This guide provides the fundamentals of farming Ritual in Path of Exile 2 Early Access, along with tips on how to tackle the pinnacle encounter, The King in the Mist. We’ll also cover the most effective Atlas Passive Nodes for optimizing your currency generation.
How It Works
As you progress through Waystones on your Atlas, you’ll come across maps that feature the Ritual mechanic. When this occurs, 3 or 4 Ritual Sites will spawn on the map, each requiring you to clear the monsters inside before beginning the encounter.
Once activated, the Altar will respawn any enemies you’ve previously slain within the Ritual Site. Defeat these monsters again to earn Tribute, a special resource that can be spent to claim items from the ritual pages. Important: Your Tribute does not carry over to the next Ritual map, so make sure to use it wisely.
Exclusive rewards from Ritual include items such as Omen of Dextral Annulment, Omen of Dextral Erasure, Omen of Sinistral Annulment, Omen of Whittling, and many other Omens. These items are highly valuable to other players and can be sold for significant amounts of Divine Orbs.
Favour Rewards
After completing all Ritual encounters, click the Ritual icon (or press the League Mechanic key on PC, default "V"). A page of rewards will appear, ranging from useless items to valuable Omens, an Audience with the King, or even valuable currency.
Here are three ways to spend your Tribute:
- Take items from the Ritual Page: Choose an item directly from the page.
- Defer Rewards: Spend a smaller amount of Tribute to lock a reward. The price for this item is reduced the next time it appears within the pages, and this can be repeated until you choose to claim it. This is useful for expensive items that you cannot immediately take.
- Reroll Rewards: You should aim to see as many Ritual pages as possible because loot quality can vary greatly across them. Tip: Always try to leave at least 1000 Tribute after your final reroll so you can defer rare items. While the odds are low, it's worth re-rolling to avoid wasting Tribute on poor loot.
How to Run
Maps can naturally contain a Ritual encounter, which is indicated by the icon shown above.
To guarantee a Ritual encounter in your Waystones, use a Ritual Precursor Tablet on a Watchtower. This will add a Ritual encounter to the number of maps specified by the item’s implicit modifier. Any explicit modifiers will apply to all uncompleted maps within the tower's radius.
Pinnacle Boss
Ritual, like all Atlas mechanics in Path of Exile 2 Early Access, features a Pinnacle Boss encounter. While completing Ritual encounters and collecting Favour Rewards, you may find An Audience with the King. This item can be placed into the Realmgate at the center of your Atlas to open a portal to The King in the Mist realm.
Abilities
The King in the Mist encounter shares similarities with the one you face in The Freythorn during Act 1. Here are the most dangerous mechanics to watch out for:
- Stop: The King of the Mists afflicts you with The Ritual of Meditation. During this time, refrain from moving too much, as prolonged movement will stun your character for an extended period.
- Go: The King in the Mist afflicts you with The Ritual of Dance. Keep moving to avoid being stunned. Staying still for too long will stun your character.
- Slam: The King in the Mist briefly glows red, signaling that this move cannot be avoided. Move away from him to evade the large area-of-effect slam.
- Purple Orb: In Phase 2, the King channels a purple orb to a targeted location. After some time, the orb flies toward you and explodes, dealing massive damage. The key to surviving this is to bait the orb toward you and then run out of its radius before it detonates.
- Maze: After reducing the King in the Mist to 25% health, you’ll be sent into the Wildwood Maze. Follow the Wisps to find the portal back to the arena and continue Phase 2 of the fight. If you take too long, you’ll be overtaken by the swarm.
Atlas Passives
The Atlas Passive nodes are unlocked by defeating the King in the Mist on various difficulty levels, with 2 points awarded for each defeat.
- Promised Devotion: Reduces the cost of deferring rewards and causes deferred items to reappear sooner. This node is relatively weak, but it can be useful if you have a lot of deferred rewards.
- From the Mists: Adds two packs of Wildwood monsters, which drop a lot of tribute and are a good source of Ritual Precursor Tablets.
- Reinvigorated Sacrifices: Greatly increases the amount of Tribute earned in Rituals. Currently, this node is not as strong because there are few rewards you would want to take from the Ritual pages.
- Spreading Darkness: Guarantees 4 Ritual Altars in maps containing a Ritual encounter, similar to From the Mists. This increases Tribute and the possibility of Ritual Precursor Tablets.
- Ominous Portents: Increases the chance of receiving Omens in your Favour Rewards, which is valuable as Omens are the most sought-after items for crafting and profit.
- He Approaches: The best node on the Ritual Atlas tree. It increases the rarity of monsters, improving the amount of Tribute and loot dropped at the end of the encounter. It also boosts the chances of receiving An Audience with the King.
- Tempting Offers: Given the scarcity of valuable rewards on most Ritual pages, this node is essential. It’s generally more beneficial to view additional pages rather than settle for low-value rewards from earlier pages.
Recommended Atlas Nodes
- Ominous Portents: Increases profitability by granting more Omen rewards.
- He Approaches: Boosts profitability by increasing your chance to see An Audience with the King in Ritual pages. It also improves the loot and tribute from each Ritual.
- Tempting Offers: Allows you to see more Ritual pages, which is essential since many pages contain low-value rewards. It’s better to see more pages in the hopes of finding a big-ticket item rather than constantly settling for low-value items.
- Spreading Darkness: This can be swapped with From the Mists depending on your preference.
Loot
Omens
Omens are rare and powerful crafting tools that are highly sought after by players who aim to craft the best gear. As a result, many of them are extremely valuable. Here are the most sought-after Omens:
The following Omens are the most valuable and should always be prioritized:
Basic Currency
Ritual Pages frequently offer basic currencies, which should be taken if no better options are available:
- Chaos Orb
- Exalted Orb
- Vaal Orb
Always take or defer these high-value items:
- Divine Orb
- Mirror of Kalandra
Pinnacle Boss Loot
The King in the Mist has a unique loot table that expands with higher difficulty encounters. To fight him, you need to obtain An Audience with the King from Ritual pages. Here’s a comprehensive list of the unique items that can drop:
