Path of Exile 2: Ritual is a core mechanic

Ritual Overview:

Ritual is a core mechanic in Path of Exile 2, accessible during endgame content. It can be a highly profitable farming strategy when leveraged properly, and even when not focusing exclusively on Ritual, it is still worth engaging in passively while running other strategies. This guide will explain how Ritual works, how to farm it efficiently, and offer advanced tips and strategies for maximizing your loot.

How Ritual Works:

The Ritual mechanic involves completing a series of challenges, which are typically marked by special run circles placed around your map. These circles spawn packs of enemies, and as you kill them, their blood is drained into a nearby totem. Once a certain threshold is reached, the totem becomes clickable, allowing you to start the encounter.

Upon activation, the monsters you previously killed will be revived and attack you again within a slightly larger arena, while the Ritual itself will introduce a unique special mechanic that can complicate the encounter. Completing the Ritual rewards you with various valuable items like currency, gear, and special rewards such as Omens and an Audience with the King.

Tribute System:

Tribute is a resource that accumulates as you engage in Rituals and kill the monsters in the encounter. Tribute is used to unlock items and other rewards in the Favours window.

More Tribute, More Rewards: The more difficult the monsters are and the more packs you kill, the greater the amount of Tribute you'll receive.

Spend Tribute Wisely: Once you've accumulated enough Tribute, you can use it in the Favours window to acquire items such as gear, Path of Exile 2 currency, Omens, or special items like the Audience with the King.

Ritual Favours:

After completing your first Ritual, you'll unlock the Favours window. Here, you can spend your Tribute to unlock items or defer items for later. However, there are some important things to keep in mind when using this window:

Item Purchase: Items available in the Favours window can be purchased using your Tribute. The item's cost will be displayed beneath it.

Deferral: If you find an item you'd like but can't afford, you can defer it for a small Tribute fee. This defers the cost, allowing you to come back for the item in a future Ritual.

Reroll: You can reroll the available rewards using 1000 Tribute. The reroll button resets the rewards to a new set of items. If you have the correct Atlas passives, rerolling costs can be reduced, and you can reroll multiple times.

Ritual Types:

Each Ritual encounter comes with a different type of attack mechanic, most of which deal with Chaos Damage. It's essential to ensure your Chaos resistances are solid before tackling these encounters.

Infested: Insect tornados that chase you around. Very lethal if not avoided.

Sapping: Purple fog that slows you down, making it hard to evade other attacks.

Smothered: Exploding purple Chaos orbs that come from flowers in the environment.

Contaminated: Blood waves that push you back, making positioning crucial.

Tainted: Growing purple Chaos balls on the ground that pop when stepped on.

Finding Ritual Encounters:

Ritual encounters are tied to your Atlas. Special nodes in the Atlas will contain Rituals, and you can influence the occurrence of Rituals by running Lost Tower encounters. After completing these, you can socket a Ritual Precursor Tablet, which will add 5-10 Ritual encounters to the nearby nodes. Using Modifiers for your Precursor Tablets allows you to fine-tune how Rituals spawn, which can significantly increase your potential rewards.

Ritual Atlas Tree and Passive Points:

Once you defeat the King of the Mists, you'll gain access to a special Ritual Atlas Passive Tree. This tree offers several key benefits, such as increased Ritual rewards and higher chances of getting special items like Audience with the King.

Recommended Passive Points:

Promised Devotion - Increases your chances of unlocking the best rewards (especially Omens) and is the most important passive.

Tempting Offers - Grants 50% more chances at getting the Audience with the King, which is highly valuable.

Reinvigorated Sacrifices - Adds additional Ritual encounters to your maps, further increasing your potential loot.

Ominous Portents - Increases the chances of obtaining Omens, which are crucial for making significant profits.

Deferral Strategy:

One of the key strategies for maximizing your rewards is how you spend your Tribute and how you use the Deferral mechanic. Here's the general approach:

Deferring Big Items: If you come across a big-ticket item early in the Ritual window, it's often best to defer it for later. Deferring it means you can access the rewards from the third window, which could include even better loot.

Re-Rolling: If you have a sizable amount of Tribute, reroll the rewards to see new sets of loot. This is especially useful when you have access to Tempting Offers, as it will maximize the loot you can access in a Ritual.

Important Interactions:

Tablets and Map Modifiers: The number of monsters in your map directly affects how much Tribute you can earn. Look for modifiers that increase Magic Monsters, Rare Monsters, and Pack Size, as these will increase the Tribute available from Rituals.

Delirium + Ritual: Monsters spawned in Delirium maps will not be counted for Ritual tribute. However, Delirium modifiers that increase monster density (such as Distilled Ire) will boost the number of monsters you kill and therefore increase the tribute you earn.

King in the Mists:

The King in the Mists is the final boss of the Ritual mechanic. Each time you defeat this boss, you will earn 2 Ritual Atlas Passive Points and gain access to special loot. The difficulty of the fight increases with each successive victory, and the drops from the boss are highly valuable.

Difficulty Increases: As you level up your Atlas passive tree, the difficulty of the King in the Mists encounter will increase, but the rewards will also get better.

Drops: The King drops exclusive PoE 2 items, including high-value PoE 2 currency and gear. The Audience with the King is a rare item that can be sold for several Divine Orbs.

Known Bugs & Workarounds:

Ritual Not Clickable: In certain maps like Hidden Grotto or Oasis, you might experience issues where the Ritual totem becomes unclickable. This can happen if all monsters in the area are killed, but the Ritual won't trigger.

Workaround: If only one or two Rituals are clickable, you can still reroll the rewards to access the loot without having to complete the Ritual encounter.

Precursor Tablet Modifiers: Some of the modifiers on Precursor Tablets don't display on the map itself, such as those that improve the chance of Omens. These modifiers still work, though, even if they don't show up directly.

Conclusion:

Ritual is a complex but highly rewarding mechanic in PoE 2, offering ample opportunities to profit from crafting, trading, and defeating powerful bosses. By understanding how the Tribute system works, optimizing your Atlas passive tree, and using strategies like Deferral and Rerolling, you can maximize the value of Ritual encounters. The King in the Mists boss fight provides additional challenges but also massive rewards, making it a pinnacle activity for advanced players looking to fully capitalize on this mechanic.