skills

All Mace Skills

Maces are the default weapon for Warriors in PoE 2. However, players can still choose any skill outside of Maces when playing the Warrior. Listed below are all the Mace skills available during early access.

Tier	Skills
1	Earthquake				Boneshatter				Rolling Slam
3	Armour Breaker			Shockwave Totem			Infernal Cry			Shield Charge
5	Perfect Strike				Molten Blast				Resonating Shield
7	Leap Slam				Earthshatter				Shield Wall
9	Sunder						Volcanic Fissure
11	Seismic Cry						Supercharged Slam
13	Ancestral Warrior Totem						Hammer of the Gods

List of All Gems

All Warrior Persistent Skills

Tier	Skills
4	Herald of Ash				Magma Barrier				Scavenged Plating
8	Time of Need						Overwhelming Presence
14	Berserk						Dread Banner

List of Spirit Gems

Recommended Skills

Skill	Effect
Leap Slam	Jump into the air, damaging and Knocking Back enemies with your mace where you land. Enemies you would land on are pushed out of the way.
Earthquake	Smashes the ground, dealing damage in an area and leaving behind Jagged Ground that slow enemies. The Jagged Ground erupts in a powerful Aftershock after a duration. Cannot create Jagged Ground on top of an existing patch, or if you already have the maximum number of active patches.
Hammer of the Gods	Entreats the Ancestors to crush your enemies, manifesting a massive hammer that falls from the sky of your target, Slamming into the ground after a short duration and dealing immense damage based on your weapon.

The best Mace skill for the Warrior is Hammer of the Gods, currently the Warrior's highest damaging skill. With the proper build and setup, it can deal enough burst damage to one-shot some of the game's hardest end-game bosses.

Most Warrior builds also use Earthquake and Leap Slam. Earthquake is a great AoE skill from early to mid-game, and Leap Slam is versatile, used for damage, stuns, survivability, or mobility.

How to Play the Warrior

Capitalize on AoE Attacks, Armor Break, and Stuns

Players should capitalize on AoE Attacks, Armor Break, and Stuns, especially during the early game. These mechanics are the Warrior's known and best specialties, and his passive skill tree has numerous nodes that support and buff them. Investing in them can help achieve a smooth and consistent playthrough from the early game up until the end game.

Dodge Roll Constantly and Time Attacks Optimally

Players often need to constantly dodge roll and time their attacks properly when playing the Warrior, given its melee nature and slow attacks. While builds that lessen reliance on these mechanics exist, like an attack speed or shield build, dodge rolling and properly timing attacks often mean life or death.

Focus on Increasing Life and Resistances

For survivability, players should heavily invest in increasing their maximum life and maxing out their resistances. Unlike ranged classes, the Warrior is prone to getting hit and damaged, with them needing to close in on the enemy to deal damage.

Additionally, while increasing Armor may seem the more optimal and obvious choice, Armor is considered the worst defense stat in the game as of patch 0.1.0e, so do not overly invest in it.

Opt to Use Shields

Players may use shields, especially in the end game, if they have trouble surviving. Shields add another layer of defense, increasing defense stats and resistances with shield modifiers and allowing access to skills like  Shield Charge, which is great for approaching enemies while avoiding damage.

Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2) Related Guides

List of Classes

List of Patch 0.2 Classes

List of Early Access Classes

List of Upcoming Classes