Smith of Kitava Masterwork Node

I am excited for the Smith of Kitava and think it is a cool ascendancy. However, I do not actually think the core of acsendancy - the node which allows you to make your own body armour - should actually be stronger. The reason for this being that it is a cool node until you have a good body armour. The point at which you get said "good" body armour comes a lot sooner than you may think. I can get a mid budget end game chest piece that is better than a combination of those nodes prior to t10 maps. The reason being is that when I shift damage from physical to fire, I am actually just buffing my armour value by reducing the magnitude of the hit. Converting damage to fire does scale to all values of damage taken. however, even though this is really good from a math standpoint, I am functionally just increasing my armour value. When I have a lot of bad equipment AND I am playing low tier content, then this is really good. However, bad equipment going from a functional armour value of 3,000 to 5,000 only matters in low tier content where I am getting hit for less than 100 - 500 physical hit by a white mob. In high tier content, you probably still need 6,000+ armour. Well the physical to fire conversion still helps you get that, which is true. However, if i use a rare body armour with more than 1,000 flat armour and I take the warrior starter node that increases body armour contribution by 80%, then i go from 1,000 armour to 1,800 flat armour (this scales the better the body armour you can afford). A normal body armour will only give you approximately 500 armour which will go to 900 flat armour with that node invested. The thing is that 25% phys to fire conversion math wise is only giving you a 33% more multiplier to your functional armour value. 900 body armour + approximately 3,000 flat armour from all other equipment slots (this is with gear with great armour rolls and a 1,000 armour+ shield and 3,000 armour is a generous estimate) is about 4,000 flat armour. 4,000 flat armour with 100 increased armour from nodes on the tree is about 8,000 armour *1.33 is now a functional armour value of about 10.5 - 11k armour. This will help you survive. However, is it better than just using a rare body armour? If I use a body armour with 2,000 armour, life or spirit, resistances, and attributes which will likely cost less than 1 divine that body armour is probably as good if not better at mitigating max phys hit as 25% phys to fire with a normal body armour. Using the rare body armour I will also not need to spend points on those nodes and isntead specialize in temper weapon or summon spectral weapon. With a rare body armour doing all of our previous math we go from a body armour of 2,000 to 3,600 with the node. 3,600 + 3,000 from all other armour slots. 6,600 with 100% increased armour becomes 13,200. Using a rare body armour results in an actual armour value that is higher than the functional armour value of converting some of the physical damage taken to fire damage, we get all the other stats of a rare body armour, and we get to specialize in acsendancy passives that give damage. This cost benefit analysis changes the worse your rare body armour is, but even if our final armour value was 8k, 10k, or break even 12k it still might be worth it to use that rare armour and then use those acsendancy points to get something else instead of the masterwork nodes.

I think this class is really good and I understand that I have probably not decribed a fatal flaw of the class but described your upgrade pathway. Early you start with the masterwork chest and then once you have currency and good gear you respec to something else. I get that, it is efficient, I like it, it works. My actual point is that I want to be locked into using that node. I think it should be an anscendancy tree like the behemoth in path of exile 1 legacy of phrecia where you must take the masterwork node as your first point and everything else branches out from there. This is worse in every way, but my point for it is that I think that node is the one defining feature about the acsendancy class and I WANT to use it for the entire time that I am playing this class. It is a meaningful choice from the start, but gets outscaled later in the game. I want something that provides a meaningful drawback (no rare body armour) with a reward that scales into the end game. The nodes enhance based on the power of your other gear slots, your other gear slots have empowered or increased effect based on the number of masterwork nodes that you take, or there is a way of powering up your masterwork nodes taking them from a base tier to a master tier, or the effect of the masterwork nodes is increased by the number of corrupted items you have equipped (this would also fit the theme of Kitava being the father of corruption in Karui lore). I get it that this would add in additional complexity, but it would also take this interesting class to the next level. I see the vision and see the intended pathway of how this node would work and I am excited for it. I am only disapointed because there will come a point when it is no longer worthwhile from an opportunity cost standpoint to continue using these nodes and you will do a cost benefit analysis and the resulting conclusion will be that you should respec to something else now that you have good gear. That will happen with more hours played and better gear acquired. I am disapointed because I think these nodes are cool and I want to have a way for it to be a "good" or "worthwhile" choice to use those nodes for the entire game. The issue being that even if I put all of my points into the masterwork body armour, it would not be as good as a rare body armour with good enough affixes or it could be marginally better but it would be worse than warbringer with that chest piece or titan with that chest piece with there own ascendancy trees in addition to the chest piece.

Overall, I am excited for the class, but I do think there should be a way to scale the masterwork nodes into the endgame. Otherwise, you will just take tasalio, valako, manifest weapon, and fire spell on hit and call it a day completly ignoring the masterwork node by bypassing the value of it with a decent or even mediocre rare body armour. The tree doesn't even need to lock you into the masterwork node, but I do think there should be a way of improving the value of the masterwork nodes or have each masterwork node to give an additional or increased benefit to your other gear slots. It is alright if it comes at some other tradeoff, negative detriment, or some milestone needing to be completed prior to the payoff. I don't know how to fix it and I guess there isn't a necessity to fix it anyway, but I think there is something missing from a flavor standpoint to complete the class.

Looking at some of the math, the physical to fire conversion is "better", but in all liklihood, regardless of going masterwork or rare body armour, you will want your total armour value to be about 10k. At this point if you were pure physical you are able to mitigate a 1,000 damage hit by 50% and a 500 damage hit by 67%. In other words, all armour no conversion, you are looking at 500 damage instead of 1,000 and you are looking at 165 instead of 500. Assuming that you still get to 10k armour which you will probably want to do, then when you have the 25% phys to fire conversion and you have 90% max fire resistance (on this class it is easy to get 90% max fire), then that 1,000 damage hit is mitigated by 65% and the 500 damage hit is mitigated by 77%. This means that a 1,000 damage hit becomes 230 damage and a 500 damage hit becomes 115 damage. Going from 500 damage to 230 damage is 54% less damage taken on a 1,000 damage hit. Going from a 165 final damage taken hit to 115 final damage taken hit is about 30% less damage on a 500 initial damage hit.

If we express this a different way, assuming 10k armour in both scenarios, then you are taking 117% more damage on a 1,000 phys damage hit and you are taking 43% more damage on a 500 phys damage hit when you take 100% of the hit as pure physical rather than shifting it to 75% phys and 25% fire.

It is still going to be more challenging to get to 10k armour with a normal body armour, but if you can do it then the node is really strong because of how efficient it is.

My earlier point still stands that 1) the normal masterwork body armour will eventually fall off, but that point might be later in progression than I thought and 2) you are not going to be able to grab a damage node on this ascendancy tree. Finishing the trials is pretty hard and you are de facto locked into your first 3 labs with tasalio, valako, and masterwork. Your final lab will either give you one damage node very late in progression or will just give you a final bit of defenses. The damage numbers on summon weapon and forge enhance weapon will kind of make or break if you even decide to go for a damage node here.

I honestly think the entire ascendancy is garbage. The only good things about it are that you can cap your resistances easier and make your character tankier easier. I feel you could be just as Tanky using whatever body armour you want instead. But why not spec into the specific body armour nodes when all the other options are cheeks. The temper weapon ability barely adds any damage to your attacks(I tested this) as well as you need to stop in order to use it making it so you’ll be swarmed and probably get hit stunned out of the animation. The living weapon ability is also bad because it doesn’t do enough damage. I also tested it putting a full set of gems in the skill as well as staking as much strength(600+)as possible for the extra damage. Then lastly you have the fire spell on hit skill which actually sounds nice but oh wait your playing a warrior and if you wanted to use it you’d have to spec into intelligence just to make it viable. The abilities that are granted to the warrior all look and sound cool but function awfully in reality. I really loved the temper weapon ability at first it looks so cool I don’t even care about having to to stop to use it then I looked at the numbers and thought to myself wait this ability literally isn’t even helping me and I’m wasting ascendancy points on nonsense. Maybe I am being a douche but I want more from an ascendancy than just the ability to make my character tankier and I’d have that if the nodes and skills for smith of kitava where better. Please please stop giving warrior the short end of the stick I’m tired of getting shafted.

I don't think you're being unkind and you make a lot of good points.

The numbers on Temper weapon should be higher to make a stop and go play style feel better. The time to cast the animation should probably be shorter and the number of hits or duration the buff lasts for should probably be longer.

For fire spell on melee hit, if they let you satisfy the intelligence requirements with 50% - 100% of your strength stat then that would help. However, when I saw that it scales on energy similar to other META gems, that made me think it is non-viable. Unless they add nodes to the warrior side of the tree to get more energy build up there is not seemingly a lot of reason to spec this because just casting the spell manually and saving 2 ascendancy points is probably better.

I honestly, don't know what to think of living weapon. Maybe you need to be able to spawn multiple living weapons? The numbers need to be higher? IDK - there are not a lot of minion nodes on the SW side of the passive tree so building around this is going to scuff the rest of your build. So, you need to all in on minions but is that viable?

For most situations, t15+ maps included, getting capped elemental resistances with fire resistance and getting all max elemental resistance is really strong even if it looks boring on paper.

I think Smith has a lot going for it, but a lot of the numbers are not there yet to make it worthwhile to play. Warrior definitely needs some love compared to some of the other classes (basically anything that can go Evasion Energy Shield builds).