Warrior
Smith of KitavaLexd's Shield Wall + Avatar of Fire Smith of Kitava for 0.5.5: The Forbidden Rites
IMPORTANT NOTE: Everyone keeps asking me this so I'm going to make a note here at the top; the shield is set to both weapon sets (Mobalytics currently does not have the feature to display this), make sure you hover your mouse over the Roman Numerals above your Shield in your equipment screen and lock it to both sets!
Hey guys! This is the 
Smith of Kitava version of my classic 
Avatar of Fire Shield Warrior build that I've now made on every Ascendancy. Compared to the 
Titan and 
Warbringer, this definitely felt the tankiest out of them all (especially on a budget), and has some really good sustain with 
Blood Magic since we can get so much life and life regen through this Ascendancy.
Previously, we we're using 
Fortifying Cry and 
Resonating Shield with some sizeable AoE boosts from our Passive Skill Tree as our main way to clear maps and other endgame activities.
However, I've recently been using 
Shield Wall with the classic Ahn's Citadel and Kaom's Madness combo as my main way to clear since it just covers so much AoE and deals so much damage; you will simply have to optimize for more skill/attack speed for this method of clearing, which is apparent in the "0.5 Nebuloch + Avatar of Fire Optimized" tab below. The switch was necessary to make 200% Delirium and juiced Grand Expeditions doable, which we can now tackle with ease using this setup.
Aside from that, on bosses we have a bunch of Weapon Set 2 points to crank up our single-target and Ignite damage, so our Shield Walls will inflict significant Fire Damage over time when they are empowered with 
Infernal Cry and detonated with Fortifying Cry. Yes, Fortifying Cry is still the best detonator for Shield Wall (check the note below). Just make sure that you have a full Rage Bar + the boss has been hit with 
Sunder recently, as the latter skill increases our Fire Damage by a whopping ~40% when inflicted before mods.
QUICK NOTE: this build was affected by the Fortifying Cry + Shield Wall shotgun nerf, but the damage of Shield Wall itself and the subsequent Ignites it inflicts are still significant. You will likely get more damage out of my Bleed build here, but this is still a solid option for taking down bosses and Fortifying Cry is still the ideal detonator for Shield Wall since it's just... well, an extra attack that scales with your shield's armour (which will be very high) which is also counted as an "Empowered Attack." It's still super strong.
As mentioned earlier, we are incredibly tanky thanks to Ascendancy nodes like 
Kitavan Engraving, 
Leather Bindings, 
Heatproofing, 
Dedication to Kitava, etc. There are a few options to go with here but those first three I think are must-haves for this build, especially early on in mapping.
That's basically it! I wish that Ignite was a bit of a stronger Ailment, but it is "serviceable" as a way to burn-down bosses, especially if they happen to leap away or become hard to hit.
There is now a 
Nebuloch that uses a combination of Critical Damage Bonus + Ignite Passive Skill Tree nodes and gear that inflicts some VERY strong Ignites. These used to be Chaos Damage Ignites that worked with 
Blackflame and stacking Wither through 
Withering Presence, but GGG has since nerfed this interaction and we now just want to cut through Fire Resistances some other way. I go over a few different methods in this video.
Keep an eye out for 0.5.5 updates as I play through with this character; I think some of the new soul cores could be relevant to boosting the build!
